Sovyetler Birliği sonrası Kazakistan ve Özbekistan'da Ahıska Türkleri ve Koreliler: diaspora kimlik ve kültürünün inşası

ABSTRACTAhıska Turks and Koreans in Post-Soviet Kazakstan and Uzbekistan:The Making of Diaspora Identity and CultureChong Jin OHPh.D., Department of International RelationsSupervisor : Associate Professor Hakan KırımlıDecember 2006After the collapse of the Soviet Union, all of the newly independent governments in CentralAsia aimed at nationalizing or indigenizing the territories under their control and rectifying what manysaw as decades of dominance by foreign actors. These states made great efforts to undertake variousnation-building projects. For individuals in many nationalizing states in Central Asia, knowledge of thetitular language became increasingly important in order to obtain, maintain and advance their careerand position in the society. In other words, members of the titular nations had somewhere to go andsettle after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the non-titular groups, which included group such asthe Jews, the Volga Germans, the Koreans, the Crimean Tatars, Ahıska Turks, had nowhere to go.These diasporas found themselves in the middle of nowhere. These ethnic minorities or diasporas are,perhaps, the main losers in the nation-building process in post-Soviet Central Asia due to theirpowerlessness and vulnerability. As peoples deported by the Soviet regime, these groups were forcedto migrate against their will.By using Korean and Ahıska Turkish diasporas in Uzbekistan and Kazakstan as cases, thisstudy examines, to some extent, how diasporas are influenced by nationalizing states in Central Asia. Itattempts to inquire into the factors which influence the existence, nature and intensity of ethno-nationalism in the diasporas? context. Therefore, it analyzes both the existence and transmission ofethno-nationalism between the diasporas? settings and homelands and specifically will deal with thetransmission of ethno-nationalist sentiments across diasporas? generations. Above all, the task of thisinquiry is to examine the sources of diversity within diaspora relations and to move toward an analysisof the patterns of interaction among trans-border ethnic groups, their traditional ethnic homelands, andthe states in which they reside. The comparative content of this investigation will show considerablevariations in these practices in different settings and groupings.