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Abstract:

Mukhamet-Sharif Aitov, from the Tatar nobles of the Orenburg province, served in the Border Commission in various positions (interpreter, official “on affairs in the Horde”, trustee of the Orenburg linear Kazakhs) for about forty years performed intermediary functions between the regional Russian authorities and the Kazakh population and was repeatedly sent to the Kazakh steppe on various issues from regulation conflict situations to collecting carting, auditing the amount of the tent tax and recording materials on the norms of Kazakh customary law and others.

The relationship between the official of the Orenburg Border Commission Mukhamet Sharif Aitov and the Kazakhs of the Orenburg region was riddled with various important events from the Kazakhs recognizing his competence to the capture of the interpreter and sending him to Khiva. and finally, the establishment of personal friendly relations between the Tatar official and the Kazakh sultans and ordinary nomads, the manifestation acts of hospitality both from Aitov (in his home in Orenburg) and from the Kazakhs in their nomads. Evidence of the establishment of cooperation between Aitov and the Kazakhs was the unexpected accusation of the regional administration (the Provisional Council for the Administration of the Kazakhs of the Internal Horde) of aiding the Kazakhs during the interpreter’s investigation in the Bukey Khanate. Based on the foregoing, the paper will analyze the process of building up relationships between the official of the Border Commission, Tatar interpreter M-Sh Aitov, and the Kazakhs in the context of the policy of imperial power in the region. The report will be based on historical literature and archival documents extracted from the funds of Kazakhstan and Russia.

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Abstract:

Pavel Shabley, Kostanay branch of Chelyabinsk State University. Kazakhstan.

Tatar translators were an indispensable resource for organizing the management of the Kazakh Steppe in the first half of the 19th century. They spoke several eastern languages, understood the peculiarities of local culture and life, and were intermediaries in the relationship between the imperial government and the Kazakh elite, the administrative elite of the Central Asian khanates. Experienced translators could adapt complex and ornate text in Persian, Tatar or Chagatai to the understanding of Russian officials. In some cases, they copied a number of concepts, simplified the vocabulary and style, shortened and eliminated from the original everything “unnecessary” from their point of view. One of these people was Gisamatdin Gabbasov-Shakhmaev. After graduating from the Omsk Asian School, he served as an interpreter for more than forty years, and then as a translator of the Tatar language in the administration for managing the Kazakhs of the Siberian Department. Analyzing various documents covering his activities, I conclude that this person was not ordinary. On the one hand, Gabbasov-Shakhmaev was firmly integrated into the estate-bureaucratic structure of the Russian Empire. He received various awards and privileges. He carried out important imperial assignments, which played an important role in the implementation of Russian colonial policy in the Kazakh Steppe and Central Asia. On the other hand, Gabbasov-Shakhmaev did not always literally follow the language of administrative instructions and the desire to indulge the whims of his superiors. Especially in cases where these same whims were devoid of prudence and were based largely oninformation panic and Islamophobia. For example, investigations into the cases of the so-called “fanatical” Central Asian ishans and mullahs. In matters of this kind, as the activity of Gabbasov-Shakhmaev shows, the Muslim (or Tatar) translator took a cautious position. Career risks and personal cultural preferences played a very important role here. In a number of cases, the translator did not seek to radicalize the imperial discourse in relation to Islam and Sufism. He preferred to confuse the investigation or evade the proceedings. This feature demonstrates not so much the weakness of the system of imperial management of the Kazakh Steppe, but rather the important role of the personal factor, distinguished by its unpredictability, originality and internal cultural preferences and conventions.

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Abstract:

Organization of office work is not just a bureaucratic procedure. It is a powerful communication tool that empires used to govern their vast territories and large populations. In the Russian Empire, office work became an important tool for managing the empire, so among the qualitative indicators of the registration of external districts in the West Siberian General Government in the first half of the 19th century was the establishment of office work, first in the Tatar and Russian languages, then only in Russian.

Representatives of the local Kazakh population, mainly sultans - representatives of aq suyek (white bone), were co-opted into the service of the Russian Empire in the local government system. Representatives of qara suyek (black bone) could also claim power in the local government system; an additional factor in their advancement was the education of translators at school. Fluency in languages and knowledge of local culture made it possible for people from Kara Suyek to take up the position of clerks (pismovoditel’s) in the prikaz of the external districts of the West Siberian General Government on the territory of the Middle Zhuz, performing the functions of mediation between the local elite, sultans, biys and elders and the Russian administration, possessing information, to achieve a certain career growth.

The case of the career of Abdulgafar Mandaev, the son of the foreman, volost ruler, Senior Sultan Mandai Toktamyshev, clearly characterizes the trajectories of social change in Kazakh society in the 19th century. A graduate of the Omsk Asian School, which existed since 1789 to train interpreters and translators, and since 1828 transferred to the administration of the School of the Siberian Linear Cossack Army, Abdulgafar Mandaev began his career as an official in 1835 from the position of the Sultan's pismovoditel’, and managed to advance his career to the position of Senior Sultan of the Kokchetav district in the early 50s XIX century, but for almost 15 years he served as assessor in the same district. The Kazakh official, in the minds of the Russian authorities, should be known “for his well-meaning behavior and, moreover, for knowing the rights of Russian laws and Asian customs.”

The report will be prepared on materials from the Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan.