The Kazakh-Russian conflicts of the 17th–18th centuries were a series of armed confrontations between the Kazakh Khanate and the Tsardom of Russia, later the Russian Empire, as well as their subjects: the Cossacks, Bashkirs, and Kalmyks. There were mutual raids, looting, and the abduction of people into slavery. The raids began during the reign of Tauke Khan in 1690 and continued intermittently until the end of the 18th century. Isolated raids also occurred in the early and late 19th century.
Background
In 1687, for the first time after a long hiatus, attempts were made to renew diplomatic relations between the Kazakh Khanate and the Tsardom of Russia. Tauke Khan sent an embassy to Tobolsk, led by the Tashim Batyr, bearing gifts and a letter to Moscow. The embassy aimed to restore previous political and trade ties. The next embassy was sent in 1689-1690, headed by Tumanchi Batyr. However, no agreements were signed. Despite Tauke Khan's efforts to establish relations with the Russian Tsardom, Kazakh raids on Russian subjects began. For instance, during the winter of 1689/1690, a raid was carried out on a Russian merchant caravan led by Kashka. Tauke denied his involvement and promised to capture and punish the raiders.
According to V. Ya. Basin, the causes of the conflict were frequent raids by Cossack communities on the Kazakh steppe, capturing a significant number of prisoners, cattle, and horses, as well as the advance of tsarist forces deep into Kazakh lands. Basin argues that "therefore, the Kazakh raids were not 'banditry' but rather an offensive-defensive tactic, stemming from the specific nature of their resistance to tsarism". R. D. Temirgaliyev believes that Kazakh khans claimed control over groups of Siberian Tatars, whom the Russian authorities, in turn, considered their subjects. Historian E. A. Abil suggests that the descendants of the nomadic subjects of the Khanate of Sibir, who later became subjects of Tauke Khan, viewed the pastures in southern Western Siberia as their ancestral territory and frequently raided Siberian settlements, merchants, and salt producers against the khan's wishes.
Kazakh raids on Cossack settlements
1690
According to the Yesipov Chronicle, the Kazakhs approached a fort undetected. On the night of 2 August 1690, they stormed and plundered the fort, capturing two Russian servicemen from Tyumen and about 30 local men and women, killing around 20 Tarkhan Tatars, and seizing horses and livestock. On 4 August, a large detachment of over 700 men set out in pursuit from Tobolsk and Tyumen, led by A. V. Klepikov, consisting of boyar sons, mounted Cossacks, and Siberian Tatars. The detachment tracked the Kazakh forces for 38 days but was unable to locate them.
In November 1690, another embassy was sent to Tobolsk, headed by Kabai, to resolve issues that had arisen due to mutual raids. At the same time, negotiations were held at Lake Yamyshev between representatives of the Tobolsk administration, headed by steward Pavel Sharygin, and prominent Kazakh murzas Sary and Keldei, who were sent by the khan to sign a trade agreement on the terms of Central Asian merchant mediation. However, due to an attack on Russian hunters on the banks of the Irtysh, Sary and Keldei were captured and taken to Tobolsk, where Sary soon died. Keldei remained imprisoned.
1691
In July 1691, according to the Yesipov Chronicle, “the military forces of the Cossack (Kazakh) Horde, Muslims, captured two settlements under the jurisdiction of Tobolsk - Utyatskaya and Kamyshevskaya - on the Tobol River. In these settlements, they burned the Tobolsk bailiff Spiridon Rachkovsky, a boyar’s son, along with his wife, children, and many local Cossacks and peasants with their wives and children within the yard, and killed others and captured about two hundred people.” According to N. A. Abramov, the Tsarevo settlement, which later became the city of Kurgan, was also pillaged at that time In the autumn, another embassy was sent to Tobolsk, again led by Tumanchi and Kabai, who conveyed the khan's disapproval of the raids.
