Russian Turkestan (russian: Русский Туркестан, Russkiy Turkestan) was the western part of

Turkestan Turkestan, also spelled Turkistan ( fa, ترکستان, Torkestân, lit=Land of the Turks), is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and Xinjiang. Overview Known as Turan to the Persians, western Turke ...

within the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

’s

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

n territories, and was administered as a

Krai A krai or kray (; russian: край, , ''kraya'') is one of the types of federal subjects of modern Russia, and was a type of geographical administrative division in the Russian Empire and the Russian SFSR. Etymologically, the word is relat ...

or Governor-Generalship. It comprised the oasis region to the south of the Kazakh Steppe, but not the protectorates of the

Emirate of Bukhara The Emirate of Bukhara ( fa, , Amārat-e Bokhārā, chg, , Bukhārā Amirligi) was a Muslim polity in Central Asia that existed from 1785 to 1920 in what is modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. It occupied the lan ...

and the

Khanate of Khiva The Khanate of Khiva ( chg, ''Khivâ Khânligi'', fa, ''Khânât-e Khiveh'', uz, Xiva xonligi, tk, Hywa hanlygy) was a Central Asian polity that existed in the historical region of Khwarezm in Central Asia from 1511 to 1920, except fo ...

History

Establishment

Although Russia had been pushing south into the steppes from

Astrakhan Astrakhan ( rus, Астрахань, p=ˈastrəxənʲ) is the largest city and administrative centre of Astrakhan Oblast in Southern Russia. The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the ...

and Orenburg since the failed Khivan expedition of

Peter the Great Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...

in 1717, the beginning of the Russian conquest of Turkestan is normally dated to 1865. That year the Russian forces took the city of

Tashkent Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of ...

under the leadership of General

Mikhail Chernyayev Mikhail Grigoryevich Chernyaev (Russian: Михаил Григорьевич Черняев) (3 November / 22 October 1828, Bender, Bessarabia Governorate – 16 August 1898) was a Russian major general, who, together with Konstantin Kaufman an ...

expanding 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 Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

recognized the annexation in any case. This was swiftly followed by the conquest of Khodzhent,

Dzhizak , image_caption = , image_seal = Jizzax gerb.png , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Uzbekistan , pushpin_label_position = bottom , pushpin_map_caption = L ...

and Ura-Tyube, culminating in the annexation of

Samarkand fa, سمرقند , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from the top:Registan square, Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, Bibi-Khanym Mosque, view inside Shah-i-Zinda, ...

and the surrounding region on the

Zeravshan River The Zeravshan; uz, Zeravshon, Зеравшон, زېرەۋشان; from Persian fa, , Zarâfšân – meaning "the spreader of gold" is a river in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Central Asia. Its name, "spreader of gold" in Persian, refers to th ...

from the

in 1868 forming the Zeravsh Special Okrug of Turkestan. An account of the Russian conquest of Tashkent was written in ''"Urus leshkerining Türkistanda tarikh 1262–1269 senelarda qilghan futuhlari"'' by Mullah Khalibay Mambetov.

Expansion

In 1867

was made a separate

Governor-General Governor-general (plural ''governors-general''), or governor general (plural ''governors general''), is the title of an office-holder. In the context of governors-general and former British colonies, governors-general are appointed as viceroy t ...

ship, under its first Governor-General,

Konstantin Petrovich Von Kaufman Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufmann (russian: Константи́н Петро́вич Ка́уфман; 2 March 1818 – 16 May 1882), was the first Governor-General of Russian Turkestan. Early life His family was German in origin (from Holste ...

. Its capital was Tashkent and it consisted initially of three

oblasts An oblast (; ; Cyrillic (in most languages, including Russian and Ukrainian): , Bulgarian: ) is a type of administrative division of Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as the Soviet Union and the Kingdom o ...

