Historiography of the Institution of Biys (from 1917 to mid – 1930s): Debate on the Issue of «Classless Tribal or Class Feudalistic Kazakh Society»

Abstract

The article reviews the polemics among the soviet researchers upon the social relations of Kazakh society in the pre-soviet era. The findings of authors had different approaches regarding this issue: one group of researchers considered Kazakh society classless, with the intact tribal relations, whereat the tribe was the core autonomous subject of law; other researchers believed that the development of commodity exchange economy and different noneconomic forces had led to social class differentiation into two polar groups.