Abstract
This article examines the principal directions of the Russian Empire’s colonial policy in the Kazakh lands during the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, as well as the political, administrative, and socio-economic methods employed in its implementation. The purpose of the study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the administrative mechanisms, land policy, and resettlement measures utilized by the Tsarist government in the process of colonizing the Kazakh Steppe and to determine their impact on Kazakh society. The study draws upon documents from the Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan, pre-revolutionary official publications, statistical compilations, regional memorial books, and the scholarly works of both domestic and foreign historians. The analysis was conducted in accordance with the principles of historicism, objectivity, and systematic inquiry, employing comparative-historical, historiographical, source-critical, and content analysis methods. The findings demonstrate that the Tsarist government's colonial policy in the Kazakh lands constituted a comprehensive system based not only on military coercion but also on administrative reforms, land redistribution, resettlement policies, legal regulation, and socio-economic transformation. The study further reveals that these colonial policies exerted a significant influence on the traditional land-use system, the economic structure, and the demographic development of Kazakh society. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the systematization of the methods and mechanisms employed by the Tsarist government in the colonization of the Kazakh lands through a comparative analysis of archival documents and historiographical works from different periods, as well as in the reassessment of their historical significance from the perspective of contemporary historical methodology.