In Kazakhstan, the Russian language is the second language according to the Constitution and the language of international communication. At the same time, it is dominant in Kazakhstani literature. I see several reasons for this dominance. 

First, we are a post-Soviet multinational country, and the Russian language is still the means of communication between different cultures.

Secondly, there is no educational platform for modern Kazakh-speaking authors, nor is there a platform for publications that would enable the Kazakh language to bring as much as possible into the national literature. The Almaty Open Literary School teaches in Russian, the two journals that exist in the country, Prostor and Daktil, publish authors in Russian. And the problem is not the discrimination, but the lack of opportunity to publish works in Kazakh with the high-quality translation into Russian, otherwise what would be the point of it? It is almost impossible to find the books of modern authors in Kazakh in bookstores. Even world literature – modern and classical – is read in Russian translations. 

Another reason for the Russian language domination in domestic literature is that Kazakh authors writing in Russian have more opportunities to reach the post-Soviet audience, to get published in thick literary magazines (no matter how you look at it, this Soviet heritage is still significant for creative biography and self-affirmation), to participate in literary awards abroad and receive these awards. In 2017, for example, Mikhail Zemskov received a special prize "For his contribution to the development and preservation of the traditions of Russian culture outside the Russian Federation" for his leadership of the Almaty Open Literary School. In 2019, a Kazakh poet writing in Russian became a silver medalist in the competition "The Undiscovered Country" of the World Poetry Festival “Emigrant Lyre.” Perhaps this is the advantage of the Russian language for the literature of Kazakhstan – it helps go beyond the narrow circle of the country borders, and speak to the world about our country and culture.

As for the problematic issues, these are more likely to apply to Kazakhstani literature as a whole, rather than to a particular language. Regarding the Russian language itself, the question of its necessity in Kazakhstan will hardly ever arise, since it is also the language of governmental interaction between the countries in the post-Soviet space. Weather it will remain dominant in Kazakh literature, or whether it will exist on a par with the Kazakh language – it is another question. It will take a long time to skip all existing barriers so that Kazakhstani literature is free from linguistic dominance or division into separate communities, groups, or associations.