The duma electoral system of 1906 and formation of new ethno-political geography of the steppe provinces of the Russian Empire

Abstract

The relevance of the problem is caused by the growing interest in the late imperial period of Russia and the "imperial" history of the newly independent countries of Central Asia. The article is devoted to the political process that took place in the Steppe regions (the territory of modern Kazakhstan) and was associated with the provision of the voting right in the first parliament - the State Duma to the local population (not only Russian, but also "alien"- "inorodtsy"). The leading methodological approach is a system approach that allows us to show how the creation of the State Duma changed the political aspects of the traditional political system of the multinational and multi-confessional Russian Empire. This article was written based on new archival materials, which demonstrate that the elections became an important factor in the process of formation of a new ethno-political geography of the whole empire, its Asian provinces and development of political life there. The article may be useful to researchers studying parliamentarism in the late period of the Russian Empire.