THE THIRD ALL-RUSSIAN RESEARCH CONFERENCE (WITH INTERNATIONAL PARTICIPATION) “HISTORY, ECONOMICS AND CULTURE OF THE MEDIEVAL TURKIC-TATAR STATES OF THE WESTERN SIBERIA”, KURGAN, 21–22 APRIL, 2017

The article summarises the work of the Third all-Russian research conference (with international participation) “History, Economics and Culture of the Medieval Turkic-Tatar States of the Western Siberia”, which was held in the city of Kurgan on April 21–22, 2014. In total, 32 researchers from Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan took part in the conference. The first roundtable was dedicated to the topic “Western Siberia and the Shibanids during the period of the Golden Horde (13th–14th centuries)”. Special attention was given to the problems of source studies of the history of this dynasty, the localisation of the territory and borders of the Shibanids' possessions, the possibility of other Chingisid dynasties' claims to the territory of southwestern Siberia, and the Shibanids' engagement in the events of Great Zamyatnya and the steppe feuds of the 1420s. The second roundtable was linked to the history of “The Tyumen and Siberian Khanates and Their Neighbours (15th–16th centuries)”. The greater part of the talks was dedicated to international relations in the post-Horde era and in its former territories, including Russian-Siberian and Siberian-Bukharian interactions. The possibility of the investigation of Kuchum Khan's imagology and its relationship with historical realities, the issues of interaction between the central government and regional elites during Kuchum Khan's reign, and some problems of historiography were considered at the conference. The researchers again noted the need for an interdisciplinary approach combining the involvement of specialists in history, archaeology, ethnography, anthropology, and linguistics. Special attention was drawn to the phase-down of archaeological research of the late medieval sites of western Siberia. In the framework of the third roundtable, the issues of the history of “Turkic Population of the southwestern Siberia in the end of the 16th–17th centuries” were considered. A significant number of talks once again raised the question of the role of Kuchum Khan's descendants as a factor in the local population's resistance to the Russian government. Especially promising are studies of the history of Ajalynskie and Ichkinskie Tatars on the basis of a comprehensive archival and ethnographic research, as well as the usage of Russian sources to the study of the resettlement of the Turkic populations of western Siberia. Discussions were held on the matters of Siberian Islam in the 17th–18th centuries, as well as on the progressive stages of the Islamization within the Siberian population.