Tatar Officials in the Orenburg Governorate’s Chancellery: Their Activities on the Kazakh Steppe (Second Half of the Eighteenth Century)

Abstract This article uncovers the roles played by Tatar translators, interpreters and clerks during the Kazakh steppe’s political integration into the Russian empire. It reveals their role in the Russian administration’s diplomatic negotiations with Kazakh khans and sultans and their role in gathering essential information about events on the Kazakh steppe and the attitudes of influential members of the Kazakh nomadic elite.