S.V. Yushkov and controversies over the essence of feudal relations in the Kazakh nomadic society

The article is dedicated to professor S.V. Yushkov who in 1942-1952 studied the problems of the history of the state and law of Kazakhstan. In the course of researching Yushkov’s manuscript personal fund in the Central Archive of the Kazakhstan Republic Academy of Sciences his unpublished manuscript «Essays on the History of the Kazakh State and Law» (roughly written in 1951-1952) was found out. The article affirms that up to date there has been no complete and authentic information about the existence and location of Yushkov’s manuscript. In the article there is an attempt to analyze Yushkov’s views on the problem of specificity of nomadic peoples’ social structure on the basis of archive materials from his personal fund. In particular the article examines S.V. Yushkov’s polemics on the same problem with another Soviet historian S.L. Fooks, who in 1948 defended his doctorate dissertation «Essays on the history of the state and rights of Kazakhs in XVIII and in the first half of XIX». His dissertation was found in 2003 and published in 2008. The scientific importance of the works by S.V. Yushkov and S.L. Fooks on the Kazakh nomadic society history can scarcely be exaggerated. The article contains the analysis of the controversies (in which Soviet historians took part) on the problem of nomadic peoples’ social structure and the article presents the historians’ analysis of the theory of «nomadic feudalism» in 1947-1952. The discussions were held at the Academy of Sciences of Kazakh Soviet Republic and were organized by S.V. Yushkov’s initiative. The last discussion was held probably in January-February 1952 is the most interesting to study. The essence of the controversy was concerned with the next question. What was the main means of production: the cattle or land S.V. Yushkov persisted in his opinion that the feudal land property in the form of the disposal of pasture constituted the basis of the feudal relations in the nomadic society. V.F. Shakhmatov expressed an opposite viewpoint. His views corresponded to S.L. Fooks’s views. According to Shakhmatov, the basis of feudalism was private cattle property in the conditions of nomadic cattle breeding. The actuality of the problem caused a long discussion in the Soviet historical science in 1950-1980. In January-February, 1954 in Tashkent there was held a united scientific session of Soviet historians. The problem of the specificity of nomadic peoples’ social structure was on the session agenda. Later the discussion was continued on the pages of the journal «Problems of History». The scientists’ conclusions were further developed by the Soviet historiography in 1960-1980. Besides the article explains the essence of the notion of «patriarchal-feudal relations» concerning nomadic peoples, later widely used in the Soviet historiography. In conclusion the article shows the role of S.V. Yushkov in the statement of the problem relating to the nature of nomadic peoples’ feudal property. The discussion of the problem was considered to be one of the most complicated theoretical problems for the Soviet historians.

Keywords

Authors

References