On June 25, 2019 in the National Institute for Strategic Studies the board of experts met with Rustem Kadirzhanov, PhD candidate, professor and chief research officer at the Institute for Philosophy, Political Science and Religious Studies of Committee Science of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Professor Kadirzhanov is a fellow of the following programs: IREX (Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center, 1999), Fulbright (Indiana University-Bloomington, 2004/2005), DAAD (2009; 2014). He published three personal monographs, 20 joint monographs, over 100 articles, including those published in the Scopus indexed journals. The topic of his current research is nation-building and interethnic relations in Kazakhstan. At the present moment he is a head of a grant project “Cultural integration of ethnic groups in Kazakhstan” (2018-2020).
During the meeting Mr. Kadirzhanov told in details about his research, its scope and background, the current state of cultural and language integration in Kazakhstan and somewhat slow process of “Kazakhstanization” in society. The project includes investigation of processes of cultural and language integration in all polyethnic countries on post-Soviet terrains. According to professor, the origins of several problems in this realm lie, inter alia, in forced displacement of local ethnic populations, organized by the Soviet authorities, as well as in attempts of present authorities in several states to “protect its people” on the territory of another Unitarian state.
The experts of the NISS provided scholar with the information on the current state and prospects of cultural integration in Ukrainian polyethnic society, based on Ukrainian language and culture, as well as on the role of the state and political factors in general in societal “Ukrainization” in our country. There was also a discussion about the changes in Ukrainian legal system regarding educational and language issues, their purposefulness, as well as the current or potential problems that may occur due to implementation of these changes, the ways of their solution, and irreversibility of societal “Ukrainization” and building of national identity in Ukraine.
The National Institute for Strategic Studies was represented by Yulia Kaplan – vice-head of Department of Ethnonational Relations, Reintegration, and Development of Civil Society, Sergiy Zubchenko – vice-head of Department of Humanitarian Policy, and Tetiana Zaiats – key advisor in Department of external communications.