Sources for Studying Administration Policy of the Russian Empire in the Kazakh Steppe in the 18<sup>th</sup> Century and in the First Half of the 19<sup>th</sup> Century from the Archives of Russia and Kazakhstan
The article reviews major groups of sources on the administration policy of the Russian Empire in the Kazakh steppe in the 18<sup>th</sup> century and in the first half of the 19<sup>th</sup> century. Acts of law and legislative drafts make up the first group. Materials of the Asian and Siberian Committees, supreme bodies directly involved in imperial policy-making in the Kazakh steppe, form the second group. Official correspondence (dispatches, official reports, statements, official notes, directions, and letters) of the major regional and central authorities that concern the carrying out the state policy in the southeast periphery are included in the third group. Studying laws, bills, and supporting materials allows not just to highlight the changes in governmental views over time, but also to understand the basic principles underlying state policies. Legislation concerning the Kazakh steppe was deposited in the archives of the State Council, the Governing Senate, the Committee of Ministers, the Asian Committee, the Siberian Committee, the Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Some pertinent materials can be found in papers of the Siberian Prikaz and, in some measure, of the Ambassadorial Prikaz: they contain documents on the establishment of diplomatic and trade relations with the Kazakhs. Fonds of the governing bodies of the Russian Empire store unpublished legislation and documents on the legislative process (drafts, materials for their discussion, etc.), correspondence of high-ranking officials with regional administration and traditional Kazakh elite. Some legal documents of imperial lawmaking are deposited in archival fonds of central governing bodies - the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Ministry of War. A sizeable portion of materials on discussions of legislative drafts is stored in regional archives, in fonds of local (regional) administrative agencies (boards, offices of military governors and governor generals) and in the Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan.