Tsars, Cossacks, and Nomads.: The Formation of a Borderland Culture in Northern Kazakhstan in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries [1., Erstausgabe ed.] 3879973954, 9783879973958

Citation preview

Yuriy Malikov Tsars, Cossacks, and Nomads

Studien zum Modernen Orient herausgegeben von Gerd Winkelhane

Studien zum Modernen Orient 18

Yuriy Malikov

Tsars, Cossacks, and Nomads The Formation of a Borderland Culture in Northern Kazakhstan in the 18th and 19th Centuries

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar. British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. http://www.bl.uk Library of Congress control number available http://www.loc.gov

Cover: A sotnik of the Ural Cossacks Imperial guard http://www.arco-iris.com/George/images/

www.klaus-schwarz-verlag.com All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

© 2011 by Klaus Schwarz Verlag GmbH First edition Producer: J2P Berlin Printed in Germany on chlorine-free bleached paper ISBN 978-3-87997-395-8

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements..............................................................................................7 Introduction...........................................................................................................9 Chapter One

Siberian Cossacks and Kazakhs: The Emblems of Identity.........................40 Chapter Two

Cross-Cultural Exchanges on the Frontier: Their Causes and Consequences ..................................................................106 Chapter Three

The Kenesary Kasymov Rebellion (1837–1847): A National-Liberation Movement or ‘a Protest of Restoration?’.............151 Chapter Four

The Aims of Russia’s Acquisition of the Steppe.........................................182 Chapter Five

The Role of Trade in the Formation of a Frontier Society........................212 Chapter Six

Conflicts on the Steppe: Their Sources and Resolutions...........................252 Conclusion.........................................................................................................284 Appendix

Principal Dates and Events.............................................................................298 Bibliography......................................................................................................300 Glossary.............................................................................................................317 Index...................................................................................................................318

Acknowledgements Among the many persons who have contributed directly or indirectly to the writing of this book, and to whom I wish to render thanks, a special debt must first be acknowledged to my academic advisors, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa and Adrienne Edgar, for their patience and encouragement throughout my graduate studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. I could not have finished this research without their unfailing support. Their invaluable comments, along with their technical and editorial advice, were essential to the completion of this project, and they have taught me innumerable lessons on the workings of academic research in general. These outstanding scholars were and remain examples of hard work, fairness, and uncompromisingly high standards. During my Ph.D. studies, I have been incredibly fortunate to work closely with James Brooks. Being an outstanding scholar and teacher, Brooks inspired my interests in comparative borderland studies and shaped my understanding of frontier theories. The thoughtful comments of these three scholars not only made the completion of my Ph.D. possible, but also have provided me with a guide for revising this manuscript for publication. My friend and colleague Sergey Sheikhetov provided the initial inspiration for doing this project, sharing with me his vast body of knowledge on comparative frontier, which served as the basis for my subsequent data collection. For the duration of my tenure as a graduate student, I found myself part of an intellectual community of peers who have encouraged my research and stimulated my development as a scholar in many ways. David Reeves, Leslie Sargent, and Stuart Richardson were always willing to render their kind help with editing my writings and provided a constructive critique which contributed to the strengthening of my arguments. They helped draw my attention to unfortunate phrases, factual errors and problematic assertions. Their comments were provocative and helpful, and I am most grateful for their thoughtfulness. My colleagues and friends in State University of New York at Oneonta have always given most generous support and encouragement, particularly Matthew Hendley, Miguel Leon, Jeffrey Fortin, and William Ashbaugh. Their friendship strengthens me more than they can know. I feel compelled to record my gratitude and respect for all that I derived from the stimulating and peerlessly perceptive works of Thomas Barrett, Nicholas Breyfogle, David Moon, and Willard Sunderland. 7

The research and writing of this book were supported by numerous grants and fellowships, and I am extremely grateful to these organizations for their generous support, including Graduate Division of the University of California, Santa Barbara for providing me with research fellowships and teaching opportunities throughout my graduate studies. The Global Supplementary Grants provided by the Open Society Institute, together with Faculty Research Program Award, Faculty Development Funds (Provost’s Office Funding) Award, and Redfield Research Grant from History Department, State University of New York College at Oneonta, allowed me to conduct extensive research in Russia and Kazakhstan for this project and prepare the manuscript for publication. The aforementioned grants and fellowships also allowed my participation in the Annual World Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, and The History and Nationalism in Central Asia Workshop, in which I had an opportunity to present my research and receive invaluable feedback from such outstanding scholars as Steven Sabol, Matthew Payne, and Adeeb Khalid. Many people helped to make my time researching in Russia and Kazakhstan a productive experience. My deepest thanks go to the archivists and librarians who tremendously helped me in my research. Last but not least, I would like to thank my wife, Vanessa Ziegler, for her understanding and love during the past few years. Her support and encouragement, her faith in me and my project at every turn, as well as her editing, attentive listening, and smart comments were in the end what made this manuscript possible. My parents, Anatoliy and Irina Malikov, receive my deepest gratitude and love for their dedication and many years of moral support. I dedicate this book to them.

8

Introduction

To understand the Russian annexation of the North Caucasus, we must look behind the military lines, to the movements of peoples, the settlements and communities, the transformation of the landscape, and the interactions of neighbors, 1 not just in war but in everyday life. The Urus [Kazakh word for Russian] Cossack is a good man. We are afraid of him, 2 and he is afraid of us. Historians’ perception of “frontier” in modern historiography varies greatly. Some historians view the frontier as a contact zone, a place where interethnic 3 cultural exchange is extensive. Others argue against this approach and portray the frontier as a barrier separating colonizers and indigenous peoples, 4 which prevents any contact between them. This monograph examines whether the region of the northern and eastern parts of Kazakhstan (Middle Kazakh Horde), which was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1734, was 5 a contact zone or a barrier separating newcomers and indigenous people. In 1 2 3

4 5

Thomas M. Barrett, At the Edge of Empire: The Terek Cossacks and the North Caucasus Frontier (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), 3. M. Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov: Materialy dlia geografii i statistiki Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1868), 403. Kent Lightfoot and Antoinette Martinez, “Frontiers and Boundaries in Archaeological Perspective,” Annual Review of Anthropology 24 (1995); James Clifford, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1997). Sarah Carter, Capturing Women: The Manipulation of Cultural Imagery in Canada's Prairie West (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1997). Beginning in the early 16th century, the Kazakh steppe was divided into three hordes – Younger, Middle, and Elder – which represented separate geographic and political regions comprising of the territory of a tribal union. The Kazakhs referred to these groups as the “zhuzes,” which means “hundreds.” Martha Brill Olcott finds the difference between “horde” and “zhuz” important, since the latter term does not imply consanguinity and common ancestry. The commonly accepted explanation on the na9

other words, this research answers the question whether this region lying at the edge of the Russian Empire can be defined as a “borderland” or a “borderline.” By the term “borderland” I mean a territory capable of transforming the identities of people living there, in contrast to a “borderline” – a place which 6 set impervious boundaries between the Kazakhs and the Russians. I argue that extensive contacts between the aboriginals of the steppe and new-comers from the north led to the formation of a frontier society which was quite different from both traditional Russian and Kazakh societies. The Kazakh steppe was not a borderline, a place of separation, but a borderland – a birthplace of creoles and hybrids since the time the first Russian settlements were built along the Irtysh River. The task of my research is to demonstrate this cultural mixing, which was accomplished through the mutual adoption of elements of participatory cultures at the point of contact and the crossing of boundaries, both in geographic and cultural terms by some members of the contacting societies. The intention of this monograph is not only to demonstrate the mutual adoptions of different cultural elements and cross cultural exchanges and to explain the factors which made this phenomenon possible, but also to reveal how and why historians both in Kazakhstan and Russia endeavor to misinterpret the past by creating a series of myths regarding Kazakh-Cossack relations. In this respect, this work is more than a narrative of the frontier. It also deals with how the frontier is remembered and the significance of this remembrance. This consideration determined the structure of the book. Each chapter begins with some concept that dominates the recent historiography, followed by primary source evidence that challenges this interpretation. Here I use the example of the 18th and 19th-century frontier society in northern

6 10

ture of zhuzes holds that they were loosely connected confederations of tribes created for military purposes. The division of the Kazakhs into zhuzes did not produce separate identities, since all Kazakhs shared the same language, social hierarchy, cultural practices, and economy. Though all Kazakhs of a certain zhuz were formally the subjects of their khan, the evidence presented in Chapters One and Three demonstrates that the allegiance of the Kazakhs to their khans was ephemeral. This consideration makes differences between Kazakhs of various hordes, prior to contact with the Russians, insignificant. The only difference between them was the regions which these hordes occupied. The tribes of the Middle Horde, which is the subject of this research, occupied the middle of the Kazakh steppe from the Aral Sea in the west to the Altai in the east, and between the Irtysh River in the north and Syr Daria and Sarysu rivers in the south. For more information on the origins and nature of the Kazakh zhuzes see Martha Brill Olcott, The Kazakhs, 2nd ed. (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1995). For the list of principle dates relevant to the question of Kazakh-Cossack relations, see the Appendix.

Kazakhstan and its depiction in post-Soviet Kazakh and Cossack historiographies as a way of analyzing the problematical question of history and memory within the context of post-Soviet identity formations in both Russia and Kazakhstan. I perceive a frontier not as an exclusively Russian–Kazakh experience, but as a global phenomenon. That is why I place my monograph into a larger framework of frontier history, testing different models of studying inter-cultural relations in the borderland regions developed by historians of America, Russia, and Kazakhstan.

The Theories of the Frontier: Traditional Approach Until recently the dominant trend in Western historiography was to view the American westward expansion as “a storm of exploration and settlement, conquest and convergence,” which treated the native peoples with a “reserva7 tion or extermination” policy. According to this interpretation of frontier history, racial prejudice and the belief in the superiority of white culture over the native one effectively separated newcomers and aboriginals and doomed any contact between them to being either nonexistent or, at best, short-lived. The founder of American frontier history, Frederick Jackson Turner, viewed the Indians as a part of wild nature, which had to be tamed to fit the interests of the colonizers. Turner depicted the white settler as the agent of an expanding republican empire, whose glorious movement to the West contributed to the rise of democratic ideas and the formation of a new type of man. His famous statement about the American West as “a land without people for a 8 people without land” left no place for contact between Indians and whites. In a similar vein, Sarah Carter speaks of “sharp distinctions between the dominant and subordinate population” which, coupled with sharp racial categories, 9 made any kind of exchange between immigrants and aboriginals impossible. Jill Lepore divides the frontier contact experience of New England settlers into two distinct periods. The period before King Philip’s War (1675–1676) was characterized by intensive economic and cultural exchange between the English and Indians. That exchange blurred the differences between these societies, putting at risk the preservation of the participants’ cultural identity 7 8 9

Beth LaDow, The Medicine Line: The Life and Death on a North American Borderland (New York: Routledge, 2001). Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1931). Carter, Capturing Women. 11

and, as a result, caused violent conflict, which set impermeable boundaries 10 between “savages” and future “proud bearers of the American identity.”

Revisionist Approach Recent historiography, however, challenges the depiction of American frontier history as the story of separation and constant conflict between the natives and outlanders, which allowed them to preserve their cultural identities. Modern-day American historians find the Turnerian vision of the frontier too schematic and, thus, too simplistic to reflect the life of the outlaying regions in all its diversity. Elizabeth Perkins questions Turner’s argument that the first generation of white settlers understood their experience as a part of a grand, historical process. Rather than taming the “savages,” settlers sought 11 cooperation and formed alliances with native Americans. According to Richard White, this development was quite predictable as long as newcomers could neither prosper nor merely survive without accommodating themselves 12 to the social customs of Indians. In his recent work, Captives and Cousins, James F. Brooks asserted that borderland violence and the captive exchange system, rather than creating boundaries between the members of native and immigrant societies, provided the conditions for cultural interchange between native Americans and European colonists in the American Southwest, “knit diverse communities into vital, and violent, webs of interdependence,” and ul13 timately led to the interpenetration of cultures. Gregory Nobles portrays the contact as “a much more complex process of mutual exchange in which neither culture, Native American or Euro-American, could remain un14 changed.” Alexandra Harmon, Antoinette Martínez, and Kent Lightfoot attack another cornerstone of the Turnerian hypothesis, an idea that the ethnic groups in contact represented homogeneous formations. According to Lightfoot and 10 11 12 13 14 12

Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Phillip's War and the Origins of American Identity (New York: Random House, 1998). Elizabeth Perkins, Border Life: Experience and Memory in the Revolutionary Ohio Valley (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998). Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1630-1815 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991). James F. Brooks, Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002). Gregory H. Nobles, American Frontiers: Cultural Encounters and Continental Conquest (New York: Hill & Wang, 1997), 12.

Martinez, social divisions in both indigenous and colonial populations crosscut traditionally defined boundaries between ethnic groups. Harmon describes cases in which ethnic solidarity gave way to fractional interests and concludes that “neither [the] HBC (Hudson’s Bay Company, Yu.M.) staff nor 15 the indigenous population acted as a unit.” Finally, Beth LaDow contends that such factors of the frontier experience as environment and extensive interactions between people of different ethnic groups are crucial in the formation of cultural identity on a frontier. To sum up the revisionist argument, we may speak of the lack of impact of some “grand project” on the behavior of the newcomers towards the aboriginals; the absence of sharply cut racial divisions between the different groups participating in the frontier contact; and the profound influence which this contact produced on the transformation of the identities both among Euro-Americans and native Americans. American historians studying the society formed in the American borderlands view the borderlands as a contested ground whose dynamics were dictated not by the centers of power, but 16 by locally formulated rules. The frontier, in their view, is not a zone of separation and subjugation, but “the place in between: in between cultures, 17 peoples, and in between empires and the non-state world of villages.”

Historiography on the Russian Eastern Frontier and Cossack-Kazakh Relations: Traditional American Historiography Unfortunately, this new approach to studying frontier history is still far from being dominant in the American historiography on Russia’s eastern border18 lands. Most American historians writing on the Russian eastward movement 15 16

17 18

Alexandra Harmon, Indians in the Making: Ethnic Relations and Indian Identities around Puget Sound (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 41. Coco Fusco, English is Broken Here: Notes on Cultural Fusion in the Americas (New York City: New Press, 1995); Harmon, Indians in the Making; Anna Maria Alonso, Thread of Blood: Colonialism, Revolution and Gender on Mexico's Northern Frontier (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995); Clifford, Routes: Travel and Translation; LaDow, The Medicine Line; Brooks, Captives and Cousins. White, The Middle Ground, x. A reviewer of Thomas Barrett’s book, At the Edge of Empire: The Terek Cossacks and the North Caucasus Frontier, 1700–1860, published in 1999, which I am analyzing later and which challenges the dominant approach to the studying of Russian borderlands, calls his work “a strikingly revisionist” one. See John T. Alexander, “Review on the Book “At the Edge of Empire: The Terek Cossacks and the North Caucasus Frontier, 1700–1860,” The Slavic and East European Journal, vol. 44, no. 4 (Winter, 2000): 690-691. 13

simply equate it with the American westward expansion, habitually emphasizing the disastrous effects produced by contact on the natives and denying any possibility of cultural exchange or prospect of the formation of common interests between the colonized and colonizers. Their attempts to integrate contacts between Russians and natives into a global framework of frontier history make them accentuate the similarities in American and Russian relations with the aborigines, thereby marginalizing differences. They mechanically extend the old methodology of frontier studies to the steppes of Kazakh19 stan, the mountains of Caucasus, and the forests of Siberia. James Forsyth starts his ambitious project on comparing the British imperial policy in North America and that of Russia in Siberia with the idea that the only basic difference between them is in the fact that while the former de20 pended on fleets to cross the ocean, the latter was an advance overland. This difference evaporates when historians compare Russian and American expansionism. To emphasize the similarities of these two types of colonization, Benson Bobrick comes up with the equation that “the [Siberian] Cossack represented the American pioneer, the Tatar the Red Indian, and the Russian 21 Army the U.S. Cavalry.” Quite natural for this approach is the emphasis put on the conflict and clashes between “the agents of the imperialism” and the natives of the steppe. Thomas M. Barrett justly criticizes western historians for confining the study 19

20

21

14

James Forsyth, A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony, 15811990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Bruce Lincoln, The Conquest of a Continent: Siberia and the Russians (New York: Random House, 1994), Benson Bobrick, East of the Sun, The Epic Conquest and Tragic History of Siberia (New York: Poseidon Press, 1992); George V. Lantzeff and Richard A. Pierce, Eastward to Empire Exploration and Conquest on the Russian Open Frontier to 1750 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1973). Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 1. Such an approach ignores the multitude of factors that determined the character of the contacts between the colonizers and the natives, and is unable to explain the differences in the demographic and cultural situation of the North American and Siberian aboriginal peoples, which we can observe now (about thirty-five indigenous languages are recognized in Siberia today, and the number of Siberian natives grew four-fold between 1700 and 1900. Thus the figures are very much different from those of North America). See Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 13, 161. Bobrick, East of the Sun, 41. This reductionist comparison fails to explain many basic differences between the character of the interactions between newcomers and aboriginals in America and Siberia. For example, how can we explain the fact that Siberian Buriats (“Red Indians”) in the 19th century formed the backbone of the Baikal Cossack regiments (“American pioneers”)? This situation, real for Siberia, is improbable for America.

of the eastern borderlands of the Russian Empire to issues relating to military history. In his words, the problem with American historiography on the North Caucasus is that “the frontier is represented as a fault line of war, conflict, and religious division where Cossacks and mountain people stand on op22 posite sides of the divide, glaring at each other with hostile intent.” To this characteristic, I would add that the same was true regarding the study of another outlying region of the Empire – Western Siberia and Northern Kazakhstan. The historical representation of Russian – native Siberian/Kazakh relations in the mainstream of American historiography is narrowed by the belief that subjugated peoples are invariably in a “more innocent position” than colonizers. Patricia Seed argues that until recently “colonial powers were unproblematically villainous and the formerly colonized were equally evidently 23 virtuous” in the works of American historians. This belief is extended to the history of the territories east of the Urals, where the relations between newcoming and aboriginal populations are viewed through a colonizer – colonized paradigm. The contact between Kazakhs and Russians in northern Kazakhstan began with the introduction of a fortified line on the edge of the steppe in southern Siberia. The construction of the line along the Irtysh River, consisting of elev22 23

Barrett, At the Edge of Empire, 3. Patricia Seed, “Poststructuralism in Postcolonial History,” Maryland Historian 24, no. 1 (1993) cited in Bruce Grant, In the Soviet House of Culture: A Century of Perestroikas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 10, 11. Though the present research focuses mainly on the Siberian Cossack Army, for the sake of comparison I make references to two other Cossack armies which were stationed in the regions adjacent to the Kazakh steppe – Orenburg and Yaik (Ural). In the period under study, these three Cossack armies encircled the steppe from east to west. The Ural Cossacks were stationed along the western edge of the steppe; the Siberian Cossacks formed the eastern horn, with the Orenburg Cossacks in the center. The bulk of all of these armies was descended from the Don and Volga Cossacks who, due to diverse reasons, left European Russia at different times and founded settlements beyond the Urals, closely following the military and political structure of the Don Cossack Army. The patterns of life of these Cossacks differed little. Most of them preferred a relatively nomadic way of life rearing livestock, farming, hunting, and trading with the natives of the steppe. All these Cossack hosts were not homogeneous in racial or religious terms, though the proportion of non-Slavic and non-Christian Orthodox elements differed from army to army. As the following analysis demonstrates, one of the most important factors which determined divergent attitudes by the Cossacks of these armies to the natives of the steppe, and the relations between the state and its servitors was the presence of Old Believers in the ranks of Cossacks. Unlike the Siberian Cossack Army, in which the number of Old Believers was insignificant, most Ural and Orenburg Cossacks were adherents of the Old Belief, which was subject to persecution in the central regions of Russia. 15

en fortresses, thirty-three redoubts, and forty-two beacons, was started in 1716 and completed in 1752. The Cossacks of the Siberian Cossack Army who settled in the forts and whose function was to guard the border came to be known as the Line Cossacks (prilineinye kazaki). Along with the construction of this fortification, the Russian government awarded the Cossacks with a ten-mile wide strip of land along the Irtysh River, a so-called ten-mile zone of security. Access to these lands along the Irtysh River was closed both to Kazakh nomads and Russian peasants. The introduction of the ten-mile zone made the Line Cossacks for more than a century the only large group of people from the Russian side that could come into contact with natives of the 24 steppe. Thus, the question of the functions of the frontier in the case of the northern region of Kazakhstan is closely connected with the problem of Cos25 sack-Kazakh relations. 24

25

16

The Major General Kinderman prohibited Russian peasants to cross the Irtysh Line under the threat of death in 1754. See G. N. Potanin, Materialy dlia istorii Sibiri sobral G. Potanin (Moscow: Izdanie Imperatorskogo obshchestva istorii i drevnostei Rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom universitete, 1867), 180. Historians consider the emergence of the term “Cossack” (the Turkish-Tatar word meaning “brigand”) to have occurred at the end of the 15th century, when small groups of fugitive peasants from Russia fled serfdom and hunger to settle in the “Wild Field” – the eastern Russian frontier covering a large territory between the Slavic states in the north and the Turkish and Tatar zones along the Black Sea coast. These Slavic people mixed with Tatars in areas where they settled and formed numerous military communities with their own appointed leaders, independent from outside authorities. Though Tatars and Slavs dominated these communities, the ranks of Cossacks also included Finns, Lithuanians, Turks, and Mordvins, to name only a few of fifteenththese groups. Their main activities included fishing, hunting, plundering both Russian and Tatar settlements and trading caravans passing through their territory. In addition, they served as escort, guards, and mercenaries in Moscow and PolishLithuanian Armies. Gradually, the Russian expansioeighteenthn absorbed their lands. The Empire of the tsars incorporated the Cossacks into its legal social order making them a legal estate of the Russian Empire. To distinguish the Cossacks from another numerous estate – peasants, the Russian state exempted the former from paying obrok (money dues), barshchina (labor dues), and podushnaia podat’ (soul tax or capitation). Instead, Cossacks were obliged to give military service to the state in exchange for land allotments ascribed to them as the corporate property of the whole Cossack Army and annual payments from the state either in form of cash or ammunition. The central government made it virtually impossible for a Cossack to leave his estate and join another. The Cossacks from the Don and Volga Rivers constituted the bulk of the Ataman Ermak’s army which defeated the Tatar troops of the Khan of Siberia Kuchum and conquered vast territories beyond the Ural Mountains for the Russian tsar in 1581. Those companions of Ermak became the original Siberian Cossacks. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the descendants of these Cossacks mixed with exiled Zaporozhian Cossacks, convicts, children of soldiers, local peasants and peasants from Russia and formed the Siberian Cossack Army. The numbers of Siberian Cossacks reached 90,000 by 1860 stretched along the line separating Russian agricultural settlements from no-

Until the recent decade, Western historiography was almost exclusively preoccupied with demonstrating the combative nature of the relations between the aboriginals of the steppe and the servitors of the empire. Elizabeth Bacon confines the interactions between the Russian Empire and the peoples of Central Asia (including Kazakhs) to the military subjugation of the steppes and the forceful imposition of the Russian rule and culture on the re26 luctant locals of the region. George Demko writes about the conquest of the Kazakh territory by Cossack armies which had to suppress “vigorous campaigns” waged by the Kazakhs of the Younger and Middle Hordes against 27 military occupation of their lands. After the subjugation of the steppe, Cossacks and peasants settled the territory, blocking the grazing routes of nomads. As a result of the loss of their pastures, Kazakhs were “either forced 28 to work for Cossacks or attempt a sedentary life.” This development certainly did not improve relations between these two groups, and animosity between them was intense during the whole period of the contact. Martha Olcott summarizes the relations between the Cossacks and Kazakhs in one brief sentence: “The Kazakhs attacked, the Russians counterattacked,” and agrees with the early Soviet historian M. Viatkin that “the history of Russo-Kazakh relations from 1735 until 1869 was one of continuous 29 popular opposition to Russian rule.” Russians, according to her interpreta30 tions, were both the Kazakhs’ enemies and their “civilizers.” Another American historian, Mikhail Khodarkovsky, speaks of the constant element of hostility between the immigrant and aboriginal peoples of the steppe. He argues that the interests of Russians and nomadic peoples were “fundamentally irreconcilable” and hostility between them was unavoidable due to “the ever31 present and growing incompatibility between two very different societies.”

26 27 28 29 30 31

mads of the steppe as well as along the state border between Russia and China. See Robert H. McNeal, Tsar and Cossack, 1855-1914 (London: Macnillan Press, 1987), 5-7, 11, 19, 166; R. G. Skrynnikov, Sibirskaia Ekspeditsiia Ermaka (Novosibirsk: Izdatel’stvo Nauka, 1986), 117-127; Albert Seaton, The Horsemen of the Steppes: The Story of the Cossacks (London: The Bodly Head, 1985), 32, 48, 61, 176. Elizabeth Bacon, Central Asians under Russian Rule: A Study in Culture Change (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1966). George Demko, The Russian Colonization of Kazakhstan, 1896-1916 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969), 38-39. Ibid, 48. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 34, 44. Martha Brill Olcott, Kazakhstan: Unfulfilled Promise (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002), 69. Michael Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500-1800 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002), 8. 17

According to Khodarkovsky, irreconcilable differences were responsible for a never-ending escalation of violence between the Russians and the Kazakhs. Many modern-day Western historians, studying the colonial experience of tsarist Russia, concentrate on exploring “points of contact or ‘encounters’, 32 imagined or lived ... between the tsarist regime and its subject communities.” Given that by “subject communities” these historians mean non-Russians, we may conclude that the Russian settlers are viewed as the agents of imperial authorities, whose interests are indistinguishable from those of the state. The people who explored, conquered, and settled new territories are considered to be a passive mass, readily embracing the ideology of expansion imposed on them by their rulers. I argue that this approach is inappropriate for the study of life on the frontier. This work distinguishes between the interests of the Russian state in the conquered lands, and the motives and aspirations of Siberian Cossacks who established their communities in the Kazakh steppe. These interests did not always coincide and, at times, were in conflict. This point is especially important given the weakness of state institutions in this distant region of the empire. Due to this remoteness, Cossacks kept a large degree of independence in dealing with the natives of the steppe, resisting the state’s attempts to regulate their interactions.

Russian Pre-Revolutionary Historiography The attitude of official Russian tsarist historiography to the Asian part of Russia and its population can hardly help us to understand the place of the Kazakh steppe in the Russian Empire. In G. Glinka’s words, “Asian Russia is an in33 tegral part of our state, but at the same time it is its only colony.” From this definition, it is unclear whether the peoples populating the region were considered subjects of Russia, whose interests, at least in theory, the Russian state served; or whether they were the peoples of a colony subjected to exploitation. This ambiguity notwithstanding, the historians and ideologists of that time emphasized the positive effects their inclusion into the Russian Empire produced on the aboriginals of the steppe. In I. Kraft’s opinion, Russia es32 33

18

Daniel R. Brower and Edward J. Lazzerini, eds., Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997), xvi. G. V. Glinka, ed., Aziatskaia Rossiia, liudi i poriadki za Uralom (St. Petersburg: Izdanie pereselencheskogo upravleniia glavnogo upravleniia zemleustroistva i zemledeliia, 1914), vii.

tablished peace on the steppe, where prior to its inclusion in the Empire “an34 archy and violence reigned, and the rivers of blood were flowing.” According to I. L’vov, “Russian rule brought to Central Asia the two most precious gifts of civilization – the security of life and the security of property – the two things which had not been previously known there, and in the ab35 sence of which normal life was not possible.” Russian rule also ended feuding between different tribes, provided the growth of literacy, and helped 36 Kazakhs to become familiar with European culture and science. The absorption of the steppe opened an entrance into Western civilization for the no37 mads. Even the land shortage that ravaged Kazakhs at the beginning of the twentieth century was attributed not to the expropriation of their pastures by the state with their subsequent distribution to the immigrant peasants, but to the growth of the Kazakh population, which became possible due to the beneficial policy of the Russian state. In the words of the famous pre-revolutionary ethnographer V. Grigor’ev, before Russian rule was established in the steppe, the Kazakhs killed more of their kinsmen than their women could bear. But as soon as the Russian government “established control over them, began to punish criminals and protect the weak and innocent, stopped their feuds and built forts along the border to defend Kazakhs from the raids of the Kokand and Bukhara gangs, they began to live in peace and multiply their 38 numbers. This development resulted in land shortages.” Though the Russian tsarist historiography emphasized the benevolent and 39 civilizing effect the Russian rule produced on the Kazakh, the role of “civilizers” was attributed to the tsarist officials and Russian peasants, the latter “being blessed with a “spirit of nationality ... so strong and invincible” that it al34 35 36 37 38 39

I. I. Kraft, Sbornik uzakonenii o kirgizakh stepnykh oblastei (Orenburg: Tipografiia P. N. Zharikova, 1898), 20. I. L’vov, “Zavoevanie Turkestana,” Russkii Vestnik, no. 7 (1868): 173. L. F. Kostenko, Sredniaia Aziia i vodvorenie v nei russkoi grazhdanstvennosti (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia A. Bezobrazova, 1870), 328. A. Etsel’ and G. Vagner, Puteshestvie po Sibiri i prilegaiushchim k nei stranam Tsentral’noi Azii po opisaniiam T. U. Atkinsonom, A. T. Fon Middendorfom, G. Radtse i drugimi (St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo M. O. Vol’fa, 1865), 139. V. Grigor’ev, “Orenburgskie Kirgizy: Ikh chestnost’ i umenie v torgovykh delakh,” Narodnyi Vestnik (1864): 41. It could hardly be different as the civilizing mission was considered to be the most important justification for Russian rule in the Asian part of the empire. See Dov Yaroshevski, “Empire and Citizenship,” in Russia’s Orient, eds. Brower and Lazzerini, 60-62; and Yuri Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1994). 19

40

lowed him to assimilate native people with ease.” Cossacks and Kazakhs, according to this interpretation, belonged to antagonistic camps and their contacts were confined to the battlefields. As A. Riabinin noticed, Kazakhs were deadly enemies of Cossacks: “They were restless and persistent enemies who knew neither tiredness nor mercy. The Cossacks had to fight a real and cruel 41 war against them.” The authors of that time did not find a problem with the overall progressive role of Russian rule and the militant nature of relations between the agents of the state and the subjects of the civilizing mission. They considered military subjugation and eradication of the “meanest inclina42 tions of the savages” to be the preliminary stage of the civilizing process. In the words of one Russian historian, to establish “friendly relations with the inhabitants of the steppe, the Russian government had to use force first, as only the force of arms and military occupation of their territory could bring 43 peace to the steppe.” No other means for establishing order was considered possible, since in the view of imperial ideologists, “the Asian peoples respect force only; morality, intelligence and the interests of civilization are beyond 44 their understanding.” The Cossacks were depicted not as the instigators of civilizing contact, but as the creators of the conditions that would make the contact between the subjects and agents of the civilizing mission fruitful. As long as the assimilation in Asian Russia was purported to be a oneway road, with natives ascending the scale of civilization, the official historiography denied any possibility of non-Russian influence on the Cossacks. This development could not transpire since it would contradict the imperial hierarchy of cultures with “sedentary agriculturalists (preferably Orthodox 45 and preferably Slavic) at the top.” Due to this hierarchy, there was no explanation for the Russians on the frontier to surrender their Russianness and adopt any elements of native cultures. The Russian culture had to push away 46 that of the Kazakh, as it was deemed “higher.” Tsarist ideologists expected 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 20

Willard Sunderland, “Russians into Iakuts? “Going Native” and Problems of Russian National Identity in the Siberian North, 1870s-1914,” Slavic Review 55, no. 4 (1996): 811. A. D. Riabinin, “Ural’skoe Kazach’e voisko,” Materialy dlia geografii i statistiki Rossii, sobrannye ofitserami Genral’nogo Shtaba, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg, 1865): 85. “Kirgizy,” Narody Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1880). A. Shemanskii, “Voennaia istoriia Russkogo dvizheniia v Sredniuiu Aziiu,” Sredniaia Aziia (September-October 1910): 122. I. N. Kazantsev, Opisanie Kirgiz-Kaisakov (St. Petersburg: Obshchestvennaia pol’za, 1867), 134. Sunderland, “Russians into Iakuts,” 809. V. P. Semenov, ed., Rossiia: Polnoe geograficheskoe opisanie nashego otechestva. Nastol’naia i dorozhnaia kniga dlia russkikh liudei, vol. 18 (St. Petersburgh: Izdatel’stvo

not the coexistence and mixture of different cultures, but the substitution of one by another. In accordance to this ideological scheme, Siberian Cossacks 47 were “the front line fighters of Russian civilization on the wild Asiatic east,” not the members of demographically fluid and racially and religiously diverse steppe communities. Given this approach, tsarist historians’ emphasis of such features of the Cossacks as “their unyielding loyalty to the Orthodox faith, 48 dynasty, and motherland” and minimizing their links with the natives becomes understandable.

Early Soviet Historiography “History is politics directed at the past” – this statement of the Russian historian Mikhail Pokrovskii could have been considered a motto of Soviet historians for a long time. This approach deeply affected the appraisal of nearly all historical events and phenomena, distorting and manipulating them. Soviet historiography on the imperial borderlands was by no means an exception. The interpretation of the character of the inclusion of the Kazakh steppes into the Russian Empire in post-revolutionary historiography was concomitant with changes in Soviet nationality policy. The aim of this policy was, on the one hand, to unify Soviet peoples in order to form a new Soviet identity, disregarding their ethnic, religious, cultural, and linguistic differences, and, on the other hand, to provide conditions for national groups to arrive at the conclusion of union without coercion. According to Bruce Grant, these two trends – “one to diversity, the other to uniformity ... set the stage for a series 49 of policy shifts, epochs into themselves, throughout the country’s tenure.” Every shift in nationality policy demanded a revision of the past. This revision and, in many cases, the “invention” of history is considered inevitable by Eric Hobsbawm, who argues that “even revolutionary movements (and the shifts in the Soviet nationality policy were by all means revolutionary) 50 backed their innovations by a reference to a people’s past.” In the early Soviet period the concept of the “worst evil” which Russian

47 48 49 50

A. V. Derviena, 1903), 148. V. K. Kazantsev, “Russkie starozhily v Sibiri i Srednei Azii,” in Aziatskaia Rossiia, ed. Glinka, 179. P. I. Nebol’sin, Ural’tsy: Posviashchaetsia V. I. Daliu (St. Petersburg: Piataia tipografiia shtaba otdel’nogo korpusa vnutrennei strazhi, 1855) Grant, In the Soviet House of Culture, 5. E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1789: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 13. 21

imperial rule brought to the natives of the borderlands prevailed. Such an approach was in accordance with the communist ideology of denouncing the 51 crimes of Tsarism and its colonial policy. Tsarist nationality policy could bear no positive features simply because it was tsarist. The early Soviet historians focused on the negative effects that the inclusion of Kazakhstan into the Russian Empire had on the natives of the steppe. One historian stated: “The Russian conquest brought neither peace nor prosperity to the Kazakh 52 masses. It brought devastation, robberies and murders.” Defining the Russian Empire as “the prison of peoples,” the role of its “warden” was given to the Cossack. In 1940, V. Lebedev attributes the following characteristics to the Cossacks of the Irtysh Line: The Lines were not defensive. By erecting them, the Tsarist government sought to deprive Kazakhs of their lands. Nomadic raids were either fabricated or extremely exaggerated by the Cossack leaders to justify the punitive military expeditions to the steppe. The ultimate purpose of these expeditions was to enrich those participating in them. These raids devastated Kazakh lands and weakened the Kazakh settlements. This weakening was in full ac53 cord with Tsarist colonial policy.

Soviet Historiography Following World War II The Post-World War II era brought an end to the nationality policy of the initial Soviet years and caused Soviet historiography on Kazakhstan to shift emphasis from conquest to “a peaceful incorporation theory.” It was done to strengthen friendship between the peoples of the region and to underline the progressive role of the Russian civilizing process. Soviet historians of that period endeavored to create a myth of class unity among the formerly subjugated peoples of the Russian Empire, placing the Russian peasants and workers in the same row with the native Siberian peoples. All of them were viewed as the victims of capitalist exploitation by Tsarist officials and local elites. The

51 52 53 22

S.V. Bakhrushin, Nauchnye trudy v trekh tomakh (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1955). S. D. Asfendiiarov, Istoriia Kazakhstana (s drevneishikh vremen) vol. 1 (Alma-Ata and Moscow: Kazakhskoe kraevoe izdanie, 1935), 136. V. I. Lebedev, ed., Materialy po istorii Kazakhskoi SSR (1785 – 1828) (Moscow: Akademiia Nauk SSSR, 1940), 3.

interests of settlers and aborigines were reconciled in their struggle against common class enemies – local elites and tsarist administration. The historians of that era emphasized the peaceful nature of the inclusion of the Kazakh steppe into the Russian Empire and the positive effect this inclusion produced on the people of the region. They wrote on the progressive role of Russian rule in civilizing the peoples of the steppe, and “a great mutual 54 love and friendship ... between the Russian and Central Asian peoples.” Trade and cultural exchange, according to a historian of that time, E. Bekmakhanov, as well as their joint struggle against their oppressors “created objective preconditions for the development of friendship between Russian and 55 Kazakh peoples.” The depiction of Cossacks did not radically change, however. I. V. Stalin, “the most distinguished historian” of that time, defined Cossackdom as “a conservative, colonial force of tsarism,” which being an obedient tool of the aggressive policy of the Empire, and having privileges over natives and peasants, plundered non-Russians on the peripheries. The aggressive policy of Cossackdom, in his opinion, doomed the aboriginals east of the Urals to “in56 tolerable suffering and extinction.” To explain this contradictory effect produced by Russian rule on the Kazakhs, Soviet historians of that period actively used the notion of “two Russias.” According to this concept, “along with the Russia of capitalists, landowners, and tsarist administrators who suppressed the subjected peoples, there was another Russia – a Russia of the great Russian people, the most revolutionary working class in the world,

54

55 56

Geoffrey Wheeler “Russian Conquest and Colonization of Central Asia,” in Russian Imperialism from Ivan the Great to the Revolution, ed. Taras Hunczak (Lanham: University Press of America, 2000), 266; N. G. Apollova, Khoziaistvennoe osvoenie Priirtysh’ia v kontse XVI – pervoi polovine XIX v. (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Nauka, 1976); M. O. Auezov, Istoriia Kazakhskoi SSR, vol. 1 (Alma-Ata: Izdatel’stvo akademii nauk Kazahskoi SSR, 1957); M. S. Mukanov, Etnicheskaia territoriia Kazakhov v XVIII – nachale XX vekov (Alma-Ata: Izdatel’stvo Kazakhstan, 1991); S. Z. Zimanov, Obshchestvennyi stroi Kazakhov v pervoi polovine XIX v. (Alma-Ata: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk Kazakhskoi SSR, 1958). E. B. Bekmakhanov, Kazakhstan v 20-40 gody XX veka (Alma-Ata: Kazak Universiteti, 1947); E. B. Bekmakhanov, Kazakhstan v 20-40 gody XX veka, 2nd ed. (Alma-Ata: Kazakh University Press, 1992 [1947]). I. V. Stalin, “K voennomu polozheniiu na iuge,” Sochineniia, vol. 4 (November 19171920) (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1951), 286, 287; I. V. Stalin, “Ob ocherednykh zadachakh partii v natsional’nom voprose, Sochineniia, vol. 5 (1921-1923) (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1951), 26, 39. 23

57

which helped the Kazakh people in their fight for freedom and happiness.” This scheme assigned Cossacks to a less favorable group. This fell in line with V. I. Lenin’s view of the Cossacks as a privileged estate, whose interests were antagonistic to the interests of peasants and non-Russians, which dominated 58 historiography. As well as in the tsarist period, historians also viewed Cossacks as an obedient tool of the tsarist government in the enslavement and exploitation of the Kazakhs. The study of Kazakh-Cossack relations in the Soviet Union was confined to a strict exploiter-exploited paradigm, which made it very similar to the analysis done in the West, which seldom rose above colonizer-colonized parameters.

Kazakhstani Historiography In their recent works Kazakhstani historians firmly stand on nationalistic ground. Both the Russian colonial policy and its historical interpretation in the Soviet period became the subjects of severe criticism. Kazakhstani historians A. Kuzembaev and E. Ebil emphasize both the negative effects of the imperial policy and those produced by the imperial historical writings on the Kazakh people: “During the period of colonial dependency, the [Kazakh] people were deprived not only of freedom, land, natural resources, and unique relics of the past, but also of their historical memory. One of the most important ingredients of the colonial policy [of the Russian government] was 59 the conscious distortion of the history of the conquered peoples.” The book In the Stream of History, written by the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev, calls on historians to examine the historical process in the context 60 of the development of national spirit and national ideas. Historians readily embraced this task – or order – and began to center the formation of the Kazakh identity on its colonial and anti-colonial experience. By arguing that “Orthodox Christianity, as the state religion, was forcefully spread among the peoples of the Kazakh steppe both in the nomadic and post-nomadic periods 61 of their history,” the President exemplified that if “rethinking history” meets 57 58 59 60 61

24

G. F. Dakhshleiger and N. G. Apollova, eds., Istoriia Kazakhstana s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei (Alma-Ata: Izdatel’stvo Nauka, 1957), 260. V. I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 16 (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1958-1962), 315-316, 336. A. Kuzembaev, E. Ebil, Istoriia Respubliki Kazakhstan (Astana: IKF Foliant, 2000), 3. N. A. Nazarbaev, V potoke istorii (Almaty: Atamura, 1999). Ibid., 182. This argument is questionable given the facts that beginning from the early years of the annexation of the Kazakh lands, Catherine the Great ordered the building of mosques and the importation of mullahs from Kazan; and the terms of Speranskii’s

the demands of the present ideology, it is not important whether it is based on historical evidence. As the President states, in many cases, the invention of history is even necessary: “For our national consciousness, the mythologizing 62 of the past comprises a foundation stone in the state ideology.” In this revisionist history of Kazakhstan, Kazakhstani historians invariably depict the Cossacks as “the vanguard of the aggressive and coercive policy of the empire, the part of the bureaucratic and military machine of the 63 state […] the most loyal and reliable servants of the monarchy.” M. Abdirov defines three tasks which Cossacks were fulfilling in Kazakhstan: First of all, Cossacks conducted the mass withdrawal of the best and most fertile lands from the Kazakhs and the latter’s displacement from their traditional territories. Second, while making regular raids into the depths of the Kazakh steppe, Cossacks seized the livestock belonging to the nomads, thus depriving the latter of their main source of subsistence. Third, the aforementioned raids also led to mass killings of Kazakh men, the main productive and military force of the steppe people. Taken together, these results of 64 the Cossacks’ activities meant the genocide of the Kazakh people. According to this interpretation, the battlefield was the only place of contact between the Kazakhs and the Cossacks. The Cossack Army is typically portrayed as “the mailed fist of Tsarism in the military colonization of the Ka65 zakh lands and the suppression of popular rebellions.” Conflict was the only

62 63 64 65

legislation guaranteed the religious freedom to all Siberian inovertsy (people of different faith). As late as in 1915 (in the “post-nomadic period”), the statistical report on the religious composition of the population of the Central Asia shows that the growth of the Orthodox Christians was the result of peasant migration only. This evidence proves the conclusion of Ludmila Polonskaya and Alexei Malashenko that “...no Christians ever conducted missionary work there on a meaningful scale, and the Orthodox faith – the official religion of Russia – was never imposed on Central Asia.” See Ludmila Polonskaya and Alexei Malashenko, Islam in Central Asia (Lebanon: Garnet Publishing, 1994), 49. Alexandra George, Journey into Kazakhstan: The True Face of the Nazarbayev Regime (Lanham: University Press of America, 2001), 2. M. Zh. Abdirov, Voenno-kazach’ia kolonizatsiia Kazakhstana (konets XVI – nachalo XX vekov): Opyt istoriko-evoliutsionnogo analiza (Almaty, 1997), 47, 97. M. Zh. Abdirov, Istoriia kazachestva Kazakhstana (Almaty: Izdatel’stvo Kazakhstan, 1994), 140. M. Zh. Abdirov, “Voenno-Kazach’ia kolonizatsiia Kazakhstana (konets XVI veka – nachalo XX veka): Opyt istoriko-evoliutsionnogo analiza” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Kazakhstan State University, 1997), 255. 25

form of interaction between the Kazakhs and Cossacks: “The two-century history of Kazakhstan during its colonial period knew not a single year of peace. Anti-colonial revolts on the national, regional, and local levels, unrest, up66 risings, conflicts, and even mass fist fights were constant,” and “the entire history of the relations between Kazakhs and Cossacks is filled with animosities, mutual raids, taking hostages, driving away livestock, and land dis67 putes.” Zh. Mazhitova emphasizes the ideological nature of the conflict and considers Cossack – Kazakh relations as a story of struggle between two irreconcilable forces – the Kazakhs who “were protecting their territory from foreign invasion,” and the Cossacks, “whose aim was to enslave the people of the 68 steppe.” G. Izbasarova sees the most important function of the Russian Cossacks on the outskirts of the empire in “their active and permanent participation in punitive expeditions, and the suppression of numerous uprisings and movements of the working masses of the native peoples for their freedom and 69 independence.” This activity, according to Kazakhstani historians, gave the Cossacks pleasure as “they were traditionally brought up in the spirit of con70 tempt and hostility to the natives of the steppe, first of all to the Kazakhs.” The aforementioned historians are unanimous in depicting Russians of the frontier as “the blind tool” of the Russian state in conquering the territories of 71 Kazakhstan and subjugating the Kazakhs. This depiction has far-reaching political ramifications. Many Kazakhstani historians openly proclaim the aim of their research on Kazakh-Cossack relations as demonstrating “the real image of Russian Cossackdom in Kazakhstan … as the social group, hostile to the Kazakh people, whose existence is not compatible with the national-state 72 identity of Kazakhstan.” B. Irmukhanov compares the Cossacks of Kazakh-

66 67 68 69 70 71 72 26

S. Maduanov, “Vzaimootnosheniia Kazakhov s drugimi sosednimi narodami Tsentral’noi Azii v XVIII – nachale XX vekov” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Almaty State University, 1997), 65. Abdirov, “Voenno-Kazach’ia,” 255. Zh. Mazhitova, “Voennoe prisutstvie Rossii v Severo-Zapadnom Kazakhstane v XVII – nachale XIX vv.” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Karaganda State University, 1997), 82. G. Izbasarova, “Kazakhsko – Bashkirskie otnosheniia v XVIII v. (1701 – 1755)” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Kazakh State National University, 2000), 93. Abdirov, “Voenno-Kazach’ia,” 281. Kh. Aubakirova, “Uchastie sibirskogo kazachestva v podavlenii natsional’no-osvoboditel’nogo dvizheniia kazakhskogo naroda pod predvoditel’stvom sultanov Sarzhana i Kenesary,” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Eurasian University of Astana, 2000), 31. Abdirov, Voenno-Kazach’ia, 17.

stan with the Sudetenland Germans on the eve of World War II and appeals 73 to the Kazakhstani government to act towards them accordingly.

Post-Soviet Russian Historiography Many Russian historians share the opinion of the combative nature of the contacts between Kazakhs and Cossacks, though they assess the role of Cossacks in the armed conflicts differently. Iurii Nedbai argues that the fortified line was built with the purpose to defend the agricultural settlements on the Russian side of the border: “The defense was passive. All the initiative came from the nomads. Cossack Atamans only occasionally organized punitive ex74 peditions, but never forestalled the enemy’s raids.” Nedbai, highly respected by modern-day Siberian Cossacks, emphasizes the defensive role of the Line 75 Cossacks and the aggressive actions of the natives of the steppe: The inhabitants of the steppe, Kazakhs of two Hordes, were considered Russian subjects. However, they were restless and bad subjects. It was necessary to lead constant defensive guerilla warfare against them. Having made a raid on an agricultural settlement or having sacked a merchant caravan, Kazakhs fled to the 76 steppe with impunity. The study of Cossacks in post-Soviet Russia is confined to the study of their military history. Post-Soviet Russian historians in their works glorify the exploits of the Cossacks in their battles against inorodtsy (people of different kin – that is, non-Slavs), and their loyalty to the fatherland, dynasty, and Ortho77 dox Christianity. The idea, which dominates modern Kazakhstani and Russian historiography, is that Cossacks and Kazakhs were separated into two hostile camps and the contact between them was minimal. Consequently, they 73 74 75 76 77

B. Irmukhanov, Kazakhstan: istoriko-publitsisticheskii vzgliad (Almaty: Olke, 1996), 206-208. Iurii Nedbai, Istoriia Kazachestva Zapadnoi Sibiri, 1582 –1808 gg., vol. 4 (Omsk: Omskii gosudarstvennyi pedagogicheskii universitet, 1996), 5. The Ataman of the Siberian Cossacks of Pavlodar presented me his book defining it as “the true story of the Cossacks” and asking me to translate Nedbai’s “words of truth” into English for the World to know them. Nedbai, Istoriia Kazachestva, 30, 31. A. I. Klimenko, “Rossiiskoe Kazachestvo: Mezhdu proshlym i budushchim,” Bibliografiia 5, 6 (1992); N. O. Selishchev, Kazaki i Rossiia: Dorogami proshlogo (Moscow: VKhNRTs, 1992); V. F. Mamonov, Istoriia Kazachestva Rossii (Ekaterinburg: RAN, Ural’skoe otdelenie istorii i arkheologii, 1995); V. P. Bakanov, Iz istorii Orenburgskogo Kazachestva (Magnitogorsk: Magnitka, 1993). 27

emphasize the antagonism of Cossacks to native peoples east of the Urals as the dominant feature of Cossack group identity. This intolerance to “otherness,” on the one hand, let Cossacks preserve their Russianness and, on the other hand, became the emblem of modern Cossackness. The search for unity of all the Cossacks of Imperial Russia has influenced nationalistically minded historians to minimize their links to non-Russian peoples of the Empire and maximize the Cossacks’ Russianness, which is of78 ten done, in Barrett’s words, “in quite fanciful ways.” Barbara Skinner in her analysis of the recent Russian historiography on the Cossacks also notices that historians ignore “the differences between Cossacks influenced by differing geographical factors and their mixture with a variety of non-Slavic 79 peoples.” Like the Turnerian man of the frontier, who was depicted as an embodiment of American values, the Cossack became an emblem of Russian national identity, “deeply Russian in spirit if not ethnicity (strong, spontaneous, Russophone, Orthodox), Christian warriors for the Tsar, intrepid scouts and explorers, the vanguard of Russification conquering wilderness, alien en80 emies, and alien cultures alike.” Post-Soviet Russian historiography promotes two interconnected myths of the Cossacks – their Russianness, and their united identity. Both of these myths require studying the Cossacks as a group isolated from any “foreign” influence.

Summary of the Historiography on Cossack-Kazakh Relations As this historiographical analysis demonstrates, those historians who have studied Kazakh-Cossack relations were largely preoccupied with the depiction of conflict between these two groups. Regardless of the estimations of the effects produced by Russian rule on the nomads of the steppe, one theme remained constant – historians and ideologists depict Kazakh-Cossack relations as a history of confrontation. The conflict could be along colonizer/colonized or exploiter/exploited lines, but the basis remained the same – the Cossacks and Kazakhs belonged to antagonistic camps with no common interests or much interaction. This could not be otherwise as the Christian, settled, Russian-speaking Cossacks had irrevocable and irreconcilable differences with 78 79 80 28

Barrett, At the Edge of Empire, 14. Barbara Skinner, “Identity Formation in the Russian Cossack Revival,” Europe-Asia Studies 46, no. 6 (1994): 1024. Barrett, At the Edge of Empire, 7.

Muslim, nomadic, Turkic-speaking Kazakhs. Cossack-Kazakh relations, according to this classification, can be best described as “the battle of cultures” in which the militarily stronger Russians subdued and destroyed the weaker Kazakh civilization, despite the latter’s desperate attempts to defend itself. The “natural” hostility of the Cossacks to any sign of “non-Russianness” made them a compliant instrument of the Tsar in the enslavement of the natives of the steppe, and the imposition of Russian rule and culture. In these historians’ works, the Cossacks have all the elements of George Lucas’s storm troopers of the Evil Empire: the faceless and, thus, homogeneous mass of machines rather than humans devoid of any interests of their own (at least those which were at odds with the will of their overlords), the obedient tool of the imperial center in the destruction and enslavement of non-Russian peoples. Consequently, the depiction of the northern Kazakhstan frontier acquired all the features of a zone of separation, where contact between representatives of different cultures was minimal and both parties preserved all the elements of their identities. Unfortunately, this approach simplifies the analysis and does not reflect the multiple and culturally mixed identities of a frontier society.

The Revisionist View on the Russian Eastern Frontier The recent decade, however, has witnessed the emergence of a new approach to the study of Russian borderlands (though not of Cossack-Kazakh relations), which is largely at odds with the older historiographical consensus. Thomas Barrett’s pioneering book, At the Edge of Empire: The Terek Cossacks and the North Caucasus Frontier, 1700–1860 criticizes the conventional depiction of the frontier as a firmly demarcated space for being incongruent with the conditions of ordinary life there, which were more ambiguous. Instead, he offers a more nuanced view that demonstrates extensive contact between natives of the Caucasus Mountains and newcomers from the north. In contrast to the aforementioned authors, Barrett sees the Russian borderlands as a zone of negotiation and mutual influence more than one of conflict and separation. Such factors as “intermarriage, interactions, conversions, acculturations, and desertions,” according to Barrett, are responsible for blurring distinctions between the participants of contact, creating a situation in which many frontiersmen could easily switch sides and fight on the side of the group which official ideology considered their enemies. Though Barrett does not deny the fact that relations between Cossacks and mountaineers were at times violent, he nevertheless defines the fighting as “limited, regulated, and more a func29

81

tion of life in the North Caucasus than of conquest and resistance.” His work advances beyond the traditional historiography with its emphasis on the conquerors and the conquered. For Barrett, Terek Cossacks were motivated not by any sense of identity as Russians bringing civilization to the outlying regions, but by the interests of their local communities which, at times, were in conflict with the policy of the central government. Nicholas Breyfogle in his study of the communities of Russian religious dissenters in the South Caucasus seconds Barrett’s criticism of the older historiography for “stressing the bilateral confrontation between Russian state 82 agents and non-Russian peoples.” He argues that the depiction of Russian frontier history as “a battle of primal forces in which only one could survive,” with unequal subjugation of the natives of the Caucasus by the Russians is inaccurate. Violence, though present, coexisted with economic interactions and mutual support. His study demonstrates that because neither Russians nor mountaineers could clearly dominate the other, mutual accommodation arose, and the contact between them transformed both parties. Breyfogle also challenges the conventional portrayal of Russian settlers as the agents of the Empire. Rather than being driven by a colonial mission, he argues, the settlers’ agenda was oftentimes in opposition to the state’s goals, which made the Russians on the frontier resist the policies imposed on them by the center. As well as Barrett, Breyfogle considers the depiction of the frontier as a zone of imperial dominance and native resistance to be oversimplified. In his words, “... it was not always clear in which direction the power between “colonizer” and “colonized” flowed, and it was more often the locals who dictated the terms of the relationship. This revisionist approach is not confined to the Caucasus. David Moon in his research on Russian peasant settlements in Siberia uses the term “middle ground” coined by an American borderlands historian Richard White to define Russia’s frontier as “an intermediate zone of interaction and mutual accommodation between the Russian state and neighboring state structure, Russian peasant-migrants and the environment, and agricultural peasants and 83 pastoral nomads and other native peoples.” The fact that the Cossacks did not view Siberia as a new world made the interaction and accommodation 81 82 83 30

Ibid., 165-166. Nicholas B. Breyfogle, Heretics and Colonizers: Forging Russia’s Empire in the South Caucasus (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2005), 3. David Moon, “Peasant Migration and the Settlement of Russia’s Frontiers, 1550–1897,” The Historical Journal 40, no. 4 (December, 1997): 862.

easier. As Yuri Slezkine notices, the Cossacks’ “own world was not as starkly divided into the Christian and non-Christian spheres” as that of the American Puritans or Pilgrims. The Russians of the frontier “did not refer to the natives as savages, barbarians, or pagans” and did not consider the natives’ ways of 84 life inferior. In these scholars’ view, various forms of interactions and mutual accommodation rather than conflict defined relations between the natives of Siberia and newcomers. The result of these interactions was the nativization of Russians, as described by Willard Sunderland in his study of the Siberian north. In his article, he writes on Russian settlers “who spoke Siberian languages better than their own, ate raw meat, practiced “shamanism,” and looked so strikingly “alien” that they seemed virtually indistinguishable from the Iakuts, Ostiaks, Samoeds, and other “primitive” Siberians who lived 85 around them.” The author uses this observation to demonstrate that life on frontier was very much different from the plans of St. Petersburg. Instead of bringing the natives to a “higher level of civilization,” as was expected by the imperial ideologists, Russians themselves adopted many elements of local cultures. In the eyes of the “reading society” of the imperial center it was “racial and cultural degeneration;” the Russians of the frontier obviously did not share this belief. The system of values and attitudes to “otherness” were drastically dissimilar in the center and on the peripheries. As long as the proponents of the emerging tradition of creolization and hybridity studies counter a highly politicized depiction of the Russian eastern frontier as a zone of separation, one could trace “politics” within their studies as well. Ronald Grigor Suny, one of the most prominent supporters of “soft, blurred, shifting boundaries between ethnic and religious groups” in the Caucasus and “the long constitution of a shared Caucasian culture” emphasizes the political significance of his research. In his view, a scholar writing on the history of the Caucasus is much more than an academic. Whatever conclusions he or she may draw, he or she will unavoidably influence the presentday situation in the region: Nationalist violence or inter-ethnic cooperation and tolerance depend on what narrative, what tales of injustice, oppression, or betrayal are told. Tellers of tales have enormous (though far from

84 85

Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors, 40. Sunderland, “Russians into Iakuts,” 807. 31

absolute) power to reshape, edit, share their stories, and therefore 86 to promote a future of either violence or cooperation. Keeping this “call for responsibility” in mind, Suny demonstrates the cosmopolitan pan-Caucasian tendencies of the past, insisting on the possibilities of their revival. According to him, the ethnonationalists’ claims of the present identity as “fixed, singular, bounded, internally harmonious, distinct from others at its boundaries, and marked by historical longevity” are not only opposed by historical evidence, but also are not useful in the current situation of 87 inter-ethnic conflicts. On the contrary, if a historian is able to demonstrate that the lines between peoples are blurred and shifting, then “we can conceive of political communities in the future that permit cohabitation with shared 88 sovereignties in a ‘national’ space.” I believe that Suny’s words can be equally applicable to inter-ethnic relations in Kazakhstan. The task of this book is to expand the geography of the revisionist approach to the study of Russian-native relations to the region of Northern Kazakhstan in order to determine the similarities and differences of these relations in various regions of the Russian Empire. The present study draws upon developments in the historiography of the American frontier in the last two decades and employs Barrett’s methodology on studying the Cossack-mountaineers relations to demonstrate that, as well as in the cases of North America and North Caucasus, the Northern Kazakhstani frontier was a zone of active cultural exchange. The immigrants of European Russia and the natives of the regions east of the Urals formed “borderland communities of interests,” which, like the societies in the Southwestern American borderlands studied by Brooks, established relations “both violently competitive and sim89 ultaneously mutualistic and cooperative.” The time span of my research covers a large period between the inclusion of Northern and Eastern Kazakhstan into the Russian Empire in 1731 up to the beginning of the twentieth century, when mass peasant migration turned the region into an agricultural zone; the state was able to strengthen its institutions in the steppe to regulate the relations between new coming and aboriginal populations; and the ideas of ethnically centered nationalism came to 86 87 88 89 32

Ronald Grigor Suny, “Constructing Primordialism: Old Histories for New Nations,” The Journal of Modern History 73 (2001): 864. Ibid., 863, 866. Ibid., 896. Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 4.

penetrate the consciousness of the Russians on the frontier, making them view the Kazakhs irrevocably as “others.” These three developments effectively “closed the frontier” and turned these parts of modern-day Kazakhstan into Russian provinces.

Summary of Chapters Chapter One, “Siberian Cossacks and Kazakhs: The Emblems of Identity,” answers the question of what made extensive interactions between newcomers and aboriginals, which led to the formation of a culturally mixed society, possible. I consider the most important factor which “opened” the frontier to be the absence of firmly fixed identities among the participants of the contact. In order to prove this argument, I explore the ethnic and religious composition of the Siberian Cossacks and the Kazakhs who lived along the Irtysh River. The first part of this chapter contrasts the modern self-representation of the Siberian Cossacks against the historical record. In particular, it tests the claims advanced by present-day Siberian Cossacks that their ancestors were always distinguished by their Russian ethnicity and Orthodox faith. My argument is that their racial, religious, and national identities were not firmly established enough to enable them to act as agents of the Russian state. Far from being a part of the Great Russian people in terms of being ethnic Russians and Orthodox Christians, the Siberian Cossacks were ethnically and religiously heterogeneous. The newcomers from European Russia were neither “the Knights of Orthodoxy” as the Russian Orthodox Church portrays them, nor the “obedient tool of the empire for the subjugation of the natives,” as depicted by post-1991 Kazakhstani historians. Similarly, as the second part of this chapter demonstrates, the dominance of tribal over national identity and the syncretism of Kazakhs’ religious beliefs did not force the nomads to sacrifice their lives in the struggle against “foreign invaders” and “infidels.” Chapter Two, “Cross-Cultural Exchanges on the Frontier: Their Causes and Consequences,” demonstrates that the absence of firmly established identities in both societies participating in the contact allowed for their mutual cultural assimilation. By comparing the way of life, diets, material culture, and traditions of the Altai and Siberian Cossacks, I show that environment was one of the crucial factors in determining the level of nativization of Russians, or the Russification of Kazakhs. The conditions of the Russian eastern borderlands determined that an individual’s loyalty could easily change depending on his or her immediate interests. The fluidity of the frontier created 33

a situation in which people could easily cross over to the other side. This chapter also studies the possibilities of crossing the border, as well as the lives of those who crossed the boundaries (voluntarily or as captives), thus contributing to the intercultural exchange between immigrant and native populations. I challenge the conventional belief that the transformation of the societies in contact was a one-way road, with the militarily superior Russians subduing the Kazakh culture. Along with Kazakhs’ adoption of elements of Russian culture, we also see strong Kazakh influence in all spheres of Cossack life. The latter phenomenon, with the exception of a few recent studies, is generally ignored by historians. It is true that the fluidity and indeterminacy of cultural identities on the frontier and the openness of different societies to elements of the other created the conditions for peaceful coexistence in certain context and circumstances, while they failed to do so in others. Many historians consider the rebellion of Kazakh sultan Kenesary Kasymov (1837–1847) to be the highest point of Cossack-Kazakh antagonism. Both Kazakhstani and Western historians define Kenesary’s ten-year struggle against Russian colonization as the greatest challenge to Russian authority and the most important event in the Kazakh history of the 19th century. Historians and publicists typically portray Kenesary as the first Kazakh nationalist who raised the people of the steppe in their struggle for independence. Another interpretation of the rebellion depicts Kenesary’s uprising as “a protest of conservation” and “a protest of restoration” – a nostalgic effort directed at the restoration of Kazakhs’ historical past destroyed by colonialism. Both interpretations view the rebellion as a major conflict between the masses of nomads and the agents of the Empire – the Cossacks. Chapter Three, “The Kenesary Kasymov Rebellion (1837–1847): A National-Liberation Movement or ‘a Protest of Restoration?’” challenges both interpretations of the nature of the rebellion. I argue that Kenesary’s uprising was caused primarily by internal, not external factors. In my interpretation, this revolt was neither a “national-liberation” rebellion nor “a protest of restoration.” Not an attempt to return to the “good old days”, but the creation of a new, centralized type of state without precedent in Kazakhstani history was his aim. In order to demonstrate that, I explore the immediate cause of the rebellion, the composition of the rebels, the reforms introduced by Kenesary in the territories he controlled, and the traditional political and social structure of Kazakh society. 34

As this study reveals, Kenesary did not represent the interests of the majority of Kazakhs. More than that, many of his compatriots met his modernizing effort with resistance. This resistance determined the course of the rebellion and its final outcome. Kenisary led his attacks, first of all, against the traditional clan leaders, who resisted his attempts to limit their authority over their clansmen. Rather than being an anti-colonial movement directed against Russian administration and Cossacks as “the agents of imperialism,” the rebellion represented the fight between modernizers and traditionalists within Kazakh society with most of the Cossacks taking an anti-Kenesarian stand. At the same time, as my research demonstrates, some Cossacks were fighting on Kenesary’s side. Two of his chief lieutenants were actually Cossacks – a fact which is largely ignored by the nationalistically-minded historians writing on the revolt. We can make parallels with similar side-switching by Cossacks at the time of the Shamil rebellion in the North Caucasus as observed by Barrett. In both cases it can prove the thesis of the fluidity of the frontier and the absence of clearly demarcated religious and ethnic boundaries, which separated native and Cossack communities. Another important conclusion, which can be drawn from the Kenesary rebellion, is the absence of firmly established national or religious identities among the Kazakhs – an issue addressed in the second chapter. All of Kenesary’s appeals to the national or religious feelings of the Kazakhs to rise up against the “infidels” or “occupants” remained largely unanswered. The people of the steppe identified themselves as belonging to a certain clan rather than an entire ethnic or religious group. As Soviet historians endeav90 ored to find class struggle in classless societies, Kazakhstani historians speak of “national-liberation movements” in a society that had no sense of national solidarity. In Chapter Four, “The Aims of the Russian Imperial State in the Steppe” the Russian central government figures prominently. This chapter studies the economic and political interests of the Russian state in the newly acquired region, and the ideology which sought to justify the expansion. These two issues are relevant to my study since both of them determined Russian policy in the steppe. This chapter demonstrates that the Russian state’s aims in the Kazakh steppe were to ensure the security of the Russian settlements in Siberia and to stimulate Russian trade with the Central Asian Khanates through 90

Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors; Grant, In the Soviet House 35

the steppe. This chapter also reveals that the Russian state did not have enough resources to control developments in the steppe in order to fully achieve these objectives. It could neither protect the trading caravans traveling through the steppe from nomadic raids, nor force the nomads to compensate for the losses caused by their attacks. One of the reasons for the weakness of the Russian state in the steppe was the fact that the interests of the Cossacks as settlers did not always coincide with the duties of their service. Cossacks did separate their own interests from the interests of the empire, and, when these interests were in conflict, they did not fulfill their duties as agents of the Tsar. As I have mentioned above, one of the main objectives of the Russian state in the region was the development of trade. Due to measures undertaken by the Russian administration and Kazakhs’ interest in acquiring Russian goods, trade between Kazakhs and Siberian Cossacks became extensive. Chapter Five, “The Role of Trade in the Formation of a Frontier Society” studies the consequences which the development of commerce produced on Cossack–Kazakh relations. First, it led to the intermingling of their material culture. Second, it created their mutual dependency on each other. Without trade with the Kazakhs, the Siberian Cossacks could neither prosper nor even survive, since the Russian state could not provide its representatives on the remote frontier with even the basic necessities. Third, as trade in the steppe was highly competitive, commerce was impossible without establishing friendly relations between Kazakhs and Cossacks, and the latter’s adoption of traditional Kazakh modes of behavior. Fourth, trade rather than war determined the relations between the participants of the contact. Taken together, these four factors transformed the Kazakh steppe into a zone of active exchange and mutual acculturation. I do not argue that life on the frontier was without conflict. Conflicts between Cossacks and Kazakhs did occur. Chapter Six, “Conflicts on the Steppe: Their Sources and Resolutions” analyzes the sources of these conflicts and the ways of their resolution. My first argument here is that the state was not strong enough to impose Imperial Law to mete out justice in conflicts which involved Kazakhs and Cossacks. Along with a lack of resources to regulate the relations between Kazakhs and Cossacks, there were two other reasons which forced the Russian administration either not to notice that the conflicts between its service men and the nomads were resolved by traditional steppe methods, or even to recommend that Kazakh judges solve these con36

flict situations according to Adat (traditional law). First, under steppe conditions, Russian Law could neither punish the criminal nor bring satisfaction to the victim. Second, the people of the frontier worked out their own system of conflict resolution, which was closer to the traditional steppe one than to that of the Russian Empire. Consequently, the people of the frontier, Cossacks and Kazakhs alike, met with resistance the attempts of the state to incorporate the Kazakh steppe into the imperial legal framework. This chapter also demonstrates that it would be wrong to state that in the conflicts between Cossacks and steppe nomads, the Russian administration gave constant support to its representatives. The Speranskii Reform of 1822 entrusted all power in the steppe to the okrug prikazy. Being dependent on the natives of the steppe, these prikazy defended Kazakhs’ interests over those of the Siberian Cossacks. To demonstrate this phenomenon, the chapter studies the land disputes between Cossacks and Kazakhs, and the role of the prikazy in their resolutions. Due to the absence of firmly established identities, Cossacks and Kazakhs frequently formed alliances to resist state policies intended to regulate life on the frontier. This point challenges the depiction of the Cossacks as agents of the Empire, whose interests were indistinguishable from those of St. Petersburg. Instead, I argue that the Cossacks’ actions were determined by their immediate interests, and their worldview by their environment. In this respect, I agree with Richard White that politics in the “middle ground” emerged most 91 clearly at the village, not the national level. This consideration raises the question of the validity of the scholarly preoccupation with Russian central authorities, which is shared by most histori92 ans who study the imperial history of Russia. Historians rely too much on the imperial policy formulated in St. Petersburg and ignore both how the imperial laws were implemented (if they were implemented at all) and how Kazakh nomads perceived them. The imperial periphery is, at best, a distant presence in the works of many historians. The scholars’ concentration on imperial policy inevitably draws their attention away from the developments in the border regions. As a result, differences between theory and practice, and the impact of local circumstances on the implementation of policies have been 91 92

White, The Middle Ground. Brower and Lazzerini, “Introduction,” in Russia’s Orient, eds. Brower and Lazzerini, xiii. The similar susceptibility to Moscow-centered scholarship is a characteristic of the Western historiography on post-revolutionary Russia. 37

ignored. The question of how the aboriginal peoples and newcomers of the outlying regions received and transformed the imperial policies imposed on them, except for a small number of recent studies, has long been neglected in 93 the historiography of the Russian Empire. I argue that examining the intentions of Russian policy-makers and the provisions of imperial legislation towards the people of the steppe is not enough to understand the effects that colonialism produced on Kazakh nomads. Local conditions had the power to transform the legislation and bring consequences that the Russian government could not foresee. Thus I have chosen to conduct most of my research at regional archives in Kazakhstan and Western Siberia. Documents available in the State Archive of Omsk Oblast’ (GAOO) and the Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan (TsGA RK) allow the researcher to trace the events which occurred on the periphery and did not find their reflection in the documents available in the archives of Moscow or St. Petersburg. Such materials (available in these archives) as the customs books of Siberian/Kazakhstani towns, personal files of Siberian merchants, materials of state organizations which came into close contact with Russian settlers and natives (courts, commodity exchanges, and customs offices), materials of academic expeditions and memoirs of their participants (P. Pallas, I. Falk, and G. Potanin), travelers’ accounts, reports which Siberian officials sent to the Senate, chronicles of the Siberian Cossack army, and correspondence between Cossack leaders and Kazakh sultans in the 18th and 19th centuries can better demonstrate developments on the ground, which quite often were different from the plans for the steppe dictated from the center. The evidence presented by these sources allows us to make the conclusion that relations between Cossacks and Kazakhs and developments on the frontier in the period under study were by no means predetermined by some irrevocable antagonism along religious or racial lines. The active interactions between Kazakhs and Siberian Cossacks became possible due to the fluidity and provisional characters of identities of the contact participants. These active interactions caused the mutual assimilation of these two groups. The mutual acculturation created preconditions for the formation of a “frontier soci93

38

Marc Raeff is not very convincing in arguing that only the materials of the central government can help us study Russian regional history, as most of the non-governmental materials are “primarily ethnographic in character with relatively little information on the political and administrative pattern;” see Marc Raeff, Siberia and the Reforms of 1822 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1956), xvi, 89.

ety of interests,” which crosscut racial and religious barriers and resisted the attempts of the central government to impose its rule over the peoples of this outlying region. The aforementioned developments challenge the depiction of the contact as “a battle of cultures” or a meeting of “two different worlds,” as 94 it is typically portrayed in Kazakhstani and Western historiography.

94

Aubakirova, “Uchastie sibirskogo kazachestva,” 3. 39

Chapter One Siberian Cossacks and Kazakhs: The Emblems of Identity

Modern Self-Representation of the Siberian Cossacks Crossed swords and maces decorate the wall of a dimly lit room in the basement of a building, which belongs to the Russian Society “Slaviia” of a Northern Kazakhstani city. Another decoration in the room is the Russian flag. The scripture on the ribbon attached to the flag says: “For God, Tsar, and Fatherland.” The fragrance of a burning candle standing in the “Red Corner” by the Holy Icon of Saint Nicholas soars in the air. Two dozen men aging from sixteen to sixty sit around a table. They are Siberian Cossacks of Kazakhstan, and the room in which they are sitting is the headquarters of the Cossack Army. The men wear the uniforms one may see in movies about the Russian Civil War. This kind of uniform used to be worn by “white bandits” fighting against “red heroes.” It was a class war. The supporters of the Bolshevik revolution were smashing those who stood in their way to building the “bright Communist future.” Siberian Cossacks were among those who, according to 95 the Bolshevik revolutionary doctrine, should be exterminated as a class. Quite naturally, Cossacks opposed the attempts of the Revolutionary Committee to put an end to their existence and fiercely, though unsuccessfully, fought against the Red Army. Eighty years have passed since the Civil War ended, but the men in the room still speak of the “white” versus the “red” opposition. But there is a difference. Now they do not speak of class struggle. They speak of races. They see their task as the liberation of the “white race” (Russians) from the oppression of the “red savages” (Kazakhs). The Cossacks of Kazakhstan issue programs and statutes, in which they openly claim that the Northern and Eastern parts of Kazakhstan historically belong to Russia, and they are ready to de95

40

“The Circular Letter of the Organization Bureau of the Central Committee VKP(b) on the Policy towards Cossacks,” written in January 1919, prescribed commissars and Party workers appointed to Cossack settlements to employ the methods of total genocide of Cossack leaders; to destroy all rich Cossacks; to execute all Cossacks who participated in anti-Soviet activities; to confiscate bread and force the Cossacks to give all the food supplies to the State stores. See Rossiiskii Tsentr khraneniia i izucheniia dokumentov noveishei epokhi (RTsKhIDN), f. 17, op. 4, l. 5.

96

mand and achieve the restoration of this “historical justice.” At least, some representatives of Cossacks, in their interviews with Russian and Western ob97 servers, declare a willingness to use violence to achieve their aims. They see the shift from class to race antagonism as a return to enmities lodged deep in history. They are certain that they are resuming their traditional functions as 98 the defenders of Russians, Russian Empire, and Orthodox Christianity. To justify their self-assumed role, they insist, on the one hand, on the continuity of their history, and, on the other hand, on their “Russianness.” Both Russian and Kazakhstani politicians and historians support their 99 claims, though for very different reasons. In one element they seem to be unanimous: the basic features of the Siberian Cossacks since the establishment of Cossack forts and stanitsas at the edge of the Kazakh steppe at the 100 beginning of the 18th century to the present day remain unchanged. The 96

The resolution of the Meeting of Cossack Atamans of Moscow in December, 2000, dubbed the declaration of independence of Kazakhstan in 1991 and the proclamation of the primacy of “indigene ethnicity” as a catastrophe for the Slavic people of the Republic. According to this resolution, the delineation of state borders between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan was doubtful and historically groundless. Consequently the delineation had to be revised. The resolution proclaimed that the Russian and Cossack population of the North, East, and West of Kazakhstan was inseparable from Russia, and were to be under Russian jurisdiction. Cossack Atamans stated that they were going to demand and achieve the establishment of a frontier between Russia and Kazakhstan along the ethnic borders of the settlements of Russians and Kazakhs. They demanded the limitation of the Kazakh jurisdiction over the aforementioned regions. See “Tsentral’noaziatskii Tolstyi Zhurnal,” Informatsionnoe Agenstvo Slavianskii Mir (December 12, 2000). 97 Skinner, “Identity Formation,“ 1029. 98 The Kazakhstani government returns the favor to the Siberian Cossacks of Kazakhstan, using all their legislative instruments to suppress them as an organization. The Cossacks were the only Russian group denied official registration in Kazakhstan. In the words of Kazakhstani historian Azamat Sarsembayev, the Cossacks “were perceived [by the government] as a militant threat to Kazakh authority since they even refused to recognize the laws of independent Kazakhstan.” See Azamat Sarsembayev, “Imagined Communities: Kazak Nationalism and Kazakification in the 1990s,” Central Asia Survey 18, no. 3 (1999): 339. 99 When I mention “Russian historians,” I mean “citizens of Russia [rossiiane]” rather than “ethnic Russians [russkie].” The English language does not distinguish between these two definitions, which makes this explanation necessary. The word “Kazakhstani,” unlike the word “Kazakh” does not carry ethnic meaning. “Kazakhstani” means a citizen of Kazakhstan regardless of ethnic affiliation. The word “Kazakh” refers to a member of an ethnic group whether or not he or she is a citizen of Kazakhstan. 100 According to the leading Kazakhstani historian M. Zh. Abdirov, the identity formation of Cossacks in ethnic and religious terms was completed by the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries, when mass migration of the Russian fugitives to the “Wild Steppe” led to the substitution of the initial Turkic-Muslim composition of Cossacks by Slavic-Christian elements. Another transformation deals with relations 41

history of the Siberian Cossacks is written as if neither writers nor readers have reasons to wonder who these Cossacks are and who they were. They ignore the change over time in Cossackness itself over the course of past two and a half centuries.

The Emblems of Kazakh Identity In a similar vein, post-Soviet Kazakh historians and ideologists rarely miss a chance to quote the early Soviet historian A. Riazanov, who, speaking of the Kazakh rebellions of the first half of the 19th century, mentioned that “the feeling of national independence and self-defense was well developed among Kazakhs […] In their name, Kazakhs sacrificed their families, properties, and 101 their lives without giving a second thought.” Such scholars as A. Kuzembaiuly and E. Abil define Kazakh history of the 18th century as the period of “struggle for national independence” and “eternal war of liberation” against the Russian and Dzhungar (the nomadic people of Mongol descent) enemies. 102 The “national-liberation” nature of the rebellions in the steppe assumes the existence of the Kazakh nation in pre-modern times, the members of which had a certain set of features making them different from others. Kazakhstani ideologists and historians assert that “the development in 103 their “ethnos” proceeded uninterruptedly since ancient times.” In a recent work by Kazakhstani historian M. Abuseitova, “the Kazakhs have kept their ethnic distinctiveness intact and preserved their ethnic territory during many 104 centuries.” She attributes the emergence both of Kazakh statehood, “with a certain territory and definite ethnic composition,” and nationality to the 15th

101 102 103 104 42

between the Russian state and Cossacks. The Cossacks lost their independence and traditional liberties, and turned into a martial estate ready to “protect the interests of the Russian Empire at any time” during the reign of Peter the Great. Since both transformations took place prior to the construction of fortresses along the Irtysh Line, by the time of coming into contact with Kazakhs, the Cossacks possessed all the characteristics of their present day group identity. In this author’s view, since the beginning of the 18th century, Cossacks have been of predominantly Slavic origin, belonged to the Christian Orthodox Church, and showed loyalty to the Russian state and hostility to the natives of the steppe. See M. Zh. Abdirov, Zavoevanie Kazakhstana tsarskoi Rossiei i bor’ba Kazakhskogo naroda za nezavisimost’ (iz istorii voenno-kazach’ei kolonizatsii kraia v kontse XVI – nachale XX vekov) (Astana: Elorda, 2000), 44-45. Abdirov, “Voenno-Kazach’ia,” 265. A. Kuzembaiuly and E. Abil, Istoriia Respubliki Kazakhstan (Astan: IKF Foliant, 2003), 127, 183. George, Journey into Kazakhstan, 3. M. Kh. Abuseitova, Kazakhstan and Central Asia in the 15th–17th Centuries: History, Policy, Diplomacy (Almaty: Daik Press, 1998), 12.

and 16th centuries. In the author’s view, “The Kazakh people took their modern name, began to use this name in their encounters with other peoples, and 105 established their special position in history” at that time. Such leading Kazakhstani historians as M. Abdirov, M. Kozybaev, and Zh. Kasymbaev attribute the emergence of the Kazakh nation and statehood to much earlier periods of time. In their words, Kazakhs can boast “two and a half thousand 106 years of uninterrupted history.” This interpretation of history is in full accord with the nationality policy of post-Soviet Kazakhstan. As the Kazakh government’s rhetoric divides the citizens of the country into the “colonized” 107 and the “colonizers” along ethnic lines, historians try to create the image of the permanence of the boundaries separating “us” and “them” – that is the 108 Kazakh and non-Kazakh citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Along with the national and ethnic distinctions of Kazakhs from the “others,” recent years have witnessed the emergence of another “boundary marker” of identity – the nomadic history of Kazakhs. Shirin Akiner ascribes the modern-day Kazakhs’ pride in their nomadic traditions to their desire to establish another boundary between themselves and their sedentary neighbors 109 and to underline that “in nature and outlook, they are a people apart.” Zh. Mazhitova, in her description of the Sultan Kenesary Kasymov rebellion in the first half of the nineteen century, uses poetic images comparing the revolt with “the death sigh” and “the cry of the soul” of the Central Asian nomadic 110 civilization, which lost its battle against the sedentary civilization of Russia. The symbols of modern-day Kazakhstan are also based largely on the images of nomadism. The most popular visual image of President N. Nazarbaev’s program of economic, political, and social development, called “Program 2030,” depicts a young Asian-looking horseman, dressed in a national Kazakh cos105 Ibid., 110. 106 M. Kozybaev, “Otkuda ‘est’-poshla kazakhskaia zemlia,” Mysl’ 1 (1994): 83-86; Zh. Kasymbaev, M. Abdirov, “Potomki Chingiz-khana – osnovateli nashego gosudarstva,” Mysl’ 1 (1996): 3-8. 107 Olcott, Kazakhstan, 64. 108 It would be wrong to state that the government tries to divide the people of the Republic along ethnic lines without the support of a considerable part of the population. In Sarsembaev’s opinion, “it is the Kazak population that eventually demands and supports the Presidential team in its pursuit of Kazakification – at least in the sense of linguistically exclusive discrimination – in the hope of gaining privileges at the expense of other ethnic groups.” See Sarsembayev, “Imagined Communities,” 335. 109 Shirin Akiner, The Formation of Kazakh Identity: From Tribe to Nation-State (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1995), 67. 110 Mazhitova, “Voennoe prisutstvie,” 140. 43

tume, who rides his horse along boundless steppe with no agricultural fields, factories, or any other signs of settled life whatsoever. The ideologists’ image of the future of Kazakhstan seems to be a return to the past “pure” Kazakh culture, ideally free of any “foreign” influence. Another distinctive feature of Kazakh identity is found in religion. Zhunuzak Kasymbaev writes on the assistance of the Central Asian khanates to the rebellious Sultan Kasymov as a 111 sign of Muslim solidarity and the fight of Muslims against the infidels. Both Kazakhs and Cossacks emphasize the permanence and strength of the emblems of identity which have separated them. According to Dale Eickelman this process is not accidental or confined to a particular region, since the problem of the assertion and meaning of personal and collective identities are of crucial importance “with the rise of ethnonationalism and ethnoreligious nationalisms,” which became a hallmark of the end of the twentieth and the 112 beginning of the twenty first centuries in many places all over the World. Both sides use history as a narrative of identity. There is, however, a difference. The modern-day Cossack ideologists in their historical studies draw heavily on tsarist historiography to demonstrate the pertinence of their symbols of identity. Kazakhs, on the other hand, have to create the narrative of their identity from scratch as the pre-1991 era saw only a brief emergence of a nationalistic Kazakh literature in the late imperial and early Soviet periods. Nevertheless, this difference does not eliminate the main similarity – both identities have been created. The task of this chapter is to challenge the generally accepted vision of the Cossacks and Kazakhs as permanently and irrevocably different groups, foreign to each other in their race, religion, and way of life.

