Journal Article

Der Kampf um das Land in der kazachischen Steppe am Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts

Kendirbay, Gulnar

1999

Overview

The Russian colonization of the Kazakh steppe was characterized by the seizure of the best Kazakh grazing lands by voluntary immigrants, namely Cossacks and Russian peasants. This process began soon after the annexation of the Younger Horde in 1731 -long before the Kazakh lands were officially declared state property given to the Kazakhs for collective use in the \"Provisional Statute\" of 1868. Significantly, that \"Statute\" as well as those of 1886 and 1891 attempted no regulation of immigration, thus allowing the spontaneous and haphazard character of Russian settlement. As a result, the process from the very beginning was controlled by local bureaucrats, who, finding themselves under strong pressure on the part of the immigrants, took provisional and occasional measures to satisfy them. Even between 1906 to 1917 when the agrarian reform of Stolypin was implemented, the centerpiece of which encouraged the immigration of Russian peasants into the newly acquired provinces of the empire, the government's migration policy was conducted locally without any basis in law. Stolypin's immigration campaign was directed first and foremost at the resettlement of Russian peasants, and did not envisage the allotment of land to the nomadic Kazakhs, who were declared to hold their land only for provisional use. Their lands could be expropriated in the interests of the state and declared \"lands of the country.\" Kazakhs who decided to settle were to be granted the same 10 to 15 desiatinas of land as immigrant Russian peasants; but settled Kazakhs were obliged to give up their nomadic status and allow themselves to be registered with the status of Russian peasants. This seizure of land led to a considerable decrease of pastures and the sharp reduction of cattle -the main wealth of the nomads -and caused a critical decline in the Kazakhs' standard of living. Under these circumstances Kazakh families were forced to emigrate to neighbouring countries (China) or to graze their cattle in remote provinces. Both the impoverished groups of society (zhataq) and the Kazakh peasants (mainly in the northern provinces) increased in number as a result. However, by the beginning of this century the majority of the Kazakh population remained true to the nomadic way of life. This was due not only to the unacceptable conditions of sedentarization offered by Russian authorities, but also to the lack of agricultural experience and psychological readiness to settle. At the beginning of this century the transition to sedentary life was regarded by Kazakh society as a turning point in its history. For those who wrote on the subject, the impending change of the traditional way of life and economy was closely linked with the preservation and survival of the Kazakhs as a nation and people. The democratic movement of the Russian liberals, developed after the revolution of 1905, was sympathetic to the anti-colonial character of the Kazakh national movement, Alash. The Kazakh leaders used the liberal and oppositionist ideas of the Russian Constitutional Democratic Party to express their own political demands, namely the cessation of Russian emigrations and the declaration of Kazakh land as the Kazakh people's own property. However, the collaboration of Kazakh deputies with the Russian Kadets at the First (1906) and the Second (1907) Dumas resulted in great disappointment for them. After the February Revolution of 1917 and the downfall of tsarism, they believed that decisions concerning all important problems, including the agrarian problem, should be left to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly.

• Publisher: Franz Steiner Verlag
• Subject: ABHANDLUNGEN