This research investigates the problems of self-identification of the Kazakh ethnic group in the post-totalitarian period, which are based on the values of traditional nomadic life of Kazakhs. The research shows the mechanisms of evolution of the ethnic group’s worldview paradigms and their typology. The purpose of the research is to investigate the national image of Kazakhs’ world through the structure of their artistic thinking, based on the assumption that art plays a significant role in the formation of an ethnic group’s worldview. The research found that the significant factors in the structure of the ethnic worldview are traditional art, mythopoethic notions, language, and peculiarities of the national psychology and ethics. The features of mythopoethic reflection of reality in the artistic and spiritual practice of the nation, which are recorded in monuments of national art, were studied in detail. The research analyzed the typical features of the worldview of Ancient Turks as a prototype of the ethnic worldview of Kazakhs, which had a considerable effect on the structure of the Kazakh space-and-time continuum; the cults of ancestor, life and, death worshiping, which are relevant for the Kazakh mentality, were investigated. Special attention was paid to the main worldview cult of Ancient Turks – Tengri, which has numerous manifestation in the Kazakh culture: in cosmology, artistic thinking, ornamental, music, and epic art. The analysis allowed defining the ethnic worldview and concluding that the modern Kazakh culture is a synthesis of numerous elements of various cultures, which predetermines the exogenous nature of the traditional Kazakh worldview.

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