Administrative Acculturation of Indigenous Population of the Turkestan Province in the Russian Legislation of 1865-1866

The paper is aimed at studying the degree of influence of the Russian Europeanized trend on traditional institutions of the indigenous population and at identifying the main direction of administrative transformations. To achieve these goals, the following tasks should be solved: to clarify the ideology of administrative transformations in Central Asia; to determine the degree of familiarity of the Russian administration with local political tradition; to disclose basic principles that guided the power structures of the empire at the turn of a new governance system establishment. Methods and materials. The sources of this study are represented with published legislative acts, as well as archived projects dedicated to the formation of the Russian administration system for the newly annexed territories of the Turkestan Province. Historical and logical methods, criticism and analysis of published and unpublished sources, comparative legal study, institutional and comparative methods, as well as a civilizational approach are used in the paper. The historiography of the issue is extremely limited. Analysis.The primary administration of the indigenous population with the use of all existing draft organizations for the governance of the Turkestan Province will be considered in this work for the first time. In the paper the organization of public administration of indigenous people of the Turkestan province of the Russian Empire is considered from the position of acculturation. Terminology and competency of using the methodologies of sociology for historical and politological research have been explained. Bills and the Temporary Statute of Management of the Turkestan province show variety and dynamics of views of representatives of the Russian administration on a problem of applying the traditional institutions of administration in a completely new management system. Intention of the Russian government to make the primary administration the most understandable to the local population has been proved. Results. The study of sources allows reveal the presence of four various tendencies among the Russian boundary administration. Some officials have supported the maximum preservation of local traditions. Others have sought to limit the local institutions by using the tools of power approved in the other peripheries of the empire. The third have intended to accelerate expansion of all-imperial order to the Turkestan province. But the soft combination of local customs and all-imperial elements which had to provide a peaceful and gradual ingrowth of the region into the unified imperial space became the manifestation of wisdom of the central government. The research of the process of construction of the regional administration system shows that representatives of the imperial power have embodied the idea to use the traditional administration institutions. However, some mistakes were made, which can be explained by bad knowledge of traditional administration institutions of the settled population of the region. An active attraction of indigenous people to the public positions has been recognized as the most important principle of the organization of primary administration. At last, all primary administration had to be based on the election law approved in the all-Russian scale. We make general conclusion that in 1865-1866 administrative acculturation in the sphere of primary administration of the Turkestan province was minimized.