1. See Agentstvo Respubliki Kazakhstana po Statistike, Kratkiye Itogi-Perepisi Naseleniya 1999 Goda v (Brief Results of the 1999 Population Census of the Republic of Kazakhstan) (Almaty: Agentstvo Respubliki Kazakhstana po Statistike, 1999), p. 100.Google Scholar

2. See N. Nazarbayev, “Za Mir i Soglasiye v nashem obshem dome” (“For Peace and Stability in Our Mutual Home”), Doklad Prezidenta N. Nazarbayeva na pervoi sessii Assamblei Narodov Kazakhstana, Sostoyavsheisya v Almaty 24 Marta, 1995 g. Kazakhstan i Mirovoye Soobshetstvo, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1995, pp. 3–25, 46. In his speech at the founding of the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev's stated, “we, in a way, more often talk about the relationship between the two nationalities, Russians and Kazakhs. Why do we forget the interests of the other 20% of the Kazakhstanians, who have good reason to feel offended by this?”Google Scholar

3. Groups of Germanic heritage migrating to the Russian empire included 25,000 to the Volga in 1764; 80,000 settled in the Black Sea region between 1804 and 1850; 30,000 to the Black Sea region of Ukraine between 1830 and 1865; and finally between 1865 and 1875 to Volhynia migrated some 150,000. In 1897 the total number of Germans in the Russian Empire was 1,791,000. See Tsentralnoe Statisticheskoye Upravlenie SSSR, Vsesoyuznaya Perepis Nazeleniya 1926 goda, Kazakhskaya SSR (All Union Census of the Population 1926, Kazakh SSR) , 1928 and N. Masanov, ed., Istoriya Kazakhstana: narody i kultury (History of Kazakhstan: Peoples and History) (Almaty: Daik Press, 2001), pp. 509–510.Google Scholar

4. Masanov, Istoriya Kazakhstana , p. 509Google Scholar

5. Tsentralnoe statisticheskoe upravlenie SSSR, Vsesoyuznaya Perepis Nazeleniya 1926 goda , pp. 15–46, 126–153. See also Masanov, Istoriya Kazakhstana, p. 510.Google Scholar

6. The Settler Manifesto of Catherine the Great allowed for a 30 year exemption from taxation, a 10 year interest free loan for homes and farm machinery, free transportation from their point of origin to the undeveloped territory of destination, a provision of 30 desiatins (about 80 acres of land) per family for cultivation, religious freedom, self-government, local control of schools, and freedom from both military service and impressment into other state services. See J. A. Fink, “Germans,” in S. James Olsen, ed., An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires (London: Greenwood Press, 1994), pp. 256–257.Google Scholar

7. J. W. Long notes that “during the last three decades of the nineteenth century, the Russian press transformed the Volga Germans from a privileged but insignificant economic nuisance into a politically subversive element that posed a grave threat to Russia's security, and eventually led to the call for punitive actions against the Volga Germans during World War I.” See J. W. Long, From Privledged to Dispossed. The Volga Germans 1860–1917 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988), p. 57. S. Sinner considers the anti-German sentiment existing before the Revolution to have greatly influenced the treatment of Germans under Soviet leadership. See S. Sinner, The Open Wound: The Genocide of German Ethnic Monitories in Russia and the Soviet Union 1915–1949 and Beyond (Der Genozid an Russlanddeutschen 1915–1949) (Fargo, ND: Germans from Russian Heritage Collection, North Dakota State University Libraries, 2000), pp. 1–10, 16.Google Scholar

8. The establishment of these autonomous areas extended from Lenin's internationalist, federalist policy which sought to win non-Russian ethnic groups for “communism” by promising them the right to self-determination within the Soviet Union's territorial administrative structure. The promise of autonomy (in stages) and economic and cultural “development assistance” was initially kept in the form of the German Volga Republic and 18 autonomous German Raions.Google Scholar

9. Grain requisitions between 1920 and 1925, as well as the collectivization of the first Five Year Plans (1930–1939), were devastating to the Soviet Germans as they were to most groups of the new Soviet state. However, S. Sinner argues that the Russian and Slavophil Germanophobia movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries continued to influence policy in the Soviet period leading up to World War II. While it should be noted that this oppression varied regionally, it was during the 1930s that some of the first deported Germans were settled in the Kazakh SSR (in June and September 1936—some 45,000 Poles and Germans were expelled to Kazakhstan—see Sinner, Open Wound , pp. 64–67). According to the 1926 census, there was a sizable German population existing in the region of southern Siberia and Kazakhstan prior to the “large-scale” resettlements to follow. These Germans are argued to be voluntary migrants of “Russian eastward expansion” in an earlier period. Such voluntary migrant communities were later lost amidst the influx of political prisoners, making any assertion of historical voluntary connectivity to the region problematic. See Fink, “Germans,” p. 258.Google Scholar

10. B. Pinkus argues that Stalin used the Fifth Column idea as an excuse to all but liquidate the Soviet Germans, who had been the object of persecution since the end of the Tsarist era. See B. Pinkus, “Die Deutschen in der Sowjetunion beim Ausbruch des Zweiten Weltkrieges” (“The Germans in the Soviet Union at the Outbreak of the Second World War”), Heimatbuch derDeutschen aus Ruβland , 1981, pp. 9–19. Also S. Sinner, Open Wound, p. 79 and A. M. Nekrich, The Punished Peoples (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978).Google Scholar

11. See Tsentralnoe Statisticheskoye Upravlenie SSSR, Vsesoyuznaya Perepis Nazeleniya 1937 goda, Kazakhskaya SSR (All Union Census of the Population 1937, Kazakh SSR ), 1938; Tsentralnoe Statisticheskoye Upravlenie SSSR, Vsesoyuznaya Perepis Nazeleniya 1959 goda, Kazakhskaya SSR (All Union Census of the Population 1959, Kazakh SSR), 1962 and Masanov, Istoriya Kazakhstana, pp. 510–511.Google Scholar