1692
In June 1692, Kazakhs and Karakalpaks again attacked villages and settlements around the Tsarevo settlement on the Tobol river, pillaging twenty households in the Utyatskaya settlement, beating peasants and capturing their families. The Kazakh forces were intercepted near the Tsarevo settlement by a centurion and a hundred local Cossacks. In the ensuing battle, the centurion and 40 Cossacks were killed. A detachment of 600 men led by Tobolsk resident Fyodor Tutolmin, consisting of boyar sons, mounted Cossacks, Tyumen Tatars, and local Cossacks, was sent in pursuit but failed to catch the Kazakhs. The Holstein diplomat Eberhard Isbrand Ides wrote that in June, the Kazakh forces were within 15 miles of Tyumen.
In an effort to resolve the situation, in July 1692, the Russian authorities sent an embassy to Turkestan, headed by boyar's son Andrei Nepripaskov, accompanied by Cossack Vasily Kobyakov. The embassy was received in the presence of representatives from most clans. The khan no longer promised to punish the raiders and instead accused the Russian authorities of illegally detaining Sary and Keldei. The embassy refused to guarantee Keldei's release, demanding the unconditional release of the Russia captives and threatening war. In response, the Kazakh nobility demanded a severance of all relations. The embassy was taken captive and the raids continued.
1693
On 15 July 1693, Kazakhs and Karakalpaks attacked the villages of the Yalutorovsk settlement, killing 42 local Cossacks and peasants and capturing 69. Vasily Shulgin, having gathered the Tobolsk boyar sons, mounted Cossacks, Tatars, local Cossacks, and peasant hunters from various settlements, set out into the steppe on 25 July, not waiting for Ivan Molchanov's reinforcements. Previously, the Kazakhs had always avoided confrontation with the main forces, so an early departure was necessary. According to the Yesipov Chronicle, Shulgin managed to assemble a force of 318 men, not counting hunters and residents from other settlements. The Naryshkin List of the Siberian Chronicle adds that Shulgin's group included 50 Tobolsk boyar sons, 60 mounted Cossacks from Lithuanian and newly converted groups, 45 Tatars, and an additional 172 local Cossacks and “willing peasants” from the Yalutorovsk and Suyer settlements, not counting hunters from other settlements.
On 27 July, Shulgin encountered the Kazakh Khanate's forces near Lake Semiskul. The Russians’ gunpowder cart broke down, forcing them to take a defensive position in the open steppe. A heavy rain started, soaking their guns. The Kazakhs and Karakalpaks launched a lance attack, and nearly all the Russian forces were killed. Shulgin and his brothers Yakov and Ivan perished. According to survivors who escaped captivity, they faced around three thousand opponents. The Yesipov Chronicle records Shulgin's force's losses at 357 killed and 14 captured, who later escaped; they reported the events to Molchanov, who was on his way to assist but arrived too late and returned to Yalutorovsk, where he remained until autumn.
Following the defeat of the main Russian forces in Siberia, the settlements and towns along the Iset and Tobol Rivers, including the Siberian capital of Tobolsk, faced a new threat. Fortifications and guard posts in towns and forts were strengthened.
Irtysh River raid
Simultaneously with battle on the Tobol River, another Kazakh detachment led by Sultans Ablay and Kazy burned down the recently established Shipitsyna (Takmyk) settlement on the Irtysh River above Tara in July 1693 and took captives. Sultan Kazy himself told the ambassador Skibin that he had led 1,200 men to plunder Shipitsyna. The Kazakhs failed to capture the fort, but they caused significant destruction in the settlement with a large fire.
1693 to 1700
Tauke Khan continued to send envoys to Tobolsk with letters to the Russian tsar, denying his involvement in the raids and demanding the release of Kelday. In October 1693, he wrote: “From Adam’s time until now, such a matter has not been heard of, that an envoy should be detained for bandits.” The Khan promised to release the embassy of Andrei Nepripasov and Vasily Kobyakov in exchange for the release of Murza Kelday, also expressing desire to renew trade and diplomatic relations after the exchange. In his letter, Tauke condemned the raids conducted by his subjects Sultan Kazy and the Karakalpaks on Siberian settlements, adding, “I strongly rebuked them for such an evil deed and shamed them, telling them that they should prosper in their lands, while we remain here. We do not favor nor need such evil banditry and misdeeds, nor do we approve of such follies occurring between realms.”
In 1694, the Tobolsk authorities released Kelday, rewarding him with valuable gifts, and sent another embassy to Tauke Khan led by Fyodor Skibin and Matvey Troshin. The primary mission of this embassy was to secure the release of the previous envoys, Andrei Nepripasov and Vasily Kobyakov. However, these envoys faced harsh treatment and were held for an extended period. Nepripasov died in captivity, while his companions had to escape through a roundabout route via Bukhara. Kazakh raids became less intense; in 1694, they were limited to attacks on the Chumlyatskaya settlement along the Miass River on 14 May and 9 August. Over 200 attackers besieged the fort and captured 34 residents. From 1695 to 1699, there were a series of minor raids on the Utyatskaya settlement.
In the Map Book of Siberia (1699–1701), on the map of the city of Tara's surroundings, Semyon Remezov noted repeated Kazakh attacks on the Tukule volost and their incursions into the Tara, Baraba, and Tyumen districts.
The raids of the 1690s covered a stretch of land nearly a thousand kilometers long. The governors of Tobolsk, S. I. Saltykov and A. F. Naryshkin, reported: “In the years 198, 199, 200, 202, and 203, Kazakh hordes and Karakalpak warriors invaded the Tobolsk district, attacking Tarkhansky fort, Yalutorovskaya, Tsarevo Gorodishche, Utyatskaya, Chumlyatskaya, Ishim’s Korkina settlements, the village of Voskresenskoye under the Metropolia, and the Yamyshevo Lake anchorage, killing many Russian servicemen, Tatars, peasants, and yasak people, taking them and their families into captivity and driving off livestock.” Based on surviving records, Kazakh forces captured over 432 people during the raids of the 1690s. Hundreds of cattle and horses were seized, and hundreds of servicemen and civilians from southern Western Siberia were killed.
The Kazakhs and Karakalpaks mainly sold captives to Central Asian states. According to the Russian envoys Fyodor Skibin and Matvey Troshin, by 1694, over a thousand Russian captives taken by nomads were held as slaves in Bukhara alone, with over two thousand more from the Russian Tsardom in Khiva.
1700 to 1703
In 1701, five raids were carried out. Kazakh detachments besieged the Chumlyatskaya and Utyatskaya settlements, burned the Ust-Uyskoye village belonging to the Dalmat Monastery, and captured peasants near the villages of Smolina in Tsarevo Gorodishche and Slobodchikova in the Ymurtskaya settlement. In 1703, the village of Arkhipova, located 13 versts from Ymurtskaya settlement, was plundered. A detachment of settlement dragoons from the Tobolsk regiment pursued the Kazakh raiders into the steppe and succeeded in freeing the captives.
Fearing further raids, residents abandoned the village of Arkhipova and moved to more protected areas. The settlement remained deserted even by the time the Russian-German historian Gerhard Friedrich Müller's survey was conducted in 1741. At the request of residents threatened by raids, some villagers were relocated to the Russian side of the Tobol River. Moving the most threatened settlements across the Tobol reduced the risk of raids in the northern part of the Middle Tobol region, but the colonization of this area was put on hold for several decades.
Northern raids by the Kazakhs (1702–1727)
From 1702 to 1714, Kazakh troops attacked large Cossack convoys carrying grain and fish several times as they traveled from the Volga region to Yaikskaya Gorodok.
In 1709, the Kazakhs captured a huge Cossack convoy heading for Syzran.