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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.