Toward Post-Russianness? Narrative Adjustment among Kazakhstani Teachers of Russian

Abstract

Dominance and prestige of Russian in the former Soviet empire had always been based on the postulation of civilization mission of Russian speakers and the idea of superiority of the Russian language and culture. Russian has been constructed as an element of a greater intellectual culture, a sign of modernity and new Soviet identity. For long Russian was a hegemonic force and the teachers of Russian were at the forefront of the Russification policy. Now in the post-Soviet, postimperial context, these mediators of the Russification policy are caught up in ideological tensions about the Russian language and cultural and professional identification. Analysis of semistructured ethnographic interviews with university and school teachers of Russian aged 50 and older, whose preservice training and professional life started during the height of the Russification policy, shows that narrative adjustment is mainly articulated through the redefinition of the value of Russian in the new language economy. The study adds to the discussion of semiotic mechanisms of narrative adjustment, intertextuality in our case; it furthers our understanding of ideological shifts, showing not only why shifts happen, but also how such shifts take place.

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