Documents of the Siberian Committee as a source for research on Russia’s imperial policy in Kazakhstan in the 19th century

This article analyzes the documents and materials of the Siberian Committee of the Russian Empire as a key historical source for the study of nineteenth-century Kazakhstan. A comprehensive historiographical review demonstrates that, despite considerable attention from Russian, Kazakhstani, and foreign scholars to the imperial policy in Russia’s eastern borderlands, the activities of the Siberian Committee with respect to the Kazakh territories have remained only partially explored. Particular emphasis is placed on the Committee’s role in implementing administrative reforms, especially in drafting and introducing the Charter on the Siberian Kyrgyz of 1822, which legally abolished the khanate in the Middle Zhuz and initiated the district system of governance. The documents of the Siberian Committee make it possible to trace the integration of the Kazakh steppe into the imperial legal and economic framework, to identify the socio-economic and political consequences of Russian colonial policy, and to reveal the specific mechanisms of interaction between the central authorities and the local population. Critical analysis confirms the high degree of representativeness of these sources, while also highlighting the need to correlate them with other types of materials in order to more fully reflect the perspectives of Kazakh society. Bringing the documents of the Siberian Committee into broader scholarly circulation opens new prospects for researching nineteenth-century Kazakh history and deepens our understanding of the mechanisms of imperial governance.