Theories of Nationalism 113

At this point, I am joining the debate between the “perennialist” and “modernist” schools of studying nationalism. The first group consists of the histori111 Zh. Kasymbaev, Poslednii pokhod Khana Kenesary i ego gibel’ (Almaty: Ana tili, 2002), 48. 112 Dale Eickelman, The Middle East and Central Asia: An Anthropological Approach (New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2002), vii. 113 For the sake of brevity, I do not distinguish between the “perennialists” and other schools of thought, who are defined by Anthony D. Smith as “primordialists.” In spite of the fact that they use different methods in conducting their research, they share the belief that nations and nationalism are perennial and natural. Two most renowned representatives of the “perennialist” school are John Armstrong and Clifford Geertz. For the detailed description of their ideas see John Armstrong, Nations before Nationalism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982) and Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (London: Fontana, 1973). 44

ans who claim that nations existed from the time immemorial, and national114 ism is “a particular ideology of solidarity based on pre-industrial roots.” The more common variety of the representatives of this school, defined by Anthony D. Smith as “continuous perennialists,” argue that most of the modern nations can trace their origins back to antiquity. These scholars downplay the qualitative difference between pre-industrial symbols of group identity and their modern manifestations. Modern nations “simply extend, deepen and streamline the ways in which members of ethnie associated and communicated. They do not introduce startlingly novel elements, or change the goals of 115 human association and communication.” These symbols of group identity, 116 or Fredrik Barth’s “border guards”, describe symbols that create barriers between “us” and “them”. According to these scholars, these symbols are deeply rooted within human society and history and have existed untouched for millennia. Modern-day nationalists just reminded the members of these groups of their existence. In addition to being constant, the “primordial ties” which unite the members of a certain group are regarded as natural and universal. As long as this interpretation of a nation requires a “supposed history of unmixed descent from the earliest indigenous occupants of a certain territory,” the followers of this school conducting research in inter-ethnic relations in the Russian borderlands tend to downplay the importance of contact between native and new-coming population. In the case of the post-Soviet republics, such scholars claim that nations had existed before the Russian conquest. According to them, Soviet control had been suppressing their national expression and the rise of nationalist movements in the post-Soviet period is an “eruption of long-repressed primordial national consciousness, [and] expressions of denied 117 desires liberated by the kiss of freedom.” On the other hand, “modernists” insist on the historically unprecedented 114 For the detailed analysis of the argument of the proponents of this school, see R. Charles Weller, Rethinking Kazakh and Central Asian Nationhood: A Challenge to Prevailing Western Views (Los Angeles: Asia Research Associates, 2006); John Hutchinson and Anthony Smith, Ethnicity (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); Anthony Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Malden, MS: Blackwell, 1986). 115 Smith, The Ethnic Origins, 215. 116 Fredrik Barth, ed., Introduction to Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1969). 117 Ronald Grigor Suny, The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), 3; Suny, “Constructing Primordialism,” 871. 45

118

character of modern-day group identities. Their approach received its name because of their shared belief in the modernity of the nation and contingency of nationalism. One of the founders of the “modernist” approach explicitly argued: “It is modernity that requires nations and makes nationalities seem natural. It is modernity that inevitably comes in the shape of “nationalism,” and 119 it is nationalism that creates nations.” In contrast to “perennialists,” “modernists” emphasize a drastic difference between pre-modern identities and sentiments and modern nations. In addition to the claim that nations are not 120 “as old as history,” but “a very recent newcomer in human history,” the opponents of “perennialism” argue that group identities are flexible and can be easily manipulated by nationalists who “make use of the past in order to sub121 vert the present.” The latter argument is especially well pronounced in the works of one such “modernist,” Eric Hobsbawm. This scholar emphasizes the socially constructed nature of national identities. In his view, nationalism and states create nations, sometimes inventing and oftentimes obliterating pre-existing cul122 tures. According to Hobsbawm and another follower of the modernist school of thought, Ernest Renan, the historians who write the history of a nation believing in its ancient character inevitably get their histories wrong, since writing national history presupposes its mythologization. The creation myths of the symbols of group identity, in Hobsbawm’s opinion, is nothing 123 more than simply an instrument for achieving political goals by ruling elites. In spite of the fact that the shift to “modernism” occurred in the West as 124 early as the 1960s, its arguments “has had almost no resonance in Russian 125 and Soviet studies.” The belief in the pre-modern roots of nationalities of Central Asia dominated Soviet as well as Western historiography. The direct118 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London/New York: Verso Press, 1993); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983); Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism; Suny, The Revenge of the Past. 119 Ernest Gellner, Thought and Change (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964), 168. 120 Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, 3, 5. 121 Elie Kedourie, Nationalism (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1961), 75. 122 Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, 10. 123 Ibid., 10-13. 124 The dominance of the constructivist views on the nature of nation is nowadays so noticeable in the Western school of thought that James Kellas defines Walker Connor as “an almost lone primordialist in the hostile environment of the social sciences, where contextualism and constructivism rule supreme.” See James G. Kellas, The Politics of Nationalism and Ethnicity, 2nd ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 56. 125 Suny, The Revenge of the Past, 4. 46

or of the Institute of Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Sergei Tovstov, argued in 1947 that the Central Asian people were formed as nations between the sixth and twelfth centuries A.D., and occupied the same 126 territories as they did at the time of his writing. Ronald Grigor Suny’s pathbreaking book The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union, however, changed the situation and now the idea that “the parameters of modern Kazakh nationhood which were established and consolidated over the ensuing seventy-odd years, and which continue to exist today, were essentially a Soviet creation” dominates histori127 ography in the West. Oliver Roy applies Suny’s approach to his study of modern nation-states of Central Asia, defining the Soviet Union as “a formidable mechanism for 128 the manufacture of nations.” According to the author, the Soviet Union was responsible not only for imposing the concept of the nation-state onto a region where it had been previously unknown, but also for the “systematic eth129 nicisation of populations” living in this area. Roy’s research endeavors to demonstrate that Soviet ideologists invented the concept of Central Asian ethnic groups post facto, that is after the frontiers of Central Asian Soviet republics were defined by the decrees issued between 1924 and 1936. To justify this administrative division of Central Asia into republics, Soviet historians, linguists, and anthropologists invented group identities and national past for Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Tadzhiks, and Kirgizes. Roy argues against the idea suggested by such a distinguished scholar of nationalism as Smith, who takes an intermediate position between “perennialists” and “modernists.” Though Smith does not agree with the “perennialists” that the nation is “a primordial and natural unit of human association outside time,” he still claims that, contrary to “modernist” belief, “there is consider126 Sergei Tovstov, “Sessiia po etnogenezu Srednei Azii,” Sovetskaia etnografiia: Sbornik statei, vols. v-vii (Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo AN SSSR, 1947), 301-325. 127 Akiner, The Formation of Kazakh Identity, 34. In his article, “Constructing Primordialism: Old Histories for New Nations,” Suny demonstrates that the Kazakh masses lacked a national self- consciousness prior to the revolution. The attempts of post-Soviet Kazakhstani historians to write old national histories, according to the author, are nothing more than myths “aimed at ethnicizing the past of Kazakhstan, erasing its more multi-ethnic features, and establishing an ethnic Kazakh claim to territory.” See Suny, “Constructing Primordialism,” 882. 128 Oliver Roy, The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations (New York: New York University Press, 2000), viii. 129 Ibid., vii, x. 47

130

able continuity between pre-modern ethnie and the modern nation” and 131 most modern nations are based on ethnic foundations. Contrary to this claim, which implies a natural and constant nature of ethnic symbolism, Roy argues that Central Asian ethnies as well as Central Asian nation-states are nothing more than a Soviet creation. The symbols of group identity which unite modern-day ethnic groups in this region were invented by Soviet ideologists “to explain how this virtual people had been waiting for centuries for 132 its political incarnation [in the form of national republics] to be achieved.” Akiner seconds this idea, arguing that today’s nation-states in Central Asia (including Kazakhstan) are artificial constructions and the ethnic nations whose names they bear are the products of the ethno-engineering conducted by the Soviet government. Another school of thought, represented by Steven Sabol and Saulesh Esenova, challenges the idea that the Kazakh nation is a Soviet creation. Instead, they consider the first two decades of the twentieth century to be the time when the concept of the Kazakh ethnic identity was born. Their studies are complimentary. Sabol studies the emergence of a Kazakh intelligentsia, which played the crucial role in defining the concepts of the Kazakh nation, whereas Esenova reveals the ideological tenets upon which the Kazakh intellectuals built Kazakh identity. According to Sabol’s research, these Kazakhs, who were trained in Russian schools to be translators, educators and scient133 ists, “undertook the complex effort to define the Kazakh national identity.” In their attempts to unify the Kazakhs into a nation and to create the symbols of their ethnic identity, these intellectuals used “print and publishing, in the 134 Kazakh language, increased education, and political organization.” To demonstrate the creation of the Kazakh national identity, Sabol makes references to such modernists’ theories as Benedict Anderson’s notion of “print cap135 italism” and Miroslav Hroch’s “periodization” theories of national revival. 130 Smith defines “ethnie” as “named human populations with shared ancestry myths, histories and cultures, having an association with a specific territory and a sense of solidarity.” See Smith, The Ethnic Origins, 32. 131 Ibid., 5, 15. 132 Roy, The New Central Asia, ix. 133 Steven Sabol, Russian Colonization and the Genesis of Kazak National Consciousness (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 24. 134 Ibid. 1. 135 Benedict Anderson ascribes the crucial importance for the emergence of nationalism in Europe and America to the growth of the number of newspapers and novels printed in vernacular languages. These publications gave the idea to their readers that there existed, simultaneously in time, a group of readers who shared the same feeling and ideas 48

As well as Sabol, Esenova denies the existence of some sort of objective criteria as the basis of Kazakh nationality. Similarly, she emphasizes the importance of Kazakh intellectuals for the creation of “cultural unity of territorially dispersed and politically disjoined pastoral communities and of building the grounds for nationalist claims” in the turn of the 19th and twentieth centuries. 136 She sides with Sabol in the opinion that “the understanding of the [Kazakh] 137 identity simply as an outcome of the Soviet national policy is misleading.” Like other modernists, Esenova claims that the ethnic identity of Kazakhs 138 “emerged out of the elites’ concern.” The end of the 19th century was characterized by the disappearance of pastoralism in the steppe. Increasing numbers of Kazakhs switched to agriculture, thus endangering the most important symbol of Kazakhness – their nomadic pastoralistic way of life – the most general identity of Kazakhs in previous decades and centuries. Kazakh intellectuals, worried by this loss of identity marker, which demarcated Kazakhs from settled “others,” embarked on an ambitious project – the codification of Shezhyre – a genealogical register of all Kazakh tribes and lineages. The task of Shezhyre was to demonstrate the genealogical links, which connected all Kazakhs to each other and revealed their common origin. According to Esenova, the implementation of this project was successful, since Shezhyre “effectively defined the concept of Kazakh ethnic identity within a specific set of 139 realities” and became the central concept behind Kazakh identity. Another sign of success of the Shezhyre project she sees in the fact that genealogicallybased ethnic markers could resist “the coercive power of the socialist state,” and continue to define Kazakhs as “a culturally distinct people within a multi140 cultural environment in Kazakhstan” after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

136 137 138 139 140

– the imagined group of people defined as a “nation.” According to Hroch, national revival in a colonial context goes through three phases. Phase A is the period of scholarly interest, which is followed by phase B – the period of patriotic agitation, and culminates in phase C – that is the rise of a mass national movement. In Sobol’s opinion, the Kazakh intelligentsia sought to develop a Kazakh nation through print medium and the transition from phase A to phase B in Kazakhstan was interrupted by the First World War. See Anderson, Imagined Communities; Miroslav Hroch, "From National Movement to the Fully-Formed Nation: The Nation-Building Process in Europe," New Left Review 198 (March-April, 1993); and Sabol, Russian Colonization, 4-5. Saulesh Esenova, “Soviet Nationality, Identity, and Ethnicity in Central Asia: Historical Narratives and Kazakh Ethnic Identity,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 22, no. 1 (2002): 13. Ibid., 13. Ibid., 14. Ibid., 13, 18. Ibid., 28. 49

Though both Sabol and Esenova argue against the claims that the modern-day Kazakh identity is a product of Soviet nationality policy, they can still be considered modernists, since they do not recognize the “natural” and ancient character of the Kazakh nation. In their works, they emphasize the role of intellectuals in creating the symbols of ethnic identity and the importance of printed media in disseminating these symbols among larger population. The present monograph does not deal with Soviet nationality policy. Neither is it concerned with the rise of nationalism in the final two decades of the Empire of the Tsars. It does, however, seek to answer the question whether there are indeed direct links between pre-modern and present day group identities concerning the two groups of people residing in northern Kazakhstan. The comparison of primary document evidence with the works of modern-day ideologists and historians will reveal whether we may speak of the “reemergence” of the Cossack and Kazakh group identities or whether they are present day constructions whose task is to serve the interests of ruling elites in making a usable past.

Kazakh-Cossack relations – a History of Separation The nationalistic ideology, dominant after the collapse of the Soviet Union, views ethnic identity, based on blood, as constant and immutable. Historians and ideologists ignore the change over time in peoples’ identities. I argue that in the region where relations between Cossacks and Kazakhs have been abundant, the identity of both groups was in constant flux. Russian pre-revolutionary ethnographer A. Novoselov defined Siberia as a place where the intensity of mutual assimilation of different ethnic and race groups was premiere: “Here we can see the collision of different cultures, their interactions; the changes of traditions, and rituals; their adaptation to constantly 141 changing conditions.” The same holds true regarding the Kazakh steppe. Neither Siberian Cossacks nor Kazakhs escaped this process of identity transformation and preserved unchanged the boundaries of their identities. The Russification of the Kazakhs and adoption of elements of native cultures and ways of life by Cossacks were underway. As the definitions of American In142 dian and Indian tribe have histories themselves, the group categories of 141 A. Novoselov, “Posviashchaetsia Grigoriiu Nikolaevichu Potaninu po sluchaiu 80-letiia ego zhizni,” Zapiski Zapadno-Sibirskogo otdela Imperatorskogo russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva, vol. 18 (1916): 89. 142 Harmon, Indians in the Making, 4-5. 50

Cossacks and Kazakhs also underwent drastic changes in the last three centuries. The most important factor that determined these changes was their contact, which started with the inclusion of the Younger and Middle Hordes into the Russian Empire in 1731 and 1734, respectively. Modern-day Russian historians deny non-Slavic and non-Orthodox elements in the Cossack Armies. N. Selishchev, for example, states that “Cossacks are a part of the Ukrainian and Russian ethnos,” and “Cossackness is a deeply Russian and Orthodox phenomenon.” According to him, any attempts to find non-Russian elements in the Cossacks are “more than doubtful and 143 can lead nowhere.” Another modern-day Russian historian, Iu. Nedbai, refutes the suggestion that not all Cossacks were ethnically Russian or belonged to religions others than Orthodox Christianity, and that Siberian Cossacks adopted some elements of foreign cultures. If this were the case, he argues, then how could one can explain “the Cossacks’ love for mother Russia, and their willingness to shed blood defending its borders against enemies 144 (supostatov) for centuries?” Thus, according to Nedbai, religious and ethnic affiliations were significant factors for determining political loyalties. Religious and ethnic differences between Cossacks and Kazakhs explain hostilities between them and these hostilities, in their turn, ensured that boundaries 145 between the participants of the contact remained impermeable. In a similar vein, Kazakhstani historians emphasize the differences between Kazakhs and Cossacks to explain the combative nature of their encounters. A peaceful coexistence was impossible by definition as the Cossacks, in the view of Kazakhstani historians, were the people “foreign to the Kazakhs 146 in their faith, language, and traditions.” Was this really the case? Were the national, religious, and ethnic identities of the participants of contact so well established to make any contact between them impossible? Was the way of life of Cossacks and Kazakhs that different for us to take the “battle of cultures” paradigm for granted? To answer these questions, the following section of 143 Selishchev, Kazaki i Rossiia, 10, 34. 144 Nedbai, Istoriia Kazachestva, 131. 145 Making such a conclusion, Nedbai draws heavily on the works of the pre-revolutionary historian A. Karpov, who wrote that “a Kirgiz has always been an enemy to a Cossack. Cossacks destroyed the auls of a Kirgiz, killed his wife and children. It could not be different, as to eliminate a basurmanin (a derogative word for a Muslim) was the mission of a Cossack of that time – the mission blessed by the Church.” See A. Karpov, Ural’tsy: Iaitskoe voisko ot obrazovaniia voiska do perepisi polkovnika Zakharova (1550–1725 gg.), part 1 (Ural’sk: Voiskovaia tipografiia, 1911), 332-333. 146 Aubakirova, “Uchastie sibirskogo Kazachestva,” 107. 51

this chapter studies the religious composition and beliefs of the Siberian Cossacks, their ethnic make-up, and their marriage and family customs followed by the analysis of the system of beliefs and tribal versus ethnic consciousness on the other side of the frontier contact – the Kazakhs of the Middle Horde.

Siberian Cossacks – a History of Definition An abundance of sources on the history of the Siberian Cossacks allows us to see the interaction between the state-formed identity of Cossacks and their daily practices. I argue that most of the elements of modern-day Cossack identity were formed outside their group. Barrett denies the existence of any sense of identity which would unite Cossacks in the 18th and 19th centuries. He claims that “the most important source of identity – was more locally grounded than any larger sense of cossackdom.” In his view, the Cossacks of that time “looked more to their regiments – or their villages, or their part of 147 their villages, even – for a sense of identity.” Rather than the result of historical development, the Siberian Cossack identity is the product of official historiography, which reflected state ideology. In order to prove this, I am investigating both the history of Siberian Cossacks and the development of an historiography concerning them. Unlike Peter Holquist, who contends that Cossack identity in its post-Soviet revival was defined in the period between 148 1917 and 1991, I argue that basic elements of modern-day Cossackness – their devotion to Christian Orthodoxy and the ethnic Russianness of Cossacks – were constructed in the imperial period of Russian history and do not reflect historical reality. The history of the Siberian Cossacks and the transformation of their identity by an official ideology began almost at the same time. On September 1, 1581, a Cossack army consisting of 840 men headed by their Ataman (Cossack military leader) Ermak set out from one of the frontier forts built by the Russian merchant family Stroganov on the Chusovaia River. The Siberian Chronicles of 1621, written by Tobol’sk scribes, say that the men set off “singing hymns to the Trinity, to God and his glory, and to the most immacu149 late Mother of God.” According to the Chronicles, Ermak was persuaded to 147 Barrett, At the Edge of Empire, 188-9. 148 Peter Holquist, “From Estate to Ethnos: The Changing Nature of Cossack Identity in the Twentieth Century,” in Russia at a Crossroads, History, Memory and Political Practice, ed. Nurit Schleifman (London: Frank Cass, 1998), 115. 149 Kenneth P. Czech, “Savage Land Beckoning,” Military History 7, no. 3 (1990): 22-28; Philip Longworth, The Cossacks (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969), 53. 52

lead the campaign by a letter sent to him by the Stroganovs. The letter asked him and his men “to give up an occupation unworthy of Christian knights, and become warriors for the White Tsar, to seek glorious danger and come to 150 terms with God and Russia.” Supposedly stirred by the message, Ermak and his followers took up their arms to fight against the supporters of the Siberian Khan Kuchum. The Soviet historian R. G. Skrynnikov ascribes the overwhelming presence of the religious element in the Chronicles’ description of Ermak’s venture to the fact that an outstanding leader of the Russian Orthodox Church named Kiprian was appointed as the Archbishop of Tobol’sk in 1612. This Archbishop was determined to strengthen the position of the Church in the regions beyond the Ural Mountains and to conduct the Christianization of Siberia. To make the accomplishment of this task possible, Kiprian tried to 151 find heroes or martyrs, whose deeds made them fit for canonization. This consideration made Kiprian “radically reinterpret the Cossacks’ reports and 152 recollections” in an attempt to depict Ermak’s deeds as a “divine mission.” In contrast to Ermak’s “crusaders for Orthodoxy,” the Tobol’sk scribes portrayed the Kuchum army as “accursed infidels.” Consequently, the interpretation of Ermak’s conquest acquired the features traditionally ascribed to the capture of the Kazan Khanate by Ivan the Terrible in 1552. In the words of a Russian historian of the imperial period, “the conquest of Kazan by Ivan the Great marked the beginning of new relations between the Christian and 153 Muslim worlds.” The Chronicles, in their description of Ermak’s campaign, came very close to projecting this image to the conquest of Siberia. Of interest here, however, is the fact that initially the depiction of Ermak’s army as “warriors of Christ” was at odds with the opinion of the Archbishop of Moscow, Filaret. His scribes portrayed Ermak and his Cossacks as thieves and plunderers, who had to be executed for their disobedience to the Tsar. Only in two years after the death of Filaret in 1636, the Tobol’sk version was accepted in Moscow. Since that time, the view that Ermak’s conquest of Siberia was 154 done in the name of Christ became dominant. 150 V. Bronevskii, Istoriia donskago voiska, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Ekspeditsii zagotovleniia gosudarstvennykh bumag, 1834), 64 151 Skrynnikov, Sibirskaia ekspeditsiia, 16. 152 Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors, 42. 153 Sergey Seredanin, “Ocherk zavoevaniia Aziatskoi Rossii,” in Aziatskaia Rossiia, ed. Glinka, 2. 154 Skrynnikov, Sibirskaia ekspeditsiia, 13-16, 21, 72. 53

The emphasis on the religious nature of the conquest of Siberia continued well into the 19th century. Here is a description of Ermak’s battle against the Siberian Tatars written in 1842: Despite all the difficulties of the trip, Ermak managed to restore the courage of his followers and lead them to the final, desperate battle. They had an option whether to die the death of Christian Knights, or to raise the flag of our fatherland on the heights of the Kuchum’s capital. On October 23, after giving their prayers and armed with their Faith, the Cossacks began to storm the fortress 155 shouting “God is with us!” In a similar vein, the authors of that time emphasized the Christian piety and devotion to the Orthodox Church of the Cossacks stationed in other parts of Asian Russia. V. M. Cheremshanskii wrote the following about the Orenburg Cossacks in 1859: These people consider their holy duty to attend masses on Sundays and holidays. They are actively involved in charity work and give generous gifts to the Church. On the holidays all of them take Holy Icons and march with them. They strictly follow fasts, and always pray for the souls of their deceased parents on the 156 days prescribed by the Orthodox Church. Later Russian imperial historians made a shift in or, rather, an addition to the image of the Cossack as the “Warrior of Christ.” In accordance with the ideas of Official Nationality, which stressed Russian ethnicity as the basis of the Russian Empire, the authoritative Russian encyclopedia, compiled in 1896 by Brokgaus and Efron, gives the following definition of Cossacks: Cossacks are one of the authentic and most significant characteristics of the historical experience of the two main parts of Russian ethnos: Great and Little-Russians…. Cossack communes played a very important part in the historical development of our people, being both defenders and colonizers of our borderlands. Cossack155 I. Shul’gin, Proiskhozhdenie Kazachestva na iuzhnom rubezhe Rusi. Poiavlenie Ermaka i zavoevanie im tsarstva sibirskogo (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1842), 16. 156 V. M. Cheremshanskii, Opisanie Orenburgskoi Gubernii v khoziastvenno-statisticheskom, etnograficheskom i promyshlennom otnosheniiakh (Ufa, 1859), 203. 54

dom is not a foreign element, but an independent phenomenon of 157 Russian life.” On the eve of the World War I, Russian historian Seredanin wrote the following: The moral superiority of the Russians determined their success over inorodtsy. Their understanding that the great state stands behind them, that though aliens there, are but drops in the huge Russian 158 sea, they are Russians, Christians ensured their victory. This newly created image represented a Cossack first of all as an ethnic Russian, and only after that as a Christian. The task of official Russian historians during such a large-scale war as World War I was not only to show the moral superiority of the most populous ethnic group of the Empire, but also to underline its benevolence to other ethnic groups populating Russia. With respect to Ermak’s raid, Seredanin fulfills this task in the following way: The conquerors of Siberia possessed the feature that made their pursuit easier: the ability to get along well with inorodtsy. The foreign touch was always present in our Cossacks. Ermak’s army included many inorodtsy from the Volga: Meshcheriaks, Cheremisses and others. The same was true with the Cossack bands that followed them. The way of life of the contemporary Cossack was not only understandable to inorodtsy, but attracted the strongest of them. We shall not forget that the very term Cossack has a Turkish origin, and initially it referred to the Kirgizes, who were 159 one of the most militant tribes of Asia. The two different reasons for the Cossacks’ victory: “Russians won because they were Russians,” and a little bit paradoxical: “Russians won because not all of them were Russians in ethnic terms” suggest that the official ideology of that time did not perceive a religious affiliation or ethnic identity as symbols of Russianness. Loyalty to the Russian state and readiness to sacrifice one’s life for its glory was the feature that distinguished the Russians from the others. As in previous times, the Siberian Cossacks embraced (or, rather, 157 F. A. Brokgauz and I. A. Efron, Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' Brokgauza i Efrona, vol. 30 (St. Petersburg: Aktsionernoe obshchestvo Brokgauz i Efron, 1896), 581-591. 158 Seredanin, Ocherk zavoevaniia, 11. 159 Ibid. In all the quotes used in this book, I use the ethnonym “Kirgiz,” which Russians employed in the imperial period to refer to the Kazakh nomads. 55

were made to embrace) the most salient features of Russianness, though the 160 emblems of identity underwent some changes. As this brief analysis of the Russian pre-revolutionary historiography demonstrates, the image of the Cossack was not constant and its transformation went through several distinct stages. In the view of 17th-century chroniclers, Siberian Cossacks were, first of all, Orthodox Christians, who crossed the Ural Mountains to bring the Siberian heathens into the realm of Christ. Later, in the age of nationalism, historians emphasized the Slavic origins of Cossacks. World War I “opened” the ranks of Cossacks to the representatives of other ethnic groups, stressing their shared loyalty to the Russian state as the dominant feature of the Cossacks. I argue that this evolution was concomitant with the development of “Russianness” itself. The official ideology defined and redefined the features that distinguished Russians from others, and these characteristics were projected (often in an idealized form) onto the peoples of the frontier. Cossacks were portrayed not simply as Russians, but as people who surpassed European Russians in their “Russianness.” The task of the ideologists of all periods of imperial Russian history was to confirm the cultural ties connecting the Cossacks of the frontier with their “historical motherland.” Not surprisingly, this approach marginalized or just ignored any signs of “foreign” influence on the Cossacks. Cheremshanskii offered a revealing example of such a depiction of the Russians in the regions adjacent to the Kazakh steppe. According to him, People’s customs, inherited from ancient times, are as sacredly preserved [sviato sokhraniaiutsia] here as in other parts of Russia. All Russian settlers preserve the ancient patriarchal worldview, beliefs, and superstitions, together with the ancient morals, way of 161 life, and traditions. 160 It would be wrong to state that the creation of the symbolic ties between the Russian state and the Cossacks was a completely novel development of the beginning of the twentieth century. Nicholas I, as early as in 1837, bestowed the newly-created title of “Most August Ataman of All Cossack Armies” on his son, the heir to the throne. The tradition of appointing heirs to the position of the head of all Cossacks continued to the end of the rule of the Romanov family. Another symbolic act of the unity of the Royal family and the Cossacks was the introduction of the institution of the Cossack convoy in St. Petersburg, whose function was to be household guards of the tsar. To demonstrate their closeness to the Cossacks, the monarchs themselves were enrolled in the convoy – the practice which started with the future Alexander III in 1859. See McNeal, Tsar and Cossack, 2-3. 161 Cheremshanskii, Opisanie Orenburgskoi, 206-207. 56

In the author’s view, this conservation of traditional Russian culture on the frontier was possible because of the lack of contact of these “authentic Russi162 an people” with the peoples of different cultures. A publicist and ideologist of the 19th century claimed that “the Ural Cossack is a Russian man, because he and a Russian merchant or a peasant live the same spiritual and moral life. 163 They have the same worldview, traditions, and customs.” Early Soviet and modern-day Russian and Kazakhstani ideologists added one more feature to their portrait of the Cossacks – their intolerance to religious and ethnic “otherness.” In their view, this intolerance allowed Cossacks to maintain the boundaries, which separated them from the natives of Asia, and preserved the purity of their “Russianness.” The primary source evidence will allow us to determine whether these emblems of present day Cossack group identity were created by the official historiography, or if the ancestors of the people who claim to be Cossacks really possessed these unifying ideals and the historians and ideologists just reflected the characteristic features of Cossacks in their writings.

Siberian Cossacks – “Our Pagans” or “Warriors of Christ?” Religious Composition of Siberian Cossacks Most modern-day American, as well as Russian, historians share the opinion that the driving force of the Russian eastward expansion was economic interest rather than the desire to spread the teachings of Christ. C. Foust claims 164 that furs lured Russians eastward. Mark Bassin defines the quest for furs as 165 “a single and simple goal,” which pulled the Russians eastward. By the last quarter of the 16th century, access to the furs of Siberia was contested between the Tatar Khan Kuchum and the Stroganovs, who had the Tsar’s per166 mission to “mine, trade, and tax the local trappers.” Not only promises of economic profit determined the Stroganovs’ decision to conquer the Kuchum Khanate, however. There was also the fear of the Cossacks’ plundering of the “Stroganovs’ empire.” The Stroganovs hired the Cossacks to protect their set-

162 Ibid., 204. 163 I. Zheleznov, “Kirgizomaniia,” Russkii Vestnik (1860): 46. 164 C. M. Foust, “Russian Expansion to the East through the 18th Century,” Journal of Economic History 12, no. 4 (1961): 469-482. 165 Mark Bassin, Imperial Visions: Nationalist Imagination and Geographical Expansion in the Russian Far East, 1840-1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 20. 166 Ibid., 13. 57

167

tlements from the raids of Tatars. After the Tatars had been defeated, the Cossacks, having nobody left to fight, “started plundering the empire they 168 had come to protect.” In order to provide work for the Cossacks, the Stroganovs proposed that their Ataman Ermak fight Kuchum and open Siberia for exploration and exploitation. Anticipating “fresh adventures and fresh loot,” 169 Ermak agreed. Given the pragmatic aims of the expansion, it is hard to believe that Cossacks were driven by missionary zeal as depicted in The Siberian Chronicles. Rather than being “Warriors of Christ,” as the Chronicles portrayed them, Ermak’s Cossacks were freebooters seduced into attacking Kuchum by material rewards offered to them by the Stroganovs. This is plausible, given the composition of Ermak’s band and the figure of Ermak himself. Prior to entering Stroganovs’ service, Ermak was “the most notorious out170 law on the Volga and staged the most spectacular raids.” His band, numbering a thousand men, sacked merchant shipping regardless whether the ships belonged to Russian or Persian merchants. Ivan the Terrible was determined 171 to protect Volga traffic and to free the area from those “thieving Cossacks.” The Tsar sent a military expedition under Ivan Murashkin to destroy the Cos172 sack vol’nitsa (free land) in 1577. Having lost many of his men, Ermak and most of his band fled northward to avoid capture. Some divine intervention was really necessary to transform these freebooters, who robbed and killed their brothers in Christ, and fought against the Russian “Tsar-God,” into martyrs sacrificing their lives, as the Chronicles say, “to carry the Gospel across 173 Siberia to the end of the universe.” What started as a commercial endeavor by the Stroganovs turned out to be depicted as a crusade against the barbaric heathens of Siberia. Consequent167 Of interest here is the fact that though the Stroganovs were aware that many of the Cossack leaders, including Ermak, were criminals who were wanted by Moscow authorities to answer for the charge of attacking the Russian and foreign convoys on the Volga River, their crimes did not prevent the Stroganovs from attracting the Cossacks to their service. See Seaton, The Horsemen of the Steppes, 65. 168 Maurice Hindus, The Cossacks: The Story of a Warrior People (Westport: Greenwood Press Publishers, 1970), 45. 169 Ibid. 170 Ibid, 4. 171 Longworth, The Cossacks, 48. 172 Seaton, The Horsemen of the Steppes, 52, 65-66; Longworth, The Cossacks, 48. Though the Volga Cossacks had been robbing state funds and killing merchants for a lengthy period of time, the final blow, which led Ivan the Terrible to order their extermination, was the Cossacks’ attack on the Russian ambassador to the Nogai Khanate early that year. 173 Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors, 42. 58

ly, the image of those participating in the “crusade” was transformed to fit its “holy” aims. Another reason, which explains why the scribes depicted the first Siberian Cossacks as pious Orthodox warriors, was the modern-day understanding of what it meant to be a Russian. Until the second half of the 19th century, “... in their own minds, the Russians were less Slavs … than 174 they were Orthodox Christians.” Religious affiliation was a significant part of imperial identity. It was “more than belief; it was a part of the ethnic es175 sence of a people, a matter of a core identity.” Faith, rather than ethnicity, served as a marker separating Russians from “others.” As long as the inclusion of Siberia into the Empire was done by Russians and for Russians, the imperial agents had to be portrayed as Orthodox Christians. Of interest here is the perception of the Cossacks by Russian peasants, which was drastically different from the officially created image of the Cossacks as pious Christians. The popular Russian image of the Cossacks was “nashi poganye” (our filth, dregs, or pagans), that is, the people who, though useful for the protection of Russian settlements from the raids of steppe nomads, were irredeemably different from the Orthodox Christians of central 176 Russia in religious terms. The following part of this chapter determines which of the images of Cossacks as the “Knights of Christianity” or as “our pagans” was closer to the reality.

Cossacks’ Marriage and Dietary Patters In a land of few churches, marriage patterns and diets became the marks of 177 belonging to the realm of Christianity. As the notes of travelers testify, the family life of the Cossacks differed much from that prescribed by the Orthodox Church. A Russian traveler who visited Cossack vol’nitsa in the 17th century gave the following description of the Cossacks’ wedding ceremony: A Cossack brought a woman, whom he either bought or took as booty in a raid, to the square of a Cossack settlement and announced that she was going to be his wife. The crowd of Cossacks 174 Henry Huttenbach, “The Origins of Russian Imperialism” in Russian Imperialism, ed. Hunczak, 27. 175 Ronald Grigor Suny, “Nationalities in the Russian Empire,“ Russian Review 59, no. 4 (Oct., 2000): 489. 176 Shemanskii, “Voennaia istoriia,” 121 177 Yuri Slezkine, “Savage Siberians or Unorthodox Russians? The Missionary Dilemma in Siberia,” in Between Heaven and Hell: The Myth of Siberia in Russian Culture, eds. Galya Diment and Yuri Slezkine (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), 16. 59

agreed, and the man and woman were considered to be a married couple. A man could kill, exchange, or sell his wife. The tradition of “divorce” did not differ much from “marriage.” A Cossack brought his wife in front of a village, and announced that he did not love her any more. The woman became free, and usually some 178 other Cossack “married” her on the spot. The British traveler, R. Ackermann, gave a similar description of the Cossack 179 wedding, adding that ceremonies were accompanied by Tatar dances. A. Levshin and I. Zheleznov described another tradition of the Ural Cossacks of the 17th century. According to them, the Cossacks killed their wives before going on a distant raid, so that these women would not become somebody’s prey while they were away. In their raids, they acquired new wives. If there was an insufficient number of women, it was customary for Cossacks to share 180 them. The Christian religious marriage ceremony was forced upon Cossacks only during the reign of Peter I and was accepted by Cossacks, but not without resistance. The cases in which Cossacks had several wives or shared their wives were so frequent that the phrase “Siberian polygamy” (sibirskoe mnogozhenstvo) entered popular Russian culture and was known far beyond Siberia. The Orthodox priests in Siberia had no choice but to accept the nonOrthodox attitude of the Cossacks to marriage. The Tobol’sk Cossack Zamiatin married his second wife in 1739. His case was by no means exceptional. What makes it stand out is the fact that the priest of the Tobol’sk Church Mikhail Grigor’ev was aware of Zamiatin’s first wife, but allowed him to marry again in exchange for a bribe of three rubles. After the marriage, the named soldier went to the place of his permanent service in the Iamyshevskaia stanitsa of the Irtysh Line. Though many other service people (sluzhilye liudi) of this stanitsa knew about his family situation, nobody informed the authorities. Moreover, in the words of the informant, there were many other soldiers and Cossacks on the Line who had several wives or who 181 married their relatives. 178 Abdirov, Istoriia kazachestva, 25. 179 Seaton, The Horsemen of the Steppes, 170. 180 A. Levshin, Istoricheskoe i statisticheskoe obozrenie Ural’skikh kazakov (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Glavnogo Shtaba, 1823), 38; I. I. Zheleznov, Ural’tsy: ocherki byta ural’skikh kazakov, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg, 1888), 21. 181 Potanin, Materialy dlia istorii, 311-312. 60

The Cossacks did not seem to care whether their marriages were blessed by the Church or if their wives were Christian. Willard Sunderland cites the petitions of the Siberian Orthodox clergymen, dated by the mid-1600s, in which they complained of the fact that “some Russians were failing to either christen or marry their native concubines and were instead ‘abiding in Tatar tents’ where ‘they have gone native (ozhilis’) and live together with the 182 Tatars … committing sin and having children out of wedlock.’” The cases in which Cossacks cohabited with native women reached such proportions that the Moscow Patriarch Filaret sent several petitions to the Tsar informing him 183 of the dissoluteness of the borderland population. He asked the government to send troops to put the “sin” to an end. The Church, however, did not recei184 ve state support and the practices of non-consecrated marriages continued. Siberian legislation proves that the Russian state had to accept the percieved low morals of its servants beyond the Urals. A decree promulgated by the Senate in the middle of the 18th century ordered the Siberian administration not to conduct any investigation if an unmarried woman or a widow 185 gave birth to a child. Seventy years later, the situation did not change. The Governor General of Siberia, Mikhail Speranskii, in his Statute of Siberian Town Cossacks of 1822, ordered the Siberian administration to equate in rights illegitimate children born by Cossack widows and unmarried women 186 with those born in marriages. This provision of the Statute and the aforementioned decree violated religious norms of that period, and could not be implemented in the European part of the Russian Empire. Of interest here is the observation made by Barrett on the loose sexual ethics among the Terek Cossacks. According to the records of one of the Terek stanitsa churches, the women of this stanitsa gave birth to 149 legitim187 ate and 545 illegitimate children in the period between 1833 and 1839. This rate is “astronomically high,” given the low rate of rural illegitimacy in central Russia (less than 2 percent). The aforementioned legal acts, coupled with 182 Sunderland, “Russians into Iakuts,” 813. 183 According to the report of Patriarch Filaret, written in 1622, the Russians in Siberia purchased native heathen women and cohabitated with them. See G. F. Miller, Istoriia Sibiri, vol. 2 (Moscow: AN SSSR, 1937), 276. 184 Semenov, Rossiia, 172. 185 Tsentral’nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Respubliki Kazakhstan (hereafter TsGA RK) (The Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan), f. 338, op. 1, dd. 145, 177. 186 Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii, (hereafter PSZ), ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29.131, p. 540, sec. 130. 187 Barrett, At the Edge of Empire, 134. 61

Barrett’s observation, prove that “low morals” were a distinctive feature of the Cossacks on the whole eastern frontier of the empire and that adherence to Russian societal norms was much weaker in frontier and mixed borderland regions than in the central parts of the empire. There is evidence that in many parts of Siberia, Russian settlers and Cossacks adopted many elements of native Siberian cultures, including their dietary patterns. A Russian ethnographer in the beginning of the twentieth century was shocked to find out that the Russians living in Berezovskii and Surgutskii uezds (counties) of the Tobol’sk Guberniia ate raw fish and the roots 188 of plants. The Irtysh Line Siberian Cossacks’ diet did not differ from that of the Kazakhs and consisted mostly of milk and meat. The English traveler T. W. Atkinson, in his travel notes written in the middle of the 19th century, described with much disgust the dinner prepared by his Kazakh companions on his trip through the steppe: The Kirgizes put in the caldron not only separate parts of a sheep, but also entrails, which had not been washed. I was not even able to touch this dish. The Cossacks, however, were much less fastidious and when told that the food was ready, sat around the fire 189 and began to eat, visibly enjoying the food. The aforementioned evidence proves that both the marriage patterns and diets of Siberian Cossacks were far from those prescribed by the Orthodox Church. A closer analysis of the Cossacks’ system of beliefs reveals the strong impact of native Siberian cultures.

Cossacks’ Religiosity Accounts of travelers visiting Cossack stanitsas seriously undermine the idea that devotion to the Orthodox Church was the dominant feature of contemporary Cossacks. Many Russian travelers and ethnographers claimed that Cossacks’ belonging to the Orthodox Church was only nominal. Siberian Cossacks participated in building churches in the region only reluctantly. The first churches in Siberia were built out of old wooden boats and, as the Siberian Archbishop Filaret wrote in 1622 in his report to the Tsar, “the ugliness of the churches can be compared to the sinful souls of the Russians who came 188 V. K. Kuznetsov, “Russkie starozhily v Sibiri i Srednei Azii,” in Aziatskaia Rossiia, ed. Glinka, 186. 189 Etsel’ and Vagner, Puteshestvie po Sibiri, 300. 62

190

here. Only state intervention can help the church purify the latter.” According to this report, the parishioners did not provide any kind of support for the church and the very survival of Christianity in Siberia depended on the state. The situation did not change much during the next century. In his letter to the Senate in 1746, Tomsk voevoda Provincial Governor Nepluev wrote: “Only the state provides the church with Holy Icons, books, bells, and a 191 salary for priests.” Many travelers who visited the region expressed their bewilderment with the fact that “despite the prosperity of Siberians, their churches are frequently squalid,” and noted that those Russians who had lived long in Siberia kept close relations with native Siberians and prayed to 192 their gods. The lack of Christian piety in Siberian Cossacks caused serious concerns for the Russian Orthodox Church. The Archbishop of Siberia considered Cossack traditions to be sinful. In his petition to the Tsar he gave the following description on the mores of the frontier: They [the Cossacks] do not follow religious fasts, eat and drink foul food together with the inovertsy (people of different faith), 193 adopted their traditions, and cohabitate with non-baptized women. After describing what he considered a deplorable state, he asked the central authorities to intervene in order to eradicate the sin and stop the Cossacks’ adoption of foreign customs. The government, however, ignored the complaints of the Church and was reluctant either to impose Christianity on the natives of the steppe, or oversee the morals of those Christians who had “corrupted” themselves through extensive contact with the natives of Siberia. This evidence supports Slezkine’s argument that the “Cossacks’ own world 194 was not starkly divided into the Christian and non-Christian spheres.” 19th century accounts testify that Christianity failed to strengthen its position among Cossacks stationed in Siberia. Ethnographer S. Shvetsov in his account on visiting the eastern Siberian town of Surgut in the 1880s bitterly 190 P. P. Liubimov, “Religii i veroispovedal’nyi sostav naseleniia Aziatskoi Rossii,” in Aziatskaia Rossiia, ed. Glinka, 202. 191 Potanin, Materialy dlia istorii, 20. 192 “Zhivopisnaia Rossiia. Otechestvo nashe v ego zemel’nom, istoricheskom, plemennom, ekonomicheskom i bytovom znachenie,” Vostochnaia Sibir’, vol. 12, part 1 (1895): xi. 193 I. M. Kostomarov, Russkaia istoriia v zhizneopisaniiakh ee glavneishikh deiatelei, book 4, no. 4 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia M. M. Stasiulevicha, 1876), 486. 194 Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors, 44. 63

noted that Russian Cossacks were able to perceive only the rituals of religion, but not its essence. In Shvetsov’s opinion, “superstitions and not religious beliefs direct their everyday lives”: A Surgutianin is not only illiterate, he is superstitious. He believes in and is afraid of different heathen fetishes, such as water, house, and bathhouse spirits. I will mention just one of them – susedko. I failed to understand what exactly he is, and what place susedko holds in the hierarchy of spirits. He is everywhere – in a house, in a bathhouse, but his main place of residence is behind a stove. Apparently, Surgutianins think that every man has his susedko, which always accompanies him and keeps a man from troubles. A man has misfortunes only if his susedko left him, or got angry with the man’s disrespect of susedko. Nobody knows what hap195 pens with susedko after the death of a man. Though illiterate peasants throughout Russia at that time were also accused of having superstitions and perceiving rituals rather than essence of Christianity, the situation in Siberia was somewhat different due to the contact of Russian settlers with Siberian natives. This contact created syncretism of religious beliefs of Cossacks by adding elements of shamanism. In difficult situations (i.e., serious illnesses) a Surgutianin turned to native shamans for help. A shaman’s sorcery was considered the most efficient method of treatment of the sick. The absorption of native customs in Siberia was common to other groups of Russians. In his study of the Siberian north, Willard Sunderland writes of “Russians who spoke Siberian languages better than their own, ate raw meat, practiced “shamanism,” and looked so strikingly “alien” that they seemed virtually indistinguishable from the Iakuts, Ostiaks, Samoeds, and 196 other “primitive” Siberians that lived around them.” Neither was the adoption of native practices unique for Russians in Siberia. According to Seaton, the Don Cossacks preserved “many of the Tatar usages and some of his early and dark Shamanistic superstitions and beliefs, even into the 19th and twenti197 eth centuries.” 195 S. Shvetsov, “Ocherk Surgutskogo Kraia,” Zapiski imperatorskogo russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva: Zapadno-sibirskii otdel, vol. 7, no. 10 (1888): 75. 196 Sunderland, “Russians into Iakuts,” 807. 197 Among the non-Christian practices of the Don Cossacks, Seaton mentions the following: “… the burial of weapons and saddlery; the curing of the sick, particularly animals, by the Shamanist ritual of passing between two fires ‘or earthen gateways’; a fear of 64

Shvetsov divided the “Russian” Siberian Cossacks of the 19th century into two groups: “… Authentic Russians, those who preserved the appearance, language, and traditions of their European brothers, and the “Russians” who rep198 resent a mixture of Russian and native Siberian types.” As he proceeded to describe the people of Surgut, he came to the conclusion that “due to the strong alien impact, which marks all the spheres of life in Surgut, the distinc199 tion between these groups can hardly be seen.” Shvetsov observed that the native impact even on the “authentic Russians” was well pronounced: This [native] impact is felt in everything: clothes, diet, language, and so on. The ancestors of these “Russian” people did not wear kumysh, or pimy in European Russia; did not eat raw fish; and did not use the word kumokha (fever). They [the ancestors] were representatives of the pure Russian ethnos, and without doubt brought high cultural and moral standards to the region. But coexistence with savages produced this result. It erased most of the features they used to possess. Their descendants became nativized. The representatives of the higher culture not only failed to raise native Siberians to their level but, on the contrary, became de200 graded to a semi-wild level. Shvetsov’s depiction of the system of beliefs of a Surgutianin is not much different from that given by I. Poddubnii in his description of the religiosity of native Siberians, who were converted to Christianity: Now [1915 Yu.M.] all Iakuts are Orthodox Christians, but their religious ideas are very vague. The biggest god is that who clatters in summer in the sky. Saint Nicholas, the old and angry man, who sends frost in winter, comes next. Iakuts like to go to Church and show deep respect to the Orthodox priests, but they accompany 201 Christian rituals with heathen ones.

198

199 200 201

the evil eye, a profound trust in sorcerers and witches, and a belief in the prophetic powers of whirlwinds.” See Seaton, The Horsemen of the Steppes, 56, 61. During the whole period of Russian presence in Siberia the legal status of children born in mixed families was not different from that of other Russians of the Empire. The very term “mixed-blood” did not exist (at least legally) and the children born as a result of intermarriages were considered Russians. Shvetsov, “Ocherk Surgutskogo Kraia,” 6. Ibid., 71. I. P. Poddubnyi, “Naselenie Aziatskoi Rossii: Etnograficheskii ocherk,” in Aziatskaia Rossiia, ed. Glinka, 150. 65

G. Potanin ascribes this indifference to Christianity to the invincible force of Siberian nature, which left a deep imprint on the outlook of Cossacks and native Siberians alike. The closeness to nature maintained people’s reverence for it: The elements of fetishism are always present in the beliefs of Siberian people. A person treats water and bread as if they are alive. When ice breaks, it may hurt water. And the people living by the Irtysh River relieve its sufferings throwing crumbs of bread on the ice. The loaf of bread may also suffer if it lies upside down. 202 That is why it is prohibited to lay it this way. Another Russian pre-revolutionary historian, V. Kuznetsov, ascribed the indifference of the Russian settlers in Siberia to religion and their adherence to different superstitions by their extensive contacts with inorodtsy and a lack of 203 churches. Of interest here is a report written at the end of the 19th century by an Orthodox missionary concerning the settling of Kazakh converts close to Russian settlements. The missionary considered this proximity to be necessary since he hoped for the “cooperation of Russians – but real Russian Christi204 ans, not Cossacks” in turning new converts into pious Christians. This statement demonstrates that the clergymen living in the regions adjacent to the steppe in the 19th century drew a distinction between the Cossacks and other Russians. Contrary to the claims of modern-day Cossack ideologists, they considered the Cossacks’ devotion to Christianity to be rather doubtful. In the missionaries’ view, “the Cossacks needed the inspiration and religious 205 guidance of these ‘real Russians’ as much as the Kazakhs did.”

New Converts Along with Cossacks who were considered Christians by birth, the Cossack Siberian Army included many natives who were converted to Christianity. Their conversion, in many cases, was in name only. Most of the new converts did not understand the basic tenets of the Christian religion. A newly conver202 G. N. Potanin, “O puteshestvii na Amur Maaka,” Russkoe slovo 1 (St. Petersburg, 1860). 203 Kuznetsov, “Russkie starozhily,” 188. 204 Robert P. Geraci, “Going Abroad or Going to Russia? Orthodox Missionaries in the Kazakh Steppe, 1881 – 1917,” in Of Religion and Empire: Missions, Conversion, and Tolerance in Tsarist Russia, eds. Robert Geraci and Michael Khodarkovsky (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2001), 302. 205 Ibid., 302-303. 66

ted Tatar Cossack named Aglybaev, for example, asked the priest in 1734 to marry him to a woman, who was bearing his child. The marriage would be permissible, if Aglybaev was single or divorced. He, however, already had a wife. When the priest refused to marry him to his mistress, Aglybaev got so 206 upset that he beat him up. The central authorities were aware of the fact that new converts preserved many elements of their traditional religious beliefs. In her letter to the Archbishop of Tobol’sk and Siberia, the Empress of Russia Anna Ioannovna lamented over the non-Christian practices of the new Siberian converts: Many of them make fetishes and pray to them. They sacrifice livestock and wild animals to the images of their gods... They eat meat at the time of religious fasts, even if they have enough fish and other permissible food... They give non-Christian names to their children, and bury their diseased in forests without giving them Christian service... Even those new converts who live close 207 to churches do not attend them. The Empress ordered the Archbishop to advise the priests to explain to the new converts the impermissibility of preserving their old beliefs and to instruct civil authorities to physically punish those who continued practicing paganism after their entrance in the Orthodox Church. The situation, however, did not change much in later periods. N. Kazantsev, in his Description of Kirgiz-Kaisakov written in 1867, complained on the lack of Christian piety 208 of both the old and new converts (starokreshchen i novokreshchen). According to the author, We can sincerely say about these people that they left their old faith without entering the realm of Christianity and have no idea of its superiority over other beliefs. Their clothes and way of life are different both from Tatars and Russians. They speak the language of their ancestors, and have two names – one is Tatar and the other Russian. Being afraid of persecutions, they come to the priests, but do it only three times in their life – when their chil-

206 Potanin, Materialy dlia istorii, 291-292. 207 Ibid., 306. 208 Kazantsev, Opisanie Kirgiz-Kaisakov, 58-59. 67

dren are born, when they get married, and when their close relat209 ives die. They neither fast, nor make holy confessions. Kazantsev blamed local religious authorities for this deplorable state of affairs. The leaders of the Orthodox Church in the Asian part of Russia, in his opinion, were unwilling to turn the new converts into “real Christians.” They neither instructed the priests in the languages of the Siberian natives, nor ac210 cepted the native children into religious schools. Archival sources confirm that, as in the North Caucasus, conversion to Christianity was seen by new 211 converts as largely meaningless. Michael Khodarkovsky shares this opinion, stating that “religious conversion in Russia appears least of all religious and 212 spiritual and involved only a nominal redefinition of religious identity.”

Old Believers and Sectarians Along with those Cossacks who, at least nominally, were considered Russian Orthodox Christians, many Cossacks stationed in the regions beyond the Ural Mountains belonged to different religious sects which were persecuted in the European part of Russia. Sergeant Major Fedor Usov, in his Statistical Description of the Siberian Cossack Army, which was compiled in 1879, estimated the number of Old Believers (otherwise defined as Schismatic (ras213 kol’niki)) in the ranks of the Siberian Cossack Army to be 419. Though this number seems insignificant, as the total number of Cossacks in the Siberian Cossack Army in the same year was 100,893, Usov recognized the fact that the numbers of raskol’niki could not be calculated with precision, since many of them “adhere to the secret Schism (raskol), and hiding their real beliefs, 214 follow the rites of Orthodoxy.” McNeal shares this distrust for the official statistics concerning the number of Old Believers in the ranks of Cossacks, 215 “for the official figures surely did not reflect the true situation.” As soon as the Russian state began to treat the dissenters more leniently, many Siberian Cossacks revealed their true religious affiliation, openly claim209 210 211 212

Ibid., 58. Ibid. Barrett, At the Edge of Empire, 180. Michael Khodarkovsky, “‘Ignoble Savages and Unlawful Subjects:’ Constructing NonChristian Identities in Early Modern Russia,” in Russia’s Orient, eds. Brower and Lazzerini, 20. 213 Fedor Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie sibirskogo kazach’ego voiska (St. Petersburg: Izdanie glavnogo upravleniia irreguliarnykh voisk, 1879), 68. 214 Ibid., 88. 215 McNeal, Tsar and Cossack, 22. 68

ing their adherence to the previously persecuted Old Belief Church. This phenomenon can be demonstrated by the statistical data on the religious compos216 ition of the Siberian Cossacks, which was collected in 1913. According to 217 this data, 7,533 of the Siberian Cossacks were Old Believers. The growth of the number of Old Believers from 419 in 1879 to 7,533 in 1913 could hardly be explained by the proliferation of the Old Belief through conversion or by the natural growth of the members of this Church. Rather, it proves Usov’s supposition that the 19th-century Old Believers in the ranks of the Siberian Cossack Army preferred to hide their religious affiliation, pretending instead to 218 belong to the Russian Orthodox Church. Belonging to the Old Belief Church did not prevent the raskol’niki from being placed in the forefront of contact with the natives of the steppe. After the introduction of the Speranskii Decree of 1822, which established okrugs in the Kazakh steppe that were to be staffed with Cossacks, the leaders of the Siberian Cossack Army took the task of selecting those Cossacks who were to settle in the steppe very seriously. The criteria of the selection were rather strict. The Cossacks had to be familiar with Kazakh ways, be neither too young nor too old, and be physically fit and in a good health. The latter point was especially important because the “evil inclinations of rapacious Kirgizes 219 [Kazakhs] can have unpleasant consequences.” This list, however, did not include any hints as to what religious or ethnic group the “frontline fighters 220 of the Russian civilization on the wild Asiatic east” had to belong. As a result of the Speranskii Decree, many Cossack-raskol’niks crossed the Line and settled in the steppe. In a secret report sent in 1845 to the Governor General of the Western Siberia, General Gorchakov, Border Chief of the Siberian Kirgizes Colonel Vishnevskii wrote of thirty-two schismatic Cos216 Otchet o sostoianii sibirskogo kazach’ego voiska za 1912 god, part 2 (chast’ grazhdanskaia) (Omsk: Tipografiia shtaba Omskogo voennogo okruga, 1913), 17. 217 Ibid. 218 It is even more difficult to estimate the number of those Old Believers who resided in the Asian part of Russia and did not belong to the Cossack Army. Their numbers, which historians and ethnographers present, vary significantly. For example, P. Liubimov thought that the total number of Old Believers was 239,642 in Siberia and 65,044 in Central Asia in 1897. V. Kuznetsov’s estimations were much lower. According to him, the number of followers of the Old Belief was around 30,000 at the end of the 19th century. In spite of this difference, both authors agree that most of the raskol’niki lived along the Ural River and in the Southern Altai. See Liubimov, “Religii,” 5; Kuznetsov, “Russkie starozhily,” 187- 188. 219 Gosudarstvennui Arkhiv Omskoi Oblasti (hereafter GAOO) (The State Archive of the Omsk Oblast’), f. 67, d. 248, ll. 18 – 18ob. 220 Kazantsev, “Russkie starozhily,” 179. 69

221

sacks in Kokchetav Okrug. Ten years later, their numbers increased to fifty222 three. This observation makes one question whether the Russian government really considered the Cossacks to be the agents of Russification since, at the time, religious affiliation was a very important identity marker in the minds of the leaders of the Empire. If this was the case, it is not clear why the state sent as its representatives those people who were not only of a different faith, but of the sect that was the main religious opponent of official Orthodox Christianity. In the eyes of ideologists in St. Petersburg, these schismatic Cossacks were rather agents of “anti-Russian” than Russian civilization. Of interest here is the fact that a transfer to the Siberian Cossack Army from other Cossack hosts was considered to be punishment for leaving the Orthodox faith. By no means was this crime an obstacle for settlement in one of the outer okrugs – that is, in the zone of the most extensive interaction with the natives of the steppe. For example, the rank-and-file Cossack Trofim Shcherbatov was transferred from the Georgian Corpus to the Akmola Okrug 223 in 1844 for castrating himself and joining the sect of skoptsy. For committing the act of castration, which was considered to be a crime according to imperial laws, Cossack Fedor Alfimov was transferred to the same okrug from 224 central Russia. If the skoptsy chose “to spread heresy,” they, together with those who voluntarily castrated themselves, were to be sent to sparsely populated regions of 225 Siberia and live there among inovertsy (people of different faiths). As the examples demonstrate, the Russian government was more interested in isolating sectarians from Russians (whether in Central Russia or Siberia) than in spreading Orthodox Christianity by means of presenting an example of a “good” Orthodox Christian to the natives of the Kazakh steppe or Siberian taiga. Archival sources confirm that sectarians entered the administration in the regions adjacent to the steppe. The Minister of Internal Affairs ordered the Head of Omsk Oblast’ (province) to expel all raskol’niki from state ser226 vice in 1835. Since raskol’niki were prohibited by a law issued in 1820 from entering state or public service, it is legitimate to suggest that the lack of 221 GAOO, f. 6, o. 1, d. 157, Sv. 35, l. 8. 222 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 111, ll. 29-30 ob. 223 GAOO, f . 6, d. 157, sv. 35, l. 6. Skoptsy is the name of a religious sect, the members of which shared a belief that castration is necessary to achieve salvation. 224 GAOO, f. 6, d. 157, sv. 35, l. 6. 225 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 50, ll. 3-4ob. 226 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 34, ll. 1-2. 70

people willing or able to perform administrative duties was so acute in Siberia that the local administration had to ignore the orders of the central government.

Muslims in the Siberian Cossack Army Along with Cossacks who called themselves Christians (whether Orthodox or sectarians) the Cossack Army included representatives of other religious denominations. The practice of accepting native Siberians into the ranks of the Cossack Army started as early as the beginning of the 17th century. These “yurta (native pelt tent) service Tatars” were allowed to “remain in their faith,” if they wished. Russian historian Nikolai Nikitin estimated the number 227 of Muslim Cossacks to be more than 500 by the end of the 17th century. The acceptance of inovertsy into the service continued in the centuries to come. Usov presented a table which demonstrates the religious composition 228 of the Siberian Cossacks in 1879: Orthodox Christians Old Believers

93,911 419

Catholics

23

Jews

55

Muslims Total

6,485 100,893

According to the table, Islam was the second most popular religion among Siberian Cossacks. Usov estimated the number of Muslims to be as large as 6.4 percent of the total Siberian Cossack population. Most Kazakhs and some Tatars and Uzbeks who, at different periods of time, joined the Cossack army, 229 preserved their religious beliefs. It would be logical to assume that the ratio of Muslims in the Cossack ranks exceeded this number if we speak of the religious composition of the Cossacks stationed at the line separating Russian Siberia and the Kazakh steppe. Pre-revolutionary ethnographers noticed the influence of Islam on Siberian Cossacks. Nebol’sin argued in 1848 that the non-Russian origin of many Cossacks was responsible for their “corrupted 227 N. I. Nikitin, “Pervyi vek kazachestva Sibiri,” Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal 1 (1994):80. 228 Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 68. 229 Ibid., 88. 71

mores and Tatar inclinations (tatarskie naklonnosti),” meaning the influence 230 of Islam in the Siberian Cossack Army. The last quarter of the 19th century witnessed a sharp increase of Muslims in the Siberian Cossack Army. The Statistical Report on the Siberian Cossack Army issued in 1913 reveals the following data on the religious composition of the Siberian Cossacks: Christians constituted seventy-three percent of the total population, while twenty-six percent of all Siberian Cossacks were Mus231 lims. The growth of the percentage of Muslims in the ranks of the Siberian Cossacks during the last quarter of the 19th century and the first decade of the twentieth century from 6.4 to twenty-six percent is rather impressive. It demonstrates a tendency of Muslimization of the Siberian Cossack Army in the late imperial period. The author of the Report found this decrease in the percentage of Christians in the Cossack Army and the subsequent growth of Cossack-inovertsy important and emphasized the fact that the number of 232 Christians in the Cossack Army declined by 2.21 percent in 1911. As the evidence presented in this section demonstrates, not all Cossacks were Orthodox Christians. Even those who defined themselves as Orthodox were Christians in name rather than in essence. This evidence undermines the validity of both the official depiction of Cossacks as the “Warriors of Christ,” which is typical of tsarist ideology, and the opinion of the modern-day Russian Orthodox Church, which on the official Internet site of the Synodal Department of the Moscow Patriarchate for relations with the Armed Forces and law enforcement institutions defines the Cossacks as “the 233 Knights of Orthodoxy.” Post-Soviet Kazakh historians share this belief and state that, at least, from the time of Peter I, religiosity became “the most im234 portant ethnos-forming factor of Cossackdom.” The argument of modernday Russian religious leaders and Kazakh historians that the Christian worldview has always served as a tie which united all Cossacks is far from reality. The religiosity of Cossacks, nowadays universally accepted as the symbol of their identity, is drastically dissimilar from what primary documents record. The argument presented here is that the nominal religious affiliation of most Siberian Cossacks stationed along the Irtysh Line and in the steppe allowed 230 P. I. Nebol’sin, “Putevye rasskazy o Sibiri,” Zhurnal dlia chteniia vospitannikam voenno-uchebnykh zavedenii, vol. 71, no. 281 (St. Petersburg, 1848): 110, 112. 231 Otchet o sostoianii, 17. 232 Ibid. 233 http://www.orthodoxy-army-law.ru/ricar/kazaki_21vek.htm. 234 Abdirov, Zavoevanie Kazakhstana, 45. 72

them to have extensive contact with Kazakhs and to adopt elements of traditional steppe culture. To prove that the strength of religious identity could make a society less tolerant to the signs of “otherness,” a brief comparison between the attitudes of the Siberian and Ural Cossacks to the natives of the steppe needs to be presented.

Old Belief as an Obstacle to Contact Though the way of life of the Siberian and Ural Cossacks did not differ much – the main source of income for both of them was livestock breeding and 235 their way of life was defined as “semi-nomadic” – the cultural exchange between Ural Cossacks and Kazakhs never reached such proportions as it did 236 in Siberia. On the contrary, many contemporaries wrote of the intolerance of the Ural Cossacks to any sign of “otherness,” be it a German hat or a Kaza237 kh gown. The son of a Kazakh sultan and a graduate of the Asian School of Orenburg, Mukhammet Salikh Babadzhanov, wrote about the scornful attitude of the Ural Cossacks to the Kazakhs. In his view, the Ural Cossacks differed from what he calls “authentic Russians” by their hatred to everything which had the imprint of foreignness: Like the Russians, the Ural Cossack comes in contact with the Kirgizes to get some profit for himself. The latter, however, keeps a distance from the Kirgizes for the Kirgizes not to touch his spirit or body, his dress and especially his dishes. The Ural Cossacks often call Kirgizes “foul”, refusing to give them a glass of water, which the touch of the Kazakh can spoil to such an extent that it 238 cannot be washed and can only be burnt down or thrown away. What is responsible for such a negative attitude of Ural Cossacks to non-Russian people of signs of a different race or religion? Babadzhanov finds the reason for the conflicts between the Kazakhs and the Ural Cossacks in the latter’s devotion to the religious schism. Unlike the Siberian Cossacks, most of whom were the representatives (though nominal) of Russian Orthodox Chris235 At the beginning of the 19th century, the Cossacks of the Ural Cossack Army had 76,536 horses, 69,281 cows, and 205,977 sheep and goats. See Riabinin, “Ural’skoe Kazach’e voisko”: 110. 236 Nebol’sin, Ural’tsy, 8. 237 Ibid., 113. 238 M. Babadzhanov, “Appeliatsiia Kirgiza k publike, po povodu stat’i Russkogo Vestnika pod zaglaviem Kirgizomaniia,” Severnaia Pchela, no. 131 (1861): 131. 73

tianity, the majority of the Ural Cossacks belonged to raskol’nichestvo (a religious schism, otherwise known as the Old Belief), who had to escape the central regions of Russia as a result of the introduction of the Nikonian re239 forms in the mid-17th century. The census of 1850 approximated the number of Old Believers in the Orenburg Oblast’ to be 17,905 people, most of 240 whom were Ural Cossacks. According to the travel notes of A. Gren, who visited the Ural Cossack Army in 1860, “all Ural Cossacks are either Old Be241 lievers or Muslims.” In McNeal’s opinion, many Old Believers among Ural Cossacks “remained heavily committed to the old ways until the end of the 242 Empire.” The author cites a specialist of the question of religious composition of the Ural Cossacks, who defines the number of Old Believers to be as 243 large as ninety-two percent in 1878. Along with the Old Believers, the Ural Cossack Army included a large number of both Christian and non-Christian sectarians. According to the statistical data collected in 1904, the Orenburg Guberniia had 4,000 Molokans, 244 2,000 Shtundists, and 1,000 Khlystys. Like the Old Believers, the sectarians escaped central Russia fearing for their lives, since these sects were outlawed there. Many of them entered the Cossack service. This fact, however, has not prevented Cossack historians from emphasizing the Ural Cossacks’ loyalty to 245 “the Faith, throne, and Fatherland.” In Barrett’s view, “the most important religious fault line in the lives of the Terek Cossacks was not between Christianity and Islam, but between Orthodoxy and Old Belief. Cossacks did not cross that divide; it structured their everyday lives, politicized their marriages, split their communities, and fueled a longstanding antagonism with the state that periodically was resolved 239 The persecution of the raskol’niki forced them to seek sanctuary from Russia with several Cossack hosts. In some cases, the Cossacks were quite tolerant of other faiths and “accepted without question” many schismatics who fled from Muscovite persecution. In other cases, the Old Believers formed their own settlements or resided in a separate quarter of the stanitsas. See Seaton, The Horsemen of the Steppes, 56, 124. 240 Cheremshanskii, Opisanie Orenburgskoi, 119. 241 A. Gren, “Iz putevykh zametok o kirgizskoi stepi,” Inzhenernyi zhurnal, no. 4 (1862): 129. 242 McNeal, Tsar and Cossack, 17. 243 Ibid. 244 P. N. Stolpianskii, Iz proshlogo Orenburgskogo kraia (Orenburg: Izdatel’stvo Orenburgskaia gazeta, 1906), 103. The name khlysty originated from the Russian word khlyst meaning “whip”. The members of this sect believed that they could enter Heaven only if they caused suffering to their bodies. One of their practices was public whippings. See Stolpianskii, Iz proshlogo,103. 245 Nebol’sin, Ural’tsy, 7. 74

246

through desertion.” We can find the same religious fault lines in the regions adjacent to the Kazakh steppe. The tensions between the Cossack dissenters and the Orthodox Christians of Orenburg reached such proportions that the Cossacks were forcefully expelled from the city in 1786. Forty years later in 1825, the Cossacks’ eviction from Orenburg was repeated, since it was discovered that some Cossacks gave bribes to city administrators allowing them to stay. The City Council prohibited Cossack wives from selling their goods in the city market in the 1830s. In 1839, a member of the City Council, E. Ivanov, made a suggestion to separate the Cossack stanitsa from the city with a fence, so that nobody from the stanitsa could come to Orenburg. In addition, the City Council sent numerous petitions to the Governor General asking him to forbid the Cossacks from burying their dead in the city cemetery. All these hostile steps demonstrate the prejudice that traditional Orthodox 247 Christians had for dissenters. The Ural Cossacks returned the favor to the Orthodox Christians. NonMarxist historians argue that the reason for the support given by the Ural Cossacks to the Pugachev rebellion (1773-1775) was not their class grievances, but Pugachev’s promise to give them back “the Cross and the beard,” – that is, the custom of Old Believers. This meant that the dissenters would be al248 lowed to practice their religion openly. A spy sent by the Russian central authorities to the Ural Cossack Army had to pretend to be a raskol’nik in order to be trusted by the Cossacks. When he made the sign of the cross with two fingers (as the dissenters did), the Ural Cossacks’ reaction was: “It means 249 you are our Christian.” The attempts of the central government to unify the legal status of the Cossacks with those of other estates met opposition from the Cossacks who were adherents to the Old Belief. McNeal describes the arrest in 1874 of an Ural Cossack, Guzikov, who preached that those who ac250 cepted the new legislation received “the mark of the antichrist.” This example demonstrates that, at least, some Ural Old Believers equated their Cossack legal status with their devotion to the old ways. To be a Cossack for them meant to be an Old Believer, and the attempts of the central govern246 Barrett, At the Edge of Empire, 182. 247 Stolpianskii, Iz proshlogo, 27, 31. 248 A. F. Riazanov, Otgoloski Pugachevskogo vosstaniia na Urale, v Kirgiz-Kaisatskoi Maloi Orde i v Povolzh’e, vol. 6 (Orenburg), 209; McNeal, Tsar and Cossack, 4. 249 Riazanov, Otgoloski Pugachevskogo, 211. 250 McNeal, Tsar and Cossack, 45. 75

ment to merge them with peasants was seen as a pre-requisite of their conversion to official Orthodoxy. The Ural Cossacks, both Old Believers and sectarians, extended their distrust for the representatives of the official Russian Church to the people of other religious groups with whom they came into contact. Babadzhanov compares the attitude of the Ural Cossacks to Kazakhs and other Russians. According to him, the Ural Cossacks equally hated both of them. The Old Believer considered physical contact with a Russian Orthodox as contaminating 251 as the touch of a Muslim. Pavel Nebol’sin, echoing Babadzhanov, wrote the following passage about the Ural Cossacks’ treatment of Kazakhs: The Ural Cossacks do not think there is something wrong in oppressing, defaming, cursing, and deceiving the Kazakhs. The Ural Cossacks had always considered the Kazakh as a thing and did 252 not recognize his human rights. Like Babadzhanov, Nebol’sin finds the reason for such a “non-Christian” attitude of the Ural Cossacks to the Kazakhs in the Cossacks’ devotion to the schism, whose characteristic feature was, according to Nebol’sin, religious intolerance to other faiths. Nicholas Breyfogle, in his study of the interactions between Russian sectarians and the natives of the southern Caucasus, claims that “sectarians and South Caucasians remained relatively isolated from each 253 other and unchanged by their meetings.” Breyfogle agrees with Nebol’sin and Babadzhzanov that the absence of cross-ethnic and cross-confessional ties 254 was due to the fact that “the Russian colonists were religious dissenters.” The belief of the sectarians that they were “chosen people” created the impermeable boundaries not only between the natives of the Caucasus and the Dukhobors and Molokans, but, as my research will demonstrate, became the factor which ensured the cultural isolation of the sectarians and prevented the Old Believers in the ranks of the Ural Cossack Army from borrowing elements of Kazakh culture. Robert Geraci emphasizes the aggressiveness of Siberian sectarians to the natives of the steppe, who “… insulted Kazakhs harshly and behaved cruelly to them, and that they chased away with bullets 255 some Kazakhs who had settled near them.” 251 252 253 254 255 76

Babadzhanov, “Appeliatsiia Kirgiza,” 131. P. I. Nebol’sin, “Puteshestvuiushchie Kirgizy,” Russkii Vestnik, no. 17 (1860). Breyfogle, Heretics and Colonizers, 213. Ibid. Geraci, “Going Abroad,” 303.

The example of the Ural Cossacks demonstrates that firmly established religious identities could be a factor responsible for the preservation of boundaries between new coming and aboriginal people. As the aforementioned statistical data demonstrates, the Old Believers and sectarians constituted neither a majority nor a considerable minority in the Siberian Cossack Army. Unlike the Ural Cossack Army, the religious factor did not become an obstacle for extensive contacts between natives of the steppe and Siberian Cossacks.

The Ethnic Composition of the Siberian Cossacks Non-Russian Cossacks Could Ermak’s Cossacks and their ancestors really perceive themselves as “a drop of the Russian sea?” Again, a close look at the ethnic composition of Ermak’s small army and the Siberian Cossacks of later periods raises significant doubts in the validity of this statement. Most historians agree that Lithuanians, Germans, Poles, and even Tatars constituted approximately half of the members of Ermak’s band, which formed the core of the Siberian Cossack 256 Army in the next century. As historical documents demonstrate, the “foreign element” in the ranks of Cossacks did not decrease in later periods. The reinforcement sent to Siberia by Tsar Fedor Ivanovich in 1587 included fifty Polish soldiers, 100 Polish and Lithuanian Cossacks, approximately 1,000 Ta257 tar Cossacks from Kazan and Crimea, and 300 Bashkir Cossacks. In 1727, the Russian government formed one Tungus regiment consisting of 500 Cossacks, and four Buriat regiments with 600 Cossacks each to guard the border. 258 These “Alien Cossack regiments” consisting of Bashkirs, Tungus, and Buriats, constituted a considerable part of Siberian Cossackdom, given that the total number of service men (Cossacks and regular army troops) in the region 259 by that time consisted of not more than 13,000 people. Apart from accepting into the service ranks native Siberians, the Russian government compensated for shortages in service people by including in the Cossack Army European foreigners: Germans, Swedes, Lithuanians, and 256 Longworth, The Cossacks; Kenneth P.Czech argues that at least 300 out of a total 840 Cossacks who crossed the Urals with Ermak were Lithuanian and German prisoners of war. The raid to Siberia was their chance to earn freedom; see Czech, “Savage Land Beckoning.” 257 Seaton, The Horsemen of the Steppes, 66-67. 258 B. V. Bezsonov, “Kazaki i kazach’i zemli v Aziatskoi Rossii,” in Aziatskaia Rossiia, ed. Glinka, 70. 259 P. A. Slovtsov, Istoricheskoe obozrenie Sibiri (St. Petersburg, 1886), 180. 77

Ukrainians exiled from rebellious regions or captured in European wars. 260 These non-Russian Cossacks were added to the so-called “Lithuanian list.” Those “Lithuanians,” who wished to convert to Orthodox Christianity obtained Russian names. As the Cossack register of 1632 shows, Bezrutskii became Berezovskii; Kobylian-Kosteletskii changed his name to Kobylin-Kostylev. Though at the beginning, foreigners were separated from the Russian Cossacks, in the second half of the 17th century the situation began to change. The voevoda of Tobol’sk began to appoint “authentic Cossacks” to the foreign regiments. This was caused primarily by fiscal reasons; the Russian 261 government paid Russian Cossacks less than Europeans in its service. As a result of this policy, descendants of Ermak’s army, baptized Tatars, children of Russian peasants, and European prisoners of war intermingled and formed an estate with duties and privileges. In some Cossack regiments ethnic Russians constituted a minority. In his diary written in 1789, Army Captain Andreev described the ethnic composition of the Semipalatinsk (in modern day northern Kazakhstan) garrison: “The people under my command included: twenty five Russian soldiers, one hundred Bashkir horsemen, and fifty service Tatars from Tobol’sk and Tu262 men.” The Ural Cossack Army included 5,000 Bashkirs and 3,000 Tatars in 1860. Most Tatars lived in Russian settlements, and Bashkir Cossacks lived 263 separately from Russians in their own kanton. The Orenburg garrison had 1,300 Russian Cossacks, 200 Kalmyks, and 3989 Bashkirs and Meshcheriaks in 264 1786. Given the above evidence, when references are made in this paper to “Russians”, meaning the non-Kazakhs who resided on the right bank of the Irtysh River, this definition is not accurate. The ethnic composition of the participants of contact from the “Russian” side was very diverse. The Omsk military commander B. M. Bronevskii gave the following description of the ethnic composition of the people of the frontier, at the same time showing the ethnic stereotypes of the representatives of the higher classes of the Russian Empire of the first half of the 19th century: 260 Apollova, Khoziaistvennoe osvoenie, 76. 261 Ibid., 77. 262 I. Andreev, Domovaia letopis’ Andreeva, po rodu ikh pisannaia kapitanom Ivanom Andreevym v 1789 g. Nachata v Semipalatinske (Moscow, 1789). 263 Zheleznov, “Kirgizomaniia,” 49. 264 Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 121. 78

Sly Jews, stern Tatars, Lezgins, Kabardinians and Chechens, resourceful Greeks and Armenians, non-smiling Malorosses [Ukrainians], passionate Poles, cunning Gypsies, and courageous Cossacks came to Siberia of their own will or were brought here by 265 the state. Several reasons made entering into Cossack service attractive to non-Russians. Cossacks of native Siberian origin preserved their hereditary land possessions and received state payment for their service. According to the Statute of Alien Administration in Siberia of 1822, though native Siberian noblemen preserved their hereditary titles, they were not recognized in other parts of the Empire. In order to receive Empire-wide recognition of their noble status, 266 Siberian khans and princes had to enter the tsarist service. The system of hierarchy in the Cossack army was based on birth, not on ethnicity. Europeans with titles, the children of Russian nobles, and native chiefs received the ranks of children of Boiars, who were, as the pre-revolutionary Russian 267 historian N. Ogloblin puts it, the “service aristocracy of Siberia.” Entering into the Cossack service was beneficial not only for the representatives of the native elites, but also for commoners. In the case of the Irtysh Line, the territory belonging to Cossacks included a so-called ten-mile zone of security. Access to these fertile lands along the Irtysh River was closed both to Kazakh nomads and Russian peasants. The only way to use the lands was to enter the Cossack Army. This interest in land, or rather in pastures, led many Kazakhs 268 to become Cossacks. The native Siberians who turned to be Cossacks were, by no means, barred from taking high positions in the Cossack Army. The statistical data collected by the Civil Governor of Tobol’sk in 1802 has the following information about Siberian Cossacks stationed in this city: All officers of one of the Cossack detachments are Tatars of the Kul’mametov family. Its patriarch, Sabanak, has the rank of the head of the first class of the Cossack detachment (golova pervogo klassa kazach’ei komandy) and the title of Tatar murza (the rank 265 B. M. Bronevskii, “Zapiski B. M. Bronevskogo o kirgizakh,” Otechestvennye zapiski, no. 119 (1830): 163. 266 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29.126, p. 598, secs. 63, 67. 267 N. Ogloblin, “Iakutskii rozysk i rozni detei boiarskikh i kazakov,” Russkaia Starina 8 (1897): 375-392. 268 Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 74. 79

of nobility in the Tatar society). In addition to these titles, he has the rank of a Russian Army Major, which according to the Table of Ranks, gives him hereditary nobility. His son Rakhmatulla is the Ataman of the Cossack detachment and has a rank of Captain. Sabanak’s brothers Iusup, Musa, and Il’ias are the Lieutenants of 269 the Cossack Army and have the status of nobility. As this example demonstrates, the ranks of Cossack leaders were open to non-Russian elites. A Tatar murza, by joining the Siberian Cossack Army, could enter the ranks of the Russian noble estate. Another conclusion, which we can draw from the aforementioned document, is that it was possible for non-Christians (and the members of the Kulmametov family were Muslims, as is seen from their names) not only to enter the Cossack Army, but also to achieve high ranks there. This evidence contradicts the claims of many Kazakhstani historians, who state that the conversion to Christianity was a neces270 sary prerequisite for entering the Cossack Army. The ethnic heterogeneity of the Cossacks could be seen not only in Siberia. At different times, the Cossacks included regiments formed from ethnically diverse groups of people who were incorporated into the Russian Empire. Here are only some examples of these non-Russian Cossack regiments: Stavropol’e-Bashkir Army, Bashkirsko-Meshcheriakskii Cossack Regiment, Life Guards Crimean-Tatar Cavalry Squadron, Lithuanian Cavalry Regiment, Turkmen Cavalry Irregular Division, Caucasian Irregular Regiments (Convoy of His Majesty, Kazakh-Tatar Detachment, Transcaucasian Muslim Cavalry Regiment, Caucasian Mountain Regiment, Dagestan Irregular Cavalry Regiment, Kubanskie and Kurinskie Nuckers, Osetinian and Ingush Divisions, Chechen Irregular Cavalry Regiment etc.), Tungus and Buriat Cossack Regi271 ments. The Semirechenskoe Cossack Army, stationed in the southern Kaza272 khstan, included about 1,000 Chinese in 1869. These “foreign Cossacks” fulfilled the following duties: They did translation and interpreting work, accompanied diplomatic missions, watched the convicted criminals on their way 269 V. V. Rabtsevich, “Genezis kazach’ei komandy magometan,” in Zemledel’cheskoe i promyslovoe osvoenie Sibiri XVII – nachalo XX veka, ed. L. M. Goriushkin (Novosibirsk: Izdatel’stvo Nauka, 1985), 35. 270 Mazhitova, “Voennoe prisutstvie,” 107; Aubakirova “Uchastie sibirskogo kazachestva,” 107. 271 V. Kh. Kazin, Kazach’i voiska: Khroniki gvardeiskikh kazach’ikh chastei (St. Petersburg: Imperatorskoi glavnoi kvartiry, 1912), 21, 22, 23, 24, 33, 34, 37, 38. 272 McNeal, Tsar and Cossack, 10, 19. 80

to the exile, and guarded prisons. Their commanders sent them to collect taxes and tributes from the locals. Tatar Cossacks performed transportation 273 duty, and were to go to the Kazakh steppe to mine salt there. Most of these non-Russian Cossacks preserved their religious beliefs and traditions after entering the Cossack service. The Orenburg Cossack Army, for example, included two Teptiar and Bobyl’ (natives of the Volga River basin) regiments. Each of these regiments consisted of five hundred horsemen. In Kazantsev’s description, Teptiars and Bobyl’s were either Muslims or pagans both before 274 and after they joined the Cossack Army. It is not surprising that the Russian authorities accepted non-Russians into the Cossack ranks. The shortage of service people on the frontier was so acute that Senator Karnilov even suggested turning into Cossack “young and healthy convicts,” who were exiled to Siberia, regardless of which crime they 275 had committed. Cossacks Born in Ethnically Mixed Families Along with non-Russian Cossacks, Cossackdom included a large number of people who were born as the result of intermarriage between newcomers and the indigenous peoples. These intermarriages became widespread, first of all, due to the lack of Russian women on the frontier. The government took different measures to even the gender imbalance in this distant region of the empire by shipping prostitutes and convict women to Siberia. Of interest here is the report of the Siberian Guberniia Chancellorship written in 1759, where the author gave a list of crimes committed by the girls and women [devok i 276 bab] exiled for settlement to Siberia: For arson of the landlords’ property Homicide of their husbands

3 16

Infanticide

7

Concealing thieves

4

Theft

5

Runaway

1

273 Apollova, Khaziaistvennoe osvoenie, 105. 274 Kazantsev, Opisanie, 53. 275 Karnilov, Zamechaniia o Sibiri senatora Karnilova (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Karla Kraiia, 1828), 16-17. 276 Potanini, Materialy dlia istorii, 267. 81

No guilt reported

5

False testimony against their husbands

1

The next group of convict women sent to the Western Siberia and destined to 277 become the wives of Cossacks committed the following crimes: Arson

4

Patricide

1

Homicide

8

Homicide of their husbands

8

Theft

2

Runaway

3

Witchcraft

2

Infanticide

3

Sex with her father-in-law

1

As the report of the Iamyshevo Chancellorship testifies, most of these girls and women married Cossacks on their coming to the Line in spite of the fact that most of them committed serious crimes, and if not for the desperate lack of women in Siberia, could hardly marry again. In 1759 alone, ninety female criminals were sent to the Irtysh Line. Seventy seven of them were recognized suitable for marriage. Both the Cossack officers and rank-and-file Cossacks married these women. The officers, however, had the right to be the first to choose, and as a rule only those women who were infected with syphilis, tuberculosis, and scurvy were left for the rank-and-file Cossacks to 278 marry. The amount of Russian female exiles fell far short of the numbers of male Siberian Cossacks. That is why, along with the exile of female criminals to Siberia, the Russian government encouraged the purchase of “nomadic girls” 279 by Cossacks. Novoselov wrote about the multitude of mixed marriages 277 Ibid. 278 V. I. Petrov, “K voprosu o sotsial’nom proiskhozhdenii sibirskogo kazachestva (XVIII – pervaia polovina XIX vv.),” in Ekonomika, upravlenie i kul’tura Sibiri XVI – XIX vv. Materialy po istorii Sibiri: Sibir’ perioda feodalizma, ed. V. I. Shunkov, vol. 2 (Novosibirsk: Izdatel’stvo Nauka, 1965), 201-217. 279 Kraft, Sbornik uzakonenii, 154. 82

between Russian Cossacks and Kazakh women. The consequence of these interethnic marriages was the change in the anthropological character of the 280 Cossacks. Another ethnographer, Semenov, wrote about the origins and subsequent intermarriages of the Siberian Cossacks: The first colonists represented the rabble of the borderland territories. Russians, Ukrainians, and Poles came into close contact with such aliens as Tatars, Kirgizes, and Kalmyks. The inevitable result of these contacts was intermarriage; changes in the way of life, customs, morals, and so on. The acculturation heavily affected 281 both the appearance and the way of life of Russian Siberians. Bronevskii continues his narrative on the Russians and Russianness: “An attentive observer will notice the effects which the intermarriage of the newcomers with Kalmyks, Kirgizes, Buriats, and the representatives of other Asian tribes produced on the physical appearance of the people in Siberia, which 282 hold many foreign traits.” The Russian pre-revolutionary historian V. K. Kuznetsov ascribed the non-Russian appearance of the Russians beyond the Urals to the multitude of ethnically mixed marriages, which became inevitable due to the lack of Russi283 an women in Siberia. Kuznetsov cited many examples of the nativization of the Russians in Siberia: In Berezovskii and Surgutskii uezds of the Tobol’sk guberniia, Russian old-timers have narrow eyes and protruding cheek-bones, which make them look very much like Ostiaks. Those Russians, who live along the Pelym River, look like Voguls. In Baraba and Altai, the Russians adopted many Kirgiz and Tatar features… In Eastern Siberia the nativization of the Russians is even more noticeable. Mixed marriages between Russians and Buriats produced dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyed children. These Buriatized Russians are known by the name of karymy… The Russians living along the Lena River became almost indistinguishable from Iakuts. 280 281 282 283

Novoselov, “Posviashchaetsia,” 98. Semenov, Rossiia, 185. Bronevskii, “Zapiski,” 163. Kuznetsov, “Russkie starozhily,”186. 83

They speak the Iakut language better than Russian … and address 284 Shamans if they have any problems. The nativization of the Russians in Siberia reached such proportions, that Kuznetsov called them “a new variety of the Russian people.” In a sharp contrast to this ocean of mutual assimilation and extensive mixing were the islands of Old Believers’ settlements. In Kuznetsov’s words, their inhabitants were the only Russians in Siberia, who preserved a “pure Russian type.” They preserved both the appearance and the way of life of the Russians in the cent285 ral regions of Russia. The Cossacks’ Purchase of Native Children This “watering down of the Russian blood” was done not only through intermarriage with the aboriginal peoples of Siberia and Kazakh steppe, but also through the purchase of children from natives. Many 19th-century observers spoke of the mass character of Russian acquisition of Kazakh children: “Their [Kazakh] poverty was so rampant that crowds of Kirgizes came to the Russi286 an settlements to sell their children for a sack of flour, or a loaf of bread.” A Russian pre-revolutionary ethnographer also found Kazakhs’ poverty as a reason for the selling of their children: Some of the Kirgizes who have their pastures not far from the Line have become so poor that they give their little children, with the permission of their elders, to the clerks of the Russian administrations and Cossacks. These Kazakhs ask Russians to baptize their children in the Orthodox Faith and make them eternal Russi287 an subjects [ostat’sia vechno vo vserossiiskom poddanstve]. The Senator Karnilov, after his trip to the Kazakh steppe in 1808, wrote the following lines to justify the purchase of Kazakh children by Russians: Though the purchase or exchange of children seems to be disgusting to a sensitive heart, this is actually an act of humanity. By buying Kazakh children, the Russians save the humankind. What 284 285 286 287

84

Ibid. Ibid. Grigor’ev, “Orenburgskie Kirgizy,” 41. A. I. Dobromyslov, “Turgaiskaia Oblast’. Istoricheskii ocherk,” Izvestiia Orenburgskogo otdela Imperatorskogo geograficheskogo obshchestva, vol. 1 (Orenburg: Tipografiia F. B. Sachkova, 1900), 221.

fate would await these victims of ignorance and brutality if they were left in the steppe? What could these innocent babies expect besides poverty, starvation and death? But now, when the pity of Russians bought them, the pity of Russians brought them up in respect of hard work, they can be useful and thankful subjects of their new fatherland – Russia. Russians saved them from death and gave immortality to their souls through the Holy Baptism. Buying these children of nature can also benefit our fatherland, as 288 the numbers of people in Siberia would increase. Karnilov suggested allowing the purchase of Kazakh children not only by state officials and merchants, but also by Cossacks under the condition that 289 each of them would turn the purchased child into a Christian. According to Karnilov’s suggestion, the Cossacks who bought Kazakh children could use their labor until they turned twenty, and then these “newly acquired sons of Russia” had to enter the Cossack Army and to serve there in place of their guardians. After the end of five years of service, the new Cossacks were to be settled in Cossack stanitsas enjoying the same rights as the other dwellers. Of interest here is that Karnilov recommended that the leaders of the Cossack Army not allow the wards to serve close to the Line separating the Kazakh steppe from the Russian territory, as “the closeness of their native land can 290 make an impact on their spirit, thus endangering the whole undertaking.” The latter remark demonstrates Kornilov’s doubts in his own words of the “thankfulness” of these “new children of Russia.” The central authorities took Karnilov’s recommendations seriously. Soon after Karnilov submitted his report to Alexander I, the Emperor promulgated the law which allowed the purchase and exchange of Kazakh children in order to raise them as Cossacks. 291 The result of this policy was the increase in the number of ethnic Kazakhs in the Siberian Army, who in their way of life and attitudes “did not differ 292 from Russian Cossacks.” Although the Ustav o Sibirskikh Kirgizakh (The Statute of Siberian Kir293 gizes), promulgated by the Russian government in 1822, prohibited the ac288 289 290 291

Karnilov, Zamechaniia o Sibiri, 11. Ibid., 12. Ibid. F. M. Omarzaev, ed., Tsarskaia kolonizatsiia v Kazakhstane. Po materialam russkoi periodicheskoi pechati 19 v. (Almaty: Rauan, 1995), 6. 292 Grigor’ev, “Orenburgskie Kirgizy,” 41. 293 Also known as Speranskii’s reform. 85

294

quisition of Kazakhs in private possession, Russian authorities had to modify the term of the legislation four years later, as the prohibition could not be enforced and the purchase of Kazakh children continued. According to the resolution of the Omsk Oblast Council of 1826, Russian individuals had the right to buy Kazakh children from their parents only in the case when the 295 sale of their children would save the Kazakhs from being starved to death. Then the purchased children had to be given to the special Charity Commission, which would reimburse the money or goods spent on the purchase of these children. The children were to be distributed by the Commission to “good and well-to-do families” of Russians under the conditions that after the 296 children turn twenty-five they were to be freed. The Council also prescribed the Commission to distribute the children to settlements where the children 297 would not be able to communicate with their relatives. The guardians were to convert their wards to Christianity and teach them crafts suitable for their 298 age and gender. When turning eighteen, these children had the chance to 299 marry a free person if they wished. On their turning twenty-five, the wards were to enter any Russian estate they wished or become Cossacks. Archival sources confirm that many of these children chose to enter the Cossack Army. Levshin described cases when Line Cossacks bought children from Kazakh parents, converted them to Christianity, and after they grew up, they became 300 Cossacks. Whether bought directly from their parents or distributed by the Charity Commission, the Kazakh children were brought up in such a way that when they became adults, “it was impossible to tell them from Russian 301 Cossacks.” The initial multi-ethnic composition of Siberian Cossacks, their frequent intermarriages with aboriginal women, and the purchase of native children with their subsequent entering the ranks of the Cossack Army, led Usov to give the following description of the composition of the Irtysh Line Cossacks: “There are descendants of Kazakhs, Tatars, Kalmyks, and Mordva among the 302 Cossacks of that region. Many Cossacks look more Asian than European.” 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 86

PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 273. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 635, l. 18ob. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 635, l. 17. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 635, l. 23ob. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 635, l. 24. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 635, l. 28ob. Levshin, Istoricheskoe i statisticheskoe, 48, 49. Grigor’ev, “Orenburgskie Kirgizy,” 41. Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 68.

