ABSTRACT
The Russian Empire colonized the territory on which clans of the Middle Horde Kazakh nomads migrated in a process that lasted approximately two hundred years. This process began in the eighteenth century with the erection along the Irtysh River of a line of forts that were manned by Cossack regiments. It continued in the nineteenth century with the settlement of the steppe and mountain foothills of Akmolinsk and Semipalatinsk oblasts. Settlement occurred essentially in two phases: 1) Cossack settlement beyond the Irtysh line in the period from the 1820s through the 1850s; and 2) Slavic peasant settlement, beginning in the late 1870s. By the turn of the twentieth century, large numbers of peasants had migrated to the region, adding to the stable numbers of Cossack troops occupying lands around their settlements [stanitsa], and significant changes had been made to the way land and water could be used by all inhabitants of the territory. In this chapter, I will examine the Cossack and peasant settlement processes, and then I will analyze the changes in nomadic land use patterns in Akmolinsk and Semipalatinsk oblasts. By the end of the century, the majority of Middle Horde Kazakhs had managed to preserve their pastoralist way of life, in spite of the restrictions on migrations caused by settlement of their lands and the carving of the steppe into administrative units. However, they, too, had begun to settle for at least part of the year. For many nomads, winter pastures had become individual property plots and migrations had shortened for all but the very wealthy livestock breeders. The purpose of this chapter is to provide important background on the socio-economic changes to the nomadic way of life, which, I will argue in Part Two, had profound implications for the practice of adat under colonial rule.
