Information Revolution and Administrative Reform, Ca. 1845–1868

This chapter examines the state of tsarist knowledge by the mid-1860s and compares it with administrative reform as actually practiced on the Kazak steppe. To this end, the chapter analyzes the intellectual world in which the Steppe Commission operated. The Steppe Commission was formed to collect as much information about the Kazak steppe as possible, to be used in the formulation of a new governing statute. The chapter also considers the role played by the Imperial Russian Geographical Society (IRGO) in the Russian Empire's apparatus of knowledge production; the question of whether the Kazak steppe should permanently remain a borderland apart or could ultimately progress to grazhdanstvennost', or “civil order”; the knowledge potential reformers had with respect to Islam in the region; and the Provisional Statute of 1868.

The Key to the World’S Treasures

This chapter examines the Kazaks' engagement with the Russian Empire's civilizing mission and its application of scientific knowledge to modernize the Siberian steppe. Drawing on the work of Abai Kunanbaev and on the pages of Kirgizskaia stepnaia gazeta (KSG), it considers how local knowledge, some of it collected and developed by Russian scholars, appeared both as a means of seeking the adaptations that would permit a move to agriculture and as a defense of pastoralism on the steppe. It shows that, even as some Kazak intermediaries accepted the empire's civilizing claims, local experiences and experimentation were vital to their articulation in practice. The chapter also discusses the legal and institutional issues arising from peasants' colonization and resettlement to the steppe.

A Double Failure

This chapter examines the ideas behind Kazaks' economic and political estrangement from the Russian Empire as well as their attempts to claim a role for themselves—and defend their interests—within the space of discussion and debate in which they had previously operated. It discusses the failure of the Russian Empire's peasant resettlement program from the perspective of Kazaks and other Central Asians whose lands were subject to estrangement and reallocation to Slavic settlers. The chapter also explains why violence erupted in Central Asia at the end of 1916, and why local intellectuals sided against the rebels, by analyzing a series of political decisions taken by the tsarist state over the previous decade. Finally, it considers the response of Kazak intellectuals to the shocks of resettlement and disenfranchisement, along with the impact of World War I and the February Revolution on the Kazak steppe and on the Russian Empire more generally.

Seeing Like a Half-Blind State

This chapter provides an overview of the geography and environment of the Central Eurasian steppe and the basics of nomadic society during the period 1731–1840s. It draws on three bibliographical sources: Sredniaia Aziia i vodvorenie v nei russkoi grazhdanstvennosti (Central Asia and the establishment in it of Russian civil order); Turkestanskii sbornik (Turkestan collection); and an index to work on the Kazaks compiled by the ethnographer Aleksei Nikolaevich Kharuzin, published in 1891. Based on these sources, it can be deduced that the beginning of the Kazak steppe's incorporation into the Russian Empire can be dated to the early 1730s. The chapter shows that beyond its status as a political term, “Kazak steppe” had both geographic and ethnographic connotations. It concludes with a discussion of pastoral nomadism's status in Kazak life.

Conclusion

This conclusion summarizes the book's main findings about the role of knowledge production and policy formation on the Kazak steppes of the Russian Empire. It highlights a strikingly common formulation among Kazak intermediaries of the long nineteenth century: the Kazak steppe and its inhabitants were in a “transitional state.” It shows that for Kazaks, the source of their problems lay in a variety of factors, from moral crisis to a failure of economic modernization, Europeanization, and the spread of a purified, modernist Islam. It also considers how mass peasant resettlement became the essential condition of tsarist policy on the steppe and how rapid resettlement affected Kazaks. Finally, it examines how bureaucrats and intermediaries who could envision many transitional states combined local and metropolitan knowledge in idiosyncratic ways to advance their views.

Norming the Steppe

This chapter focuses on a series of statistical research expeditions to the Kazak steppe and how statistical knowledge provided what seemed to be a scientific basis for peasant colonization, without harming the interests of Kazaks who remained nomadic. As the tsarist state began to endorse a policy of peasant resettlement to the steppe, both advocates and opponents of colonization sounded a note of caution. There were questions about the suitability of large swaths of the steppe for agriculture, and about how much land Kazak nomads might require for their own subsistence. The chapter first provides an overview of the Shcherbina Expedition before discussing the problems that arose from plans to apply the norm-and-surplus system to Semirech'e province that was opened for peasant settlement.

An Imperial Biography

This chapter is a biographical study of the ethnographer and educator Ibrai Altynsarin (1841–1888). The new administrative structure envisioned by the Provisional Statute of 1868 rendered the tsarist state dependent in new ways on the good will and expertise of Kazak intermediaries. One such Kazak intermediary is Altynsarin, a poor Kazak of the Middle Horde's Qïpshaq clan who rose to a position of some influence in local educational affairs. This chapter first discusses Altynsarin's formative years before introducing the concept of “repertoires of governance” to explain both the options and the limitations that his engagement with tsarist knowledge production and administration entailed. It also considers Altynsarin's ethnography of the Kazaks of the Orenburg region, his ideas of Kazakness and how Kazaks should fit into the Russian Empire, and his educational agenda for Kazaks.

Introduction

This book examines the Russian Empire's attempts to obtain reliable information about a strategically important but difficult-to-govern region: the Kazak steppes. It chronicles the empire's conquest and rule on the Kazak steppe and how this is linked to the production of knowledge about it by both Russians and Kazaks. The book places this process of knowledge production in its social and administrative context in order to understand a seeming contradiction: Russian imperialism in Central Asia and the Kazak steppe was a success, yet imperial policies triggered a major revolt on the eve of the revolutions of 1917. The Russian Empire's encounter with the steppe, although characterized by unequal power relations, was thus an exchange of knowledge.