The relationship between Muslim and Eastern Slavic identities and Russification, 1960s;

The main topic of this thesis is the Russification process, with a particular focus on the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan. Institutionalization of Russian in the Kyrgyz primary schools was based on higher institutions’ research activities and development of the study materials on the Russian language for the Kyrgyz schools – the factors partially contributed to the institutionalization of Russian. These are some of the principal findings of this thesis. Apart from identifying the ways of how Russian was institutionalized, some of the origins of the Russian influence are discussed in the thesis. The Russian migration to Central Asia is discussed as well as the role of the Russians, which was essential to Central Asia in its development. The structure of this thesis is organized so to answer two research questions. The first main question of the thesis: if the religious identity, strengthened with the indigenous traditional practices, was the barrier hindering Russification in the Kyrgyz SSR during Khrushchev’s period? This thesis looks at the religious situation in the Kirghiz SSR and proves how pervasive and strong Islam, blended with the traditional practices, was. The reviewed literature and archival findings help to illustrate that their Muslim identity and pre-Soviet traditions remained, relatively, strong. They constituted elements unifying segments of population but were not transformed into nationalist demands. The thesis also incorporates a comparative element by presenting Russification process in former Soviet Belarus and additional data on some other peoples as for the purposes of contextualizing and extending scope of research. Therefore, the thesis has an additional research question also answered with a number of the research goals. The second research question and accompanying research questions shed more light on the Russification policy and places the main country-case into a comparative perspective. The second question is if the Union republic status made a difference in the extent of Russification, signifying lesser use of Russian than among other smaller administrative units in the Soviet Union. Lastly, the thesis proposes that Russification was not manifestation of the Russian nationalism as it is illustrated it was itself weakened since the establishment of the Soviet rule.