The End of Nogay Statehood. Biy Kanay’s Prison Messages

Absract. Two messages of the biy (ruler of the Great Nogai Horde) Kanay 1637 are published here for the first time. He was imprisoned in an Astrakhan prison on a poorly founded charge of contacts with Kalmyks. For several years, he convinced the local governors and Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich of his innocence, begging for his release from imprisonment. Obviously, the published petitions are the last lifetime ones of Kanay – in any case preserved in the archive. Both documents were deposited in the complex of documents of the Ambassadorial Offise (Posolsky Prikaz) of the 17th century and subsequently entered the fund 127 “Relations of Russia with the Nogai Tatars” of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts. The following year, Kanay died without gaining freedom. After that, the Moscow government and local managers no longer considered it advisable to help the Nogai to revive their administrative system. The obsequious tone of the documents published here, the enumeration of adversities, references to the hostility of the Nogai elite – all this illustrates the last stage of the existence of the once powerful Nogai Horde, which was in the stage of complete collapse at that time. The publication of facsimiles of messages is accompanied by transcription and two translations into Russian: made in the 17th century and modern one.

Keywords: Kanay, biy, Nogai Horde, Astrakhan, petition, Kalmyks, prison.