Abstract

The article examines the question of how social consciousness, as the core of the spiritual culture of the Kazakhs, has transformed in historical perspective. It identifies the core of social consciousness that had taken shape on the basis of Turkic cultural heritage, economic activity, and ethnic self-identification by the time the ethnogenesis of the Kazakhs was completed and the Kazakh Khanate was formed. This stage is defined as the institutional formation of the social consciousness of the Kazakhs, which, while preserving its “core,” continued to transform.

The period during which the Kazakhs were part of the Russian Empire as a colony significantly affected their social consciousness. This was caused by the tsarist policy of land seizure and the reduction of traditional forms of economic activity, national and resettlement policies, interference in the religious sphere, and the replacement of a number of social institutions, such as the biy court and khan authority, with imperial ones. The examples of Ch. Valikhanov, I. Altynsarin, and A. Kunanbaev demonstrate how the transformation of social consciousness led not only to the emergence of a new stratum within Kazakh society, but also to the strengthening of ethnic identity.

The Soviet period radically transformed the social consciousness of the Kazakhs. The traditional economic way of life was destroyed, a script reform was carried out, and a policy of Russification was advanced. The replacement of clan consciousness with internationalist consciousness, universal literacy, and the introduction of new social institutions entrenched the concepts of Soviet culture in the social consciousness of the Kazakhs, making them dominant.

The transformation of social consciousness during the period of sovereignty has had a dual character. On the one hand, there has been a revival of Kazakh culture and a growth in the self-awareness of the Kazakhs as the state-forming ethnic group. On the other hand, within the framework of Kazakhstan’s multiethnic society, the state has pursued a policy of consolidating representatives of all ethnic groups into a single civic community. The existence of different poles within the republic’s social consciousness, based on different cultural concepts, is to be neutralized through state policy aimed at forming a single nation. This is precisely the policy pursued by President K. Tokayev, who has approved a system of national values, declared interethnic and interfaith harmony, and carried out large-scale political reforms. Kazakhstan has embarked on a course toward forming a unified civic nation based on Kazakh spiritual culture, which determines the current transformation of social consciousness.

Key words: social consciousness, culture, the Great Steppe, transformation, nation.