Log in to star items.
- Convenor:
-
Zhanibek Akimbek
(Al Farabi Kazakh National University)
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Aibubi Duisebayeva
(Al-Farabi Kazakh National University)
- Discussant:
-
Aibubi Duisebayeva
(Al-Farabi Kazakh National University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Theme:
- History
Abstract
By the mid-nineteenth century, much of what is now Kazakhstan had been incorporated into the Russian Empire, transforming administrative practices, economic relations, and the ways in which local society was understood and governed. This panel examines these processes through the interlocking lenses of colonial knowledge production, economic integration, and local agency.
The first paper examines the financial-statistical expeditions of the late imperial period not as neutral instruments of knowledge, but as technologies of spatial ordering, fiscal extraction, and administrative restructuring. Through these expeditions, the nomadic steppe was transformed into a legible and governable imperial space.
The second paper turns to the history of the Spassky Copper Mines, showing how geographic isolation, transport constraints, and imperial regulation shaped the strategies of foreign capital in the remote steppe. The exceptional quality of the ore deposits retained investors despite severe infrastructural difficulties, inviting a reassessment of both Soviet interpretations of exploitation and liberal narratives of the modernizing role of foreign investment.
The third paper analyzes little-studied Kazakh texts of the marsiya and qissa genres, demonstrating the existence of a sophisticated pilgrimage culture in which the hajj served as a central element of social identity and spiritual practice. These sources directly challenge colonial representations of Islam among the Kazakhs as nominal or superficial.
The fourth paper examines a prolonged land and water dispute among the settled population of southern Kazakhstan within the Turkestan, showing how local communities gradually mastered the norms of imperial law and deployed them in their own interests.
Taken together, the papers demonstrate that imperial rule not only transformed space and economy, but also generated new regimes of knowledge and interaction in which local societies figured not as passive objects, but as active participants in the historical process.
Accepted papers
Abstract
This article examines financial-statistical knowledge as a central instrument of imperial governance in the Kazakh steppe in the late XIXth and early XXth centuries. It focuses on statistical expeditions of the Russian Empire, including the work of F. A. Shcherbina, P. A. Skryplev and other commissions that collected extensive data on land use, population and economic activity.
Particular attention is given to the mechanisms of data collection on natural resources, land-use systems, socio-economic conditions, communication routes and regional infrastructure. The gathering and systematization of information on nomadic and semi-nomadic populations contributed to transforming the Kazakh steppe into a "legible" and "governable" space. Financial-statistical data played a key role in regulation land relations, assessing fiscal capacity and implementing resettlement and agrarian policies.
Methodologically, the study adopts a source-critical and interdisciplinary approach, combining analysis of expedition materials, especially the multi-volume "Materials on Kyrgyz Land Use", with theoretical perspectives on the relationship between knowledge and power.
The study's novelty lies in treating financial-statistical knowledge functioned not as a neutral reflection of reality, but as an active force in administrative restructuring and the integration of the region into the imperial economic space.
В статье рассматривается финансово-статистическое знание как важнейший инструмент имперского управления в казахской степи в конце XIX-начале XX вв. В центре внимания находятся статистические экспедиции Российской империи, включая работы Ф.А. Щербины, П.А. Скрыплева и других исследовательских комиссий, собиравших обширные данные о землепользовании, численности населения и хозяйственной деятельности.
Особое внимание уделено механизму сбора сведений о природных ресурсах, системе землепользования, социально-экономическом положении населения, коммуникационных маршрутах и инфраструктуре края. Сбор, систематизация информации о кочевом и полукочевом населении способствовали превращению казахской степи в «управляемое» и «читаемое» пространство. Финансово-статистические данные играли ключевую роль в регулировании земельных отношений, определении налогового потенциала и реализации переселенческой и аграрной политики.
Методологически исследование опирается на источниковедческий и междисциплинарный подход, сочетающий анализ материалов экспедиций – прежде всего многотомного издания «Материалы по киргизскому землепользованию». Используются теоретические положения о взаимосвязи знания и власти, позволяющие рассматривать статистические практики как технологии управления и пространственного упорядочивания.
Научная новизна работы заключается в том, что финансово-статистические знание рассматривается не как нейтральное отражение социально-экономической реальности, а как активный фактор ее трансформации. Показано, что результаты экспедиций сыграли ключевую роль в административном переустройстве региона, формировании налоговой и земельной политики, составлении карт и статистических описаний, а также в интеграции территории в имперское экономическое пространство.
