The issue of religion in connection with public education as an element of the administrative management system in the Kyrgyz Inner Horde in the second half of the 19th century

This article examines the issue of religion in relation to the issue of public education in the Kyrgyz Inner Horde in the second half of the 19^th century. The inevitable introduction of Russian schools, which embodied the civic model of education, led to a competition between Islamic and civic education. Islamic education in the Kazakh steppe was initially based on the activities of Tatar mullahs. By the example of the document from the F.K. Girs’s Commission of 1873 and the information reflected in the publications by pre-revolutionary researchers A.E. Alektorov and A.N. Kharusina on school education and religious life in the Inner Horde, it is shown that, over time, the Tatar influence was recognized by the imperial authorities as undesirable and contrary to the goals of developing the civic-mindedness among the Kazakhs, to the unity with the Russian ethnic group and to the building of a united civil nation. In that regard, the projects of certain restrictive measures against the “Tatar education”, as well as protectionism in the trade sphere, began to be put forward. At the same time, two contradictory trends seem to be visible in the historical development of the Kyrgyz Inner Horde: on the one hand, it was the initiation of European education resulting in the construction of the schools with Russian language teaching, and, on the other hand, there was an increased introduction of Islam into the daily life of Kazakhs by Dzhanger Khan. The field of education needed constant care from the state and local authorities in order to carry out an effective acculturation policy among the nomadic aliens. One of the measures was seen in the increase of government schools practicing teaching in Russian with the inclusion in the curriculum of the native Kazakh language and the Mohammedan teachings.

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