In Kazakstan, as the meaning of Soviet citizenship recedes into the past, the question of Kazak identity comes to the fore. The framing of Kazak national identity is generally configured in relation to the Three Zhuzes, in common parlance referred to as “hordes” but more properly translated “hundreds.” Multiple means of defining Kazak ethnicity emerge either to challenge or reinforce legacies of the past. Traditional concepts of the past may alternately reinforce or break away from stereotypes informed by Russia, by the “civilizing” factors of Islam, or by the nineteenth-century imperial West, depending upon external conditions of military or financial power.