Abstract
This paper examines transport constraints and infrastructure difficulties during the functioning of the Spassky Copper Mines Joint Stock Company in the early twentieth century. The factory worked in the isolated steppe region of the Russian Empire and in the archival documents often described as “very far space from the main railway network”. In order to operate production, the managers of the company constructed transport infrastructure by themselves, including a railway connection between the Spassky zavod. However, railtrack created by the company later became a reason for a lot of taxation and administrative regulation.The study is based on a wide range of archival materials from the Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan (TsGA RK). These materials include different types of sources like documents of the Spassky Copper Mine and the Omsk Treasury department concerning about taxes and legal status of the Karaganda railway, as well as reports on the functioning of the railway between 1912 and 1918. The next types of documents consist of letters and reports about construction and repairs of railway tracks. Combining elements of quantitative analysis with a microhistorical approach, this paper reconstructs the real conditions in which a foreign mining enterprise operated in a remote district of the Russian Empire. This research demonstrates how capitalism developed in the peripheral region of the Russian Empire. It also proves that the history of foreign capital in the Kazakh steppe can not be fully explained by the Soviet theories of “exploitation” or by liberal views of "progressiveness" of foreign investment. Those conditions were in area shaped how foreign capital worked. As a result the steppe was not only a geographical setting but also a space that influenced investment strategies and the policies of imperial authorities. The persistence of shareholders suggests that investment decisions were effected by long term expectations connected with the unusually high quality of the copper deposits. Even under conditions of transport challenges and regulatory pressure, the potential profitability of the mines continued to attract capital. This case highlights how resource quality, infrastructure constraints, and imperial institutions together structured economic decision making in a remote mining region.
Abstract
This paper analyzes the religious identity of Kazakh society through the prism of the Hajj, focusing on its internal perception within the community, its interpretation by external observers, and the social significance of pilgrimage in the Steppe region in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The study draws on four little-studied primary sources: an anonymous pilgrimage narrative, a printed marsiya (elegy) dedicated to the merchant Bekturgan bin Karazhan-khazhi, a marsiya devoted to the volost administrator Kozybay-khazhi, and a verse chronicle (qissa) recounting three pilgrimages by Ondirbay-Khalfe. Methodologically, the research combines content analysis of religious terminology and poetic formulae within a corpus of commemorative texts with a comparative reading of colonial administrative sources that characterized Kazakhs as “insufficient Muslims.” Particular attention is paid to genre differentiation: marsiya and qissa represent written elegiac forms of Arabo-Persian origin, whereas zhoqtau constitutes an indigenous Turkic oral lament. These genres are treated as complementary yet distinct historical and ethnographic sources.
The analysis demonstrates that Kazakh society possessed a coherent and well-developed culture of pilgrimage that does not conform to colonial representations of the superficiality of steppe Islam. The genres of marsiya and qissa encode the Hajj as a central axis of social identity: notably, the title Haji al-Haramayn precedes personal names and genealogies in two of the four texts, while the ritual of public farewell (rasim) including almsgiving (zakat), communal gathering, and collective prayer—appears as a stable social institution rather than a private act of piety. The pilgrim’s return and possible death en route are consistently sacralized, indicating that the Hajj was understood not as a formal obligation but as a transformative spiritual experience capable of sanctifying death.
Finally, the circulation of marsiya in printed form in Kazan and Orenburg suggests that the genre functioned not only as a medium of mourning but also as a vehicle for publicly asserting the image of the Kazakh elite as exemplary Muslims an important register of self-representation overlooked by imperial administrators. The paper contributes to revisionist historiography on Islam in Central Asia, critiques the notion of “nominal Islam,” and advances the comparative study of Islamic commemorative literature.
Abstract
This study analyzes a land and water dispute between two rural communities in the Chimkent district of Turkestan in the context of legal transformations in the newly formed region of the Russian Empire. Despite the efforts of the tsarist administration to preserve the region's unchanged legal system, the local community adopted new rules to achieve its own goals. This was made possible by legal pluralism in Turkestan, which included Sharia and imperial law.
The dispute, which arose in the early 1870s, lasted for forty years. This protracted conflict was not static. This case demonstrates the qualitative dynamics of the selective appropriation of elements of imperial modernity: from simple appeals to administrative arbitration to the skillful use of imperial civil law and the procedural mechanisms of the imperial court. In the 1870s, communities appealed to the colonial administration within the logic of traditional arbitration, appealing to customs, long-standing ownership, and justice. By the 1910s, these same communities began invoking specific articles of imperial civil law, citing Senate decisions, and hiring professional lawyers who knew the system from the inside. This evolution was not the result of the communities' innate legal competence, but rather the accumulated experience of interacting with colonial institutions and the emergence of professional mediators.
Ultimately, by imposing imperial legal norms, the colonial administration inadvertently created tools that local communities learned to use against administrative discretion, thereby creating procedural helplessness in the very authorities that imposed them. This case demonstrates that it was precisely this legal pluralism that opened the most long-term opportunities for local initiative.