Tatar Officials in the Orenburg Governorate’s Chancellery: Their Activities on the Kazakh Steppe (Second Half of the Eighteenth Century)

Abstract

This article uncovers the roles played by Tatar translators, interpreters and clerks during the Kazakh steppe’s political integration into the Russian empire. It reveals their role in the Russian administration’s diplomatic negotiations with Kazakh khans and sultans and their role in gathering essential information about events on the Kazakh steppe and the attitudes of influential members of the Kazakh nomadic elite.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. V.M. Kabuzan, “Naselenie Urala v 20-60-x gg. XVIIIv. (chislennost’ razmeshchenie, etnicheskii sostav),” in Demograficheskie protsessy na Urale v epokhu feodalizma (Sverdlovsk: AN SSSR Ural’skoe otdelenie, 1990), pp. 47–65.

^2. Well-known orientalist V.V. Grigor’ev (1861–1881), who headed the Orenburg Border Commission for 11 years, said that in the first half of the eighteenth century, the government did not know the customs, language, or the religion of the Kazakhs nor “the spring that drove them.” V.V. Grigor’ev, “Russkaia politika v otnoshenii k Srednei Azii. Istoricheskii ocherk,” in Sbornik gosudarstvennykh znanii, T.1, ed. V.P. Bezobrazov (Saint Petersburg, 1874), pp. 233–4.

^3. The first head of the Orenburg Expedition (established in 1734) was I.K. Kirilov. In 1737 I. Kirilov’s successor was the Russian historian V.N. Tatishchev (1737–9), and the Orenburg Expedition was renamed the Orenburg Commission. In June 1739, Prince V.A. Urusov (1739–41) was appointed head of the Orenburg Commission. In 1742, I.I. Nepliuev was named the head of the commission and in 1744 became the first governor of the Orenburg Governorate.

^4. Materialy po istorii politicheskogo stroia Kazakhstana: so vremeni prisoedineniia Kazakhstana k Rossii do Velikoi Oktiabr’skoi sotsialisticheskoi revoliutsii, T.1 (Alma-Ata: Izd-vo Akademii nauk Kazakhskoi SSR, 1960), p. 246.

^5. See A.V. Vasil’ev, Materialy k kharakteristike vzaimnykh otnoshenii tatar i kirgiz s predvaritel’nym kratkim ocherkom etikh otnoshenii (Orenburg, 1898); Ia. Koblov, O tatarizatsii inorodtsev Privolzhskogo kraia (Kazan, 1910), 148. G. Alisov, “Musul’manskii vopros v Rossii,” Russkaia mysl’, 1909, no. 7, pp. 28–61.

^6. N.I. Il’minskii, Vospominaniia ob I. Altynsarine (Kazan, 1896), pp. 22–3.

^7. A.I. Dobrosmyslov, Turgaiskaia oblast’. Istoricheskii ocherk (Tver, 1902), pp. 170–3.

^8. A. Remnev, “Rossiiskaia imperiia i islam v Kazakhskoi stepi (60-80-e gody XIXv.),” in Rasy i narody. Sovremennye etnicheskie i rasovye problemy, vol. 32 (2006), pp. 238–77; idem, “Tatary v kazakhskoi stepi: soratniki i soperniki Rossiiskoi imperii,” Vestnik Evrazii, Moscow, 2006, no. 4, pp. 5–32.

A. Frank, “Tatarskie mully sredi kazakhov i kirgizov v XVIII–XIX vv.,” in Kul’tura, iskusstvo tatarskogo naroda (Kazan, 1993), pp. 125–31. A.J. Frank, “Islamic transformation on the Kazakh Steppe, 1742-1917: Toward an Islamic history of Kazakhstan under Russian rule,” in The Construction and Deconstruction of National Histories in Slavic Eurasia, ed. Tadayuki Hayashi (Sapporo, 2003), pp. 262–3. G. Sultangalieva, “Tatarskaia diaspora v konfessional’nykh sviaziakh kazakhskoi stepi XVIII–XIX,” Vestnik Evrazii, Moscow, 2000, no. 4, pp. 20–37; Allen J. Frank, “Islam and Ethnic Relations in the Kazakh Inner Horde: Muslim Cossacks, Tatar Merchants, and Kazakh Nomads in Turkic Manuscripts, 1870–1910,” in Muslim Culture in Russia and Central Asia from the 18th to the Early 20th Centuries, ed. Anke von Kügelen, Michael Kemper, and Allen J Frank (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1998), 211–43. G. Sultangalieva, “The Russian Empire and the Intermediary Role of Tatars in Kazakhstan: The Politics of Cooperation and Rejection, From the Second Half of the Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Century,” in Asiatic Russia: Imperial Power in Regional and International Contexts (London, 2012), pp. 52–81. Robert D. Crews, For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006).

^9. Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniia v 16-18 vekakh. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Alma-Ata: Izd-vo Akademii nauk Kazakhskoi SSR, 1961), p. 134.

¹⁰ See the studies of S. Donnelly, Zavoevanie Bashkirii Rossiei, trans. from English by L.R. Bikbaeba (Ufa, 1995).

^11. Materialy po istorii BASSR. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov, T.4, Ch.1 (Moscow-Leningrad: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1936), p. 365.

^12. I. Kraft, Priniatie kirgizami russkogo poddanstva (Orenburg, 1897), pp. 38–47. I.V. Erofeeva, Abulkhair khan: polkovodets, pravitel’, politik (Almaty, 2007), pp. 307–8.

^13. Sultanmurat Diuskeev was a Bashkir from the Iurminskaia volost’, Kazanskaia daruga, and in 1735–1737 an associate of the insurrection’s leader, Akai Kusiumov. S.U. Taimasov, Baskiro-kazakhskie otnisheniia v 18 v. (Moscow, 2007), pp. 167–70.

^14. The Bashkir Affairs Commission in Menzelinsk was created by order of Anna Ivanovna in 1735. The commission investigated and tried participants in the insurrection. It ceased its existence after the insurrection was suppressed in 1740.

^15. Materialy po istorii BASSR. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov, T.4, Ch.1 (Moscow-Leningrad: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1936), p. 323–4.

^16. Ch. Balikhanov, “Shuna batyr (Avantiurist XVIII v.),” in Sobranie sochinenii v 5-ti tomakh, T.4 (Alma Ata: Nauka, 1985), pp. 8–13.

^17. Karasakal died in the steppe in late 1748 or early 1749. Materialy po istorii BASSR. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov, T.4, Ch. 1 (Moscow-Leningrad: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1936), p. 378–97.

^18. R.G. Ignat’ev, Sobranie sochinenii (ufimskii i orenburgskii period), T. VII: 1880–1881 gody, comp. M.I. Rodnov (Ufa, 2013), pp. 23–4.

^19. Materialy po istorii BASSR. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov, T.4, Ch.1 (Moscow-Leningrad: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1936), p. 493–4.

^20. Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniia, p. 186.

^21. Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniia, p. 252.

^22. Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniia, p. 217.

^23. Sultan Barak (died in 1750) was a sultan of the Middle Horde and son of Khan Tursun. Beginning in the 40s of the eighteenth century, he became the political rival of Khan of the Junior Horde Abulkhair. In the struggle for power, Sultan Barak killed Khan Abulkhair in August 1748. Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniia v 16-18 vekakh. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Alma-Ata: Izd-vo Akademii nauk Kazakhskoi SSR, 1961), pp. 268–70, 484–9.

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^27. Materialy po istorii BASSR. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov, T.3 (Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1949), pp. 389–91.

^28. Epistoliarnoe nasledie kazakhskoi praviashchei elity. 1675-1821 gody. Sbornik istoricheskikh dokumentov v 2-kh tomakh, T.1, Dok. No. 141, pg. 189. - Epistoliarnoe nasledie kazakhskoi praviashchei elity. 1675-1821 gody. edited by I. Erofeeva. Sbornik istoricheskikh dokumentov v 2-kh tomakh, T.1, Dok. No. 141, pg. 189.

^29. Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniia, pp.170–1.

^30. Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniia, pp.330–2, 348, 356, 358, 361.

^31. Epistoliarnoe nasledie kazakhskoi, T.1, Dok. No. 158, pp. 202–3.

^32. Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniia, p. 394, 398, 432.

^33. Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniia, p. 396.

^34. Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniia, pp.410–3.

^35. Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniia, pp. 509–19, 528.

^36. Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniia, p. 639.

^37. PSZ Rossiiskoi imperii - 1, T.XIX, No. 13489 (Saint Petersburg, 1830), pp. 99–100.

^38. Materialy po istorii Kazakhskoi SSR, T.4 (1785-1828) (Moscow-Leningrad: Akademiia nauk SSR, 1940), pp. 65–6; TsGA RK F.4. Op.1. D.1223.

^39. TsGA RK F.4. Op.1. D.1223. L.2-6.

^40. Materialy po istorii Kazakhskoi SSR, p. 212.

^41. Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniia v XVIII—XIX vekakh (1771—1867 gody). (Sbornik dokumentov i materialov), ed. M.O. Dzhangalin, F.N. Kireev, and V.F. Shakhmatov (Alma Ata: Nauka, 1964), p. 101.

^42. GAOrO F.6. Op10. D.494.

^43. Materialy po istorii BASSR. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov, T.5, Ch.1 (Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1960), pp. 208; 230–1; 249–50.

^44. Materialy po istorii BASSR. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov, T.4, Ch.1 (Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1956), p. 448.

^45. See E.A. Masanov, Ocherk istorii etnograficheskogo izucheniia kazakhskogo naroda v SSSR (Alma-Ata, 1966), pp. 77–8; Bibliograficheskii slovar’ otechestvennykh tiurkologov. Dooktiabr’skii period, ed. A.N. Kononov (Moscow, 1974), 120 pp.

^46. Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, 1839, no. 17.

^47. KRO Dok. 96, p. 234, MiKSSR Dok. 73, p. 199.

^48. I.I. Kraft, Sbornik uzakonenii o kirgizakh stepnykh oblastei (Orenburg, 1898), p. 28.

^49. Epistoliarnoe nasledie kazakhskoi, T.1, Dok. No. 41, pp. 118–9; T.2, Dok. No. 390, p. 27.

^50. Materialy po istorii politicheskogo stroia Kazakhstana, T.1 (Alma Ata, 1960), p. 246.

^51. Ivan Muravin, a surveyor, was part of an expedition to the territory of Khan Abulkhair in 1740–1741. The translator Usman Araslanov, the son of Araslan Bekmetev, also took part. E.A. Masanov, Ocherki istorii etnograficheskogo izucheniia kazakhskogo naroda v SSR, pp. 56–7.

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^54. I.I. Kraft, Sbornik uzakonenii o kirgizakh stepnykh oblastei (Orenburg, 1898), p. 89.

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^56. Islam v Rossiiskoi imperii. Zakonodatel’nye akty, opisanie, statistika, comp. D.Iu. Arapov (Moscow: Akademkniga, 2001), pg. 45–51.

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^59. Order of the Senate of March 8, 1744, “On the settlement of Kazan Tatars in Orenburg and permission for them to build a mosque outside of the city.” The initiator and organizer of the settlement was Seit Aitov, son of Khaialin from the Kazanskii uezd and the village of Mametevaia pustosh’. In 1745, they set up a posad “20 versts up the Sakmara River from Berdianskaia sloboda and 18 versts from Orenburg,” which was named Seitovskaia after its founder. Zaknoy Rossiiskoi imperii o bashkirakh, mishchariakh, teptiariakh i bobyliakh. Sbornik zakonov i ukazov, Dok. No. 47 (Ufa, 1999), pp.69–70.

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^68. Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia v Tsentral’noi Azii v 2-x tomakh, Dok. No. 236, Kn. 2 (Moscow, 1989), p. 203.

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