The role of elite in the formation of ethnic identity among the Kazakhs of Western Siberia

This article considers the role of Muslim missionaries and their descendants in the formation of religious and ethnic identity of the Kazakhs of Western Siberia. Investigation bases on materials of the Kazakh archeological ethnographic expeditions of Omsk Department of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography SB RAS in 2011, 2013-2014. Consisting of scattered kins and tribes, the Turks submitted to Islam hardly. The process of Islamization took several centuries. The missionaries played an important role in these processes. They were of Middle Asia descent, who integrated to the Turkic community. Most of them immigrated to Western Siberia in 16-18 centuries. Missionaries and their descendants leaded the Islamic lifestyle and brought up children in an appropriate manner. They have seen the reason to live in advocacy of Islam and its introduction to Kazakh community and have taught them the Arabic script, Sharia, recitation and Islamic mascot supply. No one family event didn''t happen without them: from the name nomination, rite of genital mutilation, the Muslim wedding rite - Neka, to realization of kurmaldyk and funeral rites. Their way of life and a social cachet influences over neophytes. The spread of Islam got underway a mechanism for internal and external consolidation processes. The development of religious identity hastened a process, which formed the Kazakh ethnicity. Activity of missionaries and their descendants generated the transformation of traditional culture associated with the formation of ethnic culture. They had been fully engaged in the development of ethnicity in Kazakh Middle Zhuz and had rewritten the Kazakh shezhire.