The administrative-territorial division of Asian Russia: discussion of 1860th - 1887th

The basic concern of article is to research various opinions of high officials of the Russian Empire on the administrative-territorial organization of Central Asian possessions of Russia, clarification of their motivations and the reasons of realization of concrete proposals. The government discussion about the principles and forms of the administrative organization of Asian space of Russia is in the limelight of the article. The present article considers the first stage of that discussion developed right after accession of large land mass in Central Asia to the Empire. The administrative policy of the Russian Empire in its peripheries is the object of the article, and the administrative-territorial organization of the Asian part of the country is the subject of it. The special attention is paid to Central Asia which was in a primary focus of the most lively administrative-territorial debates. The analysis of written historical sources and deduction which allowed to systematize selected material acted as the methods used in the article. These methods gave the chance to draw a deduction after accumulation and interpretation of empirical material. Comparison and generalization of separate opinions allowed to unify and identify various points of view and official positions. The same aim is pursued also by the method of rising from concrete to abstract which application allowed to get a general view of the government on the organization of administration of the region regardless of concrete ideas. The principle of historicism gave the chance to consider influence of a concrete political situation in which this or that figure making the offers motivated with concrete realities was acted. System concept affords an opportunity to formulate the position of the Russian government in administrating of the Kazakh Steppe (as a system) through understanding of its administrative-territorial organization (as a subsystem). The research of the bills offered by the ministries, governor generals and other actors demanded using of the method of legal comparison. The documents of various commissions, proposals of regional governor generals which are kept in the Russian State Military Historical Archives are the sources of the article. At the end of the carried-out research the author came to a conclusion that dealing with the problem of the administrative-territorial organization of the Central Asian possessions, the Russian government was considering a factor of economy of public finances, a geographical factor of "natural borders", external circumstances, ethnic structure and level of civil development of local population. But the principle of political expediency was always a remained priority. Exactly an undisguised fear of consolidation of Kazakhs explain the rejection of aggregating of governance of the Steppe into the one administrative-territorial unit and the suppression measures against unification of administration of the Kazakh provinces for a long time.

Keywords

Authors

References