The Land Question in Kazakh Periodicals and Data from Statistical Expeditions of the Russian Empire (Early 20th Century)

Abstract

The article examines the specific ways in which the land question in Kazakh society in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries was raised in the press, in conjunction with the materials of the statistical expeditions conducted by the Russian Empire in the Steppe Regions. The aim of the study is to determine the scholarly and cognitive content of the data collected in the course of imperial statistical research and their practical function within the colonial administrative system, as well as to analyze the experience of the Kazakh national press in transforming these data into a system of arguments aimed at defending the integrity of Kazakh lands and the historical interests of the people.

The article focuses on the specific features of the statistical expeditions’ study of the Kazakhs’ traditional land-use system, economic structure, pasturelands, the location of winter and summer pastures and seasonal migration routes. It demonstrates that the ethnographic, economic, and statistical data collected by these expeditions, on the one hand, constituted a valuable body of primary sources for the study of the socioeconomic history of the Kazakh Steppe and, on the other, served the administrative and colonial interests of the imperial authorities in the process of re-demarcating land resources, determining the extent of so-called “surplus land”, and designating territories for settlers. In this context, imperial statistics are interpreted not merely as an instrument for the production of scholarly knowledge, but also as a mechanism for surveying, classifying, and governing colonial space.