The Kazakh Khanate

Author(s):  
Joo-Yup Lee

The Kazakh Khanate was a Chinggisid nomadic state that ruled the eastern Qipchaq Steppe (Dasht-i Qipchāq), a steppe zone that roughly corresponds to modern-day Kazakhstan, during the post-Mongol period as one of the most important successor states of the Mongol Empire and the last reigning dynasty of the Chinggisids. The Kazakh Khanate branched off from the Ulus of Jochi, whose people (ulus) were called Uzbeks in 15th-century Central Asia. The Kazakh Khanate was founded by the Uzbeks led by Jānībeg Khan and Girāy Khan, two Jochid princes who sometime in the 1450s had broken away from Abū al-Khair Khan, the Jochid ruler of the eastern Qipchaq Steppe. In the 16th century, like other Chinggisid states such as the Crimean Khanate, the Northern Yuan, and the Shibanid Uzbek Khanate that emerged as regional empires in the territories of the former Mongol Empire, the Kazakh Khanate was transformed into a nomadic empire. During the reigns of Qāsim Khan (r. c. 1512–1521) and his successors Ḥaqq Naẓar Khan (r. c. 1538–1581) and Tawakkul Khan (r. c. 1582–1598), the Kazakh Khanate expanded westward to reach the Yayïq (Ural) River and eastward the Tienshan Mountains. The Kazakh Khanate entered a period of sharp decline at the turn of the 18th century due to the Zunghar Oirat onslaught. As a result, the Kazakh khans and sultans became nominal vassals of the Russian Empire and the Manchu Qing Dynasty. The Kazakh Khanate was annexed by the Russian Empire in the early 19th century, which brought to an end the six-centuries-long reign of the Chinggisids.

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-204
Author(s):  
Ramazan S. Abdulmajidov

The present article reveals the history of relations between the south-western unions of communities of Dagestan and the Kingdom of Kakheti in the second half of the 18th - early 19th century. It is established that political and economic contacts between them, due to mutual cooperation, were generally of a peaceful and good-neighbourly nature. In the second half of the 18th century there was a significant strengthening of military-political and cultural ties between Georgia and Dagestan. The arrival of the Russian Empire in the Caucasus in the early 19th century not only shifted the balance of military and political forces in the region, but also radically changed the nature of trade and economic relations between Dagestan and Georgia. In this regard, the main attention is paid to the processes that began after the loss of Georgian statehood, when the border Dagestan communities tried to negotiate with the new authorities. Furthermore, the author reveals the policy of Dagestan feudal rulers, whom the unions of Dagestan communities saw as intermediaries in their relations with the Russian Empire. On the basis of numerous sources, both already published and identified by the author in the Central historical archive of Georgia, the article considers the most important events that took place in the region during the study period. According to the author, before the appointment of A. P. Ermolov to the Caucasus, St. Petersburg did not rush to assert its power there, content at first with "external signs of citizenship" of the highlanders. With the arrival of the latter, who pursued the policy on the well-known principle of "divide and conquer", the trade and economic blockade of the highlanders of Western Dagestan increased significantly, leading to their subsequent active participation in the people's liberation movement of the highlanders of the North-East Caucasus in the 20-50s' of the 19th century..


Author(s):  
M. V. Loskutova ◽  
A. A. Fedotova

Based on published and archival sources, the paper considers the transformations in Russian legislation and administrative policies on forest beekeeping (harvesting honey from owned or tended nests in forests) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It demonstrates how in the course of the eighteenth century, the ownership of bee nests started violating the concept of absolute private property over forests, which was increasingly incompatible with the rights of other individuals to exploit natural resources on the same territory. From the early decades of the 19th century, borders were gradually demarcated between forested areas belonging to the state and private owners, and between the state forests and those designated for the use of state peasants. This process made possible to exercise the concept of absolute private property over forests in practice. These changes in legislation and the forest cadastre were closely linked to the making of ‘forestry science’ that developed in the late 18th century under the influence of a growing demand for timber needed for the navies and merchant fleets of all European states. The precepts of ‘forestry science’ were dictated by its objective to maximise profits by focusing on the production of commercially valuable sorts of timber. By the early 19th century, this logic prompted the forest administration of the Russian empire to start contemplating measures that would obstruct any alternative forms of forest exploitation, such as harvesting honey from tended trees. The paper considers in details the tightening of administrative regulations in this area, as imposed by the Ministry of State Domains that reached its peak in the Great Reforms era, and analyses the mechanisms that translated these general causes at work into specific policies.


Author(s):  
K.Yu. Anders-Namzhilova

The article describes the problem of searching for unknown manuscripts in the study of new spiritual literature that occurred in the Russian Empire at the turn of 18th century. The documents of Moscow Ecclesiastical Censor’s Archive are the main information source of church and religious materials written during that period. The Moscow Ecclesiastical Censor was the first specialized authority established by Synod in 1799 for considering the religious compositions. Compositions which were banned by censors couldn’t be printed and for this reason they become unknown even for modern scientific society. However, a lot of these compositions weren’t lost: they are kept in manuscripts which are dispersed throughout different archive and library funds, that’s why they cannot be attributed without the engagement of the censor committee’s archive documents.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 480-492
Author(s):  
Vladimir N. Shaidurov ◽  
Valentina A. Veremenko

General of the Infantry Count G.M. Sprengtporten (1740-1819) is one of the less known historical figures of the last quarter of the 18th and of the early 19th century. As a Swedish citizen, he hatched plans to turn Finland into an independent state. In the mid-1780s he saw in Catherine II a potential ally who could implement his ideas. After accepting the invitation to enter Russian service, Sprengtporten did not blend either in the Highest Court or in the Russian army. Not having shown any significant military feats during the wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, he distinguished himself in the diplomatic and lawmaking field. An important event was his mission to Europe (1800-1801), which resulted in the return of more than six thousand Russian prisoners to Russia. The draft Regulations on the Establishment of the Main Administration in New Finland, developed by Sprengtporten with some changes made by Emperor Aleksander I, became the cornerstone of Finnish autonomy within the Russian Empire over the next century. Occupying for a short time the post of Governor General, he became a link between Finland and Russia. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the comprehensive presentation of the Russian service of G.M. Sprengtporten. The article is written on the basis of published sources and unpublished documents from some central archives, which are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.