The influx of non-Russian blood was so considerable that it caused the Russian government to be afraid of the “complete absorption of the Russians by the foreign element” and was one of the reasons behind Stolypin’s policy of peasant mass migration from the central regions of Russia to Siberia and Kazakhstan at the beginning of the twentieth century, as it was believed that more 303 colonization could reverse the nativization of Russians. Given this evidence, we may conclude that the composition of the Line Cossacks was far from being homogeneous in ethnic or religious terms, and the attempts to present shared ethnicity as a unifying ideal of Cossackdom can hardly find any historical justification. In spite of the presented evidence, modern-day Siberian Cossacks emphas304 ize their ethnic Russianness and reject any examples of native influence. In doing so, they pursue certain aims. Barbara Skinner, in her discussion of the post-Soviet Cossack revival, argues that the insistence on the Russianness of modern Cossacks is “very important for the cohesion of the Cossack revival 305 movement.” According to her, the minimization of the differences between Cossacks of different regions is necessary to create the unity of all Cossacks. Common ethnicity and Orthodox Christianity are to be the bonds which would unite Cossacks of the former Russian Empire. The fact that a group of people choose those aspects of their history which are useful for the formation of a group identity is a rule rather than an exception in world history. In the Cossack case, today’s identity is based on emblems invented outside their group. Rather than being fashioned by history, modern Cossack identity is based on historical narrative. The mythical image of the Cossack as Russian and Orthodox has been projected in the historiography and embraced by the modern day Cossack movement. The historical reality is a very different story, with multiple religious and ethnic identities composing the Siberian Cossacks of the imperial era. This heterogeneity was responsible for the absence of firmly fixed identities among Siberian Cossacks and made them open to adopting elements of the culture of the steppe 303 Omarzaev, Tsarskaia kolonizatsiia, 4; Sunderland, “Russians into Iakuts,” 824. 304 The political program of the Cossacks of Kazakhstan was worked out at the second Big Circle of the Siberian Cossacks, which took place in Petropavlovsk (a city in Eastern Kazakhstan) in December of 1991. The members of the Circle argued that “the restoration of the Great Russian ethnos is impossible without the restoration of Cossacks,” and that “Cassackdom is the authentic national movement of the Russian people.” 305 Skinner, “Identity Formation,” 1024. 87

nomads, whom they did not view as irrevocably and irreconcilable “others.” What about the other side of the contact? Were Kazakhs’ religious and national identities so firmly established for them to consider Cossacks “intolerable infidels” or “foreign invaders?” The following section gives an answer to this question.

Kazakhs’ Religious and Ethic Identity The American historian Bruce Privratsky, in his recent book Muslim Turkistan: Kazak Religion and Collective Memory, defines the period of Kazakh history between the end of the 17th and the beginning of the twentieth centuries as one of open warfare between Kazakhs and such non-Muslim peoples as Dzhungars and Russians. Similar to The Siberian Chronicles of 1621, which portrays Ermak’s conquest of Siberia as a crusade against heathens, Privratsky in 2001 depicts the relations between Kazakhs and Russians as an epic of struggle between the Muslims and the infidels who seize their territory. In his view, this three-century-long religious battle confirmed that Kazakhs possessed a Muslim identity and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 proved to them that in the long run Islam was superior to Russian Orthodox Chris306 tianity. Such an interpretation implies, first of all, the existence of strong religious sentiment among Kazakhs in the period prior to and during their contact with people who had non-Muslim religious affiliations. Does his conclusion have a historical justification, or is it simply the mechanical projection of modern-day mentality to the distant past? Though the Kazakhs were Muslims, nearly all 19th-century travelers who visited the region and regions adjacent to it were unanimous in their opinion that Kazakhs’ devotion to Islam was only nominal. The 19th-century histori-

306 Bruce G. Privratsky, Muslim Turkistan: Kazak Religion and Collective Memory (Richmond: Curzon Press, 2001), 48, 249. His interpretation of the role of Islam in defining relations between natives east of the Ural Mountains and the agents of the Russian Empire is very close to some of the contemporary Muslim clergy of Russian Federation. In the words of one of them, Ishak Haji Lotfullin, the Imam of a mosque in Kazan, “after Russia’s conquest of Kazan, Islam became the symbol of national resistance and ethnic originality among the Tatars, who have fought a great jihad against Christianization and Russification for four and a half centuries.” Ishak M. Lotfullin and Faizulhak G. Islaev, Dzhikhad tatarskogo naroda: geroicheskaia bor’ba tatar-musul’man s pravoslavnoi inkvizitsiei na primere istorii novokreshchenskoi kontory (Kazan, 1998), 7-43, cited by Uyama Tomohiko, “From “Bulgharism” through “Marrism” to Nationalist Myths: Discourses on the Tatar, the Chuvash and the Bashkir Ethnogenesis,” Acta Slavica Iaponica 19 (2002): 69. 88

an M. Mikhailov gives the following description of the Kazakhs’ religiosity at that time: The Kirgizes are considered to be Sunnite Muslims, but they are so ignorant of their religion, and so indifferent to it, that they belong to the lowest rank of Islam. There are very few religious rites which they observe. The Orenburg steppe does not have officially recognized mullahs. Some people claim to be mullahs, but most of them did not receive any education and are hardly literate. If a deceased man was famous among his tribesmen or rich then the Kazakhs make a ritual sacrifice at his grave. The sacrifice consists of different bones, horns, and heads of animals. The presence of a mullah at a wedding ceremony is not necessary. Whether he 307 comes or not, the wedding will be held anyway. Usov seconds Mikhailov in his view of the religiosity (or rather non-religiosity) of the Kazakhs: Though officially Kirgizes are considered Muslims, the vast majority of them are quite indifferent to religion. In important events of their lives, such as births and deaths, they follow rites which are more pagan than Muslim. The greed of the Tatar Mullahs 308 keeps them indifferent to Islam. 18th-century ethnographer P. Pallas, who as a member of a geographic expedition visited the steppe at the end of the 1760s, wrote that Kazakhs ideas of Islam were rather vague due to the absence of religious teachers and mosques. The only mullah he saw was accompanying the khan. The Kazakhs wor309 shiped the spirits of the dead and revered the forces of nature. Not only Russian travelers and ethnographers, but also Kazakhs’ Muslim neighbors both from the west (Tatars) and from the east (settled people of the Central Asian khanates) did not consider Kazakhs to be good Muslims, or Muslims at 310 all, and referred to them as “a godless tribe.” Chokan Valikhanov, a Kazakh ethnographer, shared this belief, writing in 307 M. Mikhailov, “Kirgizy,” Literaturnaia Biblioteka (May, 1867): 283, 284. 308 Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 88. 309 P. S. Pallas, Puteshestvie po raznym provintsiiam Rossiiskogo gosudarstva, part 1 (St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1773), 575. 310 V. V. Vel’iaminov-Zernov, Issledovaniia o Kasimovskikh tsariakh tsarevichakh, part 2 (St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1864), 294. 89

1860 that “until their annexation to Russia, Kazakhs were only nominal Mus311 lims.” Another 19th-century Kazakh ethnographer and publicist, Mukhammet Salikh Babadzhanov, emphasized in 1861 “the weak knowledge of the tenets of religion” among Kazakhs and the domination of traditional “folk 312 customs in their system of beliefs.” Although Valikhanov recognized that the influence of the Tatar Mullahs on Kazakhs resulted in their adoption of some Islamic customs, as late as the 1860s there were many Kazakhs who had not heard of Muhammad, demonstrating that Islam had no deep roots among 313 the Kazakh people. According to a 19th-century Russian author, the Kazakhs feared evil spirits more than the wrath of Allah. The Kazakhs worshiped visible objects from the physical world, such as a tree, a stone, a cave with a fresh-water spring, or graves of their heroes. The Muslim rites, on the con314 trary, were not observed. The numerous descriptions of the Kazakhs’ religious beliefs point to the strength of shamanism among them. According to Andreev, most Kazakhs followed pagan rather than Muslim rites. For instance Kazakhs covered bones with lard and set them on fire. In the light of these fires, they prayed to their 315 gods. In addition, non-Muslim superstitions dominated the Kazakh worldview in the period under study. Kazakhs attributed any mischief or tragedy, such as the death of a child, bad weather, or the loss of a hunting falcon to a 316 person with an “evil eye.” They had a custom of giving ugly and even indecent names to their children, believing that such names would scare away illness or spells cast by an “evil eye.” According to another tradition, an elbow bone carved in the form of a man protected livestock from thieves. Kazakhs also attached this bone to saddles and carried it with them since they believed 317 that it kept their horses safe. They also believed that an owl head, claws, and feathers protected them from evil spirits. Kazakhs tied these objects to their yurtas and to the cradles of their babies. In Valikhanov’s words, the 311 Ch. Valikhanov, “Sochineniia,” in Zapiski Rossiiskogo Imperatorskogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva, vol. 39 (1904): 171. 312 M. S. Babadzhanov, “Zametki Kirgiza o Kirgizakh,” Severnaia Pchela, no. 4 (1861). 313 Ch. Valikhanov, Izbrannye proizvedeniia (Alma-Ata: Kazakhskoe gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo, 1958), 187 314 “Kirgizy,” 37. 315 I. Andreev, Opisanie Srednei Ordy Kirgiz-Kaisakov, 2nd ed. (Almaty: Ghylym, 1998 [1789]), 56. 316 “Iz oblasti kirgizskikh verovanii,” Vestnik Orenburgskogo Uchebnogo Okruga, no. 1 (Ufa, 1913): 65. 317 Ibid., 68. 90

Kazakhs believed that some of their spirits were damaged by dzhada. This illness was considered to be lethal and the only way to eradicate it was to ask a 318 shaman to perform surgery. M. Krasovskii, an officer of the general staff stationed in Orenburg, ascribed the impossibility of determining the exact number of Kazakhs to their non-religiosity. In the middle of the 19th century, mullahs were to furnish Russian authorities with censuses of Kazakhs. These lists, however, were too short because many Kazakhs never came to see the mullahs. Instead of going to the mullahs in cases of births, marriages, or deaths, many of them 319 went to the traditional Kazakh healer and fortuneteller called the baksy. In the Kazakh belief system, these baksys had relations with both good and evil spirits, which made them highly respected among Kazakhs and placed them 320 in a position of importance in their clans. Almost all 19th-century Kazakhs were illiterate and treated books, including the Koran, with suspicion. The notes of the Russian merchant Evgraf Kaidalov, who was captured by Kazakhs in 1824, demonstrate the Kazakhs’ disrespect for Islam: “Only a few of them know their faith, and even less follow its rites. I saw cases in which they cursed their faith and the Prophet 321 when something went wrong.” In his captivity, Kaidalov also heard a story told to him by many Kazakhs, that they had burned alive a Tatar man when they found that he had some “suspicious books.” Given the illiteracy and ignorance among Kazakhs in religious matters, Kaidalov hypothesized that 322 these books could have been holy books of Islam. His guessing seems plausible considering the evidence presented in the memoirs of the Kazakh Sultan Daulybaev. According to his writings, a Tatar by the name of Baiazit, who was trading in the steppe, stayed during the winter of 1830 in the aul of the 323 Kazakhs of the Argyn tribe. Once, when he was reading the Koran, Kazakhs asked him to stop reading. Not paying attention to their request, Baiazet continued to read. Subsequently, these Kazakhs gathered around his yurta, 318 319 320 321

Ibid., 69. Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 310. “Iz oblasti kirgizskikh verovanii,” 75. E. Kaidalov, Karavannye zapiski, vo vremia pokhoda v Bukhariiu Rossiiskogo karavana pod voinskim prikrytiem, v 1824 i 1825 godakh; vedennye nachal’nikom onogo karavana nad kupechestvom, Evgrafom Kaidalovym (Moscow: Universitetskaia tipografiia, 1827), 39. 322 Ibid. 323 Aul – the migratory unit of the Kazakhs ruled by elders. Auls generally consisted of several extended families drawn from the same clan. 91

broke into it, took all his books, including the Koran, and set them ablaze. Seeing their intentions to kill him, Baiazet began to cry, begging the Kazakhs to let him live, promising that he would never again read any book, or even 324 pray. N. Kazantsev and A. Nischenkov emphasized the Kazakhs’ disregard for the oath given on the Koran. According to the authors, the oaths given in the 325 traditional way were much more honored. M. Gotovitskii, writing in a legal journal in 1885, offered the following description of the traditional oath-taking practiced by Kazakhs: Kirgizes are not zealous Muslims and seldom take oaths on the Koran. The Kirgiz who takes an oath usually walks around the grave of his ancestor three times. If the place of trial is far from the graves of the tribe’s ancestors, then the oath taker is required to kiss the blade of a saber, or the barrel of a gun; or to lick the 326 blade of a knife, or the thumbnail of the right hand. In some cases, the traditional steppe code of laws, called Adat, contradicted the canons of Islam. For example, according to Kazakh tradition, a widow of a deceased Kazakh had to marry his brother or, in the absence of a brother, 327 some other relative. The Muslim authorities of Orenburg and Omsk were unhappy with this custom and endeavored to have the Russian administration eradicate this non-Muslim practice. In 1860, the Head (Muftii) of the Orenburg Muslims complained to the Omsk Oblast’ Upravlenie of the Siberian Kirgizes of the multiple cases in which Kazakh widows were treated as the iasyri (female slaves) of the relatives of her deceased husband. Their freedoms were limited and they were forced to marry one of their husbands’ relatives. The Muftii sent many petitions to the Kazakh Okrug Prikazy demanding a stop to “this evil and wild tradition, which contradicts both the laws of the state and Shari’ah,” and freedom for the widows, but never received any re324 Bekmakhanov, Kazakhstan v 20-40 (1992), 97. 325 Kazantsev, Opisanie, 36; A. Nishchenov, “Kirgizskaia step’ i ee obitateli,” Vsemirnaia Illiustratsiia, no. 41 (1869): 229. American historian Virginia Martin recognizes that taking oaths on the Koran “was not an element of customary legal practice.” See Virginia Martin, “Kazakh Oath-Taking in Colonial Courtrooms. Legal Culture and Russian Empire-Building,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 5, no. 3 (2004): 483. 326 M. Gotovitskii, “Znachenie obriadov priniatiia prisiagi u kirgiz,” Iuridicheskii Vestnik, vol. 19 (1885): 192. 327 Kov, “Kirgizy,” Voskresnyi Dosug, vol. 3, no. 72 (1864): 359. 92

328

sponse from them. According to the Muftii, the failure of the Okrug Prikazy to impose the norms of Islam on the nomads of the steppe led to an increase in the cases of forced marriage. Ultimately, the Siberian administration made the decision to support the Muftii and sent orders to all prikazy which strictly prohibited Kazakh men to marry the widows of their deceased 329 relatives. Most modern Western historians share the belief of the 19th-century Russians that Kazakh religious beliefs had many elements of animism and their 330 devotion to Islam was only nominal. In Andreas Kappeler’s words, the Kazakhs’ “patriarchal common law and animist ideas such as a cult of ancest331 ors and animals went deeper than adherence to Islam.” In spite of the fact that Tatar Mullahs managed to strengthen the positions of Islam in the steppe in the 19th century, the Kazakhs “were still very much under the influence of 332 animism.” Olcott seconds this opinion stating that Kazakhs’ “popular religious practices were not deeply changed by Islam until the late 18th or 19th 333 centuries.” In her view, both the Kazakh masses and most of the Kazakh 334 leaders “had only the sketchiest knowledge of Muslim tenets and practices.” The author attributes the fact that Kazakhs’ popular beliefs retained many elements of “earlier shamanism, animism, and ancestor worship” to their isol335 ation from both the Muslim centers of Central Asia and Kazan. Another researcher, Ira Lapidus, states that, prior to the Russian conquest, Islam did not 336 produce a significant impact on the Kazakh hordes. Ludmila Polonskaya and Alexei Malashenko write about the religious syncretism of Kazakhs and the weakness of dogmatic Islam among them. According to the authors “… the Shari’ah coexisted with the Adat, and Islam with shamanism, worship of 337 saints, and other pre-Islamic religions” in the Kazakh steppe. Geoffrey Wheeler emphasizes the “very little effect on the social structure of the Kaza328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337

TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1600, ll. 1-2 ob. TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1600, ll. 3-4. Wheeler, “Russian Conquest,” 284. Andreas Kappeler, The Russian Empire: A multi-ethnic History (Harlow: Person Education Limited, 2001), 186. Ibid., 189. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 18. Ibid., 19. Ibid. Ira Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 414-423. Polonskaya and Malashenko, Islam in Central Asia, 33. 93

khs or even on their legal system,” which Islam had before the arrival of the 338 Russians. Lawrence Krader gives a list of reasons that allow him to define Kazakhs as only “superficially Islamic.” He establishes a system of criteria on the degree of Islamization and effectively demonstrates that 18th and 19th-century Kazakhs met none of them. First on his list is the issue of social organization. Contrary to the Uzbek villages, in which the leading figures were the aksakal, the mullah, and the kadi, who combined religious and civil-judiciary functions using the law of Islam, “... in the nomadic communities, the mullah 339 and the kadi were usually missing.” The biis administered the civil affairs of nomadic communities using Adat, not the Shari’ah. The second criterion is the one of observance. Krader contends that if we judge the Islamization of Kazakhs by this criterion, we may safely argue that religion in the steppe was “virtually non-existent,” since Kazakhs in the 19th century “did not perform 340 the prayers, ablutions, fasts of the Moslems.” The next criterion suggested by Krader is the one of the existence of “large-scale religious institutions, with their building and administrative hierarchies, the mosques and the me341 dresses.” Judged by this criterion, Islam in the steppe was also non-existent, since “not a single mosque then [prior to Kazakhstan’s inclusion into the Russian Empire] existed in the Kazakh Steppes, not a single mullah performed 342 there the rites of the Muslim religion.” Finally, the meager distribution of mullahs in the steppe convinces Krader that Kazakhs “were not deeply Islam343 ic people.” In short, the views that the Kazakhs “remained less affected by the impact of Islam than the Tatars, Bashkirs, or Uzbeks” and that “Islam did not have a great influence on the Kazakhs,” who “paid scant attention to their religion,” 344 dominate Western historiography. Some scholars argue that the attempts of the Russian government to propagate Muslim religion in the steppe by using Tatar missionaries met with resistance from both Kazakh commoners and 338 Geoffrey Wheeler, The Modern History of Soviet Central Asia (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964), 33. 339 Lawrence Krader, Peoples of Central Asia (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1963), 130. 340 Ibid. 341 Ibid. 342 Ibid., 128. 343 Ibid., 130. 344 Serge Zenkovsky, Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1960), 55, 58; Seaton, The Horsemen of the Steppes, 160. 94

345

educated elites. To them, it is another example of the weakness of Islam on the steppe. To demonstrate this resistance, Krader cites a petition written by the Kazakhs in the middle of the 18th century, in which they demanded from 346 the Russian government an end to the missionary propaganda of Islam. The evaluation of Kazakhs as marginal and syncretizing Muslims is, however, not universally accepted by modern-day Western scholars. Shirin Akiner argues that, contrary to the belief of many of her colleagues, prior to the middle of the 19th century, Islam among the Kazakhs had been “firmly, albeit 347 superficially established.” Devin DeWesse challenges the conventional belief that “Islam ‘sat lightly’ upon the Inner Asian nomad, whose ‘conversion’ was in name only and failed to have any serious impact on his daily life or consciousness.” In this author’s view, this approach is “clearly flawed by a remarkable misunderstanding both of the nature of Islam and of the indigenous 348 religious conceptions that preceded Islam.” In addition, Privratsky launches a full-fledged attack against viewing Kazakhs as nominal Muslims, who had retained “many pre-Islamic shamanist traditions” and were characterized by “indifference to Islamic practice and 349 values.” He criticizes Western historians for their uncritical reading of Valikhanov, who should not be trusted since his interest in the Russification of 350 Kazakhs made him “minimize evidence of Muslim behavior” among them. Privratsky also disagrees that the Islamization of Kazakhs was a late phenomenon caused by Catherine the Great’s policy of using Tatar mullahs to “civilize” the nomads. Instead, he attributes the conversion of the Kazakhs to Islam to the time of the Golden Horde: “It is a reasonable proposition that the Kazakhs are Muslims because their origins are in the Golden Horde, and the Golden Horde had already converted to Islam before the Kazaks became a 351 distinct ethnos.” Privratsky appeals to the reader not to take shamanist practices of Kazakh baksy as a proof of the existence of pre-Islamic traditions in the Kazakh sys345 Reef Altoma, “The Influence of Islam in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan,” in Central Asia in Historical Perspective, ed. Beatrice F. Manz (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), 166. 346 Krader, Peoples of Central Asia, 126. 347 Shirin Akiner, Islamic Peoples of the Soviet Union: (With an Appendix on the NonMuslim Turkic Peoples of the Soviet Union) (London: Kegan Paul International, 1983), 301. 348 Devine DeWesse, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania University Press, 1994), 9. 349 Privratsky, Muslim Turkistan, 10. 350 Ibid., 18. 351 Ibid., 46. 95

352

tem of beliefs. According to the author, it is not the case due to two reasons. First, in the late 19th century baksy became more and more marginal figures in Kazakh society and tabibs (doctors practicing Muslim healing arts) took his 353 place. And second, the practices of baksy were closer to the ones of tradi354 tional Muslim healers than to those of the Siberian shamans. The aforementioned observations let Privratsky to contend that Islam was an inseparable part of the Kazakh worldview long before their contact with the Russians. According to him, modern-day Kazakh religiosity “is best understood not, as is commonly supposed, in terms of syncretic interactions between shamanism and Sufism, but as a subdued Muslim piety...,” and Kazakhs’ religious belief and behavior “are mediated by a vibrant memory of their nomadic ancestors 355 and the Sufi saints who nurtured them in the way of Islam.” Privratsky’s argument, though well formulated, has three serious problems. First, his approach largely disregards historical context. He takes the modern-day religiosity of Kazakhs and mechanically extends it to the distant past, discarding any possibility that the Kazakh worldview could change due to their contact with their neighbors or to the Kazakhs’ transition from a nomadic to a sedentary and urbanized way of life in the past century. The fact that now “... all Kazakhs think of themselves as Muslims by birth, and ‘Muslimness’ is believed to be one of the things that makes a Kazakh a Kazakh” 356 does not necessarily mean that their ancestors shared this attitude. Second, criticizing the sources of his opponents, the author does not counter them with more reliable material. His implicit argument that since the sources of his opponents are biased, the opposite is true is not entirely convincing. Finally, Privratsky does not take into consideration regional variations between Kazakhs of different regions of Kazakhstan. His research is confined to Turkistan, the town which lies at the southern edge of the Kazakh steppe, and which he defines as “the historic heartland of Muslim culture at the northern

352 This issue is of primary concern to Privratsky probably because one of his main opponents, Krader, centered his argument on the non-religiosity of Kazakhs on the premise that Kazakh baksi, like Siberian shamans, acted “directly upon the spirits and on the forces of illness, good fortune, evil fortune.” In this respect their practices were drastically different from those of mullah’s, who acted “only as an intermediary seeking to invoke the power of Allah.” See Krader, Peoples of Central Asia, 131. 353 Privratsky, Muslim Turkistan, 2. 354 Ibid., 244. 355 Ibid., 1-2 356 bid., 239. 96

357

edge of Central Asia.” His conclusions of “historical Muslimness of Kazakhs,” however, stretch beyond this area pertaining to all Kazakhs. Given the vastness of the Kazakh steppe and the division of the Kazakhs into hordes and clans prior to the twentieth century, this mechanical projection of the historical experience of people living in one area to all Kazakhs cannot be justified. This is especially true if one considers Turkistan which was one of very few places where Kazakhs experienced urban way of life prior to the inclusion of the steppe into the Russian Empire. Juxtaposing Privratsky’s findings in Southern Kazakhstan with the aforementioned primary evidence concerning the religious beliefs and practices of the Kazakhs of the Middle Zhuz, we see that they were drastically different. The regional variations of religious practices of Kazakhs did not allow them to share a common collective identity. Paraphrasing Valikhanov’s statement 358 that “Islam has not yet eaten into our flesh and blood,” my suggestion is that though Islam has “eaten into the flesh and blood” of some Kazakhs, this process was not homogenous. In this respect, I agree with Sabol’s suggestion that vast territories populated by a dispersed nomadic population “led to a 359 host of social, cultural, linguistic, and religious practices.” I suggest that the religious practices of Kazakhs (as well as other aspects of their society and culture) could differ from region to region. Different levels of penetration of Islamic beliefs and practices among the Kazakhs living in different regions prevented them from forming the affinity between each other and failed to contribute to the formation of the religious unity of all Kazakhs. To be sure the argument on the weakness of Islam among Kazakhs is based primarily on the observations and records of Russian emissaries and officials and Tatar intermediaries, who had certain preconceptions about what Islam was supposed to look like and found Kazakhs wanting by this standard. Dale Eikelman criticizes scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, for dismissing local practices which differ from “central” Islamic truths as “non-Islamic or as incorrect understanding of Islam, even though people who hold such be360 liefs consider themselves fully Muslim.” This consideration, however, does not allow me to argue for certain whether the Kazakhs of Northern Kazakhstan were “nominal Muslims” or just “different Muslims,” whose religious 357 Ibid., 3. 358 Ch. Valikhanov, Sobranie sochinenii v piati tomakh, vol. 4 (Alma-Ata: Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk KazSSR, 1961), 71. 359 Sabol, Russian Colonization, 7. 360 Eickelman, The Middle East, 243. 97

practices were dissimilar to those of their geographic neighbors – the Tatars and peoples of the Central Asian Khanates – making the latter question the Kazakhs’ devotion to Islam. Nonetheless, it is highly problematic to deny the existence of non-Muslim, shamanist elements in the traditional Kazakh system of beliefs. The syncretism of their religious beliefs prevented their religious affiliation from becoming the factor that would establish boundaries between the Kazakhs and non-Muslim peoples. When the leader of the anti-Russian rebellion Kenesary Kasymov made an attempt to unite nomads against the Russians under Islamic slogans, appealing to the Kazakhs to rise up against the infidels, his appeal remained unanswered by the vast majority 361 of the natives of the steppe. Unlike many other natives of the Russian borderlands, such as Chechens and Bashkirs, Kazakhs never declared jihads against Russian incursion onto their lands. Another proof for the lack of the strong religious consciousness of Kazakhs and consequently the absence of religious solidarity is their willingness to deliver up to the Russian authorities the Tatars (the people of the Muslim faith) who deserted the Russian army trying to find refuge in the steppe. The Almaty archive has several cases where the Kazakhs gave up to 362 Russia the Tatar deserters in exchange for a small amount of money. The aforementioned evidence demonstrates that the religious affiliation of Kazakhs did not make them see the Cossack first of all as an infidel, whose presence on their land could not be tolerated. In this respect I agree with Krader, who contends that religious factors did not correspond to a pattern in the 363 Kazakhs’ loyalties or enslavements.

Kazakh Identity – Tribe or Nation? The task of this section is to demonstrate that the Kazakhs of the 18th and 19th centuries identified themselves as belonging to a certain clan rather than an entire ethnic group. A Russian author wrote at the end of the 19th century that Kazakhs were firmly attached to their clans: Even those Kazakhs who were captured by members of some oth361 In this respect, Kenesary’s revolt is in sharp contrast to the Bashkir rebellion led by Karasakal in 1735–1740, where the religious factor was of crucial importance. See Stolpianskii, Iz proshlogo, 69. 362 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 720, ll. 1-2ob. 363 Lawrence Krader, Social Organization of the Mongol-Turkic Pastoral Nomads (Boulder: Indiana University Press, 1963), 202. 98

er clan preserved the name of their own clan, which often became their proper name. The clan provides the Kazakhs solutions to all their problems and grievances. The clan gives him protection from his enemies. If somebody from outside the clan offends any clansman, the whole clan stands up to protect him. In case of hunger, mass livestock-plague, poor harvests and so on, the more successful Kazakhs help their less fortunate clansmen. If a member of a clan kills an outsider, the whole clan pays compensation to the family of the victim. All this makes clan ties extremely strong… If forced outside of his clan, a Kazakh gets lost and becomes helpless. He loses all his belongings very quickly. Clan unity is the 364 foundation for the nomadic way of life. Frequent armed conflicts between different clans resulted from the dominance of tribal over national identity. In Atkinson’s travel account of the “bloody struggle” between Kazakhs of the Elder and Middle Hordes over their territories, this English traveler argues that any Kazakh of the Middle or Elder Horde crossing a certain border would put his life at risk. As a result of this land dispute, the warring parties ruined the disputed territory through nu365 merous raids. Not less fierce was the confrontation between the Kazakhs of the Middle and Younger Hordes. Clan leaders of the Younger Horde complained about the Middle Horde Kazakhs’ mass attack on their auls which took place in 1846: “Five hundred Middle Horde Kazakhs broke into our lands; heavily wounded 23 people; captured two women; drove away 270 bulls, 33 horses and 3163 sheep; broke 95 cast-iron caldrons; and burned our yurtas. 366 Last year the same Kazakhs drove away 683 horses.” According to Grigor’ev, these internal wars reached such proportions that whole clans consist367 ing of several thousand people were slaughtered. Quite often an armed conflict between different clans caused Kazakhs to 368 ask the Russian authorities for protection. In 1832, the Chief Sultan of the Kokchetav okrug, Gabbasov, asked the Commander of the Siberian Cossack Army to send twenty Cossacks to his auls to protect them from the “predat364 365 366 367 368

“Kirgizy,” 16-18. Etsel’ and Vagner, Puteshestvie po Sibiri, 450. TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1381, ll. 1-2. Grigor’ev, “Orenburgskie Kirgizy,” 39. According to Major General B. M. Bronevskii, the destruction caused by constant warfare between Kazakh clans pushed them to take the oath of allegiance to the Russian state. See Bronevskii, “Zapiski,” 179. 99

369

ory actions of ill-intentioned people.” Sultans Kuchukov, Shankhalov, and Kozhabaev complained of the aggressive actions of a rival clan which pushed them from the lands of their ancestors, and asked the Omsk administration to send ten Cossacks and an official to establish an okrug on their territory to 370 protect their clansmen from the raids of warring neighbors. Another proof of the weakness of the national consciousness of the Kazakhs in the 19th century can be found in the following observations made by Krasovskii. According to the author, the fact that the steppe was divided between different administrative units – the territory of the Middle Horde being under the authority of Omsk administration and the Younger Horde governed from Orenburg – created the feeling of alienation between the Kazakhs of these two Hordes. Though the differences in governance between Omsk and Orenburg were minimal, the Kazakhs of Omsk considered the Orenburg 371 Kazakhs to be an “absolutely foreign nation.” Orenburg Kazakhs paid the same coin to their Omsk countrymen. In order to avoid armed clashes between the Omsk and Orenburg Kazakhs, Krasovskii suggested unifying the 372 administration. Though Krasovskii might have exaggerated the situation, his observations cannot be discarded, as being Officer of the Orenburg Army Headquarters, he had some idea of what was occurring in the territories about which he was writing. Olcott defines the Kazakh hordes as loose feder373 ations or unions of clans that “did not share a common ancestry.” She also underlines the by far larger influence of clan leaders over the people of the 374 steppe than that of the khan. Krader emphasizes the importance of clans and suggests viewing them not solely as a consanguineal unit, but also as a 375 politico-military unit. To support his point of view, he gives examples of a system of identifiable signs which the members of one clan used to separate themselves from the others. The author speaks of tamga, the earmarks used by members of a certain clan to distinguish their livestock from those of other clans and uran, a war cry, which identified members of a clan in battles and 376 great gatherings. The following quote demonstrates the importance of be369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 100

TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 721, ll. 1-1ob. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 520, ll. 1-2. Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 12. Ibid., 13. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 10. Ibid., 15. Krader, Social Organization, 326. Ibid., 204, 330.

longing to a clan for a Kazakh both before and after the Russian conquest: “... A man stood with his kinsmen regardless of where his own sympathies might lie, and he supported the judgments of his bii against all outsiders, both 377 the more distant kinsmen and strangers.” The merging of two or more clans could take place, but such absorption had nothing to do with nomads’ sharing some ethnic sentiment. Krader describes a case when a clan of the Great Horde, the Kereit, left their Horde and joined an Uzbek group which bore the same name. This occurrence allows him to argue that “... clans bearing the common names recognize an affinity with each other regardless of whether 378 they belong to the same Turkic people or not.” This affinity established by bearing the name of a common ancestor, though weak and fictitious, proved to be stronger than ethnic ties which, according to the claims of Kazakhstani historians, forged the unity of the Kazakhs. Krader’s example demonstrates that claims to having a common ancestor, one of the most important symbols of group identity at that time, did not correspond to ethnic boundaries, which became important much later. What is responsible for the crucial importance of tribal identity and the absence of national consciousness? The first explanation of the domination of tribal identity over the national one concerns the process of development of the Kazakh Hordes. The supporters of this explanation claim that the Kazakhs were formed from several tribes which preserved their inner structure and were therefore reluctant to form close alliances with other tribes. Many prerevolutionary historians wrote of the composite structure of the Kazakh people. Krasovskii believed that Kazakhs were not a distinct ethnic group, but a mixture of different ethnicities. He argued that the Russian government made a serious mistake in considering – prior to 1822 – Kazakhs as a solid political body with a single omnipotent khan at the head. According to Krasovskii, the Russian policy of supporting one khan in each of the three Hordes was not the continuation of the traditional ancient Kazakh system of adminis379 tration, but the imposition of a new one. The Kazakhs, who became mixed with Mongols at the time of Chingiz Khan’s conquest of Central Asia, failed to form one ethnic group but remained separate independent tribes, pre380 serving their regional distinctions. 377 378 379 380

Ibid., 211. Ibid., 193. Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 60. “Kirgizy,” 3. 101

A. Levshin examined different legends of Kazakh origin and arrived at the conclusion: “ … we should not be surprised with differences between these legends and their contradictions to each other, because Kazakhs consist of many different tribes. Thus, it is natural that the descendants of each of these 381 tribes have different ideas of their origin.” I. Kraft argues that the ancestors of contemporary Kazakhs, under the influence of distinct economic and social factors, formed Hordes, but they still belonged to different tribes and their tri382 bal identity remained dominant. L. Meier, the 19th-century Russian historian, finds further proof of the composite structure of the Kazakh Hordes in the appearance of representatives of different tribes: “If you ask a person well acquainted with the Kazakhs to give a list of most typical features of their ap383 pearance he will be at a loss.” According to Khodarkovsky, the Kazakhs were nothing more than a “nomadic confederation of various Turkic and Tur384 kified Mongol tribes.” The composite structure of the Kazakh Hordes, according to these scholars, is responsible both for the lack of national identity among Kazakhs and their inability to form a long-lasting political entity. Another explanation of the factors that hindered the transformation of tribal identities into a national one and prevented the Kazakhs from forming a single nation was their nomadic way of life. In his 1844 description of the Orenburg Steppe, Captain Fomakov wrote that the need for vast pastures compelled the Kazakhs to spread over huge territories and break into numerous separate societies. Since clans lived in different environments, each clan differed to some degree from the other. In Fomakov’s words, “unity in the Younger Horde was impossible, because the needs of some tribes were very often in conflict with the needs of others. The Horde had khans. Sometimes Kazakhs were afraid of them, but they did not form civil ties between differ385 ent clans.” In addition, Asfendiiarov gives his support to the idea that the conditions of the nomadic way of life made the masses cling to old clan insti386 tutions. Geoffrey Wheeler questions the validity of defining clans, which were loosely grouped into larger confederation as “hordes,” since the Turkic 381 Levshin, Istoricheskoe i statisticheskoe, 30. 382 Kraft, Sbornik uzakonenii, 6. 383 L. L. Meier, “Kirgizskaia step’ Orenburgskogo vedomstva,” Materialy dlia geografii i statistiki Rossii sobrannye ofitserami General’nogo shtaba, vol. 10 (1865): 3. 384 Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier, 12. 385 F. Kireev, ed., Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia v XVIII-XIX vekakh (1771–1867): Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1964), 299-300. 386 S. D. Asfendiiarov, Istoriia Kazakhstana (s drevneishikh vremen), 2nd ed. (Alma-Ata, Kazak Universiteti, 1993 [1935]), 114. 102

word orda means an “army or more precisely a striking force,” and implies 387 “vast numbers or at any rate concentration.” This was not the case in the Kazakh steppe. The Kazakhs were extremely sparse and did not recognize the authority of a khan. Kazakhs themselves, instead of orda, used the word zhuz, which meant a hundred and did not mean close association between 388 Kazakhs of different clans. Whichever explanation is more accurate, the result is the same: the clan, not national identity, determined the actions of the individuals of the steppe. It was precisely the absence of national identity based on ethnic unity, not foreign influence, which made the Kazakh Khanate “a relatively short-lived 389 and generally unsuccessful political institution” in previous centuries. American historian Serge Zenkovsky attributes the relatively peaceful incorporation of the Kazakh steppe into the Russian empire to the fact that the Kazakhs “were not unified as a nation and were only weakly organized by 390 tribes or clans.” Wheeler denies the existence of any national consciousness among the peoples of Central Asia including Kazakhs. According to him, there was “no feeling of allegiance, with the exception of those who made up 391 the immediate entourage of the rulers.” Krader dubs the attempts of modern-day Kazakhs to establish common descent as being “absurd” and “fiction392 al” because, in his view, “the Kazakhs are a people of mixed origin.” Sabol makes a claim that in their attempt to conceptualize Kazakh national identity, the representatives of the Kazakh intelligentsia in the beginning of the twentieth century “had to overcome centuries of traditional social structure whose principal sources of strength and history relied upon smaller units of identity than any specific national persona.” In his opinion, “aul, clan, and zhuz desig393 nations … were inherently stronger loci of identity.” Thus, the creation of a national identity necessitated the subjugation (Sabol uses the word “reshaping”) of “the stronger Kazakh tribal or clan consciousness” and “centuries of traditional characteristics and identities firmly embedded in the Kazakhs’ no394 madic heritage.” 387 Wheeler, The Modern History, 31. 388 389 390 391 392 393 394

Ibid. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 27. Zenkovsky, Pan-Turkism, 57. Wheeler, The Modern History, 40. Krader, Peoples of Central Asia, 89. Sabol, Russian Colonization, 24, 152. Ibid., 152-153. 103

As in the case with the religious affiliation of Kazakhs, their recent and constructed ethnic consciousness has come under criticism in the works of some modern-day Western historians. Privratsky challenges the conventional belief which attributes the emergence of the Kazakhs’ ethnic consciousness to the second half of the 19th century, by emphasizing the “strength of Kazakh 395 ethnic identity over a period of 500 years.” He suggests the following timetable for the emergence of Kazakh ethnic consciousness, closely connecting this process with the profound Islamization of Kazakhs which started in the 15th century: “The evolution of Kazakh ethnic identity began with a nomadic claim on the Muslim landscape in the first two centuries of the Kazakh nation, and solidified around a series of wars and boundary events with reli396 gious implications in the next three centuries.” Thus, in his interpretation, the contact with Russians, or more precisely their Eurocentrism, energized national feelings among Kazakhs, which, however, had existed long before 397 the Russians came. Privratsky’s claims concerning the pre-modern existence of Kazakh ethnic identity, however, falls far short of his opponents in terms of historical evidence. Like in the case of his argument on the Islamic religiosity of Kazakhs, which supposedly has deep historical roots, his conclusion on the ancient ethnic identity of the Kazakhs is more the result of his projecting of modern-day Kazakh feelings onto the past than of historical research. Though modern-day 398 Kazakhs might “equate their ethnic identity with Muslim values,” this did not necessarily hold true in the past. Unfortunately, the author fails to provide enough historical evidence to refute the view of the dominance of tribal over national identity among Kazakhs in the 18th and 19th centuries. To be sure, the dominance of tribal over national identity does not exclude the possibility of coalitions between the members of different tribes, as occurred in Morocco, where people from different tribes “aligned themselves 399 against the French.” The task of my book is to demonstrate that this was not the case in the Kazakhs steppe, and to explain this difference. My hypothesis here is that in the case of Northern Kazakhstan, the tribal identity of Kazakhs made them view the Siberian Cossacks as representatives of another 395 396 397 398 399 104

Privratsky, Muslim Turkistan, 8. Ibid., 48. Ibid., 8. Privratsky, Muslim Turkistan, 65. Eickelman, The Middle East, 132.

tribe and construct their relations with them on the basis of their centur400 ies-long experience of dealing with other Kazakh tribes. The religious and racial heterogeneity of the Siberian Cossacks, the people who were in the forefront of the contact with the Kazakhs, demonstrates the 401 absence of firmly established racial and religious identities. The Siberian Cossack Army included people of different racial origin, who spoke many 402 languages and professed various faiths, Christian, Muslim, or Shamanists. Coupled with the religious syncretism of the Kazakhs and their tribal rather than national consciousness, there were no obstacles which would prevent Siberian Cossacks and Kazakhs from extensive cultural exchange. The following chapter demonstrates how this exchange led to the transformation of the societies which participated in the contact.

400 This difference between Moroccan and Kazakhstani experience, however significant it may seem, should not be surprising. In his book, Sabol cites Brian Spooner, who argues that nomad cultures vary considerably and “there are no features of culture or social organization which are customary to all nomads, or that are found exclusively among them.” Given this variation, the very different patterns of the contact with representatives of other cultures is quite understandable. See Sabol, Russian Colonization, 10. 401 Barrett’s research demonstrates that religious affiliation was a weak signifier of identity in the Greben Cossack Army, as “it was often difficult even to fix boundaries between faiths.” See Barrett, At the Edge of Empire, 181. 402 According to Seaton, the only factor common to all Cossacks was their way of life, which was dictated by the environment: “... They were usually steppe dwellers or steppe nomads organized into military communities of similar pattern, relying mainly on the horse for movement and for war.” See Seaton, The Horsemen of the Steppes, xiii. This definition of Cossacks can be used to define the most salient features of the other partner of contact – the Kazakhs. 105

Chapter Two Cross-Cultural Exchanges on the Frontier: Their Causes and Consequences

Nativization of the Siberian Cossacks Under the conditions of the absence of firmly established national or religious identities, other factors played a crucial role in defining the ways of life of the people of the frontier. The task of this chapter is to demonstrate the mutual acculturation of the Siberian Cossacks and Kazakhs and to determine the factors which were responsible for the mutual adoption of the elements of material culture and worldview by the contact participants. Among the factors which made mutual acculturation of the contact participants possible, I underline the following: the environmental factor, which was more favorable for livestock breeding than for traditional Russian agricultural practices; the willingness of the Russian government to accept into the civil and military service both representatives of the Kazakh elites and commoners, which both led to the Russification of the Kazakhs and contributed to the ethnic and cultural diversity of the Cossacks. Other factors which contributed to the formation of a mixed frontier culture were measures undertaken by the central authorities to stimulate the Russification of the Kazakhs through encouraging them to build houses and to send their children to Russian schools, and active interactions between Kazakh laborers who crossed the Line and settled on the right bank of the Irtysh River, and their Cossacks employers. Taken together, these factors led to the formation of a frontier culture which was neither traditional Russian nor Kazakh. This phenomenon had several consequences, which were at odds with the plans of the imperial center towards this distant region. The most important of those was the formation of the shared culture of the frontier, which caused an alienation of the contact participants from the people practicing traditional cultures. Rather than becoming the agents of Russification as it was planned in St. Petersburg, Siberian Cossacks acquired many elements of material culture and worldview from the Kazakhs. The latter development impeded the process of “civilizing” nomads sought by the leaders of the empire. Analyzing the Russification of Siberian natives in some regions, and the 106

process of Siberization of the Russian settlers in others, modern-day Russian historian Sergei Skobelev ascribes the pivotal role in the character and direction of these transformations not to political and economic dominance, but to environmental factors. In the regions where agriculture could be practiced, the natives adopted Russian ways and were assimilated. And in the regions where a harsh climate made agriculture impossible, the Russians joined the aboriginal subsistence system and, in a course of time, lost their Russianness. 403 Due to the fact that harsh climate is not exceptional in Siberia, a considerable part of Russian “old settlers” came to identify themselves with the native Siberians rather than with their biological ancestors. These people, who formed a new ethnic identity, came to be known as zatundrennye krest’iane 404 (tundranized peasants). The process of acculturation of the people born in ethnically mixed families went along the same lines. Some of them adopted Russian ways and were included in Russian society, whereas others “had adopted the behavior of the 405 local natives.” The factor of environmental determination seems the most influential in defining the ways of life the Siberians (both native and immigrant) had to choose. In the Eastern Siberian region Iakutiia, many Russians adopted the native language, which even “at the governor’s parties was heard 406 among the Russian guests.” Not only did natives live side by side with Russian settlers in the Russian settlements, but native villages also co-opted Rus407 sians as members. Some “old settlers” did not consider themselves Russian 408 and were more fluent in the local languages than in Russian. As Willard Sunderland has noted, language in the 19th century was not only the means of communication, it was closely identified with nationality. Thus, “losing 409 one’s language meant in effect losing one’s nation.” Following this definition, the Siberian old timers lost, at least, some of their Russianness. V. Zimov’ev, who visited the Northern part of Siberia at the end of the 19th century, wrote about the Russians of that remote part of the Empire: 403 S. G. Skobelev, “Demografiia korennykh narodov Sibiri v XVII – XX vv.: Kolebaniia chislennosti i ikh prichiny,” Sibirskaia Zaimka (1998). This article can be found at http://zaimka.ru/to_sun/skobelev_4.shtml 404 B. O. Dolgikh, Rodovoi i plemennoi sostav narodov Sibiri v XVII veke (Moscow: Akademiia Nauk SSSR, 1960) cited in Skobelev, “Demografiia korennykh narodov.” 405 Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 199. 406 Ibid., 165. 407 Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors, 102. 408 Ibid., 98. 409 Sunderland, “Russians into Iakuts,” 815. 107

The Russians, who constitute eight percent of the whole population of the region, failed to produce any discernable effect on the native Siberians. Russian merchants and Cossacks adopted the native ways and worldview and became indistinguishable from the local population. Russians lost their Russianness to such an extent that they prefer to speak to each other not in Russian but in the Iakut language. One can hear Iakut speech in a Russian house. Cossacks, the descendants of the Russian conquerors, who happen to 410 come across on a road most likely, will greet each other in Iakut. The notes of Grigorii Potanin, an Officer of the Siberian Cossack Army, demonstrate that we can find a similar impact of environmental factors on the adoption or rejection of Kazakh ways among Russian Cossacks populating different regions adjacent to the Kazakh steppe. Potanin compares and contrasts the ways of life of the Cossacks living in the Altai to those Siberian 411 Cossacks who resided along the Irtysh River. He starts his description by contrasting the environment of the Altai and the Irtysh River: Unlike the Altai, where soil is rich, vegetation is abundant, and climate is temperate, the natural conditions of the Irtysh area are more severe. Grass grows badly, winters are harsh, the nearest forest is a hundred of miles away, and, with the exception of the Irtysh, there are no other sources of water. To sum it up, the environmental conditions of the Altai are more favorable for agricultural activity, whereas the banks of the Irtysh River are better suited for livestock breeding, the traditional activity of the nomads 412 of the steppe. Different environments caused, according to Potanin, the differences in everyday activities of the Altai and Siberian Cossacks: “The Altai Cossack is an ardent agriculturalist working days and nights on their plots of lands, whereas his Siberian brethren is a cattle breeder and a trader, who spends most of his days in the Kazakh auls trading with the Kazakhs and collecting their debts.” According to Krasovskii, the settled life was as unbear413 able for the Siberian Cossack as it was for the Kazakh. The differences in the everyday activities of these two groups of Cossacks were responsible for the differences in their appearance: “The Cossacks who 410 Novoselov, “Posviashchaetsia,” 99. 411 G. N. Potanin, “Zametki o Sibirskom kazach’em voiske,” Voennyi sbornik, vol. 9, no. 56 (1861). 412 Ibid., 3-5. 413 Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 404. 108

live in the stanitsas along the Irtysh River do not look like Russian peasants… [On the other hand] the Cossacks who live in the Altai are virtually indistin414 guishable from peasants.” Potanin finds the reason for the formers’ “nonpeasant” look in both the proximity of the inorodets (in this case Kazakhs) and the quality of soil which is more favorable for cattle breeding than for 415 cultivation. The differences in the dominant activities of the Altai and Siberian Cossacks were responsible for the varying styles of their clothes. The Altai Cossacks preferred peasant clothes, whereas their Siberian counterparts wore “a 416 gown and a burk, that is the Kirgiz hat made of fox pelt.” Not only Irtysh Cossack men, but also women were receptive to elements of the Kazakh material culture. In his travel notes, the Cossack historian E. Katanaev wrote about the adoption of Kazakh clothes by Cossack women. These adoptions went so far that even when they left the house, the Cossack women “covered 417 their heads with gowns.” Life as determined by the environment was responsible for the Siberian Cossacks’ adoption of many elements of Kazakh culture such as language and eating patterns: Siberian Cossacks are not inferior to Kazakhs at horse riding. The Siberians not only understand the Kazakh language, but also often use it in talking to each other. Siberian Cossacks adopted many Kazakh traditions. For example, the Siberian Cossacks eat horse 418 meat and drink kumys (fermented horse milk). Even the Siberian Cossacks’ theft of sheep from the Kazakh auls, in which they became as skillful as the natives of the steppe, does not demonstrate “the hostility of Cossacks to Kazakhs,” as Kazakhstani historians argue, but is rather an example of the Cossacks’ appropriation of the traditional Kazakh worldview, according to which the theft of livestock from a different tribe is 419 both an act of courage and a form of art. 414 415 416 417 418

Potanin, “Zametki o Sibirskom,” 5. Ibid., 6. Ibid. GAOO, f. 4, op. 1, d. 288, l. 1ob.; Potanin, “Zametki o Sibirskom,” 7. Potanin, “Zametki o Sibirskom,” 7; Konshin, “Ocherki ekonomicheskogo byta Kirgiz Semipalatiskoi oblasti,” Pamiatnaia knizhka Semipalatinskoi oblasti na 1901 g. (Semipalatinsk, 1901), 179. 419 Potanin, “Zametki o Sibirskom,” 22. 109

Potanin notices that the similar way of life created close cultural affinity between the Siberian Cossacks and Kazakhs. He states that “the tastes and the 420 worldview of the Irtysh Cossacks were formed by their nomadic neighbors.” To demonstrate these close connections and active cultural interactions between the Irtysh Cossacks and Kazakhs, Potanin gives a description of life on the Iamyshevo stanitsa where he was born and spent his younger years: These two peoples [Cossacks and Kazakhs] became so close that both races partly intermingled. One can find Kirgizes who converted to Christianity. You can hear songs where Russian and Kirgiz words are mixed and see Kirgizes who dance Russian dances. All Kirgizes who live in the area adopted many Russian ways. Many of them built huts and live there during winter months. Local Cossacks adopted some of the Kirgiz ways as well. The Kirgiz influence can be seen in their clothes, and their households. The 421 Irtysh Cossacks prefer the Kirgiz language to their own one. Another Russian author, ethnographer N. Konshin, gave a very similar description of the interactions of Kazakhs and Cossacks in stanitsas located along the Irtysh Line: If you come to a Cossack settlement in evening or on a holiday in summer, you will see Cossacks and Kirgizes sitting in circles on the ground, peacefully talking to each other. The language, which 422 they use in their conversations, is often Kirgiz. Potanin and Konshin were not the only ones who mentioned the proficiency of the Cossacks in the Kazakh language. The authoritative pre-revolutionary historian V. P. Semenov wrote that the Cossacks used the Kazakh language in 423 their everyday life. According to Novoselov, it is impossible to find a Line Cossack who would not be able to speak Kazakh. Even all Cossack children knew this language at least as well as Russian. For their parents it was a cer424 tain chic to use the Kazakh language in conversation between them. These references allow me to suggest that the Kazakh language became the lingua franca of the frontier. 420 421 422 423 424 110

Ibid., 7. Ibid. Konshin, “Ocherki ekonomicheskogo byta,”180. Semenov, Rossiia, 188. Novoselov, “Posviashchaetsia,” 97.

Along with the language, the Siberian Cossacks adopted many other elements of Kazakh material culture and the traditions of the steppe nomads. The author of Voennyi Sbornik in his Notes on the Siberian Cossack Army (Zametki o Sibirskom Kazach’em voiske) wrote in 1861 about the Irtysh Line Cossacks: These Cossacks have a great merit – they can speak the Kirgiz language. Besides that, they are as excellent horse riders as nomadic Kirgizes are. Living in close contact with the Kazakhs, the Cossacks are familiar with all their traditions. When a Cossack is on a mission to the steppe, he keeps on taking care of his family who stayed behind the Line. When he lives in some piquet in the steppe, he establishes friendly relations with Kazakhs, trades with 425 them, curries sheepskin, makes horse harnesses, and so on. As well as Potanin, Krasovskii draws the readers’ attention to the extensive borrowing of Kazakh clothes, food, and customs by the Siberian Cossacks. According to him, the Cossacks knew the steppe very well and could find 426 their way there as well as the Kazakhs. The knowledge of the Kazakh language always allowed the Cossack to find the aul he was looking for. In order to establish friendly relations with the Kazakhs, and to get the maximum benefits from their interactions, Cossacks had to play according to the traditional steppe rules: “The Kirgiz is very happy that the Cossack will never refuse to address his problem with a Kirgiz to the court of biis, and follows all the traditions of the steppe. Because of that, the Kirgiz respected Cossacks more 427 than any other Russian with whom he came into contact.” A. K. Geins, chairman of the frontier commission, wrote of the advantages of the traditional court of biis over the Russian court. According to him, the court of biis was fast, and did not require paper work. It was always just and uncorrupted, which made it popular both among Russians and Kazakhs. On the contrary, the distrust of the Russian court was so great that both Kazakhs and Cossacks unanimously tried to hide their conflicts from the Russian authorities, and asked biis to mete out justice, even if the conflicts involved criminal cases 428 which should have been brought to the Russian court. 425 426 427 428

Potanin, “Zametki o Sibirskom,” 18-19. Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 403. Ibid. A. K. Geins, Sobranie literaturnykh trudov, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia M. M. Stasiulevicha, 1897), 110. 111

Krasovskii cited a phrase heard by him from many Kazakhs: “Urus (Kazakh word for Russian) Cossack is a good man. We are afraid of him, and he is 429 afraid of us.” I consider this phrase to be the key for understanding the nature of relations between the Siberian Cossacks and the natives of the steppe. Though conflicts between them occasionally took place, the ways they were solved were not foreign to the Kazakhs. Cossacks, in spite of their military superiority, did not consider themselves to be above traditional norms. They preferred to accommodate themselves to the local ways of behavior, even if they did it exclusively for enriching themselves. “The Cossack will never refuse to go to a bii, otherwise, the Kazakhs will not continue to be 430 friendly to him.” The Cossacks were very well aware of the Kazakh system of values and the code of behavior. The Cossack, for example, would never steal anything from the yurta of a Kazakh, because, as Krasovskii explained, such things were intolerable in the steppe, but he could borrow something from a Kazakh and never give it back to him, as the latter practice was not 431 considered to be a crime by Kazakhs. The Kazakhization of the Line Cossacks reached such proportions that, according to Potanin, the cultural gap between the Irtysh and Altai Cossacks grew bigger than the one between the Siberian Cossacks and Kazakhs. In his words, the Irtysh Cossacks looked down upon the Altai Cossacks because of the latter’s poor riding skills and peasant clothes. In their turn, the Altai Cossacks despised the Irtysh Cossacks for their “going native.” Potanin depicts this cultural tension by giving the following example: “The Altai Cossacks consider the Kirgiz [Kazakh] language as being foul. If Siberian Cossacks start 432 talking in Kirgiz in the house of an Altai Cossack, he will kick them out.” As Barrett’s analysis demonstrates, the aforementioned nativization of the Cossacks along the Siberian Line was not unique on the Russian eastern frontier. The author emphasizes the natives’ influence on the Terek Cossacks’ cul433 ture, society, and economy. Kazakh influence over the Siberian Cossacks was not less profound than that of the natives of the Caucasus over the Cos434 sack hosts stationed there. Along with the nativization of Siberian Cossacks, we can find the opposite process in the Russification of the Kazakhs. 429 430 431 432 433 434 112

Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 403. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 403 Barrett, At the Edge of Empire, 172. Seaton, The Horsemen of the Steppes, 159.

The next part of this chapter will demonstrate that the process of the adoption of Russian culture could be seen both among the representatives of the Kazakh elite and the lower classes of Kazakh society.

Kazakhs in the Russian Service (Russification of the Kazakh Elites) In his recent work, the Kazakhstani historian Kaisar Kusaiynuly argues that “the tsarist government strictly prohibited the acceptance of Kazakhs in the 435 Russian civil and military service.” This statement, however, proves to be wrong. Archival sources confirm that quite a few members of the traditional Kazakh elites entered Russian military and civil service and were able to attain high ranks. Catherine the Great was the first Russian monarch who began to consider the hiring of Kazakhs into the Russian service. In 1785, Catherine instructed the Governor General of Orenburg, O. Igel’strom, to “persuade Kirgiz elders to assign several people from each clan to the state service – to protect our border.” The Empress promised to give the service Kazakhs all the privileges which other people in the state service had, and to award them in the case of their good service. Catherine warned Igel’strom to be careful in accomplishing the task of bringing the Kazakhs into the Russian 436 service, “for them not to think that they are forced to do so.” The idea of bringing Kazakhs into the Russian service was rather persistent after Catherine. The Senator Karnilov wrote in 1807 about the necessity to attract Tatars, 437 Central Asians, and Kazakhs to the Siberian Cossack Army. The practice of the acceptance of the Kazakhs of the Middle Horde into Russian military service began at the end of the 18th century. One of the first Kazakhs of the Middle Horde who became an officer in the Russian Army was Chokan Baisakalov, who was elevated to the rank of lieutenant as early 438 as in 1797. The promulgation of Speranskii’s reform in 1822 created conditions favorable for entering the Russian army. In 1833 alone twenty-one 439 Kazakhs were granted the ranks of officers in the Russian Army. According to the list issued in 1854 by the Frontier Board of Administration of the Siberian Kirgizes (Pogranichnoe Upravlenie Sibirskimi Kirgizami), the Oblast 435 Kaisar Kusaiynuly, Chitaia dokumenty o kazakhstansko – rossiiskikh otnosheniiakh v XVIII – XIX vekakh (Almaty: Daneker, 2001), 13. 436 Dobromyslov, “Turgaiskaia Oblast’,” 186. 437 Karnilov, Zamechaniia o Sibiri, 10. 438 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 489, ll. 41-41ob. 439 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 564, ll. 3-3ob. 113

of the Siberian Kirgizes had fifty-seven native military officers. There were one colonel (Khudaimendin), five lieutenant-colonels, eight majors, and six 440 captains among them. The rank of colonel was not the highest one which a Kazakh in the Russian military service could attain. For example, a Sultan of the Younger Horde, Beimukhamet Aichuvakov, was granted the rank of Ma441 jor-General of the Russian Army in 1847. The acceptance into the Russian service was open even for those Kazakhs whose family background could make them be considered enemies to Russia. Taichik and Akhmet, two sons of Kenesary, the leader of the biggest Kazakh rebellion of the 19th century, who distinguished themselves in fighting against the Russian troops, after the death of their father joined the Russian Army and were granted the ranks of 442 cornets (junior commissioned rank in the Cossack cavalry) in 1862. Both brothers served at the Russian-Kokand border. In one of the border conflicts between Kazakhs and Kokandians, Taichik was killed. Akhmet stayed in the Russian service, participated in different campaigns and was awarded with several medals and titles. When Turkestan Krai was founded in 1867, Akhmet 443 was promoted to the position of the Deputy Chief of the Chimkent Uezd. According to an order given by the Minister of War in 1856, all the native officers had the right to wear such signs of distinctions as epaulettes and cavalry sabers on the golden sword-belts which officers of the Russian Imperial Army wore. Of interest here is that though the minister allowed all Kazakh military officers to wear these symbols of belonging to the Russian nobility, only those of them who graduated from Russian army schools (kadetskii korpus) or participated in a battle had the right to wear the army uniform. The 444 rest of them could wear the epaulettes and sabers with their national dress. Some Kazakhs distinguished themselves in the civil service. The volost’ Sultan Pshen Urisov, for example, was granted the rank of titular counselor 445 (Tituliarnyi Sovetnik). Along with the salaries ascribed to the bearers of the ranks, the Kazakhs in the civil service also were awarded with medals of the Russian Empire. For example, twenty-five medals were given to Kazakhs for 446 their “zealous service” in 1833. Unlike the medals given by the Europeans to 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 114

TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 489, ll. 1-14. Kazantsev, Opisanie, 87. Akhmet Kenesarin, Sultany Kenesary i Syzdyk (Alma-Ata: Zhalyn, 1992), 31. Ibid. TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 567, ll. 1-2. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 564, ll. 3-3ob. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 564, ll. 3-3ob.

native collaborators in America, which were good for “local use only,” these medals were respected not only in the colony, but also in the center of the Empire. The Sultan Chingis Bukev, for example, was awarded the golden medal attached to Anna ribbon – one of the highest signs of distinction in 447 Russia. The state service was not the only way to get a Russian sign of distinction. In 1819, two Semipalatinsk merchants, Abdumaz Gumirov and Khamit Amirov, were awarded golden medals on Anna ribbon for “the influ448 ence they have on the Kirgiz sultans.” Those representatives of the Kazakh elites who were co-opted into the administration or army adopted many elements of Russian culture. According to Zavalishin’s observations, many of the sultans in the Russian service were fluent in Russian. “They differed from Russian officials in their clothes only. They were good interlocutors and 449 friends to us.” Not only did some Kazakhs enter the Russian service, but they also sent their children to Russian schools in the hope that after their graduation they 450 would be able to obtain high positions in the Russian administration. The Sultan of Kireevskaia Volost’, Baibakov, petitioned the Russian administration to accept his eight and ten-year-old sons Mutan and Usukai into the school of 451 the Siberian Cossack Army. As Baibakov explained in his letter to the Commander of the Siberian Army, he wanted his sons to become Cossacks and 452 enter the Russian service. The Kazakh students of these schools took the same classes as the Russians, and, after their graduation, they could become 453 officers of the regular Russian, or Cossack Army. 447 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 564, ll. 1-1ob. 448 Kraft, Sbornik uzakonenii, 56. 449 I. Zavalishin, Opisanie Zapadnoi Sibiri (Moscow: Izdanie obshchestva rasprostraneniia poleznykh knig, 1862), 115. Of interest here is the observation of an American traveler who visited the Kazakh steppe in the mid-19th century. According to him, the Kazakh officials were “mere Russian creatures entirely destitute of culture.” This foreign visitor could not accept the mixture of frontier cultures to be a culture at all. See Olcott, The Kazakhs, 61. 450 The Russian government allowed and actually encouraged Kazakh leaders to send their children to Russian schools. The first Russian schools in the steppe were opened in the second half of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries. Catherine II established several institutions of higher education for the Kazakhs. Their aim was “to facilitate the rapprochement of Asians to Russians, to inspire in the former love and confidence towards the Russian government and to provide the region with educated personnel.” See Akiner, The Formation of Kazakh Identity, 26. 451 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 535, ll. 1-1ob. 452 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 535, l. 5ob. 453 Mikhailov, “Kirgizy,” 291. 115

As the following case also demonstrates, the sending of children to the Russian schools with their consequent entering the Russian service could be a good investment for the members of the Kazakh nobility to provide stable support in their old age. In the petition sent to the Head of the Omsk Oblast from the wife of the Sultan Ermek Tumanov in 1835, she asked the Russian administration to let her and her husband move to the Baian Aul Okrug. She explained her request by the fact that one of their children, after graduation from the Omsk Asian School took an administrative position in the named okrug. Without receiving any income, she continued, “we became impoverished, and beg you let us move to our son, who can provide us with food and 454 shelter.” Along with entering the Russian service and sending their sons to Russian schools, members of the Kazakh elites adopted many elements of Russian life. Many of the Kazakh sultans asked the Russian administration to build houses for them on their winter pastures. The Russian authorities used all means to encourage Kazakhs to build houses as they considered the construction of houses to be the first step to developing a settled, “civilized” way of life. In 1831, the Governor-General of Western Siberia made a decision to reward the Kazakh Sultan Babakov with a piece of cloth worth twenty-five rubles for 455 building a wooden house on his territory. This encouragement of the construction went so far that if a sultan asked the Russian administration to let him build a house on territory which belonged to the Cossack Army, chances were that the authorities would violate 454 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 575, ll. 1-1ob. The Russification of the Kazakh elites could have been more successful if the policies of the Russian authorities directed at bringing them into the Russian cultural realm had been more consistent. To promote or impede the Russification of the Kazakhs and other native elites depended solely on the personality of the governor in charge. The contrast between the policies of the Orenburg Governor General V. A. Perovskii and his successor Obruchev demonstrates this point. The aim of Perovskii was to “bring Bashkirs and Kazakhs to civilization.” As the first step of his “civilizing mission,” he ordered to send sixty sons of Kazakh and Bashkir sultans and biis to the schools of Moscow, Nizhnii Novgorod, and Kazan’. In his plan, these children had to study different crafts, and, on their coming back, they were to teach these crafts to their countrymen. They, however, graduated from the schools when Perovskii was not in Orenburg anymore. Obruchev sent these “teachers of civilization” to their auls, where they forgot all they had learned in Russia. Another undertaking of Perovskii was the opening of the school for Bashkirs and Kazakhs in Orenburg, which was to become “the cradle of Central Asian civilization.” Obruchev definitely had other plans, and the building of the school was turned into a barrack of a Bashkir Cossack detachment. See Stolpianskii, Iz proshlogo, 115. 455 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 550, ll. 1-4. 116

the property rights of the Cossacks. This happened in 1829, when the Sultan Urusov wanted to build a house on territory which had been previously allocated to the Cossacks. The Head of the Omsk Oblast’ Administration, Major-General Bronevskoi, allowed Urusov to build his house on the territory which belonged to the Cossacks, in spite of the decision previously rendered by the Omsk Zemskii Court, which confirmed the rights of the Cossacks to 456 the disputed plot of land. The policy of the encouragement of construction as the first step to Russification bore fruit. As Zavalishin noted, many of the sultans, biis, and rich Kazakhs built nice houses on the steppe. They also began to use European furniture, dishes, and other household items imported 457 from Russia. The following table demonstrates the number of the houses built by Kazakhs of the five okrugs of the Middle Horde in the period be458 tween 1859 and 1863: Year

Number of the Houses Built by Kazakhs

1859

4,797

1860

2,850

1861

6,614

1862

7,883

1863

9,656

The Khan of the Inner Horde, Zhangir, not only lived in a house, but also had several household servants, one of whom was a Russian and another a Tatar. In addition to that, he had several housemaids all of whom were Russi459 an women. As a result, the dietary patterns of Zhangir became more Russi460 an than Kazakh. The Russian administration hoped that the example provided by their elites would stimulate ordinary Kazakhs to follow suit and copy Russian ways from them. To some extent this prediction was realized. Not only sultans adopted the practice of building houses on their winter pastures. In his letter to the Akmola Okrug in 1854, the administrator of the Isenbakty-Kireevskaia Volost’, Dosan Rustemov, informed the authorities of the intentions of five Kazakhs of his volost’ to build wooden houses on their 456 457 458 459 460

TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 296, ll. 1-10. Zavalishin, Opisanie Zapadmoi Sibiri. Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 216. Babadzhanov, “Zametki Kirgiza o Kirgizakh.” Ibid. 117

territories. Rustemov asked the authorities about obtaining permission for these Kazakhs to build one-room houses for themselves and two-room houses for himself and his son Ali. The Kazakhs of the Kyldy-Nogaevskaia Volost’ informed the Russian authorities of their construction of twelve wooden 461 houses. Archival sources confirm that at least some Kazakhs traded their yurtas for houses built according to Russian patterns. Of interest here is the way some Kazakhs manipulated the Russian legislation, which gave preferences of owning the land to those who built houses on the territory. Krasovskii wrote about cases in which rich Kazakhs built houses on territory 462 which belonged to their neighbors to claim these lands as their property. The building of houses did not necessarily mean the transition to a sedentary way of life, however. Contrary to the hopes of the Russian government, most of the Kazakhs lived in their houses in winter only. When spring came, they left their houses and moved with their livestock to their traditional summer 463 pastures, to live the way of life habitual to them. Even those representatives of the traditional Kazakh elites who did not enter the imperial service were very receptive to elements of Russian culture, coming very close to crossing the border both in geographic and cultural terms. Sultan Soltomamet, for example, asked the Russian administration to build him a house. When the house was built, his next request was to let him transfer his house to the right “Russian” bank of the Irtysh River close to Koriakovskii fort. He received this permission in 1788. With the help of the Russians, he began hay-mowing, and together with his son, Seit, became actively involved in the trade of livestock and skins in the markets of the Irtysh 464 Line. Another Kazakh, named Batyr Mambet, persistently asked the Russian administration to build him a house on the right bank of the Irtysh River fourteen versts away from the Russian village Ul’binskaia. He explained his request by the need to be close to the markets where he sold livestock. Mambet also wrote of his intention to start mowing hay. He found the hay-mowing practices beneficial for the Kazakh economy, as it made them more independent from the extreme weather, which could deprive a nomad of his live465 stock overnight. In addition to the exchange which was conducted through the Irtysh Line, there were several groups of Kazakhs who left their tradition461 462 463 464 465 118

TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 2224, l. 1. Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 170. Ibid., 25. Apollova, Khoziaistvennoe osvoenie, 242. Ibid.

al pastureland and began to live in or near Russian settlements, adopting Russian ways and adding to the cultural hybridization of the frontier.

Kazakhs Who Crossed the Boundary We can divide the Kazakhs who crossed the Line and began to live in or near the Russian settlements into three groups on the basis of the level of their incorporation into Russian society. The first group consisted of the Kazakhs who crossed the Line and took empty land on the Russian side, preserving their livestock breeding practices. The second group included those Kazakhs who became laborers in Russian settlements working for peasants or Cossacks. Some of them considered their position as laborers temporary, and as soon as they saved enough money to buy livestock they returned to the 466 steppe to continue their nomadic way of life. Others stayed permanently in the Russian settlements without entering the Russian service or the system of estates (soslovie), or acquiring the most important marker of the Russian identity – Russian Orthodox Christianity. The third group represents the Kazakhs who through their conversion to Christianity and entering a Russian estate became full members of Russian society. I will examine the factors which made the representatives of all these groups cross the boundary, and how this crossing contributed to the economic and cultural hybridization of the frontier. Kazakh Nomads on the Russian Side of the Line The Irtysh Line was by no means impermeable. Both Kazakhs and Cossacks frequently crossed it. Many Kazakhs asked the Russian authorities for permission to live on the Russian side. According to data collected by Major General Bronevskii, the Kazakhs’ crossing of the Irtysh Line started in 1770, when inter-tribal feuds caused Kazakhs to ask Russian authorities to allow them to 467 live on the right bank of the Irtysh River. The Russian government allowed the Kazakhs’ crossing of the boundary and their settlement on the right bank 468 of the Irtysh in 1788. This permission implied the opening of the “inner” 466 Kuzembaiuly, Istoriia Respubliki Kazakhstan, 189. 467 Bronevskii, “Zapiski,” 182. 468 Kraft, Sbornik uzakonenii, 119. It would be incorrect to state that, prior to 1788, Kazakhs were not allowed to cross the Line to have pastures on the Russian side. Many Kazakhs who lived by the Irtysh Line, were allowed to cross the Line in winter to graze their livestock on the Russian side. They could do so if they left amanats (hostages) in the Russian fortresses as a guarantee that they would not commit any crimes against Cossacks or peasants. See I. Andreev, Opisanie Srednei Ordy Kirgiz-Kaisakov (Almaty: Ghylym, 1998 [1789]), 108. 119

469

right bank administrative units named okrugs. In exchange for this permission, Kazakhs were to protect the Line from the raids of the “outer Kirgizes” 470 that is from the Kazakhs who stayed on the left bank of the Irtysh River. In addition to permission to live on the right bank of the Irtysh River, on the land belonging to the Cossack Army, the Russian government allowed Kazakhs to move deep into Russian territory and have temporary pastures in 471 Tobol’sk and Tomsk Guberniias. This permission was given in 1800. Emperor Alexander I’s order, issued in 1808, allowed all the settlements situated on the Russian side of the boundary to accept the Kazakhs and gave them the same rights which the dwellers of these settlements had. In addition to that, the order exempted the Kazakhs, who settled in the Russian settlements, from paying any taxes for ten years and freed them from any service during the 472 same time period. As a result of these legal acts, by 1819 the four inner okrugs of the Omsk Oblast’ had more than 12,000 Kazakhs who had crossed the Line since 1770 and settled there. By 1849, the number of those who had sub473 mitted to the Russians by crossing the Irtysh reached 16,000. Of interest here is the fact that both Kazakh sultans and the Russian administration found the Kazakhs’ crossing of the Line to be desirable. Some sultans thought of the crossing of the Line by poor Kazakhs and their settling on the Russian side as a necessary measure for preserving peace in the steppe. These sultans and clan elders were afraid that the Kazakhs who had lost their livestock due to the weather or the feuding against other clans would form 474 gangs and make raids against their more fortunate neighbors. In his letter to the Minister of the Internal Affairs V. P. Kochubei, written in 1806, the Governor General of Orenburg, G. S. Volkonskii, defined two reasons why he considered the crossing of the Line by destitute Kazakhs (whose numbers he estimated to be as much as 10,000) to be in the interest of the Russian state. Volkonskii seconded the sultans’ opinion that it would make the steppe a safer place. In addition to that, he thought that if Kazakhs were settled among the Bashkirs, these Kazakhs would turn more loyal to the Rus469 G. E. Katanaev, Kirgizskii vopros v Sibirskom Kazach’em voiske (Omsk: Tipografiia Okruzhnogo Shtaba, 1904), 5. 470 N. G. Apollova, Ekonomicheskie i politicheskie sviazi Kazakhstana s Rossiei v 18 – nachale 19 veka (Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1960), 368. 471 Katanaev, Kirgizskii vopros, 5. 472 Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 239. 473 Apollova, Khoziaistvennoe osvoenie, 248. 474 Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 32. 120

475

sian state, and ultimately might join the Cossack Army. Volkonskii emphasized that resettlement was “the only way to put their poverty and uselessness 476 to an end.” Along with the relief of the poverty of the Kazakhs, the Senate considered the resettlement to be the first step to the Russification of the 477 nomads. The attitude of the Cossacks and Russian peasants to allowing the Kazakhs to have pastures on the right side of the Irtysh River was different. According to the law promulgated in 1800, those Kazakhs who crossed the Irtysh River with their livestock had to give one percent of all of their herds to the Cossacks for the right to use pastures on the Russian side of the Line. This payment, the so called “repair duty” (remontnaia poshlina), constituted a significant source of income for the Siberian Line Cossack Army, and made the Kazakhs’ crossing of the Line desirable for the Cossacks. The Russian peasants did not share the Cossacks’ enthusiasm about these crossings. In 1831, the peasants of Nizhneelabuzhskaia Volost’ of Petropavlovsk Okrug sent a petition to the Governor General of Western Siberia in which they complained that the Kazakhs, who were allowed to cross the Irtysh River and have pastures among their villages, caused much harm to them. The Kazakhs stole peasants’ horses and cows, and their livestock destroyed the wheat and hay fields of the peasants. As the result of this, the peasants of 478 this volost’ had suffered 20,000 rubles of damage in 1826. The peasants asked the Governor to prohibit the Kazakhs’ from crossing the Irtysh. The authorities tried to find a compromise between the interests of the Kazakhs, who wished to continue to graze their livestock on the Russian side of the Line; the peasants, who worried about their fields; and the Cossacks, who did not want to lose the remontnaia poshlina collected from the Kazakhs. The result of this search for compromise was the decision of the Omsk Oblast’ Council for the commanders of the Line to allow only those Kazakhs who had special tickets to cross the Irtysh. These tickets were to be given to Kazakhs by the outer Okrug Prikazy. The Prikazy could not give more tickets, which allowed for crossing, than the amount of land available on the right bank of the Irtysh. The Cossacks were to watch those Kazakhs who

475 476 477 478

Ibid., 234. Ibid., 239. Ibid., 257. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 561, ll. 1-2ob. 121

crossed the Line to make sure that their livestock did not damage the fields of 479 the peasants. According to the Speranskii Reform of 1822, the “inner” Kazakhs were to be ascribed (pripisany) to the Cossack stanitsas. They had to pay the same taxes as the Kazakhs of the outer okrugs, that is, one sheep, horse, or cow from each hundred. Most of them continued livestock breeding, occupying pastures situated between the Line and peasant settlements. The Russian administration demonstrated some degree of flexibility, accepting the idea that some of the Kazakhs who resided on the Russian side of the Line entered the peasant estate and became ascribed to a village while at the same time preserving their nomadic practices. Thus, the Semipalatinsk Oblast’ Board of Administration complied with the request of a group of Kazakhs and let them become peasants, pay all the peasant duties, be ascribed to Tupishvina village and have “permanent roaming territory” by the village and to be given mead480 ows and places for cutting woods. The peasants of the village gave their unanimous agreement to the Kazakhs’ request, as “they were fully aware of these Kazakhs’ good behavior and high moral standards, which they had a 481 chance to observe for a period of more than ten years.” This reaction of peasants and the decision of the Russian administration calls into question Khodarkovsky’s statement of the eternal struggle and incompatibility of nomadic and sedentary societies. The aforementioned Kazakhs acquired the status of peasants while remaining nomads. Neither the Russian state nor their Russian peasant neighbors found problems with such a state of things. The territory allocated to such “roaming peasants” was about 400 versts wide and 600 versts long. The numbers of their livestock were rather significant. The statistical data collected in 1819 demonstrates that the “right bank” 482 Kazakhs had 1,200 camels, 13,000 cows, 69,934 horses, and 14,000 sheep. These numbers demonstrate a change in the composition of Kazakh livestock – the growth of cattle and horses and the subsequent decrease of the portion of sheep in the Kazakhs’ herds. Prior to the beginning of contact with Cossacks, cattle were relatively unknown to Kazakhs. In contrast with sheep, which are relatively easy to maintain, cattle require much better care, especially during winter months. Thus it is little wonder that, in addition to the 479 480 481 482 122

TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 561, ll. 3-12ob. TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1977, ll. 1-1ob. TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1977, ll. 4-4ob. Bronevskii, “Zapiski,” 183; G. Glinka, “Zemel’nye poriadki za Uralom,” in Aziatskaia Rossiia, ed. Glinka, 544.

shift from sheep to cattle breeding, those Kazakhs who crossed the Line were 483 the first nomads who began to cultivate hay as fodder for their animals. Hay mowing became one of the most significant innovations borrowed by the Kazakhs from Cossacks. Prior to the middle of the 18th century, the practice of cultivating hay was unknown in the steppe. Kazakh sheep and horses had to get to the hay by digging through the snow with their hoofs. Not only were those Kazakhs who had pastures on the Russian side of the Line interested in cultivating hay to feed their livestock in winter. The 18th century ethnographer I. G. Georgi described the case when the Kazakhs of the Middle Horde made their first attempt to mow hay in 1770: “In order to provide the sick livestock with hay, the Khan of the Middle Horde bought several scythes from the Russians. The Kazakhs, however, very soon broke the scythes, as they kept them very low, frequently hitting the ground. To be able to collect 484 some hay, the khan had to hire Russian Cossacks.” The Board of Foreign Relations allowed the Cossacks to teach hay mowing to those Kazakhs who came to the Line to trade in 1760. The same year the Siberian Governor, F. I. Soimonov, received an order to send five or six 485 hay mowers to the steppe to give instructions to the steppe nomads. Initially, the Kazakhs did not connect hay mowing with the settled way of life. Having made the stacks of hay on their winter pastures in summer, they came back there only at the beginning of winter. The dominance of cattle breeding over sheep breeding and feeding the livestock with hay instead of grazing on pastures covered with snow in the winter time were the two most significant features which differed the Kazakh and Cossack livestock breeding practices prior to the contact. As the aforementioned evidence demonstrates, crossing the Line made Kazakhs adopt some Cossack methods of economic activity. The Russian government was interested in the introduction of Russian methods of livestock breeding into Kazakh society and was consistent in its policy directed at turning Kazakhs from nomads into semi-nomads. One of the measures to achieve this aim was the introduction of sheepfolds to keep the Kazakhs’ livestock in winter. In 1762 the Board of Foreign affairs formulated this task in the following way:

483 Andreev, Opisanie Srednei Ordy, 108. 484 Asfendiiarov, Proshloe Kazakhstana (1997 [1936]), 193. 485 Apollova, Khoziaistvennoe osvoenie, 206. 123

If their [the Kazakhs’] cattle and horses are raised and fed in warm stables, then they will get used to it, and will not be able to graze in pastures covered with snow anymore. As a result, the Kazakhs will have to settle permanently, and turn into our loyal 486 subjects, in need of the protection of our government. This policy bore fruit. As Zavalishin testified, the Kazakhs began to store hay and oatmeal and to build warm sheepfolds to feed and keep their livestock in 487 winter. The author attributed the beginning of these practices among Kazakhs to the first half of the 1860s. The transition to a semi-nomadic way of life with reliance on the cultivation of hay continued in the decades to follow and reached its peak at the beginning of the twentieth century. As the statistical data testifies, the number of Kazakh haystacks increased in the period 488 between 1901 and 1908 from 925,000 to 3,363,000 in Petropavlovsk Uezd. The Kazakhs of Akmolinskaia Oblast’ increased the amount of haystacks 489 from 558,056 in 1903 to 7,119,936 in 1914. As the aforementioned evidence demonstrates, those Kazakhs who crossed the Line or lived by the Irtysh River were receptive to the borrowing of some elements of Russian material culture. Their transition from a nomadic to a semi-nomadic way of life was gradual and took some 150 years. This transition was accompanied by the shift from sheep breeding to raising cattle, the introduction of the cultivation of hay, and the practice of keeping livestock in winter barns. However, there were other groups of Kazakhs whose lifestyle underwent more profound changes in a much shorter period of time.