(provinces): Syr Darya,

Semirechye Oblast The Semirechyenskaya Oblast (russian: Семиреченская область) was an oblast (province) of the Russian Empire. It corresponded approximately to most of present-day southeastern Kazakhstan and northeastern Kyrgyzstan. It was creat ...

and the Zeravshan

Okrug An ''okrug, ; russian: о́круг, ókrug; sr, округ, okrug, ; uk, о́круг, о́kruh; be, акруга, akruha; pl, okręg; ab, оқрҿс; mhr, йырвел, '' is a type of administrative division in some Slavic states. Th ...

(later

Samarkand Oblast The Samarkand Oblast (russian: Самаркандская область) was an oblast (province) of the Russian Empire between 1868 and 1924. It roughly corresponded to most of present-day central Uzbekistan and northwestern Tajikistan. It was c ...

). To these were added in 1873 the

Amu Darya The Amu Darya, tk, Amyderýa/ uz, Amudaryo// tg, Амударё, Amudaryo ps, , tr, Ceyhun / Amu Derya grc, Ὦξος, Ôxos (also called the Amu, Amo River and historically known by its Latin language, Latin name or Greek ) is a major rive ...

Division (russian: link=no, отдел, ), annexed from the

, and in 1876 the

Fergana Oblast The Fergana Oblast (russian: Ферганская область; uz, Fargʻona viloyati) was an oblast (province) of the Russian Empire. It roughly corresponded to most of present-day Fergana Valley. It was created in 1876 when the territories o ...

, formed from the remaining rump of the

Kokand Khanate The Khanate of Kokand ( fa, ; ''Khānneshin-e Khoqand'', chg, ''Khoqand Khānligi'') was a Central Asian polity in the Fergana Valley centred on the city of Kokand between 1709 and 1876. Its territory is today divided between Uzbekistan, Kyrg ...

that was dissolved after an uprising in 1875. In 1894, the

Transcaspian Region The Transcaspian Oblast (russian: Закаспійская область), or just simply Transcaspia (russian: Закаспія), was the section of Russian Empire and early Soviet Russia to the east of the Caspian Sea during the second half of ...

(which had been conquered in 1881–1885 by military generals

Mikhail Skobelev Mikhail Dmitriyevich Skobelev (russian: Михаил Дмитриевич Скобелев; 29 September 1843 – 7 July 1882), a Russian general, became famous for his conquest of Central Asia and for his heroism during the Russo-Turkish War ...

and

Mikhail Annenkov General Mikhail Nikolayevich Annenkov (russian: Михаил Николаевич Анненков; formerly also transcribed Michael Nicolaivitch Annenkoff) (1835 in St. Petersburg, Russia – January 21, 1899 (New Style) in St. Petersburg, Ru ...

) was added to the Governor-Generalship.

Colonization

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

and drew up proposals for reform, which were implemented after 1886. In 1888 the new

Trans-Caspian railway The Trans-Caspian Railway (also called the Central Asian Railway, russian: Среднеазиатская железная дорога) is a railway that follows the path of the Silk Road through much of western Central Asia. It was built by ...

, begun at Uzun-Ada on the shores of the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...

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

Qadi A qāḍī ( ar, قاضي, Qāḍī; otherwise transliterated as qazi, cadi, kadi, or kazi) is the magistrate or judge of a '' sharīʿa'' court, who also exercises extrajudicial functions such as mediation, guardianship over orphans and mino ...

s' courts and a 'native' administration that devolved much power to local '

Aksakal Aqsaqal or aksakal (literally meaning "white beard" in Turkic languages) metaphorically refers to the male elders, the old and wise of the community in parts of Central Asia, the Caucasus and Bashkortostan. Traditionally, an aqsaqal was the lea ...

s' (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 The Jadids were Muslim modernist reformers within the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century. They normally referred to themselves by the Turkic terms ''Taraqqiparvarlar'' ('progressives'), ''Ziyalilar'' ('intellectuals') or simpl ...

educational reform movement which originated among Tatars spread among Muslims of Central Asia under Russian rule. A policy of deliberately enforcing anti-modern, traditional, ancient conservative Islamic education in schools and Islamic ideology was enforced by the Russians in order to deliberately hamper and destroy opposition to their rule by keeping them in a state of torpor to and prevent foreign ideologies from penetrating in. The Russians implemented

Turkification Turkification, Turkization, or Turkicization ( tr, Türkleştirme) describes a shift whereby populations or places received or adopted Turkic attributes such as culture, language, history, or ethnicity. However, often this term is more narrowly ...

upon 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.

