The activity of orthodox missionaries among the Kalmyks of Semirechensk region in the second half of the XIX century

The article for the first time examines an almost unexplored, but very important aspect of the missionary activity of the state apparatus of the Russian Empire and the Russian Orthodox Church in the Kazakh steppe, namely, the conversion to Orthodoxy of the Kalmyks (Oirats), forced in the 1860s to move from China to the territory of the Russian Empire, to the Semirechensk region. The source base of the study was the documents of local Russian public administration institutions, now stored in the Central State Archives of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The main attention is paid to the three most important areas of missionary activity among the Chinese Kalmyks - their acceptance of Russian citizenship, their conversion to Orthodoxy and their enrollment in the Cossack estate, that is, joining the Semirechensk Cossack army. The authors of the article come to the conclusion that the direction, content and methods of Orthodox missionary activity among the Kalmyks were the same in their fundamental features throughout the Kazakh steppe. A particularly active and significant role in missionary work among the Kalmyks, as well as among the Kazakhs, was played by the bureaucratic apparatus of the Governor-General and military governorship of the Semirechensk region, the governing bodies of the Semirechensk Cossack army, as well as Orthodox brotherhoods and Orthodox missions. Violent methods were not used when converting Kalmyks to Orthodoxy. On the contrary, peaceful preaching of the fundamentals of the Christian doctrine and Christian education organized at the primary school level were widely used. At the same time, the missionaries, as well as the local authorities assisting them, including the Cossacks, also widely used various methods of temptation in their activities, including unrealistic promises of an economic and social nature.