Les Polonais du Kazakhstan entre l’intégration et la Patrie rêvée

Abstract

Among the 128 nationalities quoted in the 1999 census in Kazakhstan, amounting 15,6 millions inhabitants (among which 53% are ethnic Kazakhs, 30%, Russians), appear more or less numerous communities, some of them being well known such as the Volga Germans, Ouïgours, Coreans. The Poles of Kazakhstan represent a special case of a constraint diaspora. Its formation as a social group is largely connected with the painful history of the relationships between Poland and the Russian Empire, then, Soviet Union, in its attempt to solve the Polish question during the World War II. Their attempts to preserve their identity, by self organization since the collapse of the Soviet Union for those who prefer to stay in Kazakhstan, or by choosing to come back to their mythical Motherland, are dramatically interesting to point out. The aim of this article is to put some light on this unknown population part of the ethnic puzzle in Kazakhstan. 20 000 out of the 61 000 quoted in the 1989 census have left Kazakhstan to Russia, Poland or other European countries since 15 years. Although being numerously weak, and enduring a new process of kazakhization after «ukranization» and russification, it might be able to keep some influence through the strategy of religious concord developed by the Kazakh power to settle its political stability and in order to be recognized as a specific inter-confessional country in the international arena.

Keywords

• deportation
• diaspora
• exile
• identity
• Kazakhstan
• Poles