Colonial Mediation as a “Trauma”: Leaders of the Kazakh Intelligentsia in the Service of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries

The article, based on the personal texts of the leaders of the Kazakh intelligentsia and their sociocultural environment, substantiates the influence of the traumatic experience of the community on the involvement in the performance of the functions of colonial intermediaries on the eastern outskirts of the empire in the second half of the 19th -early 20th centuries.The choice of the chronological framework of the study is due to the actualization of the tasks of empire-building on the eastern periphery of Russia, the shift of the vector of colonization from Western and Eastern Siberia to the Steppe Region -a region in which the autochthonous population was numerically predominant.The need for social and cultural incorporation of autochthonous peoples, primarily the Kazakhs, leading a nomadic lifestyle, initiated the practice of mobilizing local elites who were actively involved in various spheres of life in the region.The position of the imperial authorities consisted in Russification and assimilation of the descendants of titled aristocratic families who demonstrated political loyalty, and the use of the group to solve current problems of overcoming cultural differences between the Russian and non-Russian populations.The study established that the desire of the imperial authorities to Russify and assimilate ethnic elites, with their endowment with the functions of colonial intermediaries, was aimed at creating a model for the incorporation of non-Russians into Russian society.At the same time, representatives of the titled national aristocracy accepted the identity of the new social and ethnic environment, fragmentarily, while maintaining strong relationships with their fellow tribesmen.The personal and professional formation of future leaders of the Kazakh intelligentsia was realized in the context of the wide popularity of the ideas of the Enlightenment.The belief in the ideals of progress, the evolutionary development of society, the "maturation" of backward peoples and the importance of "civilizing" in relation to them, placed the Kazakh intelligentsia educated according to European standards in an initially discriminatory situation of social, legal and cultural restrictions.The experience of trauma acquired by Kazakh intellectuals at all stages of their biographies significantly modified their ideas about the scale and significance of mediation tasks in the service of the Russian Empire, contributed to the formation of an identity crisis, which was expressed in the formulation of special strategies and practices for adapting to new life circumstances.In the late 19th -early 20th centuries, many leaders of the Kazakh intelligentsia were forced to abandon the continuation of a military or administrative career, moving into socio-political activity, including engagement with reformist and liberal currents of the time, which significantly removed them from the sphere of mediation tasks emanating from the imperial power.