The polyethnic composition of the population of Northern Kazakhstan in the late XIX–XXІ centuries: historical features, current trends and prospects

Abstract

In the article features of formation of polyethnic structure of the population of Northern Kazakhstan since
1897 and till 2016, inclusive are considered. It is emphasized that a key factor in the transformation of
a mono-ethnic region with the Kazakh population into a multinational with a long predominance of the Russian-Slavic component has been large-scale migration associated with the priorities of social and economic policy, first of tsarist Russia, and then of the Soviet state. Since the 1990s, migrations have changed the vector towards the outflow of German, Russian, Ukrainian and other ethnic groups outside Kazakhstan and far abroad. The author comes to the conclusion that at the present time the Kazakh ethnos managed to restore to some extent the lost positions, having increased its number and share, nevertheless, in the long term, the polyethnic structure of the population in the region will remain, with an almost equal representation of the two largest ethnic groups - Kazakhs and Russian.