Evolution of the status of the military elite of the serving Mishars and its role in the system of administration and military control in the process of integration of South Ural into the Russian state in the second half of the 16th - 60s of the 19th century

The purpose of this historical and ethnological study is to consider the legal status, privileges and powers that were granted to the military elite of the serving Mishars in the process of their participation in the Russian colonization of the South Ural. In the management of the Mishars, the government relied on foremen recruited from the ranks of the Mishar elite. The paper focuses on the clannishness of the institution of elders and the cantonal officials who replaced them, and chronologically traces the range of their duties. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that in modern historiography, the evolution of the formation of the service elite of the South Ural Mishars in the integration activities of the Russian state in the region was not the object of special research. The author, based on a comprehensive study of published and unpublished archival materials, legislative acts of the Russian Empire and a set of works by researchers of the XX-XXI centuries, which consider certain aspects of the service of the Mishar senior leadership, comes to the conclusion not only about the importance of senior officers and cantonal officialdom in the life of the serving mishars of the South Ural, but also about their role in strengthening the position of the Russian government in the region. As a link between the Mishars and the Russian administration, the service elite gradually turned into an important part of the state apparatus on the ground. Later, it retained considerable influence until the abolition of the cantonal system. The study in addition to scientific methods was used methods of historical science, such as historical-genetic, chronological, retrospective, and as the primary method of socio-historical analysis of the processes that occurred in the military-serving elite Mishars. The study in addition to scientific methods was used methods of historical science, such as historical-genetic, chronological, retrospective, and as the primary method of socio-historical analysis of the processes that occurred in the military-serving elite Mishars. The relevance of the study is determined by the tasks of the reviving interest among the peoples of the region, in particular among the Mishars, in the history of military service elites and their role in the integration of the South Ural into the Russian statehood. Therefore, the practical significance of this work is that the presented material can be used in teaching academic disciplines on the history of the South Ural, the history of the peoples of the South Ural, the military history of the region and the Fatherland, in the patriotic education of young people.