Dzhataks (Russification of the Kazakh Lower Classes) One of the largest groups of Kazakhs who crossed the Irtysh Line to come into close contact with Russians was the dzhataks. The noun dzhatak originated from the verb “zhattak which means “to lie down, not to wander.” Dzhatak was the name for the Kazakhs who had a permanent settlement close to Russian villages or stanitsas. The number of dzhataks living in or near Cossack stanitsas on the Russian side of the Irtysh Line was rather consider486 Apollova, Ekonomicheskie i politicheskie sviazi, 172. 487 Zavalishin, Opisanie Zapadmoi Sibiri, 53. 488 Kirgizskoe khoziaistvo v Akmolinskoi oblasti. Petropavlovskii uezd. Povtornoe obsledovanie 1908 g., vol. 3 (St. Petersburg, 1910), iv. 489 Obzor Akmolinskoi oblasti za 1903 g. (Omsk, 1905), 19; Obzor Akmolinskoi oblasti za 1914 g. (Omsk, 1915), 16. 124

490

able and reached 20,000 in 1820. According to a Russian ethnographer, there was not a single Russian town or village along the Line which did not have 491 dzhataks settled in its vicinity. Archival sources confirm that crossing the Irtysh Line was, for the most part, an act of despair. The ethnographer who studied the life of the dzhataks mentioned the reasons which made Kazakhs leave their clans and traditional way of life and settle behind the Line; some Kazakhs lost all their livestock because of bad weather, others quarreled with 492 important Kazakhs of the steppe and their oppression became intolerable. Though most of the dzhataks were poor when they crossed the Line, and sought employment as herdsmen or laborers, some of them, especially those 493 who were involved in trade, managed to accumulate much capital. On their crossing the Line, dzhataks were hired by Cossacks to do different kinds of work for them. In Bronevskii’s description, the dzhataks who lived in Cossack houses did household chores, sewed and mended the Cossacks’ clothes, took care of the Cossacks’ livestock, mowed the hay, and grew vegetables on the Cossacks’ fields. Some of them worked for the state as post494 men or carriers, which implied some degree of literacy. As I. Blaramberg observed, some of those Cossacks who were involved in the livestock trade had up to 100 laborers. Some of them stayed on the Russian side of the Line the whole year, while others lived in Russian settlements during the summer season only. The living conditions of the Kazakhs working for Cossacks varied. G. V. Kolmogorov, who visited the steppe in the middle of the 19th century, wrote that Kazakh laborers made from twenty to fifty rubles a year in addition to the food provided by their masters. A good laborer could make up 495 to twenty or thirty rubles during one summer season. A description of their lifestyle done in 1879 demonstrates that the dzhataks’ culture acquired some Russian elements while preserving some traditional Kazakh features. Though they still lived in the traditional yurtas, inside these yurtas one could find tables, chairs, dishes, spoons, forks, and 496 plates – items adopted from the Russian way of life. Most of the dzhataks learned Russian and some became fluent in it. Another account of the 490 491 492 493 494 495 496

Apollova, Khoziaistvennoe osvoenie, 157. Kirgiz, “Kirgizy-Dzhataki: Etnograficheskii ocherk,” Russkaia Rech’, no. 8 (1879): 318. Ibid. Ibid. Bronevskii, “Zapiski,” 182. Apollova, Khoziaistvennoe osvoenie, 157 Kirgiz,“Kirgizy-Dzhataki,” 319. 125

dzhataks’ life made twenty-five years later in 1904 demonstrates that Russian ways had an even larger impact on Kazakh lives: “The Kirgiz built huts. They learned to make hay. They are getting used to eating bread and have come to 497 grow wheat.” Of interest here is the description of the Russian influence on the diet of the Kazakhs. Prior to their contact experience, the Kazakh diet consisted exclusively of the products of livestock breeding, such as fermented mare milk (kumys), and horse and sheep meat. As such 18th century ethnographers as Pallas and Georgi noticed, “mutton and horsemeat are the only Kazakh food, 498 which they eat without salt or bread.” According to Glinka’s observations, the influence of the Russian population had a strong impact on the diet of the Kazakhs. The proportion of vegetables in their diet began to increase at the 499 expense of the products of livestock breeding. The contact did not completely change their tastes, though it added some elements of agricultural food to their menu. One such “hybridized” dish was chim-chim. Russian ethnographer M. I. Chermanov gave a recipe of this dish to Russian readers in 1884: Kazakhs put three pounds of meat, one pound of lard, and five pounds of wheat flour into a bucket of water and boil it. Then they take away the meat and eat it separately. Then they thor500 oughly stir the broth and eat it when it cools down. This dish, like everything on the frontier, was neither traditionally Russian nor Kazakh. It was a mixture of both. Material exchange led to the formation of a hybridized culture, which in its turn influenced the relations between the people of the frontier and the representatives of the traditional cultures. A 19th-century ethnographer gives an interesting account on the relations between the dzhataks and those Kazakhs who remained behind the Line. The dzhataks tried not to marry their daughters to the steppe Kazakhs, preferring to see as their sons-in-law the Kazakhs who lived by the Russian settlements. The Kazakhs of the steppe, on the contrary, preferred to marry dzhatak girls, and if their parents did not agree to give their daughters to them, they would kidnap them. It is important to note that though kidnapping girls was quite 497 498 499 500 126

Katanaev, Kirgizskii vopros, 14. Asfendiiarov, Proshloe Kazakhstana, 194, 195. Glinka, “Zemel’nye poriadki za Uralom,” 544. M. I. Chermanov, O skotovodstve u kirgiz Zapadnoi Sibiri (1884), 44.

traditional in Kazakh culture, the parents of the kidnapped dzhatak girls received only a small portion of the kalym (the bride price) that the parents of a steppe Kazakh girl would receive. They were also deprived of the aib – the penalty which, according to tradition, the parents of the kidnapper were to pay. The biis told the parents of the dzhatak girl that they “should pray to God, that our man took your daughter. Otherwise she could marry a Russian 501 and you would get nothing for her.” This example demonstrates that dzhataks were not considered by the steppe Kazakhs as full members of their society. The dzhataks, however, did not severe the ties which connected them with their “pre-Russian” past. According to Bronevskoi, many dzhataks became agents of the Russian merchants or trading Cossacks, and accompanied them in their trips to the steppe. Some of them enjoyed such trust of their masters that they were given goods to take to the steppe and to trade on their 502 own. Along with these trading contacts, the dzhataks preserved their cultural affinity to their land. According to Krasovskii, the Kazakhs who lived on the right bank of the Irtysh River often buried their deceased ones in the 503 steppe close to the graves of their ancestors. The hybridization of Kazakh culture was not confined to the dzhataks; it went beyond the Irtysh Line. It is natural that more influenced by this hybridization were those Kazakhs whose pastureland was adjacent to the Line. In the words of Mikhailov, “the Kirgizes who roam by the Line are more de504 veloped than those whose pastures are located in the depth of the steppe.” His understanding of “development” should, of course, be interpreted in terms of approximation to Russian ways. The adoption of elements of Russian material culture and way of life caused tensions between the Line Kazakhs (prilineinye Kirgizy) and their compatriots who were more remote from the Line. After Speranskii’s introduction of the okrug system for the administration of the steppe in 1822, each tribe had to come to the administrative center (prikaz) of the okrug (a newly established administrative unit in the Kazakh steppe) once a year to pay tribute. The Kazakhs of the Kuchuk-Baiseitovskaia Volost’, whose pastureland was adjacent to the Irtysh Line, refused to leave the pastureland and ap501 502 503 504

Kirgiz,“Kirgizy-Dzhataki,” 320. Bronevskii, “Zapiski,” 177-178. Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 27. Mikhailov, “Kirgizy,” 291. 127

proach the okrug center situated 300 miles away from the Line. They explained their refusal by expressing their fear to be ravaged by those Kazakhs 505 who still remained in their “primordial savagery.” Instead, the clan leaders of this volost’ asked the Russian authorities to allow them to pay the tribute to the Siberian Cossacks with whom “they had been in good, mutually ad506 vantageous relations for more than sixty-five years.” As well as the dzhataks, the Kazakhs of the regions adjacent to the Itrysh Line preferred to deal with the Siberian Cossacks instead of their countrymen who were distant from the contact zone, considering their ways “savage.” Like the Irtysh Cossacks, the dzhataks may serve as an example of the hybridization of these cultures. Similar to the Siberian Cossacks’ loathing for the Altai Cossacks, whose lifestyle was close to that of traditional Russian peasants, the dzhataks looked down upon the “savage ways” of the steppe Kazakhs. The contact between Russians and Kazakhs transformed their cultures, making them closer to each other and, at the same time, alienating them from the people who continued practicing traditional cultures. This cultural approximation led to the possibility of forming alliances between Cossacks and prilineinye Kazakhs against the Kazakhs of the steppe. There were numerous instances when prilineinye Kazakhs asked the Russian authorities to send Cossacks to protect them from the raids of their “thievish neighbors.” Here are some examples: On October 7, 1824, the biis of the Changarovskaia volost’, Tota Ianbekov and Baigut Dzhulabaev, com507 plained of the theft of 3,500 horses. According to the decision of the okrug administration, thirty-five Cossacks led by the Elder Sultan were sent to the auls of the robbers the same day and took the horses away. This file contains nine other similar cases of combined Kazakh-Cossack retaliation raids deep 508 into the steppe to take back stolen livestock. It is important to note that none of these cases were brought to a Russian court. Both the attackers and their victims preferred to settle their disputes using the traditional Kazakh system of meting out justice by means of the biis, in accordance with Adat, steppe law. The Russian Cossacks, in this case, guaranteed that the biis’ decisions were enforced. As long as the ties connecting the dzhataks and steppe Kazakhs were not 505 506 507 508 128

TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 871, ll. 7-8. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 871, ll. 7-8. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 360. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 360.

completely severed, the cultural influence of dzhataks spread beyond the Line and deep into the steppe. Sometimes it happened on purpose, sometimes accidentally. The same Russian ethnographer described a case when a dzhatak girl who was kidnapped by a steppe Kazakh taught the people of his aul some Russian customs: When I [the ethnographer] approached the aul, to my great surprise, I saw a woman who was standing on the top of a well formed haystack taking the hay with a pitchfork from those standing on the ground. I have never seen such a scene in the steppe. When asked who this woman was, a Kirgiz answered that she was a kidnapped dzhatak girl who was brought to the aul a year ago and taught the Kirgiz how to make hay and preserve it during the rainy season by shaping it into appropriate haystacks. Prior to her coming, the Kirgizes of this aul did not produce hay supplies 509 for winter. This example demonstrates that the dzhataks were not only the subjects, but also the agents of the hybridization of frontier society, even if they did not do it of their own will. Local Russian authorities believed that the prilineinye Kazakhs and dzhataks could be used to spread Russian influence and culture deep into the steppe. The Captain of the General Staff, Lykov, suggested in 1867 to move the prilineynye Kazakhs to the steppe “to establish the Russian 510 element there.” Though his plan was never realized, it reflects the belief of the Russian authorities in the profound Russification of the Kazakhs who were in close contact with the Line Cossacks. Present day Kazakh historians consider the dzhataks to be victims of Russian colonial practices, who were forced to leave their traditional lands and abandon the way of life of their ancestors and became completely dependent 511 on the “foreign occupants.” This dependence, however, was mutual. Not only did dzhataks depend on seasonal employment in Russian settlements, but Cossack households would also not survive without their work. Krasovskii wrote the following statement concerning the role of the dzhataks in the Cossack stanitsas:

509 Kirgiz, “Kirgizy-Dzhataki,” 322. 510 TsGA RK, f. 4, op.1, d. 3724, ll. 373-374 ob. 511 Kuzembaiuly, Istoriia Respubliki Kazakhstan, 215. 129

Without these ardent laborers, the Russian settlements would be in a miserable state. And if the elder sultans decide to call off their clansmen to the steppe, the life in a steppe settlement would be impossible. To cut and bring wood to the settlement, to plow the fields, to mow hay, to take care of the livestock, to pick mushrooms and berries, to catch fish, to bring water, to protect the house – the dzhatak performs all these duties. His wife and daughters are also busy. They sew, mop floors, wash clothes, and 512 do other household chores. Like Russian and Kazakh historians, some of their Western colleagues depict the transformation of cultures in the contact zone as a one-way road. According to Akiner, for example, from the mid-18th century Russians had “a profound effect on the economic, cultural and political life of the northern steppe. Inexorably, nomadism began to give way to the sedentary way of life and 513 Europeanization.” Michael Khodarkovsky studies “the inevitable and profound transformation” of nomadic societies “under the impact of Russia’s im514 posing presence.” The authors do not consider the possibility of the reverse process – that is the appropriation of Kazakh practices by the newcomers from the west. The active participation of the dzhataks in the economy of the Line Cossacks brought in many steppe ways of doing household chores into Cossack stanitsas. Novoselov compared the economic activities of Russian peasants and Cossacks and came to the conclusion that the latter had “a deep Kirgiz imprint.” The livestock yards of the Cossacks did not have roofs, and their walls were made of manure. The Kazakhs used the same type of live515 stock yards; the Russian peasants never did. As the evidence demonstrates, the dzhataks not only brought elements of Russian material culture to the steppe, but also, due to their active participation in the economy of the Cossack stanitsas, stimulated the process of the Kazakhization of the Siberian Cossacks’ households. Dzhataks were people who lived in two worlds, demonstrating their proximity and compatibility. Though dzhataks adopted 512 Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 409. Another 19th century Russian author, V. A. Ostaf’ev, seconded Krasovskii, repeating almost word to word his estimation of the importance of dzhataks in the Cossack economy. See V. A. Ostaf’ev, Kolonizatsiia stepnykh oblastei v sviazi s voprosom o kochevom khoziaistve (St. Petersburg, 1895), 45-46. 513 Akiner, The Formation of Kazakh Identity, 23. 514 Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier, 2. 515 Novoselov, “Posviashchaetsia,” 98. 130

many elements of Russian material culture and, due to their active interactions with Cossacks, drastically changed their way of life, without their adoption of the Christian faith or entering one of the soslovie, their incorporation in the Russian society could not be complete. They were still considered to be inorodtsy. Kazakhs into Christians The Central State Archive of Kazakhstan has many cases which demonstrate the Kazakhs’ willingness to become Russian Orthodox Christians and/or to enter the ranks of Cossacks, peasants, merchants, or city dwellers (meshchane). This part of the chapter will answer the question of what made some Kazakhs convert to Christianity and ask for the permission to live among the Russians according to Russian laws, that is, to become Russians in all but ethnic terms. Another question I will investigate deals with the role of the conversion to Christianity in determining the legal status of a Kazakh. In many cases, the previous experience of living among Russians as laborers was responsible for the Kazakhs’ asking the imperial government to allow them to convert to Christianity and become full-fledged members of Russian society. After living for several years in a Russian settlement, a dzhatak named Dzhursiun Ulzhasov, his wife Bigatcha, and their daughter Zlyke wrote a petition to the Russian administration asking for permission to convert to Christianity and let them live as peasants in the Krestinskaia vil516 lage of the Omsk Oblast’. In response to the Ulzhasovs’ request, the Russian administration asked the volost’ chief whether the Ulzhasovs had any debts to the state treasury. As long as no debt obligations were revealed, the Russian administration complied with the Ulzhazovs’ request and let the family convert to Christianity and become peasants “with all the privileges and duties of 517 this estate.” Another large group of converts was the Kazakhs who, in their early age, were bought or adopted by the Russians and brought up by their guardians. They were either converted to Christianity in their childhood or did it of their own will when they came of age. The peasant Fedor Samoilov asked the local authorities to let him adopt a 10-year-old Kazakh boy which was given to him by his mother, the poor Kazakh widow Kalmykena in 1843. Samoilov requested the authorities to ascribe the boy to the estate of the factory peasants 516 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1966, ll. 1-1 ob. 517 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1966, ll. 1-1 ob. 131

and make him the heir to his property in case of his (Samoilov’s) death. By the time of submitting the request, the boy had already been baptized and 518 given the Christian name Ivan. The life story of another Kazakh, Vasilii Iakovlev, demonstrates that those Kazakhs who lived among Russians from their childhood considered their conversion to Christianity and entering the Russian service to be quite natural. In his petition to the Governor of Omsk Oblast’, Iakovlev explained his wish to become Cossack by the fact that “since his childhood [by the time the petition was written he was 39] he has always been a farmhand in the Nikolaevskaia stanitsa, and was converted to 519 Christianity according to his own will.” He never experienced the steppe life of his ancestors, and most of the people who surrounded him were Cossacks. Thus, it seemed natural to him (and to the Russian authorities which complied with his request) to join the Cossack Army. Another Kazakh, Zakhar Filimonov, whose pre-Christian name was Agim Abylov, asked for permission to become a factory peasant (zavodskoi kresti520 anin) in Biisk Okrug, Barnaul Volost’. With his request, he also submitted a letter from the peasants of Moroshikha village, in which they expressed their agreement to his settlement among them. The Altai Mountain Board of Administration complied with his request and let him enter the peasant estate on 521 the condition that he did not have any tribute debts to the treasury. Filimonov, however, failed to provide the administration with the information of what his clan’s name was, which was necessary in order to determine whether he had any debts. Filimonov argued that he was so young when he left the steppe that he remembered neither the name of the volost’ to which he was 522 ascribed, nor the name of his clan elder. Filimonov’s and Iakovlev’s legally entering the Russian estates took place long after the ties connecting them with traditional Kazakh life were severed. The lawful recognition of their rights as full members of Russian society fol523 lowed their factually turning Russians in religious and cultural terms. The Kazakhs who were brought into the Russian settlements in their childhood

518 519 520 521 522 523 132

TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1878, ll. 195-197. TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1973, ll. 1-2 ob. TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1878, ll. 100-101 ob. TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1878, l. 101. TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1878, ll.167-168ob. Robert Geraci claims that many of the Kazakhs who converted to Christianity had been living with Russian families since their childhood. See Geraci, “Going Abroad,” 289.

524

often married Russians and entered Russian service. As the aforementioned examples demonstrate, the ranks of Russian society were open for the Kazakhs who previously converted to Christianity. The only concern of the Russian administration in granting the permission to enter the Russian estate system and to become a full-fledged Russian citizen for the Kazakhs was the issue of their debts. The situation was different if the applicants for entering the Russian estate system were not converted to Christianity. In this case they were to present evidence that the elder of their clan did not have objections against his clansmen becoming Russian citizens (Rossiiane). Archival sources confirm that the tribal leaders quite often prevented applicants from being accepted into the Russian estates. A Kazakh of Akmolinsk Okrug ,Temys Izbasarov, sent a petition to the Oblast’ administration asking for permission to let him, his wife, and two sons become peasants and settle in the village Okopishechevskaia in Omsk Oblast’. Izbasarov supplemented his request with an 525 agreement on his settlement signed by the people of this village. The Oblast’ administration forwarded Izbasarov’s request to the Akmolisnk Okrug asking it if the elder of the Izbasarov’s clan had any objections to their becoming peasants. As it turned out, the elders of the Izbasarov’s clan not only objected his becoming a peasant, but also demanded his and his family’s re526 turn to their aul. The Tobolsk City Council decided to meet the demands of 527 the clan elders and to return the Izbasarovs to their clan. As the above examples demonstrate, conversion to Christianity was considered to be a milestone in determining who held authority over a Kazakh. Prior to conversion, his clan had the right to determine where a Kazakh should live and what kind of occupation he should be involved. Conversion severed the legal ties between the clan and a Kazakh. The Russian administration was fully aware of the fact that material in528 terest determined most of the Kazakhs’ wish to become Christians. The Governor General of Orenburg, Volkonskii, in his letter to the Frontier Com524 525 526 527 528

TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1878, ll.160-161. TsGA RK, f.345, op. 1, d. 1940, ll. 1-2. TsGA RK, f.345, op. 1, d. 1940, ll. 10. TsGA RK, f.345, op. 1, d. 1940, ll. 11. According to Semenov, the only Kazakhs who were receptive to the words of Gospel were dzhataks. Semenov claimed that the most important motivation behind the dzhataks’ wish to convert to Christianity was their material interest, which made their devotion to the teaching of Christ questionable, and their adherence to the Russian Orthodox Church unstable. See Semenov, Rossiia, 222. 133

mission stated that though there were no legal obstacles to converting Muslims to Christianity, their devotion to Christian teachings seemed very doubtful. This consideration made Volkonskii endorse the recommendation of the Orenburg Frontier Commission of 1804, according to which it was necessary to ask permission both of the parents and the clan elders to convert Kazakh children to Christianity. Permission was to be given in written form in the presence of several Kazakh witnesses. This decision, according to Dobromyslov, significantly decreased the number of the Kazakhs who be529 came Christians. Volkonskii was afraid that these new-converts could escape to the steppe at any time, and their escape could harm the interests of the empire in the region. The frontier Commission shared Volkonskii’s belief in the material interest of the Kazakhs in converting and the possibility that they’d abandon their new faith: The Kirgiz wish to enter the realm of Christianity is based not on their piety, but on their desire to provide themselves with food. They will not be convinced adherents to the Faith and would easily return to their old life, especially if they are allowed to settle 530 close to the Line. Semenov’s observations demonstrate that these fears were not groundless. According to him, the cases of neophytes returning to Islam were quite fre531 quent. To minimize the chances of the new converts return to Islam, the Frontier Commission recommended Volkonskii to send the newly converted Kazakhs to one of the two settlements (Nagaibatskaia and Tabynskaia) which were established for neophytes in Orenurg Guberniia. These new-converts could join the Cossack Army. In the case they did, they were freed from the service for a period of three years and the state gave them from five to ten rubles per person. The Frontier Commission also raised the question of the conversion of Kazakh children and women. According to their opinion, there was no risk for them to stay in the proximity of the steppe after they got converted, as “getting used to the comforts of the settled life, they would not 532 want to return to their old life.” Of course not all Kazakhs wished to convert to Christianity due to materi529 Dobromyslov, “Turgaiskaia Oblast’,” 224. 530 Ibid., 222-223. The Russian government provided those Kazakhs who converted to Christianity with land allotments and money. See TsGA RK, f. 4, op.1, d. 3389, ll. 1-7. 531 Semenov, Rossiia, 222. 532 Dobromyslov, “Turgaiskaia Oblast’,” 223. 134

al benefits. Dobromyslov described a case when the Kazakh widow Mendy Shaverbaeva expressed her wish to convert to Christianity in 1807. She explained her readiness to become a Christian by her desire to thank a Russian 533 Cossack who saved her from death in the waters of the Ural River. In some cases, Kazakhs saw conversion to Christianity as the only way to start their life from scratch. Their conflicts with their clan, or the impossibility to resolve some problem within the traditional steppe system of justice, were some of the factors which forced some Kazakhs to leave their community and become Russians in faith and occupation. Here is one of the examples of such a situation: A Kazakh man named Baigozhin and a Kazakh woman named Aisa went to the volost’ administration where they “expressed their decisive desire to become converted to Russian Orthodox Christianity,” and asked the official to send them to the nearest settlement which had a Church. Their request was fulfilled and they were sent to the Russian village 534 of Chumashki. However, as they did not have any documents, the conversion was delayed and they were allowed to stay in the bathhouse of the local priest. Early in the morning, the servants of the priest saw a Kazakh man who endeavored to break into the bathhouse. The servants captured him and placed him under arrest. As it turned out, the man they caught was not a burglar, but the husband of Aisa, named Ibragim, who came to take back his wife and “talk” to her lover. The Russian authorities sided with the lovers in this conflict: Ibragim was sent to his volost’, and Aisa and Baigozhin were converted to Chris535 tianity and married in the Orthodox Church. Ibragim’s petition to the Governor-General of Siberia of the lovers having stolen three gowns, a horse, two boxes with household stuff, and forty rubles was refused since Aisa and Baigozhin, two newly converted Christians, swore that they took nothing from him. It is impossible to determine even the approximate numbers of Kazakhs who converted to Christianity. Though the Frontier Commission prescribed to register all the cases of conversion, the priests seldom did it. Dobromyslov suggested that only a small portion of new converts were registered with the Frontier Commission. To prove his suggestion, he cited the fact that out of twenty-three converted Kazakhs who escaped to the steppe from the stanitsa 533 Ibid., 224. 534 TsGA RK, f.345, op. 1, d. 841, ll. 3-3ob. 535 TsGA RK, f.345, op. 1, d. 841, ll. 3-3ob. 135

Ust’-Uiskaia in 1814, none asked the Commission for permission to convert to Christianity. The list of those Kazakhs who were officially registered as neophytes in 1817 included 71 people. Dobromyslov thought that in reality their numbers reached several hundred every year. According to the author, the Old Believers kept all the cases of conversion to their belief in secret, as it was a crime to spread what was considered to be “schismatic heresy” in Imperial 536 Russia. The cases of Aisa, Baigozhin, and Shaverbaeva seem to be exceptions rather than the rule, as most of the documents of the requests for conversion to Christianity kept in the archives of Omsk and Almaty were written either by the Kazakhs who grew up in Russian settlements or by dzhataks.

The Possibility of the Kazakhs Returning to the Steppe Due to several reasons, usually of an economic nature, some Kazakhs wished to leave the Russian settlements and return to the steppe. The following cases let us see whether this was possible, or whether the Russian state placed obstacles to the process of “derussificacion.” A peasant from Tobolsk Guberniia, Bogembelev, asked the Oblast Board of Administration of the Siberian Kirgizes to allow him and his family to return to the Akmolinsk Okrug. He did not want to remain a peasant and asked for permission to return to nomadic livestock breeding. He explained his wish by the fact that his relatives came to him, invited him and his family to live with them, and promised to 537 give assistance in acquiring the livestock necessary for a nomadic life. To his request he attached a “Leave Verdict” (Uvol’nitel’nyi Prigovor) from the village commune and a “Receiving Verdict” (Priemnyi Prigovor) signed by his clansmen. The “Leave Verdict” testified that “as long as this family of the Muslim faith does not have any unpaid duties to the treasury or to any individual, and none of them committed any crime, we [the people of the village] 538 do not have any objections to their resettlement.” The “Receiving Verdict” demonstrated the wish of the Bogombelev’s relatives to accept him to their aul. These two “Verdicts” were enough for the Russian administration to permit Bogombelev and his family to cross the Line back and return to their nomadic way of life. Contrary to moving to the Russian side, when converting to Christianity 536 Dobromyslov, “Turgaiskaia Oblast’,” 228. 537 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 2288, ll. 1-1ob. 538 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 2288, ll. 2-2ob. 136

helped Kazakhs entering Russian society, their returning to the steppe became virtually impossible if they joined Christian faith. The Almaty archive has several requests from new-converts who gave their reasons for the return to the steppe. Here are some of the most typical of them: A converted Christian Kazakh of Ikonnikovo village, Omsk Oblast’, Nikolai Alekseev wrote to the Governor of the Oblast’ of Siberian Kirgizes about his poor health condition which did not allow him to provide his family with sufficient food. As his relatives were ready to accept him and to help with feeding his family, he asked 539 the Governor to let him return to the steppe. The Kazakhs of Kulikovka village of the Omsk Oblast’, Dmitrii and Matrena Pavlinov, explained their wish to return to the steppe due to the fact that they could not get used to the new agricultural practices and were unable to grow enough bread to feed themselves and their four children, the eld540 est of whom was five years old. Another reason for the request to return to the steppe was the old age of some Kazakhs and the absence of anybody to help them. “I am 70 years old,” wrote the Kazakh woman Praskovia Vasil’eva, “and my husband is 75. The only child we have is our 17-year-old daughter. We do not have any relatives on the Russian side to help us, and we are too old to grow food. Our relatives in the steppe are eager to accept us and to 541 provide us with food and shelter.” Some of the requests for return can be defined as desperate pleas, as the applicants considered their return to the steppe as the only way to survive. Tatiana Griaznova wrote that since her husband died three years ago, she had failed to learn any Russian craft and spent everything they managed to save on feeding herself and her 8-year-old daughter who was lame since her birth. She begged the Russian administration to let her return to the steppe to her nephew who promised help for her 542 and her disabled daughter. A similar request was sent by the new-convert Vasilii Il’in, who added to his requests that he promised to follow the rites of 543 the Christian faith on his return to the steppe. All requests of those Kazakhs who converted to Christianity to let them return to the steppe were turned down. The Council of the General Board of Administration of the Siberian Kirgizes gave the following explanation for its 539 540 541 542 543

TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 2416, ll. 6-6ob. TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 2416, ll. 18-18ob. TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 2416, ll. 20-21. TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 2416, ll. 23-25. TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 2416, ll. 8-8ob. 137

unwillingness to permit those Kazakhs who converted to Christianity to return to the steppe: It is a well-known fact that all Kirgizes who converted to Christianity are poor people who wander along the Line, that is, in the vicinity of Russian settlements. Not a single one of them is prosperous. That is why there are no doubts that the driving force for the change of their religion was not their belief that their religion was wrong, but their pragmatic interest of some kind. One adopts Christianity because he wants a milder punishment for a committed crime. Another wants to become a Christian in order not to return a wife, which he had stolen from another Kazakh – they marry in the church and the ex-husband loses any rights to this woman. Such neophytes do not have any idea of the importance of Christian duties. If they are allowed to return to the steppe to live among their clansmen without any control over them, they will stop following the rites which our religion prescribes to its followers. They and their children will become the same Kirgizes that they were before baptism. For keeping the neophytes in their new religion and preventing them from returning to Muslim practices, it is necessary to settle them in Russian villages immediately after their conversion. Only in the Russian villages with a church will they be under the supervision of a local priest, who should teach them the rules of their new religion. It should be prohibited for a neophyte to go to the steppe for a period of one year even for 544 a short visit. The quote makes it clear that the Russian administration was aware of the fact that some Kazakhs converted to Christianity not because of their understanding of the religion, but due to the chance to enhance economic opportunities for themselves. Instead of preventing such people from entering the Christian faith, the Russian administration used repressive measures to make the converted Kazakhs “real Christians.” As the examples of the Kazakhs who applied to the Russian administration with requests to be allowed to return to the steppe demonstrate, the situation of some of them was quite unbearable, and the only way out for them was to flee. If they did so, the Russian author544 TsGA RK, f.345, op. 1, d. 2416, ll. 11-14ob. 138

ities considered their escape “a crime against the Christian faith” and “a crime against the state,” as “leaving their place of residence without written permission” was illegal. These charges were sufficient enough to order the Okrug Prikaz to catch the “criminals” and to bring them to Omsk or Orenburg, 545 where they were put on trial.

Alekseev’s Case Though conversion to Christianity seemed to seal a Kazakh’s fate making his or her return to their previous steppe life impossible, there were cases which demonstrate that Kazakhs managed to find ways to overcome this seemingly impermeable obstacle. Here is one such example: The commander of the Akmolinsk Cossack detachment received information that the retired Cossack Alekseev with his family lived in the aul of lieutenant colonel Kochenov. As Alekseev was ascribed to Akmolinskaia stanitsa, his living in the Kazakh aul was illegal. He lived there, however, for many years without being disturbed by the Russian authorities. The Cossack commander sent his people to the aul, and they found out that the information was true. The named convert, his wife named Dar’ia, their 10-year-old son, and three daughters were cap546 tured and brought to Akmola. Along with not following the rites of the Orthodox Church (and how could they do it in the absence of a church and a priest?), Alekseev and his wife committed another crime against the Orthodox faith – none of their children were baptized. How did it happen that a newly converted Kazakh and his wife, a Kazakh who was born in Christianity, had lived for many years among nomads and nobody claimed their return? The investigation discovered the following: Afanasii Alekseev originated from a clan of the Siberian Kirgizes. He converted to Christianity when he was 28. Before the conversion he was an interpreter, and after entering the Christian faith he asked to become a reserve Cossack and be ascribed to the Krivoi fort. The Russian authorities complied with his request. Soon after his conversion, he married the Christian girl Dar’ia (whose parents were Kazakhs who had converted to Christianity). After seven years of service in Fort Krivoi, Alekseev spent three years in Omsk where he worked at an army cloth factory. Then he 545 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 506, ll. 1-5. 546 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1546, ll. 23-31. 139

was transferred to Karkarala Okrug where after eleven years of service he retired. After his retirement, he stayed in Karkarala for three years, and then, according to his wish and the request of lieutenant colonel Turtubek Kochenov, Alekseev was transferred to Akmola. The official reason for his transfer to Akmola was Kochenov’s request that he needed a Cossack to protect his house and the mosque. This transfer took place twelve or more years 547 ago.” At this point, the legal part of Alekseev’s story was over. Instead of settling in Akmola, he joined his relatives and began to lead a nomadic life with them. Alekseev left the Christian faith and practiced the rites of Islam together with other Kazakhs. Living in the auls of Alekseev’s relatives, his wife gave birth to three children, none of whom were baptized. It is interesting to note that though these children were not baptized in the Christian faith (as Dar’ia explained, because there were no priests around), neither were they converted to Islam. The relatives of Alekseev also testified that although Alekseev occa548 sionally went to Mosque, his wife never followed the rites of Islam. This moving back and forth along the line dividing Christians and Muslims split the family into a Christian wife, a Muslim husband and children who were neither Christians nor Muslims. How did it happen that both Kazakh and Russian authorities allowed this violation of the law? As the investigation demonstrates, they did not care. The Cossack officer Vishnevskii, who let Alekseev leave Karkarala for Akmola, told the investigator that he did not know that Alekseev and his wife were converted to Christianity (it is hard to believe that he was speaking the truth, as both Dar’ia and Afanasii are Christian names, and there were no other ways of obtaining them but to become Christians), and he did not know that Alekseev’s wife gave birth to children, to enforce that all of them were baptized and the son was ascribed to Cossacks. Kochenov also spoke of his ignorance of the fact that Alekseev and his wife were Christians as he never asked them and they never answered. Even if they were Christians, he did not have any idea whether they left their religion or not, as their aul was far from his. So why did he violate the order of Cossack authorities and let Alekseev wander far from the place to which he was ascribed? Kochenov 547 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1546, ll. 23-31. 548 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1546, ll. 23-31. 140

answered to this question that he did not know he was supposed to enforce this rule, or even about the existence of this rule. The Alekseevs’ case demonstrates that, with the help of Kazakh officials in the Russian service, it was possible, even for a Kazakh who was converted to Christianity, to return to the steppe and to lead a nomadic way of life. Knowing that it was forbidden to let Alekseev be transferred directly to their relatives’ aul, his relatives asked the volost’ chief Kochenov to send Alekseev to his aul under the pretext of protecting his house. When Alekseev arrived, 549 they just took him with them. This “inventive native accommodation,” coupled with the cooperation (or probably carelessness) of Russian officials, allowed Kazakhs to achieve their goals even if they went against the laws of the empire. Life on the frontier was not as well regulated from St. Petersburg as modern-day historians try to depict. Russian society was not closed and opened its gates to the natives of the lands which were incorporated into the Empire. The acquisition of the most important identity marker of Russianness, the conversion to Russian Orthodox Christianity, made this inclusion easier, as it in most cases effectively severed the ties connecting a Kazakh with his tribe. Conversion turned the Kazakh into a Russian in a legal sense in the eyes of the state. In this case his rights were drastically curtailed. The state determined his or her way of life and place of living. This question, however, deals more with the treatment of the Russians by their state than with the policy of the Imperial government towards the natives of the newly acquired lands.

Kazakhs into Cossacks The Law Code of the Russian Empire of 1842 on the Rights of the Siberian Kirgiz allowed each Kazakh to transfer from one estate to another, to live 550 within the Empire, and to enter the state service and any guild he wanted. Contrary to modern-day Kazakh and Cossack historians’ belief, quite a few Kazakhs used the terms of this legislation and entered the ranks of Cossacks. Like with the conversion to Christianity, the most powerful among the factors which pushed the Kazakhs to ask the Russian administration to enter the ranks of the Cossacks was their poverty. In Dobromyslov’s words, “due to their poverty, some Kirgiz express their wish to convert to Russian Orthodox 549 The term was coined by Dov Yaroshevski; see Dov Yaroshevski, “Empire and Citizenship,” in Russia’s Orient, eds. Brower and Lazzerini, 72. 550 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1878, l. 101. 141

551

Christianity and join the Cossack Army.” Another motivation behind many Kazakhs’ wish to enter Russian service was the legislation on the Siberian Cossack Army of 1846, which prohibited non-Cossacks, including Kazakhs, to live on lands belonging to the Army. The Kazakhs living on the right bank of the Irtysh River faced a choice whether to return to the steppe or to join the 552 Cossack Army. Many of them chose the latter. As a result of this legislation, the numbers of Siberian Line Cossacks increased by 26,847 during the 553 decade between 1846 and 1856. According to Ch. Valikhanov’s estimations, Kazakhs constituted approximately a half of all Cossacks in many stanitsas 554 along the Irtysh Line. The Russian government conducted the same policy regarding the Kazakhs of the Younger Horde, who had their pastures on land belonging to the Ural Cossack Army. According to its decision of March 24, 1859, the Cabinet of Ministers prescribed the Orenburg administration to expel the Kazakhs from the lands of the Ural Cossacks. Only those Kazakhs and Bashkirs who 555 wished to join the Cossack ranks were allowed to stay. The fact that this decision was taken in 1859 does not mean that it was not allowed to accept Kazakhs into the Ural Cossack Army prior to this date. The Code of Laws of the Ural Cossack Army allowed those Kazakhs who were loyal to the Russian state and capable of performing army service to become Cossacks. In addition to the aforementioned conditions, these Kazakhs had to be properly equipped for the service and be prepared to start agricultural practices. The Code of 556 Laws did not make it necessary for new Cossacks to become Christians. Following the terms of this Code, in March 1815 alone, eighteen Kazakhs ap557 plied to the Army office for permission to become Cossacks. The Orenburg Frontier Commission complied with their requests. As a result of crossing the Line, by the end of the 18th century many Kazakhs of the Middle and Younger Hordes had pastures on the territory of modern-day Bashkiria. These Kazakhs came into close contact with Bashkirs, and were assimilated by their numerously superior neighbors. These “Bash551 552 553 554

Dobromyslov, “Turgaiskaia Oblast’,” 221. Katanaev, Kirgizskii vopros, 9. Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 74. Ch. Valikhanov, Sobranie sochinenii v piati tomakh, vol. 1 (Alma-Ata: Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk KazSSR, 1961), 526. 555 Kraft, Sbornik uzakonenii, 250. 556 Ibid., 203. 557 TsGA RK, f. 4, op.1, d. 1017, ll. 1-2. 142

kirized” Kazakhs entered the Bashkir Detachments of the Orenburg Cossack Army. During the period between 1812 and 1815, the Russian administration allowed 20,000 Kazakhs who lived on the territory of the Orenburg Cossack 558 Army to enter the ranks of Cossacks. This number constituted roughly a third of all Cossacks stationed in the Asian part of Russia, which totaled 559 63,000 in 1873. A similar proportion of Kazakhs was in the Siberian Cossack Army. According to the Statistical Report on the Cossack Siberian Army, which was compiled in 1913, Kazakhs constituted the second largest group after Russians in this Army. There were 74,112 Kazakhs in the ranks of Siberian Cossacks, which constituted approximately 38 percent of their total num560 ber of 193,716. Many of the Kazakhs who wished to enter the Cossack army became introduced to the Cossack style of life prior to their entering the service either through marriage or through their labor work for the Cossacks. Out of the eighteen Kazakhs who entered the Cossack Ural Army in 1815, three had been married to Tatar women, two had had Cossacks wives, and eight had 561 worked as laborers in the Cossack stanitsas adjacent to the Line. The aforementioned evidence allows me to make two important conclusions. First, like with the case of conversion to Christianity, entrance into the Cossack Army was open to everybody regardless of his or her religious or racial affiliation. Second, many Kazakhs, as well as other non-Russian people of the Asian part of the empire, used the opportunity to become Cossacks. The latter aspect determined the culturally, religiously, and racially mixed composition of the Cossacks. Though it was easy to enter the ranks of the Cossacks, it was extremely difficult to abandon the Cossack Army. Once entering the service, a Cossack, together with all members of his family, was to be a Cossack till the end of his days. According to Usov, there were only two ways to leave the Cossack Army – one was to commit a crime serious enough to be exiled, and the other 562 was to marry a non-Cossack. The second option worked for women only. If a Cossack man married a non-Cossack woman – then she became a Cossack 558 N. E. Bekmakhanova, Rossiia i Kazakhstan v osvoboditel’nom dvizhenii: Posledniaia chetvert’ XVIII – pervaia polovina XIX veka (Moscow: Institut Rossiiskoi Istorii, 1996), 65. 559 M. Veniukov, Opyt voennogo obozreniia Russkikh granits v Azii (St. Petersburg, 1873), 200. 560 Otchet o sostoianii, 15. 561 TsGA RK, f. 4, op. 1, d. 1017, l. 3. 562 Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 83-84. 143

(kazach’ka). As soon as inorodets entered the Cossack Army, in the eyes of the Imperial government he became a Russian subject with all rights and responsibilities ascribed to this status. Again, like in the case of conversion to Christianity, the fact that responsibilities clearly dominated over rights deals with state treatment of its citizens, not with Russian policy towards Kazakhs, or any other non-Russians in the empire.

Cossacks in the Steppe The crossing of the boundary was, by no means, a one-way road. In his report written in 1743, a Cossack Hundreder, Serebrianikov, informed the Russian authorities of Russian soldiers and Cossacks who escaped from the Line forts and settled in the steppe. On his trip to the steppe, Serebrianikov learned of the runaway soldier Iuda Kopytov, who lived among the Kazakhs, adopted Islam and made his living working as a shepherd. He also wrote of six other Russians who lived on the steppe. Though the data about them was reliable, as Serebrennikov wrote, “these runaway soldiers settled so far from the Line 563 that I did not dare go there and get them back.” According to a report from one Captain Lilingrein, who was sent to a diplomatic mission to the auls of Ablai Sultan in 1779, there were many Russians, both captives and runaways, 564 on the Kazakh steppe. The escapes of Russians to the steppe were not infrequent. These cases were especially numerous before 1758, when the Chinese destroyed Dzhungaria, whose leaders provided a certain level of security on the steppe. According to the report of the Tomsk merchant Vasilii Mel’nikov, who visited Dzhungaria in 1743, Russian runaways from Kolyvanovo-Voskresensk, Efim Viazamskii and Bil’diaga, organized copper melting and silver melting factor565 ies on the steppe. Mel’nikov also saw many Russians in the Dzhungar lands whose names he did not know. One of them made cannons for the Dzhungars. The position of Russian escapees in Dzhungaria seemed to be so attractive to some of the people who accompanied Mel’nikov on his trip that one of them, Andrei Alekseev, escaped from him. Mel’nikov asked the leaders of Dzhungaria to give Alekseev back. He got no response, and soon learnt that Alekseev asked the Khan of Dzhungaria to let him permanently stay in his lands. 563 Potanin, Materialy dlia istorii, 155-156. 564 Andreev, Opisanie Srednei Ordy, 36. 565 Rusanov,”Sobranie aktov, dogovorov, gramot, pisem i prochikh dokumentov do Kirgizskoi stepi otnosiashchikhsia,” Tomskie Gubernskie Vedomosti, no. 28 (1861): 212 144

The reports of those Russian army officers and couriers who were sent to the auls of khans often provided the authorities with information on the fugitive Cossacks living among the Kazakhs. One of these messengers, Mansur Asakov, informed in 1743 the Head of the Orenburg Commission of runaway Kalmyk Cossack Van’ka. According to his report, Van’ka had lived in the aul of the Sultan Abulmamet for a long time and organized several large scale 566 raids on Russian settlements (velikiia k Rossii vorovstva chinit). According to another document, four Tatar, one Bashkir, and one Kalmyk Cossack es567 caped to the steppe in 1752, and were not returned by Kazakhs. Along with this illegal crossing, some Siberian Cossacks crossed the Line and settled in the steppe by the terms of the Ustav of 1822, which established okrugs in the steppe. According to a provision of Speranskii’s reform of 1822, 568 an inner guard of each okrug consisted of Cossacks. These Cossacks were to follow the sultan’s orders. Their duties included protection of trade caravans, 569 uprooting insurgences among Kazakhs, and guarding the borders. The Siberian Cossack Army administration agreed to send the Cossacks for permanent settlement in the steppe under the following conditions: First, the lands allocated to the Cossacks should have forests and hay fields. Second, the Cossacks should be freed from service for one year. Third, only those Cossacks who wish to settle on the steppe should be sent there. In addition, the State should provide the Cossacks with food for a year and a half, and give them fifty 570 rubles. The Siberian administration had to comply with these demands. The resettlement of Cossacks to the steppe in the first half of the 19th century was not massive. The number of the Cossack families who were settled in Kokchetav Okrug was 78, and in Karkarala Okrug it was 34 in the period between 1826 and 1831. The Oblast’ Council limited the number of Cossacks to be not more 571 than 100 in each of the seven okrugs. To stimulate the Russification of the Kazakhs, the Russian government in566 F. Kireev, ed., Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia v XVI-XVIII vekakh: Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1961), 288. 567 Ibid., 542. 568 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 23. 569 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 62,69,79. 570 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 410, ll. 26-35. 571 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 410, ll. 125-132, 163-166. 145

tended to use the Cossacks who were sent to the outer okrugs as the agents of 572 turning nomads into agriculturalists. In his Statute, Speranskii suggested several measures directed at the promotion of agriculture among the nomads. Every Kazakh who wished to engage in agriculture was given fifteen desiat573 ins (40 acres) of arable land. Kazakh sultans were to be awarded a triple 574 land allotment and aul elders a double one. If the allotted land was not cul575 tivated for five years, it was to be taken and given to some other person. Kazakhs who would be the first to achieve considerable success in agricultur576 al activities were to be awarded a special prize. Regional authorities were to take care of supplying all those Kirgizes who wished to take up agriculture 577 with free seed and implements with which to farm. Another measure used 578 to promote agriculture was the opening of reserve grain stores. These measures, however, produced very limited results. Kazakh nomads were very reluctant to become permanent agriculturalists. Though there is evidence that Kazakhs had practiced agriculture long before their encounters with Russians, agricultural practices were considered to be a temporal occupation. As soon as a nomad could raise some funds to buy livestock, he gave 579 up agriculture and returned to his traditional kind of work. As archival sources confirm, the loss of livestock or pastures was the only reason for the Kazakhs’ willingness to switch to settled ways of life. If they had any opportunity to return to nomadism, they immediately used it. The Elder of the Kirievskaia Volost’ of Kokchetav Okrug, Dzhandosov, asked the Russian authorities in 1824 to give him and his clan, which consisted of 250 families, land for building houses, seeds, and agricultural tools. He also asked 580 to send to their aul a Tatar mullah for “the enlightening of our children.” In addition to teaching Kazakh children, the mullah was to help Kazakhs to start 572 “On the allotted lands, they [the Cossacks] must grow grain and, if possible, cultivate orchards and practice bee-keeping.” See PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 181, 182. 573 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 171-172. 574 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 178. 575 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 174. In order to implement the delimitation of the lands and pastures adjacent to the Line, the Siberian governor appointed a land-surveying committee (mezhevaia komissiia) which consisted of both Kazakh and Russian deputies. The composition of the committee was chosen “not to violate the interests of Cossacks, peasants and Kazakhs.” See GAOO, f. 2, op. 1, d. 127, ll. 144 ob.,145. 576 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 187. 577 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 185. 578 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 150. 579 Zimanov, Obshchestvennyi stroi. 580 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 374, ll. 1, 2. 146

agricultural practices. The Russian administration was quick to respond to the elder’s request. The only question it had was how many seeds and agricultural tools the elder needed. The response from Dzhandosov, however, did not follow. As the Head of the army detachment Lukin reported, as soon as Dzhandosov found a pasture, he changed his mind, and moved to the 581 steppe. The attempts of the government to introduce agriculture did not break the Kazakhs’ system of values. As it had been before contact with Russians, “livestock were the main wealth of a Kazakh, and his only concern was to find 582 forage for his herds.” Kazakhs continued to consider the amount of livestock as the most definite sign which distinguished the poor from the rich. Kazakhs could be forced to take up agriculture, but not persuaded. “Not a single Kazakh,” wrote the Imperial Army officer I. F. Blaramberg twenty-six years after the Ustav was promulgated, “who has at least a few horses, sheep, or camels will give up cattle breeding and begin to grow wheat. He will prefer to sell some of his livestock and buy any agricultural product he 583 wishes.” Statistical data, collected by M. Krasnovskii, testified that the Statute did not produce a shift from nomadism to agricultural practices among Kazakhs. For example, at the beginning of the second half of the 19th century in the Akmola district only thirteen out of a thousand Kazakhs took up agri584 culture. On the contrary, we can see the phenomenon which can be defined as the Kazakhization of the Cossacks who were sent to the steppe. Though the Cossacks who were to settle on the steppe were ordered to take agricultural instruments with them in order to grow grain and to teach the Kazakhs agriculture, there is no evidence that they ever used them. As the Head of Omsk Oblast’ Colonel Markov had to confess in 1829 (seven years after the Okrugs were established), the only means of subsistence for the Okrug Cossacks was 585 cattle breeding. Instead of plowing land allotments given to them by the terms of Speranskii’s reform, the Okrug Cossacks paid the Kazakhs for the 581 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 374, l. 5. 582 N.V. Turchaninov, “Naselenii Aziatskoi Rossii: Etnograficheskii ocherk,” in Aziatskaia Rossiia, ed. Glinka, 157. 583 I. F. Blaramberg, Voenno-statisticheskoe obozrenie obozrenie zemli Kirgiz-Kaisakov Vnutrennei (Bukeevskoi) i Zaural’skoi (Maloi) Ordy Orenburgskogo vedomstva (St. Petersburg, 1848), 101. 584 S. Z. Zimanov, Politicheskii stroi Kazakhstana (kontsa XVIII i pervoi poloviny XIX vekov) (Alma-Ata: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk Kazakhskoi SSR, 1960), 45. 585 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 499, ll. 1-2ob. 147

right to use their pastures to raise the livestock. The Register of the Kokchetav Okrug compiled in 1836 data on the Cossacks’ livestock farms (khutora), which were located up to 120 miles away from the administrative center of an okrug. Violating the law, which prohibited the Cossacks to go further than ten miles away from the place of their permanent settlement, the Cossacks spent winters in their khutors, living in the “yurtas, similar to those constructed by the Kazakhs,” and raising livestock, which they sold at the Line mar586 kets. The Line Cossacks could not give an example for Kazakhs regarding agricultural work, simply because they did not know how to do it themselves. As T. P. Belonogov argued, “the development of agriculture in the Kirgiz steppe completely depended on the peasants’ migration there. The peasants became the instructors of agricultural practices both for Kirgizes and Cos587 sacks.” As the Russian government had to recognize, the Russification of the Kazakhs did not reach such proportions as it wished. One of the reasons for the persistence of traditional ways was the incapability of the Siberian Cossacks to become the agents of Russification. In his report written in 1875, the Governor General of Western Siberia, Kaznakov, questioned the ability of the Line Cossacks to “civilize” (in his understanding it meant “to Russify”) Kaza588 khs. The contrary process was underway. As he bitterly continued, all Cossacks “had learnt the Kirgiz language and adopted some of the traditions of 589 the nomadic people.” The Governor considered the only possible way to “raise the Kirgiz to a higher level of civilization” to be the migration of the Russian peasants to the steppe. The Russian Government approved his vision, and worked out a plan, according to which some peasant settlements had to 590 be established in the steppe. The analysis conducted in this chapter leads me to agree with the Russian pre-revolutionary anthropologist A. Novoselov, who ascribed the Cossacks’ receptiveness to many elements of the Kazakh culture to the “lack of a na591 tional consciousness” which was a characteristic feature of the Cossacks. This very lack of a national consciousness, according to Novoselov, explains why the representatives of “higher” Russian culture, instead of bringing to 586 587 588 589 590 591 148

TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 888, ll. 2-8ob. T. P. Belonogov, “Promysly i zaniatiia naseleniia,” in Semenov, Rossiia, 228. Semenov, Rossiia, 156. Ibid. Ibid. Novoselov, “Posviashchaetsia,” 89.

submission the “barbarians of the steppe,” were swallowed by Kazakh culture, which, in the Novoselov’s view, was irrevocably “lower.” Along with the absence of “a national consciousness” (natsional’noe soznanie), and the “remoteness from the centers of culture,” Novoselov considered the lack of “spiritual unity” (dukhovnaia splochennost’) to be an important factor, which 592 made the Cossacks’ submission to the Kazakh culture possible. Novoselov claimed that “Siberian reality” had changed, in many cases quite significantly, both the material and spiritual culture of the Siberian oldtimers. They did not follow traditional Russian patterns in making their houses and their clothes. The “Siberian reality” altered their family and social life, created new morals, which “even a non-attentive observer could easily 593 notice.” For Novoselov, the cultural clash took place not between Cossacks and native Siberians and Kazakhs, but between Siberian old-timers and the Russian peasants who began “to flood Siberia” at the end of the 19th cen594 tury. Like Kazakhstani historians, Novoselov wrote about the “clash of civilizations.” For him, however, it was the clash of Siberian culture, which represented a mixture of Russian and native Siberian and Kazakh cultures and the traditional “pure” Russian culture of the immigrants from the central regions of Russia. Novoselov was not sure which culture was going to win. He could just guess that the new-comers would impose their material culture on the Siberia old-timers. In their turn, the Siberians would subdue the Russi595 an peasants spiritually. The ethnic and religious heterogeneity of the Siberian Cossacks and the absence of a firmly established national and religious Kazakh consciousness made the mutual assimilation of these two groups possible. The fluidity of frontier life made the boundary between Kazakhs and Cossacks transparent and permeable. Similar to developments in the North Caucasus studied by Barrett, the intermarriages, extensive interactions, conversions, natives’ entrance the Cossack Army, and mutual acculturation made it “difficult to tell 596 just who was who” on the Russian eastern frontier. The developments in the zone of Siberian Cossack-Kazakh interaction closely resemble those in the regions of the Siberian north, studied by Willard Sunderland, where “both Russians and non-Russians influenced one another in multiple ways, and 592 593 594 595 596

Ibid., 98. Ibid., 100. Ibid. Ibid. Barrett, At the Edge of Empire, 178. 149

597

Russian influences were not always strongest.” In marked contrast to the active acquisition of “foreign” traits by Siberian Cossacks, the “examples of ‘nativization’ of peasant-settlers were exceptional.” According to David Moon, Only a small minority of migrants became assimilated to the local populations. In spite of the process of interaction and intermarriage with local peoples, most Russian peasant-settlers retained the essentials of their identity, culture, and way of life. In the long run, Russian peasant-migrants had a greater impact on the pastoral nomads and other indigenous peoples than the other way 598 round. Juxtaposing the experience of interethnic and intercultural contact of Siberian Cossacks and Russian peasant-migrants, we can see that the Cossacks were more receptive to the elements of foreign culture. The Cossacks’ working practices and customs were not in a sharp contrast to those of the Kazakhs which subsequently allowed their mutual assimilation.

597 Sunderland, “Russians into Iakuts,” 806. 598 Moon, “Peasant Migration,” 880. 150

Chapter Three The Kenesary Kasymov Rebellion (1837–1847): A National-Liberation Movement or “a Protest of Restoration?” 599

It is true that the fluidity and indeterminacy of cultural identities on the frontier and the openness of different societies to elements of the other created the conditions for peaceful coexistence in certain contexts and circumstances, while it failed to do it in others. Does the claim of post-Soviet Kazakhstani and Cossack historians that violence determined the relations between Kazakhs and Cossacks hold true? To answer this question, this chapter analyzes the rebellion of the Kazakh Sultan Kenesary Kasymov (1837–1847), which has been conventionally depicted as the highest point of Cossack-Kazakh antagonism. Both Kazakhstani and Western historians characterize the rebellion as the peak of the eternal struggle of Kazakhs against the encroachment of Imperial Russia on their land and independence. According to this interpretation, the rebellion is presented as the culmination point of the national-liberation struggle, which united all Kazakhs in their fight against the Siberian Cossack agents of the Empire, which wanted to enslave the nomads of the steppe. To challenge this interpretation of the rebellion, I explore the immediate cause for the rebellion; the composition of the rebels; the reforms introduced by Kenesary; and the traditional political and social structure of Kazakh society. I argue that Kenesary’s rebellion was caused primarily by internal, not external factors. My belief in the dominance of internal over external reasons for the rebellion is based on two considerations. At the time of the uprising, Russian influence over development in the steppe was very limited. Besides that, insurgencies of such a scope had taken place long before the in600 clusion of the Kazakh steppe into the Russian Empire. The history of each nation has some key periods that have drawn the at599 Parts of this chapter were originally published in the article titled “The Kenesary Kasymov Rebellion 1837–1847): A National-Liberation Movement or a ‘Protest of Restoration’?” in Nationalities Papers, vol. 33, no. 4, December 2005. The journal’s website is http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals. 600 For an example of one of such “pre-Russian” unrests see Etsel’ and Vagner, Puteshestvie po Sibiri, 289. 151

tention of generations of researchers. Historians consider the Great Revolution of France, the rise of Hitler in Germany, and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia to be among the most important events, hence the events most worth studying, of these countries. Different interpretations of these events, which determined the fates of people for decades and even for centuries, cause heated debates among scholars. Similar to the aforementioned events, the rebellion of the Kazakh sultan Kenesary Kasymov is considered to be one of the most crucial events in the history of Kazakhstan. Both Kazakhstani and Western historians define Kenesary’s ten-year struggle against Russian colonization as the greatest challenge to Russian authority and the most important event in Kazakh history in the 601 19th century. Historians and publicists typically portray Kenesary as the first Kazakh nationalist who raised the people of the steppe in a fight for independence. In addition, determining the nature of the rebellion sheds light on two of the important questions of Kazakhstani pre-revolutionary history: whether the Kazakhs greeted enthusiastically the inclusion of Kazakhstan into the Russian Empire, and whether this inclusion produced positive or negative effects on the Kazakh people. Like the aforementioned events in European history, Kenesary’s rebellion has produced distinct, often conflicting, interpretations. Those who support the interpretation of the inclusion of Kazakhstan as the forceful occupation of Kazakh lands by the Russian army and the Cossacks, and the genocide of the Kazakh population which this occupation brought, use the rebellion of Kenesary Kasymov as an example of a Kazakh national-liberation struggle against invaders from the north. This interpretation seeks to achieve two aims. First, this depiction of the revolt as a nationalliberation movement endeavors to demonstrate that the inclusion of the Kazakh Hordes into the Russian Empire was not voluntary. Second, as a national-liberation movement cannot exist without the national aspirations of its participants, these historians push the reader to the conclusion that the Kazakh nation was formed long ago (not as a result of Soviet nation-building policy) and found its manifestation in Kenesary’s revolt. These considerations have made the depiction of the uprising acquire almost mythological propor601 M. K. Kozybaev, Natsional’no-osvoboditel’naia bor’ba Kazakhskogo naroda pod predvoditel’stvom Kenesary Kasymova (sbornik dokumentov) (Almaty: Ghylym, 1996), 27; Steven Sabol, ”Kazakh Resistance to Russian Colonization: Interpreting the Kenesary Kasymov Revolt, 1837-1847,” Otan Tarikhy 3 (2002): 24; Olcott, The Kazakhs, 64. 152

tions in Kazakh historiography and have elevated Kenesary Kasymov into a national icon. Another interpretation of the rebellion depicts Kenesary’s uprising as “a protest of conservation” and “a protest of restoration” – a nostalgic effort directed at the restoration of the Kazakhs’ historical past that was destroyed by 602 colonialism. These two interpretations do not necessarily contradict each other. In the view of some historians, national liberation was a necessary prerequisite for the restoration of traditional Kazakh political, social, and economic structures, which were endangered by the colonial policy of Russia. According to these historians, the ultimate purpose of Kenesary was to bring back the “glorious times” of the Kazakh Khanate, which was impossible without the Kazakhs regaining their traditional sovereignty. In this chapter I challenge both interpretations of the nature of the rebellion. I argue that the uprising led by Kenesary was neither a “national-liberation” revolt nor “a protest of restoration.” Not a return to the “good old days”, but the creation of a new type of state without precedents in Kazakhstani history was the aim. In order to demonstrate this, I explore the composition of the rebels and Kenesary’s policy on the territories he controlled. My interpretation of the revolt depicts Kenesary as a “modernizer” rather than a “traditionalist.” This interpretation explains why this rebellion lacked mass support and even met resistance among many Kazakhs.

Historiography of Kenesary’s Rebellion Early Soviet historians typically considered the pre-revolutionary history of Kazakhstan as “the history of the struggle of working people against their op603 pressors.” It is not surprising that the historians of that period emphasized the class nature of the conflict. These scholars depicted the pre-revolutionary history of Kazakhstan as a class struggle against Kazakh feudalism. Along with the Russian colonizers, the targets of the Kazakh rebels were “their own 604 exploiters – those khans who collaborated with the tsarist government.” These historians did not separate “the struggle against foreign enslavement” from “the struggle against that part of the local feudal lords which joined the 602 E. S. Syzdykova, “Voprosy istorii Kazakhstana v trudakh ofitserov general’nogo shtaba Rossiiskoi Imperii” (Ph.D. Dissertation, The Eurasian University of Astana, 2002), 82. 603 E. B. Bekmakhanov, Prisoedinenie Kazakhstana k Rossii (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo AN SSSR, 1957), 3. 604 Ibid. 153

605

conquerors.” Class and national-liberation struggles went together. This approach produced contradictory estimations of Kasymov’s rebellion. On the one hand, he fought against the Russian imperial army and the Kazakh “feudal lords” who supported the army, whereas on the other hand, being a representative of the political and economic elite, he could hardly support the cause of the working people. Hence, in Bekmakhanov’s view, Kenesary acted in the interests of the entire Kazakh people, consolidating them in their desperate attempt to stop encroaching Russian imperialism. Like the Russian Decembrists, he was able to stand above his narrow class interests and embody the will of 606 all Kazakhs. On the other hand, Mukhamedzhan Seralin depicted Kenesary as a dictator whose aim was to enrich himself through bringing ruin to the Kazakh 607 masses. His class, not national affiliation, determined Kasymov’s actions. Independence-era Kazakhstani historians do not speak of the class strugg608 le, defining the pre-revolutionary Kazakh society as a classless one. They agree, however, with some of their early Soviet colleagues, that the revolt led by Kasymov’s family in the first half of the 19th century can be characterized as a “national-liberation one.” According to them, “Kenesary’s revolt was an attempt to unify all Kazakhs against their common enemy – the Russian Em609 pire.” This policy was necessary for the survival of Kazakhs, since Russia’s objectives in the region were “the enslavement of Kazakhstan,” and the genocide of the peoples of the steppe. The national-liberation nature of the uprising made the rebellion an event of paramount importance in the history of Kazakhstan. In Khadisha Aubakirova’s words, “the national-liberation movement of the sultans Kasym Ablaikhanov, Sarzhan and Kenesary Kasymov takes a special place in the history of Kazakhstan. It is a heroic page in the struggle for the independence of Kazakhstan and a vivid example of patriot610 ism.” To add melodrama to the event, Mazhitova uses poetic images comparing Kenesary’s revolt to “the death sigh” and “the soul cry” of the Central Asian nomadic civilization as it lost the battle against the settled civilization 611 of Russia. It is little wonder that in their recent works Kazakhstani historians invariably portray Kenesary as “an outstanding political leader, whose 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 154

Ibid., 167. Bekmakhanov, Kazakhstan v 20-40 gody (1992 [1947]). Sabol, Russian Colonization, 123. Kuzembaiuly, Istoriia Respubliki Kazakhstan, 127. Aubakirova, “Uchastie sibirskogo kazachestva,” 67. Ibid., 110. Mazhitova, “Voennoe prisutstvie,“ 140.

612

popularity among his people was enormous.” Politicians have followed the suit, renaming squares and streets of Kazakhstani cities after Kenesary. Post-1945 Soviet historians defined the rebellion as “feudal-monarchial” and “reactionary.” T. Shonibaev believed that Kasymov’s people were struggling to restore traditional “patriarchal-feudal relations.” The reactionary nature of the revolt was, according to him, the reason why the Kazakh working 613 masses did not support this rebellion. Like some recent Kazakhstani historians, Shonibaev argued that the rebellion was “a protest of conservation,” aimed at the restoration of the traditional authority of the khan. Unlike his post-Soviet colleagues, however, he denied that a return to the traditional system was in the interests of population at large. Most Western scholars agree with post-Soviet Kazakhstani historians that “the two-century history of Kazakhstan during its colonial period knew not a single year of peace. Anti-colonial revolts on the national, regional, and local 614 levels, unrest, uprisings, conflicts, and even mass fist fights were constant;” and the history of Russo-Kazakh relations from 1731 to 1917 was one of con615 tinuous popular opposition to Russian rule. Emanuel Sarkisyanz gives his support to the idea that relations between the Kazakhs and the Russian state were confined to “Kazakh independence struggles against Russian interfer616 ence or occupation.” In spite of agreement on the non-voluntarily character of the inclusion of the steppe into the empire and the resistance of Kazakhs to the introduction of Russian administration, American historians, probably influenced by the works on nationalism by Benedict Anderson and Ernest Gellner, are reluctant to characterize the rebellion as a national liberation movement. Instead, their interpretation of the rebellion as an attempt to restore traditional ways of life dominates Western historiography. Martha Brill Olcott is uncertain whether the mass support for Kenesary represented “a new Kazakh political consciousness or simply a more apolitical expression of discontent 617 with Russian rule.” She is convinced, however, that the purpose of the re612 Maduanov, “Vzaimootnosheniia Kazakhov,” 105. 613 “Sotsial’no-ekonomicheskie i istoricheskie predposylki i progressivnye znacheniia prisoedineniia Kazakhstana k Rossii,” Mezhvuzovskii sbornik (Alma-Ata: Kazakh Pedagogical Institute, 1982): 4. 614 Maduanov, “Vzaimootnosheniia Kazakhov,” 65. 615 M. P. Viatkin, Ocherki po istorii Kazakhskoi SSR (Leningrad, 1941) quoted in Olcott, The Kazakhs, 44. 616 Emanuel Sarkisyanz, “Russian Imperialism Reconsidered,” in Russian Imperialism, ed. Hunczak, 70. 617 Olcott, The Kazakhs, 66. 155

bellion was to restore power to the Kazakh Khanate. According to her interpretation, “Kenesary believed the steppe was Kazakh, to be ruled by the Kaza618 khs in their own traditional ways.” In a similar vein, Michael Rywkin char619 acterizes the rebellion as Kenesary’s attempt to restore the old way of life. Steven Sabol strongly argues against defining the rebellion as a national-liberation one. At the same time he gives his support to viewing the revolt as 620 Kenesary’s attempt “to reassert his traditional authority as khan.” This historiographical review demonstrates that historians have produced two interpretations of the rebellion. They depict it either as a “national-liberation movement” or as a “protest of restoration” aimed at a return to traditional ways of life. I cannot agree with post-Soviet Kazakhstani historians that the rebellion can be defined as a “national-liberation” one. Like the Soviet ideolo621 gists, who endeavored to create classes in classless societies, the modernday nationalistically minded historians try to imagine national-liberation movements long before a nation was actually formed. In the first chapter of this book, I have demonstrated that tribal, not national, identity determined the actions of Kazakhs in the period under analysis. In this chapter, I also argue against viewing Kenesary as a fighter for the restoration of the traditional Kazakh social and political system. This chapter asserts that, rather than being driven by the desire to restore traditional Kazakh society, Kenesary tried to impose reforms that can be defined as modernizing. Kenesary’s modernizing effort met with resistance from the majority of Kazakhs. This resistance determined the course of the rebellion and its final outcome. In my attempt to demonstrate that the rebellion was neither “national-liberation” nor an “antimodernizing protest of preservation and restoration,” I explore the immediate cause for the rebellion, the composition of the rebels, the reforms introduced by Kenesary, and the traditional political and social structure of Kazakh society.

The Statute of the Siberian Kirgiz Although the Khan of the Middle Horde, Semeke, accepted the Russian protectorate as early as 1734, Russian influence was limited to foreign policy. Kazakh khans preserved complete independence in dealing with internal af618 619 620 621 156

Ibid., Michael Rywkin, Russia in Central Asia (New York: Collier Books, 1963), 17-19. Sabol, “Kazakh Resistance,” 24. This phenomenon is aptly described in Grant, In the Soviet House and Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors.

622

fairs. In A. I. Maksheev’s words, “during the whole 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries, the Kazakhs were Russian subjects in name only. In reality they preserved their independence. The Russians had to separate themselves from them with fortresses and troops and did not even dare to 623 cross the Line.” The situation began to change in the 1820s. The Ustav o Sibirskikh Kir624 gizakh (Statute of the Siberian Kirgiz ), promulgated by the Russian government in 1822, established a new administrative structure for governing the nomadic people of the Kazakh Steppe. The provisions of this legislation, on the one hand, included the territories of the Middle Horde (the largest tribal federation) in Western Siberia, and, on the other hand, incorporated all of Siberia into the Russian Empire. As a result of the integration of the Kazakh Steppe into the Russian Empire, the territory of the Middle Horde was divided into administrative units called okrugs. Six okrugs were established in the steppe in the period between 1824 and 1831: Karkarala (1824), Kokchetav (1824), Baian-Aul (1826), Akmola (1827), and Aiaguz (1831). Okrugs headed by elder sultans were divided into volosti, and volosti headed by sultans were 625 subdivided into auls with elders as their heads. Each okrug was administered by a prikaz, a committee chaired by an elder sultan and also including two Russian and two Kazakh assessors. An okrug prikaz (okruzhnoi prikaz) 626 had both police and court functions. Sultans chose an elder sultan. Biis (traditional judges) and aul elders elec627 ted Kazakh assessors. A sultan inherited his position as a volost’ administrator from his father, but could not take his office without the approval of his own community (biis, aul elders and rich Kazakhs) and the confirmation of the Omsk civilian governor (oblastnoi nachal’nik). The governor was to confirm in their office all native officials at volost’ and okrug levels. Each aul elder was to be chosen by the aul community and confirmed in his office by the 622 Sultan Dzhan-Sultan Chuvakov, “Deistvuiushchee polozhenie ob upravlenii v stepnykh oblastiakh,” Otan Tarikhy 4 (2002): 26. 623 A. I. Maksheev, Istoricheskii obzor Turkestana i nastupatel’nogo dvizheniia v nego russkikh (St. Petersburg: Voennaia tipografiia, 1890), 104. 624 The term “Siberian Kirgiz” was used to distinguish the Kazakhs of the Middle Horde from the Younger Horde Kazakhs, who were called “Orenburg Kirgiz;” see Virginia Martin “Barimta: Nomadic Custom, Imperial Crime,” in Russia’s Orient, eds. Brower and Lazzerini, 266. 625 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 4-9, 15-18. 626 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 19-20. 627 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 36, 48. 157

628

okrug prikaz. The Ustav ordered the establishment of the okrugs, which were to be filled by Cossacks who were to fulfill policing functions. The temporal proximity between the introduction of the Ustav and Kenesary’s rebellion leads many historians to speak of Kenesary’s revolt as one directed against the Russian attempt to establish control over the Kazakhs. To challenge this approach, I will explore the immediate causes of the rebellion.

The Beginning of the Rebellion In June 1825, Sultan Kasym Ablaikhanov (the father of Kenesary) sent a letter to the Orenburg Governor-General asking him to close the Kokchetav Okrug and allow Kazakhs to continue living the way their ancestors had lived, that is, according to their own traditions. Kasym did not refuse to serve the Em629 peror, but he would do so only if it were beneficial for Kazakhs. On October 9 1825, the Omsk Oblast’ Council administration came to the conclusion that the request of Kasym Ablaikhanov “does not deserve any respect” and would 630 be turned down. According to most Kazakhstani historians, this event launched the armed struggle of the Kasymovs against tsarist Russia. The elder son of Kasym, Sarzhan, led the rebellion in its first stage between the years 1825 631 and 1836. After Uzbeks had killed Sarzhan, the banner of the rebellion passed to his younger brother, Kenesary, who, as many historians argue, managed to unify all Kazakhs in their struggle against Russian rule. Such a beginning to the rebellion, in the opinion of many recent Kazakhstani historians, clearly supports the claim that it was a national-liberation revolt driven by political motivations. Archival sources, however, confirm that the tensions between the Kasymovs and the Omsk administration started not in October 1825, but in August 1824. Moreover, the reasons for the emergence of these tensions are much less political than modern-day ideologists suggest. On 21 August 1824, the Karkarala Okrug Prikaz informed the Governor General of Western Siberia that the elder sultan, Tursun Chingisov, of the aforementioned Okrug, sent his 12-year old son Tuleka to different auls to invite their chiefs to feast with him in his encampment. The son of Kasym, Sarzhan, captured this boy and kept him by 628 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 25. 629 M. G. Masevich, Materialy po istorii politicheskogo stroia Kazakhstana (so vremeni prisoedineniia Kazakhstana k Rossii do Velikoi Oktiabr’skoi Sotsialisticheskoi Revoliutsii) (Alma-Ata: Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk Kazakhskoi SSR, 1960), 137. 630 Ibid., 140-141. 631 Abdirov, “Voenno-Kazach’ia kolonizatsiia,” 411. 158

his side for more than a month. Sarzhan severely whipped the servant of Tursun, who accompanied the boy, and sent him to Tursun to tell him to come and win back his son. Tursun took 15 Cossacks and went to the aul of Sarzhan with this intention. As Tursun and the Cossacks approached the aul of Sarzhan, the latter came to meet Tursun with a group of Kazakhs. Tursun demanded that Sarzhan release his son, but Sarzhan refused to do so and threatened Tursun with physical attack. Then, the sultan Khudaimendy Shiimkhanov intervened and proposed to convene the council of biis to resolve the conflict. Both parties agreed to the proposition. The biis found Sarzhan guilty and ordered him to release the boy and to pay Tursun a fine of 53 horses. Though Sarzhan released the boy, he refused to pay the fine. The Russian authorities made an attempt to appease the conflicting parties by trying to persuade Tursun Chingisov to accept a smaller number of horses as compensation. The two sultans, however, refused to come to a peaceful agreement. The Omsk government gave an order to Karkarala Okrug to enforce the decision of the biis and to confiscate the horses from Sarzhan’s property, which had been taken by the Karkaral Okrug Prikaz. Sarzhan responded with a raid 632 on the auls of Tursun and the Cossacks settled there. This is how the rebellion started: the uprising began as a conflict between two sultans and then against the Cossacks who came to enforce the decision of the biis. These events demonstrate that the immediate cause of the rebellion can hardly be recognized as politically motivated, or at least not politically motivated against the Russians.

The Absence of Mass Support Historians have endeavored to find further proof of the national-liberation nature of the rebellion in its mass character. Let us examine whether the majority of the Kazakhs really found the ideas of Kenesary so attractive that they would be willing to leave their livestock and families behind and join him. Determining the number of rebels has become quite a controversial issue. The prisoners of Kenesary who managed to escape captivity in 1840 esti633 mated the number of his people as 1,000 armed men. The report of the Orenburg Border Commission gives the number of Kenesary’s followers as 634 not more than 2,000 at the end of 1845. The volost’ chief administrator Ku632 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 353. 633 Kozybaev, Natsional’no-osvoboditel’naia bor’ba, 148. 634 TsGA RK, f. 4, op. 1, d. 4957, l. 11. 159

lubek Eskenin, who managed to escape from Kasymov’s imprisonment, also 635 speaks of 2,000 people fighting for Kasymov. Bekmakhanov quotes A. G. Serebrennikov, who estimated that the number of rebels at the peak of the re636 volt was as high as 8,000. Aubakirova and E. Valikhanov agree with this as637 sessment. Pre-revolutionary Russian historian N. A. Sereda wrote of 10,000 638 “well armed horsemen” who constituted Kenesary’s army. In recent years the number of Kenesary’s supporters in the works of Kazakhstani scholars has begun to soar. In their recent works, Kazakhstani historians speak of 20,000 rebels, making reference to the data given in the memoirs 639 of Kenesary’s son, Akhmet Kenesarin, first published in 1883. Olcott accep640 ted this number quite uncritically. The growth, however, does not seem to stop here. According to a Kazakhstani university textbook published in 1993, 641 Kenesary could master 20,000–25,000 fighters. Unfortunately, the author of the textbook did not find it necessary to give any reference to the source of information. The memoirs of Kenesary’s son, who at the time of the rebellion was only a small boy, is not a reliable source for statistical data. The Chief Khan of the Kirgiz, Dzhantai Karabekov, who determined the number of rebels attacking 642 his auls as 7,000, gives the most accurate assessment of Kenesary’s army. It is difficult to suspect him of underestimating the number, as he needed to demonstrate his courage and loyalty to the Tsar to increase his reward for destroying such a powerful enemy of the Crown. This number, though quite considerable, can hardly support the claim of most Kazakhstani historians that “most of the Kazakhs of all three Hordes 635 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 71, ll. 41-43. 636 A. G. Serebnrennikov, Sbornik materialov dlia istorii zavoevaniia Turkestanskogo kraia, vol. 4 (Tashkent, 1914), 144, quoted in Bekmakhanov, Kazakhstan v 20-40 gody (1992 [1947]), 261. 637 Aubakirova, “Uchastie sibirskogo kazachestva,” 72; E. Valikhanov, “Politicheskaia deiatel’nost’ Kenesary Kasymova,” Otan Tarikhy 3 (2002): 48. 638 N. A. Sereda, “Bunt kirgizskogo sultana Kenesary Kasymova,” Vestnik Evropy, no. 8 (1870): 73. 639 E. Smirnov, “Sultan Kenesary i Sadyk: Pererabotka rasskaza Akhmeta Kenesarina (Tashkent, 1883), 8; Abdirov, Zavoevanie Kazakhstana, 171; Zh. Kasymbaev, Kenesary Khan (Almaty: Izdatel’stvo Kazakhstan, 1993), 57-65; Zh. Artykbaev, Istoriia Kazakhstana (Almaty: Ghylym, 2004), 99; Kozybaev, Natsional’no-osvoboditel’naia bor’ba, 16. 640 Olcott, The Kazakhs, 66. 641 A. K. Akishev, Istoriia Kazakhstana s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei (ocherk) (Almaty: Izdatel’stvo Deuir, 1993), 198. 642 TsGA RK, f. 374, op. 1, d. 2920, ll. 40-40 ob. 160

643

rose in the fight against the Russian Empire.” The number of Kazakhs of the Middle Horde constituted up to a million people by the end of the 18th cen644 tury. By the middle of the 19th century the territories of the Younger Horde 645 included 750,000 Kazakhs. Syr-Dar’inskaia and Semirech’e Oblast’s, which were established on the territory of the Elder Horde, included approximately 646 640,000 people by 1867. The total number of Kazakhs can be roughly be es647 timated to be around 2,390,000 people and the number of those who joined the rebellion was not more than a fraction of a percent of this number.

Kenesary Kasymov – a Traditionalist or a Modernizer? The Composition of the Rebellion Can we agree with the historians who characterize Kenesary’s rebellion as “a protest of preservation”? Was Kenesary really going to restore traditional Kazakh political and social structures? To answer these questions, the composition of the rebels and Kenesary’s policy on the territories that were under his control need to be explored. In addition, an analysis of how this policy corresponded with traditional Kazakh ways also will be provided. Post-Soviet Kazakhstani historians claim that all Kazakh tribes gave Kenesary wholehearted support and only the threat of punishment by Russian troops preven648 ted all Kazakhs from joining the rebellion. Thus, the movement is defined 649 as a popular one, supported by the whole of the Middle Horde. In these historians’ logic, the fact that traditional tribal leaders and their clansmen sympathized with Kenesary allows us to consider his rebellion as directed toward the restoration of the traditional structures of power. The participation of traditional political leaders of the steppe – biis and aul elders – could be a powerful argument for defining the rebellion as “a protest of preservation” and “a protest of restoration.” But was this the case? What was the composition of 643 E. Sydykov, “Khan Kene – Initsiator vozrozhdeniia Kazahskoi gosudarstvennosti,” Otan Tarikhy 3 (2002): 43. 644 Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1964), 144. 645 Masevich, Materialy po istorii, 264. 646 N. Musabekova, “Vremennoe polozhenie 1867-1868 gg.: Problema teritorial’nykh otnoshenii,” Voprosy Istorii Kazakhstana. Issledovaniia molodykh uchenykh, vol. 3 (2002): 70. 647 A. Levshin estimates the number of Kazakhs being between 2,500,000 and 3,000,000 people at the beginning of the 19th century. See T. I. Sultanov, “Gosudarstvenno-politicheskoe razvitie v XVI – seredine XVIII v.,” in Istoriia Kazakhstana i Tsentral’noi Azii, ed. M. Kh. Abuseitova (Almaty, Daik Press, 2001), 281. 648 Akishev, Istoriia Kazakhstana, 216-217. 649 E. B. Bekmakhanov quoted by Olcott, The Kazakhs, 66. 161

the rebels? Who were the people who fought on Kenesary’s side? The answers to these questions are crucial to understand the nature of the rebellion.

Close Relatives Nearly all historians who write about Kenesary’s insurrection mention that 650 his closest relatives took key positions in his army, repeating E. B. Bekma651 khanov’s idea that “the family of Kasymov-Ablaikhanov led the rebellion.” According to Valikhanov, the wholehearted support given to Kenesary’s cause by all members of his family was responsible for turning the rebellion 652 into an all-Kazakh uprising. In order to demonstrate the Kasymovs’ devotion to the cause of the rebellion, historians typically bring in the example of Kenesary’s sister, Bopai, who had to leave her husband, Semeke, after all her attempts to persuade him to join the rebellion had failed. She left all her belongings behind and escaped the aul of her husband, taking only her son with 653 her. She actively participated in the revolt, being responsible for the expropriation of livestock belonging to those tribal leaders who refused to join the 654 rebellion. Being descendants of Khan Ablai, the closest relatives of Kenesary belonged to the Kazakh nobility, called ak suek (White Bone). Ak suek was a privileged estate, consisting mainly of sultans and their relatives who traced their ancestry to Chingis Khan, in contrast to kara suek (Black Bone) – the Kazakhs who were considered descendants of the conquered peoples. Membership in the nobility was restricted to those who could trace their descent to Chingis Khan. They did not belong to any clan, thus standing above the tribal 655 kinship structures. Though the unity of the Kasymov family in their anti-colonial struggle is much glamorized by post-Soviet Kazakhstani historians, it is nothing other than fictional. Olcott’s statement that Kenesary was able to enlist “the aid of his entire family – brothers, half-brothers, uncles, and cousins” is not entirely 650 Natsional’no-osvoboditel’naia bor’ba, 11; N. Sereda, Bunt Kirgizskogo sultana Kenesary Kasymova (1838-1847), 2nd ed. (Atyrau: Dialog, 1992 [1870]), 73; Kasymbaev, Poslednii pokhod, 57-58. 651 Bekmakhanov, Kazakhstan in 20-40 gody (1947), 209. 652 Valikhanov, “Politicheskaia deiatel’nost’,” 45. 653 Natsional’no – osvoboditel’naia bor’ba kazakhskogo naroda pod predvoditel’stvom Kenesary Kasymova (sbornik dokumentov) (Almaty: Galym, 1996), 15. 654 Bekmakhanov, Kazakhstan v 20-40 gody (1992 [1947]), 283. 655 Mikhailov, “Kirgizy,” 283. 162

656

accurate. Kenesary’s uncle, Siuk Ablaikhanov, the Sultan of the Elder Horde, asked the Governor-General of Western Siberia to found an okrug on 657 his territory and to bring in Cossacks to pacify Kazakhs. Siuk sent this request in 1831. When Kasymov came to the Elder Horde 15 years later and demanded that Siuk join him, Siuk refused. Even the threats of Kenesary “to destroy Siuk’s auls” failed to force Siuk to refuse “the high protection of the 658 Russian power.” Some historians believe that all the Ablaikhanov-Kasymov family was unanimous in their hatred of the introduction of okrugs on their territory. According to them, this abhorrence served as the principal motive behind the rebellion. This statement is not entirely accurate. Kasym’s brother Sultan Gabaidulla Valikhanov, in a meeting with the Governor General of Western Siberia, P. M. Kaptsevich, gave his permission for the establishment of okrugs. Moreover, the account of their meeting also mentions that Gabaidulla sent numerous requests to the Chief of Omsk Oblast Bronevskoi asking him to establish an okrug on his territory. Gabaidulla believed that the okrug would 659 protect him from the regular raids of his neighbors. As we can see, at least two of the okrugs were established because Kenesary’s relatives asked the Russian authorities to do so. Kenesary failed to achieve unity even among the members of his own family, let alone the whole Kazakh society.

