The “Belt Bridle” of the Empire: National Politics, Imagology and Internal Criticism in the Report of the Official S. Rybakov on the Kazakhs in 1896

The article is devoted to the analysis of the report of the official and ethnographer S. G. Rybakov on his trip to the Kazakhs in 1896. The document is considered not just as an ethnographic description, but as a valuable source on the history of imperial reflection and national policy of the Russian Empire on its eastern outskirts. The author of the article shows that the report of S. G. Rybakov’s complex text constructs a system of images (Kazakhs as “noble savages”, Tatars as predatory intermediaries, Germans as exemplary colonists), describes the tools of imperial integration (administration, economy, enlightenment), and provides a merciless internal critique of the shortcomings of Russian life on the outskirts. Through the prism of the report, imperial policy appears as a lively, internally conflicted process of self-reflection and the search for ways to optimize management, where the declared “softness” (“belt restraint”) collides with the realities of the “darkness” of Russian immigrants and the arbitrariness of officials. The scientific novelty of the research lies in a comprehensive imagological and political-historical analysis of the source, which previously attracted the attention of mainly folklorists.