Historiography of Everyday Life of Karaganda Miners: Soviet and Foreign Approaches
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31489/3134-9102/2026-31-2/118-138Keywords:
Karaganda coal basin, everyday history, Soviet historiography, foreign historiography, social history, industrialization, miners, cultural anthropology, working class, regional studiesAbstract
The article presents a comprehensive historiographical analysis of Soviet and foreign studies related to the history of the coal industry, the formation and development of the working class, and socio ― cultural processes in the mining environment. The historiography of the Soviet period is a layer of research aimed at examining industrial achievements and ideological attitudes, while issues of social adaptation, everyday practices and difficulties of everyday life have long remained out of focus. The author provides a comparative characterization of approaches to the study of the social history of the region, highlighting the key stages and methodological transformations in understanding mining life. The Soviet stage of the development of historical science was characterized by ideological determinism, which led researchers to focus on the macro―processes of industrial construction. Within the framework of this paradigm, priority attention was paid to the dynamics of labor records, the institution of socialist competition and the role of party and state leadership. Foreign historiography is analyzed in the context of the sustained interest of Western scholars in the phenomenon of Soviet industrialization, the labor movement and the social consequences of Stalin's modernization. It is noted that, despite the methodological freedom, in the works of foreign authors there is a certain shortage of local research focused directly on the Kazakh material. In conclusion, the conclusion is made about the high scientific prospects of studying Karaganda as a unique socio ― cultural space. The necessity of applying a micro ― historical approach to the analysis of the environment where migration flows, forced labor systems and the processes of formation of a specific industrial identity intersected is substantiated. The study highlights the importance of reconstructing everyday practices as a necessary condition for recreating the holistic social history of Kazakhstan.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Eurasian Journal of History

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
This Open Access article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License, which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For citation use the DOI. For commercial re-use, please contact history.journal.kbu@gmail.com

