BDB Bertsolaritzaren datu-basea

Despite a climate of authoritarianism and heavy censorship of independent media and political opposition in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, Kazakh aitys akhyndar (improvisational poets) have emerged as a voice of sociopolitical critique. In excerpts analyzed here, poets speaking as and for the xalykh (Kazakh people) berated contemporary Kazakhstani leaders as greedy, impotent, and russified. This article examines how poets' successful critique was made possible and protected by the conflictive and collaborative nature of poets' dialogues, by the legitimacy of aitys as “authentic Kazakh culture” as a result of folklorization processes, and by the collusion of the tradition's sponsors, members of the country's political elite. (Kazakh aitys, poetic dialogism, accountability in performance, post-Soviet nationalisms, cultural sponsorship, folklorization, Central Asian media, post-Soviet political critique).