Basmachi

In 1897 the railway reached

, and finally in 1906 a direct rail link with European Russia was opened across the

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the temperate grasslands, ...

from Orenburg to Tashkent. This led to much larger numbers of ethnic

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

settlers flowing into Turkestan than had hitherto been the case, and their settlement was overseen by a specially created

Migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...

Department in

(Переселенческое Управление). 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

Basmachi Revolt The Basmachi movement (russian: Басмачество, ''Basmachestvo'', derived from Uzbek: "Basmachi" meaning "bandits") was an uprising against Russian Imperial and Soviet rule by the Muslim peoples of Central Asia. The movement's roots ...

, sparked by a decree conscripting the natives into

labour battalion Labour battalions have been a form of alternative service or unfree labour in various countries in lieu of or resembling regular military service. In some cases they were the result of some kind of discriminative segregation of the population, wh ...

s (they had previously been exempt from military service). Thousands of settlers were killed, and this was matched by Russian reprisals, particularly against the nomadic population. To escape Russians slaughtering them in 1916, Uzbeks, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz escaped to China. Xinjiang became a sanctuary for fleeing Kazakhs escaping the Russians after the Muslims faced conscription by the Russian government. The Turkmen, Kyrgyz, and Kazakhs were all impacted by the 1916 insurrection caused by the conscription decreed by the Russian government. The corvée conscription issued on June 25, 1916. Order had not really been restored by the time the

February Revolution The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...

took place in 1917. This would usher in a still bloodier chapter in Turkestan's history, as the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

of the

Tashkent Soviet The Tashkent Soviet was a public organisation set up in Tashkent during the Russian Revolution. It was established on 2 March 1917 at an inaugural meeting that consisted of thirty five workers from the Central Asian Railway. It was headed by a t ...

launched an attack on the autonomous

government in Kokand early in 1918, which left 14,000 dead. Resistance to the Bolsheviks by the local population (dismissed as 'Basmachi' or 'Banditry' by

Soviet historians This list of Russian historians includes the famous historians, as well as archaeologists, paleographers, genealogists and other representatives of auxiliary historical disciplines from the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire a ...

) continued well into the beginning of the 1930s.

Governors of Turkestan

Turkestan had 21 Governor-generals.Didar Kassymova, Zhanat Kundakbayeva and Ustina Markus XXth Century Citizen's Atlas map of Central Asia

* 1865–1867 Mikhail Grigoryevich Chernyaev (Military Governor) * 1866–1867 Dmitri Ilyich Romanovskiy (Civil Governor) * 1867–1881

Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufman Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufmann (russian: Константи́н Петро́вич Ка́уфман; 2 March 1818 – 16 May 1882), was the first Governor-General of Russian Turkestan. Early life His family was German in origin (from Holste ...

* 1881–1882 Gerasim Alexeevich Kolpakovsky * 1882‒4

* 1884‒9

Nikolai Rozenbakh Nikolai Ottonovich von Rozenbakh (Николай Оттонович фон Розенбах) (12 June 1836 in Püssi – 5 May 1901 in Petersburg) was a Russians (citizens), Russian General during the nineteenth century. He was Governor-General o ...

* 1889–1898 Alexander Borisovich Vrevsky * 1898–1901 Sergey Mikhailovich Dukhovsky * 1901–1904 Nikolay Alexandrovich Ivanov * 1904–1905 Nikolay Nikolayevich Tevyashev * 1905–1906 Vsevolod Victorovich Zaharov * 1906 Dean Ivanovich Subotich * 1906 Yevgeny Osipovich Matsievsky * 1906–1908 Nikolai Ivanovich Grodekov * 1908–1909 Pavel Ivanovich Mischenko * 1909–1910 Alexander Vasilyevich Samsonov * 1910–1911 Vasiliy Ivanovich Pokotilo * 1911–1914 Alexander Vasilyevich Samsonov (restored) * 1914–1916 Fedor Vladimirovich Martson * 1916 Mikhail Romanovich Yerofeyev * 1916–17

Aleksey Kuropatkin Aleksey Nikolayevich Kuropatkin (russian: Алексе́й Никола́евич Куропа́ткин; March 29, 1848January 16, 1925) served as the Russian Imperial Minister of War from January 1898 to February 1904 and as a field command ...

