Tsars, Cossacks, and Nomads.: The Formation of a Borderland Culture in Northern Kazakhstan in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

322 Pages·2011·3.194 MB·English

by  Yuriy Malikov

Yuriy Malikov
Tsars, Cossacks, and Nomads
Studien zum Modernen Orient
herausgegeben
von Gerd Winkelhane
Studien zum Modernen Orient 18
Yuriy Malikov
Tsars, Cossacks, and Nomads
The Formation of a Borderland Culture
in Northern Kazakhstan
in the 18th and 19th Centuries
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements..............................................................................................7
Introduction...........................................................................................................9
Chapter One
Siberian Cossacks and Kazakhs: The Emblems of Identity.........................40
Chapter Two
Cross-Cultural Exchanges on the Frontier:
Their Causes and Consequences ..................................................................106
Chapter Three
The Kenesary Kasymov Rebellion (1837–1847):
A National-Liberation Movement or ‘a Protest of Restoration?’.............151
Chapter Four
The Aims of Russia’s Acquisition of the Steppe.........................................182
Chapter Five
The Role of Trade in the Formation of a Frontier Society........................212
Chapter Six
Conflicts on the Steppe: Their Sources and Resolutions...........................252
Conclusion.........................................................................................................284
Appendix
Principal Dates and Events.............................................................................298
Bibliography......................................................................................................300
Glossary.............................................................................................................317
Index...................................................................................................................318

