History History

The work of Soviet anthropologists and archaeologists has uncovered very early traces of human settlement, dating back to the Palaeolithic period and testifying to the settlement of the Mangistau peninsula on the Caspian Sea. The region's first nomads arrived from Siberia around the third millennium BC, but only passed through the Kazakh steppe in search of more hospitable lands to the south, in India or Iran. A few villas nevertheless appeared in the second millennium, mainly in the south of the country, where the Syr Darya flows. Most of these early settlements were located in what is now Uzbekistan. In the heart of the steppe, the Scythian tribes dominated, the most terrible of which, the Massagetes, gave Cyrus' Achaemenid empire a hard time. Few traces of these peoples remain, apart from a few burial sites. It was in one of these " kurgans " (burial mounds) that the Golden Man was discovered in Kazakhstan, an entire suit of armor made up of several thousand pieces of gold, which has become the pride of the country.

Having seized Persia - today's Iran - the Umayyads, after the death of the Prophet, wanted to extend their conquests and established an outpost at Merv, in present-day Turkmenistan. The cities of Transoxiana, Bukhara, Afrosyab (today Samarkand) and Tashkent set the Caliph's troops against the immense steppe. However, revolts in Khorassan and Transoxiana, and the overthrow of the Umayyads by the Abbasids in 750, delayed his invasion. In 751, the battle of Talas, in the northwest of present-day Kyrgyzstan, halted the Middle Kingdom's advance into Central Asia, but at such a cost to the Arabs that they also ceased operations in the region. For nomadic populations, harder to channel than urban populations, conversions to Islam were much later than elsewhere.

From Mongolia, where his tribe nomadized east of Lake Baikal, Genghis Khan became supreme khan of all Turko-Mongol tribes and set out to conquer China. These were the beginnings of the greatest empire in history. By 1215, Genghis Khan had seized Beijing, and in 1218 he marched on Central Asia, seizing Sogdiana and the mighty Khorezm. By 1221, his troops were already reigning over the entire Kazakh steppe. The pax mongolica stretched from Kiev to Beijing, from Siberia to India.

The Mongol empire did not long outlive its creator. On the death of Genghis Khan, the empire was divided between the khan's four sons. Djochi, the eldest son, who controlled the lands beyond the Syr-Daria River, died in his turn, and his "Golden Horde" was divided once again between his two sons. His son Orda led the White Horde, which covered much of Kazakhstan, and established his capital in the vicinity of present-day Kyzy-Orda. Meanwhile, Khubilai Khan, also a grandson of Genghis Khan, established his capital in Peking, a long way from the steppe, which learned to live semi-independently in a series of endless quarrels between khans. A descendant of Djochi, Toktamych, nevertheless managed to recreate the Golden Horde, briefly, from 1376 to 1395. Moscow was delivered to the fury of the horsemen of the steppe in 1382! These successes overshadowed the rise of an ambitious general south of the Syr Darya: a certain Tamerlane. The latter embarked on a gigantic series of conquests: he reached Kazan, threatened Moscow and Kiev, descended into India and took Delhi.

With Tamerlane gone, Russia rallied behind Ivan III, who wished to free himself from the threat posed by the nomads on his southern flank. The roles were reversed, and it was now the remnants of the Golden Horde that were threatened to the north, even as new Turkic peoples arrived on the Central Asian scene: the Uzbeks, who settled to the south of the Golden Horde, in Transoxiana, and other tribes, who took up residence in the region of present-day Almaty, between the Syr Darya and Lake Balkach, and who were called... the Kazakhs! The weakened Golden Horde disappeared in 1516, along with its last ruler, and split into three khanates, two of which were immediately subjugated by Ivan the Terrible. For two centuries, Russian power progressed through occasional military incursions and commercial settlements. But it was in 1716, with Peter the Great, that the real expansion began with the creation of Semipalatinsk (Semey) in the northeast of present-day Kazakhstan. The sparsely populated, unurbanized steppe fell in one block, and Almaty was conquered in 1855, opening the way to the rest of Central Asia.

