An Overview of the Activities of the Special Commission on the Development of the Draft Steppe Regulations

The article is devoted to retrospective information contained in archival file № 39 of fund № 1291 of the Russian State Historical Archive (St. Petersburg) «On the formation of the Commission for drawing up the draft steppe regions regulations». The file contains documents on the formation of this commission. The article describes the features of attracting representatives of various departments to participate in the development of the draft regulation; a special role was played by the Minister of Internal Affairs and his deputies (comrades) V. Pleve, I. Durnovo, D. Tolstoy. Archival documents indicate that individuals with direct knowledge of the region and its conditions—those who were either personally acquainted with the steppe territories or professionally engaged with the administrative structure and everyday life of the local population—were involved in the work of the commission. As a result of the commission's activities, the Steppe Regulations were formulated and subsequently adopted. Russian officials adopted a document that expanded and strengthened the colonial administration in Kazakhstan. The work of the Special Commission on the development of the Steppe Regulations for Kazakhstan became an important stage in the history of the region. It reflected the complex process of interaction between the imperial authorities and the local population, and its results had a fundamental impact on the administrative, legal and socio-economic development of Kazakhstan in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. The study was carried out based on the specifics of the modern approach to studying the politics of the Russian Empire on the outskirts of the “new imperial history”.