Central Asia as the Focus of the Struggle for Power and Legitimacy: The Language and Education Policies of the Soviet Government
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In this study we focused on the language and education policies of the Soviet Government and Communist Party concerning Central Asian Turks through the analysis of textbooks used in schools. We tried to examine the struggle for hegemony and power during the process of Russianization. In order to bring to light the struggle for hegemony applied upon Turkic people and to analyze the policies carried out by Russians, we made use of Michel Foucault's work and his model concerning power and its apparatuses. While focusing on the Soviet Government's Central Asian language and education policy, we examined two primary school textbooks (one of the most significant normalization techniques of the government) published in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in 1962 and attempted to show what kind of a role these books on reading and language learning played in the legitimization of power.