Tulenguts One of the most numerous groups in Kenesary’s army was his tulenguts (ser660 vants) whom he inherited from his grandfather Ablai. Russian Officer K. I. Gern, who was on a diplomatic mission to Kenesary’s headquarters in 1844, estimated the number of tulenguts in Kenesary’s camp as being around 661 1,000. This number constituted almost half of all of Kenesary’s supporters, 662 whose army numbered at this period of time around 2,200 people. 656 657 658 659 660 661

Olcott, The Kazakhs, 65. Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1964), 253. Kasymbaev, Poslednii pokhod, 71. GAOO, f. 3, op.1, d. 299, ll. 43-44. Natsional’no-osvoboditel’naia bor’ba, 11. S. D. Asfendiarov, ed. Proshloe Kazakhstana v istochnikakh i materialakh (Alma-Ata, Moscow, 1936), 221; S. D. Asfendiarov, Istoriia Kazakhstana, 2nd ed. (Alma-Ata: Kazak Universiteti, 1993), 168. 662 Natsional’no-osvoboditel’naia bor’ba, 11; Asfendiarov gives similar numbers of Kenesary’s tulenguts. According to his estimations, Kenesary had about 1,000 tulenguts to compare to his grandfather Ablai’s 5,000 tulenguts. See Asfendiarov, Istoriia Kazakhstana (1993), 122. 163

Not only were the numbers of tulenguts important, archival sources also confirm that tulenguts were more than rank-and-file soldiers in Kasymov’s army – they formed its backbone and were the only people Kenesary could rely on. A spy informed the Siberian administration that, although there were some Kazakh auls that wandered with Kenesary, they were forced to obey his orders under the threat of punishment from his tulenguts – the only people 663 who were with Kenesary of their own will. Apart from fighting against Cossacks, raiding Russian settlements and Kazakh auls, and ensuring that Kazakh clans followed the orders of their master, tulenguts were also involv664 ed in recruiting new soldiers for the insurgent army. Who were the tulenguts? How many of them lived on the steppe? According to the elder-Sultan of Kokchetav and S. Asfendiarov’s definitions: Tulenguts (servants or captives) are people of Karakalpak or Kalmyk stock. Most of them are descendants of captives from raids on non-Kazakh populations. Tulenguts are servants, who should follow any order of their owners. A master can sell or present his tulenguts. Under no circumstances can a tulengut change his master. Some tulenguts are natural Kazakhs who, due to some reason, left 665 the auls of their birth and wandered together with their master. Though some of the tulenguts totally assimilated into Kazakh society, they differed from Kazakhs in their complete dependence on 666 their khans and sultans. They were “their people.” These definitions make it clear that, whether or not tulenguts were of Kazakh or non-Kazakh origin, they did not belong to the traditional tribal kinship structures of Kazakh society. Belonging to their master, not a clan, was the mark of their identity.

Outcasts Who Left Their Tribes On his journey through the Kazakh steppe, the English traveler Atkinson had a chance to interview an old man who in his younger years fought for Kenesary. When asked about the size and composition of his group, he answered that “the mob consisted of about three hundred men, most of whom 663 664 665 666 164

TsGA RK, f. 374, op.1, d. 162, ll. 427-427 ob. TsGA RK, f. 374, op.1, d. 627, ll. 3-6 ob. TsGA RK, f. 338, op.1, d. 760, ll. 33-34. Asfendiarov, Istoriia Kazakhstana (1993), 122.

were outcasts of different tribes. There were also runaway Chinese criminals 667 who came from the Ili River.” Captain Fomakov in his account of the Kirgiz steppe gives a similar description of the composition of Kenesary’s army: His mob does not consist of entire tribes. Kenesary’s tulenguts form its backbone. Most of these tulenguts are of Kalmyk stock. There are also some Kazakhs of the Elder Horde. The mixture of runaway Bashkirs, Tatars, and Kazakhs constitutes the rest of the mob. There are up to 3,000 men there, 1,000 of which are well armed horsemen. Sometimes some clan participates in a raid, but it does not do so voluntarily. Kenesary forces tribes to participate in the raids in order to create disorder in the steppe by bringing 668 one tribe against another. In Fomakov’s view, such a composition of the rebels explains their devotion to Kenesary: “When they come to him they do not have anything. Kenesary gives them clothes, a horse, food, a tent, and a wife. They are obliged to him 669 for everything. They have nothing to lose.” The fact that the representatives of many tribes participated in the revolt allows Olcott to argue that “all clans 670 of the Horde and all sectors of the society” resisted the Russians. This conclusion, however, distorts the reality. People who were expelled from their tribes, by no means represented the opinion of their clans about the rebellion. On the contrary, the composition of Kenesary’s army, which allowed him to keep a core of devoted warriors, pushed away many of the Kazakh clans who might otherwise have joined the rebellion. The tribal leaders of the Elder Horde, for example, refused to join Kenesary, explaining their refusal by their unwillingness to join with “wanderers, criminals, and outcasts.” They found 671 it offensive to fight side by side with such people.

Prisoners of War and Russian Runaways Archival sources confirm that the closest associates of Kenesary were not Kazakh tribal leaders but his close relatives, outcasts, and tulenguts. There were, however, other groups of people who held leading positions in his army 667 668 669 670 671

Etsel’ and Vagner, Puteshestvie po Sibiri, 470. Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1964), 303. Ibid. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 66. Asfendiarov, Istoriia Kazakhstana (1993), 169. 165

– Bashkirs, Kalmyks, Bukharans, and Russians who were either captured in raids or voluntarily joined Kenesary. A Cossack of the Ural Cossack Army, Aiushin, wrote a letter to the Cossack Moseev in which he described the life of Moseev’s brother, Kichik Malkin, in Kenesary’s captivity. The head of one of Kenesary’s hundreds, Bashkir Khusni, captured Kichik in one of the rebels’ raids aimed at stealing Cossack horses. Khusni was going to kill Kichik, since he was a witness to the robbery, but then he changed his mind and brought Kichik to Kenesary. Kenesary greeted Kichik warmly. He married Kichik to a daughter of a rich Kazakh, who was whipped for his initial objection to the marriage. Then Kenesary appointed Kichik the commander of a detachment consisting of 40 men. At the time the letter was written (that is, three years after he was cap672 tured), Kichik was Kenesary’s second lieutenant – the first was Khusni. It is interesting to note that Kenesary considered marriage to be a necessary prerequisite for appointing a foreigner to a position in his army. For instance, a Russian Cossack named Petr Fedorov refused to marry “the best 673 girl” offered to him by Kenesary. Kasym, the father of Kenesary, in order to lure another captured Cossack, Gavrila Pershin, to enter his service even offered him to choose one of six Russian women captured by a neighboring 674 tribe. Kasym agreed to pay any price the masters of the women might ask. Though Fedorov and Pershin did not agree to marry in the steppe and join Kenesary, some Russians did. Runaway Russian soldier Nikolai Gubin was a lieutenant under Kenesary’s brother. Two other Russian runaway soldiers, Belashev and Mankin, were commanders of Kenesary’s detachments. Uzbek Saidak-Khodzha Ospanov was Kenesary’s personal secretary, and Tatar Alim 675 Iagudin was a member of the Military Council.

Some Tribes Were Forced to Join the Uprising The claims of Olcott notwithstanding, it would be incorrect to state that all Kazakhs who joined Kenesary did so of their own will. Many were forced to follow him under the threat of being punished for disobedience. A fragment from Kasymov’s letter to the elders of Tliau tribe is quite self-explanatory: “recognize me as a Khan, be mine … Come to me and I will have mercy on 672 673 674 675 166

TsGA RK, f. 4, op. 1, d. 4412. ll. 4-5ob. TsGA RK, f. 4, op. 1, d. 2009, ll. 172-173 ob. TsGA RK, f. 374, op. 1, d. 162, ll. 595-595 ob. R. Soboleva, Introduction to the book by Kenesarin, Sultany Kenesary, 8.

you. If you do not join me, then the thirty years of my waiting for you will 676 turn into thirty years of my punishing you.” Kenesary sent numerous demanding and threatening letters to different tribes. Demands and threats differed, but they were always present. In his policy with clan leaders, Kenesary relied on a whip rather than on a carrot: “You, people of Baganly, should immediately give me a part of your livestock, otherwise you will cause the 677 wrath of your Khan, which means your total annihilation.” These threats were not just words. Kasymov sent troops to punish those who did not follow his orders. Even Kenesary’s close relatives were not exempt from the Khan’s wrath. Sereda describes one case in which Kenesary’s people drove away the 678 livestock that belonged to his uncle Abdilla, who was loyal to Russia. Another method of punishing disobedient clan leaders was raping their daughters, as happened to the daughter of Chief Sultan of Baian-Aul Okrug Maman 679 Ablaev, who refused to give Kenesary 150 horses. If all methods to persuade recalcitrant clan leaders to submit to Kenesary’s orders failed, then the disobedient chief was put to death in a way to teach a lesson to others. Here is a description of the execution of the bii of the Zhappas clan, Altybai Kubekov: “First, they cut off his leg, then his arm and then Kenesary ordered Kubekov’s 680 corpse to be burnt.” Some tribes dared to resist Kasymovs’ attempts to levy taxes on them. Spies from the Orenburg Border Commission reported that Kenesary’s brother, Sultan Naurusbai, with 100 men sent by Kenesary to collect taxes from the Zhappas tribe, was met with gunshots. As a result of the clash thirty of 681 Kenesary’s rebels were killed. Kenesary’s retaliation was quick and brutal. In May 1845 his people destroyed sixty eight auls belonging to the Zhappas 682 clan and killed about 500 people. “Only few of the Zhappas people managed to escape. In order to save their lives, women and little children jumped into 683 water, where the arrows and bullets of the Kenesarians reached them.” Those who stayed alive were not much luckier than their killed clansmen.

676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683

TsGA RK, f. 4, op. 1, d. 4336, l. 15 ob. Sereda, Bunt Kirgizskogo sultana (1992 [1870]), 48. Ibid., 49. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 3, ll. 196-198. Kozybaev, Natsional’no-osvoboditel’naia bor’ba, 223. TsGA RK, f. 4, op. 1, d. 385, ll. 108-111 ob. TsGA RK, f. 374, op. 1, d. 4349, l. 10; Bekmakhanova, Rossiia i Kazakhstan. TsGA RK, f. 4, op. 1, d. 2328, ll. 170-171 ob. 167

Kenesary seized all of their livestock and other possessions, which sub684 sequently caused famine and the deaths of many people. Not only the unwillingness of some clans to pay taxes to Kenesary caused armed conflicts between the rebels and Kazakh tribes. One of the bloodiest and longest-lasting conflicts was between Kenesary and the tribal leader Dzhangozhda over Kasymov cutting off the nose of his own (Kasymov’s) wife – the daughter of Dzhangozhda’s younger brother Akmurza. When Dzhangozhda sent his warriors to steal 500 horses from Kenesary, the latter’s response was quick – Kenesary’s tulenguts stole 400 sheep from the auls of Akmurza. Then Akmurza and his horsemen stole another 300 horses from Kenesary. All of these raids were accompanied by murders of both attackers 685 and defenders. Though such clashes were not rare at the time of the rebellion, most of the tribal leaders maintained neutrality, waiting to see which side would win. When Kenesary invited the tribal leaders of Younger and Middle Hordes to join the rebellion, they answered, Russia is a powerful country. We cannot rise and wander with you. Even if we did, the little plot of land between Russia and Kokand would not be able to feed our people. That is why we will wait until you get stronger. Meanwhile, we will remain the sub686 jects of Russia. When the Russian authorities asked the leaders of the Elder Horde to join the Tsarist army to crush the rebellion, the answer was similar in tone: Kenesary is our blood relative, but we know his personality. He is a hungry wolf. If he came to us, he would plunder a hundred auls. Can we love him and join him? No! But at the same time none of us will fight against him. We swore to be loyal to Russia, but not 687 to fight against our blood relative. As the answers demonstrate, most of the tribal leaders wished to fight neither Kenesary nor Russian forces. Another response to the rebellion by okrug and clan leaders was asking 684 685 686 687 168

Sereda, Bunt Kirgizskogo sultana (1992 [1870]), 105. TsGA RK, f. 4, op.1, d. 2328, ll. 30-32 ob. Kenesarin, Sultany Kenesary, 19. Kasymbaev, Poslednii pokhod, 57-58.

Russian authorities for assistance against the rebels. On 12 February 1825, Tursun Chingisov informed the Chief of the Omsk Oblast’, Bronevskoi, that Sarzhan had attacked peaceful auls and robbed caravans traveling from Semipalatinsk to Tashkent. Tursun asked the Omsk authorities to send a Cossack detachment with two cannons to defend his auls and bring peace to the 688 steppe. Elder sultans or other major leaders of Kazakhs were by no means the only people who asked the Russian authorities for protection. At the beginning of 1840, biis Karomurzin, Tekebaev, and aul elder Kunakaev asked the Border Chief of the Siberian Kirgiz to send Cossacks to their aul to restore order there, adding that the meeting of their request “would give them the 689 greatest pleasure.” At times, the Kazakhs’ request for Russian troops meant punishment from Kenesary, as happened to the auls of Tenalin when Kenesarians drove away all the livestock of these auls as punishment for request690 ing Russian protection. Not only did the sultans and clan leaders who were the subjects of Russia ask Russian authorities to send troops to their auls to protect them from the raids of the rebels. The sultan of “foreign” Kazakhs, Kuchuk Khantozhin, made a 100-mile trip to Semipalatinsk to ask the local administration to send 20 Cossacks to his auls to protect them from the raids of “unpeaceful Kazakhs.” In order to persuade the Russian authorities of the seriousness of his intentions, the sultan promised to give the Cossacks lodgings and provide them 691 with food. As this example shows, the Kasymovs did a good service for Tsarist officials by pushing previously independent tribes into the sphere of influence of the Russian government. Kazakhs who suffered from Kasymov’s raids quite often joined forces with Cossacks who were sent to protect them. After learning that Sarzhan Kasymov drove 2,000 horses away from Kazakhs who were loyal to Russia, and captured seven people, Cossack Hundreder Potanin asked the Commander of the Siberian Cossack Army to send a detachment of 30 Cossacks and, with 200 Kazakhs under the command of Sultan Kunur Khudaimendin, he attacked the rebels. Three Cossacks were wounded and one pro-Russian Kazakh was killed, but the retaliation attack was considered to be a success, since 692 horses and prisoners were recaptured. 688 689 690 691 692

TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 409, ll. 6-7, 12, 14. TsGA RK, f. 374, op. 1, d. 340, l. 1. TsGA RK, f. 374, op. 1, d. 3994, ll. 4-5. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 424, ll. 3-3ob. GAOO, f. 67, op.1, d. 248, ll. 56 ob.-58. 169

This analysis of the composition of the rebels and the reaction of many clan leaders to the revolt demonstrates two important points. First, the idea that Kenesary was able to gain mass support and that he was “an extremely popular figure who commanded great devotion both during his life and after693 ward” cannot be supported by evidence. Second, his rebellion was by no means directed at the restoration of the traditional Kazakh way of life. His blood relatives, tulenguts, outcasts, runaway prisoners, and prisoners of war – that is, the people who formed his army – had one thing in common. They did not belong to the traditional Kazakh tribal structure based on kin. They were either above or under it, or simply outsiders. Those who were interested in the maintenance of traditional institutions of power – leaders of clans – either remained neutral or fought against Kenesary. Breaking traditional structures, rather than restoration, was Kenesary’s aim. Kenesary’s ambitions were the main driving force of the rebellion. The War Minister of Russia wrote in his letter to the Orenburg Military Governor that he did not have any doubts that many of the Kazakh clans supported Kenesary against their will. Fear of his revenge was the only force that kept them from breaking with Kasymov. In his words, “as soon as Kenesary is gone, these Kazakhs will return to their peaceful and loyal feel694 ings to the Russian government.” The Minister was right in his predictions. As soon as Kenesary perished in a fight against the Kirgyz, the end of the re695 bellion was quickly achieved. Kazakh society lacked any force able or willing to continue the revolt in the absence of Kenesary.

Explanations of the Reasons for Kenesary’s Raids against Kazakhs Most post-Soviet Kazakhstani historians ignore the fact that Kenesary quite often made raids against those Kazakh tribes that were reluctant to recognize his authority. They do not even try to explain these facts, since they definitely do not support their theory of “a popular, national-liberation movement” that was supported by all Kazakhs. Another way of whitewashing the “heroic” name of Kenesary is to argue that, though there were pillages and killings on the steppe at the time of his revolt, he had nothing to do with them. “During the fight for the freedom of the steppe some small groups of Kazakhs used 693 Olcott, The Kazakhs, 45, 65. 694 TsGA RK, f. 4, op. 1, d. 2232, ll. 312-313. 695 Sabol, “Kazakh Resistance,” 26. 170

the name of Kenesary for taking livestock from their countrymen by force. 696 These people were not connected with the rebels.” Some scholars, however, try to answer the question asked by Sabol: “If, indeed, it was a national-liberation revolt, how does one explain the interne697 cine conflict that pit clan against clan, Kazakh against Kazakh?” Why did Kenesary conduct more raids against Kazakh auls than against Russian settlements and kill more Kazakhs than Cossacks? Zh. Kasymbaev appeals to the reader not to believe the stories of the cruelty of Kenesary because it was the aim of Russian propaganda to damage the reputation of Kenesary and make 698 Kazakhs afraid of him. However the next page of his book presents quite a different perspective. The author recognizes that Kenesary committed atrocities. The “noble aim” of his undertaking, however, excuses “the not very just 699 actions” committed by him against his compatriots. Aubakirova recognizes the facts of Kenesary’s attacks against Kazakhs disloyal to him. In her view, these attacks are nothing more than “political 700 mistakes.” R. Soboleva shares this point of view, calling Kenesary’s attacks on peaceful auls “a large political blunder made by Kenesary.” She finds the problem in Kenesary’s personality: “Unfortunately, unlike his grandfather, Kenesary was a military leader, not a politician. Emotions often prevailed 701 over sober reasoning.” Sereda agrees that the personality, not the political program, of Kenesary was responsible for his clashes with Kazakh tribes: “If Kenesary was less careless, tactless, and less inclined to commit atrocities, he could have unified all three Hordes and became a powerful Khan of the 702 steppe.” Unlike the aforementioned authors, Valikhanov justifies Kenesary’s military actions directed against his compatriots by the need to inculcate in the minds of Kazakhs the idea of a united struggle against colonialism. 703 Kenesary used arms as the means of this political education. Valikhanov finds nothing wrong with Kenesary’s actions. V. Z. Galiev gives the explanation closest to reality of Kenesary’s attacks on the auls of Kazakhs. The author recognizes the fact that the rebellion was 696 697 698 699 700 701 702 703

Kozybaev, Natsional’no-osvoboditel’naia bor’ba, 19. Sabol, “Kazakh Resistance,” 34. Kasymbaev, Poslednii pokhod, 171. Ibid., 172. Aubakirova, “Uchastie sibirskogo kazachestva,” 97. Soboleva, Introduction, 9. Sereda, Bunt Kirgizskogo sultana (1992 [1870]), 163. Valikhanov, “Politicheskaia deiatel’nost’,” 48. 171

not universally accepted in the steppe and that Kenesary’s raids against his compatriots were not accidental, arguing that “the very attempt by Kenesary to create a centralized state made the physical elimination of disloyal clan 704 chiefs and their auls unavoidable.” Galiev’s statement implies that clan leaders were not content with Kenesary’s policy. If the rebellion was aimed at the restoration of the traditional political and social structures of Kazakh society, why then were traditional clan leaders so unenthusiastic about giving their support to Kenesary’s cause? To answer this question, we need to explore the reforms introduced by Kenesary on the territories he controlled and whether or not they were in the interests of the traditional clan leaders.

Kenesary’s Modernizing Activity and Traditional Kazakh Ways According to post-Soviet Kazakhstani historians, the most radical aim of 705 Kenesary was “the restoration of ancient Kazakh statehood.” Restoration of traditional statehood and the liberation of the steppe from Russian influence are considered by these historians to be two sides of the same coin. Sabol, however, made an attempt to separate these two aims. Although he does not consider the rebellion to be a national-liberation rebellion, he insists that Kenesary aimed to reassert the traditional authority of the khan. Sabol is not alone in his belief that, prior to the inclusion of the Kazakh steppe into the Russian Empire, Kazakhstan was a unified country with a central government ruled by an authoritative khan, which was destroyed by imperial forces. Valikhanov states that the Kazakh aristocracy chose Kenesary to stir the “healthy forces of society” in order to claim complete authority over the steppe “according to the wishes of their ancestors, according to the tradi706 tions.” There is no doubt that Kenesary considered himself the khan of all Kazakhs, enjoying total authority over his subjects: “As my grandfather was the 707 khan of the entire steppe, all Kazakhs belong to me.” More than once did Kenesary claim that he was the only sultan of the steppe, and his aim was to 704 V. Z. Galiev, Dvizhushchie sily narodno-osvoboditel’noi bor’by pod predvoditel’stvom Kenesary Kasymova, Ablai – Kenesary (Almaty: Gylym, 2001), 108. 705 Kozybaev, Natsional’no-osvoboditel’naia bor’ba, 10; M. Koigeldiev, “Rebellion of Kenesary Kasymov in a Context of Anti-Colonial Movement of the Peoples of Central Asia,” Otan Tarikhy 3 (2002): 14. 706 Valikhanov, “Politicheskaia deiatel’nost’,” 44. 707 Bekmakhanov, Kazakhstan v 20-40 gody (1992 [1947]), 280. 172

708

unify all three Hordes under his leadership. Were his claims, however, justified by tradition? Were Kazakh khans as omnipotent as both Kenesary and Kazakhstani historians state? Primary sources indicate that, prior to his country becoming a protectorate of Russia, a khan could exercise significant influence only over his own tribe. Sultans (the chiefs of uluses) of other tribes often had more power than 709 the khan did and were in the position to circumscribe his authority. A. Semenov gives the following description of the structure of traditional Kazakh society: Every Kirgiz tribe (ulus) is divided into several small communities called auls. In the earlier times these communities were frequently fighting each other over pastures. They were completely independent and recognized no authorities over them, with the exception of their sultans and elders (the chiefs of auls). Skirmishes 710 between uluses, auls, and families were a frequent phenomenon. Even within his own ulus, the khan could not command absolute authority. Sedel’nikov noticed that prior to 1731 “the Kirgiz accepted the khan’s rule 711 only as long as his interests coincided with the interests of the aul elders.” The notes of travelers and Tsarist officials support Semenov’s opinion of the limited authority of a khan. Ivan Andreev calls Kazakhs “a people without any authority over them.” 712 Vasilii Grigor’ev asserts that nowhere else in the world had leaders and ar713 istocracy so little meaning as the Kazakh khans and sultans. Rychkov defines the type of government in the steppe as a democratic one. According to him, people followed the orders of their khans only when they either attack their neighbors or try to defend their pastures from some outside threats. 714 Krasovskii explains the inability of a khan to prevent Kazakhs of his Horde from attacking Russian settlements or robbing caravans by the fact that people of some tribes just did not consider the khan to have any authority 708 709 710 711

TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 6, ll. 198-199 ob. Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier, 13,31. A. Semenov, Sredniaia Aziia (Moscow, 1911), 21. A. N. Sedel’nikov, “Istoricheskie sud’by Kirgizskogo kraia i kul’turnye ego uspekhi,” in Rossiia, ed. Semenov, 144. 712 Andreev, Opisanie Srednei Ordy (1998 [1789]), 32. 713 V. Grigor’ev, “The Russian Policy Regarding Central Asia. An Historical Sketch,” in Turkistan, ed. Eugene Schuyler, vol. 2 (St. Petersburg, 1877), 405. 714 Asfendiarov, Proshloe Kazakhstana (1997 [1935]), 229. 173

715

over their actions and decisions. Pallas informs the reader that the only way for the Khan of the Younger Horde to achieve the subordination of his people 716 was to accompany his orders with gifts. The title of khan itself did not ensure either prestige or respect from other Kazakhs, and often various Kazakh nobles (sultans) “commanded far more 717 power and authority than did their khans.” A khan was not supposed to interfere in the affairs of other uluses ruled by sultans. The title of a khan was not hereditary; sultans chose a successor among themselves. More often than not the khan’s authority over the uluses was not more than nominal. The khans in their letters to the Russian frontier administration frequently com718 plained of the unruliness of their subjects. The weakness of the khan’s authority over the nomads is reflected in the fact that the demands of Russian authorities to extradite nomads suspected of committing raids on Russian settlements often remained unanswered. A Russian traveler described a case when, in response to the demand of the Russian administration to return Russians captured by Kazakhs, Ablai Khan asked the Russian governor to send a military expedition to the steppe to help release the captured. Ablai Khan wanted this expedition to inflict severe punishment on the “thieving tribe” not only for their raid on the Russian settlement, but also for insubordination to his own rule (pust’ i tebia boiatsia i menia 719 znaiut). Given the above accounts, it is legitimate to suggest that Kenesary’s policy was not aimed at the restoration of the traditional political system. The khan’s lack of authority and Kazakhs’ disrespect for the titles of sultan and khan were salient features of traditional Kazakh society. In contrast to the weakness of the khan's authority, the orders of the clan leader had in the eyes 720 of clan members the power of a law. The prominent pre-revolutionary historian I. I. Kraft spoke of the importance of the clan for Kazakhs and their ab721 solute submission to the will of a clan leader. His statement is supported by the observation of the Russian doctor S. Bol’shoi, who spent several years in 715 716 717 718

Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 70. Asfendiarov, Proshloe Kazakhstana (1997 [1935]), 229. Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier, 31. G. N. Potanin, O karavannoi torgovle s Dzhungarskoi Bukhariei v XVIII stoletii (Moscow: Universitetskaia tipografiia na Strastnom bul’vare, 1868), 85. 719 Ibid. 720 Chuvakov, “Deistvuiushchee Polozhenie,” 26. 721 Kraft, Sbornik uzakonenii, 21. 174

Kazakh captivity and noticed that the power of a wealthy clan leader by far 722 surpassed that of a sultan or a khan. Tsarist officials found the reason for the Kazakhs’ disrespect of their khans in their traditional nomadic way of life, 723 which allowed them to easily escape central control. Kenesary was not content with this situation, since the establishment of central control over all Kazakhs was his ultimate goal. He tried to curtail the traditional freedom of Kazakhs and the authority of clan leaders by appointing his representatives, esauls, who were also called Kenesary’s emissaries, to certain tribes. They were to administer the collection of taxes, determine the territories for pastures, and ensure that the tribal leaders obeyed the orders of 724 the Khan. Those who did not obey Kenesary’s orders were severely punished. “For any mistake or disobedience committed by Kenesary’s follower, 725 the Khan hits him on his head with a saber one or two times.” This policy cannot be considered the continuation or restoration of the traditional power of khans in society, one of the most distinct features of 726 which was “the weakness of central political authority.” Great khans of the past could unite Kazakhs only for short periods of time to fight against a com727 mon enemy. George Demko also points out that an outside threat was the only factor that could allow a khan to impose his authority over the people of 728 the Horde. In Olcott’s view, khans were no more than military leaders, which did not mean much during times of peace, since Kazakhs did not maintain standing armies. It was the clan leaders and elders, not the khans, who 729 had dominant influence over the people of the steppe. The acceptance of the Russian protectorate did not change the situation. Mikhail Khodarkovsky argues that in the 18th century the title of khan could 730 not guarantee respect from other Kazakhs. Khans themselves complained to the Russian government that they were khans only in name, since they did 731 not have any authority over Kazakhs. The story of Muravin and Glady722 S. Bol’shoi, “Zapiski doktora Savvy Bol’shogo o prikliucheniiakh ego v plenu u kigizkaisakov v 1803 i 1804 godakh s zamechaniiami o kirgiz-kaisatskoi stepi,” Syn Otechestva, no. 80 (St. Petersburg, 1822): 58. 723 Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1964), 145. 724 Bekmakhanov, Kazakhstan v 20-40 (1992 [1947]), 283. 725 Ibid. 726 Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier, 30. 727 Bacon, Central Asians, 37. 728 Demko, The Russian Colonization, 26. 729 Olcott, The Kazakhs, 14, 15. 730 Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier, 31. 731 Ibid., 153. 175

shev’s expedition to the Khan of the Younger Horde, Abul Khair, illustrates the weakness of the position of khan in the steppe. The purpose of the expedition was to determine the location for the construction of the Orenburg fortress. Abul Khair promised to protect the expedition and ordered the Kazakhs not to attack it on its way. The expedition, however, was attacked, plundered, and two Cossacks who accompanied it were captured. The attackers of the expedition explained their actions in terms of the fact that Abul Khair did not have any authority over them. It is interesting to note that the attack oc732 curred just 100 miles away from the headquarters of Abul Khair. This example demonstrates that the traditional authority of a khan did not extend beyond his own clan. Kenesary’s claims to authority over all people of the steppe, supported by the appointment of emissaries as the representatives of central power, curbed the traditional authorities of clan leaders, changing the balance of power between them and the Khan.

Kenesary’s Tax Collection The authority that Kenesary claimed to have over the people of the steppe manifested itself in his collection of taxes from the people he considered his 733 subjects. According to Sereda, the tax collection levied on the Kazakhs allowed Kenesary to have enough food and ammunition for his army. If some 734 tribe refused to pay the tax, Kenesary’s people took it by force. Both nomadic and agricultural people of the territory he controlled were ordered to 735 pay him taxes. The amount of the ziaket – the tax from livestock breeders – constituted one-twentieth of all livestock, compared with the one-hundredth collected by the Russian government. Those who refused to pay the tax were 736 considered enemies and, thus, were severely punished. Did Kenesary follow traditional norms in this respect? The answer to this question is definitely negative. According to the Russian emissary to the Younger Horde, Tevkelev, in the 1730s, “from the nomadic Kirgiz-Kaisaks [the 18th-century term for “Kazakhs”] to the khans no tribute is gathered nor is required, but only that which pleases them [is collected] as there are few 732 Muravin, Gladyshev, Poezdka iz Orska v Khivu i obratno, sovershennaia v 1740 – 1741 godakh poruchikom Gladyshevym i geodezistom Muravinym (St. Petersburg, 1851), 8. 733 Natsional’no-osvoboditel’naia bor’ba, 18. 734 Sereda, Bunt Kirgizskogo sultana (1992 [1870]), 73. 735 Artykbaev, Istoriia Kazakhstana, 99. 736 Bekmakhanov, Kazakhstan v 20-40 gody (1992 [1947]), 241. 176

who would give and none who could take it from those who were unwilling.” Petr Rychkov writes about the sources of income of other khans: “Neither khans nor sultans collect any taxes from the common people. Freely given gifts, their own livestock, and war booty are the only sources of the khan’s 737 income.” Another 19th-century author adds, “Their khans cannot demand anything from their people; on the contrary, they have to give them presents 738 in order to ensure their loyalty.” As well as with the attempt to strengthen the power of the Khan, the introduction of taxes contradicted traditional Kazakh ways. As the example of Kenesary’s clashes with the Zhappas clan shows, this violation of traditional customs caused the resistance of, at least, some Kazakhs.

Legal System Kenesary made an attempt to change the traditional legal system as well. First, he began to appoint judges. Only those biis who had permission from 739 Kenesary could mete out justice. Bekmakhanov quotes an order given by Kenesary to tribal leaders: “I inform you, that all quarrels, fights, and murders committed among you will be judged by the appointed Sultan Seid Khan and 740 Bii Chukmar.” This policy clearly violated both the traditional position of the khan in Kazakh society and the traditional legal norms. Prior to Kenesary, 741 the khans could neither mete out justice nor appoint biis. According to tradition, the people of the steppe called on anyone whom they trusted to judge 742 743 their disputes. There was no centralized court. Traditional steppe courts that meted out justice were popular not only among Kazakhs, but also among Russians residing in the steppe, who frequently addressed their disputes to 744 the court of the biis. Khans themselves were not exempt from being brought to trial. Rychkov describes the case when Khan Nurali had to pay 745 damages to a Kazakh who was wounded by the Khan’s tulenguts. In short, the traditional system of justice was independent from the khans’ will. Kenesary endeavored to end this independence. 737 738 739 740 741 742 743 744 745

Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 7. Asfendiarov, Proshloe Kazakhstana, 2nd ed., 306. Artykbaev, Istoriia Kazakhstana, 99. Bekmakhanov, Kazakhstan v 20-40 gody (1992 [1947]), 283. Masevich, Materialy po istorii, 265; Kuzembaiuly, Istoriia Respubliki Kazakhstan, 118. Bacon, Central Asians, 98. Apollova, Khoziaistvennoe osvoenie, 33. Masevich, Materialy po istorii, 265. Asfendiarov, Proshloe Kazakhstana, 2nd ed., 234. 177

Another of Kenesary’s legal reforms was the substitution of the Kazakh customary law, the Adat, with the Muslim Shari’ah. According to S. Iushkov, 746 the aim of this reform was to introduce uniformity in the steppe. In the author’s opinion, unlike the Shari’ah, the Adat had regional variations and could not serve the unification of all Hordes into one state. One of the cases where the Adat came into a bitter conflict with the Shari’ah was on the issue of a remarriage of a widow. According to the Adat, when a man died, his younger brother or another relative was supposed to marry the widow, even 747 without her permission. The Head of the Omsk Mosque, Mukhamet Sharif Abrakhimov, in his report to the Omsk Oblast’ Administration, wrote that this tradition went against the laws of the Koran. According to Abrakhimov, the Kazakhs’ neglect of the laws of the Koran led to skirmishes between Kazakhs of different clans. Thus, he asked the Russian government to aid in imposing Islamic law on the Kazakhs so that “they would live happily, 748 without attacking each other.” Unlike Kenesary, the Russian administration was quite reluctant to substitute the traditional Kazakh system of justice with the Islamic one. In his report to Abrakhimov, the Omsk Governor not only refused to impose Muslim law on the Kazakhs, since their response to the breaking of their century-old traditions could be rather explosive, but also 749 prohibited Muslim officials from becoming involved in Kazakh affairs. Kenesary did not worry about keeping Kazakh traditions intact. The interests of having a centralized state preempted preserving the old ways. And as long as these traditions were incompatible with the aims of centralization, conflict between the modernizer Kenesary and traditional clan leaders was unavoidable. Kenesary’s anti-traditionalist attitude could have considerably diminished the Kazakhs’ support for him. As the non-political immediate cause of the rebellion, the absence of mass support for Kenesary’s cause, and the dominance of tribal over national identity in Kazakh society in the first half of the 19th century demonstrate, the rebellion was not national-liberating. Neither was the revolt a “protest of restoration.” Kenesary’s attempt to break up traditional norms of life, the most important features of which were the power and independence of clan leaders, the absence of obligations, the traditional Adat system to mete out jus746 T. M. Kul’teleev, ed., Materialy po Kazakhskomu obychnomu pravu (Almaty: Zhalyn Baspazy, 1998), 6. 747 TsGA RK, f. 338, d. 325; Masevich, Materialy po istorii, 153. 748 TsGA RK, f. 338, d. 325. 749 Ibid. 178

tice, and the absence of central institutions of power, forced many Kazakhs to seek Russian protection against his modernizing effort. It is difficult to determine with much degree of precision the source of Kenesary’s modernizing idea. All the countries bordering the Kazakh steppe at that time possessed some elements of centralization (more in the case of Russia and China, much less in the case of the Central Asian khanates). Since formal inclusion into the Russian Empire by no means severed the ties between Kazakhs and the people of these countries, which since 1734 were defined as “foreign,” Kenesary could have taken any of them as a model for his building of a Kazakh state. Besides, Kenesary was not the first Kazakh leader who made an attempt to enhance his power at the expense of that of other clan elders. In many ways, Kenesary’s policy on the territories which he controlled was close to that of the sultan of the Younger Horde, Aryngazy. At the beginning of the 19th century, the named sultan undertook several measures to limit the traditional authority of clan leaders and to establish his personal rule over the steppe. In 1816, Aryngazy issued a decree with which all clan leaders were deprived of their traditional right to give orders to their clansmen. To enforce this policy and to ensure that the Kazakh tribes paid him taxes, Aryngazy appointed his representatives, called esauls, to each of 750 the auls. Another measure aimed at establishing centralized control was the appointment by Aryngazy of judges to rule over Kazakh matters. This step violated traditional Kazakh legal practices in two ways. First, prior to Aryngazy, sultans or khans did not appoint judges. It was left to common Kazakhs to decide who of them would resolve the conflict. Second, traditional Kazakh judges followed the Adat in their practices. Aryngazy’s appointees, on the 751 contrary, used Shari’ah law. In spite of the similarities between Aryngazy and Kenesary’s policies, the former does not receive much attention in the works of post-Soviet Kazakhstani historians. I see the explanation for this phenomenon in the fact that, unlike Kenesary, Aryngazy did not take an anti-Russian stand. On the contrary, he demonstrated his loyalty to Russia by protecting caravans and handing over to Russian authorities Kazakh criminals involved in robberies. By doing this, he hoped to receive Russian assistance for establishing control over those Kazakhs who were under the jurisdiction of the Khan of Khiva. Aryngazy’s hostile actions towards the Khivians provoked tensions between 750 Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 36, 298. 751 Ibid., 378. 179

Russia and this Central Asian khanate. At the beginning of 1820, the Khivian 752 army plundered the auls of Aryngazy and captured his close relatives. In response, Aryngazy gathered Kazakhs loyal to him and attacked those Kazakhs who participated in the Khivian raid. In this attack, he used the assistance of the Cossacks, who accompanied a Russian mission to Bukhara. Russian authorities realized that a large-scale conflict with Khiva was not in their interests since it could exacerbate commercial relations with the Central Asian 753 khanates. Under the pretext of elevating Aryngazy to the status of khan, the imperial leaders invited him to St. Petersburg in 1821, where he was arres754 ted and exiled to Kaluga, dying there twelve years later. Since these developments, which preceded the Kenesary insurgency by only fifteen years, were still fresh in the people’s memory, they could have become a model for Kenesary’s activity. It can be argued that Kenesary relied on most of Aryngazy’s ideas of establishing a unified and centralized state, at the same time avoiding the use of Russia as his ally. His predecessor’s experience may have taught him a valuable lesson – that Russia was not interested in strengthening the position of one person of the steppe regardless of how loyal he was to St. Petersburg. Kenesary’s insurgency was also responsible for making the Russian administration change its position regarding peasant settlement in the steppe. Prior to the rebellion, both the Omsk and Orenburg authorities held back the colonization of the steppe, invariably turning down the numerous requests of Tartar and Russian peasants to settle in the Kazakh steppe. The motivation 755 for their refusal was the need to preserve peaceful relations with Kazakhs 756 and to limit the number of Cossacks settled in the steppe to 100 per okrug. On the other hand, the period after the rebellion witnessed the mass migra757 tion of peasants and Cossacks to the areas that used to belong to Kazakhs.

752 753 754 755

Ibid., 38. Ibid., 438. Ibid., 495. Or, as it was formulated in the Siberian Committee’s report, “not to cause different suspicions among the people of the steppe.” See TsGA RK, f. 338, d. 196. 756 TsGA RK, f.338, op. 1, d. 797, l. 10. 757 The Decree of 1846 ordered Siberian Cossacks to settle in the steppe. In addition to them, 5,000 Ukrainian peasants were allowed to build houses and start farming on Kazakh lands. As a result, 13 settlements were shortly established. By 1904 the number of Russian and Ukrainian peasants in the steppe exceeded 140,000. See Katanaev, Kirgizskii vopros, 10. 180

The Russian government began to see the peasants’ colonization of the steppe as the surest method to pacify Kazakhs. Kenesary’s rebellion became one of those events which, according to A. Shemanskii, persuaded the Russian government that only the total subjugation of the nomads and the migration of peasants onto their territories could 758 guarantee the security of Russia’s southern borders. Rather than halting the Russian southward expansion and weakening the Russian position in the steppe (an idea that is very popular in the recent works of Kazakhstani histor759 ians), Kasymov’s rebellion created conditions favorable both for the establishment of Russian authority in northern and eastern Kazakhstan and for further Russian expansion into the southern regions of Kazakhstan and Cent760 ral Asia.

758 Shemanskii, “Voennaia istoriia,” 121. 759 Valikhanov, “Politicheskaia deiatel’nost’,” 48; Akishev, Istoriia Kazakhstana, 203. 760 The previously independent Elder Horde accepted Russian protectorate in the period between 1845 and 1847. See P. P. Semenov, Kirgiz-Kaisaki (St. Petersburg, 1865). 181

Chapter Four The Aims of the Russian Imperial State in the Steppe

An Ideological Explanation for Russian Eastward Expansion The historians who depict the history of Russian-native encounters beyond the Urals as a story of confrontation, separation, and subjugation often emphasize ideological rather than pragmatic reasons for the Russian eastward expansion. The idea of ideologically motivated Russian expansionism emerged in the late imperial period of Russian history, dominated the late Russian tsarist and American historiography of the Cold War era, and is prevalent in the writings of post-Soviet Kazakhstani historians. Henry Huttenbach defined the religious factor as one of the most important driving forces of Russian expansion. In his words, Russians considered themselves more as Orthodox Christians than Slavs. That makes it quite natural that military actions were “cloaked in the guise of a Christian crusade” against the nations of other reli761 gions. The Russians not only expanded living space for themselves, but extended the territory of Orthodox Christianity. The zeal for expansion born of religious messianism is, according to Huttenbach, a peculiarity of Russian ex762 pansionism. In Hans Kohn’s words, each imperialism has its peculiarities depending on 763 “geographic features, on historical traditions, on social structures.” To support his argument, he compares the growth of the Russian Empire to the territorial expansion of former British colonies in North America. In both cases growing countries included territories “sparsely populated by nomadic or 764 semi-nomadic groups.” Both types of expansion had an ideological character. The ideologies were, however, different. “The American ideology was based mainly on the ideas of the Enlightenment; the Russian was based on 765 Orthodox Christianity and the rejection of the Enlightenment.” This differ761 Henry R. Huttenbach, “The Origins of Russian Imperialism,” in Russian Imperialism, ed. Hunczak, 25. 762 Ibid., 26-31. 763 Hans Kohn, Introduction, in Russian Imperialism, ed. Hunczak, 6. 764 Ibid., 13-14. 765 Ibid., 14. 182

ence in ideologies caused the emergence of very different societies on the acquired territories. According to Kohn, the Russian Empire formed a closed society, hostile to outsiders, whereas “[the] United States on the whole was a nation of open gateways, and millions from abroad participated in the vast 766 forward movement with its beckoning opportunities.” In Kohn’s view, the continuity between the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union was preserved first of all in the survival of an anti-democratic ideology. Stalin’s “semi-Oriental despotism” is perceived by Kohn as “a 767 throwback in some ways to the times of Ivan IV.” Oscar Halecki supports this point of view, arguing that the motivations which dictated post-World War II Soviet policy in Eastern and Central Europe, were basically the same as those responsible for the expansion of Muscovy since as early as the 15th 768 century. What consequences could the ideological nature of Russian expansion have for the character of society established on the borderlands? First of all, the ideological explanation of the Russian acquisition of the Kazakh steppe minimizes the opportunities for the cultural interchange between the “Knights of Orthodoxy,” who came “to carry the Gospel across Siberia to the end of the universe,” and the “barbaric heathens” of the steppe. Second, it tends to maximize the antagonism between representatives of Russian culture who came to impose their ideas and natives who quite naturally resisted this imposition. Thus, the ideological explanation of the expansions fits very well in the theories of those historians who consider the Russian frontier as a zone of separation and the encounter between the newcomers and aboriginals as “a battle of civilizations.” Post-Cold War Western historians, however, downplay the importance of ideological factors in the Russian expansion, instead emphasizing pragmatic reasons, first of all the development of trade, as the most important force 769 which drove Russians eastward into the Kazakh steppes. Emanuel Sarkisyanz argues that Russian imperial expansion was “pragmatically rather than ideologically motivated,” and “the last occasion on which Russian religious enthusiasm had a decisive influence on offensive warfare may have been the 766 Ibid., 15. 767 Ibid, 16. 768 Oscar Halecki, “Imperialism in Slavic and East European History,” American Slavic and East European Review, 11 (October, 1952): 1-26. 769 Olcott, The Kazakhs, 28. 183

770

conquest of Tatar Kazan by Ivan the Terrible in 1552.” In Geoffrey Wheeler and Martha Olcott’s view, Russian objectives in the region were “the development of Central Asian trade by the establishment of a defended line of com771 munication reaching to the frontiers of India.” Wheeler, however, recognizes that “Russian intentions with regard to the Kazakh steppe do not seem 772 to have been clearly formulated.” This aspect, along with the frequent proclamations of imperial statesmen that “Russia was advancing into Asia to spread the blessing of civilization” probably prevented historians from coming to a singular conclusion on Russian objectives in the region which would be 773 universally accepted.

Russian Objectives in the Acquisition of the Kazakh Steppe In order to understand Russian state policy towards the natives of the steppe, which to a certain extent determined the character of the society established on the acquired territories, we need to analyze Russia’s objectives in the acquisition of the territories south of the Irtysh River. This chapter answers the question of what made Russia seek the inclusion of the steppe into the empire and how her objectives in the region determined imperial policy towards the Kazakhs. I side with those historians who emphasize the pragmatic objectives of the Russian state in the acquisition of the steppe, and challenge the ideological explanation by giving a list of reasons which made the Russian authorities consider the inclusion of the steppe as an action benevolent to the interests of the empire. Among these reasons I underline the following: the need for the security of the Russian settlements in Siberia and the interest in establishing trade links with India, China, and Central Asian khanates through the steppe.

The Absence of Missionary Activity Contrary to the belief of post-Soviet Kazakhstani historians, who state that the aim of Russian policy in Kazakhstan was “Russification and forced con774 version to Christianity,” the Russian authorities were quite reluctant to al775 low Kazakhs to convert to Christianity, let alone forcing them to baptize. 770 771 772 773 774 775 184

Sarkisyanz, “Russian Imperialism,” 51-52. Wheeler, “Russian Conquest,” 267; Olcott, The Kazakhs, 28. Wheeler, “Rusian Conquest,” 267. Sarkisyanz, “Russian Imperialism,” 48. Abdirov, “Voenno-Kazach’ia,” 292. Kusaiynuly, Chitaia dokumenty, 17. M. Tynyshpaev gave a very dramatic description,

Rather than promoting the spread of Christianity to the steppe, the Russian government tried to strengthen the position of Islam among the Kazakhs, considering it to be a stabilizing factor which could bring peace and order to 776 the steppe. Catherine the Great, for example, ordered the building of mosques for the Kazakhs, the distribution of Korans, and the importation of mullahs from 777 Kazan. The introduction and even the imposition of Islam in the steppe by Russians sometimes acquired extreme forms. According to Bilial Aspandiiarov, there were cases when Cossacks forced Kazakhs to go to mosque on 778 pain of corporal punishment. In the minds of imperial leaders of that time, 779 the spread of Islam was to ensure native loyalty and obedience to the empire. The state also took measures to prevent the Russian Orthodox Church from engaging in the conversion of Kazakhs. Catherine II prohibited the proselytizing activity of the Orthodox Church on the steppe in 1767. A century later, Alexander II forbade the Orthodox Church from sending missionaries to 780 Central Asia. The Governor General of Siberia, M. Speranskii, considered the policy of religious toleration to be a measure towards bringing Kazakhs to Christianity. In his Statute, issued in 1822, he expressed a hope that “because the Kirgiz faith is more pagan than Muslim … their conversion to Christianity is possible.” In the same article he ordered the establishment of a mission on the steppe, prescribing its clergymen to persuade rather than coerce natives into 781 Christianity. Even this limited policy directed at bringing the Kazakhs into the realm of Christianity was short-lived. Eight years after the promulgation of Speranskii’s legislation, the Holy Synod refused permission to open missions on the steppe, stating that “it would be premature, as there were too

776

777 778 779 780 781

though unsupported by evidence, of the Russian religious policies in Kazakhstan. His work is filled with stories of “Kazakh children imprisoned behind the high walls of the Russian missions,” and “the tortures of Kazakh women for their unwillingness to convert to Christianity.” See M. Tynyshpaev, Istoriia Kazakhskogo naroda (Almaty: Sanat, 2002), 23. According to Robert Geraci, Catherine thought that Russian control over the steppe could be established “more readily in the presence of Islam than of the traditional religions of the steppe.” See Geraci, “Going abroad,” 280. Olcott shares this belief, arguing that, in the view of imperial officials, “Islam would serve as a civilizing force for the wild and unpredictable Kazakhs.” See Olcott, The Kazakhs, 47. Wheeler “Russian Conquest,” 282; Liubimov, “Religii i veroispovedal’nyi sostav,” 232. Bilial Aspandiiarov, Obrazovanie Bukeevskoi Ordy i ee likvidatsia (Alma-Ata, 1947), 23. Yaroshevskii, “Empire and Citizenship,” 66; Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier, 176. Geraci, “Going Abroad,” 281. PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 243. 185

many “pagan” vestiges in Kazakh religion for a Christian mission to be effect782 ive.” Of interest here is that both Speranskii and the Holy Synod mentioned the weakness of Islam in the steppe as a factor justifying their policies, which were at odds with each other. The first missionaries were sent out to the Kazakh steppe in 1883, that is 150 years after the steppe was officially recog783 nized as a part of the Russian Empire. Prior to the end of the 19th century, even foreign missionaries were more active in the steppe than the representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church. N. Kazantsev described the activities of the Scottish Protestant Mission, which was established not far from Orenburg fortress in 1815. Its attempt to convert Kazakhs to Christianity could hardly be described as successful. Though they taught several Orenburg Kazakhs the basic tenets of the Christian religion and managed to persuade them to convert to Christianity, this conversion was rather nominal. One example illustrates that. Not content with the numbers of their followers, the missionaries sent a cart loaded with Holy Bibles to the steppe in 1820. Their most trustworthy disciples were to accompany the cart and distribute the Bibles among the steppe Kazakhs. This mission turned out to be a complete failure. As soon as the new converts found themselves on the Kazakh side of the Line, they forgot about their duties, left the cart, and rode to the steppe. Very soon after this incident, the 784 Mission was closed. The Russian local frontier authorities were not less reluctant than the state to impose Christianity on the natives of the steppe. When in 1815 four Kazakhs who lived in the Russian fortress of Chernorechenskai asked the Frontier Commission to let them become Christians, the Commission not only turned their request down, but also ordered them to leave Russian territory 785 under the pretext that they could steal horses and escape to the steppe. Even the representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church on the frontier did not consider it necessary to take measures to bring Kazakhs to Christianity. According to Geraci’s observations, “the local clergy made no attempts whatsoever to convert Kazakhs; the only baptisms of non-Russians were those re786 quested specifically by those wishing to convert.” Contemporary authors criticized the Russian priests for their unwilling782 783 784 785 786 186

Geraci, “Going Abroad,” 281. Ibid., 285. Kazantsev, Opisanie Kirgiz-Kaisakov, 59. Dobromyslov, “Turgaiskaia Oblast’,” 229. Geraci, “Going Abroad,” 307.

ness to spread Christianity among the Kazakhs. Even those Kazakh children who were bought by the priests “for services” (dlia uslug) oftentimes re787 mained non-Christians. Women were a different story. The lack of women on the Line made the Russians convert to Christianity those women who either escaped from the steppe or were captured by Cossacks. Even a khan’s requests to return his female relatives were not answered. It happened, for example, in 1745 when the Siberian Administration turned down the request of the Ablai Khan to return the wives and daughters of his closest friends and 788 relatives, on the ground that they had already been converted to Christianity. Finally, the Russian employers of the Kazakhs opposed their conversion, since they were afraid that this conversion would “scare off Kazakh employees who were unwilling to convert; employers thus stood to lose their lowest789 paid group of laborers.” According to Geraci, this hostile attitude of the Russians to the conversion of their Kazakh employees made missionaries con790 duct their work in secret. As a result of the state’s unwillingness to support missionary activity, and the indifferent attitude of the local Russian authorities and the Church to the spread of Christianity, only a tiny minority of Kazakhs became Christians. A Russian ethnographer, analyzing the religious composition of the people populating the Kazakh Steppe on the eve of World War I, observed that the only source for the growth of Christians in the region was the influx of Russians to 791 the steppe. According to the data collected by Robert Geraci, the Kazakh Mission in Omsk diocese could boast of baptizing only 50 to 60 Kazakhs from 792 Islam per year in the last decade of the 19th century. To summarize the results of the activity of the Semipalatinsk Mission, M. Konshin called it “one of 793 the most useless institutions of the Semipalatinsk region.” The number of natives from Central Asia (including Kazakhs) who converted to Christianity proves this characteristic. According to Liubimov’s estimations, during the whole period of Russian rule over the regions, only 1,544 Central Asian nat794 ives became Christians. Robert Geraci and Michael Khodarkovsky attribute 787 788 789 790 791 792 793 794

Dobromyslov, “Turgaiskaia Oblast’,” 229. Potanin, Materialy dlia istorii, 142. Geraci, “Going Abroad,” 305. Ibid. Liubimov, “Religii,” 234. Geraci, “Going Abroad,” 291. M. Konshin, Chto mogut dat’ issledovateliu Semipalatinskie arkhivy (Semipalatinsk, 1929). Liubimov, “Religii,” 235. 187

the insignificance of the missionary activity on the part of the Russian state to the “financial shortages and a dearth of well-educated and enthusiastic personnel,” as well as higher officials’ desire to avoid the widespread opposition 795 of the natives, which attempts to convert them to Christianity could cause.

Ideological Explanation as the Reaction to Economic Failures The ideological explanation for Russians coming to Kazakhstan did not emerge until the 1870s. Of interest here is the interaction between the belief in the economic failure of the inclusion of the steppe, and substituting economic with ideological justification for this undertaking. The Colonel of the Russian Army M. Veniukov defined the inclusion of the steppe into the empire as “a fatal mistake” of the Russian government because it required huge expenditures to build new forts and lines with military garrisons. He wrote in 1873: “This acquisition has already cost us many millions of rubles and has 796 wasted tremendous human resources.” The calculations made by M. Terent’ev demonstrate that the Russian government spent as much as four million rubles for the maintenance of the administration in the steppe in 1868, and the income which the Treasury got from the region hardly exceeded 1.5 million rubles. This difference between spending and income reached four 797 million in 1869. According to Veniukov’s predictions, this situation was not going to change in the future. Do these statements mean that he criticized the policy of the government and considered the eastward expansion to be erroneous? The answer to this question is negative. Veniukov just marginalized the economy, stressing the ideological and political aspects of the inclusion: “The Russian people are representatives of the Arian race, which populated the lands from the Ob’ and the Irtysh to the Kharasan and Himalaya. Later, Mongols and Turks pushed them away from their lands. Now we see the restoration of historical justice in the return of Arians [Russians] to the lands 798 which rightfully belong to them.” Along with the racial justification, Veniukov gives a religious one: “Our coming to the east is a new step in the expansion of the Christian realm and its victory over Muslim barbarity, the libera795 Robert Geraci, Michael Khodarkovsky, “Introduction,” in Of Religion and Empire, eds. Geraci and Khodarkovsky. 796 Veniukov, Opyt voennogo obozreniia, 26. 797 Syzdykova, “Voprosy istorii,” 104. 798 Istoriia Kazakhstana (XVIII–nachalo XX vv.): Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Almaty: Kazak universiteti, 2001), 36. 188

tion of human personality from its absorption by the narrow dogmas of Is799 lam.” The ideological explanation as a central justification for imperial rule in the Kazakh steppe emerged at the time when it became obvious that the hopes for the riches which the Central Asian trade may bring to the state treasury turned to be futile. There was a short-lived revival of the hopes for economic prosperity of the region in the middle of the 1870s, when the Samara-Orenburg railroad was under construction. A contemporary of this event wrote the following lines: “The Orenburg railroad will connect Europe with Asia. This is a great event. The construction of the railroad will establish the basis for economic 800 development in our previously backward steppes.” The Orenburg City Council called the railroad construction not only “our national task,” but also an issue of all-European significance, as “it will open to Europe new markets for selling and exchanging goods. The present railway promises a shining fu801 ture to Russian industrial development.” The expectations, however, proved to be overoptimistic. There were no sufficient funds to maintain the railroad. Nobody cleaned the rails in the winter months and, as a result, the railway administration had to cut the number of trains in 1884. This new economic failure caused the reemergence of ideologically grounded explanations for the Russian colonization of the steppe. P. N. Stolpianskii wrote in 1906 that it was highly symbolic that Orenburg was built on the cemetery of the former owners of the country. According to him, it demonstrated the end of the reign of the heathen nomads and 802 the establishment of Russian Christian rule. It is of no coincidence that the authors writing about the ethnocentric or messianic ideology of expansion invariably mentioned the economic failures of the state in the region. Rather than being a driving force for expansion, the ideological explanation was used to divert public opinion away from the failure of the originally pragmatic plans for the acquisition of the steppe.

Tribute Collection and Russia’s Interest in Land Unlike the regions of Siberia acquired in earlier times, tribute collection was not among the factors that induced Russia to establish a protectorate over the 799 800 801 802

Ibid., 35. Stolpianskii, Iz proshlogo, 15 Ibid., 15-16. Ibid., 56. 189

steppe. Though the oath of allegiance, which Abul Khayir took in 1731, required Kazakhs to pay tribute in furs to Russian officials, this obligation was not 803 enforced. According to Martha Olcott, Anna Ioannovna considered the process of tribute collection to be “far more costly than the value of the tribute col804 lected,” and ordered tribute collectors “not to demand the iasak (tribute) pay805 ment, but to wait until the Kazakhs brought it voluntarily.” In some years, the tribute was not collected at all. Abul Khayir complained to Anna Ioannovna in 1734 that the Kazakhs did not obey him and refused to give any fox 806 pelts to the Russian government. Even in the years when tribute was collec807 ted, it did not exceed 3,000 fox pelts from both the Younger and Middle Hordes. Similarly, up to the end of the 19th century, the Russian state was not interested in the expropriation of Kazakh lands. Prior to that time, the number of Russian settlements was limited on both the Kazakh and Russian sides of the Line. T. O. Mich stated that the colonization of Omsk uezd started only after the construction of the western Siberian railroad. According to his estimations, the first Russian settlements in this uezd appeared in 1893. By 1896 there were twenty-three Russian settlements with a total population of eight 808 thousand people. The Russian presence was even less significant on the Kazakh side of the Line. According to statistical data collected in 1861, there 809 were only six Russian settlements in Semipalatinsk Oblast’. These settlements were nothing more than a drop in a sea, given the vastness of the steppe and the numbers of Kazakhs. The territory of the Semipalatinsk Oblast’ was about 300,000 square versts and the number of Kazakhs roaming this 810 vast territory was more than 250,000 people.

Security for the Siberian Settlements To a great extent, Russia’s policy of expansion during the first half of the 18th century pursued goals similar to those of the earlier Muscovite state. One of the greatest hazards which Muscovy faced was the constant attacks on its 803 804 805 806 807

Kuzembaev, Istoriia Respubliki, 162. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 32. Khodarkovsky “Ignoble Savages,” 16. Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1961), 121. V. Ia. Basin, “Kazakhstan v sisteme vneshnei politiki Rossii v pervoi polovine XVIII veka,” in Kazakhstan v XI-XVIII vekakh (Voprosy sotsial’no-politicheskoi istorii) (Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1969), 77. 808 T. O. Mich, “Koe-chto o kirgizakh Rossii,” Russkaia Zhizn’, no. 26 (December 2, 1896). 809 Potanin, “Zametki o Sibirskom,” 29. 810 Ibid. 190

eastern borders by nomadic tribes. The acquisition of sparsely populated regions called the “wild field” was necessary for Russia’s security and dictated Russian eastward expansion starting with the conquest of the Kazan khanate in the middle of the 16th century. The subsequent subjugation of the Tatar Kuchum Khanate of Siberia thirty years later did not mean that Russia’s eastern borders were secure from nomadic raids. Bashkirs and Kalmyks continued to organize raids against Muscovy up to 1667, when the Russian government 811 took steps to incorporate their territory into the Muscovite state. After the subjugation of the Bashkirs and the establishment of Russian settlements on their territory, Russia faced a new danger from the east. Dzhungars and Kazakhs were quite different from the passive Ostiaks, Tunguses, and other Siberian inorodtsy. They made constant raids on Russian settlements, burning them down and taking captives: “Like packs of hungry wolves they [Kazakh and Dzhungar nomads] scorched whole areas, drove off 812 cattle, and captured defenseless settlers.” The latter had to leave their homes and retreat to the defense of the forts every time the news of a raid reached them. The militancy of the steppe nomads forced the government to 813 build a chain of fortresses along the border of the steppe. This Line separated the newcomers from the Kazakhs and the Dzhungars. The administration believed that the Cossacks’ settlements provided protection from these raids. The construction of the Line, however, did not guarantee the security of 814 the Russian settlements. Reports from this time period described many cases in which Kazakhs attacked, captured, robbed, and killed Cossacks, Russian peasants, and native Siberians who lived beyond the Line or in “inner 815 Russia.” I. Kraft described a Kazakh raid deep into Russian territory in 1717. As a result of this raid, the town of Novosheshminsk in Kazan Guberniia was 816 plundered and many Russians were taken into captivity. Another pre-re811 Huttenbach, “The Origins of Russian Imperialism,” 40. 812 Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 7. 813 The line of fortresses built along the Irtysh River had more in common with the British type of establishing borders in Northern America. In the strict sense of the word, “border” was unknown in Siberia. Instead of constructing fortified lines, Russian newcomers built sparse ostrogs (stockade towns) loosely connected to each other. 814 The forts were badly undermanned. The statistical data reported that, by 1745, there were only 489 Cossacks settled on the line. This number was definitely not enough to patrol this extensive border. See Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 7. 815 See, for example, G. N. Potanin Istoriko-statisticheskie svedeniia o Sibiri i sopredel’nykh ego stranakh (Moscow, 1875); Potanin, Materialy dlia istorii; Andreev, Domovaia letopis’ (1789); Grigor’ev, “Orenburgskie Kirgizy.” 816 Kraft, Sbornik uzakonenii, 18. 191

volutionary Russian historian, P. I. Rychkov, estimated that as many as 10,000 817 Kazakhs participated in this raid. The belief that the Line was not able to provide security for the Russian settlements in Siberia induced the Russian government to consider the inclusion of the steppe into the Russian Empire. Imperial Russian Army officers A. K. Geins and M. I. Veniukov explained the construction of the fortresses along the Irtysh Line as a necessary measure to prevent raids from nomadic tribes. In their view, any state has to protect its borders, and the inclusion of the steppe into the Russian Empire was the best way to provide this security. Veniukov explained the need to establish total control over the steppe to protect Russian towns in Siberia from “the very na818 ture of its inhabitants.” In his words, in dealing with the nomads, the Russian government had to follow the principle of “everything or nothing.” According to Veniukov, “any, even the most insignificant part of the nomads, will be dangerous to the security of the whole region if they stay independent. 819 There is only one way to provide security – to swallow the whole steppe.” The Speranskii legislation of 1822 echoed the ideas expressed by Veniukov. According to article 316 of his Statute, “the role of the Siberian Lines as a fortified state boundary is not permanent. With the spread of Russian influence deep into the steppe, the Line would move south, and ultimately will 820 reach the real state border.” In order to defend the vulnerable steppe borders from nomadic attacks, Russia was interested in extending her presence into the territories of modern-day Kazakhstan. The Russian authorities believed that the inclusion of the steppe into the Empire “would make Kirgizes loyal to Russia. The acquisition of the Kazakh steppe would guarantee the security of the peoples who live in the Russian regions adjacent to the steppe, such as Kalmyks and Bashkirs. If the Kirgizes stay independent, the mutual 821 raids between them would continue.”

The Development of Trade with Central Asia Along with ensuring tranquil and secure borders, the Russian government’s prime concern was to open the way for commerce with countries contiguous to the Kazakh steppe, such as China and the Central Asian khanates. The fol817 P. I. Rychkov, Istoriia Orenburgskaia (Orenburg: Izdatel’stvo Orenburgskogo gubernskogo statisticheskogo komiteta, 1896), 3. 818 Veniukov, Opyt voennogo obozreniia, 207. 819 Ibid. 820 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 316. 821 “Iz istorii Kazakhstana,” Krasnyi arkhiv, vol. 2 (Moscow, 1938), 33. 192

lowing evidence demonstrates that the state’s interest was consistent during the whole 18th century. Peter the Great, the first Russian monarch who stated his interest in the acquisition of the steppe, was willing “to spend up to a mil822 lion [rubles]” (do milliona izvesti) to include the region into the empire. He called the Kazakh steppes “the key and the gate” to Central Asia, attributing the inclusion of the region to the need to establish trade routes with the Cent823 ral Asian khanates. In his report sent to Empress Anna Ioannovna, the Head of the Orenburg Commission Kirillov stated the need to develop Asian commerce as the main 824 reason for inclusion of the steppe into the empire. In order to provide for the safety of trade caravans crossing the steppe, the Russian government sought 825 the “cooperation and pacification of the region’s nomadic inhabitants.” In Kirillov’s mind, the pacification of the steppe would cut the cost of trade, 826 which was expensive because of the attacks by Kazakh nomads on caravans. The establishment of Russian rule over the steppe was considered to be a necessary step for pacification, as, in the words of A. Shemanskii, “neither passive (in the form of line fortresses), nor active (punitive raids on the 827 steppe) defense was effective to protect caravans going through the steppe.” According to the author, “only complete military subjugation and occupation of this country, accompanied by the disbanding of its army units, and establishing firm Russian rule over the territory can establish peace and order in 828 the steppe,” which were necessary for successful trade with Central Asia. Shemanskii formulated two objectives for Russian policy towards the nomads of the steppe. First, only the force of arms could establish friendly relations with Russia’s eastern neighbors. Second, only the military occupation of the 822 Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1961), 31. 823 “Kirgizy,” 3. 824 P. I. Rychkov, Topografiia Orenburgskoi gubernii (Orenburg: Izdatel’stvo Orenburgskogo otdela imperatorskojo RGO, 1887), 230. 825 Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier, 29. 826 An ethnographer, who visited the territory of the Middle Horde at the beginning of the 18th century noted that “trade caravans who cross the steppe pay tribute for every camel, disregarding whether it is loaded or not. In exchange for this payment, they get five or six armed Kirgiz to guard the caravan from ulus [an appanage consisting of several auls and ruled by a Sultan] to ulus. But frequently, a caravan is attacked and plundered by Kazakhs themselves,” see I. P. Fal’k, Izvestiia Akademika Fal’ka o Kirgizskoi Stepi (18th century), 55. Olcott gives her support to the idea that periodic attacks on passing caravans by Kazakh raiders “who would seize the goods and capture the Russians” made trade through the steppe costly. See Olcott, The Kazakhs, 30. 827 Shemanskii, “Voennaia istoriia,” 121. 828 Ibid. 193

territory could guarantee the safety of the Russian settlements along the Line 829 and the trading routes through the steppe. A report written by the Commander of the Siberian Line, General Strandman, in 1795 demonstrates that Russian interests in the steppe at the end of the 18th century were not different from those of Peter the Great a century earlier. In response to the request of the elders of some clans of the Middle Horde to take them under direct Russian rule, Strandman recommended higher authorities comply with their request, giving the following reasons for this step: First, the request of the Kirgizes to submit to direct Russian rule gives us an opportunity to expand our territory and to acquire these rich lands without using any violence. Second, the inclusion of the territory into the empire will move our borders closer to Tashkent, Bukhara, and other countries and would promise more security for the caravans going there. As a result, trade in this re830 gion would flourish. Like her predecessors, Catherine the Great paid much attention to the development of commerce with India, Central Asia, and China, and thought that this trade “would make Russia more powerful than the other empires of Asia 831 and Europe.” In this respect her ideas and policy can be a perfect case study of 18th century mercantilism. Like many other European leaders of that time, she viewed commerce and economics as tools to achieve a main goal: “the 832 political and military success of the state.” In accordance with these plans, the Russian government took different measures to foster the development of trade with Asia.

Establishing Large Market Centers along the Lines The Russian government saw the attracting of Central Asian merchants to the Line as one of the means to the development of commerce. The Empress Anna’s order of February 11, 1736 prescribed Kirillov “to treat like dear guests those Central Asian traders, who come to Orenburg, and to give the land al833 lotments in the town [Orenburg] to those who want to live there.” 829 830 831 832

Ibid. Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1964), 141. Basin, “Kazakhstan v sisteme,” 226. Peter Musgrave, The Early Modern European Economy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 88. 833 Apollova, Ekonomicheskie i politicheskie sviazi, 108. 194

One of the most important steps for the development of commerce with Central Asia was the construction of such major trading posts as Orenburg and Semipalatinsk. Orenburg was the center of commerce in the region since the time of its foundation. The first Governor of Orenburg, V. N. Tatishchev, built a large market place (menovoi dvor) and a “guest court” (gostinyi dvor). The guest court was situated in the city itself and had 150 shops. The market place, which was located in the steppe not far from the city, had 148 storehouses and 344 shops. The market place hosted the summer trade, and the 834 guest court was used in winter and fall. To attract merchants and settlers to the city, the governor gave them “free land, ten-year interest-free loans for 835 the purchase of construction materials, and exemption from residence tax.” In addition, those merchants who chose Orenburg as their place of residence were granted three years of duty-free trade. Tatishchev’s undertaking was successful – the customs duties collected from the merchants in Orenburg 836 soared from 546 rubles in 1738 to 73,233 in 1752. Another large center of Russian-Central Asian trade was Semipalatinsk, a city on the Irtysh River. The 18th century ethnographer Pallas gave a description of what the market place in Semipalatinsk looked like at the end of the 18th century: The market place for trade with the Asian merchants is situated two miles away from the city on the Irtysh River... There are many wooden houses or shops in the market place. They are divided into streets and surrounded by a high fence and a moat. Russian, Tatar, and Bukharan merchants live and keep their goods in these houses. There are several scattered houses on the opposite side of the Irtysh River. They are built for the Kirgiz merchants 837 who come to trade in Semipalatinsk. Semipalatinsk’s role as a hub of Russo-Central Asian trade determined the multi-ethnic and multi-religious composition of its population. Out of 8,997 people on January 1, 1864, 4,806 were Muslims. The city had two Churches and seven Mosques. Of its eight schools, seven were Muslim, and only one 834 F. Gel’mgol’ts, “’Orenburgskii menovoi dvor,’ Izvestiia Orenburgskogo otdela Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geografichaskogo Obshchestva, vol. 3 (Orenburg, 1894) 835 Olcott, The Kazakhs, 32-33. 836 Asfendiiarov, Proshloe Kazakhstana (1997 [1936]), 206. 837 Pallas, Puteshestvie po raznym provintsiiam, 502. 195

838

belonged to Cossacks. Along with Kazakhs, Russians, Central Asians, and Tatars, Semipalatinsk’s population also included fifty families of “Chala Kirgizes” (chala is a corrupted form of the Kazakh word shala literally meaning “half-baked”). They were either descendants of Russians who had escaped to the steppe, or runaways from Bukhara, Khiva, or Kokand, who due to different reasons preferred to leave their homeland. These Chala Kirgizes had be839 come culturally indistinguishable from the Kazakhs. As the evidence demonstrates, the foundation of large trading centers along the Lines, caused by the need to develop commerce with the Central Asian Khanates and China, promoted the multi-ethnic and multi-religious composition of the population of the frontier cities, most notably of Orenburg and Semipalatinsk. Due to the aforementioned measures undertaken by the Russian government, Russian trade with Central Asia became rather significant. It also demonstrated sustainable growth, especially in the second half of the 19th 840 century. The following table illustrates this growth: Year

Russian goods brought to the Central Asia (in rubles)

Central Asian goods bought by Russian merchants (in rubles)

1850

1,166,928

1,292,525

1867

12,250,000

16,634,396

Russia’s trade with Central Asia increased by more than 350 percent in the period between 1791 and 1853, and constituted 36.8 percent of all Russian 841 exports in 1840. The main items of Russian export to Central Asian markets were cotton clothes, woolen clothes, manufactured goods made of leather, a large variety of metal goods such as knives, scissors, pots and kettles, sugar and tea, wooden goods such as chests, cups, caskets, sieves, and so on. Goods imported from Central Asia included raw cotton, cattle, furs, leather, wool, raw silk and dried fruits. Central Asian trade became especially important at the time of the American Civil War, which stopped the import of cotton from overseas. If prior to the war Russians bought only about 50,000 puds of cotton from Central Asia, the end of the war saw a ten-time increase in the amount of 838 839 840 841 196

Zavalishin, Opisanie zapadnoi Sibiri, 69. Ibid., 90; Konshin, Chto mogut, 112. Asfendiiarov, Istoriia Kazakhstana (1993 [1935]), 142. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 71.

cotton imported from the region. This growth, according to Zavalishin, 842 brought millions of rubles to those who were involved in this trade. The state not only took measures to attract Central Asian merchants to the Russian border, it also actively assisted Russian merchants in the development of trade through and with the steppe. At the beginning of the 19th century, for example, Russian merchants who traded on the steppe were exemp843 ted from paying taxes. The Governor General of Orenburg, Sukhtelen, allowed merchants of all three guilds to trade with the Central Asian khanates 844 in 1837. His interest in the development of commerce made Sukhtelen violate imperial legislation, according to which only the merchants of the first guild could conduct foreign trade. The interest in the development of trade with the Central Asian khanates determined, to a certain extent, Russian policy towards the Kazakhs. This could be seen in the Russian attitude towards the Kazakh Sultan Kasym Ablaev (the father of Kenesary Kasymov). The named sultan killed forty Tashkent residents in 1836 and, being afraid of Tashkent’s revenge, asked for Russian protection. The Head of Omsk Oblast’, Colonel Talyzin, in his report to the Governor General of Western Siberia suggested this request be turned down, and recommended higher authorities protect the border from Ablaev’s attempts to cross over. He refused to give any support to Ablaev on the grounds that it could lead to the deterioration of Russia’s relations with Tashkent, and consequently to the decline of trade between these two coun845 tries. The Governor General agreed with Talyzin’s suggestion, adding that even if the Russian government decided to help Ablaev, it would not be able to do so. The administration in Omsk was well aware of the weakness of the Russian position on the steppe, even in comparison with the antiquated 846 Tashkent army. All trade with Central Asia was conducted by means of caravan, which is why the Russian government saw its task in assisting Russian merchants in organizing and protecting their caravans. The order given by Empress Anna in 1736 prescribed Kirillov to send caravans with Russian goods to Khiva, Bukhara, and Tashkent. The state allocated two thousand rubles to buy goods 842 843 844 845 846

Zavalishin, Opisanie zapadnoi Sibiri, 59. Apollova, Khoziaistvennoe osvoenie, 348. Stolpianskii, Iz proshlogo. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 284, ll. 1-1ob. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 284, ll. 3-4. 197

847

for each of the caravans sent to Central Asian markets. The first Russian caravan to Central Asia left the Irtysh Line in 1767. This caravan, led by a Bukharan from the Siberian town of Tara named Shakhov, together with his seventeen assistants. brought Russian goods to Tashkent. The Tatar merchant Murtaza Feizuddin Murtazin opened the caravan trade with China in 1807, when he led his caravan of 500 horses to China. The same year, he sent a caravan consisting of 800 camels loaded with goods to the Semirech’e region 848 to trade with Kazakhs. Not all caravans, however, could safely make their journey to the Central Asian or Chinese markets and return to Russia since many of them became victims of Kazakh raiders.

