Introduction: Nation-Building in the Post-Soviet Space: Old, New and Changing Tools

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores new tools and strategies of nation-building or at the very least less conventional forms of policies or approaches to studying post-Soviet nation-building. Post-Soviet nation-building is a product, at least initially, of the ascribing and institutionalisation of nationality and ethnicity as core categories of political, social and cultural organisation during the Soviet period. Civil society and non-state actors cannot initiate formal laws and there is little doubt that they are much less influential in post-Soviet spaces. The book explores the traditional policy tool of assimilation within the self-defined Kzakhstani civic state. It explains the theme of language in nation-building in the post-Soviet space, but all use different analytical markers. The book explains the nation-building process through the analytical lens of changing trends over time of mortality and religion in Russia.