who had emerged from the Nogai Horde, were assigned to be part of the Kazakh ethnic group back in the 18th century by the will of the Russian Empire, these two peoples of diverse origins who had lived different lives in the past continued to remain quite distant from being merged into a single ethnicity until the early 20th century. Already in the

But in 1836-1837, during the rule of Zhangir Khan, Bukey’s heir, there was an uprising of the Alshyns under the leadership of the batyr (which is an honorific term meaning ‘brave warrior’ in the Kazakh military culture and language) Isatay Taimanov and the poet Makhambet Utemisov against the Khan’s power. The latter’s poems quite clearly

Given the logistical capabilities of that time, the idea of the inclusion of a state, separated from Russia by a vast, droughty, and sparsely populated area, to the Russian empire, even as a vassal possession with the status of a protectorate, probably seemed unreachable, and therefore, unattractive and distant from reality to those who were making

Kazakhstan were found to be useful to the Russians when they sent a second military expedition to Khiva in November 1839 after the British army had occupied Kabul in August 1839. Ten thousand four hundred fifty camels, which were used to transport the Russian troops, were accompanied by 2,090 Kazakhs. But the military expedition never reached Khiva

In 1718, Abulkhair was made the first Khan of the Alshyns. It should be noted that he was one of the few documented khans in what is now Kazakhstan to have not been descended from either Janibek Khan or Kerei Khan, the founders of the medieval Kazakh state. That is the fact of his having been proclaimed Khan of the Alshyns did not mean, in politica