This article analyzes the mechanisms of economic integration of the Steppe Region into the all-imperial market space on the basis of administrative records of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Empire (Russian State Historical Archive). The study is built around a single case: an example of unexpectedly attentive and personalized care shown by state officials toward the individual needs of Kazakh trainees at the Edimonovo School of Dairy Farming in Tver Province. The authorities not only provided them with scholarships to study cheese and butter production in one of the "centers of Russia's agrarian modernization," but also allocated additional funds for their meals. As a result, the Kazakhs were fed according to their traditions for an entire year. This instrumental case of bureaucratic situational flexibility is used not for descriptive purposes, but to revise the generalizations of previous historiography. Moreover, the study situates the Steppe Region within a broader context-the project of agricultural modernization and overcoming the agrarian crisis of the late nineteenth century. The article argues that, in pursuing its strategic goals, the imperial bureaucracy assigned agricultural education the status of a key mechanism of modernization and demonstrated situational flexibility in adapting to local conditions. The overarching objective was to integrate Siberian livestock breeding (with the Steppe Region as part of the Siberian periphery) into the all-Russian market, introduce intensive methods, establish commercial animal husbandry, and incorporate this remote region into the imperial economic space. The study contributes to the historiography of empires by shifting the focus from the simplified dichotomy of "exploitation versus civilizing mission" toward a more complex model of pragmatic investment aimed at enhancing the economic efficiency of peripheral regions. Finally, the article contributes to debates on the flexibility and adaptability of imperial governance.
This article, based on archival materials from the Orenburg Region State Archives, analyzes a littleknown episode: the 1914 "denunciation campaign" against the editorial board of the Kazakh newspaper "Kazak" and its leaders, A. Baitursunov and M. Dulatov. Using source analysis and discourse analysis of administrative documents, the authors demonstrate that denunciation in late imperial Russia was not only a form of private political persecution but also part of an institutionalized mechanism of colonial surveillance. Letters from "trusted Kyrgyz from the Turgai and Ural regions" sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and governor's offices demonstrate a strategy by which some of the local elite positioned themselves as loyal intermediaries between the "authorities" and the "ignorant masses". The bureaucratic trajectory of these appeals - from local officials to the police department - is traced, revealing the depth of the inclusion of peripheral regions in the imperial surveillance system. A comparison of the texts of denunciations and official responses allows us to reconstruct the logic of imperial administrative culture, in which suspicion and denunciation became the primary instruments of control over the national outskirts.
The proposed article examines the understudied scientific issue of the role of the postal and telegraph service in Semirechye to monitor the citizens of the empire. This article has reviewed the surveillance process in the Russian Empire, aiming to protect the population from factors that could influence their consciousness. This article aims to determine the implementation of practices of censorship and letter interception (perlustration) in the Russian Empire, as well as the organisation of postal and telegraph institutions and their employees for these purposes. Based on historical data and research, this article has examined the issues of covert surveillance and letter perlustration. This article also discusses the activities of the "Black Chambers" across the empire, the use of postal and telegraph institution employees for covert surveillance by special agencies, and the involvement of local populations in surveillance activities. The materials used for this article include the archives of the Central Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan, regulatory acts, official letters, and statistical reports from postal and telegraph institutions. Surveillance was organized privately from the public, and maintaining trust in communication institutions and their staff was crucial for the successful execution of these activities. A central aspect of this Semirechye activity lacked legislation.
The article is devoted to an analysis of the life and multifaceted activity of Benjamin Brown French (1800-1870) - an American politician, civil servant, Clerk of the United States House of Representatives, and one of the most influential figures of nineteenth-century American Freemasonry. Particular attention is paid to his role in the history of the American Order of Knights Templar, in which he held the highest office of Grand Master of the Grand Encampment of Knights Templar of the United States during the difficult period of the American Civil War. The study examines the principal stages of French's biography, including his early education, the formation of his professional career, service in legislative and administrative institutions, activities as Commissioner of Public Buildings, and participation in the development of telegraphic communication in the United States. A separate section is devoted to French's literary legacy, especially his diaries Witness to the Young Republic, which constitute a valuable source for the political and cultural history of the country. The source base of the research includes published materials of Masonic organizations, museum exhibits, personal documents, and reference and biographical resources. The application of biographical, historiographical, and historical-genetic methods made it possible to reveal the interconnection between Benjamin B. French's governmental, literary, and Masonic activities. The article demonstrates that his contribution transcends the framework of an individual biography and reflects broader processes in the formation of American political culture and Masonic tradition in the nineteenth century.
