Yurt Jurt

In this episode of the Jurt Podcast, host Diana Kudaibergen is joined by writer and poet Egana Djabbarova for an intimate conversation about language, literature, and self-formation. Egana reflects on her books and poetic practice, exploring how language became a foundation for building her subjectivity and a powerful tool for self-reflection and decolonization. She speaks about writing not only as artistic expression, but as a way of reclaiming voice, memory, and agency within and against dominant narratives.The conversation also turns to the importance of theory for emerging writers. Egana emphasizes why reading theoretical and critical studies matters, and how feminist, postcolonial, and philosophical texts have deeply shaped her own work and thinking. Egana also shares her experience of criticism and resistance after depicting the Russian language and Russian-speaking space through the perspective of a migrant family, shaped by bazaars, communal apartments, precarity, and everyday discrimination. She reflects on why such perspectives are often dismissed, and why it is crucial to continue writing from lived, marginalized positions.
This episode is a reflection on writing as practice, language as power, and literature as a space for re-imagining identity and belonging.

In this episode of Yurt Jurt, host Diana Kudaibergen speaks with Denis Esakov, a linguist and activist from Kyrgyzstan and a member of De_colonialanguage, a Berlin-based initiative working at the intersection of language, power, and decolonial practice.

Denis reflects on how colonial and imperial histories continue to shape everyday speech, naming practices, and ideas of “normative” language in post-imperial contexts. The conversation explores De:coloniaLanguage as both an initiative and a method, one that questions whose voices are legitimized, whose are erased, and how language can be reclaimed as a tool of agency rather than control.

The episode also touches on the Open Space Museum, where language, memory, and public knowledge intersect through open, participatory formats that challenge traditional institutional authority. Together, Diana and Denis discuss how museums, archives, and linguistic practices can become sites of resistance, care, and re-imagining futures beyond colonial frames. This episode invites listeners to think of language not as neutral, but as something we actively choose, contest, and transform.

In this episode of Yurt Jurt, host Diana Kudaibergen sits down with cultural and social anthropologist Zarina Mukanova for a wide-ranging conversation about identity, memory, and what decolonization really looks like in Central Asia. Together, they unpack why so many Kazakh and Kyrgyz kids of the 1990s grew up feeling ashamed of who they were, had their names changed to Russian versions, internalized the idea that “modern” meant “not us,” and learned early that colonial hierarchies shape belonging. Zarina reflects on decolonization not as a fixed destination but as a continuous, shifting process, one where transformation itself is the only constant. In today’s rapidly changing world, she argues, the nomadic worldview may offer the most accurate metaphor for navigating identity, power, and history.The conversation touches on kinship systems, the role of women and gender in shaping identities, and how colonialism has altered our relationship to memory and community. How do we reclaim stories that were muted? How do we understand ourselves when the ground beneath us is always moving?

In this episode of Yurt Jurt, host Diana Kudaibergen sits down with Ilyuza Mukhamediyarova, a Bashkort activist whose work centers on Indigenous rights, political repression, and cultural survival in today’s Russia. Together, they unpack the Baymak protests in Bashkortostan and what they reveal about the long-standing tensions between Indigenous communities and the Russian state. Ilyuza reflects on the deep disconnect between how Russians use the term “Russian” as a default national identity and how non-Russian ethnic groups within the federation experience it as an erasure. They discuss why so many Indigenous peoples refuse the label “Russian,” and how this linguistic collapse has contributed to decades of misunderstanding, assimilation, and political marginalization.The conversation also turns to the growing rift between Russian liberal opposition groups and the national republics, exploring why calls for democracy often fail to acknowledge Indigenous autonomy, colonial violence, or the right to self-determination. Finally, Diana and Ilyuza confront a difficult question for all communities facing repression: Do we have to sacrifice one generation to secure freedom for the next?

⚠️ Content Warning: This episode includes descriptions of violent repression and historical trauma.

In this powerful episode of Yurt Jurt, host Diana Kudaibergen speaks with Kamila Smagulova, researcher, civil society activist, and PhD candidate in history at Leiden University, about the Jeltoksan uprising of December 1986. Kamila draws on her historical research and personal passion to explore how this protest echoes the broader history of suppressed dissent in Kazakhstan, particularly the roles of young people, and young women in particular, and how they were treated.
Throughout the episode, Kamila also performs three songs, bringing her scholarly and artistic voices together in a moving tribute to memory, resistance, and identity.
As a historian, Kamila reflects on how the state’s refusal to fully acknowledge these events has shaped collective memory. She situates Jeltoksan not just as a political protest but as a lasting symbol of the struggle for recognition, civic agency, and historical justice in Kazakhstan.