Abstract
This artcile explores Russian policies toward the Kazakh people in 1784-1822 in terms of how the empire selected local Kazakh elites as its collaborators. In the late eighteenth century, the Russian empire thought of it as desirable to abolish the title of khan and entrust the governance of the steppe to another type of local elites, that is, chieftains called starshinas in Russian sources. Russia introduced several administrative organs and promoted these starshinas as representatives from local society. At the same time, it is to be noted that the empire came to envisage the strengthening of the position of khans in the early nineteenth century. Both a khan and starshinas were incorporated into one administrative organ called khanskii sovet according to a power relationship in which the authority of a khan preceded that of starshinas. On the whole, in the late eighteenth century, Russia sought to expand its control deep into the bottom of hierarchy in the Kazakh society by introducing and improving the administrative organs. In contrast, by doing so, early nineteenth-century Russia tried to determine the power relationship within the upper part of social hierarchy, that is, relationship between a khan and starshinas inside the khanskii sovet.
