New Research on Historical Cartography of the Qazaq Steppe of the 17th – Early 20th Centuries

Abstract

This is a review of a new book by Kazakhstani researchers Galina Ksenzhik and Erlan Karin, “The consolidated catalog of cartographic materials on the history of Qazaqstan in 17^th – early 20^th centuries”. In this book for the first time the reader is presented with the domestic experience of preparation of a consolidated catalog of cartographic materials on the history of Qazaqstan in 17^th – early 20^th centuries, based on a comprehensive scientific interdisciplinary study. A third of the monograph is devoted to the characterization of sources, historiography, and research methodology, the rest being the characterization of cartographic materials from 1588 to 1910, i.e., the historical period of 322 years is covered. 455 European and Russian maps are described in the book. It is a huge research work. The authors emphasize the vastness of the stocks of cartographic materials of all the studied cartographic repositories, which number tens and hundreds of cases, which makes the search extremely laborious. The authors have studied foreign collections; among them there were unique cartographic collections in archives, museums and libraries of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Orenburg, Omsk, and Tashkent. The list of maps alone shows the painstaking work of researchers that preceded this publication. The authors have analyzed all the available literature on the problem under study. The book addresses a significant gap in domestic scholarship and provides future researchers with a concrete methodological toolkit, making their work requiring the involvement of cartographic materials much easier, both in terms of searching for such materials and research methodology. I am sure that the new study of Galina Nikolaevna Ksenzhik, Doctor of History, and Yerlan Tynymbayuly Karin, Candidate of Political Sciences, will be in demand by specialists and a wide readership.