Abstract. A progressive view on kazakh cultural landcscape discurse.
The destruction of an indigene culture as impact of imperial colonial policy goes hand in hand with ignoring diasporas, that were deported from homelands as intellectuals, kulacks or religious groups.
We can raise the question how this different cultural groups including the indigene kazakh population have learned from each other and profit from different cultural ressources.
Individual biografies were influencing each other through crossroads and sharing one country with ist cultural and natural ressources as kaleidoscopic, collective experience.
The marxist-leninist doctrine thats plan was to create an equality between the indigene population and their neighbours, the former citizens, who were deported or emigrated from countries like Poland, Ukraine, Germany, Korea and so on, was based on an idea, that had a thought of a society in mind, thats members shared an equal way of thinking.
The victim of this idea was the loss of cultural roots, the loss of selfdetermination as a cultural being. Nationalistic in form and socialistic in content, this society lost not only the cultural self-confidnece but also the spiritual one.
The aim of this abstract is a perception of kazakh history from a feminist perspective and a postcolonial one. A slow reading and storytelling that bases on a meditative attitude towards landscape perception and protection shall provide new methods of being sustainable and carefull with our nature that we should not see from a nationalistic but from a global point of view.
The kazakh attitude towards nature has of course it’s roots in the presowjet past when the inhabitants of the kazakh lands were wandering as tribes with their yourts and their cattle through the vast steppes. Their dwelling, the yourt, consists of natural materials, that the men and women took from their surroundings. The interior, little colourfull boxes, an oven, located in the middle of the dwelling and the so called kepešes, ceilings with the pictures of wolves, eagles and other animals, was minimalistic, but full of lovely details. And of course the spiritual textes were well protected objects. The orientation in the landscape based on an inner compass that each Kazakh woman and man had internalized.
How can sustainability be learned from an indigene culture and how can for example a russian diaspora learn from it? What is the crucial element, that let us perceive nature as a habitat of plants, animals and the human being, that share our planet together? Which role play the sun, the moon and the stars? How is the perception of the times oft he year? Is there an idea of a global apeacement policy that can be shared besides the borders and that has the idea oft he protection of our nature in biological, cultural and political sphere and how can a question of a russian diaspora look like? How can it been rooted in a self-confident way of thinking, being far away from earth discourses that compare nature through a national point of view? Nature does not depend on the architecture of cities or villages, it adapts on it. Swallows built theit nests in the roof of dwellings. Butterflies hide under the wooden beamst o overwinter.
Especially fort he kazakh sustainabilty discourse there should be done a deep look in the history and culture oft he Kazkhs. If there is a lack of official and statebased programms that engage themselves for the safety of nature, is it perhaps possible to learn from grassrout projects and programms that can be reflected by state programs and copied by them?
The inner vizualisation of landscapes and a view with a vast horizont contributes not only to the enjoyment of an artistic world of view but also to a sensibilty for the several cultural and biotopical factors that exist in this world.
One example for this is the Aral Sea. Isn’t it a great idea to speak about the personal rights of a sea like the Aral Sea? If we imagine the Aral Sea als living subject, than it tells stories of the past generations and we can imagine it as voice of men, women, animals and plants. The loss of it’s waterreserves would be understood as wounds of the global natural landscape. There is a legend about the Sea: fourty gods lived in the sky in a great blue yurt. The played with a mineral, a turkise, they let this beautiful stone fall on the earth and the Aral Sea was born.
Oxiana (the old name oft he Sea) used to be a great sea, that fell apart in many little parts. Till the 1960ies it used to be the fourth biggest sea on the earth. It is to late to speak about a regeneration and it will take propably many hundred years to reach the old status oft he sea.
But there are several more stories about our pollution of the earth to tell. What does it mean for example when 25,5 million hektar areas of vast steplands were transformed in the 1950ier and 60ies into agrar land? A monoculture has stolen several animals theit natural habitats. Should we as human being not be responsible for our alienation from mother earth? Wandering animals like the Saigas in Kazakhstan should have the possibility to eat gras from a soil that is not destructed by pestizides.
It does not make sence to be proud of one’s one intelligence because the believe in the cold human mind can lead to a disconnection from our spirutual sphere and from our flora and fauna.
Jablonja 