Tatar mullahs sent to the steppe “for clarification, disclosure and implementation of the rules”

The article presents materials on the intermediary role of Tatar mullahs in the process of implementing administrative reforms in the 20–30s of 19th century on the territory of the Middle and Junior zhuzes. The Tatar mullahs, both with the diwan [okruzhnoy prikaz], the volost sultans of the Siberian Kazakh region and with the three parts (Western, Middle, Eastern) of the Orenburg Kazakh region, were engaged not only in explaining the rules of the imperial laws in the Kazakh Steppe. In fact, the range of their activities was wide: taking the oath of senior sultans and sultan rulers, organizing paperwork, teaching Kazakh children Tatar literacy, collecting information about inner political events in Kazakh nomads for the regional administration and St. Petersburg, tracking the mood of the Kazakh population and the behavior of the Kazakh nomadic elite representatives.