Tsarist Veterinary Medicine as State Rhetoric of «Care»: Measures to Introduce New Improved Breeds of Livestock in the Kazakh Steppe

Abstract

The article analyzes the influence of the mechanisms of intervention of the Russian Empire in the system of traditional animal husbandry of the Kazakhs, an industry such as horse breeding, and the development of cattle. The attitude of the center to the maintenance of livestock in the steppe was defined as a shaky, unstable system of economy, which was characterized by underestimating the genuinely complex and specific nature of the type of economy. The center tried in every possible way to save the primitive economy from natural disasters, by solving the issue of haymaking and paddocks, regardless of the natural and climatic conditions of the steppe itself, improving livestock, through crossing with other breeds, also not providing for the ability to live in a harsh climate and the needs of the Kazakhs themselves hoping to get hardy offspring. In turn, the tsarist administration saw no need for this endurance. They were offering the latter an alternative way of development, in heavy-drawn type producers, first of all, as pack animals, while the cavalry needed tall, graceful in shape, riding horses. In this sense, the rhetoric of improving pastoralism was a justification for imperial rule in the steppe, covered by economic access.