The Role of the Kazakhs in the History of the Siberian Khanate: Russian Pre-Revolutionary Historiography

Abstract

The study analyzes the representation of the place of the Kazakhs in the history of the Siberian Khanate in the Russian pre-revolutionary historical science. One of the most interesting and discussed problems of pre-colonial history of Western Siberia is the problem of the place of the Kazakhs in the history of the Siberian Khanate. Different, at times diametrically opposite points of view are expressed on this issue. The main concepts have developed in the Russian pre-revolutionary science. In historiography of a problem it is possible to allocate two basic directions on a question of a place of Kazakhs in history of the Siberian khanate. The first, laid down by the works of G. Miller and his followers, refers to the Kazakhs as the autochthons of Western Siberia and active participants of the processes associated with the history of the Siberian Khanate. This point of view was based on the reports of the Siberian annals, and through them the historical memory of the Siberian Tatars. The similar point of view was held by the authors who studied the historical memory of the Kazakhs (N. Krasovsky, G. Spassky). The second direction began to develop from the middle of the XIX century together with the development of Russian ethnographic and oriental studies. According to it, the Kazakhs appeared on the borders of Western Siberia only at the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th century and did not play a significant role in the history of the Siberian Khanate (A. Oksenov, G. Katanaev, V. Ogorodnikov). At the same time, under the influence of European scientific traditions, a national historiography, which combined the traditional historical memory of the Kazakh and Tatar people on the one hand, and the achievements of Russian Oriental science on the other hand (Sh. Kudaiberdyuly, K. Khalid, H. Atlasi). Copyright © 2022 by Cherkas Global University