Kazakhs in Mongolia: Navigating Governance, Education, Religion, and National Identity

Abstract

This article introduces readers to a case study of ethnic Kazakhs in Mongolia. The main goal was to identify the institutional factors that are likely to systematically influence Kazakhs’ integration or division in Mongolia’s larger society. Therefore, the study focuses on key institutional structures behind the politics of representation, education system, religious institutions and national identity. It draws on official data, surveys and interviews focusing on Kazakhs in Mongolia. The findings suggest that current institutional settings are likely to contribute to structural inequalities and social tensions. Consequently, indicating a need to support orientation toward tolerance at the larger society.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express gratitude to Laurentiu Hadirca, Vladimir Dobrenko and Dmitri Zhelobov for their fruitful comments and editorial suggestions on earlier versions of the manuscript. The authors also would like to thank many friends for divulging their Kazakh culture and support during fieldwork. Sean Nguyen also expresses gratitude to the William & Mary Freeman Fellowship in Asia that provided him with the opportunity to work at the Sant Maral Foundation in Mongolia and engage in this research. Finally, the authors would like to thank Professor Allison McCulloch, the two anonymous reviewers and the Nationalism and Ethnic Politics editorial team for their guidance that helped to improve this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Mongolian provincial unit is called “aĭmag,” and this term will be used hereafter.

2 The Baga Khural or Little Khural was the praesidium of the Mongolian People’s Republic from 1924 until 1951. Later, the term was also used for the standing legislature from 1990 to 1992.

3 The term Khalkha is based on transliteration from old Mongolian, but it is more common and will be used hereafter. Other terms in Mongolian and Kazakh are transliterated according to the Library of Congress.

4 NSOM, Results of the 2020 National Population and Housing Census [Хүн ам, орон сууцны 2020 оны улсын ээлжит тооллогын нэгдсэн дүн] (Ulaanbaatar: National Statistics Office of Mongolia, 2020).

5 The 2020 Population Census includes more than 25 ethnic groups in Mongolia. Among them, Khalkha (Халх) are the largest ethnic group (83.8 per cent), followed by Kazakh (3.8 per cent); other large minority groups include Dörvöd (2.6 per cent), Baiad (2.0 per cent), Buriad (1.4 per cent), Zakhchin (1.4 per cent), Dariganga (1.2 per cent), and the rest represent less than one per cent of the population.

6 NSOM, Results of the 2020 National Population and Housing Census, 54.

7 Vladimir Maliavin, Chinese Civilization [Китайская цивилизация] (AST, 2000), 291; Gulnar Kozgambaeva and N. Alpysbaeva, “From the History of the Migration of Kazakhs to Mongolia (70 XІX - 20 XX Centuries) [Из истории переселения казахов в Монголию (70 г. XІX – 20 г. XX вв.)],” Вестник КазНУ. Серия историческая 4, no. 79 (2019): 97–100, 97.

8 Alexander Diener, “The Borderland Existence of the Mongolian Kazakhs: Boundaries and the Construction of Territorial Belonging,” in The Routledge Research Companion to Border Studies (Boca Raton, FL: Routledge, 2016), 373–393, 375.

9 Kozgambaeva and N. Alpysbaeva, “From the History of the Migration,” 99.

10 Outer Mongolia (1911–1924) was a Buddhist theocracy ruled by the spiritual leader Bogd Khaan. Formally, the Mongolian Revolutionary government took control of the 1924 constitution of the Mongolian People’s Republic.

11 Christopher P. Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire (New York, NY: Facts on File, 2004), 294.

12 Statistical Database, “National Statistics Office of Mongolia,” 2020. https://www.en.nso.mn/.

13 In Mongolia, the Marxist class conflict had to be invented as a struggle between “black and yellow feudal lords” and exploited nomads (black representing nobility and yellow representing lamas).

14 Ellen Jones and Fred W. Grupp, “Modernisation and Ethnic Equalisation in the USSR,” Soviet Studies 36, no. 2 (1984): 159–184.

15 Andrei Korobkov, “State and Nation Building Policies and the New Trends in Migration in the Former Soviet Union,” The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies 1702, no. 1702 (2003): 78.