The article analyzes the state of primary education in the Asian part of the Russian Empire as of January 1, 1915, based on archival materials from the Russian State Historical Archive. The focus is on the correlation between the total number of school-age children (8-11 years old) and the number of pupils enrolled in primary schools across 23 administrative units of Siberia, the Far East, the Steppe Region, Central Asia, and Transcaucasia. Using statistical data, the study identifies regional differences in the level of primary school enrollment and determines the percentage of enrolled pupils relative to the total number of children of the corresponding age group. The research shows that out of more than 2.2 million school-age children in the Asian part of the empire, approximately 550,000 were enrolled in schools, which accounted for about 25 percent. The highest level of enrollment was recorded in the Amur Region, while the lowest was observed in the Fergana Region. The author analyzes the factors influencing these disparities, including geographical remoteness, population density, specific features of colonial policy, and the degree of integration of the regions into the imperial administrative and educational system. The study refines our understanding of the scope and limitations of educational modernization in the eastern peripheries of the Russian Empire on the eve of the revolutionary events.
The Central State Archive of Moscow and the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library have preserved a significant set of reviews prepared by the outstanding Russian historian V. O. Klyuchevsky for the graduation and master's works of his learners while teaching at the Moscow Theological Academy (1871-1906). Based on the analysis of the critical remarks, tips and recommendations presented in the reviews, the views of the scientist on the goals and standards of historical research are revealed. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that the consideration of the phenomenon of the "Klyuchevsky's scientific school" cannot be limited to a single historiographical representation. The scientific and pedagogical, utilitarian function of the school, carried out at the level of interaction with students and master's students, is also important. It not only allows us to see the entire mechanism of training scientific personnel, but also to rethink the concept of "student" and to evaluate the contribution of V.O. Klyuchevsky to the dissemination of historical knowledge in the regions. Based on the study of biographies of graduates of the Moscow Theological Academy, the article clarifies the circle of Klyuchevsky's students. The contribution of the "Klyuchevsky's scientific school" to the strengthening of the regional and provincial cultural environment in Russia is considered.
This article provides a comprehensive analysis of how censorship institutions of the Russian Empire in the Caucasus in the 19th and early 20th centuries constructed the image of Armenian journalism, shaping persistent administrative notions about its political significance, ideological sensitivity, and national-cultural specificity. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study is E. Said's postcolonial approach, R. Darnton's institutional concept of censorship, and the tools of historical imagology. This allows us to consider censorship not only as an instrument of informational, ideological, and aesthetic restrictions, but also as a means of creating the image of the "Other" in the imperial information and communication space. The empirical base consists of a corpus of 60 archival files from the Russian State Historical Archives and the National Archives of Georgia, including reports, meeting minutes, official correspondence, statistical reports, and judicial-administrative review materials. The analysis shows that censorship systematically shaped a stereotypical image of the Armenian press through thematic selection, rhetorical labels ("harmful trend", "anti-Russian spirit", "tendentiousness"), and statistics on detained publications. Subjects related to the Armenian question, foreign policy, church-religious affairs, and education-interpreted within an anti-state framework-were the most sensitive to censorship.
This article offers a comprehensive analysis of the place and role of Kazakh veterinary feldshers within the sociocultural space of the Steppe Region during the 19(th) and early 20(th )centuries. The study focuses on their unique position at the intersection of traditional Kazakh knowledge of animal husbandry and imperial Russian veterinary medicine. The relevance of the topic lies in the need to examine this professional group as a "bridge between cultures", functioning both as an instrument of the colonial administration and as bearers of local identity. Special attention is paid to the reconstruction of the official activities and biographical details of individual veterinary feldshers who managed to secure a certain position within the local service system. The study is based on documents from the Central State Archives of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Historical Archive of Omsk Oblast, as well as memoirs of descendants and local history materials. As a result of archival research, it was possible to establish that the total number of Kazakhs who were students and graduates of the Veterinary Feldsher School of the Siberian Cossack Host (1879-1894) and the Omsk Veterinary Feldsher School (1905-1917) amounted to 64 individuals. The key conclusion is that the activities of Kazakh veterinary feldshers, who had received imperial education, were oriented toward the implementation of colonial administrative functions. In particular, they effectively acted as intermediaries in the enforcement of measures aimed at transforming traditional Kazakh pastoralism, including the introduction of quarantine regulations, vaccination campaigns, and restrictions on nomadic mobility. Essentially, an analysis of historical sources and studies demonstrates that, as a result of the development of capitalist relations in the Steppe region, livestock acquired the character of a commodity. Furthermore, the restriction of nomadic territories and the spread of new livestock-breeding practices among Kazakhs by the beginning of the 20th century-such as stall-feeding and haymaking-led to the decline of traditional pastoralism. This process, in turn, contributed to a decrease in the social status of Kazakh veterinary feldshers, who, despite their formal education, were unable to exert significant social influence within Kazakh society.