Acknowledgements
Among the many persons who have contributed directly or indirectly to the
writing of this book, and to whom I wish to render thanks, a special debt
must first be acknowledged to my academic advisors, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa
and Adrienne Edgar, for their patience and encouragement throughout my
graduate studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. I could not
have finished this research without their unfailing support. Their invaluable
comments, along with their technical and editorial advice, were essential to
the completion of this project, and they have taught me innumerable lessons
on the workings of academic research in general. These outstanding scholars
were and remain examples of hard work, fairness, and uncompromisingly
high standards. During my Ph.D. studies, I have been incredibly fortunate to
work closely with James Brooks. Being an outstanding scholar and teacher,
Brooks inspired my interests in comparative borderland studies and shaped
my understanding of frontier theories. The thoughtful comments of these
three scholars not only made the completion of my Ph.D. possible, but also
have provided me with a guide for revising this manuscript for publication.
My friend and colleague Sergey Sheikhetov provided the initial inspira-
tion for doing this project, sharing with me his vast body of knowledge on
comparative frontier, which served as the basis for my subsequent data col-
lection. For the duration of my tenure as a graduate student, I found myself
part of an intellectual community of peers who have encouraged my research
and stimulated my development as a scholar in many ways. David Reeves,
Leslie Sargent, and Stuart Richardson were always willing to render their
kind help with editing my writings and provided a constructive critique
which contributed to the strengthening of my arguments. They helped draw
my attention to unfortunate phrases, factual errors and problematic asser-
tions. Their comments were provocative and helpful, and I am most grateful
for their thoughtfulness.
My colleagues and friends in State University of New York at Oneonta
have always given most generous support and encouragement, particularly
Matthew Hendley, Miguel Leon, Jeffrey Fortin, and William Ashbaugh. Their
friendship strengthens me more than they can know.
I feel compelled to record my gratitude and respect for all that I derived
from the stimulating and peerlessly perceptive works of Thomas Barrett,
Nicholas Breyfogle, David Moon, and Willard Sunderland.
7
The research and writing of this book were supported by numerous grants
and fellowships, and I am extremely grateful to these organizations for their
generous support, including Graduate Division of the University of Califor-
nia, Santa Barbara for providing me with research fellowships and teaching
opportunities throughout my graduate studies. The Global Supplementary
Grants provided by the Open Society Institute, together with Faculty Re-
search Program Award, Faculty Development Funds (Provost’s Office Fund-
ing) Award, and Redfield Research Grant from History Department, State
University of New York College at Oneonta, allowed me to conduct extensive
research in Russia and Kazakhstan for this project and prepare the manuscript
for publication. The aforementioned grants and fellowships also allowed my
participation in the Annual World Convention of the Association for the
Study of Nationalities, and The History and Nationalism in Central Asia
Workshop, in which I had an opportunity to present my research and receive
invaluable feedback from such outstanding scholars as Steven Sabol, Matthew
Payne, and Adeeb Khalid.
Many people helped to make my time researching in Russia and Kazakh-
stan a productive experience. My deepest thanks go to the archivists and lib-
rarians who tremendously helped me in my research.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my wife, Vanessa Ziegler, for her
understanding and love during the past few years. Her support and encour-
agement, her faith in me and my project at every turn, as well as her editing,
attentive listening, and smart comments were in the end what made this ma-
nuscript possible. My parents, Anatoliy and Irina Malikov, receive my deepest
gratitude and love for their dedication and many years of moral support. I
dedicate this book to them.
8
Introduction
To understand the Russian annexation of the
North Caucasus, we must look behind the milit-
ary lines, to the movements of peoples, the settle-
ments and communities, the transformation of
the landscape, and the interactions of neighbors,
not just in war but in everyday life.1
The Urus [Kazakh word for Russian] Cossack
is a good man. We are afraid of him,
and he is afraid of us.2
Historians’ perception of “frontier” in modern historiography varies greatly.
Some historians view the frontier as a contact zone, a place where interethnic
cultural exchange is extensive.3 Others argue against this approach and por-
tray the frontier as a barrier separating colonizers and indigenous peoples,
which prevents any contact between them.4 This monograph examines
whether the region of the northern and eastern parts of Kazakhstan (Middle
Kazakh Horde), which was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1734, was
a contact zone or a barrier separating newcomers and indigenous people.5 In
1 Thomas M. Barrett, At the Edge of Empire: The Terek Cossacks and the North Cauca-
sus Frontier (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), 3.
2 M. Krasovskii, Oblast’ Sibirskikh Kirgizov: Materialy dlia geografii i statistiki Rossii
(St. Petersburg, 1868), 403.
3 Kent Lightfoot and Antoinette Martinez, “Frontiers and Boundaries in Archaeological
Perspective,” Annual Review of Anthropology 24 (1995); James Clifford, Routes: Travel
and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (Harvard: Harvard University Press,
1997).
4 Sarah Carter, Capturing Women: The Manipulation of Cultural Imagery in Canada's
Prairie West (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1997).
5 Beginning in the early 16th century, the Kazakh steppe was divided into three hordes
– Younger, Middle, and Elder – which represented separate geographic and political
regions comprising of the territory of a tribal union. The Kazakhs referred to these
groups as the “zhuzes,” which means “hundreds.” Martha Brill Olcott finds the diffe-
rence between “horde” and “zhuz” important, since the latter term does not imply
consanguinity and common ancestry. The commonly accepted explanation on the na-
9
other words, this research answers the question whether this region lying at
the edge of the Russian Empire can be defined as a “borderland” or a “border-
line.” By the term “borderland” I mean a territory capable of transforming the
identities of people living there, in contrast to a “borderline” – a place which
set impervious boundaries between the Kazakhs and the Russians.6
I argue that extensive contacts between the aboriginals of the steppe and
new-comers from the north led to the formation of a frontier society which
was quite different from both traditional Russian and Kazakh societies. The
Kazakh steppe was not a borderline, a place of separation, but a borderland –
a birthplace of creoles and hybrids since the time the first Russian settlements
were built along the Irtysh River. The task of my research is to demonstrate
this cultural mixing, which was accomplished through the mutual adoption of
elements of participatory cultures at the point of contact and the crossing of
boundaries, both in geographic and cultural terms by some members of the
contacting societies.
The intention of this monograph is not only to demonstrate the mutual
adoptions of different cultural elements and cross cultural exchanges and to
explain the factors which made this phenomenon possible, but also to reveal
how and why historians both in Kazakhstan and Russia endeavor to misinter-
pret the past by creating a series of myths regarding Kazakh-Cossack rela-
tions. In this respect, this work is more than a narrative of the frontier. It also
deals with how the frontier is remembered and the significance of this re-
membrance. This consideration determined the structure of the book. Each
chapter begins with some concept that dominates the recent historiography,
followed by primary source evidence that challenges this interpretation. Here
I use the example of the 18th and 19th-century frontier society in northern
ture of zhuzes holds that they were loosely connected confederations of tribes created
for military purposes. The division of the Kazakhs into zhuzes did not produce separa-
te identities, since all Kazakhs shared the same language, social hierarchy, cultural
practices, and economy. Though all Kazakhs of a certain zhuz were formally the sub-
jects of their khan, the evidence presented in Chapters One and Three demonstrates
that the allegiance of the Kazakhs to their khans was ephemeral. This consideration
makes differences between Kazakhs of various hordes, prior to contact with the Rus-
sians, insignificant. The only difference between them was the regions which these
hordes occupied. The tribes of the Middle Horde, which is the subject of this research,
occupied the middle of the Kazakh steppe from the Aral Sea in the west to the Altai in
the east, and between the Irtysh River in the north and Syr Daria and Sarysu rivers in
the south. For more information on the origins and nature of the Kazakh zhuzes see
Martha Brill Olcott, The Kazakhs, 2nd ed. (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1995).
6 For the list of principle dates relevant to the question of Kazakh-Cossack relations, see
the Appendix.
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