23
groups like Tsarist, Sovietic and Western. According to Tsarist officials, the reason
of invasion of Central Asia can be explained with a package of necessitates like St.
Petersburg’s policy to secure the Russia’s interests, possessions and merchants in the
region, threatening the British influence in India after
the defeat of Crimean War;
and of spreading the superior Russian culture over the region.
N.A. Kryzhanovskii, governor general of Orenburg and Cherniaev’s immediate superior, sounded the theme of “the
white man’s burden”:
It seems to me that it is time to stop catering to the languages and customs of our weak neighbors (the khanates). We
can compel them to conform somewhat to our customs and impose our language on them. In Central Asia we alone must be the
masters so that with time through us civilization can penetrate there and improve the lives of those unfortunate offspring of the
human race.
51
The governor general emphasizes the necessity of Russian intervention
because of spreading superior Russian-European values and civilization over
uneducated and uncivilized Moslem communities in Turkistan. In the Tsarist view,
the rivalry between Russia and Britain is another reason for Russia’s conquest in the
Khanates.
War minister Miliutin, the superior of the above-mentioned conquerors, noted in 1882 Turkestan’s significance as a
threat to British India: In case of a European war we should especially value the occupation of (Kokand khanate) bringing us
closer to the northern regions of India…Ruling in Kokand, we can constantly threaten England’s East Indian possessions. This
is especially important since only there can we be dangerous to this enemy of ours.
52
Russia’s Tsarist officials also explain their conquest with the security of
Russian diplomatic and commercial interests in the region. Russia had been suffering
from hostile actions and captures of Russian merchants by nomadic Kazakhs. And
these nomadic forces were supplied asylum by the Khanates.
Although Russian
officials warned the governments of Bukhara many times, the Emirate did not take
any precautions. This reason pushed Russia to intervene in Bukhara at the end
.
“In
1914 an official tsarist publication titled Asiatic Russia summarized and evaluated
Russian expansion in Central Asia a generation after
its agitation against Russia;
51
MacKenzie, David&W.Curran, Michael,
A History of Russia, the Soviet Union and Beyond,
(Belmont: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002), 342.
52
MacKenzie, David&W.Curran, Michael,
A History of Russia, the Soviet Union and Beyond,
(Beltmont: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002), 342.
24
attacks on Russian settlers, merchants, and diplomats by savage tribes; and the need
for defensible frontiers”.
53
In addition, for many years, nomads had given harm to
Russia’s possessions and Russia could not take a satisfying precaution from the
Emirate to prevent the looting and captures of Russian citizens.
Russia began
pursuing a policy to prevent these harms caused by nomads. “Russia’s aims in
Central Asia in the 1840’s and 1850’s were both political and economic. Bukhara
and Khiva had to be persuaded to refrain from any hostile actions against Russia,
including possession of Russian slaves and granting asylum to Kazakhs fleeing from
Russian justice”.
54
On the other side, there were other views, which tried to explain
the conquest in an economic manner, and they were especially Soviet oriented views
about Russian conquest. They were approaching the matter with compulsory
economic and commercial reasons of Tsarist Russia.
Soviet historians until Gorbachev stressed the British danger and economic motives for Tsarist expansion. Wrote S.
S. Dmitrev: Central Asia was essential to Tsarist Russia not only as a source of raw materials, especially as a cotton base for
Russian
cotton textile manufacturers, but as an important market for the sale of goods produced by Russian industry, The
Russian bourgeoisie sought new sources of raw materials, new markets for its industrial products.
N. A. Khalfin, a Soviet specialist on Central Asia affirmed:
The interruption in the receipt of American cotton compelled the (Russian) government, merchants, and
industrialists… to view differently the question of turning the Central Asian khanates into sources of raw materials…Central
Asia, regarded hitherto by Russian merchants and industrialists primarily as a profitable market, now acquired the significance
of an important source of industrial raw materials.
55
According to Seymour Becker and his book Russia’s Protectorates in Central
Asia, he pointed out the development of capitalism and bourgeois
monarchy which
were trying to supply the needs of its internal markets. While the European powers
absorbed their raw material sources from their overseas colonies, the most easily
reachable colony was Central Asia as a neighboring region of Russia. Turkistan
seemed to be a suitable choice for Russia, not being
able to reach the overseas, in
53
Ibid, 343.
54
Becker, Seymour,
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