Russian Turkestan () was a colony of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, located in the western portion of the

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

n region of Turkestan. Administered as a Krai or Governor-Generalship, it comprised the oasis region to the south of the

Kazakh Steppe The Kazakh Steppe ( ), also known as the Great Steppe or Great Betpak-Dala, Dala ( ), is a vast region of open grassland in Central Asia, covering areas in northern Kazakhstan and adjacent areas of Russia. It lies east of the Pontic–Caspian step ...

, but not the protectorates of the Emirate of Bukhara and the

Khanate of Khiva The Khanate of Khiva (, , uz-Latn-Cyrl, Xiva xonligi, Хива хонлиги, , ) was a Central Asian polity that existed in the historical region of Khwarazm, Khorezm from 1511 to 1920, except for a period of Afsharid Iran, Afsharid occupat ...

. It was populated by speakers of Russian, Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Tajik.

History

Establishment

Although Russia had been pushing south into the steppes from

Astrakhan Astrakhan (, ) 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 Caspian Depression, from the Caspian Se ...

and Orenburg since the failed Khivan expedition of

Peter the Great Peter I (, ; – ), better known as Peter the Great, was the Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia, Tsar of all Russia from 1682 and the first Emperor of Russia, Emperor of all Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned j ...

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 (), also known as Toshkent, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3 million people as of April 1, 2024. I ...

under the leadership of General Mikhail Chernyayev 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, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

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 Samarkand ( ; Uzbek language, Uzbek and Tajik language, Tajik: Самарқанд / Samarqand, ) is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central As ...

and the surrounding region on the Zeravshan River from the Emirate of Bukhara 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 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 (, ), annexed from the

, 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 military generals Mikhail Skobelev and Mikhail Annenkov) 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 Krai 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 The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, described as the List of lakes by area, world's largest lake and usually referred to as a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia: east of the Caucasus, ...

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. A policy of deliberately enforcing anti-modern, traditional, conservative Islamic education in schools and Islamic ideology was implemented by the Russians 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 () describes a shift whereby populations or places receive or adopt Turkic attributes such as culture, language, history, or ethnicity. However, often this term is more narrowly applied to mean specif ...

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 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

(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, sparked by a decree conscripting the natives into labour battalions (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 took place in 1917. This would usher in a still bloodier chapter in Turkestan's history, as the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

of the Tashkent Soviet launched an attack on the autonomous Jadid 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) continued well into the beginning of the 1930s.

Governors of Turkestan

Turkestan had 21 Governor-generals.Didar Kassymova, Zhanat Kundakbayeva and Ustina Markus * 1865–1867 Mikhail Grigoryevich Chernyaev (Military Governor) * 1866–1867 Dmitri Ilyich Romanovskiy (Civil Governor) * 1867–1881 Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufman * 1881–1882 Gerasim Alexeevich Kolpakovsky * 1882‒4 Mikhail Chernyayev * 1884‒9 Nikolai Rozenbakh * 1889–1898 Alexander Borisovich Vrevsky * 1898–1901 Sergei Mikhailovich Dukhovskoi * 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 Mishchenko * 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

Administrative division

Turkestan was divided into five

oblast An oblast ( or ) is a type of administrative division in Bulgaria and several post-Soviet states, including Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Historically, it was used in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The term ''oblast'' is often translated i ...

s. * Fergana Oblast ( New Margelan (Skobelev)) (part of Kokand Khanate until 1876) * Samarkand Oblast (

) (until 1886 Zeravshan Okrug, the occupied east territories of Khanate of Bukhara) * Semirechye Oblast ( Verny) (1882–1899 part of the Governor-Generalship of the Steppes) * Syr-Darya Oblast (

) * Transcaspian Oblast ( Askhabat) (until 1898 part of Caucasus Governorate-General)

Soviet rule

After the

Russian Revolution of 1917 The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

, 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 Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

). After the foundation of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

it was split into the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest and the Caspian Sea to the west. Ash ...

) and Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (

Uzbekistan , image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republ ...

) in 1924. The

Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic The Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, also commonly known as Soviet Tajikistan, the Tajik SSR, TaSSR, or simply Tajikistan, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union which existed from 1929 to 1991 in Central Asia. The Tajik Rep ...

(

Tajikistan Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital city, capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border, south, Uzbekistan to ...

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

Kyrgyz SSR The Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic (Kirghiz SSR), also known as the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic (Kyrgyz SSR), KySSR or Kirgiz Soviet Socialist Republic (Kirgiz SSR), was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of ...

(

Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia lying in the Tian Shan and Pamir Mountains, Pamir mountain ranges. Bishkek is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Kyrgyzstan, largest city. Kyrgyz ...

) was separated from

Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Kazakhstan, the Kazakh SSR, KSSR, or simply Kazakhstan, was one of the transcontinental country, transcontinental Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Un ...

. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, these republics gained their independence.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turkestan, Russian Subdivisions of the Russian Empire Former Russian colonies Russian Turkestan 1860s establishments in the Russian Empire Governorates-General of the Russian Empire Russian 1867 establishments in the Russian Empire 1918 disestablishments in Russia