Russian Turkestan

Template:Short description Template:Infobox former subdivision Russian TurkestanTemplate:Efn was the vast region of Central Asia governed by the Russian Empire, often described by historians as a colonial possession.<ref>

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</ref> It was formally organized as the Turkestan Governorate-GeneralTemplate:Efn in 1867, and was also known as the Turkestan KraiTemplate:Efn from 1886 onward. For administrative and military purposes, its territory was managed as the Turkestan Military District.

It comprised the oasis regions south of the Kazakh Steppe but excluded the Russian protectorates of the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva. While these states retained internal autonomy, their independence was largely nominal, as Russia controlled their foreign relations and military affairs.<ref name="BeckerProtectorates">Template:Cite book</ref> The population consisted primarily of speakers of Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Tajik, with a significant Russian settler minority.<ref name="Census1897">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

History

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File:Defence of the Samarkand Citadel.JPG

The Defence of the Samarkand Citadel in 1868

File:Ilin 186x Karta Syr Darinskoj oblast 72.jpg

Map of the Syr-Darya Oblast in 1872

Establishment

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Although Russia had been pushing south into the steppes from Astrakhan and Orenburg since the failed Khivan expedition of Peter the Great in 1717, a more systematic conquest began in the 1850s. After subjugating the Kazakh hordes, Russian forces captured key Kokandi forts, including Ak-Mechet in 1853. However, the most decisive phase of the conquest began in 1865. That year the Russian forces took the city of Tashkent<ref name="Brower2012">Template:Cite book</ref> under the leadership of General Mikhail Chernyayev, who expanded the territories of Turkestan Oblast (part of Orenburg Governorate-General). Chernyayev had exceeded his orders (he only had 3,000 men under his command at the time) but Saint Petersburg recognized the annexation in any case. This was swiftly followed by the conquest of Khodzhent, Dzhizak and Ura-Tyube, culminating in the annexation of Samarkand and the surrounding region on the Zeravshan River from the Emirate of Bukhara in 1868.

An account of the Russian conquest of Tashkent was written in Urus leshkerining Türkistanda tarikh 1262–1269 senelarda qilghan futuhlariTemplate:Efn by Mullah Khalibay Mambetov.<ref name="Sanders2015">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Allworth1994">Template:Cite book</ref>

Expansion

Template:See also In 1867, Turkestan was made a separate Governorate-General, under its first Governor-General, Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufman. Its capital was Tashkent and it initially consisted of two oblasts (provinces), Syr-Darya Oblast and Semirechye Oblast. In 1868, the Zeravshan Okrug was formed from annexed Bukharan territory; it was reorganized in 1887 into the Samarkand Oblast. To these were added in 1873 the Amu Darya Division (Template:Langx), 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 1897, the Transcaspian Oblast (which had been conquered in 1881–1885 by generals Mikhail Skobelev and Mikhail Annenkov) was incorporated into the Governorate-General.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Colonization

The administration of the region had an almost purely military character throughout. Following Von Kaufman's death in 1882, a committee led by Fedor Karlovich Giers (or Girs), brother of the Russian Foreign Minister Nikolay Karlovich Giers, toured the region and drew up reform proposals, 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. Its administration preserved many features from the previous Islamic regimes, such as Qadis' courts. Russia implemented a system of indirect rule, devolving much power to a "native" administration of local Aksakals (elders or headmen), which created a sharp distinction from the direct governance systems in 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 originated among Tatars and spread to Central Asia. This modernist Islamic movement advocated for adapting to modernity through new methods of teaching (usul-i jadid), emphasizing secular education and cultural renewal alongside religious studies.

The Russians implemented a policy of deliberately enforcing anti-modern, traditional, and conservative Islamic education to keep the local population in a state of torpor and prevent foreign ideologies from penetrating.<ref name="Forbes1986">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="BennigsenLemercier-Quelquejay1967">Template:Cite book</ref>

Russian rule contributed to the Turkification of the Ferghana and Samarkand Tajiks, replacing their language with Uzbek, resulting in a dominantly Uzbek-speaking Samarkand, whereas decades before Tajik Persian was the dominant language in Samarkand.<ref name="NourzhanovBleuer2013">Template:Cite book</ref>

