Eurasian Studies Balkans, Anatolia, Iran, Caucasus and Central Asia Studies Notebooks

Series | Eurasian Studies
Edited book | Armenia, Caucasus, and Central Asia
Chapter | Čokan Valichanov, l’identità nazionale kazaka e la colonizzazione russa

Čokan Valichanov, l’identità nazionale kazaka e la colonizzazione russa

Abstract

Čokan Čingisovič Valichanov (1835-1865) has been one of the most significant personalities in Kazakh culture of 19th century. This article aims to examine three items of his intellectual production that highly, although subtly, influenced the self-identification of contemporary Kazakhstan after its independence from Soviet Union: the ambiguous relationship with Russian world, the admiration toward the West, the interpretation of Islam as a cultural element of the steppe rather then the key religious system of Kazakh people. As a result, Valichanov appears not only as a great polymath of the past, but as a constant ideological reference for today’s Kazakhstan.


Open access

Submitted: May 21, 2018 | Accepted: June 12, 2018 | Published Nov. 15, 2018 | Language: it

Keywords ValichanovRussian EmpireKazakhstanOrientalism


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