Аннотация
Introduction. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Regulations on Peasant Chiefs in Steppe Territories were adopted. At the stage of development and discussion of the bill, problems in the administrative management system were revealed. Goals. The article aims to analyze the reasons for the introduction of the institution of peasant chiefs at the territorial level. To facilitate this, the paper shall consider the problems of organizing local governments, power relations between the center and steppe regions, and the government’s individual policy in the formation of the bureaucratic apparatus. Materials and methods. The materials for the study are documents from the Russian State Historical Archive (St. Petersburg, Russian Federation), namely the Collection of Zemstvo Department (Imperial Ministry of Internal Affairs), file titled ‘On the Introduction of Regulations on Peasant Chiefs in Steppe Regions’. Results. Since the late 1880s, the flow of immigrants to steppe regions had been increasing, which significantly changed the socio-economic situation. This required changes in administrative management. In order to strengthen supervision, zemstvo district chiefs were introduced in the central provinces of the Russian Empire; in the territory of Siberia those were peasant chiefs. In steppe regions, including Turgai — by analogy with the implemented reforms — the institution of peasant chiefs was introduced. Excessive burdening of district chiefs with a wide range of duties did not give any opportunity to qualitatively control the internal management of Kazakhs. The lack of public administration among Russian settlers, constant conflicts between them and the local population prompted the petition to establish the institution of peasant chiefs.