12. F. Emig and P. Hiltes, “Unser Launishes Schicksal” (“Our Wayword Fate”) Drei Rlusse Drei Leben: Erinnerungen , (Berlin: Westkreuz), 1992, p. 2.Google Scholar

13. K. Aldazhymanov provides reprints of many of the key documents relating to German deportation in his chapter “Nasilno v Kazakhstane: Deportatsiya Nemetskovo Naseleniya” (“Forced in Kazakhstan: Deportation of the German Population”), in A. Kulkilbayev et al., Deported Peoples in Kazakhstan: Time and Destiny (Almaty: Arys-Kazakhstan, 1998), pp. 193–208.Google Scholar

14. See B. Langin, Die Deutschen in der UdSSR–einst und jetzt (Germans in the USSR—Then and Now) (Bonn: VDA, 1989), pp. 72–73.Google Scholar

15. See decree CHKCCCP from 8 January 1945, #35, “About the Rights of Special Settlers.” One may also note the fact that, unlike the Chechens, Ingush, Cherkess, Khabardino-Balkar, and Kachin groups that were also deported en masse , the Germans were not allowed to return to their former settlements.Google Scholar

16. Heitman notes that there was a considerable range in German language usage from Republic to Republic with a low of 47.5% in RSFSR to a high of 71.6% in the Kyrgyz Republic. See S. Heitman, The Soviet Germans in the USSR Today (Cologne: Bundesinstitut fur ostwissenschaftliche und internationale Studien, 1980), pp. 55–65. See also Fink, “Germans,” p. 259. R. Kaiser notes that “the linguistic assimilation of Jews and Germans during 1970–1989 period may be more apparent than real, since the more nationally conscious members who would have been more likely to claim the native language as their first language were also those who were more likely to emigrate. Emigration has thus played a significant role in language usage shifts for these two nations.” See R. J. Kaiser, The Geography of Nationalism in Russia and the USSR (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 265.Google Scholar

17. Official exoneration of the Germans from the Stalinist stigma of the “Fifth Column” opened the road for new relations between the Soviet government and the Soviet Germans. Despite this governmental admission of fault, the survivors of the deportation never received any compensation for lost property and can actually be argued to have been identified not only as prime subjects of sovietfication, due to their lack of territory (i.e. position as “floating peoples”— tekuschie narody ), but by virtue of the decree, now worthy of inclusion. See A. Dederer, The Report on the Situation with the Formerly Deported Peoples in the Republic of Kazakhstan (Almaty: chairperson of the Association of the Non-Governmental Associations of Germans in the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2001).Google Scholar

18. This area was part of Siberia until the 1930s when it was united with Kazakhstan.Google Scholar

19. See Fink, “Germans,” p. 259; A. Kaken, “Nemis Avtonomiyasy: Ol Kazakh Dalasynda Kalai Kuryla Zhazdady?” (“German Autonomy: How Did It Form on Kazakh Land?”), Egemen Kazakhstan , 30 January 2002, p. 5.Google Scholar

20. For a short period in the late 1980s and early 1990s, limited discussion relating to the establishment of a German homeland within the former Soviet territories targeted the western most portion of the Russian Federation, the Kaliningrad Oblast (KO). The region was hoped to be compelling to Soviet Germans because the Kaliningrad Oblast was historically part of “German territory” (East Prussia). See Fink, “Germans,” pp. 260–262.Google Scholar

21. During 1860–1884 Russia strengthened its relations with Korea through a trade treaty and widening contacts. At the same time, the Japanese, under the leadership of the newly established Meji, were building up considerable Imperial influence on the peninsula. See M. Han, “Language and Ethnic Self–Consciousness among Koreans in Kazakhstan,” The Korea Journal , Summer, 1995, p. 89.Google Scholar

22. The treaty of Peking was signed in 1860 and ceded China's Eastern Maritime Region to Russia. See U. Um, “The Korean Diaspora in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan: Social Change, Identity, Music Making,” in K. Schulze, M. Stokes and C. Campbell, Nationalism, Minorities, and Diasporas: Identities and Rights in the Middle East (London: Tauris Academic Publishers, 1996), p. 218.Google Scholar

23. These sources include H. R. Huttenbach and R. Henry, “The Soviet Koreans: Products of Russo-Japanese Imperial Rivalry,” Central Asian Survey, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1993, pp. 59–69; M. Gelb, “An Early Soviet Ethnic Deportation: The Far Eastern Koreans,” The Russian Review, Vol. 54, 1995; M. Han, “Language and Ethnic Self-Consciousness,” pp. 389–412 in S. Kho, Koreans in Soviet Central Asia (Helsinki: Studia Orientaliya and Suh, 1987). According to G. N. Kim and R. King, eds, Koryo Saram: Koreans in the Former USSR (New Haven: Korean and Korean American Studies Bulletin—East Rock Institute, 2001), p. 13, while the earliest record of Koreans settling within Russian territory dates to 1863, seasonal occupation of the Maritime region may date back to the 1850s.Google Scholar

24. See G. N. Kim, “The Deportation of 1937 as a Logical Continuation of Tsarist and Soviet Nationality Policy in the Russian Far East,” in Koryo Saram: Koreans in the Former USSR , p. 21. The extremely poor harvest of 1869 drove many Koreans from the peninsula into the Russian territories. See U. Um, “The Korean Diaspora,” p. 218.Google Scholar

25. In June 1882, it was proposed that for three years, 250 Russian families be sent from southern Russia to the Far East at state expense. These Russian settlers were to be granted loans of 600 rubles per family (over a 33 year period), provided 15 desiatins of land per adult male (up to 100 desiatins), per family, and be exempt from taxation for 20 years. Such measures succeeded in increasing the total Russian population from 8,385 in 1882 to 66,320 in 1902. See G. N. Kim, “The Deportation of 1937,” p. 21.Google Scholar

