History
Kazakhstan
has been inhabited since the Stone Age, generally by, for which
the region's climate and terrain are best suited. Following the
Mongolian invasion, administrative districts were established under
the Mongol Empire, which eventually became the territories of the
Kazakh Khanate. Traditional nomadic life on the vast steppe and
semi-desert lands was characterized by a constant search for new
pasture to support the livestock-based economy. The Kazakhs emerged
from a mixture of tribes living in the region in about the fifteenth
century and by the middle of the sixteenth century had developed
a common language, culture, and economy. The beginning of the 18th
century marked the zenith of the Kazakh Khanate. |
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| In the nineteenth century, the Russian
Empire began to expand, and spread into Central Asia. The tsars ruled
over most of the territory belonging to what is now the Republic of
Kazakhstan. The Russian Empire introduced a system of administration
and built military garrisons and barracks in its effort to establish
a presence in Central Asia in the so-called "Great Game"
between it and the United Kingdom. Russian efforts to impose its system
in Kazakhstan, and by the 1860s, most Kazakhs resisted Russia's annexation.
From the 1890s onwards ever-larger numbers of Slavic settlers began
colonizing the territory of present-day Kazakhstan. The competition
for land and water which ensued between the Kazakhs and the newcomers
caused great resentment against colonial rule during the final years
of tsarist Russia, with the most serious uprising, the Central Asian
Revolt, occurring in 1916. Then, the Kazakhs succumbed to Soviet rule. In 1920, the area of present-day Kazakhstan became an autonomous republic within Russia. And in 1936 Kazakhstan became a Soviet republic. Kazakhstan experienced population inflows of millions exiled from other parts of the Soviet Union during the 1930s and 1940s; many of the deportation victims were deported to Siberia or Kazakhstan merely due to their ethnic heritage or beliefs, and were in many cases interned in some of the biggest Soviet labor camps. The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) contributed five national divisions to the Soviet Union's World War II effort. In 1947, two years after the end of the war, the USSR's main nuclear weapon test site was founded in Kazakhstan. The period of World War II marked an increase in industrialization and increased mineral extraction in support of the war effort. At the time of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's death, however, Kazakhstan still had an agricultural-based economy. Following the August 1991 abortive coup attempt in Moscow and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan declared independence on December 16, 1991. The years following independence have been marked by significant reforms to the Soviet command-economy and political monopoly on power. Under Nursultan Nazarbayev, who initially came to power in 1989 as the head of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and was eventually elected President in 1991, Kazakhstan has made significant progress toward developing market economy. The country has enjoyed significant economic growth since 2000, partly due to its large oil, gas, and mineral reserves. |
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