The social and colonial policy of Russian Empire in Turkestan

The social and colonial policy of Russian Empire in Turkestan.

Group: 203

Student: Tojirahimov Nizomjon

Imperial Russian military commanders conquered Central Asia for a variety of reasons: to increase the prestige of the Russian Empire (especially in competition with the British Empire), to acquire new sources of cotton in the wake of supply disruptions from the American Civil War, to control and punish Turkmen slave traders and, not least, because they could. The logic of imperial expansion in the 19th century suggested that a strong state’s army should stop only when it met insurmountable physical or political barriers. In 1864 Russia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov explained in a general letter to the European powers: “The position of Russia in Central Asia is that of all civilized states which are brought into contact with half-savage nomad populations possessing no fixed social organization. . . The United States of America, France in Algeria, Holland in her Colonies, England in India; all have been forced by imperious necessity into this onward march, where the greatest difficulty is to know where to stop.”

In 1867 Turkestan was made a separate Governor-Generalship, under its first Governor-General, Konstantin Petrovich Von Kaufman. Its capital was Tashkent and it consisted initially of three oblasts (provinces): Syr Darya, Semirechye Oblast and the Zeravshan Okrug (later Samarkand Oblast). To these were added in 1873 the Amu Darya Division (Russian: отдел, otdel), annexed from the Khanate of Khiva, and in 1876 the Fergana Oblast, formed from the remaining rump of the Kokand Khanate that was dissolved after an uprising in 1875. In 1894 the Transcaspian Region, which had been conquered in 1881–1885 by Generals Mikhail Skobelev and Mikhail Annenkov, was added to the Governor-Generalship. From the outset, Russia’s objectives as a colonial power were strictly limited: to maintain “law and order” at minimum cost and to disturb as little as possible the traditional way of life of its new subjects. Such an approach was favoured by the remoteness of the area and its isolation even from the rest of the Muslim world. It was improbable that an almost wholly illiterate population, its prejudices formed by a venal and obscurantist ʿulamāʾ,could offer any concerted resistance to the Russian presence; and such, indeed, proved to be the case.

The Russians, like other colonial powers, did experience an occasional uprising, generally of a very localized character, but the overwhelming military superiority displayed by the Russians at the time of the initial conquest, the inability of the inhabitants of the khanates to offer effective resistance, and the heavy-handedness with which subsequent insurrection or insubordination was dealt ensured minimal opposition. Finally, by preserving the titular sovereignty of the emir of Bukhara and the khan of Khiva, they left a substantial part of the population, especially the urban classes, most deeply devoted to the Islamic way of life, under traditionally minded Muslim rulers.

The administration of the region had an almost purely military character throughout. Von Kaufman died in 1882, and a committee under Fedor Karlovich Giers (or Girs, brother of the Russian Foreign Minister Nikolay Karlovich Giers) toured the Krai and drew up proposals for reform, which were implemented after 1886. In 1888 the new Trans-Caspian railway, begun at Uzun-Ada on the shores of the Caspian Sea in 1877, reached Samarkand. Nevertheless, Turkestan remained an isolated colonial outpost, with an administration that preserved many distinctive features from the previous Islamic regimes, including Qadis' courts and a 'native' administration that devolved much power to local 'Aksakals' (Elders or Headmen). It was quite unlike European Russia. In 1908 Count Konstantin Konstantinovich Pahlen led another reform commission to Turkestan, which produced in 1909–1910 a monumental report documenting administrative corruption and inefficiency. The Jadid educational reform movement which originated among Tatars spread among Muslims of Central Asia under Russian rule.

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