Jangir Khan Bukeev and his Elusive Identities: An Attempt of a Psychological Portrait

Abstract

The 19th century descendant of Chingis (Genghis) Khan, Jangir Khan Bukeev was an extraordinary person in extraordinary circumstances. He was the first ruler of the Kazakh steppe not only to face directly the European (Russian) colonial power, but to receive a large dose of “European irradiation” and fall under the charm of civilizational and progressivist theories, including that of sedentarization of nomads. He became the first serious reformer of the Steppe, which lead to the removal of many traditional institutions of administration and the introduction of European education and healthcare in the Kazakh environment. The ambiguity of his position in the Kazakh environment as a traditional nomad ruler and, at the same time, a Russian governor had contributed to the development of two embedded identities in his consciousness: an “eastern identity” and a “western identity”. His “eastern identity”, in turn, was plural and included a “Kazakh Nomad”, a “Tatar Muslim” and a “Mongolian Chingissid” identities. The psychological portrait of Jangir Khan, compiled on the basis of the contemporary Russian testimonies, shows us a person who was constantly in great internal tension.