26. This included not only Koreans and Russians, but also some Chinese peoples from Manchuria.Google Scholar

27. The population figures reflect that the Korean population of the Russian Far East increased from 10,137 to 32,841 during this period. Closer examination reveals that 32,841 Koreans had been naturalized while 48,984 were not considered Russian citizens. See M. Han, “Language and Ethnic Self–Consciousness,” p. 89.Google Scholar

28. See M. Gelb, “An Early Soviet Ethnic Deportation,” p. 393. See also G. N. Kim, “The Deportation of 1937,” p. 24, who supports this point by noting that many Russian Koreans saw the Bolshevik revolution as a means of liberating the Korean peninsula from Japanese imperialism. Significant to the future deportation of Koreans from the region is the fact that Russia's Far East served as a base of operations for Korean nationalists seeking the liberation of Korea from the 1910 Japanese annexation of the Korean peninsula. See Um, “The Korean Diaspora,” p. 218.Google Scholar

29. These limitations were most prevalent in the 1923 elections and less noticeable in the 1924 elections, which saw a marked increase in Korean political participation and desire for citizenship. However, as noted by Kim, “in 1923, only 1300 out of 6000 Korean applicants received Soviet citizenship; in 1924 only 1247 out of 4761 applicants were successful.” See G. N. Kim, “The Deportation of 1937,” p. 26.Google Scholar

30. Many of the early plans for deportation took the form of removing the Koreans from the Primor'e border regions and relocating them in the more remote parts of the Khabarovsk region. Kim cites directives in 1927, 1930, and 1932, wherein the mass deportation of the Koreans was under consideration. See G. N. Kim, “The Deportation of 1937,” p. 29. In contrast, tolerance during this period is evident in the existence of Korean newspapers and magazines, Korean pedagogical and technical schools in Nikolsk-Ussuriisk and Posyet, and Korean departments at Far-East State University and the Higher Communist Agricultural School. See Han, “Language and Ethnic Self-Consciousness,” p. 89.Google Scholar

31. For a detailed account of the hardships of the Korean transfer to Central Asia and a breakdown of “Special Settlers” vs. “Deportees,” see M. Gelb, “An Early Soviet Ethnic Deportation.” G. N. Kim's “The Deportation of 1937,” pp. 33–35 offers lower estimates the number of dead than often portrayed.Google Scholar

32. Later proved to be a fabrication of the NKVD ( Narodny Komissaryat Vnutrennikh Del). See G. N. Kim, “The Deportation of 1937,” p. 32.Google Scholar

33. Mikhail N. Pak contends that this deportation may have at least partially related to a concessionary agreement between the Soviet leadership and Japanese government, which considered the Soviet Korean community a threat to its control of the Korean peninsula and possessions in Manchukuo. See Mikhail N. Pak, “O prichinah deportatsii sovetskih koreitsev dalnego vostoka v Tsentralnnuyu Aziyu” (“On the Reasons for the Deportation of the Soviet Koreans of the Far East to Central Asia”), in Valentin Tian et al., eds, Dorogoy gorkikh ispytanii (Moscow: Ekslibiris-Press, 1997), p. 31.Google Scholar

34. According to Kim the initial movement of Koreans to Kazakhstan took place at the end of the 1920s. Its motive was to catalyze rice farming in the Central Asian regions amenable to this crop. These Koreans formed the region's original rice growing artels. See G. N. Kim, “The Deportation of 1937,” p. 27.Google Scholar

35. Such internal migration was a source of great frustration among Soviet officials, as demonstrated by a confidential letter dated 15 February 1938 from Comrade Izotov, Head of the Department of the Commissariat of Internal Affairs, to Comrade Gilman, Assistant of the State's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Kazakh SSR. The letter was in reference to the inability of the local authorities to keep track of the Korean population. See Georgii V. Kan, “Koreitsy v Kazakhstane: Deportatsiya i Obreteniye Novoi Rodiny” (“Koreans in Kazakhstan: Deportation and Finding a New Homeland”), in A. K. Kekilbayev et al., Deported Peoples in Kazakhstan: Time and Destiny (Almaty: Arys-Kazakhstan, 1998), pp. 109–151.Google Scholar

36. A limited number of Koreans managed to join the Army through various means. Four notable Korean officers are outlined in Gelb, “An Early Soviet Ethnic Deportation,” pp. 407–408.Google Scholar

37. Ibid., p. 407.Google Scholar

38. According to Shirin Akiner, “This right is ensured by the free nature of all types of education, the implementation of the universal compulsory education of young people … by the opportunity for instruction in one's native tongue.” See S. Akiner, Islamic Peoples of the Soviet Union (London: Kegan Paul International, 1983), p. 21.Google Scholar

39. Data derived from a survey conducted by the Center for Monitoring Interethnic Relations (hereafter CMIR) and published in raw form by Nurbulat Masanov in Polozheniye Etnicheskikh Menshinstv v Suverennom Kazakhstane (The Condition of Ethnic Minorities in an Independent Kazakhstan) (Almaty: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 1997). The meta-data for the Center for Monitoring Interethnic Relations surveys can be found in the introduction of Masanov's book. Samples sizes for the CMIR survey were 335 Koreans and 193 Germans. A smaller-scale sample was acquired for a questionnaire of 50 questions relating directly to territorialization and conceptions of homeland. This questionnaire was administered by the author during 2000 and 2002 in interview format to roughly 27 Germans and 32 Koreans. Following the analysis of initial data, follow-up in-depth interviews were carried out with members of these communities, as well as with community leaders and Kazakhstani experts. In contrast to the highly structured surveys conducted by CMIR, where multiple choice answers were provided, author interviews were semi-structured allowing respondents to relate tangential stories and express candid emotional reactions. The “snowball” sampling technique was employed in obtaining the interview sample with restrictions on the use of multiple family members and a general objective of finding respondents from different ages, genders, occupations, and educational levels. This task was achieved with only moderate outliers for specific variables. An additional method of data collection involved extensive library and archival research, wherein government documents, academic works, Kazakhstani-Korean and German periodicals, and nationally circulating newspapers were examined in an effort to enhance my understanding of the public discourses pertaining to this research topic.Google Scholar

