"Jeltoqsan" – Kazak student protests of 1986

[BAWIR$AQ]

"Jeltoqsan" protests

December 17-18, 1986

The first perestroika-era mass protests against Moscow's dictate.



"Jeltoqsan" ('December' in Kazak) is the latest tragedy in the history of Kazak people.

On December 17-18, 1986, thousands of Kazaks students rallied on the central square of Kazak capital Almaty against the dictate of the Soviet rule. The demonstrations were suppressed by the Soviet police and military. Thousands of students were expelled from schools, some disappeared and killed.


In December 1986, Soviet premier Mikhail S. Gorbachev forced the resignation of Dinmukhamed Kunayev, an ethnic Kazak who had led the republic as first secretary of the CPK from 1959 to 1962, and again starting in 1964. During 1985, Kunayev had been under official attack for cronyism, mismanagement, and malfeasance; thus, his departure was not a surprise. However, his replacement, Gennadiy Kolbin, an ethnic Russian with no previous ties to Kazakstan, was unexpected. Kolbin was a typical administrator of the early Gorbachev era - enthusiastic about economic and administrative reforms but hardly mindful of their consequences or viability.

The announcement of Kolbin's appointment provoked spontaneous street demonstrations by Kazaks, many of them students, to which Soviet authorities responded with force.

The two days and nights in December 1986 were one of the most dramatic moments in the recent history of Kazakstan.




Monument in Almaty, Kazakstan commemorating "Jeltoqsan" - the mass protests of Kazak youth against the Soviet regime in December 1986.

The name of the monument "Täwelsizdik tañı" means "Dawn of Independence"

[BAWIR$AQ]

Political significance of the 20th Anniversary of the December 1986 student protests in Almaty


On September 18, President Nazarbayev unveiled the first significant monument to the 1986 Kazak student protests in Almaty that rocked the Soviet Union, naming the statue the "Dawn of Freedom." Twenty years later, the events of December 1986, which brought hundreds of Kazak students into the streets in protest of Moscow’s replacement of the ethnic Kazak Party Secretary Konayev with the ethnic Russian Kolbin, still strike passions among the people of Kazakstan. For Russians and other minorities in Kazakstan, the protests represent the potential for Kazak nationalism, which has been a lingering fear hanging over their heads since the fall of the U.S.S.R. For Kazaks, the protests represent the national aspirations of their people and the critical importance of making Kazakstan a Kazak nation-state. Among the more nationalist Kazaks, remembering the protests also provides an opportunity to raise the question of whether the increasingly wealthy state of Kazakstan is really providing for them as the bearers of the nation. President Nazarbayev himself has had an ambiguous relationship with the December 1986 protests. When appropriate, he has tried to stress the importance of these events to the history of Kazakstan’s independence. At the same time, he has long tried to manage any remembrances of the events, attempting neither to strike fear into his own Russian population nor to send a negative message to Russia. Furthermore, while Nazarbayev suggested during the early 1990s that he had always supported the students during those tense days in December 1986, many people have questioned his role in the crackdown on the protestors given that he was the second in command of the Communist Party of Kazakstan at the time.

With December approaching as the twentieth anniversary of these events, however, the contested history of the 1986 protests will inevitably become an increasingly “hot-button” topic in Kazakstani politics. With the competition for succession heating up in the country, it is likely that various political forces will be vying for the right to represent the ideals of the students who went to the streets in December 1986. At the same time, the same forces will need to manage how that looks to the Russians and other minorities living in Kazakstan. It is the kind of issue that has the potential to fuel ethnic tensions in a country that has prided itself in being a land of “ethnic harmony” following the fall of the U.S.S.R. It is also the kind of issue, however, that can provide Kazakstan with a symbolic opportunity to reinforce its independence from Moscow.

roberts-report.blogspot.com/2006/09/what-is-political-significance-of.html

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

Thank you for the info, my dear Shad

[Nomad (Daz)]

My Russian friends say we are nationalist. We hate other people and especially Russians. I am exeption as they say. hehehe Most of their argument based on that we don't let Russian origin people to hold powers. We have a few Russians as ministers. Well I think they are right in one way that we don't let Russians to govern the country or they will try to pull more russian to the chain of command or try to divide the country. 40% of the population is Russians and they mostly live on the north of Kazakhstan.

[Nomad (Daz)]

Nazarbaevs role in bloody event was very dark. He represented the Soviet Union and was against the open protest. For that Soviet Leaders replaced Kolbin with Nazarbaev. Kunaev ended his life in misery and isolation from his friends. When he died Nazarbaev forbidded to attent his funeral all the goverment worker but friendship could never be broken. A lots of old crews lost their jobs but they said farwell to their great leader and a friend Dilmuhamedu Kunaevu. My father was recovering from the carcrash, he broke his leg but still he went to see the last jurney of a DON and express his graditute.