16 Holly Barcus and Cynthia Werner, “Choosing to Stay: (Im)Mobility Decisions Amongst Mongolia’s Ethnic Kazakhs,” Globalizations 14, no. 1 (2017): 32–50, 42.

17 Alexander Diener, “Negotiating Territorial Belonging: A Transnational Social Field Perspective on Mongolia’s Kazakhs,” Geopolitics 12, no. 3 (2007): 459–487, 465–466.

18 Gulnara Mendikulova, “The Diaspora Policy of the Republic of Kazakhstan,” in Regional Routes, Regional Roots? Cross-Border. Patterns of Human Mobility in Eurasia, 77–84 (Hokkaido: Hokkaido Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, 2017), 77. https://www.ceeol.com/search/chapter-detail?id=561708.

19 Jennifer C. Post, “I Take My Dombra and Sing to Remember My Homeland”: Identity, Landscape and Music in Kazakh Communities of Western Mongolia,” Ethnomusicology Forum 16, no. 1 (2007): 45–69, 48.

20 Alexander Diener, “Kazakhstan’s Kin State Diaspora: Settlement Planning and the Oralman Dilemma,” Europe-Asia Studies 57, no. 2 (2005): 327–348, 468.

21 Korobkov, “State and Nation Building Policies.”

22 Tuya Ukhnaa and Ganbat Damba, “Protection of Minority Rights in Mongolia,” ADRN l Asia Democracy Research Network, 2022. http://www.adrnresearch.org/publications/list.php?cid=1&sp=%26sp%5B%5D%3D1%26sp%5B%5D%3D2%26sp%5B%5D%3D3&pn=2&sn=s1&st=&acode=&code=001001&at=view&idx=257.

23 UNESCO, “Mongolia - Education Policy Review: Towards a Lifelong Learning System,” The Global Education 2030 Agenda. UNESCO, 2020, 152–155. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/in/documentViewer.xhtml?v=2.1.196&id=p::usmarcdef_0000373687&file=/in/rest/annotationSVC/DownloadWatermarkedAttachment/attach_import_89695293-63a5-4821-b5df-d2fcdb4562ea%3F_%3D373687eng.pdf&updateUrl=updateUrl3580&ark=/ark:/48223/pf0000373687/PDF/373687eng.pdf.multi&fullScreen=true&locale=en#645_20%20Mongolia%20Policy%20Review_INT.indd%3A.52691%3A6296.

24 Diener, “Negotiating Territorial Belonging”; Diener, “The Borderland Existence.”

25 Diener, “The Borderland Existence,” 379.

26 Ibid., 397.

27 Diener, “Negotiating Territorial Belonging”; Barcus and Werner, “Choosing to Stay.”

28 Sharad K. Soni, “Mongolian Kazakh Diaspora: Study of Largest Ethnic Minority in Mongolia,” Bimonthly Journal of Mongolian and Tibetan Current Situation (Taipei, Taiwan) 17, no. 3 (2008): 31–49.

29 Kozgambaeva and Alpysbaeva, “From the History of the Migration.”

30 Post, “I Take My Dombra”; Jennifer C. Post, “Performing Transition in Mongolia: Repatriation and Loss in the Music of Kazakh Mobile Pastoralists,” Yearbook for Traditional Music 46, no. January (2014): 43–61.

31 Fuki Yagi, “Systematization of Kazakh Music in Mongolia: Activities of Theater and Radio Station during the Soviet Era,” Asian Ethnicity 21, no. 3 (2020): 413–424, 9.

32 Holly Barcus and Cynthia Werner, “Immobility and the Re-Imaginings of Ethnic Identity among Mongolian Kazakhs in the 21st Century,” Geoforum 59, no. February (2015): 119–128.

33 Ibid.

34 Lars Højer, “Patriots, Pensioners and Ordinary Mongolians: Deregulation and Conspiracy in Mongolia,” Ethnos 85, no. 4 (2020): 749–770.

35 Joakim Enwall, “Inter-Ethnic Relations in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia,” Asian Ethnicity 11, no. 2 (2010): 239–257, 252.

