New materials from the archive of A.I. Schrenk: towards the history of the creation of the Karkaraly fortification

Research Article

Abstract

In 1824, Karkaralinsk was founded as the location of one of the first district orders of the Russian Empire, created to manage the outer districts on the territory of the Kazakh steppes, which was a direct consequence of the administrative reform of 1822. The article analyzes the written sources that scientists used to describe the development of Karkaralinsk as the administrative center and military fortification of the Omsk region's outer district in the late 1830s and early 1860s. Written sources give only a rough idea of the layout and construction of the city. For the first time, a source analysis of the plan of Karkaralinsk is carried out, which is stored in the St. Petersburg branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the documents of collection № 317, containing notes by the scientist, botanist of the Russian Imperial Botanical Garden, privat – dozent of geology and mineralogy of the University of Dorpat, traveler A.I. Schrenk (1816–1876). In 1840- 1843, he traveled through the «Kyrgyz and Zyungorsky» steppes and visited Karkaralinsk and its surroundings several times, collecting herbariums, recording interesting ethnographic and historical information, and noting ancient monuments, including ancient burial mounds. Using the information potential of cartographic materials, some of which are still inaccessible to a wide range of researchers, such as maps and plans in the archive of A.I. Shrenk, the author presents to the scientific community the first cartographic image of Karkaralinsk. For the first time, a source study of such a plan was conducted. The study uses both cartographic and comparative historical methods, while compiling a model of the studied territory using written sources to identify differences in the properties of objects and temporal inconsistencies. The article reveals the information value of the source, explains the dating, and hypothesizes on the development of brulen by military topographer A.M. Yanovsky. The plan uses a system of symbolic signs illustrating the construction process of the Karkaraly fortification. For this purpose, special symbols and numbers are used, showing the location of important government buildings and military, economic, and social infrastructure. Comparing the image with the data from written sources reveals a significant, albeit incomplete, connection, which opens up opportunities for additional study of the identified objects.