Vol. 1 No. 2 (2023)

The modern political culture of Kazakhstan is the experience of interaction of Qazaq society with neighboring peoples and states that lasted for many centuries. The most important stage in its formation was the period of the second half of the 18th – the beginning of the 20th centuries, when the Qazaq Steppe became the object of Russian imperial expansion and entered active international relations with the Qing Empire and the Central Asian khanates. It is important to understand which political features of Qazaq society were formed due to the conditions of such frontier interaction, further colonization, conquest and integration of the Qazaqs into the Russian imperial space, the subsequent waves of immigrants, and the final loss of political independence. The events and processes of this period of Qazaq history were one of the many factors determining the new political order. To understand them helps to find some answers to modern challenges.

In this regard, the editorial board of the scholarly magazine “Qazaq Historical Review” and the team of the ABDI Institute for Humanities Studies has focused on the transformation of Qazaq political culture in the second half of the 18th – early 20th centuries as the theme of the next issue (No.2, 2003). The editorial board has invited the leading modern historians to publish the results of their research. We hope that the new publications will be helpful for our readers and specialists.

Articles by Maral A. Satenova and Rashid E. Orazov trace the new political realities for the Qazaqs of the Senior and Middle Zhuzes, their interaction with Russia and China, and the struggle against increasing colonization. Historians Gulfira E. Otepova, Pavel S. Shablei, and Gulmira S. Sultangalieva analyze changes in the politics and culture of Qazaq society, and their reflection in books and newspapers. Dr. Gzavier Allez addresses the topic of integration of the Qazaq elite into the colonial structure of Russian Empire. An important historical document from one of the Russian archives about the peculiarities of the production of Qazaq gunpowder is published and commented by Vladimir T. Tepkeev. Professor Svetlana I. Kovalskaya reviews a new study on the historical cartography of the Qazaq Steppe in the 17th – the beginning of the 20th centuries in the section “Critics and Bibliography”.