Abstract:

Script reforms are rarely a technical process, but political, ideological, and cultural. In Kazakhstan, the transition from Cyrillic to Latin exemplifies such dynamics due to its geopolitical positioning and multiethnic society. Launched in 2017, the Latinization of the Kazakh alphabet reflects the country’s evolving national and geopolitical identity.

Engagement of Russia with the Kazakh alphabet reform is not accidental. Kazakhstan shares a continuous border with Russia and hosts a sizable Russian minority, the largest in both Kazakhstan and Central Asia. While Russian officials, such as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, framed Latinization as Kazakhstan’s internal affair, Russian media have been debating Latinization from the start.

To explain the discourse in Russian media, I employ theories of kin-state activism and the concept of the Russian World to analyze the discursive strategies concerning Latinization. While its official framing stresses cultural belonging, scholars highlight its geopolitical, economic, ideological, and even military dimensions.

This paper analyzes over 70 Russian media articles by pro-Kremlin outlets on Kazakhstan’s Latinization through the means of Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies. I argue that Russian media use interdiscursive strategies and blend historical, social, cultural, and geopolitical narratives to position Latinization as a breakaway point from the “shared” Cyrillic heritage.

Speaker bio:

Aziz is a researcher at the European Center for Minority Issues (ECMI). His main research interests include nation-building, political mobilization, official recognition, and socio-economic participation, particularly in post-Soviet countries. Aziz helped establish links between the ECMI and several organizations and research institutes, including the American University of Central Asia and the OSCE Academy in Bishkek . He is one of the coordinators of the ECMI Summer School and was involved with the ECMI Spring School . He is also the Assistant Editor of the Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe (JEMIE).

Prior to joining the ECMI, Aziz was working at the OSCE Office in Tajikistan on initiatives covering good governance, anti-corruption, youth participation, and elections. He gained experience on issues related to the rule of law, self-governance, and access to justice from working at a local NGO in Tajikistan.

Aziz is a PhD candidate at the Europa Universität Flensburg under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Vello Pettai and Prof. Juldyz Smagulova. In his doctoral project, he looks at the discourses around the Latinization of the Kazakh language.

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