Film and identity in Kazakhstan : Soviet and post-Soviet culture in Central Asia
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Film and identity in Kazakhstan : Soviet and post-Soviet culture in Central Asia
Bloomsbury Academic, 2022
- : pb
Available at 1 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [315]-327) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Cinema and nationalism are two fundamentally modern phenomena, but how have films shaped our understanding of the creation -the 'imagining' - of Central-Asian nations? Here, Rico Isaacs uses cinema as an analytical lens to explore how the Kazakh national identity has been constructed and contested. Drawing on an analysis of Kazakh films from the last century, and featuring new interviews with directors and critics involved in the Central Asian film industry, his book traces the construction of nationalism within Kazakh cinema from the country's inception as a Soviet Republic to a modern independent nation.Isaacs identifies four narratives since the collapse of the Soviet Union: a warrior-like 'ethnic' narrative rooted in the 18th Century struggles against the Mongolian Oirat tribes; a 'civic' inspired narrative cemented in the Stalinist deportations of the 1930s and 40s; a religious narrative founded within the mystic and philosophical religion of Tengrism and the cult of the Sky God; and a socio-economic narrative which roots Kazakh nationhood and identity in contemporary social divisions, the lived day-to-day experiences of ordinary citizens and the struggles they face with authority.
These last two tropes demonstrate how cinema has emerged as a site of dissent against the country's authoritarian regime under President Nazarbayev. Film and Identity in Kazakhstan advances our understanding of Kazakhstan and nationalism by demonstrating the multiple and inessential character of each, and illustrates the important role of cinema in contesting political power in the post-Soviet space.
Table of Contents
Chapter one: From Constructed to Contested Nations: Theorising and analysing nation and cinema
1
Chapter Two: Kazakh Khanate to Kazakh Eli: Nation-Building in Kazakhstan in Historical and Political Context
40
Chapter Three: Between two worlds: Kazakh film and Nation-building in the Soviet era
75
Chapter Four: The Disruption of Time: the Kazakh New Wave 1985-1995
109
Chapter Five: Naked in the Mirror: the ethno-centric narrative of Kazakh nationhood
150
Chapter Six: May the Grass Never Grow at Your Door: the civic conception of nationhood in Kazakh cinema
186
Chapter Seven: 'Hymn to Mother' - Tengrism, motherhood and nationhood
211
Chapter Eight: The Steppe, disorientation, division and corruption: social and economic visions of modern nationhood
241
Conclusion
289
Notes
309
by "Nielsen BookData"