[BAWIR$AQ]

40% was 17 years ago.

Today, Russians make about 25%, Kazaks - 60%.

[BAWIR$AQ]

Articles:

Kazakhs remembering uprising of 1986

Zheltoqsan protest marked 20 years later

[Nomad (Daz)]

bawirsaq said:

Articles:

Kazakhs remembering uprising of 1986

Zheltoqsan protest marked 20 years later

Soviet Goverment made it look like Kazak nationalizm.
And we still carry this mark. KAZAKH nationalist sounds like racizm to me. It was difficult times for all people who lived in Kazakhstan. How many people died that day noone will ever know.

I was the first uprising of the people in Soviet Union. Later it spread to other parts of Soviet Union such as Baku, Tibilis and so on.

[BAWIR$AQ]

nomad said:

Soviet Goverment made it look like Kazak nationalizm.

Jeltoqsan was a manifestation of the Kazak nationalism.

There's nothing to be ashamed of about being a nationalist.

Except for the Soviet Russia, in all of the world, "nationalism" simply means love for one's nation.

To convince you I'm going to quote the definitons from the major English dictionaries:

MSN Encarta - nationalism
1. desire for political independence
2. patriotism: proud loyalty and devotion to a nation
3. excessive devotion to nation

Merriam-Webster Dictionary - nationalism
1 : loyalty and devotion to a nation; especially : a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups
2 : a nationalist movement or government

American Heritage® Dictionary - nationalism
1. Devotion to the interests or culture of one's nation.
2. The belief that nations will benefit from acting independently rather than collectively, emphasizing national rather than international goals.
3. Aspirations for national independence in a country under foreign domination.

KAZAKH nationalist sounds like racizm to me.

Well, then you are simply a victim of the Russo-Soviet propaganda. That propaganda made the word "nationalism" synonymous to something evil.

Nationalism has nothing to do with racism.

Do you know what did the great Indian nationalist Mahatma Ghandi say?



" Hatred is not essential for nationalism. Race hatred will kill the national spirit "

" It is impossible for one to be internationalist without being a nationalist. Internationalism is possible only when nationalism becomes a fact, i.e., when peoples belonging to different countries have organized themselves and are able to act as one man. It is not nationalism that is evil, it is the narrowness, selfishness, exclusiveness which is the bane of modern nations which is evil. Each wants to profit at the expense of, and rise on the ruin of, the other. "

- Mahatma Ghandi

[Verinen Paroni]

Actually also word "racist" is not bad, because literally it means to person who realizes that races are exist.

[BAWIR$AQ]

verinenparoni said:

Actually also word "racist" is not bad, because literally it means to person who realizes that races are exist.

NO, it is not what it means.

Racism is generally regarded as bad because by proclaiming racial superiority that doctrine is directed against other races.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary - racism
1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2 : racial prejudice or discrimination

American Heritage® Dictionary - racism
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

MSN Encarta - racism
1. animosity toward other races: prejudice or animosity against people who belong to other races
2. belief in racial superiority: the belief that people of different races have different qualities and abilities, and that some races are inherently superior or inferior


Nationalism, on the other hand, is not commonly directed against any other nation because it is the doctrine that first of all manifests the devotion to one's nation and preservation of one's national values.

[karakhan]

can anyone clarify, I heard Kolbin was an ethnic Chuvash.

[BAWIR$AQ]

Kolbin was a Russian from Nizhnii Tagil of Sverdlovsk region.

It's an old trick. I heard few Russians imperialists who claim that he was a Chuvash so it would take away the responsibility from Russia.

That way, they claim that ethnic Russians have nothing to do with the atrocities of Russian Empire and Soviet Union. According to them, Russians didn't do "anything", it was all non-Russians: Scandinavians (Russian tsars), Jews (Lenin), Georgians (Stalin), and Ukrainians (Khrushev), but not Russians.

And "Jeltoqsan", too, wasn't commited by a Russian, but by a Turk (Chuvash) who suppressed other Turks (Kazaks). So Russia has "nothing" to do with these inner-Turk fights.

[Temüjin]

bawirsaq said:

Scandinavians (Russian tsars),

Czars were not Scandinavian, they were German

[BAWIR$AQ]

-temujin said:

Czars were not Scandinavian, they were German

Rurik dynasty (9 - 16 cent) was Scandinavian (Varangian) in origin.

Romanov dynasty (1613 - 1761) was Russian.

In 1761 - 1917, Romanov dynasty was suceeded by a Holstein-Gottorp lineage, which was German.