40. The degree to which a “supra-ethnic” identity is sought in favor of “ethnic” identity is indeterminable from the question that gave rise to this table.Google Scholar

41. Author's interview with a German respondent, Pavlodar, October 2001 (parenthetical content added).Google Scholar

42. See R. Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997); C. King and N. Melvin, “Diaspora Politics: Ethnic Linkages, Foreign Policy and Security in Eurasia,” International Security, Vol. 24, No. 3, 2000, pp. 108–138; and L. Malkki, Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology Among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).Google Scholar

43. According to Nurbulat Masanov's analysis of these data, as well as my own exploration of the topic through interviews with members of both communities, the fact that the majority of Germans are (at least in some form) considering emigration greatly affects their answers to such questions. Uncertainty as to their capacity to emigrate has led to a cognizance of the need to keep options open. See Masanov, Polozheniye Etnicheskikh , p. 4.Google Scholar

44. Soviet nationality policy ironically condemned bourgeois nationalism but maintained ethnic confession (line 5 of the Soviet passport) and promoted titular peoples through korenizatsiya (indigenization). See R. Kaiser, Geography of Nationalism, pp. 124–135.Google Scholar

45. The dynamics of ethnic nationalization were set in motion with the very naming of the state of Kazakhstan. By converting the ethnic core of the Union Republic's name to a state name, Kazakhs were implicitly signified as the most legitimately territorialized community. Literally translated, the word “Kazakhstan” suggests that the territory of the state is the “land of the Kazakhs.” Various governmental decrees, speeches and academic publications have combined to constitute a discourse of rationalization for the “first among equals” position of Kazakhs in the new “host” state. Starting with the 1993 Constitution of Kazakhstan, the state was clearly defined as a national homeland for Kazakhs (Kazakhstan as “the form of statehood for the self-determined Kazakh nation”). The 1995 Constitution was rewritten to appear more ethnically neutral, but, in point of fact, only offered a more subtle expression of the underlying centrality of the Kazakh ethnic group in the formation of a Kazakhstani nation.Google Scholar

46. The results of the latest Kazakhstani elections indicate that 80% of the representatives to the lower chamber of the Kazakhstani legislature (Majlis) are ethnic Kazakhs. See J. Holm-Hansen, “Political Integration in Kazakhstan,” in Pal Kolstoe, ed., Nation Building and Ethnic Integration in Post Soviet Societies: An Investigation of Latvia and Kazakhstan (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1999), pp. 195–203 for an excellent overview of the kazakhization of public offices.Google Scholar

47. Declarations of the early independence period established the Kazakh language as the “official language of the state.” Article 7 of the 1995 Constitution designated Russian as the “language of everyday communication,” but consistent debate within Kazakhstan has questioned the viability of “Kazakh” in governmental affairs, its function as a discriminatory mechanism, and the degree to which it may limit the capacity of the state to modernize. For discussions of these discourses, see J. Holm-Hansen, Nation Building and Ethnic Integration, pp. 178–191 and W. Fierman, “Language and Identity in Kazakhstan: Formulations in Policy Documents 1987–1997,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 31, No. 2, 1998, pp. 171–186. Survey data pertaining to language use in Kazakhstan is available in M. Arenov and S. Kalmykov, “Sovremennaya yazykovaya situatsiya v Respublike Kazakhstan” (“Contemporary Language Situation in Kazakhstan”), Sayasat, Vol. 1, 1997, pp. 21–30, and Arenov and Kalmykov, “Sovremennaya yazykovaya situatsiya v Respublike Kazakhstan—okonchanie” (“Contemporary Language Situation in Kazakhstan—Conclusion”), Sayasat, Vol. 2, 1997, pp. 29–34.Google Scholar

48. Collectively, these processes constitute the very idea of “nationalizing social space” or constructing an idea of “homeland” that the government feels will most readily insure its sovereignty. The ethno-demographic distribution of peoples in Kazakhstan is discussed by J. Holm-Hansen, Nation Building and Ethnic Integration, pp. 157–163; M. Olcott, Kazakhstan: Unfulfilled Promise (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment of Peace, 2002), pp. 194–195, 279; O demograficheskoi situatsii v 1995 (About Demographic Statistics) (Almaty: Pravitelstvo respubliki Kazakhstan, 1996); and M. Tatimov, “Vliyanie demograficheskih i migratsionnyh protsessov na vnutripoliticheskuyu stabilnost Respubliki Kazakhstan” (“The Influence of Demographic and Migration Processes on Inter-political Stability in the Republic of Kazakhstan”), Sayasat, Vol. 5, 1995, pp. 18–23.Google Scholar

49. See S. Erlanger, “Ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan Flocking Back to Motherland,” New York Times , 19 February 1995, p. 3; N. Masanov, “Migratsionnye Metamorfozy Kazakhstana” (“Migration Metamorphoses of Kazakhstan”), in A. Vyatikin et al., Dvizhenii Dobrovolnom i Vynuzhdennom (On the Move: Voluntarily and Involuntarily) (Moscow: Natalis Press, 1999), pp. 127–152.Google Scholar