The article analyzes employees' perception of RAC. There was one of the largest trade Russian Company in the 19th century. Based on rare ego-documents from the first half of the 19th century, the article raises the issue of employee identification for the first time and reconstructs its components. By signing a contract with the company, RAC local office managers and their clerks received high salaries and additional funding, which they used for their own needs. They formed closes circles of people who were more concerned with their own well-being than with the interests of the corporation. These closes circles of people were resilient throughout the RAC's tenure and even eliminated persons who were favored by the director. Employees from local offices sought to earn as much money as possible, and with his support, they were able to secure more advantageous employment opportunities after their dismissal from the company. The informal relationship between RAC employees and directors served as a means of "survival" for the local office managers and a way of controlling local offices from St. Petersburg. It was due to the lack of legal protection, unfavorable contract terms for employees, and the importance of maintaining family and personal connections.
The article analyzes the administration and industrialists' activities of the Russian Empire aimed at developing the Turkestan region's mining and manufacturing industries in the late XIX - early XX centuries. The sources used were periodical press data and materials that promoted regional industrial projects within the Empire. The research novelty lies in a comprehensive study of the region's industrial challenges, development projects, and historical reconstruction of industrial growth. The results showed that the mining industry faced insufficient deposit exploration, poor geological reserves that made mining uneconomical, and a lack of transport infrastructure. The manufacturing industry remained stagnant due to shortages of skilled workers, remoteness, and technical backwardness. Industries in Turkestan had a middle character, positioned between handicraft and factory production. The study found that only a few enterprises held factory status (e.g., the Chimkent santonine factory, distilleries, and some cotton gins), while most remained improvement, cultivation of virgin lands, attraction of foreign capital, cost reduction by replacing manual labor with machines, introduction of a credit system, and protective tariffs on foreign goods.
This article reconstructs the "imperial biography" of Sattarkhan Abdulghaffarov, who served as a qadi, translator, and local expert under the Russian rule in Turkestan. Having received a traditional religious education, he initially followed the path of his ancestors. However, the Russian Empire's conquest of Central Asia marked a turning point in his life, opening new avenues for social and professional mobility. By mastering the Russian language, Abdulghaffarov chose to cooperate with the new authorities and gradually established himself as an expert on local affairs. Exposure to the achievements of European science led him to advocate for the modernization of Turkestan. A significant part of his intellectual legacy is a memorandum regarding the reform of the Muslim education system and the regional administration. Abdulghaffarov proposed that educational initiatives should account for the unique cultural and everyday traditions of the indigenous population. Drawing on the Islamic principle of seeking knowledge, he criticized the negative attitudes held by the conservative clergy. Based on an analys is of his proposals, there is every reason to consider Abdulghaffarov one of the representatives of Jadidism in Turkestan. The research findings demonstrate how, despite limited resources, Abdulghaffarov sought to implement his ideas through interaction with the imperial administration. However, these efforts were difficult to sustain due to the constant turnover of local officials and their shifting perspectives. Nevertheless, certain elements of his ideas were put into practice and utilized to serve the interests of imperial policy. This serves as an example of the adaptive and pragmatic nature of imperial governance in Turkestan.
The manuscript is devoted to the analysis of youth military-patriotic (scouting) and religious organizations in the Russian Empire in the early twentieth century, based on their charters and rules published in pre-revolutionary periodicals. The source base of the study comprises a set of materials related to the youth movement in pre-revolutionary Russia. The methodological framework includes content analysis, systems analysis, and other approaches. Religious youth initiatives and military-patriotic scouting organizations in the Russian Empire began to develop actively in the early twentieth century, following broader global trends. These organizations may be conditionally divided into religious and scouting associations. The former include the well-known Christian youth society Mayak ("The Lighthouse"). Its principal aim-especially during the wartime period-was social service: assistance to incapacitated persons and large families, as well as voluntary and unpaid work in hospitals, orphanages, and similar institutions. The society also provided educational services and organized cultural and spiritual leisure activities. Scouting organizations possessed a pronounced military-patriotic character, with a corresponding hierarchical structure and system of subordination. Their main goal was the formation of the child's personality on the basis of patriotism, honesty, humaneness, kindness, frugality, careful attitudes toward nature, and related values. Particular attention was paid to physical training and to certain specialized skills associated with military reconnaissance (survival in the wilderness, tracking, handling weapons, etc.).
