Contribution of Russian Researchers in the Collection and Study of Materials on the Customary Law of the Kazakhs (late 18th - early 20th centuries

The article analyzes the works of pre-revolutionary Russian authors, affecting various aspects of customary law as one of the main institutions for regulating the life of Kazakh nomads. The article reveals the motives of the Russian authorities organization of the study of traditional customary legal practices in the nomadic environment in the context of the increasingly growing influence of the Russian Empire in the Kazakh steppe. In this context, special attention is paid to the analysis of the contribution of Russian scientists in the collection and publication of materials on customary law of the local population, as well as the factors that cause uneven in the process of collecting materials in various regions of the province. The authors conclude that the study process was more or less well organized, especially in the Western, northwestern and Northern regions, since they were previously drawn into the orbit of the active influence of the Russian Empire. While the emphasis is on the question of the relationship between customary law of the Kazakhs from the official Empire-wide legal standards, including in terms of administrative and legal reforms in the traditional system of justice of the Kazakhs from the 60-ies of the XIX century. We are talking about the attempt of the Russian authorities to include a number of General Imperial legal norms in the ordinary legal practice of the local population by adopting and implementing numerous normative legal acts. It is concluded that thanks to the efforts of pre-revolutionary Russian researchers, a large volume of materials on various aspects of customary law, as one of the institutional components of traditional social relations among nomads, was collected and systematized. These priceless materials, which have become the property of the current generation of nomadic scholars, in fact, represent an inexhaustible source of studying not only the proper customary legal relations in the nomadic environment, but also the historical Ethnography of the Kazakhs in a wide chronological range.