50. The prospect of euro-centrism influencing homeland conceptions and identity is not, however, unique. Numerous cases of post-colonial migration have been catalyzed by the concern that indigenous rule will manifest in discrimination against former colonialists and groups not possessing titular status. See R. Brubaker, “Aftermaths of Empire and the Unmixing of Peoples: Historical and Comparative Perspectives,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 18, No. 2, 1995, pp. 189–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51. One respondent cited a pamphlet by Ilya Ehrenburg entitled “Kill,” wherein no distinction is made between Germans and Nazis or Fascists as became the custom in later years of Soviet rule. An excerpt from the pamphlet is as follows (capitalization in original): “The Germans are not humans! From now on, the word ‘German’ is the worst curse … We shall kill. IF YOU DON'T KILL AT LEAST ONE GERMAN IN THE COURSE OF A DAY, THEN YOU HAVE LOST A DAY … If you can't kill a German with a bullet, then kill him with a bayonet. When you let a German live, he will hang a Russian man, defile a Russian woman. WHEN YOU HAVE KILLED A GERMAN, KILL THE NEXT ONE, NOTHING MAKES US HAPPIER THAN GERMAN CORPSES! Don't count the days, don't count the kilometers. Count only one thing: the number of Germans killed. Kill the Germans! Your aged mother asks you to. Kill the Germans! Your child asks you to. Kill the Germans! The soil of the homeland calls on you to …,” facsimile in A. Eisfeld, “Die Rußlanddeutschen” (“The Russian Germans!), in Manfred Hellmann and Alfred Eisfeld, eds, Tausend Jahre Nachbarschaft —Ruβland und die Deutschen (Munich: Bruckmann, 1988), p. 78.Google Scholar

52. Author's interview, German respondent, Almaty, March 2000 (parenthetical content added). Such a statement must be taken in consideration of historical facts. As noted by Sidney Heitman, “Soviet policy toward exercising these (German cultural) rights was inconsistent, unpredictable, and often obstructed at local levels by indifferent or hostile officials.” It is from this context of unofficial discrimination that the substantial German out-migration from Kazakhstan occurred in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. See Heitman, The Soviet Germans in the USSR Today , pp. 544–555.Google Scholar

53. “Legitimately” used here to express a common belief among Koreans and many Soviet citizens of the period that the Koreans were honestly working to defeat the Nazis and Japanese, while the Germans were simply forced laborers. This conclusion is derived from statements by both Korean and German respondents in various interviews made in 2000 and 2002.Google Scholar

54. See G. Kan, “Koreitsy v Kazakhstane,” M. Gelb, “An Early Soviet Ethnic Deportation,” U. Um, “The Korean Diaspora in the Former Soviet Union and China: The Construction of Identity in Comparative Perspective,” in R. B. Suleimenova et al., Gosudarstvo i Obshestvo v Stranah Postsovetskovo Vostoka —Istoriya, Sovremennost, Perspektivy (State and Society in the Countries of Post Soviet East: History, Present Time and Prospects) (Almaty: Ministerstvo Obrazovaniya i Nauki Respubliki Kazakhstan, Institut Vostokovedeniya Almaty Daik Press, 1999), pp. 206–213.Google Scholar

55. Kan, “Koreitsy v Kazakhstane.”Google Scholar

56. Author's interview with Kazakhstani government official October 2001 (parenthetical content added).Google Scholar

57. One may find such sentimental musings of homeland relating to Kazakhstan outlined in Kan, “Koreitsy v Kazakhstane.”Google Scholar

58. According to an interview with G. N. Kim, roughly 200–300 Koreans come to Kazakhstan from other Central Asian states each year. Interviews with some of these recent migrants revealed both an overt rejection of the prospect of emigration from Central Asia and a belief that Kazakhstan provides a venue where they can be both “Korean” and “free.”Google Scholar

59. Quotation derived from transcript of a Korean focus group, Almaty, April 2000.Google Scholar

60. The Korean Kobonjil, a traditional self-supporting capitalistic (for-profit) account system of agriculture, has been adapted to fit the seasonal use of Korean farms, with families living in cities in the winter and commuting to the agricultural lands in the spring, summer and autumn. It has also been attributed with preserving much of the Korean culture and value systems during the community's years in Central Asia but has lost some of its power in the changing economy of the independence period. See T. H. Back, “The Social reality Faced by Ethnic Koreans in Central Asia,” in G. Kim and R. King, eds, Koryo Saram: Koreans in the Former USSR (New Haven: Korean and Korean American Studies Bulletin—East Rock Institute, 2001), p. 74.Google Scholar

61. See M. Han, “Language and Ethnic Self-Consciousness,” p. 91. As in the German case, looser Soviet control over minorities in Central Asia allowed for education to become a tool for furthering the prospects of both the individual and the community. Social advancement became a tradition within the community, which took pride in the number of Koreans functioning as prominent scholars, police officials, engineers, doctors, lawyers and technicians. See Back, “The Social Reality,” p. 74.Google Scholar

62. T. H. Back is critical of this trend, attributing it to an increase in materialism among the Koryo saram . Back, “The Social Reality,” p. 74.Google Scholar

63. An example of this adaptation can be found in the formation of a holding company named “Dostar Kazakhstan,” which is intended to manage financial affairs relating to Korean agriculture and business. See V. Litvinenko, “Kogda my Vmestye” (“When we are together—interview with President of Korean Association of Kazakhstan”), Kazakshtanskaya Pravda , 15 December 2001, p. 4.Google Scholar

64. A. Dederer, The Report on the Situation , pp. 1–17.Google Scholar

65. This included raions of non-“punished peoples” such as the Uighurs, who settled in the territory of Kazakhstan after being forced out of their homeland in China (Shinjiang) and Uzbeks whose existence in the southern portion of the state is largely related to the Soviet imposed boundaries. See P. A. Goble, “Can Republican Borders Be Changed?” Report on the USSR, Vol. 28, 1990, pp. 20–21 and P. A. Goble, “Stalin Draws the Borders,” Central Asia Monitor, Vol. 2, 1995, pp. 12–14.Google Scholar