This article analyzes the rare book collection of the P.A. Cherkasov Fundamental Library at Cherkas Global University and considers it as an independent object of library science and source-critical research. The study focuses on the formation, structure, and composition of the rare collection, which includes editions published between 1455 and 1836, i.e., from the beginning of European printing to the first third of the nineteenth century. It is shown that the chronological boundaries of the collection are determined both by the history of print culture and by the requirements of scholarly classification of book collections. The article reconstructs the institutional history of the library, the stages of its transformation from a university collection into a fundamental library with a rare book collection, and the role of Masonic and historical publications in shaping the library's profile holdings. Particular attention is paid to the characteristics of individual groups within the collection: incunabula and post-incunabula, editions of the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries, as well as books of the Enlightenment and the early period of U.S. national publishing. Methodologically, the research relies on a set of general scientific, library, and book-historical methods, including analysis and synthesis, systemic and historical approaches, and elements of bibliographical and provenance attribution. As a result, the article demonstrates that the rare collection has substantial scholarly value as a source for the history of the book, intellectual culture, and transnational connections of the early modern period and the early nineteenth century.
This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the formation and development of science and scientific institutions in the Turkestan region in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, a period of active integration of the region into the administrative and intellectual space of the Russian Empire. It focuses on institutional forms of scientific activity, the mechanisms of interaction between the colonial administration and the academic community, and the contribution of Russian and local scholars to the formation of the regional scientific space. Based on archival materials, including documents of scientific societies, expedition reports, official correspondence, and statistical reviews, supplemented by published works by Russian and foreign researchers, the main areas of scientific research, including geography, ethnography, archaeology, history, and the natural sciences, are reconstructed. Particular attention is paid to the activities of scientific societies, primarily the Turkestan branch of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, as well as the role of expeditionary practice in the accumulation and systematization of knowledge about the region. It is shown that local scholars acted not only as informants but also as active participants in the scientific process, making a significant contribution to the collection, interpretation, and preservation of scientific data. The article concludes that the development of science in the Turkestan region was the result of the interaction of imperial scientific initiatives and local intellectual traditions, which contributed to the institutionalization of scientific research, the formation of a holistic scientific infrastructure, laying the foundations for the further development of science in Central Asia and its inclusion in the pan-imperial and international scientific space.
This article explores the phenomenon of student periodicals in the Russian Empire in the early 20th century through the lens of historical anthropology. The key objects of analysis are the handwritten journals of the Petrovskaya Agricultural Academy-"Artichokes and Almonds" and "Anopheles" - which are considered valuable "texts from below" that allow us to reconstruct the everyday life, mentality, and practices of students. The paper highlights the methodological difficulties of attribution and typology of student publications, conditioned by the liminal status of students as a social group and the mixed composition of editorial boards. The author thoroughly analyzes how the texts of these journals constructed group identity, expressed protest sentiments through Aesopian language, satire, and irony, and captured key aspects of everyday life: the "stomach economy" and gastronomic practices (using the restaurant "Martyanich" as an example), the semiotics of clothing, gender relations, and bodily practices. It is concluded that student periodicals represent a comprehensive source for studying not only political ideas but also the formation of new social identities, the "history of feelings", and the symbolic codes of student subculture in the prerevolutionary era.