36 Marina Mongush, and Bayarsaikhan Badarch, “Mongolia’s Kazakhs and Tuvans: Ethnographic Sketch,” Asia and Africa Today 3, no. 3 (2019): 59–64.

37 Louisa Waugh, Hearing Birds Fly, illustrated edition (London: Abacus, 2003), 92–93.

38 Ts Baatar, “Present Situation of Kazakh-Mongolian Community,” Mongolian Journal of International Affairs, no. 8–9 (2014): 90–98, 93.

39 Uradyn E. Bulag, Nationalism and Hybridity in Mongolia, 0 ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Uradyn E. Bulag, “Ethnicity and National Unity in Mongolia and Legal Issues Related to Them [Монгол дахь ястны үзэл ба үндэсний эв нэгдэл, тэдгээрт холбогдох эрх зүйн асуудал],” Zuuni medee [Зууны мэдээ], November 21, 2020, No. 209 (6434) edition. https://www.polit.mn/a/85769.

40 Bulag, Nationalism and Hybridity in Mongolia, 97.

41 Bulag, “Ethnicity and National Unity.”

42 Bulag, Nationalism and Hybridity in Mongolia, chap. 2; Bulag, “Ethnicity and National Unity.”

43 Bulag, Nationalism and Hybridity in Mongolia, 31.

44 Ibid., 1998.

45 Ibid.

46 Ibid., 103

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.

49 Bulag, “Ethnicity and National Unity.”

50 Christopher Kaplonski, “Creating National Identity in Socialist Mongolia,” Central Asian Survey 17, no. 1 (1998): 35–49, 43–44.

51 Rogers Brubaker, “Nationhood and the National Question in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Eurasia: An Institutionalist Account,” Theory and Society 23, no. 1 (1994): 47–78, 63–64.

52 Ibid., 49.

53 Bulag, “Ethnicity and National Unity,” sec. 6.

54 Ibid., sec. 7.

55 Brubaker, “Nationhood and the National Question,” 57–58.

56 Rogers Brubaker, “National Minorities, Nationalizing States, and External National Homelands in the New Europe,” Daedalus 124, no. 2 (1995): 107–132.

57 Peter Boone, “Grassroots Macroeconomic Reform in Mongolia,” Journal of Comparative Economics 18, no. 3 (1994): 329–356.

58 Semi-autonomy is characterised by partial powers of self-governance and independent decision-making of internal affairs.

59 EPCRC, “The Mongolia Provincial Competitiveness Report,” Economic Policy and Competitiveness Research Center, 2019. https://ecrc.mn/about-research/.

60 According to the EPCRC, the indicators are determined by combining general and statistical data with the results of questionnaires distributed to the private sector.

61 Interview with a member of Baian-Ölgiĭ Province Department of Culture and Art, 30 June 2022.

62 Interview with the Founder of Altai Academy from Baian-Ölgiĭ, 30 June 2022.

63 Byambajav Dalaibuyan, “Negotiating the Coexistence of Mining and Pastoralism in Mongolia,” Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies 11, no. 1 (2022): 46–63.

64 Interview with a member of Baian-Ölgiĭ Province Department of Culture and Art, 30 June 2022.

65 Interview with a teacher at Zayed Secondary School from Baian-Ölgiĭ, 27 June 2022.

66 Arend Lijphart, “Debate—Proportional Representation: Double-Checking the Evidence,” Journal of Democracy 2, no. 3 (1991): 42–48.

67 OSCE, ODIHR Comments on the Draft Proposals for Amendments to the Law on Parliamentary Elections: Mongolia, ELE-MNG/472/2023 (Warsaw, Poland: OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, 2023).

68 Munkhnaran Bayarlkhagva, “New Constitutional Amendments in Mongolia: Real Reform or Political Opportunism?,” The Diplomat, 1 July 2022. https://thediplomat.com/2022/07/new-constitutional-amendments-in-mongolia-real-reform-or-political-opportunism/; Bolor Lkhaajav, “Mongolia’s Constitutional Reform Enlarges Parliament, Advances a Mixed Electoral System,” The Diplomat, 2 June 2023. https://thediplomat.com/2023/06/mongolias-constitutional-reform-enlarges-parliament-advances-a-mixed-electoral-system/.