Administrative division

Turkestan was divided into five

oblast An oblast (; ; Cyrillic (in most languages, including Russian and Ukrainian): , Bulgarian: ) is a type of administrative division of Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as the Soviet Union and the Kingdom of ...

s. *

( New Margelan (Skobelev)) (part of

until 1876) *

(

) (until 1886 Zeravshan Okrug, the occupied east territories of

Khanate of Bukhara The Khanate of Bukhara (or Khanate of Bukhoro) ( fa, , Khānāt-e Bokhārā; ) was an Uzbek state in Central Asia from 1500 to 1785, founded by the Abu'l-Khayrid dynasty, a branch of the Shaybanids. From 1533 to 1540, Bukhara briefly became its ...

) *

( Verny) (1882–1899 part of the

Governor-Generalship of the Steppes Governor-Generalship of the Steppes, or General Government of the Steppes (Степное генерал-губернаторство in Russian), was a portion of Imperial Russian Central Asia which included both much of modern Eastern and Cent ...

) * Syr-Darya Oblast (

) *

Transcaspian Oblast The Transcaspian Oblast (russian: Закаспійская область), or just simply Transcaspia (russian: Закаспія), was the section of Russian Empire and early Soviet Russia to the east of the Caspian Sea during the second half of ...

( Askhabat) (until 1898 part of Caucasus Governorate-General)

Soviet rule

After the

Russian Revolution of 1917 The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...

, a

Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic The Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (initially, the Turkestan Socialist Federative Republic; 30 April 191827 October 1924) was an autonomous republic of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic located in Soviet Central A ...

(Turkestan ASSR) within the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic was created in

Soviet Central Asia Soviet Central Asia (russian: link=no, Советская Средняя Азия, Sovetskaya Srednyaya Aziya) was the part of Central Asia administered by the Soviet Union between 1918 and 1991, when the Central Asian republics declared ind ...

(excluding modern-day

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

). After the foundation of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

it was split into the

Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic The Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (, ; russian: Туркменская Советская Социалистическая Республика, ''Turkmenskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika''), also commonly known as Turkmenistan o ...

(

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the sout ...

) and

Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic Uzbekistan (, ) is the common English name for the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR; uz, Ўзбекистон Совет Социалистик Республикаси, Oʻzbekiston Sovet Sotsialistik Respublikasi, in Russian: Уз� ...

(

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked cou ...

) in 1924. The

Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic The Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic,, ''Çumhuriji Şūraviji Sotsialistiji Toçikiston''; russian: Таджикская Советская Социалистическая Республика, ''Tadzhikskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Resp ...

(

Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...

) was formed out of part of the Uzbek SSR in 1929, and in 1936 the

Kyrgyz SSR The Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic (Kirghiz SSR; ky, Кыргыз Советтик Социалисттик Республикасы, Kyrgyz Sovettik Sotsialisttik Respublikasy, ky, Кыргыз ССР, Kyrgyz SSR, russian: Киргизск ...

(

Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the east. ...

) was separated from

Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic ; kk, Қазақ Советтік Социалистік Республикасы) *1991: Republic of Kazakhstan (russian: Республика Казахстан; kk, Қазақстан Республикасы) , linking_name = the ...

. After the

collapse of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

, these republics gained their independence.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turkestan, Russian Subdivisions of the Russian Empire Former Russian colonies

Russian Turkestan Russian Turkestan (russian: Русский Туркестан, Russkiy Turkestan) was the western part of Turkestan within the Russian Empire’s Central Asian territories, and was administered as a Krai or Governor-Generalship. It comprised the ...

1860s establishments in the Russian Empire Governorates-General of the Russian Empire

1867 establishments in the Russian Empire 1918 disestablishments in Russia