The article reconstructs and interprets the social structure of the student body at Kharkiv University during the 1914-1916 academic years. The study is based on mass administrative sources-official printed lists of students for the 1914-1915 and 1915-1916 academic years that provide systematic information on faculty affiliation and social origin, recorded in estate-based categories. Methodologically, the study combines a comprehensive quantitative analysis with a qualitative institutional interpretation of the data, enabling analysis at two levels: the university as a whole and a comparative faculty-level perspective. The results demonstrate that the university entered the wartime period with a socially mixed profile rather than a strictly noble-dominated one. Students of burgher origin constituted the core of the student body, while the nobility retained a significant presence, and the peasant component was already substantial at the beginning of the war. A comparison between the 1914-1915 and 1915-1916 academic years reveals a consistent direction of change: the share of nobles decreased, the proportion of students of peasant origin increased, and burghers maintained their dominant position. These shifts indicate that the war did not generate social transformation ex nihilo but rather intensified pre-existing tendencies within the university. A comparative faculty-level analysis reveals a pronounced asymmetry in wartime dynamics. The Faculty of Medicine functioned as the most socially open segment of the university and displayed the strongest growth of students of peasant origin, supporting the interpretation of medical education as a channel of professional mobility under conditions of wartime demand. In contrast, the Faculty of History and Philology remained the most elite part of the university, maintaining a comparatively high share of noble students and demonstrating strong institutional inertia. The Faculty of Law occupied an intermediate position, combining a notable noble presence with a stable burgher core, while the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics exhibited the greatest structural stability and the slowest pace of social change. The article argues that the impact of World War I on the social composition of Kharkiv University should be understood primarily as a catalytic effect rather than a decisive disruption. The observed transformations are interpreted as selective (asymmetrical) modernization, in which openness by social origin increased unevenly across faculties, whereas other boundaries, most notably the gender boundary of the classical university remained unchanged in the analyzed period. The findings provide an empirically grounded basis for further research on 1917-1918, when revolutionary developments may have altered not only quantitative proportions but also the institutional principles of access, accounting, and governance in higher education.
This article explores one of the least studied periods in the history of Kazakhstan, beginning around 1600 year. The seventeenth century marked an era of profound change across the Great Steppe. The process of widespread decentralization coincided with the gradual decline of the remnants of the Golden Horde and the emergence of new peoples. Rapid shifts in political dominance and the constant emergence of new threats compelled local societies to adapt. These transformations affected not only state territories but also patterns of lifestyles, military strategies, and even everyday practices, ultimately leading to modifications in customs and traditions. Under the threat of war, the Kazakhs were forced to abandon their relatively slow-moving kibitkas characteristic of earlier times and switch to lighter, more mobile yurts. The westward expansion of the Kalmyks, driven by the search for new pastures and settlement areas, acted as a major catalyst for these changes. Internal fragmentation and weakening of the main nomadic polities of the region-the Nogai and Kazakh Hordes-allowed the Kalmyks to achieve a number of military and political successes. However, the relatively stable institutions of the Kazakh Horde allowed it not only to retain part of its territory but also to eventually regain lost lands. At certain stages, some Kalmyk groups even became part of the Kazakh Khanate. The Chinggisid lineage of the Kazakh rulers and the comparatively large population of the Steppe played a key role in this process. For instance, despite a series of defeats inflicted on the Nogais, the Kalmyks managed to push them out of the western Kazakh steppes only by the mid-seventeenth century. The wide settlement of the Kalmyks across the Kazakh Steppe is well documented in historical maps and written sources. Relations between the Kazakhs and Kalmyks are especially well reflected in Russian archival materials. Due to the Steppe's proximity to the borders of the Moscow Tsardom, Russian officials and the Posolsky (Ambassadorial) Prikaz closely monitored power shifts in regional and the formation of alliances. Particular attention was paid to the nature of temporary or long-term agreements concluded between the Kazakhs and the Kalmyks. The relative weakness of Russian frontier garrisons and the period of political instability known as the Time of Troubles within Muscovite state itself prompted a careful examination of possible coalitions between the major steppe powers. The Kalmyks, as one of the principal actors in Central Asian political affairs of the seventeenth century, maintained a degree of autonomy even as they collectively moved westward. In essence, their advance into the Kazakh Steppe represented the migration of individual tribes and clans united by a general tendency toward the Caspian region. The fragmentation and eventual collapse of the Nogai Horde allowed the Kalmyks to consolidate control over certain areas of Kazakhstan and later occupy former Nogai pastures. The historical role of the Kalmyks in the formation and development of the Kazakh state remains insufficiently examined and often underestimated, which complicates the objective reconstruction of Kazakhstan's broader historical narrative.