69 Especially, if we consider that the number of ethnic minorities in the parliament should correspond to their percentage in the general population, we can see the potential problems. As Kazakhs comprise slightly over three per cent of the electorate, the former three mandates out of 76 roughly offered them a similar representativeness of 3.9 per cent. Under the new larger parliament of 126 (78 majoritarian and 48 proportional seats), if they only obtain three seats through the majoritarian representation, then their overall representativeness declines to 2.3 per cent.

70 Marissa J. Smith, “Power of the People’s Parties and a Post-Soviet Parliament: Regional Infrastructural, Economic, and Ethnic Networks of Power in Contemporary Mongolia,” Journal of Eurasian Studies 11, no. 2 (2020): 107–116, 108.

71 TAF, Elections in Mongolia 1992-2021 (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia: The Asia Foundation, 2023). https://asiafoundation.org/publication/elections-in-mongolia-1992-2021/.

72 The constitution of Mongolia Article 59.1.

73 The constitution of Mongolia Article 59.3.

74 The constitution of Mongolia Article 60.2.

75 Bulag, Nationalism and Hybridity, 52.

76 This issue can be particularly sensitive; therefore, interviewees did not want to elaborate too much on it other than noting that not only prosecutors and judges but also in law enforcement officials are increasingly appointed from non-Kazakh ethnic groups. Owing to the absence of publicly available information, it was impossible to assess the scale of this issue.

77 Interview with the Founder of Altai Academy from Baian-Ölgiĭ, 30 June 2022.

78 The constitution of Mongolia Article 8.2.

79 B. Sarangerel, “In Bayan-Ölgii Places Named in Kazakh Language Were Revoked Due to Violations [Баян-Өлгий аймагт Казах хэлээр оноосон нэр өгсөн зөрчил илэрсэн тул хүчингүй болгожээ],” iSee.mn (2020) 29 December 2020. http://isee.mn/n/16975.

80 Interview with the Founder of Altai Academy from Baian-Ölgiĭ, 30 June 2022.

81 Data confirming 2022 Mongolian language 100-point university entrance examination scores and placements was obtained from Ganbat Baasantseren, Associate Professor at the National University of Mongolia.

82 Interview with a teacher at Zayed Secondary School from Baian-Ölgiĭ, 27 June 2022.

83 UNESCO, “Mongolia - Education Policy Review,” 152–155.

84 Jilkhiayidar Khinalgan, “Particularities of Bilingual Education of National Minorities in Mongolia [Особенности Билингвистического Образования Национального Меньшинства Монголии],” Grand Altai Research & Education, 2014, no. 1. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/osobennosti-bilingvisticheskogo-obrazovaniya-natsionalnogo-menshinstva-mongolii.

85 Interview with Founder of Altai Academy from Baian-Ölgiĭ, 30 June 2022, later confirmed in an interview with a former UNICEF Mongolia employee, 29 September 2023.

86 MNB, dir., One Country, Two Languages [“Нэг Улс, Хоёр Хэлний Бодлого”] (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia: Mongolian National Broadcaster, 2019). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFbx4YsSCKU.

87 MNB, “Facebook Live: One Country, Two Languages [“Нэг улс, хоёр хэлний бодлого”],” Social Media. Facebook, November 2, 2019. https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=395413941362017.

88 Nazgul Baigabatova, Amangeldy Tolamissov, Saira Rakhipova, Dana Ashimova, Onerbek Khuangan, and Kadyrzhan Smagulov, “Ethnocultural Identity of Kazakhs of Mongolia in Everyday Life,” Codrul Cosminului 24, no. July (2018): 79–96, 93.

89 Namara Brede, Holly R. Barcus, and Cynthia Werner, “Negotiating Everyday Islam after Socialism: A Study of the Kazakhs of Bayan-Ulgii, Mongolia,” in The Changing World Religion Map: Sacred Places, Identities, Practices and Politics, edited by Stanley D. Brunn (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2015), 1863–1890, 1866.

