Records of Steppe Rulers Steppe of the Period XV-XVIII centuries: Clerical Practices and Epistolary Heritage

The article considers the evolution of clerical traditions and clerical practices in the post-Horde states, one of which is the Kazakh Khanate.The study of creation, distribution and functioning of act sources, documents of epistolary nature is an important link in the historical reconstruction of the past of the states and peoples of Central Asia.The studied complex of historical materials consists of act sources (labels, diplomas, orders, treaties, batiks, diplomatic correspondence) and documents of epistolary character (diplomatic letters, praise odes, epic tales, letters of khans and sultans to the rulers of neighbouring states).Recently they have been actively identified in archives and manuscript repositories of different countries and introduced into the scientific turnover, becoming a unique layer of historical sources.The analysis of these documents shows the necessity and importance of their wide use, as they convey little-known historical facts, detail and reveal "white spots" and lacunas of a number of aspects of the historical past.The importance of these authentic sources in the study of macro and microhistory is quite enormous.As a result of analysing the records management of steppe rulers, it was concluded that there was a change and evolution in the part of procedural clerical practices, one of the reasons for which were changing geopolitical realities, specificity of nomadic lifestyle, universalism and lack of need for excessive bureaucracy.The building of more intensive diplomatic relations and the growth of correspondence between neighbouring countries demonstrates the transformation of templates and the content of the texts of clerical documents themselves, the loss of their stencil-like nature towards simplification and their acquisition of epistolary character.The specificity of the identified unique narrative documents demonstrates the need for a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach of researchers in studying and introducing these documents into a wide scientific circulation.