The Protection of Trade Caravans To provide the secure passage of Russian and Central Asian caravans through the steppe was one of the most important reasons which made Russia incorporate the Middle and Younger Kazakh Hordes into the empire. This can be seen in the terms of agreement signed in 1731 between the Russian government and the Khan of the Younger Horde Abul Khair. Accepting the Russian protectorate, Abul Khair promised to provide for the security of the Russian border, to assist the Russian Army in campaigns against the enemies of Rus849 sia, and to provide the safe passage of Russian caravans and merchants. The signing of the agreement and the inclusion of the steppe which followed, however, did not mean that the Kazakhs’ plundering of the caravans ceased. Eight years after Abul Khair brought his people under the Russian protectorate, the Kazakhs of the Younger Horde plundered two Russian trad850 ing caravans very close to the Line. Historians and contemporaries have offered two explanations for the continuation of Kazakh raids on the Russian caravans after the khan’s promise of their safe passage. According to the first explanation, the oaths of loyalty given to the Russian state by the Kazakh khans and sultans did not have much importance. In Kraft’s words, The experience of dealing with the steppe has demonstrated that loyalty based on promises and even the oaths of the Kirgiz khans was nothing but nominal. They followed them only if they found Russian protection beneficial for their immediate needs. As soon 847 848 849 850 198

Apollova, Ekonomicheskie i politicheskie, 108. Zavalishin, Opisanie zapadnoi Sibiri, 83. Levshin, Istoricheskoe i statisticheskoe, 109-110. Ibid., 138.

as they thought that it could be more profitable for them to join some other state or to attack their neighbors, to plunder them and to take over their lands, the Kirgizes forgot that as subjects of the 851 Russian state they could not do so. Another explanation emphasizes that Abul Khair could not fulfill any of his promises as he “like any other khan in the steppe, did not have enough au852 thority over his people.” According to contemporaries and historians, the khans could expect obedience from the elders only if they accompanied their 853 requests with gifts. None of the Kazakhs would fulfill any of the khan’s or854 ders if it did not coincide with his own interests. In response to the request of the Head of the Orenburg Commission, V. Urusov, to return all Russian captives kept in the steppe, and to prevent Kazakhs from attacking trading caravans, Abul Khair complained that “this is not Russia. My people do not 855 follow my orders.” According to Abul Khair, the only way to establish order on the steppe and to return the Russian captives would be to send a large detachment of Russian soldiers to punish the auls of those “thieving Kir856 gizes.” The attacks on the caravans on the steppe seriously impeded trade between Russia and the Central Asian khanates. The Governor General of Orenburg, Nepliuev, had to even prohibit Russian caravans from going to Central Asia in 1752, until peace and order were established among the Kaza857 khs. This prohibition was, however, short-lived, because the prices on Asian goods had soared. By 1764 the Russian caravan trade had resumed. This new start was not successful as the very first caravan was plundered on the steppe. The aforementioned evidence demonstrates that in order to achieve the development of trade with the Central Asian Khanates and China, the Russian government had to stop the Kazakhs’ plundering of caravans going through the steppe. During the entire 18th century, the Russian government relied exclusively on giving bribes to Kazakh sultans and khans in exchange for their promises to provide security for the merchants and their goods. The 851 852 853 854 855 856 857

Kraft, Sbornik uzakonenii, 27. Levshin, Istoricheskoe i statisticheskoe, 110. Asfendiiarov, Proshloe Kazakhstana (1997), 229. Ibid., 230. Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1961), 31. Ibid., 175. Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 221. 199

Commander of the Siberian Line, Major General Von Veimarn, claimed in 1761 that the only way to prevent Kazakhs from attacking the caravans and the settlements along the Line was “to meet all their demands, and to please 858 them as much as we can.” The surest way of pleasing the nomads was considered to be material awards given to their leaders. A decision of the Senate taken in 1767 demonstrates this point. The Senate recognized the fact that for the development of trade between Russia and Central Asia, it was necessary to provide for the security of the trade caravans going through the steppe. The Senate, however, did not believe that the Russian state had enough resources to guarantee this security. Instead of sending soldiers or Cossacks to accompany the caravans through the steppe, the Senate made a decision to pay Kazakhs up to one percent of the worth of goods of each of the caravans in exchange for the Kazakhs’ promise not to plunder them. The Governor of Orenburg was to come into contact with Kazakh Khan Nurali, 859 “their elders and people” to discuss the terms of the agreement. The payments to the khans and sultans, however, did not stop the plundering of caravans. According to data collected by the Orenburg Commission, in the period between 1764 and 1803 twenty Russian caravans were attacked 860 and plundered. The situation at the end of the 18th century was so bad that trade caravans did not dare to cross the steppe. Kazakh raiders attacked even big caravans which were accompanied by numerous guards. The biggest cara861 van that was plundered at that time lost goods worth 295,000 rubles in 1799. A Russian medical doctor, Savva Bol’shoi, gave a detailed description of a raid on one of the Russian caravans sent to Bukhara in 1802. Bol’shoi participated in this expedition together with twenty five Cossacks and twenty five armed Kazakhs of the Younger Horde, who were supposed to guarantee the safety of the caravan. This guard could not protect the caravan when 2,000 nomads led by the Bashkir Sadit Girei raided. The goods were plundered and 862 the merchants and Cossacks were taken into captivity. In a report written to the Infantry Inspector of the Siberian Inspectorate, Major General Nikolai Lavrov, in 1802, the Director of Semipalatinsk Border Customs Maslenikov complained of the Kazakhs’ plundering of caravans, which prevented the development of trade with Central Asian khanates: 858 859 860 861 862 200

Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1961), 203. Asfendiiarov, Proshloe Kazakhstana (1997), 221. Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 221. Dobromyslov, “Turgaiskaia Oblast’.” 218. Bol’shoi, “Zapiski doktora,” 169-175

If the road through the Kirgiz steppe was safe, then we could hope that Asian merchants would come to us with their goods. As for now, the Kirgiz and Tashkent merchants do not have their own capital and have to borrow goods from Russian merchants to go to the steppe or to the borders of China. The threat of raids, however, 863 prevents them from going to Khiva, Bukhara, and other places. At the beginning of the 19th century it became clear that the bribes paid by Russian authorities to the Kazakh khans and sultans could not guarantee the security of the caravans passing through the steppe. In response to this situation, the imperial center decided to take more decisive measures to provide security for the passing caravans. First, the Russian government tried to impose the duty of protecting the trade routes on the Kazakh elites. The State Board of Foreign Affairs worked out the Rules for the Khan Council in 1806. One of the obligations of the Khan, according to these Rules, was the protection of the caravans going through the steppe. If the Khan and his Council were not able to provide security for the caravans, then the Board threatened 864 to send troops to the steppe to punish the brigands. Along with demanding the khans protect merchants and their goods on their way through the steppe, the higher imperial officials ordered the deployment of soldiers to accompany the caravans. Sometimes the military support was quite significant. A large detachment consisting of 500 cavalrymen and foot soldiers with two cannons accompanied the caravan which left Orenburg for Khiva in 1824. Even such considerable forces, however, could not protect caravans from raids on the steppe. The named caravan, for example, was attacked and plundered by 12,000 Khivians. As a result of this raid, the mer865 chants lost about one million rubles. In addition to the aforementioned measures, Russian authorities in Omsk and Orenburg sent numerous requests, warnings, and threats to the Kazakh sultans, biis, and aul elders asking and demanding they provide secure pass of trade caravans through the steppe. Here is one of the numerous addresses sent by the Head of Omsk Oblast’ Bronevskoi to the sultans, biis, elders, and honorable Kazakhs of Turgul’skaia and Kazganskaia Volosti:

863 GAOO, Fond 149, Opis’ 1, Delo 2, l. 225ob. 864 Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1961), 167. 865 Kazantsev, Opisanie, 70; Kaidalov, Karavannye zapiski. 201

Many criminals appeared on the steppe. The heads of clans give them their support. Many Russian, foreign, and Kirgiz merchants are absolutely ruined and reduced to poverty. Many of them ask the Russian government for help. The Russian government has sent many letters to biis, elders, and sultans asking them to compensate robbed merchants for their losses. But the Kazakh leaders seldom have met these lenient demands. The highest authorities have learnt about these injustices, and the imperial army is ready to enter the steppe to pacify the disobedient. But we are going to give you one more chance to establish peace with the merchants you have offended... It is the last time that I ask you to make peace with the petitioners and voluntarily meet all their demands. If you 866 do not do so, the army will take everything from you by force. On his appointment to Orenburg in 1803, the Governor General Volkonskii tried a similar method of asking and threatening the Kazakh leaders in order to solve the problem of the raids on the steppe caravans. He sent a mullah to the plunderers asking them to return what they had stolen. Not only did the robbers turn his request down, but they also captured Volkonskii’s messenger. Then Volkonskii invited the Khan of the Younger Horde, together with his Council and the clan leaders to his Headquarters. The Governor General demanded the “better Kazakhs” to force the robbers to return the loot and prevent them from raiding in the future. To this demand, the khan responded that these robbers were out of his control, and he could not make them return the stolen goods. He also added that he did not have any means to control the situation and guarantee the caravans’ safe pass through the steppe. Taking this response into consideration, Volkonskii came to the conclusion that the traditional policy of providing security for the caravan trade was not sufficient: “To beg robbers to return stolen goods is in its essence nonsense. How can we hope that the thieves, who violently plundered the cara867 vans, will want to return the booty of their own good will?” In Volkonskii’s opinion only violence, not begging, could stop the plunder: “Our threats, not supported with actions. have produced a negative effect on the Kirgizes’ minds. Not being punished for raiding caravans, Kirgizes think that the Russian government does not have enough strength to punish those who violate its 866 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 363, ll. 23-24ob. 867 Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 221. 202

868

orders.” Volkonskii suggested sending a punitive expedition to the steppe, to punish those who plundered the caravans and to provide security for trade through the steppe. He worked out a detailed plan for the expedition. According to this plan, the task of the Russian Army was to encircle the auls of the robbers, to capture their elders, and to keep them in Orenburg under arrest. The goods robbed from caravans had to be returned to the merchants, as well as a part of the livestock of those elders who participated in the robbery. The rest of the livestock should be divided between the khan and the poor Kazakhs. The khan also had the right to distribute the Kazakhs who lived in the auls of criminal elders among his auls. The captured aul elders were to be settled in Siberia together with their families. According to Volkonskii, This strict but just action, directed against irrevocable villains, will destroy the wasp nest of banditry and make the Kirgizes afraid of the wrath of the Russian Emperor. This measure will establish peace and order on the steppe, because our troops crossing the steppe would tame the disobedient, restore respect for higher 869 authorities, and make Kirgizes be loyal to Russia. Volkonskii was not alone in suggesting punitive expeditions to stop the raids on the caravans. The Head of Semipalatinsk Customs, Krel’, proposed the following actions: to find and arrest the organizers of the plunder and to take away from them all that had been plundered and give it back to the merchants. “Only then, undoubtedly, order and peace will be established on the steppe, and the insolence and violence of the Kirgizes will come to an end.” In Krel’s opinion, if the Russian government did not take these measures, “trade will decline, and even those few caravans who still dare to go to Tashkent 870 will be plundered.” Unlike Krel’, however, Volkonskii did not consider punitive expeditions to be sufficient enough to establish order on the steppe. He recommended the conquest of Khiva to be the surest way for the security of caravans going through the steppe, as, in his opinion, Khiva provoked Kazakh raids aimed at 871 preventing Russian merchants from entering Central Asian markets. It is difficult to say whether Volkonskii’s plans, if accomplished, could really have 868 869 870 871

Ibid. Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 222-223. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 578, ll. 13-13ob. Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 220. 203

provided security for Russian trade through the steppe. What can be said with a large degree of certainty is that both parts of his grand plan were nothing but utopian. The Russian government could not protect caravans using the force of arms; it simply did not have enough resources to do so. This consideration made the Russian government reject both Volkonskii and Krel’s plans. Volkonskii’s predecessor, N. N. Bakhmet’ev, was more realistic when he stated that the only way to compensate for the losses of the merchants was to capture some people from the auls involved in robbery and demand ransom 872 from their clansmen. Instead of conquering Khiva, Bakhmet’ev suggested the following measures for making trade with Central Asia safe: first, the Russian government was to try to persuade the Khan of the Younger Horde to accompany Russian caravans through the steppe; secondly, it was neces873 sary to pay Kazakhs to protect Russian merchants. Bakhmet’ev’s plan was similar to the suggestions of Major General Ia. Bouver, who submitted his propositions on how to improve the situation in the Middle Horde to Catherine the Great in 1795. He suggested taking hostages from the relatives of the clansmen whose pastures were on the path of the caravans, and recommend874 ing merchants form big groups and hire Kazakh guards. The central authorities in St. Petersburg were aware of their inability to use force to provide security for the caravans. In 1802, the Minister of Commerce (ministr kommertsii), N. P. Rumiantsev, agreed with Bakhmet’ev that 875 it was necessary to pay Kazakhs to protect the caravans. To support his point of view, Rumiantsev cited an example of the successful passing of a caravan which was protected by the people of the Kazakh Elder Shukuraliev. Rumiantsev, however, was strongly against that part of Bakhmet’ev’s plan which suggested capturing the relatives of robbers. He preferred to accuse merchants of such carelessness which allowed the Kazakhs to plunder their goods. In Rumiantsev’s mind, the protection of caravans was, first of all, the 876 duty of the merchants themselves. In short, the Minister of Commerce of the Russian Empire recognized the fact that the Russian government was able to protect neither its own interests nor the property of its subjects beyond the Line. All it could do was to recommend that the merchants offer rewards to 872 873 874 875 876 204

Ibid., 196. Ibid., 198. Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1961), 147. Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 201. Ibid.

the Kazakhs for protecting (or rather for not attacking) the caravans and to ask the traders to take better care of their property. In spite of the fact that all merchant caravans were accompanied by mem877 bers of the Kazakh tribes that controlled the territory, the raids did not stop. Not happy with the situation, the Semipalatinsk merchants asked the Russian government to order Cossacks to accompany their caravans and to send 878 troops to punish thieves and return the goods which had been plundered. In their petition they noted that the fearlessness of the raiders reached such an extent that they dared to attack caravans in the proximity of the centers of 879 the okrugs, robbed them and killed those who resisted the plunder. The list of robbed merchants included eight Tatars, one new-convert (novokreshchen880 nyi), two Bukharans, one Tashkent merchant, and eleven Kazakhs. Both the Kazakhs who were under the jurisdiction of okrugs and those who were inde881 pendent plundered caravans. The response of the Omsk administration to the merchants’ request was rather discouraging. Instead of offering protection to the merchants, the administration gave a list of reasons why this protection could not be provided. At the meeting of the Omsk Oblast’ Council on June 24, 1836, the following resolution was passed: First, though merchants and Customs officers consider the main reason for the decline in trade to be the raids of the Kirgizes, most of the goods were stolen by those Kirgizes who are not under our jurisdiction. That is why the government cannot demand from them the return of the stolen goods to the merchants. Second, as long as the merchants cannot present eyewitnesses of the robberies, retribution, according to the law, cannot be done. Third, there are many Cossack piquets on the roads, and the Cossacks vigilantly watch the order and peace. Fourth, because the expeditions to the steppe are neither profitable nor convenient for our government, the merchants should base their credit with Kirgizes only on trust. In no way should the merchants expect the government to help them to recover their debts from Kirgizes. The merchants’ re877 878 879 880 881

Olcott, The Kazakhs, 70. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 578, ll. 15-17ob. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 578, l. 12ob. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 578, ll. 21-28. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 578, l. 4ob. 205

quest to order the Cossacks to accompany their caravans should 882 be refused. Another proof that the Russian government could not provide security for the caravans going through the steppe was an order issued by the Head of Omsk Oblast’, Colonel Talyzin, on December 5, 1838. This order obliged the okrug prikazy to inform the merchants that if their caravans were plundered, then “the authorities were not going to do any investigations, punish the plunder883 ers, or compensate merchants’ losses.” An Officer of the Russian Army, A. I. Maksheev, had to recognize the fact that the inability to provide protection for the caravans and security of Russian subjects on the steppe was caused, 884 first of all, by the weakness of the Russian state in that region. Another reason which prevented Russians from using force against the plunderers was the fear that in response to punitive expeditions, Kazakhs would move to 885 those parts of the steppe controlled by China or the Central Asian khanates. The boundary between the Kazakh steppe and these states was rather ambiguous (or in some places non-existent). The English traveler T. Atkinson wrote about the Kazakhs of the Middle Horde, who constantly switched their 886 loyalties between Russian and China. The official border with China was established only on September 25, 1864, when the Chuguchak agreement be887 tween China and Russia was signed. Even after that, Kazakhs could easily cross the border and avoid Russian control, as the Russian guards patrolled the border in the summer months only. In the winter of 1865, for example, the Kazakhs who had their pastures close to the Chinese border crossed it to join 888 the Kalmyk rebellion in western China. Another case of mass crossing of the Russo-Chinese border by Kazakhs uncontrolled by either Russian or Chinese authorities took place in 1868, when due to disturbances on the Chinese part of the steppe, 16,000 Kazakhs moved to Russia. M. Mikhailov complained as late as in 1867 that it was impossible to determine the exact number of Kazakhs because “a considerable part of them regularly move to the Central

882 883 884 885 886 887

TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 578, ll. 39-41. Kozybaev, Natsional’no-osvoboditel’naia bor’ba, 69. Maksheev, Istoricheskii obzor, 148. Dobromyslov, “Turgaiskaia Oblast’,” 171. Etsel’ and Vagner, Puteshestvie po Sibiri, 320. M. A. Terent’ev, Istoriia zavoevaniia Srednei Azii, vol. 2 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Komarova, 1906), 8. 888 Ibid., 10. 206

Asian khanates, and vice versa, and some Kirgizes move to our territory from 889 Bukhara, Khiva, and Tashkent.” The change of migration routes was quite habitual for Kazakhs in the pre-Russian period as well. There were cases when certain tribes moved to the Central Asian khanates if they had conflicts with other Kazakh tribes. It happened when the Kazakhs of the Adai tribe, who had their pastures by the Emba River, being unhappy with the decision of biis moved under the 890 protection of the Khivan Khan. When Russia tried to extend legislation to the steppe, making Kazakhs the subjects of Russian Imperial Law, the Kaza891 khs could easily evade punishment by going to Kokand, Khiva, or Bukhara. According to Arasanskii, the porous boundary allowed the Kazakhs to preserve a large degree of independence from Russian authorities and to avoid 892 punishment for raiding caravans. If the Kazakhs were not happy with Rus893 sian rules, they could ask their southern neighbors for protection. This possibility created “indestructible obstacles to the establishment of Russian rule 894 over the Kirgizes.” The closing of the south-eastern Russian border took place as late as the 1870s when the Russian army conquered Central Asian khanates. M. Krasovskii found another reason for the inactivity of the Russian government in dealing with those Kazakhs who plundered caravans. According to him, the loyalties of Bashkirs, Kalmyks, and representatives of other nonRussian population groups of the regions adjacent to the Kazakh steppe were not firmly established. The Russian government was afraid that punitive actions directed against Kazakhs could blow up the whole region and lead to a large scale military conflict involving representatives of different ethnic 895 groups. The fear of possible Kazakhs’ leaving their prilineinye pastures and migrating to Chinese territory, and the interest in preventing a large scale interethnic conflict made Russia rely more on persuasion and bribes than on using force. Instead of sending troops to punish the plunderers, the government 889 Mikhailov, “Kirgizy,” 281. 890 Kazantsev, Opisanie, 76. 891 Arasanskii, “Prichiny volnenii v kirgizskikh stepiakh,” Sovremennaia Letopis’, Voskresnye Pribavleniia k Moskovskim Vedomostiam, no. 22 (June 15, 1869): 1 892 Ibid. 893 To use this opportunity the Kazakh Khans of the 18th century usually swore allegiance simultaneous to both the Russian and Chinese governments. 894 Kraft, Sbornik uzakonenii, 53. 895 Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 135. 207

had to pay salaries to influential Kazakhs and give them presents to persuade 896 them to keep the natives of the steppe from attacking caravans. Archival sources confirm neither Russian legislation nor the traditional Kazakh court of biis could help the merchants whose caravans were plundered by the Kazakhs to obtain compensation for their stolen goods. The Head of Semipalatinsk Customs, Krel’, explained the impossibility of compensating merchants for their losses by legal means: According to Russian legal norms, in order to prove guilt, it is necessary to present to the court the testimonies of eye-witnesses of the crime. It is impossible to do this on the steppe. If we try to mete out justice according to traditional steppe rules, then those very biis and sultans who organized the raids will be put in the 897 position of judges to satisfy the demands of the merchants. This evidence questions the validity of the argument dominating Kazakhstani historiography that the Russian government considered “using violence, suppression, and threats as the only possible way of treating the inorodtsy of the 898 steppe.” Though some local officials, such as Volkonskii, suggested using force for punishing those Kazakhs who attacked the caravans, the central authorities seldom gave support to such suggestions, being aware of the impossibility of establishing Russian control over the nomads of the steppe. The aforementioned evidence makes me agree with Maksheev, who wrote that during the whole period of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, the Kazakhs were subjects of Russia on paper only. In reality, they were completely independent, and Russian officials did not even dare to show 899 up on the steppe. Besides the raids, another obstacle that negatively influenced the development of trade with the Central Asian khanates was the sultans’ extortion of tribute from the passing caravans. As Krel’ complained, the Kazakh sultans took money and goods not only from the merchants who came to trade in their auls, but also from those who were going to other volosti. As a result, the merchants on their way had to pay to several different sultans. And the paying of the tribute to the sultans did not guarantee the safety of the cara896 897 898 899 208

Dobromyslov, “Turgaiskaia Oblast’,” 219. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 578, ll. 4-5ob. Syzdykova, “Voprosy istorii,” 60. Maksheev, Istoricheskii obzor, 104.

vans. According to a 19th century Russian administrator, “after paying considerable tribute to a sultan, a caravan can be encircled by Kazakhs of another clan. If the merchants pay them as well, the caravan will be plundered any900 way by a third group of bandits.” Because of all these extortions and plun901 ders, the merchants had to stop the trade with China in 1836. As in the case with plundering, the Russian government had no resources to stop the extortion of these “sultans’ taxes.” The life of the steppe was beyond the control of the Russian authorities until at least the middle of the 19th century.

Conflict between the Cossacks’ Interests as Settlers and the Duties of Service The interest of the Cossacks as settlers, which superseded their responsibilities as service people, was one of the most important factors that prevented the Russian government from establishing control over the steppe and providing security for the caravans. When the head of Omsk Oblast’, Colonel Talyzin, ordered the Cossacks of the Aktau and Petropavlovsk Okrugs to accompany trade caravans in 1838, they simply refused to obey his order on the 902 ground that it was hay-mowing season. According to the Cossacks’ explanation sent to Talyzin, if they had to go to the steppe to protect the caravans, they would not be able to collect enough hay for their livestock to survive the upcoming winter. They refused to send even some guards as “the grass is not good this year, and we need all our people to collect as much hay as we can.” 903 Of interest here is the fact that nobody was punished for disobedience to the order. The Russian government had no choice but to recognize the legitimacy of the rights of Cossacks first to serve their own interests and, only then, to fulfill their duties as servitors of the Crown. The Cossacks were quite reluctant to fulfill the orders of the state if they contradicted their interests as settlers. Siberian Cossacks first and foremost served themselves. To lure the Cossacks into safeguarding their caravans, merchants (both Central Asians and Russians) promised them certain rewards for what was considered by the state to be the Cossacks’ duty. The Commander of the Siberian Line Cossacks Army wrote in 1835 to the leader of Omsk Oblast’ that for protecting their caravan from the Aiaguz-Chinese border, the mer900 901 902 903

Levshin, Istoricheskoe i statisticheskoe, vol. 3, 239. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 578, ll. 3-3ob. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 71, ll. 1-1ob. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 71, l. 2. 209

chants rewarded ten Cossacks and a Cossack sergeant with clothes, sheep wool, and an iron cauldron. In addition, the merchants provided the Cossacks 904 with horses and food during the journey. Not only were Cossacks reluctant to accompany the caravans through the steppe, sometimes they acted as plunderers themselves. In the summer of 1854, a Kazakh caravan, consisting of 20 camels and 2,000 sheep, went to the Orenburg market. A group of Cossacks stopped this caravan not far from the Rudnikovskii piquet. The head of the outpost began to extort money, sheep, sheep skins, and other items from the merchants. In the fight which ensued, Cossacks wounded two and captured six traders. In response, the merchants broke the head of one Cossack and whipped two others. As a result of the conflict, the Cossacks captured 200 Kazakh sheep, which they returned fol905 lowing a Russian court decision. As this example demonstrates, the Cossacks mimicked the practices of the nomadic plunderers. The Cossack was, first of all, “a man with a gun” on the steppe, not an agent of the empire. Like the other “man with a gun” – the Kazakh raider – he took his tolls from the passing caravans, expressing more concern for his own livelihood than in filling State Treasury coffers with mercantile taxes. As the evidence presented in this chapter demonstrates, the aims of the acquisition of the steppe were of a pragmatic nature – to ensure the security of Russian settlements in Siberia and to stimulate Russian trade with the Central Asian Khanates through the steppe. The spread of Christianity or the civilizing mission, though much emphasized in pre-revolutionary Russian and Cold War era American historiography, was not among the reasons which pushed Russians eastward. The chapter also demonstrates the impossibility of the Russian government to impose its will on the people of the frontier. In spite of the objective to establish extensive economic relations with the countries adjacent to the steppe, it could not provide for the security of the caravans passing through the steppe. The central government seldom endorsed the suggestions of local Russian authorities to use force against the Kazakhs plundering the caravans, since it feared that any aggressive action would make the Kazakhs leave their pastures adjacent to the Line and take protection from some other country. In many cases the Russian government left it to the merchants to settle their conflicts with those Kazakhs who plundered their caravans, ignoring the 904 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 578, ll. 50, 51. 905 TsGA RK, f. 4, op. 1, d. 3675, ll. 1-10. 210

complaints of the former. Another reason for the inability of the Russian state to defend its economic interests in the steppe lies in the fact that the interests of the Cossacks as settlers did not always coincide with the duties of their service. Cossacks did separate their own interests from the interests of the empire and, when these interests were in conflict, they did not fulfill their duties as agents of the Tsar.

211

Chapter Five The Role of Trade in the Formation of a Frontier Society

The Insignificance of Kazakh-Russian Trade at the Initial Period of Contact At the time of the inclusion of the steppe into the empire, the Russian govern906 ment did not consider commerce with Kazakhs to be of much significance. The Kazakh steppe was viewed, almost solely, as a trading route to the east. As a statute issued by the Board of Internal Affairs in 1747 stated, “There is no evidence that either the Russian government or merchants can benefit 907 from trade with the Kazakhs.” The primary documents of that time demonstrate that both the volume of trade and the numbers of those who participated in the exchange in the first decades after the adoption of the protectorate 908 status were insignificant. Only few Kazakhs went to the Line settlements to exchange goods, while the vast majority asked the bravest of them to bring them certain items they needed. M. Babadzhanov, a Kazakh himself, explained this phenomenon by the fact that the Kazakhs felt shy and lost when they saw buildings and carriages, which was why they tried to avoid going to 909 the settlements. A more pragmatic explanation of this insignificant trade would be the imposition of limitations on the number of Kazakhs who could enter the Russian settlements. The Statute (Ukaz) of 1740, for example, did not allow more than twenty-five Kazakhs to be at any Russian Line settle910 ment at one time. Whichever explanation is more accurate, the result is the same – the trade between Cossacks and Kazakhs at the initial stage of contact did not play a significant role in the life of either community. Neither did the state consider trade with Kazakhs to be a source of income for the Treasury. The customs duties collected from Russians who traded with Kazakhs in the 906 Defining the aims of the Russian state in the acquisition of the steppe, Olcott argues that the imperial center was interested in the development of trade solely with Central Asia, ignoring the potential of the Kazakhs as trading partners. See Olcott, The Kazakhs, 30. 907 Asfendiiarov, Proshloe Kazakhstana, 240. 908 Potanin, O karavannoi torgovle, 88. 909 Babadzhanov, “Zametki Kirgiza o Kirgizakh.” 910 Rusanov, ”Sobranie aktov,” 219. 212

18th century were trivial. Army Captain I. Andreev presented a table of the customs duties collected in the period between 1767 and 1784 at two forts 911 along the Irtysh Line – Zhelezinskaia and Iamyshevskaia: Year

Zhelezinskaia (in rubles)

Iamyshevskaia (in rubles)

1767

16.26

217.81

1768

14.54

138.22

1769

25.71

79.22

1770

34.76

135.56

1771

36.41

82.36

1772

16.55

59.40

1773

9.2

32.23

1774

32.61

52.40

1775

35.20

203.57

1776

33.46

328.99

1777

25.41

169.40

1778

41.61

134.29

1779

11.00

77.34

1780

28.80

110.18

1781

29.72

139.63

1782

21.32

191.90

1783

40.18

128.52

1784

14.44

105.21

Andreev explained the insignificance of the collection of customs duties by the unwillingness of Central Asian merchants to trade at these forts. Even the Customs Offices situated in big administrative centers, such as Omsk, did not bring much money to the State Treasury. The customs duties collected from the merchants who came to trade there in the second half of the 18th century seldom exceeded 500 rubles a year and usually were considerably lower.

911 Andreev, Opisanie Srednei Ordy (1998 [1789]), 88, 100. 213

Measures Taken by the Russian Government to Stimulate Trade with the Kazakhs To stimulate trade with the Kazakhs, the Russian government employed several measures. As the first step in attracting Kazakhs to trade with Russians, the state allocated certain sums for hosting (traktovanie i ugoshchenie) those 912 steppe nomads who came to exchange goods at the Line forts. The Ukaz of the Senate of June 20, 1764, prescribed the local Russian administration to spend seventy-five rubles each at the Zhelezinskaia and Iamyshevskaia forts 913 for this purpose. The Omsk administration annually spent 400 rubles for the feeding and entertainment of Kazakh merchants, which roughly equaled the 914 sums that the state received from this trade in the form of taxes. As shown, Russian expenditures on throwing feasts for Kazakh merchants who brought their goods to Cossack forts frequently exceeded the income which the Treas915 ury received in the form of customs duties. The volume of trade was far more significant and stable at the forts which were favored by Central Asian merchants. For instance, in Semipalatinsk the annual trade revenue was never less than 300,000 rubles between the 1750s and the 1780s. In addition to entertaining Kazakh traders and establishing marketplaces at all fortresses built along the Irtysh Line in the 1750s and 1760s, an Ukaz of the Board of the Foreign Affairs and the Board of Commerce promulgated in 1747 exempted the Kazakhs of the Middle Horde from paying taxes when they traded with Russians. Another measure to attract Kazakhs to engage in commerce at the Russian forts was the prohibition on taking hostages (amanaty) from those clans who crossed the Line to trade, which had been a usual 916 practice for a considerable time. The Russian administration guaranteed the security of Kazakh merchants on the right bank of the Irtysh River by ordering soldiers to protect them, so nobody “could cause them any harm or grief.” 917 At the end of the 1750s, the Russian Line administration lifted the prohibition against Russian merchants crossing the Line, which had been in force since 1745. Following the order of Catherine the Great, the Russian adminis-

912 913 914 915 916 917 214

Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 15. Andreev, Opisanie Srednei Ordy, 108. Ibid., 109. Belonogov, “Promysly i zaniatiia naseleniia,” 288. GAOO, f. 1, d. 3, ll. 18-18ob. Basin, “Kazakhstan v sisteme,” 133.

tration founded a chain of dwellings and mosques for Kazakh merchants 918 along the Irtysh and Orenburg Lines in 1783. Barrett considers Catherine’s expansion of trade a part of her project to inculcate among the natives “new modes of behavior appropriate for imperial 919 subjects.” The more pragmatic interests of supplying the Cossacks and Russian peasants with horses and livestock did not play a significant role in the decision to promote trade. Both tasks, however, were equally important. In Andreev’s opinion, the marketplaces were needed to provide Russian settlers with horses, livestock, and the products of livestock breeding. Their second 920 task was “to attract Kazakhs to Russia.” P. S. Pallas gave another explanation for the state’s interest in the development of trade with Kazakhs. In his words, there were two ways for the Kazakhs to obtain fabrics and other manufactured goods – to steal them or to buy them from their neighbors. In Pallas’ and Veniukov’s opinion, the development of trade would lead to a “softening [of] the morals” among the Kazakhs, as well as to their transition 921 from plunder to exchange. The Russian policy of encouraging trade between Russians and Kazakhs continued in the 19th century. The Orenburg Governor General G. Volkonskii demanded in 1803 that Kazakh elders warn their clansmen not to attack the herds of livestock which other Kazakhs drove to the marketplaces, even if they were enemies with those clans. He threatened to punish those who disobeyed his demand, as “violators of the will of His Majesty the Emperor of 922 Russia.” He invited Kazakhs to come to the marketplace, promising them 923 protection “both along our border, and in the depth of the steppe.” The reforms promulgated in 1822 by the Governor General of Siberia, M. Speranskii, were intended to include the steppe nomads into the imperial economy. Every Kazakh received the right to conduct free economic activity. Their rights to sell and dispose of their produce and manufactures both within 924 the horde and beyond the Line were specially guaranteed. Sultans could 918 919 920 921

Belonogov, “Promysly i zaniatiia naseleniia,” 288 Barrett, “Crossing Boundaries,” 232. Andreev, Opisanie Srednei Ordy, 100. Pallas, Puteshestvie po raznym provintsiiam, 529; M. I. Veniukov, “Kratkii obzor vneshnei torgovli cherez Zapadnuiu Sibir’ v 1851–1860 gg.,” Zapiski Imeratorskogo Rossiiskogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva, book 2 (St. Petersburg, 1861), 185. 922 Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1964), 165. 923 Ibid., 141. 924 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 188. 215

925

bring livestock to sell in Russian towns, or even in other countries. Caravans passing through the Kazakh steppe could trade and exchange goods 926 with the local population without paying duties. Any Russian merchant could bring his goods to the steppe for retail sale as well and Kazakh mer927 chants were given the right to duty-free trade in the rest of the empire. Customs duties on the sale of skins and meat were abolished in 1831, and bread and agricultural tools and other goods made of iron could be brought to the steppe without paying duties from 1835 onward. The Ukaz of 1852 prescribed the Siberian and Orenburg Customs Offices not to withdraw duties 928 from bread and flour taken to the steppe. Finally, in 1868, all customs duties 929 on trade with the Kazakhs were repealed. In addition to encouraging commerce with the steppe, higher Russian officials endeavored to find new ways of using the resources of the Kazakh steppe for the needs of Russian industry. For example, the Minister of Foreign Affairs wrote to Emperor Nicholas I regarding the possibility of using the wool of Kazakh goats. According to the Minister’s order, several factories began to weave fabrics out of the goat wool. The results were quite encouraging. The Minister asked the Emperor to allocate more funds for the purpose 930 of continuing to make fabric from the wool.

The Kazakhs’ Interest in the Development of Trade The Kazakh khans, sultans, and elders were also interested in the development of trade with Russia. In 1745, the Sultan of the Middle Horde, Ablai, 931 asked the Russian Line administration to open a fair in Iamyshevo. An elder of the Younger Horde, Zhanybek, wanted the Orenburg Commission to allow the Kazakhs of his clan to trade at the fortresses along the Ural River, where 932 they could exchange their products for Russian goods and bread. Kazakh interest in trading with Russians can also be seen in the following example. A Khan of the Younger Horde, Nurali, sent a saber and other gifts to E.

925 926 927 928 929 930 931 932 216

PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 189-190. PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 193. PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127, 191. Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1964), 394. Belonogov, “Promysly i zaniatiia naseleniia,” 288. Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1964), 228. Potanin, O karavannoi torgovle, 87. Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1964), 130.

Pugachev, the leader of a Cossack rebellion, begging him not to attack Oren933 burg because “he and his people had trade there.” The representatives of the Kazakh elites were not the only social group of Kazakhs who demonstrated their interest in the development of trade with Russia. The commoners were also interested in establishing commercial relations across the Line. In February 1750, Nepliuev wrote to the Board of Foreign Affairs regarding the mass migration of Kazakhs to the Irtysh and Ural Lines. According to him, these Kazakhs petitioned the Russian authorities to let them use pastures on the Russian side of the Ural Line, and to exchange 934 their livestock for bread and hay. There were even such situations when Russians, who happened to visit the steppe, were forced to trade with Kazakhs. Potanin described cases in which Kazakhs threw stones at Cossacks, demanding that they exchange some goods. Potanin gives a description of one such “attack” of which he was an eyewitness during his trip to Zaisan Lake: Our expedition was encircled by a crowd of Kazakhs. In spite of their unfriendliness to us, they actively exchanged goods with the Cossacks who accompanied our expedition, at the same time cursing at them. The Kazakhs needed Russian fabric so badly that the Cossacks sold them not only all their shirts and pants, but also their old handkerchiefs and other pieces of clothes, leaving for themselves only one pair of underwear. When the Head of the expedition prohibited the Cossacks from trading, the Kazakhs began to express their displeasure so harshly that it was necessary to let 935 them continue the exchange. In the steppe regions adjacent to Chinese territory, Kazakhs concealed the Russian merchants from approaching Chinese patrols, taking their goods when the Chinese wanted to search them and then giving the goods back 936 when the Chinese were gone. To demonstrate the interest of the Kazakhs in developing trade with the Russians, a traveler visiting the Kazakh steppe in 1864 wrote the following: 933 Ibid., 30. 934 Apollova, Ekonomicheskie i politicheskie sviazi, 236. 935 G. N. Potanin, K. Struve, “Puteshestvie na ozero Zaisan i rechnuiu Oblast’ Chernogo Irtysha do ozera Marka-Kul’ i gory sar-Tau letom 1863 g.,” Zapiski RGO po obshchestvennoi geoerafii,” vol.1, (Moscow, 1867), 409. 936 Ibid. 217

As we reached the top of Khabar pass, we found a little caravanserai built by a trading Kazakh for merchants traveling in winter time. There was nobody in the building at that time. It is built of stone and can accommodate up to twenty people. This building is 937 indicative of the interest of Kazakhs in the development of trade. If some traveling merchant got sick, he stayed in Kazakh yurtas and local people took care of him without taking money. The good reputation of their settlement among merchants was more important for locals than immediate 938 profit.

The Growth of Kazakh-Russian Trade The Kazakhs’ interest in Russian goods, coupled with the measures of the Russian government for establishing trade, led to the development of an extensive exchange between the Russians and the steppe nomads. In 1779 the Governor General of Orenburg, O. Igel’strom, wrote about commerce in Orenburg: “A great number of Kirgizes came to the marketplace. Sometimes they exchanged as many as 14,000 sheep a day. The Kazakhs bought fabrics, metal items, bread and other goods from Russians. The Kazakhs bought 939 62,000 puds of bread in that year alone.” Along with the growth of trade, there was an increase in the sums collected by the customs office. When the customs office was introduced in Semipalatinsk in 1754, it would collect only 940 90 rubles. By 1769, however, the collection of duties reached 4003 rubles. The following table demonstrates the volume and composition of RussoKazakh trade at the Orenburg fair in the period between June 22 and October 941 19, 1785: Livestock Bought by Russian Merchants from Kirgizes Horses

The Number of Heads 1,821

Colts

186

Bulls

352

937 938 939 940 941 218

Ibid., 468. Fal’k, Izvestiia Akademika Fal’ka, 47. Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1964), vi. Zavalishin, Opisanie zapadnoi Sibiri, 82. Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1964), 109.

Sale Duties Collected

Sheep

189,585

Lambs

11,244

Goats

– Big

309

– Medium

3,452

– Small

3,666

Total Sum (in Rubles)

210,615

29,410

Reflecting the changing trade situation with the steppe nomads, the President of the Commercial Board (the prototype of the Ministry of Finance) A. R. Vorontsov suggested paying more attention to the trade with Kazakhs. From his viewpoint, a more active trade with the nomads, rather than with the Central Asian khanates, was in the interest of the Russian textile in942 dustry. As a result of the measures taken by the Russian government, customs duties collected from trade with Kazakhs began to exceed those of the Russo-Central Asian trade. Similarly, by the end of the 18th century, Russian trade became more important for the Kazakhs than their exchange with the Central Asian khanates. S. K. Ibragimov estimates the number of those Kazakhs who were involved in the Central Asian trade as being 217,000 people. 943 On the other hand, about 300,000 Kazakhs consumed Russian goods. To further stimulate commercial exchange with the Kazakhs, the Russian government established both fairs and permanent markets at all Russian settlements along the Line and the steppe. The volume of trade along the Line continued its growth in the 19th century. The following numbers demonstrate this growth. In contrast to 1820, when the combined amount of trade on the Siberian, Orenburg, and Ural Lines did not exceed 115,000 rubles per year, forty-two years later, in 1862, the volume of trade reached 5,348,438 silver rubles. The Kazakhs brought to the Lines only 70,000 heads of livestock in 1820. The numbers reached 100,000 944 heads of cattle and almost a million sheep forty years later. In his Description of the Kazakh Steppe, written in 1844, Captain Fomakov found several reasons for this trade boom. The most important of them was the high profit942 Apollova, Ekonomicheskie i politicheskie sviazi, 331. 943 S. K. Ibragimov, “Iz istorii vneshnetorgovykh sviazei kazakhov v XVIII veke” in Uchenye zapiski Instituta Vostokovedeniia, vol. 19 (Moscow, 1953), 47. 944 Zavalishin, Opisanie zapadnoi Sibiri, 57. 219

ability of this exchange. Other reasons were the organization of Cossack merchant societies and the establishment of a multitude of markets in all the Rus945 sian settlements along the Line. As a result of the Russians’ interest in commerce, “there was not a single settlement along the Line which did not have a store filled with goods, so the Kazakhs would not go to some other place to 946 trade.” Not only did members of the merchant guild participate in trade, all stanitsa dwellers, who had many goods to exchange, took part in commerce with the nomads of the steppe. Along with establishing markets along the Lines, Russian authorities organized fairs on the steppe. By 1853, three steppe fairs were established: one in Kokchetav stanitsa, and two in Akmolinsk stanitsa. The volume of goods sold in these fairs was considerable. In 1864 alone, the turnover of goods from the Akmola fair was 185,000 rubles (almost twice as 947 much as that of the whole steppe trade in 1820). Fedor Usov, in his Statistical Description of the Siberian Cossacks Army (Statisticheskoe opisanie sibirskogo kazach’ego voiska), offers a table which shows the development of 948 fair trade in the steppe: Year

The number of fairs

The amount of goods brought to the fair (in rubles)

The amount of goods sold (in rubles)

1868

19

1,329,841

610,086

1874

23

1,330,241

534,240

1875

25

2,736,164

1,148,529

1876

30

2,329,099

1,240,758

As the table demonstrates, along with the growth in the volume of trade, the number of fairs also steadily increased, reaching thirty in 1876. Not only did local merchants participate in these fairs, Russian merchants went there from such distant Siberian towns as Tobol’sk and Tomsk. As long as the fairs were held in Cossack stanitsas, the Cossacks were the most numerous of the participants. The Cossacks not only participated in the fair trade, they also maintained order at the fairs. The Khan of the Younger Horde, Aichuvak, 945 946 947 948 220

Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1964), 298. Ibid. Zavalishin, Opisanie zapadnoi Sibiri, 58. Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 253.

asked the Orenburg Governor in 1803 to send forty Cossacks to the fairs to 949 establish peace and order, and to put down disturbances. The fairs on the steppe surpassed the Line fairs in the volume of trade. As Zavalishin testified in 1862, the Petropavlovsk fair became the most important market for Russian trade with western China and all of Central Asia not only 950 on the Siberian, but also on the Orenburg Line. It is impossible to determine the exact volume of trade at the steppe fairs, as some of them were not even known to the Russian administration. As an officer of the Russian Army lamented in 1859, These fairs try to escape from the control of the civil administration. One such fair is situated near Tashtykul’ Canyon. Up to 800,000 heads of livestock are sold there annually. Merchants from Tiumen’, Shadrinsk, Kurgan, and Petropavlovsk make profits of tens of thousands rubles there. The local administration learned about this fair from the Chief of the Omsk Administration only 951 this year. Along with the opening of fairs on the steppe, contemporaries could see the establishment of permanent markets on the Kazakh side of the Irtysh River. Permanent trade coexisted with the fairs. The centers of both permanent and fair trade on the steppe were established in prikazy – the administrative centers of okrugs, founded by the administrative reform promulgated by the Siberian Governor M. Speranskii in 1822. Below is the statistical data on the volume of trade (both permanent and fair) in the Atbasarskii, Karkaralinskii, 952 and Kokchetavskii Okrug Prikazy in January 1860: Atbasar Permanent Trade

Temporary Arrivals

People

Stalls

People

Stalls

4

4

2

2

949 950 951 952

The Number of Kirgizes who Arrived to Trade

The Volume of Trade and the Items Sold

450 people

Cattle, Horses, Sheep on 10,000 rubles.

Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 216. Zavalishin, Opisanie zapadnoi Sibiri, 134. Geins, Sobranie literaturnykh trudov, vol. 1, 113. TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 694, l. 2 221

Karkaraly Permanent Trade

Temporary Arrivals

People

Stalls

People

Stalls

3

6

2

4

The Number of Kirgizes who Arrived to Trade

The Volume of Trade and the Items Sold

The numbers are significant

Groceries and items of luxury on 2,000 rubles

The Number of Kirgizes who Arrived to Trade

The Volume of Trade and the Items Sold

486 people

One merchant sold goods on 3,899 rubles

Kokchetav Permanent Trade

Temporary Arrivals

People

Stalls

People

Stalls

48

42

100

100

The bulk of commercial exchange shifted from the major fairs to the small Line settlements. This development was harmful to wealthy merchants, but beneficial to the Cossacks. To win over Cossacks, the large merchants decided “not to wait for the Kazakhs by the Line, but to send caravans to the steppe.” 953 Though, initially, this trade was not safe, better relations were later established between Kazakhs and merchants and, by the middle of the 19th century, trade on the steppe surpassed commerce along the Line. Business on the steppe was by far more profitable than commercial exchange at the Line markets. Potanin offers an example of the profitability of the trade on the steppe when he writes that a merchant named Nosonov brought Russian goods to the steppe totaling a value of 10,000 rubles and took back Kazakh products 954 worth 20,000 rubles in the period of two summers. As multiple sources testify, by the middle of the 19th century, trade between Kazakhs and Russians was extensive. Kazakhs actively participated in permanent and fair trade, both at the Line settlements and on the steppe, selling their livestock and buying Russian goods. According to data collected by Zavalishin, the trade turnover at the Siberian Line reached 3.5 million rubles in 1867. The largest share of this volume comprised of trade with Kaza953 Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1964), 298. 954 Potanin, “Puteshestvie na ozero Zaisan,” 409. 222

khs, which was 2.5 million rubles. The Kazakhs brought to the Line more than 600,000 sheep and goats, up to 100,000 cattle, and about 700,000 sheep955 skins per year. Almost all Kazakhs who lived close to the Line exchanged livestock or artisanal products for bread or goods that they needed in their 956 everyday life. Those Kazakhs who lived close to the Line were not the only ones involved in trade with Russians. N. Kazakhtsev wrote of the Kazakhs who drove their livestock from the pastures located as far as 200 versts from 957 the Line. Such cases, however, were infrequent. Most of the Kazakhs who had their pastures deep in the steppe sold their livestock to mediators in the trade – Central Asian, Russian, Kazakh, or Tatar merchants, or to Cossacks, who drove the herds of livestock to the Irtysh Line fairs. What did Kazakhs sell and buy? The merchants from Siberia and “Inner Russia” brought to the Irtysh Line the following items: tobacco, paper, bread, flour, tea, cereals, oatmeal, curried skins, woolen goods, items made of iron and copper, chests, and horse harnesses among other items. In exchange for these goods, merchants brought back to the Russian markets horses, cattle, sheep, skins, wool, and different items made by Kazakh artisans. But Kazakhs brought not only livestock and their byproducts to the Russian line settlements. The abundance of salt lakes on the steppe allowed them to bring to the 958 Line up to 9,600,000 kilograms of salt every year in the 1860s.

Cossack-Kazakh Trade: Russian Objectives in its Development At the initial stage of contact, the largest part of commercial exchange was carried out not by the people living in the areas adjacent to the Line, but by merchants from Central Asia or “Inner” Russia, with large merchant compan959 ies dominating trade. This phenomenon led to the instability of Russo-Kazakh trade. When, for example, the Bashkir rebellion of 1736–37 prevented merchants from European Russia from traveling to Orenburg, trade was very lim960 ited and “no customs duties were collected.” Russian authorities were interested in the development of a more stable trade. In order to accomplish this task, the Russian government took certain measures to stimulate trade be955 956 957 958 959 960

Zavalishin, Opisanie zapadnoi Sibiri, 82. Kul’teleev, Materialy po Kazakhskomu, 141. Kazantsev, Opisanie, 20. Mikhailov,“Kirgizy,” 288. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 59. Asfendiiarov, Proshloe Kazakhstana (1997), 206. 223

tween Kazakhs and Cossacks both along the Irtysh and Ural Lines. The Ural Cossacks were granted the privilege of trading with the Kazakhs “in their 961 Cossack yurtas” in 1738. The imperial Ukaz of April 10, 1773, allowed 962 Siberian Cossacks to barter goods with the Kazakhs on the steppe. As the Ukaz explained, the shortage of arable lands along the Line and a lack of time to engage in agricultural activities did not allow the Cossacks to provide for 963 themselves and their families many basic necessities. In order not to decline into poverty and be able to perform their service duties, the Siberian Line Cossack Army needed to have extra income in addition to the salaries paid 964 for their service, which were rather insignificant. A petition written by the peasants who, according to the order of the Siberian governor, were turned into Cossacks, demonstrates the economic situation of the Siberian Cossacks in the first half of the 19th century. This petition stated the following: We, the Cossacks of the Ishim District, have served at forts along the Line since 1732. Since the beginning of our service, we had to provide ourselves not only with food and clothes, but also with guns and ammunition. We also have to use our own horses in order to accomplish the duties of the service. We have to pay taxes not only for ourselves, but also for our brothers and fathers who are either deceased or captured by Kirgizes and Bashkirs. In addition to the military duties, we also must plow the state’s land, 965 which causes our complete decline into poverty. At the end of the petition, the Cossacks beseeched the Governor General of Siberia to allow them to return to their previous peasant status. According to the data of the Siberia Guberniia Chancellorship, the number of Cossacks in the Siberian Cossack Army who were converted peasants was 7,702 in 1754. These people received miserable salaries – an officer with one hundred men 961 962 963 964

Asfendiiarov, Proshloe Kazakhstana (1997), 204. Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 15. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 612, l. 14; Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 15. A Line Cossack’s annual salary prior to 1737 was four rubles. Then it decreased to three rubles and thirty-one kopeks. In some Irtysh-Line fortresses the Cossack salary was even lower. At the Semipalatinsk fortress in 1750, for example, the Cossack salary was as small as one ruble and fifty-two kopeks a year. See Yu. A. Gageimester, Statisticheskoe obozrenie Sibiri, part 2 (St. Petersburg, 1854), 79; Potanin, Materialy dlia istorii Sibiri, 42. 965 Potanin, Materialy dlia istorii Sibiri, 29.

224

under his command (sotnik) received 75 kopeks per month, the head of a detachment consisting of fifty Cossacks (piatidesiatnik) earned 60 kopeks, and 966 the monthly salary of a rank-and-file Cossack was 44.5 kopeks. No wonder that these Cossacks tried to escape from accomplishing their service duties as best as they could. Their resistance could take passive forms (as the aforementioned petition demonstrates) or they could openly refuse to obey the orders of their commanders. One such Cossack rebellion happened in 1757, when the Cossacks of Orlovo stanitsa refused to go to the Irtysh Line to serve in the forts. The Ataman of the Siberian Cossack Army had to send a detachment of loyal Cossacks with an order to arrest and chain the leaders of the mutiny. After the rebellion was suppressed, fifty-two out of the 149 Cossacks 967 of Orlovo stanitsa fled. The aforementioned evidence reveals two phenomena important for understanding the dynamics of the frontier. First, the Cossacks were not a privileged estate. In many respects, the status of a state peasant was more prefer968 able than that of a Line Cossack. Given this attitude of the state to their servants, we can hardly expect Cossacks to be willing to put their personal interests as settlers aside for the demands of the empire. Second, in order to survive, the Cossacks had to be quite inventive, as the traditional peasant methods of providing themselves with food, domestic animals, and clothes did not work. Military service took too much time from the Cossacks to be able to practice agriculture. The state also was either unwilling or unable (or both) to meet the material needs of the Cossacks. They had to find alternative ways to provide themselves and their families with basic necessities. One of the most important of such methods was trade with the natives of the steppe. Allowing Cossacks to trade with Kazakhs, the state hoped that this commerce would help the Cossacks meet their material needs and make them a 966 Ibid., 30. 967 Ibid. 968 McNeal describes the Cossacks’ household duty to equip its male members for cavalry service as “a formidable burden,” which could ruin even some relatively well-to-do families. In order to collect the sum necessary for equipping a cavalry Cossack, the members of his household in many cases had to sell their drought animals or agricultural equipment. If a Cossack family was too poor to collect this sum, the whole stanitsa was obliged to equip him. Cossacks were the only estate which had to endure this burden. Peasants, who were conscripted into the regular army, did not have to pay for their equipment. “A peasant family, for example, might loose the working power of a member for several years, but they did not have to lay out a large sum of cash to equip him.” The latter consideration made many peasant families resist their conversion to the Cossack estate. See McNeal, Tsar and Cossack, 199-200. 225

self-sufficient force of the Russian Empire on this remote frontier. The following part of the chapter demonstrates that though the measures undertaken by the Russian authorities to stimulate trade between its service people and the natives of the steppe saved the state treasury considerable sums of money, the Cossacks became dependent on the Kazakhs for many daily products. This phenomenon weakened the ability of the state to control developments on the frontier, since the Cossacks’ interests as settlers pre-empted their service obligations.

The Importance of Kazakh Trade for the Cossacks In his recent work Kazakhstani historian Abdirov defines war and Cossack military-exploitative activity directed against their neighbors as the only pos969 sible way of life for the Cossacks. Contrary to this belief, we have enough evidence to argue that trade, not warfare, was the primary occupation of the Cossacks settled along the Line or on the Kazakh steppe. Lieutenant Colonel Krasovskii noticed that though Cossacks did not belong to the merchant guild, they devoted much of their time and energy to commercial exchange with Kazakhs. Every Cossack settlement was a market for Kazakhs (or as both Kazakhs and Cossacks called it satovka, which means “trade and com970 merce” in Turkic languages). Usov noticed that trade played a very important part in Cossack life. According to him, the Siberian Line Cossacks location was favorable for trade. The Cossacks’ territory, on the one hand, was adjacent to the Kazakh steppe and ideal for livestock breeding. On the other hand, 971 it was contiguous with the agricultural Tobol’sk and Tomsk guberniias. Due to this geographic position, Cossacks were actively engaged in selling Russian goods to the nomads and Kazakh livestock byproducts to the Russian peasants. Some Cossacks conducted trade on the steppe through their Kazakh assistants. The Cossack Leontii Rassokhin of the redoubt Peschanyi, for example, sent to the Kazakh auls in 1832 two of his Kazakh assistants to ex972 change livestock for 1,600 kilograms of rye flour and five wooden chests. Usov defined two kinds of exchange in which the Line Cossacks were involved: monetary and barter. The Cossacks practiced the former one in their deals with Russian merchants and peasants. The trade between Cossacks and 969 970 971 972 226

Abdirov, Istoriia kazachestva, 23. Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 250; Mikhailov, “Kirgizy,” 288. Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 247-248. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 758, l. 2.

Kazakhs was for the most part based on the exchange of goods. In addition to the exchange of agricultural goods for the products of livestock breeding, one of the most important sources of income for the Cossacks stationed in the Omsk and Petropavlovsk uezds (districts) was the resale of salt brought from the steppe to Russian peasants. This was a very lucrative trade. Cossacks paid Kazakhs seven to ten kopecks per pud and then sold it for twenty kopecks per pud without excise duty, or for fifty to seventy kopecks with payment of the excise tax. Thus, the Cossacks’ profit was not less than fifteen to eighteen kopecks per pud. Given that in the Omsk district only the Cossacks bought and sold about 100,000 puds of salt per year, this business brought Cossacks about 973 20,000 rubles annually. The absence of a large amount of capital prevented Cossacks from becoming involved in the wholesale trade. The Cossacks settled on the steppe, exchanged flour for sheepskins and, bringing them to the Line, sold them at a 974 high profit. In this respect, the Cossacks’ situation was similar to that of the majority of Kazakh traders, who, lacking a large amount of capital, were involved in small-scale exchange. Though the numbers of the Kazakh merchants were quite comparable with or even exceeded the number of their Tatar colleagues, the latter’s capital was by far more significant. In 1863, Mikhailov estimated the number of Kazakh merchants in the Baian-Aul’skii Okrug as being sixty-eight in comparison to thirty-one Tatar traders. The Kazakhs could, however, boast of only 3,000 rubles of working capital, in con975 trast to the 50,000 rubles which the Tatars possessed. The trade between Cossacks and Kazakhs flourished not only at the Line forts. The shortage of funds pushed Cossacks to trade deep within the steppe. Sometimes these trading excursions were quite lengthy. For example, in 1835, eighteen Cossacks of the Second Cossack Regiment asked their commander to 976 let them go “beyond the Line” and to spend two months in the steppe. The Cossack-traders were quick to realize that the deeper into the steppe they went, the more profitable their business could be. The same year, twelve Cossacks of the Fourth Cossack Regiment asked their commander to let them trade with the Kazakhs of Ermentau Canyon, which was situated 300 versts 977 from the Line. There is no data on the numbers of Cossacks who particip973 974 975 976 977

Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 240. Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 415. Mikhailov, “Kirgizy,” 14. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 858, ll. 1-3. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 858, ll. 6-6ob. 227

ated in trade on the steppe. Some indirect evidence, however, proves that these numbers were significant. The Commander of the Siberian Cossacks even had to specify that it was not permissible for the fort commanders to allow more than half of the garrison at any given time to go to the steppe to 978 trade with Kazakhs. Cossacks went to the steppe with a small supply of different goods which were necessary in everyday Kazakh life. They exchanged these goods for livestock and products of livestock breeding – fat, wool, etc. The volume of such trade is impossible to determine, but according to Belonogov’s observations, this trade was widespread and highly profitable, as he saw many traders invariably returning from the steppe driving a herd of horses or some other livestock, or with carts loaded with wool, fat, or other products. They sold these goods at the markets in Troitsk, Orenburg, Orsk, Petropavlovsk, and Omsk to middle men who then sent these goods to the main Russian and 979 foreign markets. The aforementioned evidence leads to the conclusion that large numbers of Cossacks were involved in commerce with the Kazakhs. They spent much time on the steppe, making lengthy trips to maximize their profits. Trade was not the only interest of the Cossacks in going to the steppe – another was fishing. Cossacks formed small groups and went fishing as far as 200 versts into the steppe. Sometimes they spent a whole winter far from their stanitsas. Though the Russian administration was displeased with these trips, it could 980 do nothing to prohibit these practices. In order to compete with Kazakh and Russian merchants, Siberian Cos981 sacks organized a merchant society in 1853. Two hundred Cossacks joined the society that year. Later, the number of its members increased to 400 and, in 1861, reached 525. Those who joined the society paid fifty-seven rubles and fifty kopeks annually to the Army Treasury. In exchange, they were exempt from military service and were allowed to conduct trade anywhere within the 982 territory belonging to the Cossack Army. The state had to tolerate the fact 978 979 980 981

TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 858, ll. 4-4ob. Belonogov, “Promysly i zaniatiia naseleniia,” 288. TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 212, ll. 2. Siberian Cossacks were not the first Cossack Army which organized merchant societies. The first such merchant society was established among the Don Cossacks in 1804. The following fifty years saw the emergence of similar societies in most other Cossack Armies. See McNeal, Tsar and Cossack, 10. 982 Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 249. 228

that a considerable number of Cossacks were not fulfilling their duties due to their extensive trips to the steppe or because they officially quit after fulfilling their service obligations and entered merchant society. It had to recognize the fact that Cossacks had interests as settlers, which, at times, were not compatible with the demands of state service.

“Unequal” Trade? Writing about the exchange between Russians and Kazakhs, post-Soviet Kazakh historians invariably define it as “unequal” and the trade, in their interpretation, is always defined as “colonial.” In Tashtemkhanova’s words: It is a universally recognized fact that the trade between the peasant-settlers and Kazakhs was colonial in nature. The settlers exchanged cheap industrial goods for valuable raw materials, making huge profits by means of this unequal exchange. The Kazakh aul became not only the place for dumping the goods made by the settlers, but also one of the important sources of the raw materi983 als. It is possible that since “unequal exchange” and “colonial trade” are “universally recognized facts,” the historians do not find it necessary to support their 984 statements with any evidence. Let us determine whether the exchange between Russians and Kazakhs was essentially unequal. Usov wrote that “in earlier times, when the Kazakhs did not know the real prices for their livestock, the exchange trade with the steppe was extremely profitable for the Russians.” But by 1879, he states that this situation was no longer occurring: “The Kazakhs became more experienced in trade. Because of it, and due to the growing demand for products of livestock breeding, their prices increased. The prices for Russian goods, on the 985 contrary, significantly dropped.” The worst problem for the Cossacks’ livelihood, however, was the fact that their position as mediators in the trade became in peril. Prior to the 983 P. M.Tashtemkhanova, Iz istorii kolonizatsionnoi politiki tsarizma v Kazakhstane vo vtoroi polovine XIX – nachale XX veka (Pavlodar, 2001). 984 The view of the “colonial” and “unequal” character of trade in pre-revolutionary Kazakhstan is to a large degree shared by Western historians. For Olcott, the fact that Russian merchants were notorious for taking advantage of Kazakhs “hardened the popular attitude against the Russians.” See Olcott, The Kazakhs, 65. 985 Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 248. 229

1870s, most of the business deals between Russians and Kazakhs were made with the Cossacks’ assistance. The abolition of customs duties and the establishment of peasant settlements close to the Cossack stanitsas made their role as mediators obsolete – the Russian merchants and peasants started to deal 986 directly with the nomads of the steppe. The more competitive the trade in the steppe became, the less profit Russian traders received. Komogorov’s observations demonstrate the shift in prices in the first half of the 19th century: In earlier times, the samovar (a Russian type of a kettle) which cost seven silver rubles in Russia could be exchanged for a twentyone-year-old sheep in the steppe, whose price in Siberian markets was forty silver rubles. A merchant paid twenty-five kopeks for a pound of tea or sugar in Russia, and exchanged it for a sheep in 987 the steppe. Now Kazakhs pay much less for these goods. The growing competition led to a decrease in prices for Russian goods and a price increase for the products of the steppe.

Kazakhs in Transportation Services and the Emergence of Kazakh Merchants Another factor that led to a more “equal” exchange was the emergence of 988 Kazakh merchants. For those Kazakhs whose pastures were located far from the borders with the Central Asian khanates, the trade experience was new. As Krasovskii noted, “the exchange between Kirgizes of different regions in 989 the Oblast’ of Siberian Kirgizes almost did not exist.” However, they were fast to learn merchant skills. As early as 1762, P. Rychkov wrote of some Kazakhs of the Younger Horde who bought goods at the Line forts and sold 990 them in their auls. Krasovskii noticed the same development in the Middle Horde. He wrote about Kazakh merchants who went to the fairs in Nizhnii 986 Ibid., 249. 987 Komogorov, Vestnik Imperatorskogo Rossiiskogo geograficheskogo obshchestva, vol. 1, part 13 (1855). 988 The Statute allowed Kazakhs, who chose a settled way of life, to enter Russian guilds with all the duties and privileges ascribed to the estate they entered. See PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,126, 57. Membership in the merchant guilds allowed Kazakhs to trade both within the empire (for the members of the second merchant guild) and beyond the empire (for the members of the first merchant guild). See PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,126, 13. 989 Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 207. 990 Rychkov, Topografiia Orenburgskaia, 114. 230

Novgorod, Irbit, and Petropavlovsk to buy large amounts of Russian goods 991 and then sold them in their auls at higher prices. According to the estimations of Zimanov, about ten Kazakh sultans bought goods in Orenburg and Troitsk and resold them in their auls at the beginning of the second half of 992 the 19th century. The goods transported by Russian and Central Asian traders gave Kazakhs both the knowledge of how to conduct business and the means to gain 993 the capital necessary to start their own trade. Some Kazakh merchants were very successful. According to V. Grigor’ev’s observations, the Kazakh traders had pushed out the Central Asian, Tartar, and Russian merchants who used to dominate the steppe trade. He stated: “Without having any capital, or any experience in commerce, the Kirgizes managed to win over their Tartar and Russian competitors. They made their initial capital transporting Russian 994 goods to Central Asia, and then invested it in their own trade.” Trade through the steppe became safe only in the second half of the 19th century. The suppression of Kenesary’s rebellion in 1847 created the conditions for the sustainable growth of the caravan trade between the Central Asian khanates and Russia. In I. Zavalishin’s words, caravan routes crossed the Kirgiz steppe in all directions – from north to south and from east to west. The number of caravans cannot be calculated with precision. There is official statistical data only on those caravans which left the Line or arrived there (there is no data on the caravan trade within the steppe). The number of caravans, which came from Bukhara to Orenburg between 1856 and 1858, demonstrate the growth of trade once the trading routes became safe. These caravans constituted 11,000 loaded camels in 1856, 13,000 in 1857, and 14,000 in 995 1858. The official data determined the number of caravans going from the Irtysh Line to Central Asia to be between 150 and 200 per year. Each caravan had a minimum of 100 camels, so it can be concluded that at least 15,000 996 camels crossed the steppe going to or coming from the Irtysh Line annually. The development of trade between Russia and the Central Asian khanates became a considerable source of income for many Kazakhs who owned camels and carried goods from Russian Line settlements to Khiva, Kokand, 991 992 993 994 995 996

Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 292. Zimanov, Obshchestvennyi stroi Kazakhov, 96. N. Ia., “Kochevoi byt i issledovaniia v stepiakh,” Vostochnoe Obozrenie, no. 12 (1886): 11. Grigor’ev, “Orenburgskie Kirgizy,” 38. TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 31, l. 12ob. Zavalishin, Opisanie zapadnoi Sibiri, 56. 231

997

Bukhara, and Tashkent. Camels were the only animals which could stand the arduous trip through the steppe and all the trade with Central Asia was 998 done by camels. In short, those who owned camels controlled the trade. In 1864, Grigor’ev endeavored to calculate how much money the carrier trade brought to Kazakhs. According to his estimations, each load a camel carried from Russia to the Central Asian markets cost the merchants from ten to fifteen silver rubles one way. As long as only Orenburg Kazakhs had from 15,000 to 20,000 camels (and some individual Kazakhs owned as many as 500 999 camels) their annual income from the carrier trade was anywhere from 1000 300,000 to 600,000 rubles. As contemporaries have noted, Kazakhs successfully competed with Cossacks in the transportation business. According to Krasovskii, one of the most important sources of the Cossacks’ income was the transportation of merchant goods. This kind of business, however, was “slipping out” of Cossack hands, due to the fact that the Kazakhs offered lower prices for their services. 1001 To compensate for the losses caused by Kazakh competition, the steppe Cossacks started to rent rooms in their houses to the merchants, both Russi1002 ans and Kazakhs, who came to trade at the steppe fairs. Grigor’ev described cases in which the trade made Kazakhs very rich: “Zhappas and other clans have merchants whose capital exceeds ten thousand rubles. This capital allows the Kirgiz merchants to bring herds of livestock to the Irbit fair without Russian mediation. Kirgizes themselves buy Russian 1003 goods at the fair and sell them in their auls.” Travelers who visited the Line in the last quarter of the 19th century wrote of the Kazakh merchants who had built houses in the Russian stanitsas and were involved in large1004 scale trade. Some large Kazakh traders had up to twenty-five assistants and maintained trading relations not only with Russia, but also served as middle1005 men in trade between Russia, Bukhara and China. Kazakhs did not only

997 Mikhailov, “Kirgizy,” 288; Nischenkov, “Kirgizskaia step’.” 998 Zavalishin, Opisanie zapadnoi Sibiri, 34. 999 Ibid., 56. 1000 Grigor’ev, “Orenburgskie Kirgizy,” 38. 1001 Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 415-416. 1002 Ibid. 1003 Grigor’ev, “Orenburgskie Kirgizy,” 46. 1004 G. N. Potanin, K. Struve “Poezdka po Vostochnomu Tarbagaiu letom 1864 g.,” Zapiski GO, vol. 1 (Moscow: 1867), 521. 1005 Zimanov, Obshchestvennyi stroi Kazakhov, 97. 232

copy the Tartar and Russian trade methods, in some cases they devised their own strategies to become more efficient competitors in the steppe trade: Kirgizes of the eastern part of the steppe organized joint-stock companies – something which Russians or Tartars do not have. Some Kirgizes, who managed to make some capital, join their funds then choose the most capable merchant among them and let him decide where to invest the money to maximize their profit. These joint-stock companies are not the only innovation on the steppe. Kirgizes also organized banks. These banks are based solely on their honesty and trust. There are Kirgizes who collected considerable sums of money, but because of their old age, they cannot continue to be involved in trade. These Kirgizes entrust 1006 their money to younger merchants getting certain interest. Grigor’ev appealed to the Russian merchants to follow these practices in order to be able to compete with their Kazakh colleagues. As the evidence demonstrates, the Kazakhs, at least some of them, were skillful traders, and profited greatly from the exchange of goods with Russians. Along with selling livestock byproducts and goods made by Kazakh artisans, the Kazakh merchants were involved in reselling Central Asian goods to the Russians, 1007 gaining much profit from their position as middle men in this kind of trade. The aforementioned evidence demonstrates that the idea of “unequal exchange,” which dominates post-Soviet Kazakhstani historiography, is nothing more than another nationalistic myth.

The Role of Trade in Establishing Relations between Contact Participants Along with the emergence of the Kazakh merchant class, the extensive development of trade had another important consequence – the establishment of friendly relations between the participants of exchange. 19th-century Kazakh publicist M. Babadzhanov defined the development of trade as the crucial factor for changing the Kazakhs’ previously negative attitude toward Russians. In his opinion, trade brought Russians and Kazakhs together, making Kazakhs more tolerant of any signs of otherness: 1006 Grigor’ev, “Orenburgskie Kirgizy,” 46-47. 1007 Apollova, Ekonomicheskie i politicheskie sviazi, 264. 233

In earlier times when Russian merchants came to a Kirgiz aul, the children were so much afraid of them that they hid themselves behind their mothers. The Kirgiz washed the cup after the Russian used it. When Kirgizes realized that they could not survive without Russian goods, they began to establish closer relations with the Russians and valued their acquaintance and trust…. After making a good bargain, Kirgizes completely forgot their previous fastidiousness and willingly drank and ate from the same dish as a Russian…. Now the Kazakh knows all fairs which can be even 900 versts away from his aul. He has been to all of them, and almost 1008 always the trade was profitable for him. It is not being argued here that trade relations between Russians and Kazakhs were always mutually advantageous or free from any conflict situations. Nevertheless religious or racial solidarity mattered very little in this type of interaction and was not itself a reason for conflict. The following example endeavors to prove this claim. Semen Chechurov, a Russian merchant of the Third Guild from Omsk, lived and traded in the Karkaralinskii Okrug. In 1853 he lent goods to the translators Makhonin, Chernyshev, and Ianitskii (also Russians), and a Kazakh merchant’s son, Nurzhan Iusupov. These people promised to pay Chechurov back with forty sheep in 1854. In confirmation of their words they offered receipts. While Chechurov was absent, his assistant, Bukharan Masik Mashetreninov, without Chechurov’s permission, gave these receipts to the Russian peasant Ivan Golovachev, who lived in the Karkarala Volost’. Since Chechurov did not know Golovachev, he asked the Karkaralinsk Okrug Prikaz to in1009 form his debtors not to give sheep to the peasant. Though the motivations of Mashetreninov are not clear, it is seen from this example that religious or racial differences did not prevent people of the frontier from forming alliances, which were, at times, directed against the interests of people of their own religious or ethnic affiliation. A Bukharan and a Russian peasant endeavored to deceive Russian translators, a Russian merchant, and a Kazakh. By giving this example, it is demonstrated that frontier life does not fit into the colonizer/colonized paradigm. These people’s actions were motivated not by their religious or racial affiliations, but by gaining profit from their relations. 1008 Babadzhanov, “Zametki Kirgiza o Kirgizakh.” 1009 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1518, ll. 1-2ob. 234

The success of steppe commerce depended largely on Russian merchants and the Cossacks’ ability to accommodate to the Kazakh way of life and establish friendly relations with their trade partners. The Semipalatinsk merchant Ufimtsev described how his uncle, the merchant Samsonov, prepared him for trade on the steppe: When I was eight years old, Samsonov sent me to school where I learned how to write in Russian. I also studied accounting, and the Tatar, Kirgiz and Bukharan languages there. When I turned twelve, my uncle shaved my head, gave me a Tatar hat and Tatar clothes and sent me with his Tatar assistants to the steppe... I did not eat anything else in the steppe but mutton... I had my own yurta, because it is impossible to survive without a yurta in the steppe. After several 1010 years, my Bukharan friends invited me to trade in Bukhara. Captain Fomakov informed the administration about a Russian Orenburg merchant of the first guild named Deev, known in the steppe under the name “Mishen’ka.” He alone, or together with his sons, went to the remotest corners of the steppe without any guard. He was fluent in the Kazakh language, and knew all the customs and traditions of the nomads. Deev was highly respected by the Kazakhs. To make his trade more profitable, he established a khutor (a small settlement) on the steppe with a storehouse and a shop. Along with the trade, Deev cultivated crops. Fomakov called him a founder of steppe 1011 commerce. Deev not only sold Russian goods to the Kazakhs, he also was involved in trade with the Central Asian khanates, sending caravans there. He even planned to open an office in Khiva. The number of Russian merchants on the steppe was considerable. According to Fomakov’s observations, there was a merchant in each Kazakh aul which had its pastures 200 versts or more from the Line. These merchants traveled together with members of the aul during the year, and went to the Line only in the summer to drive their sheep and acquire Russian goods to 1012 bring them back to the aul. The further from the Line the more such merchants lived among the Kazakhs. Russians were not the only non-Kazakh merchants who settled on the 1010 A.V. Orlov, “Iz zapisok prikazchika Ufimtseva. Russkii v gostiakh u Kenesary,” Orenburgskii Listok, no. 28 (June 9, 1889): 2. 1011 Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1964), 299. 1012 Ibid. 235

steppe. Potanin and Struve, in their journey through the steppe, spent some time in the aul of a rich Uzbek merchant named Bidzhi. In their definition, Bidzhi was the wealthiest merchant on the steppe. The influence of Bidzhi on the steppe was equal to that of Kazakh clan leaders. In order to strengthen his position, Bidzhi tried to establish family relations with the most influential Kazakhs. Bidzhi had close ties with the clan Togaz, which gave him a part of their pastures in the summer and land for agricultural activity. In exchange, Bidzhi had to fulfill a Kazakhs’ duty of giving shelter to and feeding Russian officials who came to their aul. Potanin was told that Bidzhi’s case was not exceptional. The whole Kazakh steppe was divided into “zones of influence” of different Uzbek merchants who settled there. According to Potanin and Struve, it was extremely difficult for Russian merchants to compete with their Uzbek colleagues because the latter intermarried with important Kazakh fam1013 ilies, which gave them certain trade privileges. Due to the fact that trade on the steppe was competitive, the success of commerce depended to a large degree on the ability of Russian merchants to establish good relations with the Kazakhs. In his petition to the Emperor Alexander I, the Head of the Bukei Horde, Sultan Shigai, wrote about Russian merchant A. I. Alekseev, who “enduring many difficulties and expenditures” helped to build a mosque on the steppe. According to Shigai, Alekseev also saved many Kazakhs from starvation when, because of the unusually severe cold and snowstorms in the winter of 1816, Kazakhs lost most of their livestock. The named merchant brought bread from the Volga River and sold it to Kazakhs at low prices. Those Kazakhs, who could not pay even this low price, got the bread on credit. Taking his benevolent behavior into consideration, 1014 Shigai asked the Emperor to reward Alekseev with a medal. Russian merchants, especially those who permanently lived on the steppe, preferred the traditional steppe court of biis to solve their conflicts with Kazakhs. This was because the biis enjoyed more respect among the natives of the steppe than the Russian court, and the decisions of the biis were easier to enforce as they knew the economic situation of each Kazakh and could better 1015 determine the sum of compensation he could pay. The legislation of 1868 confirmed the right of merchants to ask the biis to resolve their conflicts with

1013 Potanin, “Poezdka po Vostochnomu Tarbagaiu,” 482. 1014 Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 272-273. 1015 Kul’teleev, Materialy po Kazakhskomu, 366. 236

1016

the Kazakhs. Of interest here is the fact that sometimes even the Russian authorities preferred to resolve conflicts between Russian merchants and Kazakhs using the traditional steppe methods of meting justice. M. Gotovitskii gave an example of how the Siberian Governor General Kaufman used the traditional method of karandas-kyb to determine a case which involved a 1017 Kazakh clan and the family of Russian merchants. Karandas-kyb, translated as “done between relatives,” was the method used by the biis to solve such cases when either both sides of the conflict were guilty or when the crime was committed unintentionally. In the latter case, the offender had to pay only half of the compensation he would have to pay if the crime was in1018 tentional. Kaufman used karandas-kyb to solve a case in which a son of a Russian merchant accidentally shot and killed a Kazakh while hunting on the steppe. The deceased Kazakh had a wife and a son. The merchant’s relatives decided not to inform the police but went straight to Kaufman and asked him not to apply the Russian laws to this case, as they could not bring material compensation to the widow of the deceased Kazakh. According to Kazakh traditional laws, if a widow had a daughter and her deceased husband did not have a brother whom she could marry, then the perpetrator had to give her fifty horses. If she, however, was young, had a son and, thus, stood a chance to marry one of the relatives of her husband, then the biis applied karandas-kyb. According to karandas-kyb, the perpetrator had to give twenty-five horses to 1019 the widow. As the aforementioned case allowed the use of karandas-kyb, the governor general suggested that the son of the killer pay a kun (“blood price”) worth twenty-five horses. The price was paid and both sides were content with Kaufman’s decision. As Gotovitskii noticed, this decision created 1020 an image among Kazakhs of Kaufman being a wise and just man. And as this example demonstrates, local Russian authorities did not consider traditional steppe laws to be inappropriate for resolving cases involving Russians. They were aware that following the traditional steppe system of justice was necessary for preserving stability on the steppe. The conflicts between Kazakhs and Russian merchants were, however, in1016 Istoriia Kazakhstana, 79 1017 M. Gotovitskii, “Okonchanie del polumirom po kirgizskomu obychnomu pravu,” Iuridicheskii Vestnik 19 (Moscow, 1885): 193-194 1018 Gotovitskii, “Okonchanie del polumirom,” 193. 1019 Ibid., 194. 1020 Ibid. 237

frequent due to two reasons. First, the merchants living on the steppe knew all of the Kazakhs with whom they traded and, thus, avoided risky deals. Second, the merchants themselves were interested in pleasing the people of the steppe since Russian legislation placed them in a dependent position in regard to the elders, who decided whether or not to permit a certain merchant 1021 to trade in their auls. As these examples reveal, in order to win the competition over Central Asian merchants, the Russian traders had to establish friendly relations with the natives of the steppe, to adopt their language and elements of their culture, and to submit to the traditional Kazakh system of justice. In other words, to be successful in trade, the merchants had to lose a part of their “Russianness” to become better accepted by the Kazakhs.

Trade as a Tool of Frontier Hybridization In his recent work, Kazakh historian A. B. Shalgimbekov considers the Line 1022 trade was “an effective method of colonization.” He explains his definition by stating that this kind of trade not only strengthened the economic ties between the steppe and Russia, but also brought to the steppe elements of material culture which were foreign to Kazakhs. The Line trade, together with the policy of social assimilation and military and civil colonization, in Shalgimbekov’s view, destroyed the nomadic way of life and changed the social 1023 structure of society. In short, Kazakhstani historians usually draw the readers’ attention only to the negative effects of the Russo-Kazakh trade. Some contemporaries also emphasize the negative effects that the commerce produced on the nomads of the steppe. M. Babadzhanov, for example, wrote about the three evils that the trade brought to the steppe: liquor, tobacco, and tea. According to him, the tobacco and liquor were extremely harmful for Kazakhs because they “do not know limits in consuming them.” In his Zametki Kirgiza o Kirgizakh (Notes of a Kirgiz about Kirgizes) Babadzhanov devoted a paragraph to describing the harmful effects of the tea trade: Almost half of the Horde drinks tea now. Not everybody can af1021 Kul’teleev, Materialy po Kazakhskomu, 366. 1022 A. B. Shalgimbekov, “Lineinaia torgovlia v severnom Kazakhstane vo vtoroi polovine XVIII veka,” in Stepnoi Krai: Zona vzaimodeistviia russkogo i kazakhskogo narodov (XVIII – XX veka), vtoraia mezhdunarodnaia nauchnaia konferentsiia. Tezisy dokladov i soobshchenii (Omsk: Omskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet, 2001), 38. 1023 Ibid., 44. 238

ford it. The old people resent it. But what can we do about it? We got addicted to drinking tea, and cannot stop it. The Kundrovskie Tatars used to be rich cattle-breeders. They declined to poverty now due to their excessive expenditures on tea. Our old men 1024 worry that the same fate awaits us. It is difficult to determine whether the creation of this “tea dependency” was part of a conscious plan of the Russian government to make the Kazakhs dependent on the state and destroy their livelihood. It also may have occurred by chance. I am inclined to believe in the latter, as I could not find any evidence proving that the purpose of Russian trade policy with the natives of the steppe “was directly connected to attempts to conquer the region through winning over, subduing, killing, or exiling the native inhabitants,” – a phe1025 nomenon noticed by Barrett in his study of the Northern Caucasus. What can be said with a larger degree of certainty is that elements of Russian lifestyles did spread throughout the steppe due to extensive trade. It is accurate that steppe and Line commerce produced considerable effects on the Kazakh way of life, bringing elements of Russian material culture into their everyday life. But that is only half of the story. Shalgimbekov and most other Kazakhstani historians do not notice the parallel process of the frontier Russians’ (and first of all the Cossacks’) adoption of elements of Kazakh material culture. Mutual assimilation, not the colonial imposition of one culture over another, was the principal feature of frontier life. Extensive trading with the Kazakhs had a significant impact on Cossack material culture. Similar to other regions of Asiatic Russia, the frontier exchange became “the foundation of 1026 a regional economy and shared culture.” Usov wrote the following passage concerning this influence in the way Cossacks dressed: The Cossacks’ clothes have many oriental elements adopted by them from Kazakhs and Tatars. It happens because Central Asian materials and different items of Kirgiz clothes are much cheaper than Russian clothes brought to the Line. The Cossacks especially like the oriental gown, which both the rich and poor of them wear all the time on weekdays and on holidays. Even when they are on 1024 Babadzhanov, “Zametki Kirgiza o Kirgizakh.” 1025 Barrett, At the Edge of Empire, 113-114. 1026 Ibid., 110. 239

their duty on the steppe, a Cossack uses any opportunity to put on his gown. He ties the gown with a Russian belt. Besides that, the Cossacks wear beshmet (Kirgiz sleeveless jackets) made from paper material and narrow pants on holidays... In winter, he wears ergaki (sheep skin coats with fur outside) and leather chambary 1027 (wide pants). This description is very close to the one of the Terek Cossack given by Barrett. According to his description, the Terek Cossacks wore the clothes of the mountain people, such as the papakha (tall sheepskin hat), the burka (felt cloak), and the cherkeska (long, narrow, collarless coat). These clothes made them look more like Chechens or Circassians than Russians. The head of the Caucasus Oblast’, A. A. Vel’aminov, even had to order Cossacks not to approach peasants working on the field because “the Cossacks of the Line wear identical clothes as the mountain people [and] peasants are not able to distin1028 guish enemies from the Cossacks.” The Cossacks’ adoption of elements of Kazakh material culture was by no means limited to clothes. Kazakh koshma (roughly processed sheep wool) was popular among Russians in the regions adjacent to the steppe. In M. Ch. Chermanov’s words, “not only Kazakhs, but also Russians used koshma to protect their houses from cold.” They winterized windows, walls, and doors, 1029 and covered floors with koshma. In their turn, the Kazakhs frequently used 1030 Russian fabrics and metal utensils. The visitor who came to the Kazakh steppe at the end of the 19th century, could see yurtas in the backyards of 1031 Cossack houses, which “gives a Russian man many pleasant minutes in 1032 summer, as it protects him from summer heat, rain, and wind.” Barrett considers the instances in which Greben Cossacks “lived in a Caucasian saklia in the winter and a Russian izba in the summer” to be the most prominent illus1033 tration of the Cossacks’ split identities. The insides of their houses revealed similarities in the tastes of the Cossack and Kazakh: “Both like to decorate 1027 Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 270. 1028 Barrett, At the Edge of Empire, 118. 1029 Apollova, Khoziaistvennoe osvoenie, 282. 1030 Konshin, “Ocherki ekonomicheskogo byta,” 179-180. 1031 Of interest here is that, like Cossacks who had both a Russian-style house and a yurta, those Kazakhs who built houses also kept their yurtas. Both Kazakhs and Cossacks lived in yurtas in the summer and moved to their houses when winter arrived. See Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 402; Zavalishin, Opisanie zapadnoi Sibiri, 36. 1032 Zavalishin, Opisanie Zapadnoi Sibiri, 36. 1033 Barrett, At the Edge of Empire, 182. 240

their houses with carpets, both are fond of chests, which demonstrate their 1034 prosperity.” Even the Ural Cossacks, who were much less tolerant to signs of foreignness, adopted some elements of Kazakh material culture. The engineer A. Gren, who visited the steppe in the middle of the 19th century, gave the following description of the clothes of the Ural Cossacks who accompanied him on his trip to the steppe: The Cossacks’ clothes were of different styles. Everybody put on the clothes he felt the most comfortable... With all this diversity, all of them had a pair of chambary – wide pants made of leather. 1035 All Kirgizes wear this kind of pants. In order to survive and prosper, the Ural Cossacks had to mute some of their prejudices. Gren continues his narrative by giving an account of how the Ural Cossacks tried to suppress their belief in the “sinfulness” of people of different religions with the need to establish relations with them: Though all Ural Cossacks are either Dissenters or Tatars, the former, when they leave their land, abandon many of their prejudices. They often eat from the same dish with a non-Dissenter. Some smoke tobacco and almost all drink vodka... On his return from the steppe, the Ural Cossack has to say a cleaning prayer. 1036 Otherwise, the elders will not let him join his family. This observation demonstrates that although the Kazakhs were still considered to be “sinful,” especially by the older Cossacks, the necessity to establish connections with them spurred the Ural Cossacks to invent such a little trick as the “cleaning prayer.” Though being a powerful identity marker, separating “us” from “them,” the religious affiliation of the Ural Cossacks left open loopholes which made contacts with religious “others” possible.

The Economic Weakness of the State and Cossack Dependence on Trade with Kazakhs In the view of post-Soviet Kazakhstani historians, the Kazakhs’ adoption of elements of Russian culture created their dependency on trade. The worst ef1034 Konshin, “Ocherki ekonomicheskogo byta,” 179. 1035 Gren, “Iz putevykh zametok,”129. 1036 Ibid., 129-131. 241

fect which this dependency brought was the loss of the Kazakh’s independence – that is, the “swallowing” of the sovereign Kazakh state by the Russian 1037 Empire. As in the case with the Kazakhs’ adoption of elements of “foreign” culture, this depiction does not reflect the whole picture. The mutual adoption of elements of material culture caused interdependence among newcomers and aboriginals of the steppe. Not only did Kazakhs become dependent on trade with Russians, but the Cossacks’ material welfare was also reliant on commerce with the natives of the steppe. The exchange of skills was as widespread as the exchange of goods. In 1822 the Head of the Siberian Cossack Army, P. M. Kaptsevich, asked the sultans and elders of the Middle Horde to send their people to the Line stanitsas to teach Cossacks to sheer sheep 1038 wool. And likwise, in many cases, Kazakhs invited Russian Cossacks to 1039 teach them how to build houses. As in the case of the Northern Caucasus, the weakness of the Russian economy on the eastern frontier made the Cossacks dependent on native eco1040 nomies. Their remoteness from the centers of industry and agriculture made Cossack dependent on the natives of the steppe in many ways. The Siberian Line Cossacks would not be able to perform their service duties or even survive without the Kazakhs’ horses, livestock byproducts, and many items produced by Kazakh artisans because the trade routes between Siberia and Russia at that time were so unreliable that it was impossible to bring any 1041 significant supply of bread or livestock from central Russia. Russian settlers in Siberia in the 17th and 18th centuries desperately needed horses and cattle. According to Potanin, this occurred because the first Russian settlers spent most of their time conquering the territory and hunting fur-bearing animals. They were consumers rather than producers of livestock. Potanin cited several documents which testified that the lack of horses was acute. The Tomsk, Kuznetsk, and Krasnoiarsk Cossacks, for example, had only one horse for every three men. The explorers had to travel on foot, car1042 rying all their supplies on their backs. The situation along the Irtysh Line was not much better. In his report to Kinderman written in 1745, a Cossack officer lamented that it was impossible to guard the Line because many Cos1037 Shalgimbekov, “Lineinaia torgovlia,“ 44. 1038 GAOO, f. 366, op. 1, d. 82, ll. 448-449. 1039 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 808, ll. 6-6ob. 1040 Barrett, At the Edge of the Empire, 6. 1041 Potanin, O karavannoi torgovle, 42. 1042 Ibid., 43. 242

1043

sacks either had bad horses or did not have horses at all. This situation pushed the first settlers to establish trade relations with native livestock breeders. The Cossack Donov, in his report written in 1737, informed authorities that it would be possible for the Russians to exchange fabric for horses, 1044 which were “great and good.” The higher authorities took his idea into consideration and, in her “Instructions on the Founding and Settling of the City at the Mouth of the Or’ River,” Empress Anna Ioannovna recommended Kirillov to buy or exchange Kazakh horses for the needs of the Russian Army. 1045 In 1738, the practical implementation of this recommendation was the order given by the Governor General of Orenburg to the Army Captain Lakosolov to exchange fabric worth 3,000 rubles for Kazakh horses. This order started the practice of state purchases of horses from Kazakhs, which lasted for 1046 many years to come. The state purchase of Kazakh horses, however, was not enough to meet the needs of all Cossacks. The Russian administration could not provide enough horses to even those Cossacks who were stationed on the steppe and were supposed to establish order and Russian law. All Speranskii could do was to ask the Kazakhs to sacrifice a “small number of horses for the needs of the service.” As he specified in his order, the administration of the okrugs could not demand these horses from the Kazakhs: “All the horses should be given away voluntarily.” As a result of this request, Kazakhs gave to the Cossack Siberian Army twenty-six 1047 horses. Horses were by no means the only item that the Cossacks lacked. The remoteness of the Line from the food and supply-producing regions of inner Russia, coupled with the meager salaries paid to them by the state, made the flow of goods from the steppe essential for the Cossack economy. The Russian government was fully aware of this situation. When Catherine the Great ordered the Siberian Governor D. I. Chicherin to allow the Cossacks to trade with Kazakhs on January 1, 1764, she added that only the legalization of commerce could alleviate the Cossacks’ poverty. The order permitted Cossacks to exchange bread, knives, axes, and other metal goods for Kazakh horses, sheep skins, and thick felt. Of interest here is the reply made to this order given by 1043 Ibid., 38. 1044 Ibid., 86. 1045 Dobromyslov, “Turgaiskaia oblast,” 16. 1046 Asfendiiarov, Proshloe Kazakhstana (1997), 204. 1047 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 429, ll. 1-25. 243

1048

Chicherin: “Now, all Cossacks will have enough food.” He also added that without the exchange of goods with the Kazakhs, Cossacks would not be able to have enough horses to fulfill the duties of their service. Starvation was quite a frequent phenomenon in those peasant settlements which were far from the steppe and whose inhabitants could not trade with the Kazakhs. They had to depend solely on their own agricultural production. Andreev gave a description of peasant life in one of the years in which adverse weather destroyed much of their crops: “Because of the absence of bread, peasants of the Tiumen’ Uezd had to eat white clay. As a result, many of them died of constipation. Some make flour from cane, which does not help 1049 them survive.” Under these conditions, coupled with the inability of the state to provide the Cossacks with basic necessities, trade with Kazakhs was of vital importance. Contact with Kazakhs not only provided the Line Cossacks with basic necessities, it also was the main source of their income. According to Krasovskii, the Cossacks of the okrug stanitsas made their living by leasing their hay fields to the Kazakhs and selling the surplus hay to the nomads. The usual practice of leasing the hay fields was the following: The Cossack leased the field to a Kazakh or a Russian peasant on the condition that he would give 1050 him half of the hay from this field. The sale of hay was especially important during the time of dzhuts, which was when, due to a thaw and consequent freezing, the ice-encrusted snow made livestock grazing impossible. 1051 The dzhuts were a serious threat to the well-being of Kazakhs. Even with the possibility of purchasing hay from Cossacks, the loss of livestock due to the dzhuts was considerable. As a result of frequent dzhuts, 770,745 sheep and 227,927 horses died of starvation in the Middle Horde in the winter of 18551856. The Kazakhs of the Middle Horde lost an additional 157,790 horses three 1052 years later. According to Usov’s estimation, the income of each Line Cossack household from the sale of surplus of hay was three rubles in 1874 and forty-six rubles in 1876. The difference can be explained by the adverse weather in the 1048 Apollova, Khoziaistvennoe osvoenie, 340. 1049 Andreev, Opisanie Srednei Ordy, 201. 1050 Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 212. 1051 Olcott justly defines dzhuts as “the biggest problem that the Kazakhs faced.” According to her sources, in some years, as many as a quarter to a half of a herd might perish. See Olcott, The Kazakhs, 17. 1052 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 33, ll. 25-26. 244

winter of 1874, which made Kazakh purchase of Cossack hay necessary for 1053 the survival of their livestock. Another main source of Cossack income was bringing bread from the Line and exchanging it for Kazakh products in the steppe markets. Finally, the Cossacks made much money by transporting 1054 mercantile goods to and from the steppe. The Cossacks also earned additional income by leasing rooms in their houses to Kazakhs, who came to their stanitsas to trade, or to watch or participate in the baiga (Kazakh traditional horse racing). The Cossacks of the Akmola Okrug charged five or six rubles 1055 for a room per month to these Kazakhs. As Krasovskii’s evidence testifies, the well-being of the Cossacks depended almost solely on their contacts with Kazakhs, rather than on the money received from the state treasury. Along with food and horses, the Cossacks were dependent on many other 1056 items produced on the steppe. They even had to buy soap from Kazakhs. Though the Kazakh soap (sabyn) was of poor quality, the Cossacks had no choice but to buy it because Russian soap was in a short supply and too ex1057 pensive for most of them. To offer something in exchange, some Cossacks had to become artisans. Usov wrote about the high level of Cossack skill in currying leather and producing leather goods, which were in high demand 1058 among Kazakhs. As in the Northern Caucasus, trade relations with natives 1059 were vital to the Cossack economy. On numerous occasions, the state had to recognize its inability to provide the Cossacks with the basic necessities. In some cases, the economic weakness of the Russian state on the steppe forced it to alter its ambitious plans in order to establish imperial rule over the steppe. One such instance is demonstrated by a letter sent in 1829 by the Commander of the Siberian Line Cossacks, Lukin, to the Head of Omsk Oblast’, Markov. In this letter, Lukin complained of the lack of hay fields in the outer okrugs which were assigned to the Cossacks stationed there. According to him, the number of Cossacks in the steppe okrugs was too large for them to be able to provide their horses with hay during the winter months. Due to the lack of hay, the Cossacks stationed in these okrugs lost much of their livestock. Lukin asked the Omsk administration to 1053 Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 214. 1054 Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 412. 1055 Ibid., 416. 1056 Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 246. 1057 Ibid. 1058 Ibid., 15. 1059 Barrett, At the Edge of the Empire, 110. 245

withdraw some Cossacks from these okrugs, or to supply them and their 1060 horses with food using treasury funds. The Omsk administration could not afford it, and Markov allowed for a reduction in the number of Cossacks in 1061 the Kokchetav Okrug by fifty and in the Karkarala Okrug by eighty people. The strategic aim of the Russian government to take control of the steppe was hardly feasible in the 1820s due to the insufficiency of resources. This situation did not change in the following decade. In 1838, the commander of the Siberian Cossack Army cited a lack of hay collected by the Cossacks as the 1062 reason for their decline in numbers in the outer okrugs. Along with the inability to support the Cossacks stationed in the Okrug Prikazy, Russian authorities could not afford sending Cossacks to the distant areas of the steppe. The assessor of the Kokchetav Prikaz in a petition to the Omsk administration wrote that it was necessary to have Cossacks in the auls of those Kazakhs who asked for their presence. According to him, in the case Cossacks were not sent, order could not be established there. This consideration made the prikaz ask the Head of Omsk Oblast’ to order the Okrug 1063 Cossacks to go and stay in the auls. The Commander of the Siberian Cossack Corps Major General Bronevskii voiced his disagreement regarding the plans of the Kokchetav Prikaz to send Cossacks to the distant auls, because “as long as the Russian administration has to provide the Cossacks with food for their expeditions to the steppe, it would be too much of a burden on the Treasury to let the Cossacks stay for lengthy periods of time on the steppe, as 1064 the food supplies are always brought from okrugs on Cossack horses.” In 1830, the governor general of western Siberia prohibited the sending of Cossacks to the Kazakh auls altogether. He suggested that those Kazakhs who were robbed by rival clans protect their property better, “as the loss of their 1065 livestock was, first of all, the result of their carelessness.” Similar to the response to the merchants’ complaints on the plundering of their caravans, all the Russian administration could do “to enforce order” in the auls was to recommend that the victims of the robbery take better care of their property.

1060 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 499, ll. 1-2ob. 1061 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 499, ll. 3-3ob. 1062 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 6, ll. 153-154ob. 1063 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 483, ll. 4-5. 1064 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 483, ll. 1-2. 1065 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 529, ll. 14-15ob. 246

The State’s Attempts to Promote Self-Sufficiency among the Cossacks The Russian state faced a dilemma. On the one hand, it needed to have as many service people as possible on the Line and on the steppe. On the other hand, it recognized the fact that it could neither provide them with horses nor feed them. One way to solve this problem was the state’s attempts to make Cossacks a self-sustaining martial estate with the introduction of compulsory agricultural practices. The first such attempt\ was made in 1746, when the Governor General of Siberia, Kinderman, ordered the Line Cossacks to begin cultivating wheat and oats to provide themselves with bread. According to his order, each squadron leader had to assign a quarter of his Cossacks to work in the fields belonging to the Cossack Army. The task of these people was to gather enough wheat to provide the Cossacks with bread and their horses with oatmeal. These Cossacks, however, were not free from their service. The introduction of compulsory agriculture was doomed to failure. In his report to Kinderman, the Commander of a Line fort, Bykov, explained why his order could not be fulfilled. According to Bykov’s report, the Cossacks were on the road most of the time. Many of them did not have horses, received meager salaries (three rubles and fifty-two kopeks per year), and were completely ruined. As he also added, the Cossacks did not have experi1066 ence in agricultural practices (k pashniam neprivychny). In other words, Bykov recognized the fact that Cossacks were not able to provide themselves 1067 with food and their survival was dependent on trade with Kazakhs. The Cossacks actively protested against this labor which was imposed on them. They did not take good care of the harvest, destroyed crops, and escaped from 1068 the Line. Imperial authorities in St. Petersburg had to recognize the inability of the Cossacks to cultivate the land, and the Senate repealed Kinderman’s 1069 order in 1770. A Russian official bitterly exclaimed that Cossack agriculture along the Line was in such a poor condition that “the Cossacks were unable 1066 Potanin, Materialy dlia istorii Sibiri, 44. 1067 McNeal’s observations suggest that the inability of Cossacks to survive on the tsars’ benefactions alone was a feature of all Cossack Armies during the whole period of Russian imperial history. Cossacks in different regions had to find their own ways to provide themselves with basic necessities. It could be agriculture, fishing, livestock breeding, trade or the combination of all these economic activities. See McNeal, Tsar and Cossack, 190. 1068 V. Z. Galiev, Dekabristy i Kazakhstan (Alma-Ata: Galym, 1990), 19. 1069 Apollova, Khoziaistvennoe osvoenie, 143; Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 177. 247

to provide themselves with food, and even had to buy bread from the Kaza1070 khs.” The second (and last) attempt to introduce compulsory agriculture in the 1071 Siberian Cossack Army was undertaken in 1820. This time the “state plow lands” (kazennaia pashnia) lasted for sixteen years and was abolished in 1836. Though in some regions the Cossacks grew wheat as, for example, in the Omsk or Semipalatinsk okrugs, they did not transport it to the non-agricultural stanitsas. It was more profitable for those Cossacks who were involved in agricultural production to sell grain to Kazakhs rather than bring it 1072 to their “brothers-in-arms.”

Trade as a Tool for Crossing the Border Along with the creation of mutual dependency and the formation of a mixed material culture, commerce was responsible for crossing borders by Cossacks and Kazakhs both in cultural and geographic terms. The aforementioned evidence demonstrated how Russian traders, including Cossacks, who conducted commerce on the steppe acquired many elements of Kazakh culture. This process was by no means a one-way road. Trade led not only to the nativization of Russian merchants, but also to the Russification of Kazakhs involved in commerce. Along with the Russian merchants who went to the steppe, participation in trade often led to Kazakhs’ moving to Russian settlements. Kazakh Tynybai Kachkin explained his desire to settle in Semipalatinsk because of the fact that since his early years he had been an assistant of merchants and had become used to a settled way of life. When he came of age, he went to the steppe to trade with the Kazakhs. As he wrote in his petition to the Semipalatinsk police department, “these last six years of Kirgiz life were unbearable to me, but allowed me to collect some funds sufficient for building 1073 a wooden house in the merchant part of Semipalatinsk.” Of interest here is the fact that despite his aversion to the “unbearable Kirgiz life,” Kachkin did not wish to break the ties which connected him to his clan. More than that, as he added in his petition, “the better people and the biis (traditional judges) of our volost’ elected me to be their elder (starsh1074 ina).” He asked the police department to approve his election and to allow 1070 Potanin, “Zametki o Sibirskom,” 28. 1071 Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 178. 1072 Ibid., 187. 1073 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 505, ll. 4-4ob. 1074 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 505, ll. 5-5ob. 248

him to build a house in Semipalatinsk. Neither Kazakhs nor Russian authorities found it unacceptable that a Kazakh lived in a Russian settlement while being, at the same time, an elder of his clan which continued a nomadic way of life. Living in two worlds was possible on the frontier – the Russian authorities both allowed Kachkin to build a house in Semipalatinsk and to take the leadership of his clan. Can Kachkin be considered a Kazakh? According to his contemporaries, the answer is definitely positive – to elect a foreigner as a leader of a clan would be unthinkable. The answer of modern ideologists is more ambiguous. On the one hand, Kachkin was a Kazakh in his ethnicity, language, and religion. On the other hand, however, he refused one of the cornerstones of the modern image of Kazakh identity – he voluntarily preferred a settled way of life over a nomadic existence. This discrepancy between the symbols of identity at that time and now questions the validity of modern ideologues’ attempt to place 19th-century people into a certain group with sharply demarcated boundaries. The fluidity of frontier life does not fit into their rigid classifications. Kachkin was first of all a man of the frontier, who preserved some “native” symbols of identity while accepting some “foreign” traits. This ability to become a man in between cultures was a prerequisite for an individual’s success in the eastern Russian borderlands. The latter statement refers not only to the merchants but also to the Cossacks who either lived along the Line or settled on the steppe. Trade between Cossacks and Kazakhs promoted the fusion of cultures not only through the Cossacks’ adoption of elements of Kazakh material culture and the Kazakhs’ purchase of Russian goods. Apart from the Kazakh livestock and the products of their artisans, Cossacks also bought Kazakh children and brought them to their stanitsas. The life story of Nikolai Alekseev represents an example of how trade could bring people to the other side of the frontier. Here is what he wrote: Twenty-five years ago my father, the Kirgiz of Taraklinskaia Volost’ Serymbet Diusenov, because of his poverty, gave me, that time a little boy, to the Kirgyzes Klychevs of the same volost’. My duties included the pasturage of their livestock. In exchange for my service, the Klychevs were to give my father one sheep per year. Some time later, trading Cossacks Mikhailo Zyrjanov, Ivan Vinokurov, and Ivan Cherepanov came to trade in our volost’. The 249

Klychevs exchanged me to them for an axe, and the Cossacks took me to the Line. These Cossacks sold me to the Commander of the Third Cossack Regiment Lieutenant Colonel Lukin. I do not know how much he paid for me. I stayed in Lukin’s service for twenty years. Then I submitted a petition and was released from the slavery in accordance with the Russian legislation of 1831. As soon as I became free, I entered the ranks of meshchanstvo [the estate of lower middle class city dwellers] of Petropavlovsk. I tried to find out why my relatives did not make any attempts to release me during all these years. As it turned out, the Klychkovs lied to my father [saying] that I had died. I have information that the Klychkovs live not far from Kokchetav. I also have many witnesses of their illegal sale of me to the Cossacks. I want these Kir1075 gizes to be put on trial and rightfully punished. Though, unlike Kachkin, Alekseev crossed the border against his will, he made no attempts to severe ties with his new home and to return to the steppe. Instead, he preferred to stay in the Russian town and entered the Russian system of estates. Being a Kazakh by ethnicity, he was a Russian by religion (as his name demonstrates) and way of life. Moreover, as his request reveals, he wanted his clansmen to be punished by the Russian system of justice, instead of traditional means. As in Kachkin’s case, modern-day ideologists would have a difficult time trying to define whether or not Alekseev was a Kazakh. Both Kachkin and Alekseev possessed some elements of the modern image of “Kazakhness,” while refusing others. They were the people of the frontier, and commerce was one of the most important factors which made their identity so difficult to determine by the modern, nationalisticallyminded ideologists of Kazakhstan. As this chapter demonstrates, the development of trade was the most important factor that made the Russian government become interested in the acquisition of the steppe. Though initially the Russian state was primarily interested in the development of trade with China and the Central Asian Khanates through the Kazakh steppe, by the end of the 18th century commerce with Kazakhs became more important to the Russian government than trade with foreign countries. The Russian state was consistent in taking measures to pro1075 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 864, ll. 1-3. 250

mote the trade. As a result of the interests of both the Kazakhs and Russians in this commerce, its volume grew steadily. The consequences of Russo-Kazakh commerce were the creation of a mutual dependence on this trade on both sides of the Line, and the reciprocal adoption of elements of Kazakh material culture by Siberian Cossacks and Russian material culture by Kazakhs. Similar to the experience of the Lower Mississippi Valley described by Daniel Usner and that of the North Caucasus observed by Barrett, frontier trade was responsible for the creation of a mixed material culture along the Irtysh Line and on the Kazakh steppe. Since trade on the steppe was rather competitive, both Russian merchants and Siberian Cossacks had to accommodate to the Kazakh culture and traditions, and establish friendly relations with the nomads. Because of Russian economic weakness on the frontier, the Cossacks’ economy was completely dependent on their trade with Kazakhs. All the attempts of the state to make the Cossack economy self-sufficient failed.

251

Chapter Six Conflicts on the Steppe: Their Sources and Resolutions

The interpretation of Kazakh-Cossack relations as a history of warfare which “lasted for two centuries” and was in its nature “a just, liberating war against the colonizers for freedom, independence, and restoration of their lost statehood” has two flaws. First, the authors take the modern emblems of Cossack and Kazakh identities as natural and permanent and mechanically extend them to the people who either did not possess these characteristics or did not consider them to be immutable. This statement refers to the people on both the “Kazakh” and “Russian” sides of the Line. The identities of both Kazakhs and Cossacks were not firmly established enough for them to view the opposite side as an enemy who was foreign to them in culture or religion. The second problem with this interpretation is that it ignores the cases of cooperation between the participants of the contact. Trade, rather than war, determined the developments on the frontier. It is not argued in this book that conflicts in the steppe were nonexistent. The task here is to demonstrate that most of the conflict situations cannot be explained by a rigid “colonizer/colonized” paradigm. Similar to the situation in other frontier regions of the Russian Empire, “rules of cohabitation tended 1076 to be particular rather than general.” I agree with Barrett’s suggestion that one view the conflicts between Cossacks and natives “in the context of frontier culture and local social history rather than as imperial conquest and na1077 tional resistance.” This chapter aims to demonstrate that clashes of interests, which determined most of the conflicts in Siberia and the Kazakh steppe, were of a variable nature and they did not result from the goal of the Russian government to “enslave the people of the steppe” using Cossacks as a tool for this enslavement. It can be argued, contrary to Kazakhstani and most Western historians’ view, the Russian government did not always favor the interests of the Cos1076 Willard Sunderland, Taming the Wild Field: Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2004), 216. 1077 Barrett, At the Edge of Empire, 159. 252

1078

sacks over those of the Kazakhs. Rather than defending its service people, the imperial authorities were more interested in maintaining tranquility on the steppe, which guaranteed the security of Russian settlements along the Line and the safety of caravans passing through the steppe. Finally, this chapter seeks to demonstrate that the absence of firmly established national, religious or any other identity allowed Kazakhs and Siberian Cossacks to form alliances which were actually detrimental to the fiscal interests of the Empire.

The Weakness of the Russian State on the Steppe Before I come to the analysis of the sources of the conflicts and the ways in which they were resolved, it should be stressed that the Russian government had little influence over developments on the steppe in the 18th and the larger part of the 19th centuries. Authors who write about two centuries of occupation of the Kazakh steppe, exaggerate the strength of the Russian Empire in the eastern borderlands. Contrary to their belief, Russian influence, let alone the level of control which “occupation” implies, was weak on the steppe. As Levshin wrote in 1832, “only those Kirgizes who wander on the right side of the Irtysh and Ural rivers consider themselves to be Russian subjects, because they need the protection of Russian fortresses. Those who live at some distance from the Line either do not recognize any outside authority over them1079 selves or are the subjects of foreign states.” Thirty-six years later, M. Krasovskii recognized that “we [the Russian authorities] do not control the whole steppe. We do not know life on the steppe, that is why we cannot organize a 1080 system of administration which would meet the people’s needs.” The introduction of the fortresses on the steppe did not change the situation. In the words of A. Stetkevich, “the influence of each of these forts was 1081 limited to the distance of a gun shot.” The following cases demonstrate the validity of this statement. In one instance, the Cossack captain of the Akmol1078 Martha Olcott, one of the leading American historians of Kazakhstan, argues that “Russia was a colonial empire whose first concern was protecting the interests of the Russian population,” and “when the interests of the Kazakhs and Russians conflicted … the interests of the Russians would predominate.” See Olcott, The Kazakhs, 39. 1079 Levshin, Opisanie kirgiz-kazach’ikh, 156-157. As the evidence collected by Andreev testifies, the cases in which Kazakhs had their summer pastures in the regions which were formally part of the Russian Empire and drove their livestock to Chinese territory in the winter were quite frequent. See Andreev, Opisanie Srednei Ordy, 73. 1080 Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov, 80. 1081 A. Stetkevich, Ubytochen li Turkestan dlia Rossii? (St. Petersburg, 1899), 12. 253

insk Prikaz sent to chase the Kazakhs who plundered a caravan in 1838, returned from his expedition without bringing either the thieves or the stolen goods. Though he managed to determine who plundered the caravan and where they kept the booty, he could not retrieve it as “it was too far for the 1082 prikaz to send a detachment there.” The situation on the steppe is best illustrated by a conflict which began in 1822. In the summer of this year, Kazakhs of the Argyn tribe of the Middle Horde, led by their elders Chokan Baikanov and Altai Miniashev, attacked the Russian Line settlements and kidnapped a daughter of a Russian soldier, Blagin. The western Siberian administration was not expeditious in reacting and, only three years later, it ordered the commanders of the Line forts to arrest the named elders. In order not to enrage the Kazakhs, the Russian authorities decided to make the arrest in secret, preferably waiting until Baikanov 1083 and Miniashev came to the Line to trade. The head of the Petropavlovsk Okrug, Leskov, replied that it was not possible to arrest these elders without sending a Cossack detachment to the steppe, since the named Kazakhs had 1084 pastures eighty miles away from the Line. The central administration of western Siberia prohibited the conveyance of a Cossack detachment to the steppe, instead ordering Leskov to wait for the arrival of these Kazakhs to the Line. Three more years passed, and Baikanov and Miniashev did not come to the Line. Thus, the Russian administration had to change tactics. Sending a detachment to the steppe was still out of question. The only way to arrest the named Kazakhs was to invite them to the Line and Colonel Nabokov did so, pretending that he had some other business with them. Baikalov and Miniashev arrived and were arrested. Being afraid of the Kazakhs’ anger, the administration of the Siberian Cossack Army had to protect Nabokov from nomads’ attacks, since they wanted to take revenge on him for his deception 1085 of their elders. As this example reveals, a century after the inclusion of the Middle and Younger Hordes into the Russian Empire, Russian influence still did not cross the Line. Taking eighty miles deep into the steppe was not enough for the imperial government to be able to dictate its terms or for Russian law to be respected. The “two-century occupation” of Kazakh lands could not occur with only 1082 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 6, ll. 185-185 ob. 1083 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 634, ll. 1-13. 1084 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 634, ll. 17-17 ob. 1085 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 634, ll. 46-46ob. 254

the insignificant quantity of Irtysh Line Cossacks. The number of the Line Cossacks was actually hardly enough to protect the Line fortresses them1086 selves. There were only 680 Line Cossacks in 1715 and 782 in 1721. After the construction of the fortresses was completed, the number of Line Cos1087 sacks dropped and remained at only 485 people in 1745. None of these Cossacks permanently lived in the Line fortresses. Residing in Siberian towns, the Cossacks stayed on the Line for a year or two and then returned to their permanent place of service. This practice lasted until 1760, when the Commander of the Irtysh Line, Lieutenant General Springer, ordered the Siberian Cossacks to permanently settle along the Line. On February 4, 1797, the commander of the Siberian Army sent a report to the central authorities, informing them that the 3,640 Cossacks who were stationed along the Irtysh River could not protect the Russian border from the raids of the nomads. He petitioned the imperial Senate to increase the number of Line Cossacks by sending “town Cossacks” from the Siberian cities of Tobol’sk and Tomsk. His request was 1088 met, and the number of Line Cossacks reached 6,200 in 1808. Still, giving the vastness of the steppe, these numbers were far from being enough to extend Russian control beyond the Line. The Kazakhs were aware of the weakness of the Russian position. This awareness allowed them to dictate the terms of relations with their “protector.” One source of conflict between the Russian administration and the Kazakhs was the Russian approach to dealing with the slaves of the Kazakhs, who escaped their masters, crossed the Line, and asked for refuge on Russian territory. Prior to the inclusion of the Kazakh steppe into the Russian Empire, the Russian administration converted these runaway slaves to Christianity and turned down all the requests of their Kazakh masters to give these neo1089 phytes back to the steppe. The amount of escapees was quite significant. Statistical data collected in 1742 demonstrates that in that year 2,253 people alone escaped from the steppe. Though most of them were Russian subjects previously captured by Kazakhs, 826 of those fugitives had never been sub-

1086 Potanin, “Zametki o Sibirskom,” 13. 1087 Usov, Statisticheskoe opisanie, 10. 1088 Slovtsov, Istoricheskoe obozrenie Sibiri, 172. According to calculations made by A. S. Elagin, the total number of Line Cossacks was 5,950 at the time of the formation of the Siberian Line Cossack Army in 1808. See A. S. Elagin, Kazachestvo i kazach’i voiska v Kazakhstane (Almaty: Izdatel’stvo Kazakhstan, 1993), 45. 1089 Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1961), 573. 255

1090

jects of Russia. The only way for the Kazakhs to minimize their loss of manpower was to demand from the Russian government a stop to the practice of conversion and to return the fugitive slaves. In his letter to the Governor of Orenburg A. Davydov, Khan Nurali wrote in 1758 of his people’s intentions to migrate from the Line deep to the steppe, as the losses they endured were high. Though at the end of the letter he insured Davydov of his personal loyalty to Russia, he added that it was beyond his power to stop Kazakhs from 1091 leaving the areas adjacent to the Line. Though very polite in form, this letter in essence was an ultimatum. It did not take long for Russians to comply with this request. Major General Veimarn issued an order in which he prescribed all Line fortress commanders “not to convert the fugitives from the 1092 steppe to Christianity, and to give them back to their steppe masters.” Another method used by the Kazakhs to make Russia to comply with their demands was the threat of disrupting trade routes between Russia and the Central Asian khanates. The Khan of the Younger Horde, Aichuvak, unhappy with the Bashkir raids which had ravaged the auls of his horde, threatened Russian authorities with migration to China and the plundering of Central Asian caravans going through the territory of the Younger Horde if the Russi1093 an authorities did not stop the raids on their subjects. Kazakh khans and sultans used similar tactics of threats to win over Cossacks in their land disputes. The Sultan of the Middle Horde, Ablai, warned the Russian government in 1764 that if the Kazakhs of his horde were not allowed to use the pastures on the Russian side of the Irtysh River, which were the lands allocated to the Siberian Cossack Army, then they would move to 1094 China. In other words, Ablai demanded from the Russian authorities to revoke the law which prohibited Kazakhs to have pastures on the right bank of the Irtysh River. As in previous cases, the Russian government in Omsk had to comply with the Kazakh ultimatum. Those Kazakhs who did not have enough grass on their left-bank pastures were allowed to cross the Irtysh River and to let their livestock graze on the lands of the Siberian Cossack 1095 Army. 1090 Ibid. 1091 Ibid., 595-596. 1092 Ibid., 630. 1093 Ibid., 616-617. 1094 Ibid., 659. 1095 Ibid., 662. 256

Imperial Law or Steppe Traditions? The Solution of Conflicts between Kazakhs and Cossacks The position of the imperial administration in the regions adjacent to the steppe was ambiguous. On the one hand, it was afraid of the Kazakhs’ migration away from the Lines and of their becoming a protectorate of some other state. The Russian authorities were fully aware that any hostile action towards the Kazakhs endorsed by the Russian government could lead to a decline in trade with Central Asia or even the loss of the whole steppe for the 1096 empire. On the other hand, it needed to protect the subjects of Russia living on the right bank of the Irtysh and Ural Rivers, who suffered from raids by steppe nomads. The Governor of Orenburg, General V. Nepliuev, in his report to the Border of Foreign Affairs written in 1747, explained why it was necessary to avoid large scale conflicts with the Kazakhs. First of all, the Russian Army was not strong enough to successfully conduct a war against the Kazakhs. The results of this war could not be predicted. Second, the punitive expeditions organized by the state would unavoidably be detrimental even to those Kazakhs who did not participate in the raids against Russian settlements, and could turn them from friends of Russia to her enemies. Third, as developments in the steppe demonstrated, those Kazakhs who were actively involved in trade along the Line were loyal to Russia or, at least, did not have hostile intentions toward their northern neighbors. As long as more Kazakhs were involved in this trade, the raids, according to Nepliuev, would ultimately cease without military force. In Nepliuev’s view, the trade and a good attitude (laska) shown to the Kazakhs were the more preferable way to stop 1097 frontier hostilities than sending military expeditions to the steppe. Archival sources confirm Nepliuev’s claim of the role of trade in improving Russian-Kazakh relations. As the 1753 report of Brigadier A. Tevkelev testifies, some of the Kazakhs who had commercial relations with Russians voluntarily returned the Russians captured in raids without demanding any ransom from either the Russian administration or their relatives. According to Tevkelev, 1096 Large-scale conflicts between Cossacks and Kazakhs could damage trade along the Line, as happened in 1769, when as the result of conflict all the Kazakhs who used to live along the Line or went there to trade moved to the steppe. As Pallas testified, there was not any trade in the Troitsk market that year. See Asfendiiarov, Proshloe Kazakhstana (1997 [1935]), 220. 1097 Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1961), 344-346. 257

most of the Russians who were freed from captivity in 1752 were able to re1098 turn home due to the assistance of Kazakh merchants. Nevertheless, despite the tendency to establish peaceful relations with the natives of the steppe, the raids on Russian settlements continued. As the failure to use khans and sultans to stop these raids demonstrated, it was not possible to guarantee the security of the Line without armed acts of retaliation directed against Kazakhs. An order given by the Senate in 1743 represents one of the ways in which the Russian authorities tried to resolve this dilemma. This decree was a response to the Kazakh attack on a Russian settlement. As a result of this raid, fourteen Russians were killed and twenty-four were 1099 wounded. In addition, ninety-six Cossacks were captured. The Senate considered retaliation for the raid to be necessary. If no action was taken, the Kazakhs would continue plundering the Russian settlements. The Senate, however, did not want the Kazakhs to think that the Russian state had anything to do with this retaliation raid. That is why, though the Senate ordered the Ural Cossacks to cross the Line and to capture as many Kazakhs and their horses as possible, it also added that in case the Kazakh khans complained to the Russian authorities about the actions of the Cossacks, the Orenburg Commission would tell them that the Cossacks conducted the raid on their own 1100 initiative, without asking the permission of the administration. This order demonstrates the willingness of the Russian government to use methods of settling conflicts that were traditional for the steppe. The Senate also recommended that the Cossacks capture as many influential Kazakhs as possible for two reasons. First, it would be easier to exchange these people for the Cossacks who were captured earlier. Second, Kazakhs and Dzhungars used the same methods to settle conflict situations, which is why the Cossacks’ action 1101 would be understandable to them. Of interest here is the fact that the Kazakhs themselves were willing to inform the Russian administration of the traditional ways of resolving conflict situations on the steppe. In order to free Russians from Kazakh captivity, the Elder of the Sakmar clan, Kubek, advised Nepliuev to capture the “better people” of those clans who kept the Russian captives. Kubek further explained that, in this case, the Kazakhs would have no choice but to exchange their 1098 Ibid., 532. 1099 Ibid., 292. 1100 Ibid., 293. 1101 Ibid., 293-294. 258

captives for the leaders of their clan. Kubek thought that it would be the best way to deal with the situation, since “for the Asian people, this action is tra1102 ditional(to u aziatskikh narodov delo obyknovennoe).” Nepliuev considered Kubek’s method of returning captives promising, but he did not agree with the capturing of those “better Kazakhs” who came to the Line markets, since 1103 it could harm commerce between Russian and Kazakhs. In many other cases of conflict between Kazakhs and Cossacks, the Russian government simply preferred to ignore them, allowing these struggles to be settled without any outside interference. The state’s involvement in the conflicts was usually limited to recommending to the Cossacks that they not be the initiators of the disputes and not to punish those Kazakhs who did not 1104 plunder Russian settlements. Throughout the 18th century, the Russian government followed Kazakh methods of settling conflicts. The ransoming of Russian captives or their exchange for captured Kazakhs were the most effective way of returning the Russians kidnapped by the Kazakhs during their trips to the steppe or from the Line settlements. In his 1785 report to Catherine the Great, O. Igel’strom wrote of the exchange of seven Cossacks captured by Kazakhs for seven “Kir1105 giz wives and children” kidnapped by Cossacks. In 1740, a report filed by a Lieutenant Gladyshev informed St. Petersburg that it was traditional for the Cossacks who lived along the Line to ransom those seized in Kazakh raids. Gladyshev recognized this method of rescuing Russians from Kazakh captivity as the only possible way and asked the central authorities to allocate certain sums of money (up to a thousand rubles) for ransoming captured Cos1106 sacks. And like Cossacks who bought their captured “brothers-in-arms” from Kazakhs, the steppe nomads often ransomed their tribesmen from Cossack captivity. An elder of the Middle Horde, Dzhanbek, asked the Head of the Orenburg Commission, V. Urusov, to sell twelve Kazakhs who were cap1107 tured in 1739. Of interest here is the opinion of even some higher officials that only the accommodation of Russian policy to the traditional Kazakh “norms, morals, condition, and behavior” could guarantee the security of the Line and of the caravans passing through the steppe. Thus, the Orenburg 1102 Ibid., 340. 1103 Ibid. 1104 Ibid., 343. 1105 Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 69. 1106 Kireev, Kazakhsko – Russkie otnosheniia (1961), 184. 1107 Ibid., 130. 259

Governor General N. N. Bakhmet’ev, in his analysis of the policies of his predecessors, highly appreciated the work of Nepliuev because he did not try to 1108 use Russian rules of conduct in dealing with the nomads of the steppe. This attitude began to change at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. The state was no longer satisfied with the system when relations between the Line Cossacks and the natives of the steppe were regulated by locally formulated rules and not by the laws of the Empire. A good example to illustrate this shift is the instructions sent in 1806 by the Minister of Internal Affairs, V. P. Kochubei, to the Governor of the Saratov Guberniia, P. U. Beliakov. These instructions were the state’s response to the following case. On January 1, 1806, a group of Kazakhs made a raid beyond the Line and captured sixty horses belonging to the Cossacks of the Russian settlement Aleksandrovskii Gai. The Cossacks who chased the robbers crossed the Line, attacked the Kazakh auls, and captured 375 horses. If, in earlier times, this act of retribution did not meet any objections from state officials, this time the situation was different. Emperor Alexander I dubbed the actions of the Cos1109 sacks as “being unjust, and going against the interests of the state.” He ordered the Cossacks who participated in this retribution raid to return the horses to the Kazakhs and to stand before the court, which had to decide the case according to the laws of the Russian Empire. The Emperor also prohibited under the threat of death any Cossack raids on the steppe, especially those which had the aim of capturing livestock previously stolen by Kazakhs. The Emperor’s order was not the first attempt by the Russian government to impose imperial legal norms for regulating relations between its vassals and the nomads of the steppe. Twenty years prior to this event, the Governor General of Orenburg, Baron Igel’strom, received the permission of Catherine II to introduce frontier courts (ogranichnye raspravy), which were to be composed of Kazakhs and Russians and had to use imperial laws to resolve conflicts involving people of different ethnic groups. Both historians and contemporaries are unanimous in the opinion that the introduction of imperial judicial norms to regulate the life of the frontier failed. One of the tribunals established in Petropavlovsk in 1798 to settle disputes among the Kazakhs and the 1110 Russians did not hear a single case until 1806. Ironically, the establishment of frontier courts aimed at the inculcation of Russian legal norms on the 1108 Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 192. 1109 Ibid., 232-233. 1110 Olcott, The Kazakhs, 44. 260

steppe and at the regulation of relations between Kazakhs and Russians of the frontier was unwelcome on both sides of the Line. Igel’strom informed the Empress of the negative attitude of the sultans of the Middle Horde to the establishment of district courts. According to his estimations, sultans saw the courts as a threat to their rule: “Not a single sultan gave his approval to the introduction of the district courts. They see these courts as a means to limit their authority over their subjects, and consider themselves offended and humiliated.” With the influence that they had among their tribesmen the sultans launched popular uprisings which posed a threat to the security of trading 1111 routes. Russian Line authorities were also dissatisfied with the way the courts functioned. Colonel D. A. Gramkin, in his “Explanation” sent to Catherine II in 1788, criticized the courts for their ineffectiveness in punishing crimes committed by “wild Kirgizes.” According to him, “Igelstrom’s courts” were too lenient on Kazakhs: These people are so wild that the pacification of the steppe can be achieved only through severe measures. The present courts do not inflict punishment on many Kazakh criminals, and very often just set them free. The Russians, on the contrary, are always punished if the Kirgizes complain. Even Kirgiz elders and “better men” cannot understand why criminals who committed crimes against Russians and used to be punished and their auls ravaged are now forgiven by the Russian administration. These elders tell their people that the Russians are so weak that their settlements can be plundered. They think that Russians are afraid of them, and it 1112 causes uprisings in the steppe. This “Explanation” reveals that the military leaders of the Line resisted the intrusion of the state into relations between local Russians and natives of the steppe. Instead of establishing a stable civil administration, Igel’strom’s reforms caused disturbances on the steppe. The following explanation of the failure of the reform may clarify the matter: The natives and newcomers, placed under the conditions of a “non-dominant frontier community,” worked 1113 out certain rules to resolve their conflicts. The exchange of captives, central 1111 Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 100. 1112 Ibid., 107 1113 The term “non-dominant frontier community” is used by ethnohistorians and anthro261

to the people of the Kazakh steppe, proved crucial to the borderland political economy. The introduction of the imperial legal norms, though seemingly more progressive in the view of central authorities, met resistance from the peoples of the periphery, since it went against their long-term experience. The local administration itself did not make any attempts to impose Russian laws on the nomads. Even in the cases in which Kazakhs committed crimes against Russian officials, rather than imposing upon them imperial laws, Russian authorities at the end of the 18th century used traditional steppe methods to settle conflicts. When Kazakhs stole nineteen horses from a Russian official, Tituliarnyi Sovetnik (Titular Counselor) Kurbanov, in 1796, the Omsk administration ordered the arrest of the perpetrator or his close relatives. According to this command, these people were to be imprisoned in the 1114 fortress until the stolen horses were returned. Unlike imperial law, which sought punishment for a crime, the Russian administration in the regions adjacent to the steppe was, first of all, interested in compensation for material loss. Another consideration that forced imperial officials to rely more on traditional methods of conflict resolution than on imperial legal norms was the impossibility of Russian law to punish criminals and to give satisfaction to the victim of the crime, or to his relatives under steppe conditions. One case which demonstrates this phenomenon was the murder of the Cossack Podkorytov in 1840. The named Cossack left the piquet to hunt on the steppe early one morning. Several hours later four Cossacks went from the same piquet to mow hay. Halfway to their hay field they saw a big group of armed Kazakhs. The Cossacks returned to the piquet and informed their commander of the matter. The commander ordered the Cossacks to chase these Kazakhs. Chasing the Kazakhs, the Cossacks found the dead body of Podkorytov. His body was naked and had several wounds. The Cossacks continued the chase and soon a battle ensued. As a result of the battle, several of the Kazakhs were shot and killed. The Cossacks captured several Kazakhs who had their pastures nearby. All of the captured Kazakhs claimed that they had never heard of the murder of Podkorytov and had no idea who committed it. As pologists to define regions where “because of the weakness of the government, rankand-file settlers in outlying communities had to learn to coexist with their [native] neighbors without being able to keep them subordinate;” see Frances Leon Swadesh, “Structure of Hispanic-Indian Relations in New Mexico,” in Paul M. Kutsche, ed., The Survival of Spanish American Villages (Colorado Springs, Colo., 1979), 55, 60, cited in Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 32. 1114 GAOO, f. 149, o. 1, d. 2, l. 224. 262

there were no eyewitnesses to the crime, the Russian administration made the following decision: The case of the death of the Cossack Antip Podkorytov should be left to God’s will, until the killers are found. Those Kirgizes who were detained on the suspicion of committing the murder should be released on the basis of Article 17, Volume 15 of the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire. The relatives of Podkorytov may try to find the clothes, horse, and money which have been stolen from 1115 him. As this decision demonstrates, the Russian authorities could neither punish the criminals nor retrieve stolen Cossack property if it followed imperial law. These examples explain the reluctance of the local Russian administration to use imperial methods to resolve conflict situations between Cossacks and Kazakhs. The Russian central authorities lacked the resources to impose their will on the people of the frontier. As a result of this weakness, Igel’strom’s courts were soon repealed. The next attempt to impose imperial institutions of justice on the frontier took place in 1822 with the introduction of Speranskii’s Reform. Speranskii’s Statute of the Siberian Kirgizes, on the one hand, prescribed all the cases which involved Russians and Kazakhs to be investigated and judged according to Russian imperial rules and, on the other hand, it introduced imperial judicial practices for settling some cases between Russians and Kazakhs. The Statute separated all crimes committed in the steppe into two groups: major and minor. For particularly harsh crimes, all Kazakhs were brought before 1116 Russian courts and prosecuted within Russian legal jurisdiction. All other cases were to be tried by the Kazakhs themselves, according to customary law (Adat). The major crimes included rebellion, premeditated murder, pillage, 1117 counterfeiting, and theft of government property. Along with the introduction of the “Igel’strom courts,” this attempt met passive but persistent opposition from the Line Cossack commanders of forts and redoubts. Speranski’s legislation of 1822 prohibited the involvement of fortress commanders in the resolution of the conflicts between Kazakhs and Cossacks. In spite of this prohibition, the Cossack Line Commanders contin1115 TsGA RK, f. 374, op. 1, d. 610, ll. 41-42ob. 1116 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,126, 36. 1117 PSZ, ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,126, 37. 263

ued these practices. The Chief of Omsk Oblast’ sent a circular to the okrug chiefs in 1825 in which he reminded them that all conflict situations between Kazakhs on the Russian side of the Line had to be decided by Land Courts (Zemskie sudy), not by Cossack commanders who continued to become involved in disputes between Kazakhs and Cossacks in spite of frequent prohibitions. By violating this rule, he continued, the Cossacks weakened the au1118 thority of state institutions in the region. The involvement of the Cossack Line commanders in the conflict resolution between Cossacks and Kazakhs had a long history. I. Andreev described the cases in which Kazakhs whose pastures were adjacent to the Line asked the fortress commanders to resolve their conflicts with the Cossacks as early as the mid-18th century. The fortress commanders resolved these conflicts quickly and without any paper work. According to Andreev, the Kazakhs were usually pleased with the decisions of the fortress commanders because their decisions were dictated by the necessity to prevent Kazakhs from leaving their pastures and moving 1119 deep into the steppe. The inefficiency of Russian legal practices under steppe conditions led many Russians to petition the court of biis to decide on conflict situations between themselves and the Kazakhs. In 1853, a Russian peasant of the Kokchetav Okrug, Leontii Shestakov, asked the Russian administration to investigate the case of his kidnapping by the bii of the Akmola Okrug, Akkamkara Kochkentaev. The named bii abducted Shestakov and sold him in Tashkent. After several years in captivity, Shestakov was released and returned to Kokchetav, where he learnt that Kochkentaev still had pastures in the Akmola Okrug. Shestakov requested from the Frontier Administration of the Siberian Kirgizes that it force Kochkentaev to compensate him for his sufferings while in captivity. Kochkentaev, however, refused to accept his guilt. As long as there were no eyewitnesses who could prove that Kochkentaev was involved in Shestakov’s kidnapping, the Russian court could not demand compensation from the bii. Then, the Adviser of the Frontier Upravlenie, Colonel Kochenov, decided to allow the traditional court of biis to judge the case. According to the decision of the court of biis, Kochkentaev was found guilty 1120 and had to give Shestakov 150 sheep and one horse as compensation. In this example the traditional Kazakh system of justice was more capable than 1118 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 86, ll. 1-10. 1119 Andreev, Opisanie Srednei Ordy, 59. 1120 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1456, ll. 1-2. 264

the imperial legal system to resolve conflicts, not only between Kazakhs, but also between the natives of the steppe and the Russians. In some cases the Russian administration, aware of its inability to mete out justice in cases that involved Kazakhs, had no choice but to allow the biis to rule on the cases, even if, according to Speranskii’s legislation, these cases were to be judged by the Russian court. This happened in 1846, when 500 Kazakhs of the okrugs which were under the jurisdiction of the Siberian administration attacked the Orenburg Kazakhs. As a result of this raid, nine Kazakhs were killed and much of their property was either destroyed or stolen. The Siberian administration ordered the assessor of the Kokchetav Okrug Prikaz, Sotnikov, to investigate this case. Sotnikov soon realized that he could not fulfill his task. In his report to the Frontier Administration of the Siberian Kirgizes, Sotnikov lamented that the case could not be investigated due to the lack of cooperation on the side of the Orenburg Frontier Commission and the Sultan Dzhabtiurin, who neither presented information regarding the case nor sent to him the eyewitnesses of the raid. After it became clear to the Frontier Administration that Sotnikov could not complete the investigation, it allowed the Kishmurunskii Okrug Prikaz to settle the case according to steppe traditions. The joint council of the Siberian and Orenburg 1121 biis rendered its decision. The aforementioned evidence demonstrates that Russian authorities continued to rely upon existing ways of resolving cases involving the steppe nomads. It permitted the traditional court of biis to investigate and judge cases which officially were under the jurisdiction of the Russian court. The decision of the Frontier Administration to allow the court of biis to investigate these cases was in violation of Speraskii’s Statute of Siberian Kirgizes. As the examples above reveal, the court of biis or Cossack commanders, rather than Russian institutions of justice, decided at least some of the conflicts that involved Kazakhs and Cossacks. Needless to say, the biis relied on the Adat, rather than on imperial law, in resolving these cases. Clearly, Speranskii’s legal reform underestimated the ability of Kazakhs and Cossacks to form alliances to illegally enrich themselves without being punished either by imperial law or by the traditional court of biis. When, in 1848, the Omsk Oblast Court received a case involving the dissemination of spurious banknotes on the steppe, it turned out that it could not punish the 1121 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1381, ll. 1-94 ob. 265

1122

perpetrator of the crime as the man was a Kazakh. As the Head of the Frontier Administration of the Siberian Kirgizes explained, he could not put this Kazakh named Urundukov on trial since he committed none of the crimes which, according to the Statute of Siberian Kirgizes, were under the jurisdiction of imperial law. Neither could he be punished by the court of biis because the Adat did not foresee any punishment for such crimes. As it was discovered in the investigation, the named Kazakh forged the banknotes togeth1123 er with the Cossacks Bocharinov and Makarov. Though the actions of these Cossacks were under the jurisdiction of Russian law, they could not be properly punished as they did not participate in the spread of the forged banknotes. The official of the Frontier Administration of the Siberian Kirgizes asked the Head of the Omsk Administration what was to be done with the 1124 named Kazakh. A response to this request, however, did not follow. It is likely that cases of Russians making forged banknotes and using their Kazakh accomplices to distribute them among their countrymen in the steppe, thereby avoiding punishment for the crime, reached such proportions that the state found it necessary to interfere. On June 22, 1854, the Senate passed a decree which deemed the propagation of forged banknotes by Kazakhs an imperial 1125 crime and was punishable in accordance with Russian law. With some delay, the state recognized that Kazakhs and Russians were able to form criminal alliances. The formation of such alliances allowed participants to find loopholes in Russian legislation which allowed for different punishments (or no punishment at all) for the actions committed by Kazakhs and Cossacks.

Kazakh-Cossack Land Disputes Though most conflict situations between Siberian Cossacks and Kazakhs were resolved according to traditional steppe methods of meting out justice, in some cases, however, both Kazakhs and Cossacks preferred to ask the Russian administration to resolve conflicts between them. One of the most common examples of such disputes involved land. The following document presents an example of such disagreements. In August of 1854, the Head of the Ploskaia stanitsa, Rekin, informed the Ataman of the Siberian Line Army that the Kazakhs Ul’mesov and Arystakov, together with their clansmen, came to the 1122 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 251, ll. 1-1 ob. 1123 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 251, ll. 1-1 ob 1124 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 251, ll. 6-6 ob. 1125 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 251, l. 9. 266

Cossack pastures on the left bank of the Irtysh River and demanded that the Cossacks stop mowing hay. The Kazakhs threatened to kill those Cossacks who dared to continue mowing hay on the lands that they considered to be 1126 rightfully theirs. These hostile actions led Rekin to refer the problem to the Assessor of the Kokchetav Prikaz, Golitsynskii. Golitsynskii did not show sympathy for the Cossacks’ cause and responded that the named Kazakhs were only protecting their pastures against the unlawful encroachments of the stanitsa dwellers. Cossack Army Sergeant Pleshkov demanded that Golitsynskii prohibit the Kazakhs from using the land. Instead of doing this, Golitsynskii forbade the Cossacks from approaching the disputed pastures. Thus the conflict between the Cossack stanitsa dwellers and the Kazakh aul developed into a confrontation between the leadership of the Cossack Army and the okrug administration. When the okrug and stanitsa leaders failed to persuade their opponents that the land was rightfully theirs, they asked the Frontier Head of the Siberian Kirgizes, Major General Kleist, to settle their dispute. The investigation conducted by the Assessor Troitskii brought the following results: the stanitsa dwellers claimed that though, according to the land survey completed by Captain Kokoulin, this land belonged to their stanitsa, they would have no objection against allowing Kazakhs to use this land until a new land survey could be accomplished. They were to return the hay that they had already mowed and receive permission to cut wood on the disputed property. They explained their readiness to make these concessions because they understood the difficult situation of the Kazakhs and in respect of the fact that the Kazakhs had used these pastures since 1843 without any objections from the Cos1127 sacks. Whereas one side of the conflict was ready to seek compromise, the other was not. The biis of the aul explained that the lands were granted to them by Assessors Red’kin and Lishin in 1843. The Cossacks began to use these lands only in 1853. According to the biis’ estimations, the disputed lands were situated fifteen versts from the stanitsa and it meant that they could by no means belong to the Cossacks. The Kazakhs did not recognize the land surveying done by Kokoulin because, instead of drawing a line, he set poles and the Cossacks made use of this by taking more land than they could lawfully claim. Besides, the poles were set at a distance more than ten versts from the 1126 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 427, ll. 1-4ob. 1127 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 427, ll. 5-10ob. 267

1128

Irtysh River, as prescribed by the law. A review of Kokoulin’s land survey demonstrated that the poles were really set at fourteen versts from the Irtysh River. This consideration made the Kazakh claims lawful, and an imperial Ukaz, which strictly prohibited the Cossacks from using these lands, followed 1129 thereafter. To avoid any further disputes, the imperial government ordered the local authorities to make revisions of the line separating Kazakh and Cossack lands on the left bank of the Irtysh River. To accomplish this task the Assessor Troitskii, together with twelve “honorable” Kazakhs, joined the Siberian Cossack Army land surveyor Tamashevich, who in the presence of the aforementioned people and the representatives of the Siberian Cossack Army, drew a new line and set landmarks at a distance of ten versts from the Irtysh River. Both Kazakhs and Cossacks signed the papers which stated that they did not have objections against this new land survey. The disputed property was re1130 cognized as belonging to the Kazakhs. Another case of conflicts over land took place in 1831 near Semipalatinsk. The Cossacks of the Semipalatinsk fortress complained to the Head of Omsk Oblast’ De Sentloran that the Kazakhs of the Tamgalinskaia Volost’ appropriated their meadows, which were only five versts away from Semipalatinsk. According to the Cossacks’ petition, this seizure of their pastures prevented 1131 them from collecting enough hay for their livestock. As in the previous case, the Russian administration took the side of the Kazakhs. A state expedition ordered the Cossacks not to approach the named pastures, since the Kazakhs had “preferential rights” to this land. As the expedition’s order added, these rights were strengthened by the fact that some of the Kazakhs built 1132 houses on the disputed territory.

The Position of theOkrug Prikazy in Cossack-Kazakh Conflicts The first aforementioned cases of land disputes demonstrates that a conflict situation between Kazakhs and Cossacks had the potential of turning into a conflict between the okrug administration and the leadership of the Siberian Line Army. In the case of such conflicts, the state tended to lend its support to 1128 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 427, ll. 7-9. 1129 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 427, ll. 19ob.-20. 1130 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 427, ll. 52-52ob. 1131 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 711, ll. 1-1ob. 1132 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 711, ll. 5-5ob. 268

the okrugs. From the moment of their foundation in 1822, the state did all it could to strengthen the position of the okrugs. State policy unequivocally demonstrated that it considered the okrugs to be its only legal representatives in the region. The aim of the introduction of the administrative okrug system was, on the one hand, to ensure order and stability on the steppe and, on the other hand, to establish Russian administrative control over all inhabitants of the Middle Horde. Rather than imposing the imperial policy of protecting the interests of the empire on the steppe, the okrug administration represented the interests of the locals since it depended much more on them than on the remote central government. The okrug officials would not be able to perform their duties without the support of local Kazakhs. The Assessor of the Bayan Aul Okrug, Svirshchevskii, complained in 1853 to the Chief Administration of Western Siberia that he could not investigate a criminal case because the horses, which the elder of the Bisentainskaia Volost’ gave to him, were bad: “The horses needed a rest every five versts and because of that we could not get to certain 1133 distant auls to get enough evidence to solve the case.” The elder also did not provide Svirshchevskii with a yurta, which made the accomplishment of his mission impossible. The officials of the okrugs depended on the goodwill of the Kazakhs and had to win their goodwill by representing their interests in front of the Siberian Cossack Army and the central authorities. The okrug officials, both Kaza1134 kh and Russian, at times favored Kazakhs at the expense of Russian peasants and Cossacks, which was demonstrated by the position of the Kokchetav Okrug in the land disputes between the Cossacks of the stanitsa Ploskaia and the Kazakhs of the okrug.

Tensions between the Cossacks and the Civil Administration on the Steppe The tensions between the Cossacks and the civil authorities on the steppe were another factor that considerably diminished the ability of the imperial government to control developments on the steppe. The Ataman of the Siberian Cossack Army issued an order in 1832, according to which the Heads of the Cossack stanitsas would be put on trial if they were caught disobeying 1133 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 362, ll. 1-3ob. 1134 The okrug prikaz was headed by a Kazakh sultan, and included two Russian and two Kazakh assessors. 269

the orders of civil authorities, “as it is often the case now.” The order also strictly prohibited the involvement of the Cossacks in any matters which 1135 were within the jurisdiction of the civil department. The following document demonstrates that the Line Cossacks oftentimes ignored this order. In 1853 the Assessor of the Kokchetav Prikaz, Ochal’skii, informed the Frontier Head of Siberian Kirgizes Colonel Spiridonov that the Heads of Cossack stanitsas did not follow the orders of the Prikaz, claiming that they had their own commander and were not going to submit to the civil administra1136 tion. The Cossacks not only refused to follow the orders of the Prikaz, but also claimed that the instructions given to them by the Ataman of the Siberian Line Cossack Army prescribed them to supervise and control the activities of the members of the prikaz Ochal’skii asked Spiridonov to clarify the matter and to state clearly whether the Cossack leaders had to obey the prikaz or vice versa. The Council of the Main Administration of Western Siberia, convened to resolve this problem, came to the conclusion that the instructions of the Siberian Line Cossack Army contradicted the terms of the Ustav of 1822. According to the decision of the council, the Cossacks living in the okrugs had to obey all orders and remain under the supervision of the okrug prikazy. 1137 This decision, however, did not bring the results expected by the council. Instead of submitting to the authority of the prikaz, the Heads of the stanitsas continued to judge cases which involved peasants, Cossacks, and Kazakhs using their own understanding of justice, without even informing the prikaz 1138 of their activities. The okrug had two types of administration, which acted independently of each other – the official one, in the form of the prikaz, and the non-official administration of the Cossack Heads of stanitsas. These two administrations competed for power and, consequently, weakened imperial control over the steppe. Sometimes the confrontation between Cossacks and the okrug administration took grotesque forms. A clerk and an interpreter of the Kokchetav Prikaz complained to the Head of Omsk Oblast’ that the commander of the Cossack team, Captain Leskov, confiscated two barrels of liquor, which they had brought by the request of the members of the prikaz. The prikaz ordered Leskov to give the liquor back, but he refused to do so, stating that he acted ac1135 GAOO, f. 67, op. 1, d. 248, Sv. 105, ll. 39ob.-40. 1136 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 325, ll. 1-2. 1137 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 325, ll. 6-11. 1138 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 325, ll. 53-53ob. 270

cording to the Ustav and would not obey the orders of the prikaz. In response to this petition, the Omsk administration had to remind Leskov that, according to the Ustav of 1822, the Cossacks stationed in the okrugs had to obey the orders of the prikazy, rather than acting as an independent army unit. Leskov, however, returned only a small portion of the liquor and informed the prikaz that he was not going to follow its orders since he obeyed only the commander of the Siberian Cossack Army. The prikaz had to collaborate with the Siberian Cossack Army Chancellory to resolve the dilemma. As a result, Leskov was forced to hand over command of the unit to Khorunzhii Rytov and 1139 was put on a trial.

The Role of the State in Conflict Resolutions between Kazakhs and Cossacks In a recent work by Kazakhstani historian A. S. Elagin, the Cossacks in Kazakhstan enjoyed “exclusive rights and privileges,” and their interests were “diametrically opposed” to the interests of both the Russian peasants and the Kazakhs. In this struggle of interests, Russian authorities of all levels, as a 1140 rule, supported the Cossacks. In exchange for this support, the state totally controlled Cossack life. Many other Kazakhstani historians second Elagin, putting forth the idea that the Russian legal system always favored Cossacks over non-Cossacks, especially if these non-Cossacks happened to be inorodtsy. This belief allows them to claim that the Cossack Army was one of occupation with unlimited powers over conquered territories (and in their interpretation, the Cossacks wanted nothing more than to rape, plunder, and murder). As the following evidence demonstrates, such statements are nothing more than another nationalistic myth. Archival sources confirm that in the conflicts between Cossacks and Kazakhs, state officials often favored the latter. This happened in 1825, when sultans and elders of the Middle Horde complained to the Governor General of Western Siberia, Speranskii, about “some Russians, who come to the steppe and mow the hay and catch fish on 1141 the lands which belonged to the Kazakhs.” In response to their complaint, Speranskii ordered the Head of Omsk Oblast’ to investigate this case and “to 1142 make sure that nobody could do such injustices to the Kirgizes in the future.” 1139 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 567, ll. 1-7ob. 1140 Elagin, Kazachestvo, 33. 1141 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 400, l. 1. 1142 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 400, l. 2. 271

The Russian administration was not willing to forgive those Russians, both peasants and Cossacks, who committed crimes against Kazakhs. When the Russian settler Karsuntsov struck a Kazakh woman named Akesh Matembekova, the Tobol’sk Court forced him to apologize to her and to pay her a sum equal to that of the tribute which her deceased husband had paid to the 1143 state treasury. More serious crimes committed by Russians against Kazakhs received more severe punishments. When a peasant of the Karkarala Okrug, Andrei Il’in, struck a Kazakh woman named A. Darina with the millet of an axe in 1858, intending to kill her, the Omsk Oblast’ administration sentenced 1144 him to be flogged and exiled to Eastern Siberia. Property crimes committed by Cossacks against the inorodtsy also were punished. A Cossack of the Petropavlovsk stanitsa, Filimonov, stole from the Tatar Mametep some clothes and other property. Far from being pardoned, Filiminov was put on trial and sentenced by a military court to run six times through a line of a thousand people, who were to beat him with rods (the socalled gonianie shpitsrutenami, one of the cruelest punishments in the Russi1145 an Imperial Army). On the other hand, crimes committed by Kazakhs against Cossacks and Russian officials were punished rather leniently. When several Cossacks, an okrug assessor, and an interpreter were beaten up in 1835, the only punishment which their Kazakh offenders received was a brief imprisonment and a warning that next time they would be punished more 1146 severely. It appears to be that in some cases the Russian administration favored the interests of the representatives of the Kazakh elites over those of rank-andfile Cossacks. A Kazakh adviser to the Omsk Oblast’ administration, Chokan Valikhanov, complained to the Governor General of the Oblast’ of Siberian Kirgizes, Von Fridrikhs, of Cossacks cutting wood on the lands belonging to his mother. Valikhanov demanded that the Siberian administration stop these 1147 Cossack activities. Von Fridrikhs responded to the protest by issuing an order to the Oblast’ administration, in which he commanded the administration to make certain that the Cossacks did not cut any wood in the territory which 1148 belonged to Valikhanov or to his relatives. 1143 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1878, ll. 44-47. 1144 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1575, ll. 1-3. 1145 GAOO, f. 67, op. 1, d. 18, ll. 483-483 ob. 1146 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 185, ll. 1-3. 1147 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1934, ll. 1, 2. 1148 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 1934, ll. 17-17 ob. 272

In conflicts between the Cossacks and their Kazakh laborers, the Russian administration did not always support the former. In a petition written in 1851 by a Kazakh of the Akmola Okrug, Kacherbai Toktoulov, to the Head of the Siberian Kirgiz Administration, Spiridonov, he complained of the injustices committed by the Cossack Pichugin to Kacherbai’s brother, Tiundiuk. Tiundiuk, who worked for Pichugin, was suspected of stealing two horses from his employer. Pichugin demanded that Tiundiuk prove his innocence by asking his clansman to give an oath. Tiundiuk agreed and one of his clansmen named Buzhun Tauov gave this oath in the presence of the aul elder, the biis, and a Cossack Sergeant. Persuaded by the oath, Pichugin wrote a note which stated that he did not have any accusations to make against Tiundiuk. Some time later, the son of Buzhum Tauov, Tiulenpergesh, asked the brother of Tiundiuk to give him a stack of hay. When Kacherbai refused to do so, Tiulenpergesh went to Pichugin and said that his father was wrong and that Tiundiuk did steal Pichugin’s horses. Then, Pichiugin, with the help of the Sultan of the Kireevskaia Volost’, Nurali Kikhrachev, took 130 rubles from Tiundiuk as payment for the stolen horses. Kacherbai asked Spiridonov to investigate the case. Spiridonov found Kacherbai’s arguments persuasive and ordered the Ataman of the Siberian Cossack Army, Vorob’ev, to make certain 1149 that Pichugin returned the money to Tiundiuk. The archives in Almaty and Omsk do not contain enough cases on the conflicts between Cossacks and their Kazakh employees to give the researcher any sense of statistics. That is, the lack of data does not let one argue that the state always defended either the interests of the nomads or its servitors. It is mostly likely that the lack of such documentation may be attributed to the unwillingness of the conflict participants to address their conflicts to the Russian administration, instead preferring to settle their disputes without any outside interference. The aforementioned cases, however, allow for two conclusions to be made, which are important for understanding Cossack-Kazakh relations and the state’s role in regulating them. First, the Russian administration did not always favor the interests of Cossacks over those of Kazakhs and was willing to defend the rights of the latter. Second, the case of Pichugin reveals that the Cossacks preferred to settle conflict situations with their Kazakh employees

1149 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 473, ll. 1-4. 273

by employing some traditional steppe practices – in this case, by giving oaths in the presence of the biis. The fact that the Russian legal system did not favor Russians over Kazakhs made the former willing to settle their disputes with Kazakhs without addressing the authorities. As long as the administration did not know about these cases, there is no direct evidence to support this claim. What we do have is evidence on the cases in which, despite of the initial requests of the Kazakhs and the Cossacks for the Russian courts to resolve their conflict, they withdrew their requests, claiming that they managed to peacefully resolve their disagreements. In his petition to the Military Governor, Major General Von Fridrikhs, a Kazakh of Kokchetav Okrug, Akmai Bugunbai, complained of six Cossacks who came to his aul, which was fifty miles away from the Line, and under the pretext that the Kazakhs of this aul had stolen six of their horses, took away fifteen horses, five cows, and eight sheep. To prove their innocence, Bugunbai and his clansmen found the Cossack horses, which had been stolen by Kazakhs of a neighboring aul, and brought three of them to the Cossack stanitsa demanding their livestock back. The Cossacks, however, did not believe that their horses had not been stolen by Bugenbai and, under the pretext that twenty more of their horses did not return from the pastures, refused to return the Kazakhs’ livestock. In addition, the Cossacks arrested and kept in captivity five of the Kazakhs of Bugenbai’s aul. The Cossacks told Bugenbai that his clansmen would be released only when he returned all the missing horses. Bugenbai asked Von Friedrikhs to investigate the case and to release 1150 his clansmen from Cossack captivity. When the okrug Assessor Mel’nikov began to investigate the case, he found out that the petitioner and the Cossacks had since came to a peaceful agreement and, subsequently, Bugenbai withdrew his complaint. Instead, he asked the assessor to allow the traditional bii court to investigate his petition against a Kazakh of Akmola Okrug, Bekchu Anchinabaev, who had actually stolen the horses from the Cossacks. 1151 The assessor granted his request.

Cossacks in the Settlement of Conflicts between Kazakhs Cossack-Kazakh conflicts were by no means the only ones in the steppe. As the evidence provided in Chapter Three demonstrated, there were tensions 1150 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 404, ll. 4-5. 1151 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 404, ll. 14-17ob. 274

which often turned into armed clashes between rival Kazakh clans. Cossacks frequently got involved in determining the outcome of these conflicts between Kazakhs. This involvement could be of two sorts – immediate retribution for stolen livestock or the enforcement of the decisions of the biis. In most cases, the Cossacks’ participation in the conflicts which involved Kazakhs of rival tribes was initiated by requests from Kazakh elders and sultans either to protect them from raids or to return the stolen livestock. When, in August of 1824, the Kazakhs of Baibursinskaia, Kuchumovskaia, and Taraklinskaia Volosti raided the herds belonging to Karakisetskaia Volost’, the Kazakhs stealing 500 horses, the elder of this volost’ rushed to the Cossacks stationed nearby begging them to catch the thieves and retrieve the stolen horses. Cossack Sergeant Kozyrev, with six Cossacks, caught the thieves and, 1152 by that evening, brought all the horses back to their rightful owners. The chief Sultan of Kokchetav Okrug, Tursun Chingizov, wrote in 1830 to the Omsk administration that many sultans and elders of his okrug complained to him that Kazakhs who lived beyond the okrug stole much livestock from them and other Kazakhs. This thievery was so rampant that many Kazakhs lost all the livestock they had and their livelihood was seriously en1153 dangered. The sultan also added that sending Cossacks would be necessary not only for the protection of the Kazakhs, but also for preventing disorders which could result from the inactivity of the Russian government: “The robbed Kazakhs have no choice but to turn to robbery themselves, as they do not have any other means to provide themselves and their families with food. The thievery causes enmity which the sultans, in spite of all their attempts, 1154 cannot stop.” Similar requests to send Cossacks to protect the property of 1155 their aul were forwarded by the elder Toktamysh Ianuzakov in 1828, the elder of Tabuklinskaia Volost’ Sultan Chiraly Takov, and the chief Sultan of 1156 Karkaralinskii Okrug Sultan Chingisov, and the biis of Mambet Tuliklinskaia Volost’ of Karkarala Okrug in 1839. The biis of the named volost’ added to the request that sending the Cossacks was “an absolute necessity to estab1157 lish order and peace in their volost’.” In some cases Kazakhs used Cossacks both to protect their interests 1152 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 360, ll.115-116. 1153 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 529, ll. 11-12. 1154 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 529, l.12. 1155 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 468, ll. 1-3. 1156 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 549, ll. 6-7ob., 14-14ob. 1157 TsGA RK, f. 374, op. 1, d. 340, l. 1. 275

against those of other clans or auls and to help them adapt to a semi-nomadic or settled way of life. In 1833 a khan’s widow, Valieva, asked the Kokchetav Prikaz to send to her aul fifty Cossacks to protect her clansmen from the raids of neighboring auls. According to her petition, the people of her aul needed these Cossacks to teach them how to farm, how to build a mill and a mosque and how to prevent the elder Aiuvov from taking lands which had 1158 belonged to her Kazakhs “since ancient times.” In response to her request the Head of Omsk Oblast’ ordered the Kokchetav Prikaz to send six Cossacks and to investigate the land dispute between Valieva and Aiuvov. In case the land really belonged to Valieva, the Cossacks were to make sure that 1159 Aiuvov’s Kazakhs left it alone. In those cases when Russian authorities allowed Cossacks to go to Kazakh auls to resolve conflicts between different clans, the Cossacks received the following instructions: Your mission is to watch the peace and order on the steppe. Your main task is to protect our Kirgizes from the attacks of those who remain independent. You should avoid any fighting. Do not use your weapons. Treat Kirgizes carefully – especially those who are within our jurisdiction. Under no condition get involved in the disputes between Kirgizes without a special order given by the 1160 prikaz. In some cases Cossacks represented not the Russian but traditional steppe system of justice. Their role in the traditional Kazakh system of meting out cases was the enforcement of the decisions of biis. When in 1851 the Head of Kuchuk-Tobuklinskaia Volost’ was severely beaten by the Kazakhs of one of the auls, the Karkaralinskii Prikaz sent to this aul twenty Cossacks to make sure that the biis’ decision to punish the offenders would be enforced. The prikaz suspected that without sending the Cossacks “new disobedience and 1161 violence could take place, because of the Kazakhs’ free spirit.”

1158 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 808, ll. 6-6ob. 1159 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 808, l. 6ob. 1160 This order was given to the head of the Cossack team sent to the auls of Karkarala Okrug in 1831. See TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 549, ll. 11-11ob. 1161 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 289, ll. 1-2ob. 276

People of the Frontier against the Attempts of the State to Regulate Their Relations The state made numerous attempts to regulate relations between Cossacks and Kazakhs. The state was especially concerned with two spheres of Cossack-Kazakh relations: their trade and the Cossack hiring of Kazakh laborers. As the aforementioned evidence testifies, both issues were of vital importance to the Cossack economy. As in the Northern Caucasus, where trade “drew the Cossacks into the world of the mountain people, nativized their material culture, and occasionally led them to subvert state policy,” the interest in trade oftentimes led to the formation of alliances between Cossacks and Kazakhs, 1162 the ultimate outcome being detrimental to the fiscal interests of the state. The Board of Commerce was worried by the attempts of the Line Cossacks to monopolize the trade with the Kazakhs and to evade paying taxes on this trade. According to its report written in 1763, the Line Cossacks had asked the Kazakhs who were going to the fortress markets to stop by their stanitsas first and conducted secret commerce (potaennuiu satovku) with them. The Orenburg administration expressed the same concerns about unregulated trade between the Ural Cossacks and the Kazakhs. According to a report of the Frontier Commission, “the Ural Cossacks do not pay taxes on the goods exchanged from Kazakhs, and do not declare these goods to Cus1163 toms.” Some Cossack leaders gave bribes to the Kazakhs, asking them to trade only with them. In order to stop these illegal practices, the Board of Commerce ordered the Governor General of Siberia, Gorchakov, “to take all measures to ensure that all trade with Kazakhs were to be conducted only in 1164 places where there are Customs Offices.” Zavalishin complained of the Cossacks’ smuggling, their duty being to prevent illegal commerce on the steppe. He ascribed the large extent of smuggling to the vastness of the steppe 1165 and to the scarce number of people guarding it. In order to stop the smuggling of Kazakh livestock to the Russian side, the authorities ordered the 1166 branding of all livestock purchased from the Kazakhs in 1790. The government established certain limitations on the trade with the Kazakhs. For ex1167 ample, the sale of liquor on the steppe was strictly prohibited. Not only 1162 Barrett, At the Edge of Empire, 114. 1163 Apollova, Ekonomicheskie i politicheskie sviazi, 149, 248. 1164 Apollova, Khoziaistvennoe osvoenie, 340. 1165 Zavalishin, Opisanie zapadnoi Sibiri, 58. 1166 Apollova, Ekonomicheskie i politicheskie sviazi, 324. 1167 TsGA RK, f. 374, op. 1, d. 610, ll. 29-29ob. 277

rank-and-file Cossacks, but also some officers violated this law. Some were caught and fined, as it happened with Captain Rozhiev and Second Lieuten1168 ant Antonov in 1831. The adoption of elements of Russian material culture by Kazakhs and the parallel process of Cossacks embracing Kazakh material culture created their mutual dependence on trade. That is why the attempts of the Russian government to curtail the exchange met resistance from both parties. The attempt to control commerce, undertaken by Russian authorities in 1822, by means of limiting the numbers of the places where trade was permitted, caused Kazakhs to protest. As a report of the Orenburg Customs Office testifies, the Kazakhs, infuriated by the decision of Russian authorities to close access to the markets on the Line, attacked the Line, killed two, and captured three Cossacks, nine Bashkirs, and two girls, and stole 300 horses. According to this report, the Kazakhs who participated in the raids complained that the govern1169 ment’s decision to limit trade would ruin them. The state made another attempt to get involved in frontier commerce two years later. In Speranskii’s vision, the state had to control trade in order to establish good relations between state officials and Kazakhs. In 1824 Speranskii issued an order according to which okrug authorities were to purchase goods at the least possible price and bring them to the steppe. He demanded that the goods be sold to the Kazakhs at exactly the same price that they were bought. The aim of this policy was to lower prices and, consequently, “to make Kaza1170 khs believe in the unselfishness of the Russian government.” The Cossacks, however, were not happy with this turn of policy dubbing it “unnecessary” 1171 and even “harmful.” It could hardly be otherwise, because the state’s selling of goods to the Kazakhs endangered Cossack trade on the steppe, which 1172 was “the main source of their livelihood.” The Cossacks needed frontier exchange as much as the Kazakhs. Not to cause disturbances among the Cossacks, Speranskii had to call off his order and stop the okrugs’ sale of goods to Kazakhs the following year. Okrugs had to return the money which was al1173 located to them to purchase goods. The aforementioned examples reveal two important features of frontier life. First, both Kazakhs and Cossacks were 1168 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 547, ll. 2-3. 1169 Lebedev, Materialy po istorii, 412. 1170 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 351, ll. 1-10. 1171 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 351, l. 36. 1172 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 351, l. 37 1173 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 351, ll. 37-38. 278

dependent on trade and were resistant to any outside intrusion. Second, the state had to take Cossack and Kazakh interests into consideration and accommodate its policy accordingly. Both legislations, which met with resistance from the people of the frontier, were repealed. Along with its involvement in trade, the government tried to regulate the influx of dzhataks into Russian settlements since it considered their overwhelming presence there to be harmful to the security of the Line. The Orenburg Governor General, Volkonskii, prohibited Kazakhs from crossing the frontier in 1814. This prohibition met with immediate resistance from the Russians of the frontier, who had to hire Kazakhs secretly and even helped 1174 them to illegally cross the border. Not being able to control the situation and to impose the law on frontier society, the Russian government had to step back. The Orenburg Frontier Commission repealed the prohibition on cross1175 ing the frontier in 1817. It put some restrictions, however, on border crossing. According to the Commission’s decision, only those Kazakhs who were invited by Russians could cross the Line and live in the Russian settlements. The inviters also had to buy special “working tickets” (urochnye bilety) for each Kazakh they hired. The employer had to take all responsibility for the actions of his workers while they were on the Russian side of the Line and, after the work was completed, he had to bring the “Gastarbeiter” to the Fron1176 tier Commission for them to be sent back to the steppe. This legislation also allowed the families of the hired workers to cross the Line and settle in or near the Russian settlements. All Kazakhs, with the exception of children younger than twelve years of age, had to have tickets if they wished to live on the Russian side. The money collected by selling the tickets went to the Nepliuev Asian School in Orenburg, which was established to “enlighten and educate the minds of local inorodtsy, who are fearless and capable by nature, 1177 but are still uncultivated and rude.” When the economic interests of Kazakhs and Cossacks coincided, there were no obstacles to them forming alliances aimed at enriching themselves at the expense of the Army or State Treasury. Though all the livestock (or its monetary equivalent) collected from the Kazakhs for the right to graze their 1174 Chuloshnikov, “Kochevye inorodtsy na rabote v Povolzh’e i Zaural’e v nachale 19 veka,” Arkhiv Istoricheskii, 216. 1175 Ibid. 1176 Ibid. 1177 V. N. Vitevskii, I. I. Nepliuev i Orenburgskii Krai v prezhnem ego sostave do 1758 goda, vol. 3-4 (Kazan’: Tipografiia Kliuchnikova, 1889-1897), 946. 279

livestock on lands belonging to the Siberian Cossack Army had to be paid to the Treasury of this Army, it was not always the case. Cossacks were willing to allow animals belonging to Kazakhs to graze on the lands of the Army without informing either the civil or the army administration. In exchange, the Cossacks demanded from the Kazakhs the payment of certain sums, which they pocketed. As these sums were considerably less than those they would have to pay to the Army Treasury, the Kazakhs were willing to comply with Cossack demands. These alliances formed between the Kazakhs and Line Cossacks were detrimental to the Army Treasury. Due to the large distances and the lack of Cossack officers who would put the interests of the Siberian Cossack Army as a whole over the immediate needs of their stanitsas, only an accident could disclose the cases of illegal grazing. One such accident happened in 1857, when the Commander of the Fifth Hundred of the Seventh Cossack Regiment, Simanov, discovered that Kazakhs were grazing their livestock on lands belonging to the Siberian Cossack Army not far from the stanitsa of Lebiazhinskaia. According to Simanov’s estimations, the Cossacks of Lebiazhinskaia stanitsa allowed 706 horses, 1378 cows, and 617 sheep to graze on Cossack lands without paying remontanaia poshlina to the Army Treasury. The losses to the Treasury were quite considerable, given the fact that the Kazakhs were to pay thirty kopeks for a horse, twelve kopeks for a 1178 cow, and three kopeks for each of the sheep which grazed on Cossack land. The Kazakhs turned down Simanov’s demand to pay remontnaia poshlina for grazing their livestock because they had already paid the Lebiazhinskaia Cossacks. To prove this, the Kazakhs showed Simanov the receipts signed by the Cossacks, stating that they paid the Cossacks 100 rubles in 1849, ten rubles in 1856, and thirty rubles in 1857. Simanov wrote to the Headquarters of the Siberian Cossack Army that though all Cossacks of the Lebiazhinskaia fortress knew that the Kazakhs had used the pastures illegally, none of them reported this violation of the law to the administration. The administration of the Siberian Army ordered the Cossacks to pay a fine of fifty rubles and seventy-seven kopeks to the Army Treasury. The administration also strictly prohibited the Cossacks to have any deals of this kind with the Kaza1179 khs. Needless to say, it did not have enough resources to enforce this prohibition. Kazakh-Cossack relations remained beyond the control of both the civil and the army administration. 1178 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 2669, ll. 3-10. 1179 TsGA RK, f. 345, op. 1, d. 2669, ll. 3-10, 36-42 ob. 280

Another important factor that prevented the Russian government from establishing control over the steppe was the ability of Kazakhs and Cossacks to form alliances against the state’s attempts to regulate their relations or to impose certain duties and fees on them. The formation of ethnically mixed groups, whose actions went against the interests of the Empire, was possible even in the Ural Cossack Army, whose Cossacks were less open to contacts with the natives of the steppe than the Siberian Cossacks. Babadzhanov, in spite of his powerful anti-Ural Cossack rhetoric, had to admit that alliances between the Ural Cossacks and Kazakhs took place. These alliances, however, were of a peculiar character: The lands of the Ural Cossacks separate the Inner and Younger Hordes and the only way of communication between these two hordes lies through Cossack territory. There are horse thieves among the Kazakhs of both Hordes. A thief who stole a horse in one of these Hordes, in order to make the search of the horse more difficult for the owner, gives the horse to a Ural Cossack asking him to give it to his partner in crime in the other Horde. This thievery would be impossible without the participation of the Ural 1180 Cossacks. Willard Sunderland observed that not only Kazakhs became victims of Ural Cossack-Kazakh alliances. He cites cases in which Cossacks and Kazakhs formed mobs and robbed German colonists who had their settlements along 1181 the Volga. As these examples demonstrate, the differences in religious beliefs did not prevent the Ural Cossacks from becoming accomplices of the Kazakhs. The interest in gaining profit broke the boundaries separating Old Believers from the Muslims, partly transforming the Kazakh steppes into a zone of active interaction and mutual assimilation. Though much better documented, conflict did not determine all manifestations of Cossack-Kazakh relations. Even during the time of disturbances on the steppe, Cossacks could count on the help of many Kazakhs. The report of the Cossacks of the Pokrovskii redoubt sent to the Head of Omsk Oblast’ is revealing in demonstrating the attitudes of the Kazakhs to the Cossacks: 1180 M. Babadzhanov, “Appeliatsiia Kirgiza,” 132. 1181 Sunderland, Taming the Wild Field, 90. 281

On November 30, 1838, we, the Cossacks of the Redoubt Pokroskii, after bringing food supplies to the Akmolinskii Prikaz, began returning to our fort. When we were at the distance of fifty versts from the aul of the chief of Kireevskaia Volost’ Sultan Aiukov, a severe snowstorm broke out. Our carts could not go any further. We had to send some horsemen to Aiukov’s aul to ask for help. The Sultan immediately sent some of his people, who brought warm clothes, extra horses, and rescued us from imminent death. When we came to the aul, the Sultan ordered the slaughter of the best sheep to feed us. The snowstorm lasted for three days. During all this time, the people of the aul fed us free of charge. When the snowstorm was over, the Sultan gave us food and horses, which 1182 made our trip back to the fort possible. The evidence presented in this chapter demonstrates that conflicts on the steppe took on several shapes. The variability of the conflicts does not allow us to establish a definite pattern, let alone to fit these conflicts into a colonizer/colonized paradigm. Willard Sunderland, in his study of 17th-century Bashkiria, comes close to making the same conclusion, claiming that belonging to the Cossack army did not mean loyalty to the Russian state, nor did being a Kalmyk mean hostility to Russia and the Russians. In his words, “some Kalmyk lords (tayishis) ... urged Moscow to build forts on the Yaik [River] to help defend them from other Kalmyks in Jungaria, while other tayishis joined Bashkir raiders in attacking Russian towns in Bashkiria, and still others, beginning in the 1670s, took their followers to the Don lands and enrolled as 1183 Cossacks.” The same fluidity of the frontier prevented the people living on the Kazakh steppe from forming antagonistic camps, which could have led to a large-scale clash. The land disputes between Siberian Cossacks and Kazakhs led to clashes between okrug Administrations, which gave their support to the Kazakhs, and the leadership of the Siberian Cossack Army. In such conflicts, the Omsk Oblast’ Administration tended to favor the interests of the okrug prikazy, headed by Chief Sultans, over those of the Cossack Army. In doing so, it followed the system of hierarchy established by Speranskii. According to this

1182 TsGA RK, f. 338, op. 1, d. 5, ll. 27-28. 1183 Sunderland, Taming the Wild Field, 27. 282

system, the Cossacks stationed on the steppe were to obey the orders of the okrug prikazy. The Russian state could not utilize its legal system to resolve conflicts between Siberian Cossacks and Kazakhs. A lack of resources, coupled with the resistance of both of these groups to Russian law, caused the state to fail to establish rule by imperial law. In many cases, the Russian administration had no choice but to recommend that the Kazakhs and Cossacks decide their disputes using traditional steppe methods of conflict resolution. The attempts of the administration to regulate relations between Kazakhs and Cossacks, either by limiting the number of dzhataks in the Cossack households or by curbing free trade between them, met with opposition. This opposition forced the government either to lift the restrictions completely or to make them less strict. The absence of firmly established national or religious identities allowed Cossacks to form alliances with the natives of the steppe, with the outcome being detrimental to the interests of the state.

283

Conclusion

The traditional approach to studying the history of the Russian eastern frontier has been confined to the analysis of the imperial policy and legislation towards the natives populating regions beyond the Ural Mountains. Recent works challenge this approach and suggest that “the real imperial history of Russia” is the story of encounters “between the tsarist regime and its subject 1184 communities.” This monograph pushes this research one step further. “The tsarist regime” on the frontier was represented by people whose interests sometimes conflicted with those of the state. The Russian government did not have enough resources to impose its will on the people of the frontier and had to modify its policy to meet the interests of the people living in the outlaying regions of the empire. Thus, to understand the real imperial history of Russia, we must study the history of encounters between the natives of the Siberian taiga, the Caucasus mountains, and the Kazakh steppes and the real people, who came from the north-west, not the abstract “tsarist regime.” In the case of northern and eastern Kazakhstan, these people were Siberian Cossacks. This approach allows me to challenge several tenets of the recent historiography on Kazakhstan and Cossack-Kazakh relations, suggesting a new interpretation of interactions on the eastern frontier and the role of the Russian state in these interactions. Extensive trade with Kazakhs significantly impacted the Cossacks’ material culture. For instance, Cossacks wore Kazakh-style clothing and used different items manufactured by Kazakhs from camel wool. In return, the Kazakhs frequently used Russian fabrics and metal utensils. Thus, frontier life was not characterized by the colonial imposition of one culture over another, but by mutual assimilation. Similar to other regions of Asiatic Russia, the frontier 1185 exchange became “the foundation of regional economy and shared culture.” The mutual adoption of elements of material culture blurred the divide between the Siberian Cossacks and the Kazakhs, and caused their mutual interdependence. Not only did Kazakhs become dependent upon trade with Russians, but also the Cossacks’ material being became reliant on commercial 1184 Daniel Brower and Edward Lazzerini, “Introduction,” in Russia’s Orient, eds. Brower and Lazzerini, xvi. 1185 Barrett, At the Edge of the Empire, 110. 284

exchange with Kazakhs. Trade with the natives of the steppe became for the Siberian Line Cossacks an issue of survival since the traditional peasant methods of providing themselves with food, domestic animals, and clothes did not work. The service took too much time for the Cossacks to be able to practice agriculture. The state also was either unwilling or unable (or both) to meet the material needs of the Cossacks. As in the case of the Northern Caucasus, the weakness of the Russian economy on the eastern frontier made the 1186 Cossacks dependent on native economies. The Siberian Line Cossacks would not be able to perform their service duties or even survive without the Kazakhs’ horses, the products of livestock, and many items produced by Kazakh artisans. The remoteness of the Line from the supply-producing regions of inner Russia, coupled with the meager salaries that the state paid them, made the flow of goods from the steppe essential for the Cossack economy. Along with the creation of mutual dependency and the formation of a hybrid material culture, trade was responsible for the border crossing in which Cossacks and Kazakhs engaged. Due to the fact that commerce in the steppe was very competitive, the Russian merchants and Cossacks had to establish friendly relations with the natives of the steppe, adopt their language and the elements of culture, and submit to the traditional Kazakh system of justice. To be successful in trade, the merchants and Cossacks had to lose a part of their “Russianness” to become more accepted in Kazakh culture. This process was by no means a one-way road. Commercial exchange led not only to the nativization of Russian merchants, but also to the Russiafication of Kazakhs involved in trade. The similar way of life created close cultural affinity between the Siberian Cossacks and Kazakhs. The tastes and the worldview of the Irtysh Cossacks were strongly influenced by their nomadic neighbors. The way of life, determined by the environment, was responsible for Siberian Cossacks’ adoption of many elements of Kazakh culture such as language and eating patterns. The Kazakh language became the lingua franca of the frontier. The contact between Russians and Kazakhs transformed their cultures, making them closer to each other and, at the same time, alienating them from the people who continued practicing traditional cultures. Juxtaposing the processes of Kazakh Russification and Kazakhization of Cossacks, we may argue 1186 Ibid., 6. 285

that none of these processes was dominant. The hybridization of cultures is the most appropriate term to characterize the cultural development which occurred along the Irtysh Line. Both the representatives of the Kazakh elites and the lower strata of Kazakh society were receptive to Russian ways and became the agents of spreading Russian practices deep into the steppe. The Russification of Kazakh traditional elites is demonstrated in their entrance to Russian civil and military service, their adoption of some Russian practices, and their willingness to send their children to Russian schools. The description of the dzhataks’ lifestyle demonstrates that the culture of the lower strata of the Kazakh society also acquired some Russian elements while preserving some of the Kazakh traditional features. As long as the ties connecting the dzhataks and steppe Kazakhs were not completely severed, the cultural influence of dzhataks spread beyond the Line and deep into the steppe. As the evidence demonstrates, the dzhataks not only brought the elements of Russian material culture to the steppe, but also, due to their active participation in the economy of the Cossack stanitsas, stimulated the process of Kazakhization of the Siberian Cossacks’ households. Dzhataks were people who lived in two worlds, demonstrating their proximity and compatibility. The indigenization of Cossacks was not confined to the sphere of material culture. The Cossacks were very well aware of the Kazakh system of values and code of behavior. Though conflicts between them occasionally took place, the manner in which they were solved was not foreign to the Kazakhs. Cossacks, in spite of their military superiority, did not consider themselves to be above the traditional norms. In order to establish friendly relations with the Kazakhs and to obtain maximum benefits from their interactions, Cossacks had to observe the traditional rules of the steppe and accommodate themselves to the local patterns of behavior. For example, they frequently sought solutions to their conflicts with Kazakhs with the biis, rather than in Russian courts. Similar to the conclusion made by Willard Sunderland in his study of Bashkiria, both natives and new-comers interacted according to patterns defined by “popular traditions and local conditions of settlement" rather than according to a colonizer/colonized pattern which is generally accepted in re1187 cent Kazakhstani historiography. As it was mentioned before, the Kazakhs’ adoption of elements of Russian 1187 Sunderland, Taming the Wild Field, 216. 286

material culture and the parallel process of Cossacks embracing Kazakh material culture created their mutual dependence on trade. That is why the attempts of the Russian government to control (that is, to curtail or cut off) the exchange met the resistance of both societies. It happened in the beginning of the 19th century, when the state attempted to limit the number of places where Kazakhs could trade with Cossacks and monopolize commerce with the steppe. The state had to take both the Cossacks and Kazakhs’ interests into consideration and accommodate its policy accordingly. Both pieces of legislation, which met with resistance from the people of the frontier, were repealed. Large numbers of Cossacks were involved in trade with Kazakhs. They spent much time in the steppe, making lengthy trips to maximize their profits. The state had to tolerate the fact that a considerable number of Cossacks were not fulfilling their duties, due to their extensive trips to the steppe, or officially quit after fulfilling their service obligations and entered merchant society. It had to recognize the fact that Cossacks had interests as settlers which, at times, were not compatible with the demands of state service. The latter point challenges the belief which dominates modern-day historiography – the idea that Siberian Cossacks were the most loyal and reliable servants of the monarchy, who were ready to fulfill any order of the Tsar without hesitation. Contrary to this belief, the interests of the Cossacks as settlers did not always coincide with the demands of their service. Cossacks did separate their own interests from those of the empire and, when these interests were in conflict, they did not fulfill their duties of the agents of the Tsar. The miserable salary paid by the state to the Cossacks both on the Russian and Kazakh side of the Line forced them to place their interests as settlers above the demands of the state. The interests of the Cossacks as settlers, which superseded their responsibilities as servants of the state, were one of the most important factors that prevented the Russian government from establishing control over the steppe. Though the development of trade in the steppe was one of the most important objectives which pushed Russia to include the steppe into its empire, at times the state was unable to order Cossacks to provide security for trading caravans traveling through the steppe. Cossacks found it more important to collect hay for their own livelihood and prosperity than to protect the interests of the Russian empire in the steppe. Only rewards, which the merchants promised them, could lure Cossacks to perform what was considered to be their duty. Not only were Cossacks reluctant to accompany the caravans 287

through the steppe, sometimes they also acted as plunderers themselves. The Cossack was, first of all, “a man with a gun” in the steppe, not an agent of the empire. Like the other “man with a gun” – the Kazakh raider – he took his tolls from the passing caravans, expressing more concern for his own livelihood than in filling the State Treasury coffers with mercantile taxes. Another example of the Cossacks putting their economic interests first was their alliances with Kazakhs, which were detrimental to the fiscal interests of the state. This monograph challenges another myth of Siberian Cossack-Kazakh relations, which asserts that conflict was the only form of interaction between the Kazakhs and Cossacks. As my research establishes, not war but trade determined the relations between the participants in contact. The Siberian Line Cossacks used their geographical position, which was favorable for trade. The Cossacks’ territory, on the one hand, was adjacent to the Kazakh steppe, which was ideal for livestock breeding, and, on the other hand, it was contiguous with agricultural Tobol’sk and Tomsk Guberniias. Due to this location, the Cossack stanitsas became the places for Kazakh-Russian trade from the time of their foundation. Cossacks were actively engaged in intermediate trade, selling Russian goods to the nomads and products of the Kazakh livestock to the Russian peasants. The Siberian Line Cossacks devoted their time and energy almost exclusively to trade with Kazakhs. Every Cossack settlement had a marketplace for Kazakhs and stanitsa dwellers. In writing on the exchange between Russians and Kazakhs, modern-day Kazakh historians invariably define it as “unequal,” and the trade, in their interpretation, is always defined as “colonial.” These historians emphasize the negative effects of the trade on the Kazakh society. According to this interpretation, this kind of trade not only strengthened the economic ties between the steppe and Russia, but also brought to the steppe the elements of material cultur which were foreign to Kazakhs. The Line trade, together with the policy of social assimilation, and military and civil colonization, destroyed the nomadic way of life and changed the social structure of the society, making Kazakhs dependent on Russia. The worst effect which this dependency caused was the loss of Kazakh independence – that is, the “swallowing” of the sovereign Kazakh state by the Russian Empire. It is certainly true that trade in the steppe and along the Line did alter parts of the Kazakh lifestyle since elements of Russian material culture were introduced into their everyday life. It is also accurate that Kazakhs became dependent on many Russian items, which they obtained as a result of commercial exchange. But this is only half 288

of the story. Kazakhstani and most Western historians do not notice the parallel process of the Russian frontiersmen’s adoption of portions of Kazakh material culture and their reliance on commerce with the natives of the steppe. The idea of “unequal trade” also raises certain doubts. The growing competition between trading Cossacks and Russian, Kazakh, and Central Asian merchants resulted in decline in prices for the Russian goods and price increases for the products of the steppe. Archival sources confirm that at least some Kazakhs were skillful traders and profited greatly from the exchange of goods with Russians. The weakness of the Russian state in the region is central to understanding frontier life. This work cites many cases that demonstrate the impossibility of the Russian state to impose its will on the people of the frontier. The vastness of the steppe and the shortage of men made Russian control over the Kazakhs only nominal. One of the most vivid examples that reveal the weakness of the Russian state in the steppe is its inability to provide security for the caravans traveling through the areas controlled by Kazakhs. In spite of its objective to establish extensive economic relations with the countries adjacent to the steppe, in many cases, the Russian government was able to protect neither its own interests nor the property of its subjects beyond the Line. All it could do was to recommend that merchants offer rewards to the Kazakhs for protecting (or not attacking) the caravans and to caution traders to take better care of their property. Along with the military weakness, another reason that prevented Russians from using force against the plunderers was the fear that, in response to punitive expeditions, Kazakhs could move to the parts of the steppe controlled 1188 by China or the Central Asian khanates. The boundary between the Kazakh steppe and these states was rather ambiguous or, in some places, non-existent. The fear of Kazakhs’ possible outward migration and their becoming a protectorate of some other state made Russia rely more on persuasion and bribes than on using force in dealing with Kazakhs. Instead of sending troops to punish the plunderers, the government paid salaries to the influential Kazakhs and offered them gifts to persuade them to keep the natives of the 1189 steppe from attacking the caravans. Due to the weakness of the state, Kazakh-Cossack relations remained beyond the control of both the civil and military Russian administration. St. 1188 Dobromyslov, “Turgaiskaia Oblast’,” 171. 1189 Ibid., 219. 289

Petersburg followed, rather than directed, community life in this distant periphery. Similar to the experience of New Mexico, studied by Brooks, the fact that the central authorities could not exert real military or economic control over the northern and eastern regions of Kazakhstan allowed local groups to put their own cultural traditions into practice. The remoteness from the imperial center permitted the steppe frontier to establish its own dynamic, which the empire was powerless to control. The study of the role of the state in the solution of conflicts between Cossacks and Kazakhs questions the idea that the Russian authorities gave constant support to its service people in their disputes with Kazakhs and other inorodtsy. Traditional Western and recent Kazakhstani historians claim that, as a rule, the Siberian Cossacks enjoyed “exclusive rights and privileges,” and Russian authorities on all levels supported the Cossacks in their actions. Due to this aspect, they claim that the Cossack Army was one of occupation and given full reign of the conquered territories. My argument is that prior to the end of the 18th century, the Russian authorities preferred to ignore Cossack-Kazakh conflicts, allowing these conflicts to be settled without any outside interference. The state’s involvement in the conflicts was usually limited to giving recommendations to the Cossacks not to initiate conflicts and not to punish those Kazakhs who were not guilty of plundering Russian settlements. When the state did involve in these conflicts, it followed the traditional steppe methods of settling disputes. The ransoming of Russian captives or their exchange for captured Kazakhs was the only way to return the Russians captured by Kazakhs in their trips to the steppe or from the Line settlements. The Russian policy towards the people of the steppe accommodated to the traditional Kazakhs’ norms, morals, condition, and behavior. This attitude began to change at the end of the 18th century and in the beginning of the 19th century. The state was no longer satisfied with the system, since the relations between the Line Cossacks and natives of the steppe were regulated by the locally formulated rules, not by the laws of the empire. Igel’strom’s legal reform of 1786, which introduced the Frontier Courts (pogranichnye raspravy) that were to use imperial laws to resolve conflicts between the Russians and the Kazakhs, was the first attempt of the Russian government to impose imperial legal norms for regulating relations between its servants and the nomads of the steppe. Both modern historians and contemporaries to these events are unanimous in the opinion that the introduction of imperial judicial norms to regulate the life of the frontier failed. I at290

tribute the failure of this reform to the fact that both the Kazakhs and Siberian Cossacks, living under the conditions of a “non-dominant frontier community,” created certain rules to solve their conflicts. The exchange of captives, central to the people who encountered each other in the Kazakh steppe, proved crucial to the borderland political economy. The introduction of imperial legal norms, though seemingly more progressive in the view of the central authorities, met resistance from the peoples of the periphery, as it went against their long-term experience. Along with the impossibility to establish imperial legislation in the steppe, there was another factor, which caused Russian Line authorities to use traditional steppe methods of meting out justice. Under the steppe conditions, in many cases, Russian Law was helpless in punishing criminals and giving satisfaction to the victims of the crime or to their relatives. Even the Russian authorities had to recognize that the traditional Kazakh system of justice was more capable than the imperial legal system to resolve conflicts between the natives of the steppe and the Russians. Local authorities permitted the traditional court of biis to investigate and judge many cases which officially were under the jurisdiction of the Russian court. This phenomenon demonstrates that the realities of the frontier had the potential of subverting imperial plans. Though most conflict situations between Siberian Cossacks and Kazakhs were resolved according to the traditional steppe methods of dispensing justice, in some cases, however, both Kazakhs and Cossacks preferred to ask the Russian administration to resolve problems between them. One of the most numerous examples of such conflicts was land disputes. Archival sources confirm that the land disputes between Kazakhs and Siberian Cossacks had the potential of becoming a conflict between the okrug administration and the leadership of the Siberian Line Army. In the case of such conflicts, the state tended to lend its support to the okrugs which, according to the Spearanskii Reform of 1822, were the state’s only legal representatives in the region. Rather than imposing the policy of the state, which protected the interests of the empire in the steppe, the okrug administration represented the interests of the locals, as it depended much more on them than on the remote central government. The okrug officials would not be able to perform their duties without the support of local Kazakhs. This dependency caused the okrug officials, both Kazakhs and Russians, to frequently favor Kazakhs in their disputes with Russian peasants and Cos291

sacks. The fact that the Russian legal system did not favor Russians over Kazakhs and the inefficiency of Russian legal practices under steppe conditions pushed many Russians to petition the court of biis to settle disputes between them and Kazakhs. The people of the frontier developed their own system of resolving conflicts, which was closer to the traditional steppe method than to that of the Russian Empire. Consequently, both Cossacks and Kazakhs met with resistance the attempts of the state to incorporate the Kazakh steppe into the imperial legal framework. The Russian eastern frontier had the power not only to transform the identities of the people who lived there, but also to alter the regulations which the central government tried to impose on the people living there. This transformation became possible, first of all, because the interethnic cultural exchange turned the Kazakh steppes into the birthplace of hybrid frontier culture. The hybrid culture of the region is responsible for the domination of regional interests over national ones among the Russians living there, and the formation of Russian-Kazakh alliances to resist and subvert the policy formulated in St. Petersburg. This monograph also demonstrates that the state did not take resolute steps to stop the hybridization of frontier culture. I attribute its unwillingness to two reasons. First, the Russian state did not have enough resources to conduct the policy of the Russification of Kazakhs. Second, contrary to the belief of many Kazakhstani and some Western historians, Russian aims in the acquisition of the Kazakh steppe were pragmatic rather than ideological. Among the reasons that determined the Russian eastward expansion I underline the following: the need to secure the Russian settlements in Siberia; the state interest in establishing trade links with India, China, and the Central Asian khanates through the steppe; and the need of the Russian settlers in Siberia for livestock (particularly horses), which the steppe nomads had in abundance. Out of all these factors, the development of trade was the most important one that made the Russian government interested in the acquisition of the steppe. Though initially it was primarily the interest in the development of trade with China and the Central Asian Khanates through the Kazakh steppe, by the end of the 18th century, commerce with Kazakhs became more important for the Russian state than trade with foreign countries. In the view of the imperial leaders, to provide safe passage of Russian and Central Asian caravans through the steppe was one of the most important reasons why Russia incorporated the Middle and Younger Kazakh Hordes into the empire. Neither 292

the tribute collection nor the interest in land was among the factors which induced Russia to establish a protectorate over the steppe. The spread of Christianity and civilization was not among the reasons which pushed Russians eastward. As a matter of fact, an ideological explanation for the inclusion of Kazakhstan did not emerge until the 1870s, when it became obvious that the hope for riches which the Central Asian trade could bring to the State treasury resulted in futility. Contrary to the belief of recent Kazakhstani historians, who state that the aim of the Russian policy in Kaza1190 khstan was “Russification and forced conversion to Christianity,” the Russian authorities were quite reluctant to allow Kazakhs to convert to Christianity, let alone coerce them to become baptized. The first missionaries were sent to the Kazakh steppe in 1883 – that is 150 years after the steppe was offi1191 cially recognized as a part of the Russian Empire. As a result of the state’s unwillingness to support missionary activity, and the indifferent attitude of local Russian authorities and the Church to spread Christianity, only a small minority of Kazakhs became Christians. The absence of an ideological factor in the Russian acquisition of the steppe determined the readiness of the Russian state to co-opt both the representatives of the Kazakh elites and commoners into the imperial administrative apparatus. The claim of post-Soviet Kazakhstani historians that “the tsarist government strictly prohibited the acceptance of Kazakhs in the Russian civil and military service” notwithstanding, archival sources confirm that quite a few members of the traditional Kazakh elites entered Russian military and civil service and were able to reach high ranks. Entrance into the Cossack Army was open to everybody regardless of his or her religious or racial affiliation. Many Kazakhs, as well as other non-Russian people of the Asian part of the empire, used this opportunity to become Cossacks. The latter aspect determined the culturally, religiously, and racially mixed composition of the Cossacks – a fact that modern-day Russian and Kazakhstani historians try to ignore. As a result of the openness of the ranks of Russian service to the Kazakhs, the latter constituted approximately half of all Cossacks in many of 1192 the stanitsas along the Irtysh Line. This phenomenon led to the emergence of a large group of people who preserved some “native” symbols of identity while accepting some “foreign” traits. As the biographies of those people, who 1190 Abdirov, “Voenno-Kazach’ia kolonizatsiia,” 292. 1191 Geraci, “Going Abroad,” 285. 1192 Valikhanov, Sobranie Sochinenii, 526. 293

crossed the boundary both in geographic and cultural terms, demonstrate, the ability to become a man in between cultures was a prerequisite for an individual’s success in the Russian eastern borderlands. The weakness of the Russian state in the region did not allow it to impose its own sense of social distance between Cossacks and Kazakhs. It was largely up to the players on the ground to decide the principles upon which to build their relations. My argument here is that neither religious nor racial affiliations of the contact participants became the factors that determined their loyalties or established boundaries separating “us” form “them.” This argument disputes the almost universally accepted depiction of the Siberian Cossacks as people foreign to the Kazakhs in their faith, language, and traditions. This interpretation portrays Siberian Cossacks and Kazakhs as belonging to two hostile camps with no common interests or much interaction. This could not be otherwise as the sedentary, Christian, Russian-speaking Cossacks had irrevocable and irreconcilable differences with nomadic, Muslim, Turkic-speaking Kazakhs. The supporters of this interpretation depict Siberian Cossacks as “the Knights of Orthodoxy,” and Cossackness as a “deeply Russian and Orthodox phenomenon.” On the other hand, the Kazakhs are portrayed as the people whose national and religious affiliation determined their actions. As my research has demonstrated, both of these depictions are nothing more than a nationalistic myth. Like in the history of other nations, described by Gilbert, the histories of Kazakhs and Cossacks are told by nationalistically-minded historians, who employ the criterion that is currently 1193 being used to individuate the representatives of these groups. Not all Cossacks were Orthodox Christians. Even those who defined themselves as Orthodox were Christians rather in name than in essence. The religiosity of Cossacks, nowadays universally accepted as the symbol of their identity, is drastically dissimilar from what the primary documents record. My argument here is that the nominal religious affiliation of most of the Siberian Cossacks stationed along the Irtysh Line and, since 1822 settled in the steppe, made them both capable of having extensive contact with Kazakhs and adopting the elements of traditional steppe culture. This conclusion is at odds with the belief of Michael Khodarkovsky, who states that the Russian and nomadic civilizations constituted “two different words,” which “contin1194 ued to stand apart long after their initial encounter.” 1193 Gilbert, The Philosophy of Nationalism, 159. 1194 Khodarkovsky, “Ignoble Savages,” 22. 294

Along with non-Russian Cossacks, Cossackdom included a large number of people who were products of mixed marriages. This “watering down of the Russian blood” was done not only through intermarriages with the aboriginal peoples of Siberia and Kazakh steppe, but also through the purchase of children from natives. The initial multi-ethnic composition of the Siberian Cossacks, their frequent intermarriages with aboriginal women, and the purchase of native children with their subsequent entrance into the ranks of the Cossack Army made Siberian Cossacks very diverse in their ethnic composition. I argue that the composition of the Siberian Line Cossacks was far from being homogeneous in ethnic or religious terms, and the attempts to present shared ethnicity or religion as a unifying ideal of Cossackdom can hardly find any historical justification. The lack of national consciousness and spiritual unity on the side of the Siberian Cossacks made them receptive to many elements of Kazakh culture, and explains why, contrary to the plans of St. Petersburg, the representatives of the “higher” Russian culture, instead of dominating the “barbarians of the steppe,” became swallowed up by the Kazakh culture. Similarly, the dominance of tribal over national identity and the syncretism of Kazakhs’ religious beliefs did not cause the nomads of the steppe to view the Siberian Cossacks as “foreign invaders” and “infidels.” The people of the steppe identified themselves as belonging to a certain clan rather than an entire ethnic or religious group. As Soviet historians endeavored to find class struggle in classless societies, post-Soviet Kazakhstani historians speak of a nation in a society where there was no sense of national solidarity. The rebellion of Kenesary Kasymov demonstrates this absence of national consciousness among Kazakhs. The ethnic and religious diversity of both the participants of the uprising and the state’s forces, which suppressed it, reveal that political allegiance on the frontier was fluid and not determined by a colonizer/colonized paradigm. As the analysis of the composition of Kenesary’s army and his policy on the territories he controlled demonstrates, the dominant depiction of his uprising as a national liberation movement in the Kazakhstani historiography is nothing more than a historians’ attempt to create usable past fitting very well into what Anthony Smith defines as “ethnic mythhistory” – “an amalgam of selective historical truth and idealization, with 1195 varying degrees of documented fact and political myth.” 1195 Anthony D. Smith, Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), 63. 295

The absence of firmly established identities on the frontier leads me to challenge the conventional belief that the transformation of the societies in contact was a one-way road, with the militarily superior Russians subduing the Kazakh culture. The ethnic and religious heterogeneity of the Siberian Cossacks and the absence of a firmly established national and religious consciousness among Kazakhs allowed for the mutual assimilation of these two groups. The fluidity of frontier life made the boundary between Kazakhs and Cossacks transparent and permeable. Along with the adoption of elements of Russian culture and the Kazakhs’ way of life, we also can observe strong Kazakh influence in all spheres of Cossack life. I do not argue that the frontier was always a zone of active material and cultural exchange, which resulted in the hybridization of the societies participating in the contact. The task of this book is to demonstrate those factors that were responsible for the openness of participating societies to elements of “foreign” cultures, which ultimately led to the formation of common interests among people of the frontier. My research exhibits that the most important of these factors were: the absence of a firmly established national, racial, and religious consciousness among the participants in the contact; the economic weakness of the state on the frontier, which made its agents dependent on the natives’ economy, and influenced them to place their interests as settlers above those of the state; the absence of ideological objectives, such as the spread of Christianity or a civilizing mission in the acquisition of new territories, which resulted in the ranks of the Russian civil and military service becoming open to people of different races and faiths; and the inability of the state to impose its will on the people of the frontier and regulate relations between the participants in contact with each other. As the developments of the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries demonstrate, most of these factors that were responsible for the openness of the frontier, disappeared. The construction of the Trans-Siberian railroad introduced an abundance of goods, making Siberian Cossacks less de1196 pendent on the products of the steppe. The mass migration of peasants whose way of life was drastically different from that of Siberian Cossacks and Kazakhs turned the region into an agricultural one. The government apparatus became sufficiently strong to regulate the relations between incoming and 1196 Willard Sunderland defines the mass peasant migration to Siberia and Kazakh steppes at the end of the 19th century as “the Great Siberian Migration.” See Sunderland, Taming the Wild Field, 1. 296

aboriginal populations, and the ideas of ethnically centered nationalism began to penetrate the consciousness of the Russian frontiersmen, leading them to view the Kazakhs as irrevocably “others”. These developments effectively “closed” the frontier and transformed these regions of modern-day Kazakhstan into Russian provinces.

297

Appendix

List of Principal Dates and Events 1581

A group of the Volga Cossacks led by Ataman Ermak (Yermak) defeated the Siberian Khan Kuchum and conquered Siberia. The companions of Ermak became the original Siberian Cossacks.

1716–1718

The Russian government introduced the Irtysh fortified line on the edge of the steppe. The Cossacks who settled in the forts came to be known as the Line Cossacks (prilineinye kazaki).

1731

The Khan of the Younger Horde (Zhuz) Abul Khair swore his loyalty to the Russian empress.

1740

The Kazakh Middle Horde accepted Russian protection.

1773–1775

The Don Cossack Emelian Pugachev raised the Iaik (Ural) Cossacks to a revolt against the central authorities. Some Kazakhs of the Younger Horde joined the rebellion.

1783

The Russian administration founded a chain of dwellings and mosques for Kazakh merchants along the Irtysh and Orenburg Lines.

1786

The Governor General of Orenburg Baron O. Igel’strom introduced frontier courts composed of Kazakhs and Russians and had to use imperial laws to resolve conflicts involving people of different ethnic groups.

1800

The Russian government allowed Kazakhs to move deep into the Russian territory and have temporary pastures in Tobol’sk and Tomsk Guberniias.

1808

Siberian Line Cossacks received the status of the Siberian Cossack Army (voisko).

1822

The Governor General of Siberia, Mikhail Speranskii, introduces new administration for the Kazakhs of the Middle Horde called Statute of the Siberian Kirgizes. Speranskii’s reforms deposed the khan of the Middle Horde and all its territory was assigned to Siberian administration. The territory of the Middle Horde was divided into administrative units called okrugs. Six okrugs were established in the steppe in the period between 1824 and 1831. Okrugs headed by elder sultans were divided into volosti, and volosti headed by sultans were subdivided into auls with elders as their heads. Each okrug was administered by a

298

prikaz, a committee chaired by an elder sultan and also including two Russian and two Kazakh assessors. An okrug prikaz (okruzhnoi prikaz) had both police and court functions. The okrugs were to be filled by Cossacks who were to fulfill policing functions. Speranskii also introduced imperial judicial practices for settling cases between Russians and Kazakhs. 1837–1847

Kazakh Sultan Kenesary Kasymov (1802-47) raised a rebellion, which is defined by historians as the largest challenge to the Russian rule in the Kazakh steppe.

1842

The Code of Laws of the Russian Empire on the Rights of the Siberian Kirgises allowed each Kazakh to transfer from one estate to another, to live within the Empire, to enter the state service and any guild he wanted.

1846

The legislation on the Siberian Cossack Army prohibited non Cossacks, including Kazakhs, to live on the lands belonging to the Army. This legislation caused many Kazakhs to become Cossacks.

1867

The Siberian Cossack Army was partitioned. Some Siberian Cossacks formed the new Semirechenskoe Cossack Army stationed in eastern Central Asian west of Kuldzha. By 1912 the Semirechenskoe Cossack Army contained 42,000 people to compare to 164,000 Siberian Cossacks.

1868

All customs duties on trade with the Kazakhs were repealed.

1873–1877

Russia conquered Central Asian khanates Khiva and Kokand.

299

Bibliography Archival Sources Tsentral’nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Respubliki Kazakhstan (TsGA RK) (The Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan) Fond 4: Oblastnoe Pravlenie Orenburgskimi Kirgizami (Oblast’ Administration of the Orenburg Kirgiz). Fond 338: Omskoe Oblastnoe Pravlenie Ministerstva Vnutrennikh Del (Omsk Oblast’ Administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs). Fond 345: Oblastnoe Pravlenie Sibirskime Kirgizami (Omsk Oblast’Administration of the Siberian Kirgiz). Fond 374: Pogranichnoe Upravlenie Sibirskimi Kirgizami Ministerstva Vnutrennikh Del (Border Administration of the Siberian Kirgiz of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) Gosudarstvennui Arkhiv Omskoi Oblasti (GAOO) (The State Archive of the Omsk Oblast’) Fond 2: Zapadno-Sibirskii General-Gubernator (Governor General of Western Siberia) Fond 3: Glavnoe upravlenie Zapadnoi Sibiri (Chief Administration of Western Siberia) Fond 4: Nachal’nik sukhoputnykh soobshchenii Zapadnoi Sibiri (Chief of Land Transport of Western Siberia) Fond 6: Shtab otdel’nogo sibirskogo korpusa (Headquarters of the Separate Siberian Corps) Fond 54: Voennaia Kantseliariia Nakaznogo Atamana Sibirskogo Kazach’egoVoiska (Army Office of the Nakaznoi Ataman of the Siberian Cossack Army Fond 67: Voiskovoe Khoziaistvennoe Pravlenie Sibirskogo Kazach’ego Voiska (Army Economic Administration of the Siberian Cossack Army) Fond 235: Kantseliariia Nakaznogo Atamana Sibirskogo Kazach’ego Voiska (Office of Nakaznoi Ataman of the Siberian Cossack Army) Fond 362: Shtab Otde’nogo Kazach’ego Voiska (Headquarters of the Separate Cossacks Corps) Fond 366: Lichnyi Fond G. E. Katanaeva (Personal Stock of G. E. Katanaev) Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii (hereafter PSZ), ser. 1, vol. 38, no. 29,127

300

Published Primary and Secondary Sources Abdildabekova, A. M., “Istoriografiia prisoedineniia Kazakhstana k Rossii,” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Kazakhstan State University, 2000) Abdirov, M. Zh., Istoriia kazachestva Kazakhstana, (Almaty: Izdatel’stvo Kazakhstan, 1994) _______, Voenno-kazach’ia kolonizatsiia Kazakhstana (konets XVI – nachalo XX vekov): Opyt istoriko-evoliutsionnogo analiza (Almaty, 1997) _______, “Voenno-Kazach’ia kolonizatsiia Kazakhstana (konets XVI veka – nachalo XX veka): Opyt istoriko-evoliutsionnogo analiza” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Kazakhstan State University, 1997) _______, Zavoevanie Kazakhstana tsarskoi Rossiei i bor’ba Kazakhskogo naroda za nezavisimost’ (iz istorii voenno-kazach’ei kolonizatsii kraia v kontse XVI – nachale XX vekov) (Astana: Elorda, 2000) Abuseitova, M. Kh., Kazakhstan and Central Asia in the 15th – 17th Centuries: History, Policy, Diplomacy (Almaty: Daik Press, 1998) Akiner, Shirin, Islamic Peoples of the Soviet Union: (With an Appendix on the nonMuslim Turkic Peoples of the Soviet Union) (London: Kegan Paul International, 1983) _______, The Formation of Kazakh Identity: From Tribe to Nation-State (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1995) Akishev, A. K., Istoriia Kazakhstana s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei (ocherk) (Almaty, Izdatel’stvo Deuir, 1993) Alonso, Anna Maria, Thread of Blood: Colonialism, Revolution and Gender on Mexico's Northern Frontier (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995) Altoma, Reef, “The Influence of Islam in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan,” in Central Asia in Historical Perspective, ed. Beatrice F. Manz (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994) Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London/New York: Verso Press, 1993) Andreev, I. G., Domovaia letopis’ Andreeva, po rodu ikh pisannaia kapitanom Ivanom Andreevym v 1789g. Nachata v Semipalatinske (Moscow, 1789) _______, Opisanie Srednei Ordy Kirgiz-Kaisakov (Almaty: Ghylym, 1998 [1789]) Apollova, N. G., Ekonomicheskie i politicheskie sviazi Kazakhstana s Rossiei v 18 – nachale 19 veka (Moscow: Akademiia Nauk SSSR, 1960) _______, Khoziaistvennoe osvoenie Priirtysh’ia v kontse XVI – pervoi polovine XIX v., (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Nauka, 1976) Arasanskii, “Prichiny volnenii v kirgizskikh stepiakh,” Sovremennaia Letopis’, voskresnye pribavleniia k Moskovskim vedomostiam, no. 22 (June 15, 1869)

301

Armstrong, John, Nations before Nationalism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982) Artykbaev, Zh., Istoriia Kazakhstana (Almaty: Ghylym, 2004) Asfendiiarov, S. D., Istoriia Kazakhstana (s drevneishikh vremen) vol. 1 (Alma-Ata and Moscow: Kazakhskoe kraevoe izdanie, 1935) _______, Istoriia Kazakhstana (s drevneishikh vremen), 2nd ed. (Alma-Ata: Kazak Universiteti, 1993 [1935]) _______, ed., Proshloe Kazakhstana v istochnikakh i materialakh (V vek do nashei ery – XVIII vek nashei ery) (Alma-Ata, Moscow, 1936) _______, ed., Proshloe Kazakhstana v istochnikakh i materialakh, 2nd ed. (Almaty: Izdatel’stvo Kazakhstan, 1998 [1936]) Aspandiiarov, Bilial, Obrazovanie Bukeevskoi Ordy i ee likvidatsia (Alma-Ata, 1947) Aubakirova, Kh., “Uchastie sibirskogo kazachestva v podavlenii natsional’noosvoboditel’nogo dvizheniia kazakhskogo naroda pod predvoditel’stvom sultanov Sarzhana i Kenesary,” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Eurasian University of Astana, 2000) Auezov, M. O., Istoriia Kazakhskoi SSR, vol. 1 (Alma-Ata: Izdatel’stvo akademii Nauk Kazahskoi SSR, 1957) Babadzhanov, M., “Appeliatsiia Kirgiza k publike, po povodu stat’i Russkogo Vestnika pod zaglaviem Kirgizomaniia,” Severnaia Pchela, no. 131 (1861) _______, “Zametki Kirgiza o Kirgizakh,” Severnaia Pchela, no. 4 (1861) Bacon, Elizabeth, Central Asians under Russian Rule: A Study in culture Change (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1966) _______, Central Asians under Russian Rule (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1980) Bakanov, V. P., Iz istorii Orenburgskogo Kazachestva (Magnitogorsk: Izdatel’stvo Magnitogorsk, 1993) Bakhrushin, S. V. Nauchnye trudy v trekh tomakh (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1955) Barrett, Thomas M., At the Edge of Empire: The Terek Cossacks and the North Caucasus Frontier (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999) _______, “Crossing Boundaries: The Trading Frontiers of the Terek Cossacks,” in Daniel R. Brower and Edward J. Lazzerini, eds., Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997) Barth, Fredrik, ed., Introduction to Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1969). Basin, V. Ia., “Kazakhstan v sisteme vneshnei politiki Rossii v pervoi polovine XVIII veka,” in Kazakhstan v XI-XVIII vekakh (Voprosy sotsial’no-politicheskoi istorii) (Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1969) 302

Bassin, Mark, Imperial Visions: Nationalist Imagination and Geographical Expansion in the Russian Far East, 1840-1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) Bekmakhanov, E. B., Kazakhstan v 20-40 gody XX veka (Alma-Ata: Kazak Universiteti, 1947) _______, Kazakhstan v 20-40 gody XX veka, 2nd ed. (Alma-Ata: Kazakh University Press, 1992 [1947]) _______, Prisoedinenie Kazakhstana k Rossii (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo AN SSSR, 1957) Bekmakhanova, N. E., Rossiia i Kazakhstan v osvoboditel’nom dvizhenii: Posledniaia chetvert’ XVIII – pervaia polovina XIX veka (Moscow: Institut Rossiiskoi Istorii, 1996) Belonogov, T. P., “Promysly i zaniatiia naseleniia,” in V. P. Semenov, ed., “Rossiia. Polnoe Geograficheskoe opisanie nashego otechestva: Nastol’naia i dorozhnaia kniga dlia russkikh liudei,” vol.18, Kirgizskii krai (St. Petersburg, 1903) Bezsonov, B.V., “Kazaki i kazach’i zemli v Aziatskoi Rossii,” in G. Glinka, ed.,Aziatskaia Rossiia, liudi i poriadki za Uralom (St. Petersburg: Izdanie pereselencheskogo upravleniia glavnogo upravleniia zemleustroistva i zemledeliia, 1914) Blaramberg, I. F., “Zemli Kirgiz-Kaisakov Vnutrennei (Bukeevskoi) i Zaural’skoi (Maloi) Ordy Orenburgskogo vedomstva,” Voenno-statisticheskoe obozrenie Rossiiskoi imperii, vol. 14 (St. Petersburg, 1848) Bobrick, Benson, East of the Sun, The Epic Conquest and Tragic History of Siberia (New York: Poseidon Press, 1992) Bol’shoi, Savva, “Zapiski doktora Savvy Bol’shogo o prikliucheniiakh ego v plenu u kigiz-kaisakov v 1803 i 1804 godakh s zamechaniiami o kirgiz-kaisatskoi stepi,” Syn Otechestva, parts 76-77 (St. Petersburg, 1822) Breyfogle, Nicholas B., Heretics and Colonizers: Forging Russia’s Empire in the South Caucasus (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2005) Brokgauz F. A., Efron I. A., Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' Brokgauza i Efrona, vol. 30 (St. Petersburg: Aktsionernoe onshchestvo Brokgauz i Efron, 1896) Bronevskii, B. M., Istoriia donskago Voiska, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Ekspeditsii zagotovleniia gosudarstvennykh bumag, 1834) _______, “Zapiski B.M. Bronevskogo o kirgizakh,” Otechestvennye zapiski,no. 119 (1830) Brooks, James F., Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands, (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002) Brower, Daniel R. and Edward J. Lazzerini, eds., Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997) Bykadarov, I. F., Istoriia Kazachestva (Prague: Biblioteka vol’nogo kazachestva, 1930).

303

Carter, Sarah, Capturing Women: The Manipulation of Cultural Imagery in Canada’s Prairie West (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1997) Cheremshanskii, V. M., Opisanie Orenburgskoi Gubernii v khoziastvennostatisticheskom, etnograficheskom i promyshlennom otnosheniiakh (Ufa, 1859) Chermanov, M. I., O skotovodstve u kirgiz Zapadnoi Sibiri (1884) Chuloshnikov, “Kochevye inorodtsy na rabote v Povolzh’e i Zaural’e v nachale 19veka,” Arkhiv Istoricheskii, (unknown volume and year of publication) Chuvakov, Sultan Dzhan-Sultan, “Deistvuiushchee Polozhenie ob upravlenii v stepnykh oblastiakh,” Otan Tarikhy, no. 4 (2002) Clifford, James, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1997) Czech, Kenneth P., “Savage Land Beckoning,” Military History 7, no. 3 (1990): 22-28 Dakhshleiger, G. F., N. G. Apollova, eds., Istoriia Kazakhstana s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei (Alma-Ata: Izdatel’stvo Nauka, 1957) Dal’, V., Tolkovyi slovar’ zhivogo velikorusskogo iazyka, vol. 2, (Moscow, 1979) Demko, George, The Russian Colonization of Kazakhstan, 1896 – 1916 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969) DeWesse Devine, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania University Press, 1994) Dobromyslov, A. I., “Turgaiskaia Oblast’. Istoricheskii ocherk,” Izvestiia Orenburgskogo otdela Imperatorskogo geograficheskogo obshchestva, vol. 1 (Orenburg, Tipografiia F. B. Sachkova, 1900) Dolgikh, B.O., Rodovoi i plemennoi sostav narodov Sibiri v XVII veke (Moscow: Akademiia Nauk SSSR, 1960) Edgar, Adrienne Lynn, Tribal Nation: The Making of Soviet Turkmenistan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004) Eickelman, Dale, The Middle East and Central Asia: An Anthropological Approach (New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2002) Elagin, A. S., Kazachestvo i kazach’i voiska v Kazakhstane (Almaty: Izdatel’stvo Kazakhstan, 1993) Esenova, Saulesh, “Soviet Nationality, Identity, and Ethnicity in Central Asia: Historical Narratives and Kazakh Ethnic Identity,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, vol. 22, no. 1 (2002) Etsel’, A., G. Vagner, Puteshestvie po Sibiri i prilegaiushchim k nei stranam Tsentral’noi Azii po opisaniiam T. U. Atkinsonom, A. T. Fon Middendorfom, G. Radtse i drugimi (St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo M. O. Vol’fa, 1865) Falk, I. P., Izvestiia Akademika Fal’ka o Kirgizskoi Stepi (XVIII v.) Forsyth, James, A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony, 1581-1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)

304

Foust, C.M., “Russian Expansion to the East through the 18th Century,” Journal of Economic History12, no. 4 (1961): 469-482. Fusco, Coco, English is Broken Here: Notes on Cultural Fusion in the Americas (NewYork City: New Press, 1995) Gageimester, Iu. A., Statisticheskoe obozrenie Sibiri, part 2 (St. Petersburg, 1854) Galiev, V. Z., Dekabristy i Kazakhstan (Alma-Ata: Gylym, 1990) _______, Dvizhushchie sily narodno-osvoboditel’noi bor’by pod predvoditel’stvom Kenesary Kasymova, Ablai – Kenesary (Almaty: Gylym, 2001) Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures (London: Fontana, 1973) Geins, A. K., Sobranie literaturnykh trudov, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia M. M. Stasiulevicha, 1897) Gellner, Ernest, Thought and Change (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964) ____________, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983) Gel’mgol’ts, F., “Orenburgskii menovoi dvor,” Izvestiia Orenburgskogo otdela Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geografichaskogo Obshchestva, vol. 3 (Orenburg, 1894) George, Alexandra, Journey into Kazakhstan: The True Face of the NazarbayevRegime (Lanham: University Press of America, 2001) Geraci, Robert P., “Going Abroad or Going to Russia? Orthodox Missionaries in the Kazakh Steppe, 1881 – 1917” in Robert Geraci, Michael Khodarkovsky, eds., Of Religion and Empire. Missions, Conversion, and Tolerance in Tsarist Russia (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2001) Gilbert, Paul, The Philosophy of Nationalism (Boulder, Colo: Westview Press, 1998) Glinka, G., ed., Aziatskaia Rossiia, liudi i poriadki za Uralom (St. Petersburg: Izdanie pereselencheskogo upravleniia glavnogo upravleniia zemleustroistva i zemledeliia, 1914) Gordeev, A. A., Istoriia Kazakov (Paris: Societe d’Impressions Periodiques et d’Editions, 1868-1871). Gotovitskii, M., “Okonchanie del polumirom po kirgizskomu obychnomu pravu,” Iuridicheskii Vestnik, vol. 19 (Moscow, 1885) Grant, Bruce, In the Soviet House of Culture: A Century of Perestoikas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995) Gren, A., “Iz putevykh zametok o kirgizskoi stepi,” Inzhenernyi zhurnal, no. 4 (1862) Grigor’ev, V., “Orenburgskie Kirgizy: Ikh chestnost’ i umenie v torgovykh delakh,” Narodnyi Vestnik (1864) _______, “The Russian Policy Regarding Central Asia: An Historical Sketch,”in Eugene Schuyler, ed., Turkistan, vol. 2 (St. Petersburg, 1877) Halecki, Oscar, “Imperialism in Slavic and East European History,” American Slavic and East European Review, 11 (October, 1952): 1-26

305

Harman, Alexandra, Indians in the Making: Ethnic Relations and Indian Identities around Puget Sound (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998) Hindus, Maurice, The Cossacks: The Story of a Warrior People (Westport: Greenwood Press Publishers, 1970) Hobsbawm, E. J., Nations and Nationalism since 1789: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) Holquist, Peter, “From Estate to Ethnos: The Changing Nature of Cossack Identity in theTwentieth Century,” in Nurit Schleifman, ed., Russia at a Crossroads, History, Memory and Political Practice, (London: Frank Cass, 1998) Hroch, Miroslav, "From National Movement to the Fully-Formed Nation: The NationBuilding Process in Europe," New Left Review, vol. 198 (March-April, 1993) Hunczak, Taras, ed., Russian Imperialism from Ivan the Great to the Revolution (Lanham: University Press of America, 2000) Hutchinson, John and Anthony D. Smith, Ethnicity (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) Huttenbach, Henry R., “The Origins of Russian Imperialism” in Taras Hunczak, ed., Russian Imperialism from Ivan the Great to the Revolution, (Lanham: University Press of America, 2000) Ibragimov, S. K., “Iz istorii vneshnetorgovykh sviazei kazakhov v XVIII veke” in Uchenye zapiski Instituta Vostokovedeniia, vol. 19 (Moscow, 1953) Irmukhanov, B., Kazakhstan: istoriko-publitsisticheskii vzgliad (Almaty: Olke, 1996) Istoriia Kazakhstana (XVIII – nachalo XX vv.): Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Almaty: Kazak universiteti, 2001) Izbasarova, G., “Kazahsko–Bashkirskie otnosheniia v XVIII v. (1701–1755)” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Kazakh State National University, 2000) Poiarkov, F.A., “Iz oblasti kirgizskikh verovanii,” Vestnik Orenburgskogo Uchebnogo Okruga, no. 1 (Ufa, 1913) Kaidalov, E., Karavannye zapiski, vo vremia pokhoda v Bukhariiu Rossiiskogo karavana pod voinskim prikrytiem, v 1824 i 1825 godakh; vedennye nachal’nikom onogo karavana nad kupechestvom, Evgrafom Kaidalovym (Moscow: Universitetskaia tipografiia, 1827) Kappeler, Andreas, The Russian Empire: A multi-ethnic History (Harlow: Person Education Limited, 2001) Karnilov, Zamechaniia o Sibiri senatora Karnilova (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Karla Kraiia, 1828) Karpov, A. B., Ural’tsy: Iaitskoe voisko ot obrazovaniia voiska do perepisi polkovnika Zakharova (1550–1725 gg.), part 1 (Ural’sk: Voiskovaia tipografiia, 1912) Kasymbaev, Zh. K., Kenesary Khan (Almaty: Izdatel’stvo Kazakhstan, 1993) _______, M. Abdirov, “Potomki Chingiz-khana – osnovateli nashego gosudarstva,” vol. 1, Mysl’ (1996) 306

_______, Poslednii pokhod Khana Kenesary i ego gibel’ (Almaty: Ana tili, 2002) Katanaev, G. E., Kirgizskii vopros v Sibirskom kazach’em voiske (Omsk: Tipografiia Okruzhnogo Shtaba, 1904) Kazantsev, I. N., Opisanie Kirgiz-Kaisakov (St. Petersburg: Obshchestvennaia pol’za, 1867) Kazantsev, V. K., “Russkie starozhily v Sibiri i Srednei Azii,” in Glinka G., ed., Aziatskaia Rossiia, liudi i poriadki za Uralom (St. Petersburg: Izdanie pereselencheskogo upravleniia glavnogo upravleniia zemleustroistva i zemledeliia, 1914) Kazin, V. Kh., Kazach’i voiska: Khroniki gvardeiskikh kazach’ikh chastei (St. Petersburg: Imperatorskoi glavnoi kvartiry, 1912) Kedourie, Elie, Nationalism (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1961) Kellas, James G., The Politics of Nationalism and Ethnicity, 2nd ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998) Kenesarin, Akhmet, Sultany Kenesary i Syzdyk (Alma-Ata: Zhalyn, 1992) Khodarkovsky, Michael, ““Ignoble Savages and Unlawful Subjects:” Constructing Non- Christian Identities in Early Modern Russia” in Daniel R. Brower and Edward J. Lazzerini, eds., Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997) _______, Russia’s Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500-1800 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University press, 2002) Kireev, F., ed., Kazakhsko–Russkie otnosheniia v XVI-XVIII vekakh: Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1961) _______, ed., Kazakhsko–Russkie otnosheniia v XVIII-XIX vekakh (1771-1867): Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1964) Kirgiz,“Kirgizy-Dzhataki: Etnograficheskii ocherk,” Russkaia Rech’, no. 8 (1879) Kirgizskoe khoziaistvo v Akmolinskoi oblasti. Petropavlovskii uezd. Povtornoeobsledovanie 1908 g., vol. 3 (St. Petersburg, 1910) “Kirgizy,” Narody Rossii (St. Peterburg, 1880) Klimenko, A. I., “Rossiiskoe Kazachestvo: Mezhdu proshlym i budushchim,” Bibliografiia, no. 5, 6 (1992) Koigeldiev, M., “Rebellion of Kenesary Kasymov in a Context of Anti-Colonial Movement of the Peoples of Central Asia,” Otan Tarikhy, no. 3 (2002) Kohn, Hans, Introduction, in Taras Hunczak, ed., Russian Imperialism from Ivan the Great to the Revolution (Lanham: University Press of America, 2000) Komogorov, Vestnik Imperatorskogo Rossiiskogo geograficheskogo obshchestva, vol. 1, part 13 (1855) Konshin, N., “Ocherki ekonomicheskogo byta kirgiz Semipalatiskoi oblasti.” Pamiatnaia Knizhka Semipalatinskoi oblasti na 1901 g. (Semipalatinsk, 1901)

307

Kostenko, L. F., Sredniaia Aziia i vodvorenie v nei russkoi grazhdanstvennosti (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia A. Bezobrazova, 1870) Kostomarov, N. I., Russkaia istoriia v zhizneopisaniiakh ee glavneishikh deiatelei, book 1 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia M. M. Stasiulevicha, 1876) Kov, “Kirgizy,” Voskresnyi Dosug, vol. 3, no. 72 (1864) Kozybaev, M. K., “Otkuda ‘est’-poshla kazakhskaia zemlia,” vol. 1 Mysl’ (1994) _______, Natsional’no-osvoboditel’naia bor’ba Kazakhskogo naroda podpredvoditel’stvom Kenesary Kasymova (sbornik dokumentov) (Almaty:Ghylym, 1996) Krader, Lawrence, Peoples of Central Asia (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1963) _______, Social Organization of the Mongol-Turkic Pastoral Nomads (Boulder: Indiana University Press, 1963) Kraft, I. I., Sbornik uzakonenii o kirgizakh stepnykh oblastei (Orenburg: Tipografiia P. N. Zharikova, 1898) Krasovskii, M., Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov: Materialy dlia geografii i statistiki Rossii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Transhelina, Rettera i Sheidera, 1868) Kul’teleev, T. M., ed., Materialy po Kazakhskomu obychnomu pravu (Almaty: Zhalyn Baspazy, 1998) Kusaiynuly, Kaisar, Chitaia dokumenty o kazakhstansko – rossiiskikh otnosheniiakh v XVIII – XIX vekakh (Almaty: Daneker, 2001) Kuzembaev, A., E. Ebil, Istoriia Respubliki Kazakhstan (Astana: IKF Foliant, 2000) Kuzembaiuly, A., E. Ebil, Istoriia Respubliki Kazakhstan (Astana: IKF Foliant, 2003) Kuznetsov, V. K., “Russkie starozhily v Sibiri i Srednei Azii,” in Glinka G., ed., Aziatskaia Rossiia, liudi i poriadki za Uralom (St. Petersburg: Izdanie pereselencheskogo upravleniia glavnogo upravleniia zemleustroistva i zemledeliia, 1914) LaDow, Beth, The Medicine Line: The Life and Death on a North American Borderland (New York: Routledge, 2001) Lapidus, Ira, A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988) Lantzeff, George V. and Richard A. Pierce, Eastward to Empire Exploration and Conquest on the Russian Open Frontier to 1750 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1973) Lazzerini, Edward J., “Volga Tatars in Central Asia, 18th-20th Centuries: From Diaspora to Hegemony,” in Beatrice F. Manz, ed., Central Asia in Historical Perspective (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994) Lebedev, V. I., ed., Materialy po istorii Kazakhskoi SSR (1785 – 1828) (Moscow: Akademiia Nauk SSSR, 1940) Lenin, V. I., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 16 (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1958-1962) 308

Lepore, Jill, The Name of War: King Phillip's War and the Origins of American Identity (New York: Random House, 1998) Levshin, A., Istoricheskoe i statisticheskoe obozrenie Ural’skikh kazakov (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Glavnogo Shtaba, 1823) Lightfoot, Kent, Antoinette Martinez, “Frontiers and Boundaries in Archaeological Perspective,” Annual Review of Anthropology 24 (1995) Lincoln, Bruce, The Conquest of a Continent: Siberia and the Russians (New York: Random House, 1994) Liubimov, P.P., “Religii i veroispovedal’nyi sostav naseleniia Aziatskoi Rossii,” in Glinka G., ed., Aziatskaia Rossiia, liudi i poriadki za Uralom (St. Petersburg: Izdanie pereselencheskogo upravleniia glavnogo upravleniia zemleustroistva i zemledeliia, 1914) Longworth, Philip, The Cossacks (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969) L’vov, I., “Zavoevanie Turkestana,” Russkii Vestnik, no. 7 (1868) Maduanov, S., “Vzaimootnosheniia Kazakhov s drugimi sosednimi narodami Tsentral’noi Azii v XVIII – nachale XX vekov” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Almaty State University, 1997) Maksheev, A.I., Istoricheskii obzor Turkestana i nastupatel’nogo dvizheniia v nego russkikh (St. Petersburg: Voennaia tipografiia, 1890) Mamonov, V. F., Istoriia Kazachestva Rossii (Ekaterinburg: RAN, Ural’skoe otdelenie istorii i arkheologii, 1995) Martin, Virginia, “Barimta: Nomadic Custom, Imperial Crime,” in Daniel R. Browerand Edward J. Lazzerini, eds., Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 17001917 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997) Masevich, M. G., Materialy po istorii politicheskogo stroia Kazakhstana (so vremeni prisoedineniia Kazakhstana k Rossii do Velikoi Oktiabr’skoi Sotsialisticheskoi Revoliutsii) (Alma-Ata: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk Kazakhskoi SSR, 1960) Mazhitova, Zh., “Voennoe prisutstvie Rossii v Severo-Zapadnom Kazakhstane v XVII – nachale XIX vv.,” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Karaganda State University, 1997) McNeal, Robert H., Tsar and Cossack, 1855-1914 (London: Macnillan Press, 1987) Meier, L. L., “Kirgizskaia step’ Orenburgskogo vedomstva,” Materialy dlia geografii i statistiki Rossii sobrannye ofitserami General’nogo shtaba, vol. 10 (St. Petersburg, 1865) Mich, T.O., “Koe-chto o kirgizakh Rossii,” Russkaia Zhizn’, no. 26 (December 2, 1896). Mikhailov, M.,“Kirgizy,” Literaturnaia Biblioteka (May, 1867) Miller, G.F., Istoriia Sibiri, vol.2 (Moscow: AN SSSR, 1937) Moon, David, “Peasant Migration and the Settlement of Russia’s Frontiers, 1550 – 1897,” The Historical Journal, vol. 40, no. 4 (December, 1997) Mukanov, M. S., Etnicheskaia territoriia Kazakhov v XVIII – nachale XX vekov (Almaty: Izdatel’stvo Kazakhstan, 1991) 309

Muravin, Gladyshev, Poezdka iz Orska v Khivu i obratno, sovershennaia v 1740 – 1741 godakh poruchikom Gladyshevym i geodezistom Muravinym (St. Petersburg, 1851) Musabekova, N., “Vremennoe polozhenie 1867-1868 gg.: Problema teritorial’nykh otnoshenii,” Voprosy Istorii Kazakhstana. Issledovaniia molodykh uchenykh, vol. 3 (2002) Musgrave Peter, The Early Modern European Economy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999) Narody Rossii, Kirgizy (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia tovarishchestva Obshchaia Pol’za, 1880) Natsional’no – osvoboditel’naia bor’ba kazakhskogo naroda pod predvoditel’stvom Kenesary Kasymova (sbornik dokumentov) (Almaty: Galym, 1996) Nazarbaev, N. A., V potoke istorii (Almaty: Atamura, 1999) Nebol’sin, P. I., “Puteshestvuiushchie Kirgizy,” Russkii Vestnik, no. 17 (1860) _______, “Putevye rasskazy o Sibiri,” Zhurnal dlia chteniia vospitannikam voennouchebnykh zavedenii, vol. 71, no. 281 (St. Petersburg, 1848) _______, Ural’tsy: Posviashchaetsia V. I. Daliu (St. Petersburg: V tipografiia shtaba otdel’nogo korpusa vnutrennei strazhi, 1855) Nedbai, Iurii, Istoriia Kazachestva Zapadnoi Sibiri, 1582 –1808 gg., part 4 (Omsk: Omskii gosudarstvennyi pedagogicheskii universitet, 1996) N. Ia., “Kochevoi byt i issledovaniia v stepiakh,” Vostochnoe Obozrenie, no. 12 (1886) Nikitin, N. I., “Pervyi vek kazachestva Sibiri,” Voenno-Istoricheskii zhurnal, no. 1 (1994) Nischenkov, A., “Kirgizskaia step’ i ee obitateli,” Vsemirnaia Illiustratsiia, no. 41 (1869) Nobles, Gregory H., American Frontiers: Cultural Encounters and Continental Conquest (New York: Hill & Wang, 1997) Novoselov, A., “Posviashchaetsia Grigoriiu Nikolaevichu Potaninu po sluchaiu 80letiia ego zhizni,” Zapiski Zapadno-Sibirskogo otdela Imperatorskogo russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva, vol. 18 (Omsk, 1916) Obzor Akmolinskoi oblasti za 1903 g. (Omsk, 1905) Obzor Akmolinskoi oblasti za 1914 g. (Omsk, 1915) Ogloblin, N., “Iakutskii rozysk i rozni detei boiarskikh i kazakov,” Russkaia Starina 8 (1897): 375-392. Okladnikov, A. P., ed. Istoriia Sibiri, vol.2 (Leningrad: Nauka, 1968-9) Olcott, Martha Brill, The Kazakhs, 2nd ed. (Stanford: Hoover InstitutionPress, 1995) _______, Kazakhstan: Unfulfilled Promise (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002) Omarzaev, F.M., ed. Tsarskaia kolonizatsiia v Kazakhstane. Po materialam russkoi periodicheskoi pechati 19 v. (Almaty: Rauan, 1995) 310

Orlov, A.V., “Iz zapisok prikazchika Ufimtseva. Russkii v gostiakh u Kenesary,” Orenburgskii Listok, no. 28 (June 9, 1889) Ostaf’ev, V. A., Kolonizatsiia stepnykh oblastei v sviazi s voprosom o kochevom khoziaistve (St. Petersburg, 1895) Otchet o sostoianii sibirskogo kazach’ego voiska za 1912 god, part 2 (chast’ grazhdanskaia) (Omsk: Tipografiia shtaba Omskogo voennogo okruga, 1913) Pallas, P.S., Puteshestvie po raznym provintsiiam Rossiiskogo gosudarstva, part 1 (St.Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1773) Perkins, Elizabeth, Border Life: Experience and Memory in the Revolutionary Ohio Valley (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998) Petrov, V. I., “K voprosu o sotsial’nom proiskhozhdenii sibirskogo kazachestva (XVIII – pervaia polovina XIX vv.)” in V. I. Shunkov, ed., Ekonomika, upravlenie i kul’tura Sibiri XVI – XIX vv.. Materialy po istorii Sibiri: Sibir’ perioda feodalizma, vol. 2 (Novosibirsk: Izdatel’stvo Nauka, 1965) Poddubnyi, I.P., “Naselenie Aziatskoi Rossii. Etnograficheskii ocherk,” in Glinka G., ed., Aziatskaia Rossiia, liudi i poriadki za Uralom (St. Petersburg: Izdanie pereselencheskogo upravleniia glavnogo upravleniiazemleustroistva i zemledeliia, 1914) Polonskaya Ludmila and Alexei Malashenko, Islam in Central Asia (Garnet Publishing, 1994) Potanin, G. N., Istoriko-statisticheskie svedeniia o Sibiri i sopredel’nykh ego stranakh (Moscow, 1875) _______, Materialy dlia istorii Sibiri sobral G. Potanin (Moscow: izdanie Imperatorskogo obshchestva istorii i drevnostei Rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom universitete, 1867) _______, O karavannoi torgovle s Dzhungarskoi Bukhariei v XVIII stoletii (Moscow: Universitetskaia tipografiia na Strastnom bul’vare, 1868) _______, “O puteshestvii na Amur Maaka,” Russkoe slovo, no. 1 (St. Petersburg, 1860) _______, K. Struve “Poezdka po Vostochnomu Tarbagaiu letom 1864 g.,” Zapiski RGO, vol. 1, (Moscow: 1867) _______, K. Struve, “Puteshestvie na ozero Zaisan i rechnuiu Oblast’ Chernogo Irtysha do ozera Marka-Kul’ i gory sar-Tau letom 1863 g.,” Zapiski RGO po obshchestvennoi geoerafii,” vol.1 (Moscow, 1867) _______, “Zametki o Sibirskom kazach’em voiske,” Voennyi sbornik, vol. 19, no. 5-6 (St. Petersburg, 1861) _______, “Zametki o zapadnoi Sibiri,” Russkoe slovo, no. 9 (1860) Privratsky, Bruce G., Muslim Turkistan: Kazak Religion and Collective Memory (Richmond: Curzon Press, 2001) Rabtsevich, V. V., “Genezis kazach’ei komandy magometan” in L. M. Goriushkin, ed., Zemledel’cheskoe i promyslovoe osvoenie Sibiri XVII – nachalo XX veka (Novosibirsk: Izdatel’stvo Nauka, 1985) 311

Raeff, Marc, Siberia and the Reforms of 1822 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1956) _______, Michael Speransky Statesman of Imperial Russia, 1772-1839 (Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1957) Riabinin, A. D., “Ural’skoe Kazach’e voisko,” Materialy dlia geografii i statistiki Rossii, sobrannye ofitserami Genral’nogo Shtaba, vol. 1-2 (St. Petersburg, 1866) Riazanov, A. F., Otgoloski Pugachevskogo vosstaniia na Urale, v Kirgiz-Kaisatskoi Maloi Orde i v Povolzh’e, vol. 6 (Orenburg) _______, Sorok let bor’by za natsional’nuiu nezavisimost’ kazakhskogo naroda (17971838 gg.): Ocherki po istorii natsional’nogo vizheniia Kazakhstana v dvukh chasiakh (po materialam Tsentral’nogo arkhiva Kazakhstana) (Kzyl-Orda: Izdatel’stvo Obshchestva izucheniia Kazakhstana, 1926) Roy, Oliver, The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations (New York: New York University Press, 2000) Rusanov, ”Sobranie aktov, dogovorov, gramot, pisem i prochikh dokumentov do Kirgizskoi stepi otnosiashchikhsia,” Tomskie Gubernskie Vedomosti, no. 28(1861) Rychkov, P. I., Istoriia Orenburgskaia (1730-1750) (Orenburg: Izdatel’stvo Orenburgskogo gubernskogo statisticheskogo komiteta, 1896) _______, Topografiia Orenburgskoi gubernii (Orenburg: Izdatel’stvo Orenburgskogo otdela imperatorskojo RGO, 1887) Rywkin, Michael, Russia in Central Asia (New York: Collier Books, 1963) Sabol, Steven, “Kazakh Resistance to Russian Colonization: Interpreting the Kenesary Kasymov Revolt, 1837-1847,” Otan Tarikhy, no. 3 (2002) _______, Russian Colonization and the Genesis of Kazak National Consciousness (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) Sarkisyanz Emanuel, “Russian Imperialism Reconsidered,” in Taras Hunczak, ed., Russian Imperialism from Ivan the Great to the Revolution (Lanham: University Press of America, 2000) Sarsembayev, Azamat, “Imagined Communities: Kazak Nationalism and Kazakification in the 1990s,” Central Asia Survey, vol. 18, no. 3 (1999) Seaton, Albert, The Horsemen of the Steppes: The Story of the Cossacks (London: The Bodly Head, 1985) Sedel’nikov, A.N., “Istoricheskie sud’by Kirgizskogo kraia i kul’turnye ego uspekhi,” in V. P. Semenov, ed. “Rossiia: Polnoe geograficheskoe opisanie nashego otechestva. Nastol’naia i dorozhnaia kniga dlia russkikh liudei,” Kirgizskii krai, vol.18 (St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo A. V. Derviena, 1903) Selishchev, N. Iu., Kazaki i Rossiia: Dorogami proshlogo (Moscow: VKhNRTs, 1992) Semenov, A., Sredniaia Aziia (Moscow, 1911) Semenov, P. P., Kirgiz-Kaisaki (St. Petersburg, 1865) 312

Semenov, V. P., ed., “Rossiia: Polnoe geograficheskoe opisanie nashego otechestva. Nastol’naia i dorozhnaia kniga dlia russkikh liudei,” Kirgizskii krai vol.18 (St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo A. V. Derviena, 1903) Serebnrennikov, A.G., Sbornik materialov dlia istorii zavoevaniia Turkestanskogo kraia, vol. 4 (Tashkent, 1914) Sereda, N. A., “Bunt kirgizskogo sultana Kenesary Kasymova,” Vestnik Evropy, no. 8 (1870) _______, Bunt Kirgizskogo sultana Kenesary Kasymova (1838-1847) 2nd ed. (Atyrau: Dialog, 1992 [1870]) Seredanin, Sergey, “Ocherk zavoevaniia Aziatskoi Rossii,” in Glinka G., ed., Aziatskaia Rossiia, liudi i poriadki za Uralom (St. Petersburg: Izdanie pereselencheskogo upravleniia glavnogo upravleniia zemleustroistva i zemledeliia, 1914) Shalgimbekov, A. B., “Lineinaia torgovlia v severnom Kazakhstane vo vtoroi polovine XVIII veka,” in Stepnoi Krai: Zona vzaimodeistviia russkogo i kazakhskogo narodov (XVIII – XX veka), vtoraia mezhdunarodnaia nauchnaia konferentsiia. Tezisy dokladov i soobshchenii (Omsk: Omskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet, 2001) Shemanskii, A., “Voennaia istoriia Russkogo dvizheniia v Sredniuiu Aziiu,” Sredniaia Aziia (September-October 1910) Shul’gin, I., Proiskhozhdenie Kazachestva na iuzhnom rubezhe Rusi. Poiavlenie Ermaka i zavoevanie im tsarstva Sibirskogo (St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1842) Shvetsov, S., “Ocherk Surgutskogo Kraia,” Zapiski imperatorskogo russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva: Zapadno-sibirskii otdel (St. Petersburg, 1888, no. 0: 7) Skinner, Barbara, “Identity Formation in the Russian Cossack Revival,” Europe – Asia Studies 46, no. 6 (1994) Skobelev, S. G., “Demografiia korennykh narodov Sibiri v XVII – XX vv.: Kolebaniia chislennosti i ikh prichiny,” Sibirskaia Zaimka (1998) Skrynnikov, R. G., Sibirskaia ekspeditsiia Ermaka (Novosibirsk: Izdatel’stvo Nauka, 1986) Slezkine, Yuri, Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North (Ithaca, NewYork: Cornell University Press, 1994) _______, “Savage Siberians or Unorthodox Russians? The Missionary Dilemma in Siberia,” in Between Heaven and Hell: The Myth of Siberia in Russian Culture, eds., Galya Diment, Yuri Slezkine (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993) Slovtsov, P. A., Istoricheskoe obozrenie Sibiri (St. Petersburg, 1844) Smirnov, E., Sultan Kenesary i Sadyk: Pererabotka rasskaza Akhmeta Kenesarina (Tashkent, 1883) Smith, Anthony D., The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Malden, MS: Blackwell, 1986) 313

_______, Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995) Soboleva, R., Introduction to the book by A. Kenesarin, Sultany Kenesary i Syzdyk 2nd ed. (Alma-Ata: Zhalyn, 1992) “Sotsial’no-ekonomicheskie i istoricheskie predposylki i progressivnye znacheniiaprisoedineniia Kazakhstana k Rossii,” Mezhvuzovskii sbornik (AlmaAta: Kazakh Pedagogical Institute, 1982) Stalin, I. V., “K voennomu polozheniiu na iuge,” Sochineniia, vol. 4 (November 19171920) (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1951) _______, “Ob ocherednykh zadachakh partii v natsional’nom voprose, Sochineniia, vol. 5 (1921-1923) (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1951) Stetkevich, A., Ubytochen li Turkestan dlia Rossii? (St. Petersburg, 1899) Stolpianskii, P. N., Iz proshlogo Orenburgskogo kraia (Orenburg: Izdatel’stvo Orenburgskaia gazeta, 1906) Sultanov, T. I., “Gosudarstvenno-politicheskoe razvitie v XVI – seredine XVIII v. in M. Kh. Abuseitova, ed., Istoriia Kazakhstana i Tsentral’noi Azii (Almaty,Daik Press, 2001) Sunderland, Willard, “Russians into Iakuts? “Going Native” and Problems of Russian National Identity in the Siberian North, 1870s-1914,” Slavic Review, vol. 55, no. 4 (1996) _______, Taming the Wild Field: Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2004) Suny, Ronald Grigor, The Revenge of the Past: Naionalism, revolution, and theCollapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993). _______, “Nationalities in the Russian Empire, “ Russian Review, vol. 59,no. 4 (Oct., 2000) _______, “Constructing Primordialism: Old Histories for New Nations,” The Journal of Modern History 73 (December 2001) Sydykov, E., “Khan Kene – Initsiator vozrozhdeniia Kazahskoi gosudarstvennosti,” Otan Tarikhy, no. 3 (2002) Syzdykova, E. S., “Voprosy istorii Kazakhstana v trudakh ofitserov general’nogo shtaba Rossiiskoi Imperii” (Ph.D. Dissertation, The Eurasian University of Astana, 2002) Tashtemkhanova, P. M., Iz istorii kolonizatsionnoi politiki tsarizma v Kazakhstane vo vtoroi polovine XIX – nachale XX veka (Pavlodar, 2001) Terent’ev, M. A., Istoriia zavoevaniia Srednei Azii, vol. 2 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Komarova, 1906) Tomohiko, Uyama, “From “Bulgharism” through “Marrism” to Nationalist Myths: Discourses on the Tatar, the Chuvash and the Bashkir Ethnogenesis,” Acta Slavica Iaponica, vol. 19 (2002)

314

Tovstov Sergei, “Sessiia po etnogenezu Srednei Azii,” Sovetskaia etnografiia:Sbornik statei, vol. VI-VII (Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo AN SSSR, 1947) “Tsentral’noaziatskii Tolstyi Zhurnal,” Informatsionnoe Agenstvo Slavianskii Mir (Moscow, December 12, 2000) Turchaninov, N. V., “Naselenii Aziatskoi Rossii: Etnograficheskii ocherk,” in Glinka G., ed., Aziatskaia Rossiia, liudi i poriadki za Uralom (St. Petersburg: Izdanie pereselencheskogo upravleniia glavnogo upravleniia zemleustroistva i zemledeliia, 1914) Turner, Frederick Jackson, The Frontier in American History (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1931) Tynyshpaev, M., Istoriia Kazakhskogo naroda (Almaty: Sanat, 2002) Usher, Daniel H. Jr., Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy: The Lower Mississippi Valley Before 1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992) Usov, Fedor, Statisticheskoe opisanie sibirskogo kazach’ego voiska (St. Petersburg: Izdanie glavnogo upravleniia irreguliarnykh voisk, 1879) Valikhanov, Ch., Sobranie sochinenii v piati tomakh, vols. 1, 4 (Alma-Ata: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk KazSSR, 1961) _______, Izbrannye proizvedeniia (Alma-Ata: Kazakhskoe gosudarstvennoeizdatel’stvo, 1958) Valikhanov, E., “Politicheskaia deiatel’nost’ Kenesary Kasymova,” Otan Tarikhy, no. 3 (2002) Vel’iaminov-Zernov, V. V., Issledovaniia o Kasimovskikh tsariakh i tsarevichakh, part 2 (St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1866) Weller, R. Charles, Rethinking Kazakh and Central Asian Nationhood: A Challenge to Prevailing Western Views (Los Angeles: Asia Research Associates, 2006) Veniukov, M. I., “Kratkii obzor vneshnei torgovli cherez Zapadnuiu Sibir’ v 1851 – 1860 gg.,” Zapiski Imeratorskogo Rossiiskogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva, book 2 (St. Petersburg, 1861) _______, Opyt voennogo obozreniia Russkikh granits v Azii (St. Petersburg, 1873) Viatkin, M. P., Ocherki po istorii Kazakhskoi SSR (Leningrad, 1941) Vitevskii, V. N., I. I. Nepliuev i Orenburgskii Krai v prezhnem ego sostave do 1758 goda, vol. 3-4 (Kazan’: Tipografiia Kliuchnikova, 1889) Weber, Eugene, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 18701914 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976) Wheeler, Geoffrey, The Modern History of Soviet Central Asia (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964) _______, “Russian Conquest and Colonization of Central Asia” in Taras Hunczak, ed., Russian Imperialism from Ivan the Great to the Revolution (Lanham: University Press of America, 2000) 315

White, Richard, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1630-1815 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991) Yaroshevski, Dov, “Empire and Citizenship” in Daniel R. Brower and Edward J. Lazzerini, eds., Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997) “Zametki o Sibirskom Kazach’em voiske,” Voennyi Sbornik, vol. 19, no. 5-6 (St. Petersburg, 1861) Zavalishin, I., Opisanie Zapadmoi Sibiri, vol. 3 (Moscow: Izdanie obshchestva rasprostraneniia poleznykh knig, 1867) Zenkovsky Serge, Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1960) Zheleznov, I. I., “Kirgizomaniia,” Russkii Vestnik (1860) _______, Ural’tsy: ocherki byta ural’skikh kazakov, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia A. Semenova, 1888) “Zhivopisnaia Rossiia. Otechestvo nashe v ego zemel’nom, istoricheskom, plemennom, ekonomicheskom i bytovom znachenie,” Vostochnaia Sibir,’ vol. 12, part 1 (St. Petersburg, 1895) Zimanov, S. Z., Obshchestvennyi stroi Kazakhov v pervoi polovine XIX v. (Alma-Ata: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk Kazakhskoi SSR, 1958) _______, Politicheskii stroi Kazakhstana (kontsa XVIII i pervoi poloviny XIX vekov) (Alma-Ata: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk Kazakhskoi SSR, 1960)

316

Glossary Adat – the unwritten traditional law of Kazakhs Aksakal – white beard; a tribal or clan leader of Kazakhs Ataman – a Cossack leader Aul – the migratory encampment of the Kazakhs consisting of the members of the same clan Barymta – punitive raids against a rival clan aimed at driving away its livestock as a revenge Bii – traditional Kazakh judge Desiatina – an obsolete Russian unit of area; 2.7 acres Dzhatak – the name for the Kazakhs who had a permanent settlement close to Russian villages and practiced agriculture Guberniia – a major administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire Inorodtsy – “People of different kin”; a legal term used in the Russian Empire in reference to non-Slavic population of the Empire Oblast – regional administrative unit Okrug prikazy – administrative centers of the units established by Governor General Speranskii on the Kazakh steppe in 1822 Prilineinye – adjacent to the Line separating Russian territory from Kazakh steppe Pud – an obsolete Russian unit of length; 36 pounds Shariat – Islamic law Soslovie – Social estate in the Russian Empire Stanitsa – a Cossack settlement Tulenguts – an hereditary slave warrior caste consisting of foreign captives and their descendants Uezd – an administrative and territorial unit in prerevolutionary Russia composed of volosts Ukaz – a legal decree of the Russian imperial government Ulus – a unit consisting of several auls and ruled by a Sultan Versta – an obsolete Russian unit of length; 3,500 feet Volost – an administrative unit; a subdivision of okrug Yurta – a portable tent made of felt Zhuz – Horde; a hundred

317

Index Ablai Khan 174, 187 Abul Khair 176, 198, 199, 298 Adat 37, 92, 93, 94, 128, 178, 179, 263, 265, 266 Ak suek 162 Akiner, S. 43, 48, 95 Aksakal 94 Alekseev’s case 139 Alexander II 185 Altai Cossacks 109, 112, 128 Amanaty 214 Anderson, B. 155 Andreev, I. 78, 173, 213, 244, 264 Anna Ioannovna 67, 190, 193, 243 Arasanskii 207, 301 Ataman 27, 52, 58, 80, 225, 266, 269, 270, 273 Atkinson, T. 164, 206 Babadzhanov, M. 73, 76, 233, 238 Bacon, E. 17, 302 Baigozhin 135, 136 Baksy 91, 95, 96 Barrett, T. 14, 29, 52, 61, 215, 239, 240 Bekmakhanov, E. 160, 177 Belonogov, T. 148 Bii 94, 101, 111, 112, 117, 127, 128, 132, 157, 159, 161, 167, 169, 177, 201, 202, 207, 208, 236, 237, 248, 264, 265, 266, 267, 273, 274, 275, 276, 286, 291, 292 Blaramberg, I. 125, 147 Bobrick, B. 14, 303 Bol’shoi, S. 200 Borderland 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 21, 22, 29, 30, 32, 33, 45, 54, 61, 62, 83, 98, 183, 249, 253, 262, 291, 294, 302, 303, 307, 308, 309, 316 Borderline 10 Breyfogle, N. 30, 76 318

Bronevskii, B. 78, 83, 246 Brooks, J. 7, 12 Bukhara 19, 166, 180, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 200, 201, 205, 207, 231, 232, 234, 235 Captain Fomakov 102, 165, 219, 235 Captain Kokoulin 267 Caravan trade 198, 199, 202, 231 Carter, S. 11, 304 Catherine the Great 95, 113, 185, 194, 204, 214, 243, 259 Chala Kirgizes 196 Cheremshanskii, V. 54, 56 Chermanov, M. 126, 240, 304 Colonel Talyzin 197, 206, 209 Conquest of Siberia 53, 54, 88 Cossack revival movement 87 Cossack stanitsas 62, 85, 122, 124, 129, 130, 143, 220, 230, 269, 270, 286, 288 Cross-cultural exchanges 106 ff De Sentloran 268 Demko, G. 17, 175, 304 Development of trade 36, 183, 192, 194, 197, 199, 200, 208, 215, 216, 217, 218, 231, 233, 250, 287, 292 DeWesse, D. 95, 304 Dobromyslov 134, 135, 136, 141, 304 Dzhataks 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 136, 279, 283, 286 Ebil, E. 24, 308 Eickelman, D. 44, 304 Elagin, A. 271, 304 Ermak 52, 53, 54, 55, 58, 77, 78, 88, 298,313 Esenova, S. 48, 49, 50, 304 Forsyth, J. 14, 304 Frontier society of interests 38

Geins, A. 192 Gellner, E. 155, 305 General Board of Administration of the Siberian Kirgizes 137 General Bronevskoi 117 General Gorchakov 69 General Kaufman 237 General Kleist 267 General Springer 255 General Strandman 194 General Volkonskii 202 General Von Fridrikhs 274 General Von Veimarn 200 Georgi 70, 123, 126 Geraci, R. 76, 186, 187, 305 Gern, K. 163 Gladyshev 175, 259, 310 Glinka, G. 18, 126, 303, 305, 307, 308, 309, 311, 313, 315 Gotovitskii, M. 92, 237, 305 Grant, B. 8, 12, 17, 19, 34 Gren, A. 74, 241, 305 Grigor’ev, V. 60, 173, 232, 233 Halecki, O. 183, 305 Harmon, A. 12, 13, 32 Hobsbawm, E. 21, 46, 306 Holquist, P. 52, 306 Huttenbach, H. 182, 306 Ibragimov S. 219 Igel’strom, O. 113, 218, 259, 260, 261, 263, 290, 298 Inorodtsy 27, 55, 66, 131, 191, 208, 271, 272, 279, 290, 304 Irmukhanov, B. 26, 306 Irtysh Line 22, 60, 62, 72, 79, 82, 86, 110, 111, 118, 119, 124, 125, 127, 142, 192, 198, 213, 214, 223, 225, 231, 242, 251, 255, 286, 293, 294 Islam 71, 72, 74, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 104, 134, 140, 144, 178,

185, 186, 187, 189, 301, 304, 308, 311, 316 Izbasarova, G. 26, 306 Kappeler, A. 93, 306 Kara suek 162 Kasymbaev, Zh. 43, 44, 171, 306 Kazakhization of Cossacks 285 Kazakhs’ religiosity 88 Kazantsev, N. 67, 68, 81, 92, 186, 307 Kenesary Kasymov rebellion 34, 43, 151 Khan Council 201 Khan Kuchum 53, 57, 298 Khan Nurali 177, 200, 256 Khodarkovsky, M. 17, 18, 68, 102, 122, 130, 175, 187, 294, 305, 307 Khudaimendin 114, 169 Kirillov 193, 194, 197, 243 Kohn, H. 182, 183, 307 Kokand 19, 114, 168 Kolmogorov, G. 125 Konshin, M. 110, 187, 307 Kozybaev, M. 43, 308 Krader, L. 94, 95, 98, 100, 101, 103, 308 Kraft, I. 18, 102, 174, 191, 198, 308 Krasovskii, M. 91, 100, 101, 108, 111, 112, 118, 127, 129, 173, 207, 226, 230, 232, 244, 245, 253, 308 Krel’ 203, 204, 208 Kurbanov 262 Kusaiynuly, K. 113, 308 Kuzembaev, A. 24, 308 Kuznetsov, V. 66, 83, 84, 308 L’vov, I. 19, 309 LaDow, B. 13, 308 Lapidus, I. 93, 308 Lebedev, V. 22, 308 Lepore, J. 11, 309 Levshin, A. 60, 86, 102, 253, 309 Lightfoot, K. 12, 309 Line markets 148, 222, 259 319

Maksheev, A. 157, 206, 208, 309 Martínez, A. 12 Mazhitova, Zh. 26, 43, 154, 309 McNeal 68, 74, 75, 309 Meier, L. 102, 309 Middle ground 30, 37, 316 Mikhailov, M. 89, 127, 206, 227, 309 Missionary activity 184, 187, 188, 293 Moon, D. 7, 30, 150, 309 Mutual acculturation 36, 38,106, 149 National identity 28, 33, 48, 99, 102, 103, 104, 178, 295, 314 Native Siberians 63, 65, 66, 71, 77, 79, 107, 108, 149, 191 Nazarbaev, N. 24, 43, 310 Nebol’sin, P. 71, 76, 310 Nedbai, Iu. 27, 51, 310 Nepliuev 199, 217, 257, 258, 259, 260, 279, 315 Nobles, G. 12, 79, 174, 310 Nomadism 43, 130, 146, 147 North Caucasus 9, 15, 29, 30, 32, 35, 68, 149, 251, 302 Novoselov, A. 50, 82, 110, 130, 148, 149, 310 Okrug prikazy 37, 92, 93, 121, 206, 221, 246, 268, 270, 282, 283 Olcott, M. 17, 93, 100, 155, 160, 162, 165, 166, 175, 184, 190, 310 Old Believers 68, 69, 71, 74, 75, 76, 77, 84, 136, 281 Orenburg 54, 73, 74, 75, 78, 81, 89, 91, 92, 100, 102, 113, 120, 133, 134, 139, 142, 143, 145, 158, 159, 167, 170, 176, 180, 186, 189, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 210, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 221, 223, 228, 231, 232, 235, 243, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 265, 277, 278, 279, 298, 300, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 308, 309, 311, 312, 314, 315 320

Orthodox Christianity 24, 27, 41, 51, 70, 73, 78, 87, 88, 119, 135, 141, 182 Pallas, P. 38, 89, 126, 174, 195, 215, 311 Peasant migration 32, 309 Perkins, E. 12, 311 Potanin, G. 38, 66, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 169, 217, 222, 236, 242, 310, 311 Prilineinye kazaki 16, 298 Privratsky, B. 88, 95, 96, 97, 104, 311 Pugachev rebellion 75 Punitive expeditions 26, 27, 203, 206, 257, 289 Remontnaia poshlina 121, 280 Renan, E. 46 Riabinin, A. 20, 312 Riazanov, A. 42, 312 Roy, O. 29, 34, 47, 48, 58, 121, 144, 153, 160, 163, 167, 172, 203, 238, 239, 244, 247, 265, 288, 301, 312 Russification of Kazakhs 33, 95, 248, 292 Rychkov P. 173, 177, 192, 230, 312 Rywkin, M. 156, 312 Sabol, S. 8, 48, 49, 50, 97, 103, 156, 171, 172, 312 Sarkisyanz, E. 155, 183, 312 Seed, P. 15, 146, 147 Selishchev, N. 51, 312 Semenov, A. 83, 110, 134, 173, 303, 312, 313, 316 Semenov, V. 83, 110, 134, 173, 303, 312, 313, 316 Semipalatinsk 78, 115, 122, 169, 187, 190, 195, 196, 200, 203, 205, 208, 214, 218, 235, 248, 249, 268, 301, 307 Senator Karnilov 81, 84, 113 Shalgimbekov, A. 238, 239, 313 Shamanism 90, 96 Shemanskii, A. 181, 193, 313 Shezhyre 49

Shonibaev, T. 155 Siberian Chronicles 52, 58, 88 Siberian Cossack Army 16, 38, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 77, 80, 99, 105, 108, 111, 113, 115, 142, 143, 145, 169, 224, 225, 242, 246, 248, 254, 256, 268, 269, 271, 273, 280, 282, 298, 299, 300 Skinner, B. 28, 87, 313 Skoptsy 70 Skrynnikov, R. 53, 313 Slezkine, Yu. 31, 63, 313 Smith, A. 45, 47, 295, 306, 313 Speranskii 37, 69, 122, 146, 186, 192, 221, 243, 271, 278, 299 Stalin, I. 23, 183, 314 Statute of Siberian Town Cossacks 61 Stolypin 87 Sukhtelen 197 Sultan Chingis Bukev 115 Sultan Daulybaev 91 Sultan Kasym Ablaev 197 Sultan Shigai 236 Sultan Urusov 117 Sunderland, W. 7, 31, 61, 64, 107, 150, 281, 282, 286, 314 Suny, R. 31, 32, 47, 314 Tatishchev, V. 195 Ten-mile zone of security 16, 79 Terent’ev, M. 188, 314

Tevkelev 176, 257 Theories of nationalism 44 Tribute collection 189, 190, 293 Tulenguts 163, 164, 165, 168, 170, 177 Turner, F. 11, 12, 28, 315 Ural Cossacks 60, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 142, 224, 241, 258, 277, 281 Urusov, V. 117, 199, 259 Usner, D. 251 Usov, F. 52, 68, 69, 71, 86, 89, 117, 143, 199, 220, 226, 229, 239, 244, 245, 259, 315 Ustav o Sibirskikh Kirgizakh (The Statute of Siberian Kirgizes) 85, 157 Valikhanov, C. 89, 90, 95, 97, 142, 160, 162, 163, 171, 172, 272, 315 Veniukov, M. 188, 192, 215, 315 Weakness of the Russian state on the steppe 245, 253 Wheeler, G. 93, 102, 103, 184, 315 White, R. 11, 12, 30, 37, 40, 53, 162, 170, 244, 316 Zavalishin, I. 115, 117, 124, 197, 221, 222, 231, 277, 316 Zenkovsky, S. 103, 316 Zhappas clan 167, 177 Zheleznov, I. 60, 316

321

.Books on Central Asia. Alexandre Papas / Thomas Welsford / Thierry Zarcone Central Asian Pilgrims Hajj Routes and Pious Visits between Central Asia and the Hijaz Berlin 2011. Pb ca. 350 pp., 978-3-87997-399-6 Yukako Goto Die südkaspischen Provinzen des Iran unter den Safawiden im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert Berlin 2011. Pb 282 pp., 978-3-87997-382-8 Bahargül Hamut Silsilat az-Zahab Kommentierung einer chagatai-uigurischen Handschrift zu den Aqtagliq Hojilar Berlin 2011. Hc 348 pp., 978-3-87997-384-2

Matthias Weinreich »We Are Here to Stay« Pashtun Migrants in the Northern Areas of Pakistan Berlin 2010. Pb 120 pp., 978-3-87997-356-9 Simone-Christiane Raschmann / Jens Wilkens (Hg.) Fragmenta Buddhica Uigurica Ausgewählte Schriften von Peter Zieme Berlin 2009. Hc 648 pp., 978-3-87997-349-1 Stephane Dudoignon / Fondation Transoxiane, Paris Central Eurasian Reader A Biennial Journal of Critical Bibliography and Epistemology of Central Eurasian Studies Vol. 2 Berlin 2011. Hc 664 pp., 978-3-87997-404-7 Klaus Schwarz Verlag GmbH • Fidicinstr. 29 • D-10965 Berlin Tel. +30-916 82 749 • +30-916 82 751 • Fax +30-322 51 83

www.klaus-schwarz-verlag.com [email protected]