When the Soviet Socialist Republics of Central Asia were created in 1924, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan were initially brought together under a single entity: the Kyrgyz SSR. Kazakhstan had to wait until 1936 for its borders to be fixed by Stalin and for it to exist as such. The "Father of the People" did not stop there, however, and launched a far-reaching transformation of Kazakhstan, forcing nomads to settle down and land was collectivized. The slightest opposition was sent to the oblivion of the Gulag. An estimated 1.5 million Kazakhs died during this period, mainly from starvation. After the Second World War, the vastness of the Kazakh land was of great service to Moscow. It was easy to establish Russian settlers and industrialize on a large scale: this was the "Virgin Lands" campaign, launched from 1954 to 1964. In the 1970s, the Kazakhs were no longer the majority ethnic group in their own country, a fact that added to the difficulties when independence was "imposed" on Kazakhstan by the collapse of the USSR. Elections were held quickly, with Communist elites everywhere holding on to power. In Kazakhstan, this was the case of Nursultan Nazarbayev, a great friend of Gorbachev, who held the country with an iron fist for a quarter of a century.

Proof of Kazakh apprehensions: Kazakhstan was the last country to declare independence when the USSR disappeared. And it was among the very first to join the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) as soon as it was created in 1991. The reason for this is simple: Russia has a stronger foothold in Kazakhstan than anywhere else, Russians account for just over half the country's population, and the risk of secession is high. The country waited until 1993 before adopting a national currency, and the Constitution was not adopted until 1995. To this day, Russian remains the official language alongside Kazakh, and the capital, Almaty, loses its status to Astana, further north and close to its Russian big brother. The ethnic unrest that erupted from time to time played into the hands of Nazarbaev, who exerted strong power and relied on divisions between clans to consolidate his authority. Presidential elections were postponed, the Constitution was altered, and in the end Nazarbaev managed to hold on to power for some thirty years, leaving office only voluntarily, having taken care to allow a supporter to be elected in his place. During this period, as in the other Central Asian republics, he established an oligarchic power system that benefited his clan and disregarded opposition, freedom of the press and freedom of expression, even though these were guaranteed by the Constitution. His ability to hold on to power is due not only to the authoritarian regime he has installed, but also to the country's strong growth during this period, thanks to the hydrocarbon and uranium windfall. Kazakhstan multiplied its contracts with its big brother Russia, as well as with the major Western economic powers, such as France and, in the other direction, China. For several years, this windfall has enabled Kazakhstan to post the highest growth rates in the region and among emerging countries as a whole, tripling its crude oil production, opening giant gas fields and becoming the world's leading exporter of uranium... All factors that have made Kazakhstan's trade balance one of the most envied in the world, despite a banking system that is more than primitive. As a result, the country will have great difficulty in absorbing and cushioning the effects of global upheavals (drop in crude oil prices in 2015, Covid crisis, war in Ukraine, etc.). On several occasions, the country has had to devalue its currency, even as the Astana construction site has ballooned to over $100 billion..

President Nazarbayev resigns from office on March 19, 2019 at the end of five presidential terms. At the same time, Parliament votes to change Astana's name to Nur-Sultan, in tribute to the statesman who has set the pace for the country for the past 30 years. Nazarbayev did not quit completely, however, and remained leader of his party, Nur Otan, and head of Kazakhstan's Security Council for another three years. The year 2022 marks a major turning point for the country. Large-scale protests across the country undermine the government and the new president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who can only hold on with the help of Putin, who does not hesitate to send in troops to restore calm - or order, depending on one's point of view. Kazakhstan was obliged to concede a few reforms aimed at democratizing the regime, and took advantage of these events to free itself once and for all from the Nazarbayev clan's grip on power. However, the outbreak of war in Ukraine posed a major dilemma for the country. Despite the aid he had just received from Russia, Tokayev distanced himself from Moscow and, without openly siding with Ukraine, nevertheless sent some aid to the invaded country. A pure reflection of the country's extreme polarization: the Kazakhs openly favor the Ukrainians, while the Russians still present in the country lean towards Russia. It's a dangerous balancing act on both the international and national stage, at a time when Kazakhstan still faces a huge social challenge following the 2022 protests. The post-Nazarbayev era has yet to be written.