Revolt of 1916 and aftermath

In 1897, the railway reached Tashkent, and in 1906, a direct rail link with European Russia was opened across the steppe from Orenburg to Tashkent. This led to much larger numbers of ethnic Russian settlers flowing into Turkestan than had hitherto been the case, and their settlement was overseen by a specially created Migration Department in Saint Petersburg (Template:Langx). This caused considerable discontent amongst the local population as these settlers took scarce land and water resources away from them. In 1916, discontent boiled over in the Central Asian revolt of 1916. It was sparked by a decree issued on 25 June 1916, that conscripted the native population, previously exempt from military service, into labour battalions for work on the Eastern Front of World War I.<ref>Template:Cite thesis</ref> Thousands of settlers were killed, which triggered brutal Russian reprisals, particularly against the nomadic population. To escape the Russian reprisals, many Uzbeks, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz fled to China, with the Xinjiang region becoming a key sanctuary for fleeing Kazakhs.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="Forbes1986" /> The Turkmen, Kyrgyz, and Kazakhs were all impacted by the 1916 insurrection caused by the conscription decreed by the Russian government.<ref name="Peyrouse2012">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Peyrouse2015">Template:Cite book</ref> Order had not fully been restored by the time the February Revolution took place in 1917. This ushered in a still bloodier chapter in Turkestan's history. In early 1918, the Bolsheviks of the Tashkent Soviet launched an attack on the Kokand Autonomy, leaving an estimated 14,000 local inhabitants dead.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Resistance to the Bolsheviks by the local population (dismissed as "Basmachi" or "bandits" by Soviet historians) continued well into the early 1930s.

Administration and demographics

By 1897, the Turkestan Governorate-General was divided into five oblasts (provinces). The population was overwhelmingly rural, with detailed figures recorded in the 1897 Russian Empire census.<ref name="Census1-ref">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

File:Turkestan 1900-en.svg

The five oblasts of Russian Turkestan, c. 1900

Population by oblast

The 1897 census provides a detailed breakdown of the population across the five oblasts.

Population of the Turkestan Governorate-General by Oblast (1897 Census)<ref name="Census1-ref"/>
Oblast	Population	Area (km²)	Capital
Fergana Oblast	1,572,214	125,978	New Margelan (Skobelev)
Syr-Darya Oblast	1,478,398	197,883	Tashkent
Semirechye Oblast	987,863	442,778	Verny
Samarkand Oblast	860,021	110,812	Samarkand
Transcaspian Oblast	382,487	829,552	Ashgabat
Total	5,280,983	1,707,003	—

Ethnic composition

Ethnic composition as of the 1897 Russian Empire census<ref name="Census1-ref"/>
Ethnic group	Population	Percentage
UzbeksTemplate:Efn	1,995,847	Template:Bartable
KazakhsTemplate:Efn	1,283,351	Template:Bartable
KyrgyzTemplate:Efn	689,274	Template:Bartable
Tajiks	350,397	Template:Bartable
Turkmen	281,357	Template:Bartable
Russians	199,594	Template:Bartable
Other groupsTemplate:Efn	481,163	Template:Bartable
Total	5,280,983	100%

Governors-General of Turkestan

File:Von Kaufman portrait.jpg

Konstantin von Kaufman, first and longest-serving Governor-General of Turkestan (1867–1882)

The governorate-general was administered by a series of military generals appointed by the Tsar.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Name	Tenure	Military Rank
Konstantin von Kaufman	1867–1882	General of Infantry
Mikhail Chernyayev	1882–1884	General of Infantry
Nikolai Rozenbakh	1884–1889	General of Infantry
Alexander Vrevsky	1889–1898	General of Infantry
Sergei Dukhovskoi	1898–1901	General of Infantry
Nikolai Ivanov	1901–1904	General of Infantry
Nikolai Tevyashev	1904–1905	Lieutenant General
Dejan Subotić	1905–1906	Lieutenant General
Nikolai Grodekov	1906–1908	General of Infantry
Pavel Mishchenko	1908–1909	General of Cavalry
Alexander Samsonov	1909–1914	General of Cavalry
Fedor Martson	1914–1916	Lieutenant General
Aleksey Kuropatkin	1916–1917	General of Infantry

Soviet rule

File:Map of Central Asia.png

Contemporary Central Asia

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, a Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkestan ASSR) within the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic was created in Soviet Central Asia (excluding modern-day Kazakhstan). After the foundation of the Soviet Union, as part of the national delimitation in Central Asia, it was split into the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkmenistan) and the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbekistan) in 1924. The Tajik ASSR was established at that time as part of the Uzbek SSR, and was upgraded to a full Soviet Socialist Republic in 1929. In 1936, the Kyrgyz SSR (Kyrgyzstan) was formed from the Kirghiz ASSR, which had been part of the Russian SFSR. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, these republics gained their independence.

Notes

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References

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External links

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Russian Turkestan

Contents

History

Establishment

Expansion

Colonization

Revolt of 1916 and aftermath

Administration and demographics

Population by oblast

Ethnic composition

Governors-General of Turkestan

Soviet rule

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

Navigation menu

Russian Turkestan

History

Establishment

Expansion

Colonization

Revolt of 1916 and aftermath

Administration and demographics

Population by oblast

Ethnic composition

Governors-General of Turkestan

Soviet rule

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

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