Nomadic Inorodtsy of the South of Russia: Perception in the 19th Century in the Context of “Managers” and “Managed”
The South of the Russian Empire in the 19th century remained an imperial outskirt in its integration process, yet uncompleted. The article is to study the perception of the inorodtsy (non-Russian) directorates officials and the governed population in the steppes of the Precaucasia and in the Lower Volga region in the 19th century on the example of the Directorate for the Kalmyk people of the Astrakhan gubernia and the Directorate for nomadic peoples of the Stavropol gubernia. Despite long-held interest of the Russian historiography in the problems of imperial bureaucracy, the human capital of management apparatus in the regional outskirts remains outside the focus of researchers’ attention. Issues of the discourse managers/managed are important for study, since their mutual perception affected the achievement of the main goal of the state, which was to integrate the imperial outskirts into the Russian space, and as its many aspects remain relevant even at the present stage. The sources are materials from the fonds of the State Archive of the Stavropol Krai (GASK) and the National Archive of the Republic of Kalmykia (NARK), containing personal data of civil servants and office documentation. The concept of “management” is considered as a process during which the subject of management, that is, managers (in this case officials of the inorodtsy directorates), affects the object of management — managed — nomadic peoples. Using comprehensive methods of content analysis of archival sources texts and reconstruction of events in chronological sequence, the main directions of interaction between the managers and the managed have been determined. The author concludes that the process of mutual perception of the managers and the managed on the inorodtsy outskirts of the empire was one of significant aspects in the context of formation of the mechanism for their integration into the all-Russian socio-economic and political-legal space, which showcases the political course of the central authorities in relation to the local population. In the course of direct interaction between the two, both positive and negative directions were developed, the latter, to the extent possible, were alleviated by the higher regional management, who, unlike middle-level officials, were fully aware of the goals and tasks of the inorodtsy directorates.