Author(s):  
Nathan Spannaus

Following the Russian conquests of the 16th century, ulama became the foremost social authorities for Volga-Ural Muslims. Tsarist efforts at governing the Muslim population increasingly focused on them in the 18th century, with greater tolerance and state support for Islamic institutions alongside a co-optation of scholars’ authority. In 1788, the Orenburg Spiritual Assembly was founded, placing all ulama under a hierarchy controlled by the state. The Spiritual Assembly offered stability and permanence to Islamic institutions, allowing for a flourishing in Islamic scholarship, but it also transformed the ulama and application of Islamic law. This chapter addresses Muslims’ shifting relationship to the Russian state and the structural changes to Islamic institutions, and how this impacted scholarship. Focusing specifically on ulama in the 18th and early 19th centuries, it places Qursawi’s life and career within this context, particularly his education, the formation of his thought, and his condemnation in Bukhara for heresy.


Author(s):  
Adrian Brisku

Four-centuries-long encounters between the Ottoman Empire and the Grand Duchy of Muscovy/Russian Empire point to complex relations that have been triggered and defined mostly by territorial, trade disputes, and wars, and maintained by diplomatic rivalry and occasional military alliances. Starting as friendly encounters during Sultan Bayezid II reign at the beginning of the 16th century, these relations, essentially and persistently asymmetrical, reveal an initial and long Ottoman dominance over the Muscovy/Russian side; one that lasted from the early 16th to the late 18th century—whereby the two sides shared no direct borders, traded and did not fight each other until the late 17th century—followed by a late 18th-century and mid-19th-century Russian ascendency. This ascendency was achieved largely thanks to the military reform that Tsar/Emperor Peter the Great undertook, namely, the establishment of a standing and professional army and consequentially due to the many wars that Russia won throughout the 19th century; the decisive ones being those fought during the reign of Empress Catherine the Great. The mid-19th century and the early 20th century—which witnessed the implosion of the Russian Empire due to the Bolshevik Revolution and the break-up of the Ottoman Empire by Britain and France—was a long period that saw few and brief military alliances, contested trade relations and yet continued wars. It was ultimately marred by an Ottoman drive to counterbalance Russia’s dominance, while the latter sought to preserve it, by involving other European powers (British and French)—the most crucial moment being the British, French, and Ottoman armies defeating the Russian one in the Crimean War (1853–1856)—transforming their bilateral interactions into multilateral but unsustainable relations.


DIYÂR ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-57
Author(s):  
Elena Smolarz

By examining patterns of ransoming strategies, this paper generates insights about the interactions between state, economic and social actors across the Russian-Kazakh frontier in the early 19th century. Generally, first encounters across borders and boundaries include violence and invasion. Accordingly, the enslavement and subsequent ransoming of captured people represent common practices in frontier regions. Analyses of these processes illuminate the nature of interactions between different actors along the border. Securing release of slaves through ransom was a regular component of Russian foreign policy from the 16th century onwards. Imperial institutions were established for ransoming Russian Christian brothers-in-the-faith and, later, for other subjects of the Russian Empire who had been enslaved by the Ottoman Empire and Central Asian Khanates. With imperial financing, the Orenburg Border Commission (1799-1859) co-ordinated the ransoming process and developed networks for achieving the release of Russian subjects held in the Kazakh Steppe, in Khiva and Bukhara. Actors involved in these networks were of heterogeneous descent, including Russian imperial officials, Bukharian and Khivan merchants, Kazakh officials, as well as Russian agents. Drawing on archival research, this article explores ransoming networks and strategies along the Russian-Kazakh frontier and probes the motives of the actors involved.


Author(s):  
William Wood

The Khanate of Khiva, one of the Uzbek khanates of Central Asia, refers to a political entity in the region of Khorezm from the early 16th century until 1920. The term itself, which was not used by locals who instead used the name vilayet Khwārazm (“country of Khwārazm”), dates from 18th-century Russian usage. Khorezm is an ancient center of sedentary civilization with a distinct culture and history that came under Uzbek rule as the latter migrated southward from their pasturelands on the steppe beginning in the early 16th century. In contrast to the related dynasties in Transoxiana, the Khanate of Khiva retained a greater degree of pastoralism, though the state was still fundamentally built on sedentary agriculture. Though no doubt affected by historical variations in the volume and routes of the overland caravan trade, Khiva remained a key center for transregional trade throughout its history, especially with the growing Russia Empire to the north. Political structures in Khiva remained weak and decentralized until the 19th century, when the Qongrat dynasty succeeded in transforming the khanate into the most centralized state in the region. Among the legacies of the khanate is its promotion of a distinctive Turkic literary culture, which interacted fruitfully with the dominant Persian culture of neighboring regions. As with other states in Central Asia, by the second half of the 19th century Khiva became a target of the expanding Russian Empire, which conquered Khorezm in 1873. While the tsarist state initially preserved a portion of the khanate under Qongrat rule as a protectorate, after the Bolshevik Revolution this state was soon dissolved and absorbed into the Soviet Union.


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