Independence Day of Kazakhstan (Kazakh: Қазақстанның Тәуелсіздік күні, Qazaqstannyñ Täwelsızdık künı, [qɑzɑqstʰɑˈnːɯŋtʰæwʲelsɘzˈdɘkkʰʏˈnɘ]), is the main national holiday of Kazakhstan, celebrated annually on 16th of December.
The holiday is celebrated for 1 day on December 16. If the 16 December falls on a weekend, the following Monday will be a holiday. Yurts (traditional tents) are set up in many villages where local delicacies will be served.[5] It tends to be commemorated indoors due to the coinciding winter season.[6] The Astana Opera organizes concerts involving national orchestras that will perform traditional music. Many nationalist politicians and activists use the holiday as an occasion to accuse to the Russian government of attempted genocide of the ethnic population during periods such as the Kazakh famine of 1932–33 and the population transfer of Kazakhs in the Soviet Union.[7]
Jeltoqsan commemorations
Independence Day is also used as a day of remembrance of the 1986 Jeltoqsan protests, which was the starting point of discontent against Soviet rule, on Brezhnev Square (present-day Republic Square) against the government of Gennady Kolbin, which began on the same day as Independence Day. By the 1980s, democratization in the Soviet Union began to rise with the 1986 protests, which followed a major unrest in Central and Eastern Europe that began in Poland that spilled over into the individual republics.
To coincide with the 10th anniversary of Independence Day in 2001, commemorative medals and coins were issued as well as festive train tour named Менің Қазақстаным ("My Kazakhstan") was launched from May of that year and travelled around the country until December, stopping in places to hold events and concerts with local residents including in remote villages. The passengers on the train included famous artists, filmmakers, writers and journalists, doctors and officials, lawyers and librarians as well.[13] In late August, Kazakh border guards held a relay race along the nation's boundaries from outpost to outpost where a miniature copy of the Golden Warrior Monument was passed.[14]
At a solemn meeting held on 16 December 2001 in Astana, President Nursultan Nazarbayev presented a speech titled "Ten years equal to a century", where he emphasised the positive results that Kazakhstan has made for the decade since its independence.[14]
2011
On 27 January 2011, President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a decree, declaring the year as the 20th anniversary of Independence Day that would be held under the motto of "20 years of peace and creation" as well as the formation of a state commission that would carry out the celebration.[15]
On 16 December, a constitutional act "On State Independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan" was adopted, which declared that the 20th anniversary celebrations took place amidst as a successful state with "a democratic, political and legal system, a stable economy and a high level of wellbeing of the population" as a "century-old dream" by ancestors that was fulfilled by Nazarbayev.[16] That same day as various celebrations were held across the country, unrest broke out in town of Zhanaozen where striking oil workers disrupted a concert event held at the main square, resulting in clashes between the workers and police that led to several deaths as the unarmed protestors were gunned down, becoming one of Kazakhstan's most bloodiest event since its independence.[17]
2016
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited in 2016 to attend the 25th anniversary celebrations.[18]
2021
For the 30th anniversary in 2021, a commission under the Ministry of Information and Social Development to prepare for the anniversary was established in October 2019.[19] President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced that an amnesty will be held for those brought to criminal responsibility.[20] In January 2021, Tokayev proposed that during the celebrations, a short history of Kazakhstan should be written for a foreign audience (translated in to the languages of the world) as means of "not succumbing to the influence of alien ideology".[21]
Foreign celebrations
On the first anniversary in 1992, an orchestra of folk instruments from Semipalatinsk took part in a ceremony hosted by the Kazakh embassy in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow.[22] Many celebrations in the United States are held by the diaspora in the state of New York as well as the Kazakh embassy in Washington, D.C.[23]
