The emergence of the system of governance for the Bashkirs in the Orenburg region in the 18th century

The system of efficient governance over the Bashkirs emerged almost two centuries after they had voluntarily taken out Russian citizenship. The problem was the lack of institutional elite above the tribal government. Unlike other nomad peoples in the south-east of Russia Bashkir tribes did not form hierarchy. All important decisions from death sentences to declarations of war were taken only at people’s assemblies. This fact ruled out the tested integration method to be applied to the Bashkirs to incorporate the most loyal part of ethnic elite into the service class of the Russian state. Under the terms of voluntary integration into Russia Bashkirs undertook to independently guard the south-eastern border which allowed the Bashkirs to preserve their tribal militia that was not to report to Russian authorities. Any administrative pressure on the Bashkirs would cause military uprising which the Russian authorities did not have enough strength to suppress. The solution of the Bashkir issue was found in mid-18th century. The new system of governance for the Bashkirs did not mean coercion by force or “conquest” as some foreign scholars insist. The main ideas of reorganized governance for the Bashkirs belong to V.N. Tatishchev, head of the Orenburg Commission, who called on the government to repeal the common practice of inheriting senior’s position and introduce the elective principle. Elected seniors were supposed to constitute hierarchical administrative vertical that was to report to local authority. This reform was not confronted by the Bashkirs as such hierarchical community structure with rigid discipline corresponded to their own idea of martial law, which was justified at that time by worsened relations between the Bashkirs and Kazachs. With the Bashkir community being transformed on the principle of military subordination, the Russian authorities acquired an instrument for direct governing the Bashkir communities.