The Kazakhs and the Siberian Khanate: Soviet Historiography of the Problem

Abstract

The article analyzes the representation of the place of the Kazakhs in the history of the Siberian Khanate in the Soviet historical science. One of the most interesting and discussed problems in the pre-colonial history of Western Siberia is the problem of the Kazakhs’ place in the history of the Siberian Khanate. On this issue various, sometimes diametrically opposite, points of view are expressed. The basic concepts have developed in the Russian pre-revolutionary science, but in Soviet time they have been considerably improved considering the achievements of ethnology, archeology, and source study. In the Soviet historiography of a problem, it is possible to allocate two basic directions on a question of a place of Kazakhs in the history of the Siberian Khanate. The first, dominant in the Soviet historical science, is the work of V. Ogorodnikov and S. Bakhrushin. 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 play an insignificant role in the history of the Siberian Khanate.The second, represented by the works of N. Tomilov and his followers, relates the Kazakhs to the number of autochthons of Western Siberia and active participants in the processes associated with the history of the Siberian Khanate.