90 Interview with a member of Baian-Ölgiĭ Province Department of Culture and Art, 30 June 2022.

91 Interview with the Director of Bas-Mufti Mosque from Baian-Ölgiĭ, 28 June 2022. This number includes informal gatherings. Officially, as of 2021, the NSOM reports that there are 26 mosques in Mongolia, 24 of which are in Baian-Ölgiĭ, one in Uvs and one in Ulaanbaatar.

92 Statistical Database, “National Statistics Office of Mongolia.”

93 Ibid.

94 Tsymzhit Vanchikova and Tsedendamba Samdangiyn, “Religious Situation in Mongolia: 1990-2009 [Религиозная ситуация в Монголии: 1990-2009 гг.],” Oriental Studies [Востоковедение] 3, no. 39 (2014): 67–72, 69.

95 Ibid.

96 Cynthia Werner, Holly Barcus, and Namara Brede, “Discovering a Sense of Well-Being through the Revival of Islam: Profiles of Kazakh Imams in Western Mongolia,” Central Asian Survey 32, no. 4 (2013): 527–541, 538.

97 DOS, “2011 Report on International Religious Freedom: Mongolia,” United States Department of State, 2012. https://www.refworld.org/docid/5021059ec.html.

98 DOS, “2021 Report on International Religious Freedom: Mongolia,” United States Department of State, 2022. https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-report-on-international-religious-freedom/mongolia/.

99 Jonathan Fox, Roger Finke, and Dane R. Mataic, “New Data and Measures on Societal Discrimination and Religious Minorities,” Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 14, no. 14 (2018): 1–37.

100 Benedict Anderson, “Imagined Communities,” in Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso Books, 2006), 48–59.

101 Post, “Performing Transition in Mongolia,” 45.

102 Post, “I Take My Dombra and Sing,” 48.

103 Yagi, “Systematization of Kazakh Music in Mongolia.”

104 The regular surveys are conducted annually and, due to the multi-level sampling methodology, do not cover all the aĭmags (n = ∼1000). Therefore, the comparative analysis of all aĭmags can only rely on data from the 2012 nationwide survey (n = 5020). Compared to the regular survey, the 2012 survey has a uniquely representative sample of Mongolia’s population; it includes all aĭmags, and sampling extends to the soum level. This type of coverage allows us to gain a representative sample of the population at the national and aĭmag levels.

105 The Sant Maral Foundation does not ask respondents questions about their ethnicity in Politbarometer surveys. In addition, for clarity, we combined all other provinces into the category “other provinces” rather than have them denoted individually.

106 Munkhchimeg Davaasharav, “Mongolia to Combat Hate Speech in Online Media,” 26 January 2019, Networks for Social Democracy edition. https://asia.fes.de/news/mongolia-to-combat-hate-speech-in-online-media/; Højer, “Patriots, Pensioners and Ordinary Mongolians.”

107 Katharina Meitinger, “What Does the General National Pride Item Measure? Insights from Web Probing,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 59, no. 5–6 (2018): 428–450.

108 Barcus and Cynthia Werner, “Immobility and the Re-Imaginings.”

109 Waugh, Hearing Birds Fly.

110 Kozgambaeva and Alpysbaeva, “From the History of the Migration”; Diener, “The Borderland Existence.”

111 SMF, Politbarometer, #1-#55 (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia: Sant Maral Foundation, 2023). https://www.santmaral.org/publications.

112 Post, “I Take My Dombra and Sing”; Post, “Performing Transition in Mongolia”; Barcus and Cynthia Werner, “Immobility and the Re-Imaginings.”

113 Bulag, “Ethnicity and National Unity,” sec. 3.

114 Ibid., sec. 8.

115 UNESCO, “Mongolia - Education Policy Review.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mina Sumaadii

Mina Sumaadii is a Research Fellow at the Center for Eurasian Studies, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China, and a Senior Researcher at the Sant Maral Foundation, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Sumati Luvsandendev

Sumati Luvsandendev is the Director of the Sant Maral Foundation, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Sean Nguyen

Sean Nguyen is a Freeman Intern Fellow at the College of William & Mary.