This article presents the results of a study of new, previously unpublished sources on the history of gold mining in Yenisei Province in the 19th century, including new visual sources. Of particular significance among these sources is a unique handwritten document from the so-called "Yudin Collection", housed in the State Archives of Krasnoyarsk Krai. It is titled "Atlas of Gold Mining Fields in the Yenisei District, Indicating the Names and Owners in 1840-1852", and contains visual and textual information on the history of gold mining in Yenisei Province in the 19th century. The article examines the history and significance of visual (primarily cartographic) sources related to gold mining in this region, and systematizes the information contained in the "Atlas", which is now available to the general public for the first time. The "Atlas" includes 84 maps of gold-bearing rivers and their tributaries, descriptions of all the mines located on the banks of these rivers, the names of the owners and their companies, the dates of application for inclusion of the mine in the treasury and the application number, the dates and response dates, the dates of application approval and deposition of the mine in the treasury, and area of the plot in state dessiatines. It is concluded that the "Atlas" of statistical data and visualizations of the gold-bearing river maps of the Yenisei Governorate is of great importance for further research into the history of gold mining, entrepreneurship, and technology in the Russian Empire in the 19th century. It is suggested that this "Atlas" was of great significance to G.V. Yudin himself, the leading gold miner and businessman in Eastern Siberia, who collected significant documents in his personal archive for his future entrepreneurial activities.
Modern Russian historical science is in the process of getting rid of the ideological cliches of the past. One of these cliches is the idea of the Russian Empire as a "prison of nations" dominated by the tsarist bureaucracy. This work is carried out within the framework of the synthesis of micro-historical and macro-historical approaches and is in line with current trends in overcoming established opinions in Soviet science. This determines its relevance. Research is increasingly taking its place in science. The research material is an unpublished manuscript of an article by the historian and ethnographer of Siberia Nikolai Alekseevich Kostrov (1823-1881), discovered by us in the Department of Written Sources of the State Historical Museum in Moscow. The main archive of the scientist is kept in the Scientific Library of Tomsk State University. Consequently, we have discovered a part of the historian's scientific heritage that had not previously been introduced into scientific circulation. The manuscript of the article by N.A. Kostrov highlights one of the first experiences of teaching children of representatives of the indigenous peoples of Siberia to read and write and the basics of medical and theological knowledge for their dissemination in the local environment. As a result of the review of the new historical source, it was established that the initiator of the training was the government in the person of the Tomsk civil governor, who allocated funds for this purpose. The initiative was supported by the Emperor of Russia. An obstacle to completing their studies was a subjective factor: waste of money and the outright unwillingness of the local higher clergy to organize education for children of representatives of the small peoples of Siberia. It is suggested that the facts revealed by N.A. Kostrov caused a censorship ban on the full publication of the article.
Effective methods of getting rid of ailments among steppe peoples in the past certainly deserve attention, as well as the evolution of healing practices. The purpose and objectives of the study are to rethink the socio-cultural role of Ishan among steppe Kazakhs in the 19th and early 20th centuries through retrospection. Reports about the Ishan have been deposited in the collections of the Russian State Historical Archive, the United Archive of the Orenburg Region, the Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as in folk memory, narratives and memoirs of travelers. Information about the Ishan was updated as they moved deeper into the remote regions of the empire and represent diverse materials. Comparative analysis in this context was used to compare the healing activities of Ishan and Tauip people among a number of peoples: Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Azerbaijanis, Crimean Tatars, etc. The origins of the Ishan institute and their connection with the Bukhara madrasahs are revealed, as well as trends in the interpretation of the social institution of ishanism in pre-revolutionary, Soviet and modern historiography. An attempt has been made to analyze the social role of the Ishan institute in the history of the peoples of the empire in the second half of the 19th-early 20th centuries. The glossary of the topic has been studied, regarding the designation of the status and attributes of Ishan and Tauip. The glossary reflects the common perception of the steppe people of Ishan and Tauip as: a) spiritual mentors; b) defenders of their natural rights; c) healers. Sources indicate their specialization (experts in medicinal herbs, chiropractors, masters of hypnosis, magicians and magicians, etc.). The Institute of steppe healing was insufficiently studied in the pre-revolutionary period, due to a lack of information and a superficial acquaintance with this extraordinary phenomenon. In the 19th century, the Ishan found themselves in the orbit of the political struggle of the Kazakh people, in the context of the decline of the status of the khans (substitution effect), there was an increase in the influence of spiritual leaders, the Ishan. A number of them left a vivid mark in the context of protest social movements, which permanently removed the topic of steppe healers from scientific circulation. Accordingly, a more detailed study of the topic was postponed in order to trace the evolution of steppe healing in later periods of Central Asian history.
