The article examines the impact of the educational movement in the formation of the Kazakh national movement. In pre-revolutionary Russian part of Central Asia there were opportunities for the development Islamic integralism, pan-Turkism and ethnic nationalism. It is educated members of the Tatar population who played an important role in spreading the ideas of the Muslim- Turkic unity. The article reveals the reasons of pan- Turkism defeat in Kazakhstan, that include religious indifference of the nomads and the powerful influence of common inter-ethnic relations which led to the proliferation of Russian culture, which was the conductor of the Westernization of the Kazakh society. Considerable contribution into the choice of the direction of Kazakhs national development was made by Russian and Kazakh educators, who set up Russian-Kazakh schools and Kazakh schools with the Russian-language instruction. The founders of the Kazakh national movement Alash mainly attended Russian-Kazakh schools in northern and western districts of the region and in higher educational institutions of the European part of Russia. Their rivals, the so-called Turkists, went to Jadid schools situated in southern areas where their ideas were shared by educated part of the population. Kazakh national project was supported later by the Soviet government in the implementation of the policy of nation-building.