66. For example, H. K. Um notes: “Central Asian Koreans call themselves ‘people of Koryo’ [koryo saram], whereas Sakhalin Koreans call themselves ‘people of Choson’ [choson saram]. The Sakhalin Koreans refer to the Koreans of the Russian mainland and Central Asia as the ‘people on the continent’ [k'unttang saram] and consider them to be more easy going than themselves, but more Sovietized. In Central Asia, Koreans in Uzbekistan pride themselves on being more Korean than their counterparts in Kazakhstan because they believe they have retained more of the Korean culture, primarily the language. On the other hand, Koreans in Kazakhstan consider themselves more sophisticated, that is to say, European.” H. K. Um, “The Korean Diaspora,” p. 220. See also M. Han, “Language and Ethnic Self-Consciousness,” p. 90.Google Scholar

67. Agentstvo po statistikii Kazakshtana, 1999.Google Scholar

68. Korean migration from economically disadvantaged oblasts to oblasts with higher per-capita incomes is a complex story. The trend is evident in the case of South Kazakhstan oblasts with a $42 per month average income and Kyzyl Orda oblast with a $67 per month average income losing Koreans to the cities of Almaty and Astana boasting roughly $88 per month incomes. However, Oka also notes that Zhambyl and Akmola oblasts have low monthly income averages ($47 and $44, respectively) but are experiencing no Korean outflow. Oka goes on to note that the trend of Korean migration out of predominantly Kazakh oblasts to more cosmopolitan environs is countered by the Zhambyl oblast. See N. Oka, “The Korean Diaspora in Nationalizing Kazakhstan: Strategies for Survival as and Ethnic Minority,” in Kim and King, Koryo Saram , pp. 89–113.Google Scholar

69. See N. Oka, “The Korean Diaspora in Nationalizing Kazakhstan, pp. 96–97 and T. H. Back, ”The Social Reality,“ pp. 55–57.Google Scholar

70. For data relating to a choice of “Partner” in different spheres of life among Kazakhstani-Koreans, see M. Han, “Language and Ethnic Self Consciousness,” p. 101.Google Scholar

71. Author's interview, German respondent, near Pavlodar, March 2002 (parenthetical content added).Google Scholar

72. In support of this point an elderly Korean respondent stated: “I first realized what the ‘area of compact living’ was (to me) when I went to university. I was in a big city and for the first time in my life I was not among my friends and family. I guess everyone experiences this when they leave home for the first time, but I remember thinking, really for the first time, that I was a Korean—I mean for the first time, I really thought about being a minority. It seems funny now, but I actually went looking for a restaurant where other Koreans would be.” Author's interview, Korean respondent, Almaty, November 2001.Google Scholar

73. Author's interview, German respondent, Almaty, March 2000.Google Scholar

74. Author's interview, German respondent, Pavlodar, October 2001.Google Scholar

75. “Silver gray the steppe, In the twilight, On the wide area, I am alone, Only the crickets' chirp, In the distance a dog barks, And the scent of wormwood, Rises from the ground, Windmill wings stare, Far on the village edge, Tower up to heaven, Black as if by magic, And now the full moon lifts, Up its golden face, Submerges the entire steppe, In its magical light, All of the world's bustle, Seems so distant and far, Steppe, you give peace, And you heal every sorrow.” By Julie Hanke, reproduced in Langin, Die Deutschen in der UdSSR , p. 117.Google Scholar

76. G. Kan, “Koreitsy v Kazakhstane,” pp. 109–151.Google Scholar

77. In response to this prominent discourse, B. Irmkhanov has provided an alternative historical account of this alleged assistance, asserting “at the time the Kazakhs were preoccupied with other things, and not with helping other peoples; they had recently survived a famine and needed a piece of bread for themselves.” Irmukhanov is quoted in G. N. Kim, “The Deportation of 1937,” p. 35. G. N. Kim goes on to state that his own research has revealed no evidence of friction or rivalry between the Kazakh and Koreans people in this period, but he also notes that work by Kerekhan Amanzholov suggests that Kazakhs may have actually suffered from the settlement of Koreans within their territory. Amanzholv maintains that the most fertile lands that had formerly belonged to Kazakhs were organized instead into Korean collective farms. Some members of the Kazakh intelligentsia were executed because of association with Korean deportees under suspicion of developing Japanese sympathies. And finally, he asserts that government assistance that might have gone to Kazakh farms, schools, hospitals, and housing was diverted to Korean settlement venues. These ideas are as yet unproven and require additional research.Google Scholar

78. Y. Von Sik, “The Land of Kazakhstan,” Yan Nuva, Vol. 4, 1997, p. 3.Google Scholar

79. Author's interview with German respondent, near Astana, October 2001 (parenthetical content added).Google Scholar

80. Some members of the Korean intelligentsia did express a desire to see the creation of a more coherent program of diasporic support from South Korea to ethnic Koreans of Central Asia.Google Scholar

81. Author's interview with Korean Respondent, near Almaty, April 2000 (parenthetical content added).Google Scholar

82. For data relating to the rate of exogamy for non-indigenes in Kazakhstan 1978–1988 divided into urban/rural categories, see R. Kaiser, “Nations and Homelands in Soviet Central Asia,” in R. Lewis, ed., Geographic Perspectives on Soviet Central Asia (New York: Routledge 1992), pp. 279–309.Google Scholar

83. See Brubaker, “Aftermaths of Empire,” pp. 189–218; G. S. Vitkovskaya, “Relocation to Russia from the States of Central Asia: Understanding the Decision to Migrate,” in J. Azrael and E. Payin, eds, Cooperation and Conflict in the Former Soviet Union: Implications for Migration (Santa Monica: RAND Center for Eurasian Studies and Center for Ethno-political and Regional Research, 1996). For data relating to the Homeland Conceptions of Non-Kazakhs, divided into categories of length of residence, during the early years of Kazakhstan's independence, see (FBIS-USR-94-082) “Non-Kazakhs Polled on Homeland Perceptions,” FBIS Daily Reports, 1 August 1994—Almaty KARAVAN in Russian No. 29, 22 July 1994, p. 4.Google Scholar

