Doctor of Philosophy / Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Lothar F. Weyher / This dissertation explores the case of emigration from Latvia towards the West after collapse of the Soviet Union. It takes the perspective of a particular cultural structure that came to dominate post-Soviet Latvia and adopts the vantage point of the state-society relationships this structure has cast. The central question of this study examines: what is the relationship between the cultural structure in post-Soviet Latvia and emigration towards the West? This study answers this question by contrasting Latvia’s civil discourse with emigrants’ and those who remain in Latvia personal narratives through the lens of cultural sociology that emphasizes the role of the symbolic realm, meaning making, and emotions. Research findings suggested that the post-Soviet cultural structure was dominated by "symbolic codes" (Alexander and Smith, 1993) or sharp divides such as West vs. East/Soviet, Right vs. Left, and Developed vs. Underdeveloped. Notably, symbolic codes of West, Right and Developed were constructed as “sacred” while their opposites were pushed out of "sacred" and ridiculed. These divides originated from such particular emotions as shame, confidence/pride and fear. Their meanings in the dominant transformation discourse and emotional origins were formative to the identity and modern state craft, and subjectivities in post-Soviet Latvia. These sharp divides between what is "sacred" in a community and what is not, came with "unintended consequences" (Weber, 2002). These divides and how they shaped the transformation discourse trumpeted misguided notion of the West, post-Soviet Latvia so eagerly wanted to resemble and belong to. Given this distorted notion of the West, the ruling elite fashioned environment where people not only lost hope for their better future in Latvia but began to lose their self-confidence - an important emotion for one’s "willingness to act" (Barbalet, 2004, p.83); and, as such, were more prone to emigration. Emigration for my respondents provided the space where West and Left were experienced as compatible despite their construction as incompatible in post-Soviet Latvia. Amidst confidence over their better future in their receiving countries, this gave to emigrants also a feeling of comfort, sense of self-confidence and empowerment.

En Asie centrale la construction soviétique s’est avérée difficile, puisqu’elle impliquait la transformation radicale des sociétés locales. Cette thèse va montrer comment les 70 ans de pouvoir soviétique ont changé pour toujours la société, l’économie et la culture du Kazakhstan. Une attention particulière est donnée à la population kazakhe à partir des premières années soviétiques, jusqu’aux années 2000, à leurs parcours dans la capitale soviétique et ensuite dans la métropole contemporaine. Cette thèse aborde les questions comme la rencontre des anciens nomades Kazakhs avec les Russes dans l’espace urbain, le rôle de l’ethnicité et de la culture locale dans les transformations promues par le pouvoir soviétique et, ensuite, dans le processus de construction nationale. La reconstruction de l’histoire sociale de la communauté urbaine, avec l’aide des archives et d’entretiens approfondis, nous révèle une société complexe qui a su adapter la culture locale et celle soviétique en créant sa propre version du soviétisme. Notre thèse suppose que dans ce contexte, les questions sociales liées à l’urbanisation, qui se perpétuent jusqu’à la fin de l’URSS, influenceront considérablement les transformations d’après 1991 et que sans une bonne attention à l’univers local, nous ne pouvons pas comprendre le passé soviétique en Asie centrale, ni les transformations récentes. Dans la ville, le pouvoir soviétique et ensuite celui du président kazakh Nazarbaev contribuent à construire des espaces publics et une mémoire urbaine qui racontent la modernité du peuple kazakh. Notre recherche montre que la ville est un cas d’étude utile pour développer un discours plus ample concernant les sociétés et les cultures du monde. / In Central Asia the imposition of the Soviet State proved to be difficult, as it implied the radical transformation of local societies. This dissertation shows how 70 years of Soviet power changed forever Kazakhstan’s society, economy and culture. Its focuses in particular on the Kazakh people starting from the first Soviet years to the 2000s, and on their journey towards the Soviet capital and later towards a contemporary metropolis. This dissertation approaches questions such as the encounter of the ex Kazakh nomads with the Russians in the urban space, the role of ethnicity and of the local culture in the transformations promoted by the Soviet State and, later, in the process of nation building. The reconstruction of the social history of the urban community, with the aid of archives and in-depth interviews, reveals a complex society which adapted the local culture and the Soviet one to create its own version of Sovietism. My dissertation argues that in such context, social questions connected to the urbanization, which remain actual till the end of the Soviet Union, will affect considerably the transformations after 1991 and that if we do not pay the just attention to the local universe, we cannot understand the Soviet past in Central Asia, neither the recent changes. In the city, the Soviet power and, later, that of Kazakh President Nazarbaev, contribute to the construction of public spaces and of urban memory telling about the modernity of the Kazakh people. The city is, as I put it in my research, is a useful case study to develop broader questions regarding world cultures and societies.