| In June 2010, Kyrgyzstan's "Southern Capital" of Osh became host to a violent conflict in which hundreds were killed and thousands of homes destroyed. These events earned the etic label of "ethnic conflict", but where do the residents of Osh believe the responsibility lies? Surprisingly, "language" is one explanation offered by Kyrgyz in particular, who comprise a majority of Kyrgyzstan's population, but only a slim plurality in Osh. Shortly before the violence began, a leader of the minority Uzbeks publicly demanded that the Uzbek language receive official recognition, and many Kyrgyz reacted angrily to what they perceived as an act of separatism. The politicized nature of language in the former Soviet sphere has roots in the Union's largely successful efforts in reifying ethnolinguistic linkages that were previously tenuous. This dissertation explores the fruits of this reification project in examining the relationship between language ideologies and ethnic identity in Osh before and after the conflict. Based on twenty months of fieldwork conducted from 2008 to 2014, I argue that the ambivalence surrounding code choices and language purity stems metonymically from concerns about the success of the "nation" as a whole. At the same time, frequent code mixing also demonstrates the capacity for linguistic choices to just as easily break or challenge the rigidity of ethnic boundaries. In the first chapter, I consider the consequences of the conflict itself and demonstrate how it ethnicized previously neutral space. Since the roots of the conflict have a historical precedence, the second chapter examines the history of ethnic boundary formation in the region. The third, fourth, and fifth chapters contrast the ideologies coating the city's three primary languages: Russian, Uzbek, and Kyrgyz respectively. The final chapter examines how these languages are taught in local schools and concludes that the current yoking of ethnicity and language in the classroom problematically prevents Uzbeks from integrating into what could become a more pluralistic model of citizenship. The Soviet ideal of the "friendship of peoples" still lingers in local memory as a distant, but nevertheless tangible dream. |
