Poesie und Protest. Der "Blutige Januar" in der zeitgenössischen Dichtung Kasachstans

In early 2022, protests broke out across the Republic of Kazakhstan. Initially, peaceful protesters demonstrated against a price increase for liquefied gas, but later they began to demand political reforms as well. After the protests in Almaty were hijacked by marauding gangs and could not be brought under control by the security forces, Kazakhstan’s president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared a state of emergency and called on the Russian-dominated military alliance Collective Security Treaty Organisation for help. Within a few days, peace and order had been restored, but not without the massive use of force.

When the internet and mobile connections, which had been blocked for days throughout the riots, started working again in Kazakhstan, many Kazakhstani poets took to social media to express their thoughts. In a multitude of poems, they process the events of Bloody January. This ZOiS Report includes a small selection of these poems in German translation and my analysis of this early literary debate on Kazakhstan’s ‘Bloody January’.