29. The history of assessment of the Great Zhuz with Russia.

The first stage of the expansion of Russia's control of Central Asia was the conquest or annexation of the Great Horde. In the 1730s, when the khans of the Small and Middle hordes swore their fealty to the Russian empress Anna Ioannovna, one part of the Great Horde joined the clans of Er Ali, Abu'l Khayr's son, and became Russian subjects. The majority of the Great Horde, however, remained under the control of the Jungar state. When the Jungar empire was defeated in 1756, vast new pastures were opened up for these Kazakhs who were now under Chinese rule. One group migrated to Jungaria; another remained in the Tashkent area and adopted a semisedentary life-style, some of them joining the agricultural Karakalpak population. This second group became subjects of Kokand when the troops of Alim Khan captured Tashkent in 1808. A third group camped in the eastern Semirech'e region, and quickly established their independence from China.

By the first part of the nineteenth century this third group, ruled by Sultan Suiuk (son of Ablai), found itself forced to choose between two powerful, expansionist states, Russia and Kokand. Suiuk decided that rule by Kokand was the greater evil and so in 1818 swore his loyalty to Russia. This brought an additional 55,000 Kazakhs under Russian rule. The Russians were quick to build on this advantage; in 1820 the governor general of western Siberia sent a military detachment of 120 cossacks to the territory of the Great Horde to secure the trade routes and to gain Russian control over the area without force. In 1824 an additional 50,000 Kazakhs accepted Russian administration. The population was ruled in accordance with the 1822 reforms but was released from the yasak (annual tribute). By 1826 the Russians controlled the entire Karatai region as well. Further expansion among the Great Horde was stalled by the threat of Kenisary Qasimov. It was not until June 1846 that a new okrug of western Siberia was created in the region just north of Lake Zaisan. In 1847 the Russians consolidated their hold over the Kopalsk region when all of the Kazakhs migrating between the Lepsi and Ili rivers, an additional 40,000 families, accepted Russian administration. This resulted in the formation of a council on January 10, 1848, to administrate the Great Horde; in 1854 this territory was made part of the newly created Semipalatinsk guberniia.³¹

The Russians also consolidated their hold over the Kazakhs of the Middle and Small hordes by building a series of military outposts throughout the steppe; Kokpekty was built in 1820, Kokchetav and Karkaralinsk in 1824, and Baian-Aul in 1826. Fort Aleksandrovsk was constructed in 1834 on the Man­gyshlak Peninsula and a new military line was established between the Emba and Ui rivers. During this same period Khiva, under the rule of Khan Muham­mad Rahim (reigned 1806-1825), was expanding northward into the Syr Darya and Aral Sea regions.

In the 1820s and 1830s the Russian authorities at Orenburg and Omsk sent several military missions to explore the steppe and recommend the course of Russia's future military strategy. One of the results of these missions was the ill-fated campaign against Khiva in 1839, led by Governor General V. A. Perovskii of Orenburg. Told of the military weakness of the Khivan forces, Perovskii overestimated the strength of his own forces and wholly ignored the problems of a remote desert campaign. Perovskii's expedition lost nearly 1,000 men and most of its transport; Perovskii himself was forced to flee for his life across the desert and steppe. This travesty led him to conclude that the successful military conquest of Central Asia could only succeed if the Russian military presence were extended deep into the steppe. Military outposts were therefore built in Turgai (now AmengePdy) and Irgiz in 1845 and Atbasar in 1846. In 1847 Perovskii began an ambitious project to build two fortified lines, one (the Novo-Aleksandrovsk line) from the northeast corner of the Aral Sea for 300 miles along the Syr Darya, and the other to run southward from Semipalatinsk. The construction of these two lines began with the building of a fort at Raim (Aral'sk) and Kopalsk (in the region north of the Ili River) and ended six years later with the construction of Kazalinsk in 1853 and the founding of Vernyi (later renamed Alma-Ata) just south of the Ili River in 1854. After this the Russians began their campaign against Kokand, taking the fort at Aq Mechet, which they renamed Perovsk (later Kzyl-Orda).