Sammendrag
This thesis investigates how history become subject to national elites’ political goals, who use the promotion of certain interpretations of history as a means to forward their political agenda. It examines a case of history policy in Kazakhstan, where the government through a mass celebration argued that Kazakhstan has existed as a state for 550 years. Based on a combination of field observation, semi-structured interviews, document analysis and a review of traditional and social media, I investigate the immediate and long-term factors influencing Kazakhstan’s history policy, the means by which the policy is carried out and the response it received in society. I discuss the room that elites have for influencing perceptions of history, and what implications the history policy has for nation building in the country. I find that although the celebration of the 500th Anniversary of the Kazakh Khanate portrays Kazakhstan’s history in exclusively ethnic Kazakh terms, within the context of balancing ethnic and civic nation building policies, it still serves as a careful history policy. My findings suggest that geopolitical concerns influence Kazakhstan’s history politics to a larger extent than theories of national identity would suggest.