SUMMARY:

The article by Anotolii Remnev and Olesia Sukhikh investigates the problem of communication between the Kazakh elite and the imperial state starting from the eighteenth and up to the early twentieth century. The cultural and political modes of the Russian state’s interaction with its subjects evolved from semi-medieval practices (amanat) to the Enlightenment project of civilizing “the barbarians” and demonstrating the diversity of the empire, and from the idea of integrating the Kazakh elite into the great and strong modernized state to the moment when [Russian] nationalizing overtones began to dominate. At this point, the Eurasianist imagination redefined “Asia” (and the Kazakhs as a part of the latter) as an integral part of Russia-Eurasia. To catch the complex dynamics of imperial communication with the Kazakhs, the authors analyze different ceremonies – coronation; amanat and its interpretations by those who kept and who sent “honorable hostages”; and the tradition of sending Kazakh delegations to the imperial capital, as well as the more modern version of this tradition (excursions organized for the Kazakhs by the imperial bureaucracy inspired by the Orientalist messianic ideal). The intention of these excursions was to get the Kazakh representatives acquainted with the empire; their carefully elaborated programs reveal the image and meaning of the empire that the imperial government wanted to convene to the Kazakh elite.
The authors consider the reconstructing of the Kazakh original “reading” of the empire as the most challenging problem of their research. The article carefully traces, whenever it is possible, different Kazakh interpretations of the “imperial messages” in their own terms and contexts.