EN
This article is devoted to studying changes that Kazakh society underwent in the political, legal and economic spheres in the process of its incorporation into the Russian Empire. This paper describes the peculiarities of the status of the khans’ power on the Kazakh steppe and the specificity of power relations in the society of the nomads. The author has tried to identify the causes of the loss of sovereignty of the Kazakh khanates from the second half of the 18th century to the end of the 19th century.