84. “Recent arrivals” is a title that can be applied to a number of groups, including the majority of Caucasian peoples of Kazakhstan (Chechens, Ingush, Meskhetian Turks, etc.). Although some members of these groups opted to return to the Caucuses in the 1950s and 1960s, a considerable portion remains in Kazakhstan. See Masanov, “Migratsionnye Metamorfozy Kazakhstana,” pp. 127–152.Google Scholar

85. North Korea is not included as a potential kin-state due to the overwhelming negativity expressed by Kazakhstani-Koreans toward any relations with North Korea. While East Germany's recent socialist past remains apparent in the landscape, Kazakhstani-Germans' sense of familiarity and commonality with those Germans who also lived under socialism (East Germans) is quite limited.Google Scholar

86. In the case of the Kazakhstani-Germans, their kin-state possesses one of the world's most powerful economies and boasts a $23,400 per-capita gross domestic product (GDP). Unemployment, however, has jumped in recent years to 9.9% and the “real growth rate” has slowed to 3%. This economic downturn is due to large social security outlays, an aging population, and the need to invest heavily in the development of Eastern Germany. Despite this fact, Germany remains an attractive destination for Germans of the former Soviet Union. South Korea, on the other hand, is emerging from a recent economic crisis (1997–1999) and can be best categorized as a member of the “semi-periphery.” The state boasts a $16,100 per-capita GDP, a 9% growth rate in “real GDP” and an unemployment rate of roughly 4.1%. Compared to Kazakhstan's 13.7% unemployment rate, 13.4% inflation rate, and $5,000 per-capita GDP, South Korea would also appear to be an attractive destination country. Such a migration stream has, however, not developed.Google Scholar

87. While most Germans from the USSR came from Kazakhstan, a considerable portion came from Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. See A. Kolosov, “Our Compatriots in Germany: Myths and Reality,” Otan Tarikh, Vol. 1, 2001, p. 103.Google Scholar

88. A. Kolosov, “Our Compatriots in Germany: Myths and Reality,” p. 101.Google Scholar

89. Author's interview, German respondent, Pavlodar, March 2001.Google Scholar

90. The total German population dropped from 946,855 in 1989 to 353,441 in 1999. This constitutes a loss of 62.7% of the German community in Kazakhstani territory. See Agentstvo Respubliki Kazakhstana po Statistike, 1999, Kratkiye Itoigi , p. 100.Google Scholar

91. Migration News, “Germany, Ethnic Germans, Kurds and Construction,” Migration News, Vol. 3, No. 4, 1996 <http://migration.ucdavis.eduy/mn/more.php?id=923_0_4_0>..>Google Scholar

92. This constitutes a moderate departure from Germany's longstanding “citizenship by blood” policy. The “Basic Law” was established in 1949 and held the provision that ethnic Germans who suffered because they were German have the right to enter Germany as citizens.Google Scholar

93. Literature pertaining to the “Spataussiedler”—as these ethnic German migrants are referred to in Germany—has been extensive over the last decade. For examples of English language sources, see T. Bauer and F. Zimmermann, “Network Migration of Ethnic Germans,” International Migration Review, Vol. 31, No. 1, 1997, pp. 143–149; W. Chandler,“ Integration and Identity in German Politics,” in Peter H. Merkl, ed., The Federal Republic of Germany at Fifty: The End of a Century of Turmoil (New York: New York University Press, 1999), pp. 58–71; W. Chapin, Germany for Germans?: The Political Effects of International Migration, Contributions to Political Science, Vol. 381 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997); and Rippley, “New Policy for Germans returning from Russia to Germany,” Heritage Review, Vol. 21, No. 4, 1997, pp. 25–26. A German language source is Dietz and Hilkes, Integriert order isoliert?: Zur Situation ruβlanddueutscher Aussiedler in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Integrated or Isolated?: Concerning the Situation of Russian German Emigrants in the Federal Republic of Germany) (Munich: Olzog Verlag, 1994).Google Scholar

94. A. Kolosov, “Our Compatriots in Germany: Myths and Reality,” p. 103 and M. Zharip, “Tanys ta Beitanys Germaniya,” p. 3.Google Scholar

95. Under pressure from the Social Democrats, support for language training has been cut in Germany dropping the amount of state subsidized training from 15 months to six months. See Migration News, “Germany, Ethnic Germans,” 1996.Google Scholar

96. According to Yonap News Agency, South Korean politicians advanced the argument that because these groups were outside of South Korea before the state was established (1948), the state should not be responsible for them. According to G. N. Kim and R. King, Koryo Saram , p. 15: “Ties to Korea were already attenuated in the late 1920s and completely severed from the 1930s until the breakup of the Soviet Union 60 years later. Even connections between the Koryo saram and North Korea were non-existent until 1989.” Further evidence of migration resistance is available in the following statement of a South Korean diplomat, quoted in G. Wormsbecher: “We have a small country, in which more than 40 million people live. Of course we will not close the door to our countrymen who want to return to the land of their ancestors. But we would not want a massive immigration of foreign Koreans. Soviet Koreans are citizens of the USSR, and we prefer that they remain in their country.” See G. Wormsbecher, “Statehood for Soviet Germans Viewed,” Sovetskaya Rossiya, 11 August 1990, p. 2, FBIS-SOV-90-162 Daily Report Soviet Union, August 1990, p. 30.Google Scholar

97. O. Dimov, “Tsel—Grazhdanskoye Soglaciye” (“The Goal—Civil Consent”), in A. Kelkilbayev et al., eds, Deported Peoples in Kazakhstan: Time and Destiny (Almaty: Arys-Kazakhstan, 1998), pp. 371–404.Google Scholar

98. This statement implies a desire among at least some Germans to remain in Kazakhstan. Territorialization is further suggested by the plea for “the state government to use those funds being spent for migrants in Germany in Kazakhstan itself, to support economic projects of German entrepreneurs living in Kazakhstan and former German inhabitants of Kazakhstan,” See Panorama, “Kazakhstan: Problems of Ethnic Germans Discussed,” Panorama, Almaty, FBIS-SOV-97-092 Daily Report Central Eurasia, 2 April 1997, p. 92.Google Scholar

99. See R. Moniac, “Bonn Insists on CIS Area for Ethnic Germans,” Die Welt, 31 January 1992, p. 4, FBIS-WEU-92-022 Daily Reports, 3 February 1992, p. 16; Zhas Alash, “Nemisterdi Tangkaldyrghan Toghiz Zhil” (“Nine Years that Amazed Germans”), Zhas Alash, Vol. 1, No. 20, 6 October 2001. Humanitarian aid in the form of medical supplies has been regularly supplied to oblasts with high percentages of Germans. Additional assistance has been provided in road construction throughout Kazakhstan. See T. Ramberdi, “Germaniyadan Gumanitarlyk Kumek Keldi” (“Humanitarian Aid Came from Germany”), Egemen Kazakhstan, 23 February 2000, p. 3.Google Scholar

100. While these businesses exhibited tendencies to privilege ethnic Korean employment, G. N. Kim, representative of the Association of Kazakhstani-Koreans, states that this practice is dissipating and giving way to a more level playing field within Korean sponsored businesses.Google Scholar

101. The inclusion of Kazakh language courses in this curriculum suggests a realization of the need to demonstrate sensitivity to the titular peoples of the state. By learning Kazakh—the official state language—Koreans ingratiate themselves to the Nazarbayev regime and make important strides toward establishing themselves as fully vested members of the “Kazakhstani civic nation.”Google Scholar

102. Some estimates hold that nearly 76.2% of the German population has emigrated in this period.Google Scholar

103. Author's interview, German respondent, Karaganda, October 2001.Google Scholar

104. Author's interview with G. N. Kim, Almaty, January 2002.Google Scholar

105. See W. Safran, “Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return,” Diaspora, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1991, pp. 83–92; Cohen, Global Diasporas, p. 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

106. As noted by Eric J. Schmaltz, “viewing themselves as a ‘chosen people’ with claim to a ‘historical homeland’ in Germany, the Russian Germans have sometimes called their migration to the West ‘the exodus’.” See E. Schmaltz, “Preface,” in Sinner, The Open Wound, p. xviii. For other examples, see Dr. Heinrich Groth's “Exodus Plan,” in Anton Bosch et al., “Das Karussell um Ausreise und Autonomic dreht sich weiter,” Volk auf dem Weg, No. 3, March 1990, p. 5; A. Dupper, Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1983, pp. 1–8; and R. Frank, Wolgadeutsche Schicksale (The Volga Germans' Fate) (Frankfurt: R. G. Fisher, 1995), pp. 227, 232–233.Google Scholar

107. It should also be noted that such religious imagery was used against the Germans as the “Russian Orthodox Church placed itself completely at the service of the Soviet war propaganda, calling for a ‘crusade,’ for a ‘holy war against the fascist intruders,’ and in this way spread hatred against the Germans, who were described as ‘robbers,’ and ‘brood of hell,’ ‘Hitler–Moloch,’ ‘the devil's rule,’ ‘fascist animals’.” See J. Schmaltz, “Preface,” p. xxviii.Google Scholar

108. J. Voltz, “Aus Nebraska, Blut wird nicht zu Wasser!”' (“Out of Nebraska, ‘Blood Does Not Turn to Water!”’), Die Welt-Post , 18 September 1941, p. 8.Google Scholar

109. See G. Krell, H. Nicklas and A. Ostermann, “Immigration, Asylum, and Anti-Foreigner Violence in Germany,” Journal-of-Peace-Research, Vol. 33, 1996, pp. 153–70; A. Kolosov “Our Compatriots in Germany: Myths and Reality,” pp. 103–110; and A. Nesypbai, “Kazakhstanning Kadirin Germaniyada Sezindik” (“We Learned Kazakhstan's Worth in Germany”), Egemen Kazakhstan, 29 April 2000, p. 2.Google Scholar

110. See A. Kolosov, “Our Compatriots in Germany,” p. 104; and Dietz and Hilkes, Integriert order isoliert? ; T. Bauer and F. Zimmermann, “Network Migration of Ethnic Germans,” pp. 143–145; Chandler, “Integration and Identity in German Politics,” pp. 58–64.Google Scholar

111. In a quote that is applicable to both Germans and Koreans from Kazakhstan, a rather blunt South Korean diplomat asserts that “having been born in a socialist system, they will hardly be able to adapt to Korean (or German) society, and we have enough malcontents of our own.” Quoted in M. Maksimov, “Seoul Likely to Seek ‘Korean National Enclave’,” Komsomolskaya Pravda , 18 November 1992, p. 3, FBIS-USR-92-155 Daily Report Soviet Union, 4 December 1992, p. 1, parenthetical comment added.Google Scholar

112. Author's interview, Korean respondent, Almaty, January 2002.Google Scholar

113. Author's interviews with G. N. Kim and several business leaders of the Kazakhstani-Korean community supported this point. In the 2001 volume of the Korean American Studies Bulletin (Vol. 12, No. 2/3), various authors note the lack of interest among Central Asian Koreans to migrate to South Korea. See G. N. Kim and R. King, Koryo Saram, p. 11. It should be noted that a contract labor agreement between Kazakhstan and South Korea has created a steady flow of cheap labor to South Korean businesses. However, this contingent of laborers is only, according to local experts, 5–10% Korean, the rest being Kazakhs. Such low levels of Korean participation in the contract labor program reflect the general wealth of the Korean community and, to some degree, a lack of attachment to their “historic homeland.” G. N. Kim's estimates provided in interviews conducted in January and February 2002, Almaty, Kazakhstan.Google Scholar

114. G. N. Kim, “The Deportation of 1937,” p. 31 and S. Sinner, The Open Wound , pp. 97–113.Google Scholar

115. J. Holm-Hansen, “Political Integration in Kazakhstan,” pp. 153–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar