Reforms of Russia Empire in Kazakh steppe 60

Reforms of Russia Empire in Kazakh steppe (60 -90 -th of XIX c. ) 1. Administrative reforms 2. Social, judicial reforms 3. Policy of Christianization

Literature • Daniel R. Brower and Edward J. Lazzerini, • eds. , Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700– 1917 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), pp. 115– 135. • Brower; Daniel (2003). Turkestan and the Fate of the Russian Empire. London • Vucinich, Wayne S. , ed. (1972). Russia and Asia: Essays on the Influence of Russia on the Asian Peoples. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Vocabulary • • Baptize – крестить Proselytize – обращать в свою веру Ecclesiastical – духовная Diocese - епархия

Administrative reforms • The 1860 s were a turning point in the history of Russian governance, not just because of the Great Reforms but because they also saw the Polish revolt(1863), victory in the Caucasus (1864), and the fall of Tashkent (1865). • All of these presented the tsarist state with new challenges in ruling its borderlands, to which new strategies of control were applied

• In order to finalize Kazakhstan’s status as a colony and make its further development purposeful and systematic, tsarist Russia decided to create a new system of administrative political and judicial administration here. To prepare this reform, a Steppe Commission drawn from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of War was created in 1865. Included in the commission’s work were officials of the local colonial administration and individual representatives of the Kazakh people who were on the whole loyally inclined towards the government transformations.

• The commission spent two years working on a plan for the administration of Kazakhstan, a plan which took the form of two ‘temporary provisions’: ‘On the Administration of Syr Darya and Semirechye Oblast’s [provinces]’ and ‘On the Administration of Ural, Torghay, Akmola and Semipalatinsk Oblast’s’. On 11 July 1867 Tsar Alexander II (1855– 81) signed the first, and on 21 October of the same year he approved the second provision.

• In the administrative-territorial reform carried out under these provisions, nearly the entire ethnic territory of the Kazakhs was divided into three governor-generalships: Turkistan, Orenburg and Western Siberia (later, Steppe governor-generalship). Full military and civil power was concentrated in the governor general’s hands, and the system of administration was military in nature.

• Turkistan governor-generalship included Semirechye and Syr Darya oblast’s; Orenburg governor-generalship consisted of Ural and Torghay oblast’s; and Western Siberia (Steppe) governor-generalship of Akmola and Semipalatinsk oblast’s. The oblast’s consisted of uezds (districts), the uezds of volost’s , and the volost’s of auls (villages). Governors-general were appointed by the tsar, and oblast’ administrations were subordinated to military governors. • The uezds were headed by chief uezd officers, who had two aides, one senior and one junior. In this entire hierarchy, representatives of the local clan and sultan elite could occupy only the post of junior aide to the uezd chief.

• Undivided military and civil power was the fundamental principle of Kazakhstan’s administrative organization under the new reform. The new system of administration shattered the nomads’ customary way of life and restricted the power of the sultans, beys and elders. • Between the mid-1880 s and the early 1890 s, the above-mentioned ‘temporary provisions’ were replaced by two ‘permanent provisions’.

On 2 June 1886 the ‘Provision on the Administration of the Territory of Turkistan’ was approved; and on 25 March 1891 the ‘Provision on the Administration of Akmola, Semipalatinsk, Semirechye, Ural and Torghay Oblast’s’. Under these provisions, there were to be two governorgeneralships on the territory of Kazakhstan: Turkistan governor- generalship, with its centre in Tashkent and consisting of Ferghana, Samarkand Syr Darya oblast’s.

• and Steppe governorgeneralship, with its centre in Omsk and consisting of Akmola, Semipalatinsk, Ural, Torghay and Semirechye oblast’s. In 1897 Semirechye oblast’ was transferred to. Turkistan.

The essence of social reform • The essence of social reform was that henceforth the entire Kazakh population was to be considered peasants, and a Kazakh could acquire a title of nobility only by entering the tsar’s service.

The essence of the economic reform • The essence of the economic reform was defined by the fact that all Kazakh lands acquired the status of state lands, and the per kibitka (nomadic household) levy and other taxes increased till 3 ruble.

The judicial reform • Under the judicial reform, uezd and military courts in Kazakhstan henceforth functioned under empire-wide laws and tried cases such as state treason, opposition to the authorities, assassination of officials and damage to state property. The traditional courts of the beys and kazi (Islamic judges) that followed the customary law of the Kazakhs and the shariat (Islamic law) were preserved only at aul level.

Consequence • As a result of the reforms carried out in the years 1867– 8, Kazakhstan became a fullfledged colony of Russia. The ethnic territory that had served as the foundation for the Kazakh nation-state was divided up, the judicial system was transformed in accordance with Russia-wide laws, and all Kazakh lands were declared to be state property. All this was an expression of the fundamental principle of Russia’s colonizing policy: divide and rule.

Who was inorodtsy • The Russian authorities united the native inhabitants of western Turkistan into one estate group with the humiliating title inorodtsy (‘people of alien origin’ or ‘people of different birth’), who had access only to low-rank positions in the administration.

Revolts • The years 1867– 70 were marked by new revolts (the revolt of S. Turkebaev and B. Uspanov in 1868 in the region of the Urals and Torghay; and the revolt of the Adai tribe in 1870 in Mangystau) and new administrative reforms in the regions

Reasons of Christianization policy • Main motive of the Christianization policy in the Kazakh steppe was to caution against activities of Tatar Muslims and the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly. • In 1877, the Interior Minister, with the approval of the Tsar, prohibited the use of the Tatar language in official documents in the Steppe and ordered the replacement of the Tatar clerks of volosts with Kazakhs, although the order was based on a misunderstanding: most volost clerks were in fact Russians. • Some officials discussed the possibility of removing the Tatars in the Steppe from the jurisdiction of the Spiritual Assembly

• One of the characteristic points of officials’ and priests’ discussions was that they always differentiated nomads (the Kazakhs) from sedentary people, and the Steppe oblasts (including Semirech’e) from Turkestan. The expectation, that the Kazakhs were ignorant in Islam and could be baptized relatively easily, proved erroneous. • Advocators of the Christianization policy were right when they thought that Central Asian nomads were not so familiar with Islamic doctrines as their sedentary neighbors, but they failed to differentiate between doctrines and identity. Judging from their attitudes to Christian missionaries and the Muslim Mufti, many Kazakhs had a clear Muslim identity.

• The three pillars of the Russia Empire ideology were “Oficcial Nationality”or narodnost´, Autocracy and Orthodoxy, • Officials sometimes used universalistic idioms such as grazhdanstvennost’, among others. This word, however, was highly deceptive. They often used it not in its literal meaning of “citizenship, ” “civicness” or “civicmindedness, ” but in the sense of a level of cultural development, as an argument for not applying general rules to underdeveloped peoples.

Religion policy • The “Provisional Statute for the Administration of Ural’sk, Torghay, Akmolinsk and Semipalatinsk Oblasts, which was drafted by the Commission and came into effect in 1868 removed the Kazakhs from the jurisdiction of the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly although left the Tatars in the Steppe under the Assembly’s jurisdiction as before. The posts of ukaznoi mullas (mullahs licensed by the Assembly and the provincial authorities) for the Kazakhs were abolished, and a volost (canton) was allowed to have only one mullah, elected from Russian-subject ethnic Kazakhs and sanctioned by the oblast governor.

Nikolai Il’minskii • In this epoch of active missionary work, Nikolai Il’minskii, a famous pedagogue and missionary, tried to introduce Orthodox education in Central Asia. Although often misunderstood, Il’minskii usually engaged not in proselytizing Muslims, but in preventing apostasy of baptized non-Russians and reducing the influence of Tatar Muslims on other ethnic groups. Thus, this proposal to give Orthodox education to Central Asian Muslims (mainly Kazakhs) was an exceptional case in his biography.

• In 1869, he proposed to the Turkestan governor -general Konstantin von Kaufman to establish Christian alien (inorodcheskie) schools to spread Orthodox education among the Kazakhs, and recommended his own disciple at the Kazan Ecclesiastical Academy as the director of educational affairs in all Turkestan. Kaufman, who advocated education without religious distinction in order to “make Orthodoxes and Muslims equally useful citizens of Russia, ” rejected Il’minskii’s proposal.

• it seems that Kaufman did not always oppose missionary activities among the Kazakhs, who were thought to be less “fanatic” than sedentary people of Central Asia. Kolpakovskii, whose initiative was instrumental to proselytizing Kalmyks and Kazakhs in Semirech’e, was subordinate to Kaufman, and there is no indication that Kaufman attempted to stop it. The cathedral of the Tashkent- Turkestan diocese (eparkhiia) was opened in Vernyi in 1871, because Kaufman did not allow it in Tashkent

• Kolpakovskii became the first governorgeneral of the Steppe (having jurisdiction over Akmolinsk, Semipalatinsk and Semirech’e oblasts) in 1882, and continued to advocate Christianization of the Kazakhs. In his report to the Tsar, he wrote that Tatars and Bukharans were propagating Islam among the Kazakhs, who had been indifferent to religions but now were interested in them because the old moral basis had been shaken and a new one had not yet been created.

• Kolpakovskii did not think that he was oppressing the Kazakhs by his Christianization policy. He acted as their paternalistic protector, restricting settlement of peasants from other regions of the empire, and seemed to have supposed that Christianization did not contradict his policy of “protecting” Kazakhs from Tatar Muslim culture. • Dala Walayatïnïng Gazetí, a newspaper published with his initiative, there was no article about Christianization, and he probably understood the delicate nature of this matter. • .

Missionary activities • The second governor-general of the Steppe, Maksim Taube, was much more cautious about propagating Christianity • Missionary activities were also complicated by the fact that various parts of the Kazakh steppe fell under the jurisdiction of different dioceses: Tobol’sk, Tomsk, Tashkent-Turkestan, Orenburg and Astrakhan. • Although some missionaries did study Islam and the Kazakh language (some of them were baptized Tatars, whose language was close to Kazakh), it is natural to assume that almost no missionary could

The end of Christianize • The desire to Christianize Central Asians steadily declined by 1905, while demands for the inorodtsy to assume the same obligations as the Russians increased in the last years of the Tsarist period