TRADITIONS DYING IN KAZAKHSTAN

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31934, 11 March 1969, Page 20

TRADITIONS DYING IN KAZAKHSTAN

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) ALMA ATA (Kazakhstan). Traditions which have endured for 1000 years are dying daily as the once-nomadic herdsmen of this remote Central Asian land eagerly accept Western science and Russian culture.

While “Russification” is a process that began here 200 years ago, the intensive development of Kazakhstan by the Soviet Government may well be making today’s older Kazakh generation the last to cling to the ways of its fathers. The Kazakhs, humbering 3.600,000, are now a minority in their own country, but they are still everywhere in evidence. Although some still wear the traditional fur-trimmed skull caps and the fierce beards and moustaches of old. many more are completely Westernised, wearing European iress and speaking with pride of a culture that is only nominally their own. Everyone asserts that Kazakh culture is still strong, stronger than ever, in fact. This is in keeping with Lenin's policy on minority nationalities, which have a guaranteed right to their own language and customs. About 98.5 per cent of Kazakhs still regard Kazakh as their native tongue, but it is increasingly becoming a language to be spoken only

at home, not at work. Culture in general is undergoing changes that are making it all but unrecognisable to the older generation. Young Kazakhs —and Russian officials—-are very proud of the Kazakh opera, sung in the Kazakh language and based on folk legends. FORM FOREIGN But the opera form is itself foreign to Kazakhstan. It was brought here by the Russians, the music is based on Western models, and it is played on Western instruments by predominantly nonKazakh musicians.

One such opera is “Birzhan and Sara,” described by a Kazakh official as a classic work of his people’s culture. It was written during World War 11.

Wholly Western in style, the opera makes propaganda against arranged marriages, and shows Moslem mullahs as being the bulwarks of conservatism. The young Kazakh audience at a recent performance appeared to love it. Westernisation also takes place in other ways, as in the playing of a Mozart rondo on the Durma, an ancient, Balalaika - type instrument with the tonal quality of rubber bands twanged across an open cigar box. The young woman who

played the instrument for a group of foreign correspondents seemed to be prouder of her skill at Mozart—she was note-perfect—than of the intricate fingerwork and musicianship she displayed on lively Kazakh folk melodies.

Kazakhs are also proud of their knowledge of Russian literature and the Russian language, which young people speak perfectly. They talk with great satisfaction of a Kazakh poet who has had his Russian-language verses published in the Moscow press. But few Russians speak Kazakh and all official business in the republic is conducted in Russian. Kazakh officials told Western reporters that Kazakh is a compulsory language in all schools throughout the republic, even in overwhelmingly Russian areas.

A small Russian boy told reporters that this was true, but added that the teaching of Kazakh had just been instituted in September, for one hour a week in the first grade. He knew no Kazakh, nor did his friends. Russians living here are clearly aware that they are both numerically and culturally dominant. They see no need to learn Kazakh in Kazakhstan.