By: Assabah Khan Yousufzai (Srinagar) .
The rise of Russia as a modern power, which began under Ivan IV (‘The terrible’; ruled 1547-84) and was quickened by Peter the Great (ruled 1682-1725), made Russia overwhelmingly stronger than any of her Asian neighbours. In view of this new and growing disparity, the Russian penetration of the Kazakh steppe was only a matter of time and determination. The initially slow pace and oscillating success may have been due to the fact that occupation of Siberia presented enough challenge and reward for the time being. The Russians at first contented themselves with accepting offers of vassaldom from various Kazakh leaders, without actually acquiring military or administrative control over their territory beyond the reaction of fortified posts gradually infringing upon it. This complex process started in 1730, when Abulkhayr Khan of Lesser Horde, expressed his wish that the Tsar be his Suzerian, and the request was granted. For much of the 18th century, Russia received assurances of loyalty from other Kazakh leaders and discovered that they were little more than expedient declarations designed to bolster the chieftains’ positions in intertribal wars. Similar statements of allegiance were made to Manchu emperors of China after their conquest of Manchu Sinkiang in 1758.
Nevertheless, a firmer hold on the northwestern, northern and northeastern fringes of Kazakhstan began to take shape during the reign of Catherine the great (ruled 1762-96) with creeping colonization by Russian peasants and implantation of military posts deeper in Kazakh territory, such as Akmolinsk and Turgai.
The Volga had Kazan in 1552 incorporated in the Russian Empire and their elite’s been now experiencing something of an economic and spiritual renaissance. Tatar traders spread out into central Asia as well, and also represented Russian commercial interests there; the government, eager to protect the latter, saw in these Muslim subjects convenient proxies, and trade flourished. Moreover, in those parts of Kazakhstan that had by then come under a sufficient degree of Russian control, St. Petersburg deemed it practical to consolidate that control through the at first sight surprising device of tying the still only marginally Muslim Kazakhs more firmly to Islam; the idea was that this would entice the unruly nomads to more sedate way of life, especially since it was the Tsar’s subjects, the Tatar Mullahs, who spread among the Kazakhs as preceptors and even built Mosques and Madrasas.
Equally remarkable was the concomitant reluctance of the Russian government to allow proselytizing activity by its orthodox subjects. The policy of using Tatar elite’s, both mercantile and religious, as the Russian government’s advanced infrastructure in Kazakhstan, devised in the 1770’s continued until 1860 thus until the eve of the final drive to conquer the core of Central Asia.
Somewhat, curiously, Russia’s interest in Central Asia proper, the area south of Syr Darya, appeared even before her first involvement with Kazakhstan. In 1717-18 Peter the Great sent the expedition of some 300 men under colonel Bekovich-Cherkasskiy to Khiva; its mission was less to conquer than to reconnoiter and establish a contact, but it was an enemy that the Khan of Khiva Sherghazi (1715-28) met the troop and destroyed it. A similar attempt more than a century later, in 1839-40 led by General Pervoskiy, foundered on logistical problems for the Khanate was well shielded from attack on most sides by inhospitable deserts. Aside from Central Asia itself, the goal of both these expeditions may have been to probe possible routes to India; this in turn remained more a daydream than a real plan, and was diametrically opposed to the methodical and realistic manner characteristic of the Russian.
The Russian conquest of Central Asia could be divided into two stages, 1730-1848 and 1864-84, the first stage could in turn be subdivided into two phases, of which the second occurred between 1822 and 1848, for that was when St. Petersburg resolved to eliminate the four Kazakh hordes altogether (a fourth, minor horde called Bukey’s horde, had meanwhile formed to the west of the Lesser Horde between the Ural and Volga rivers). The middle horde was suppressed in 1822, the Lesser in 1824, Bukey’s in 1845 and the Greater in 1848.
The suppression of the Kazakh hordes removed any ambivalence about Russia’s dominance in the bulk of Kazakh territory, but it still left out its Southern fringe. There were two reasons for that: logistical, for that area – primarily the middle and lower course of Syr Darya – was rather remote and in parts separated from northern and central Kazakhstan by semi-arid stretches, and political, because it had by then come under the sway of Khanate of Khoqand. A conflict with Khoqand might have caused complications with Britain and China, which St. Petersburg wanted to avoid. Its acquisition thus required a different psychological, diplomatic and military strategy.
Nevertheless, by 1853, the Russians wrested Akmeshit from the Khoqandis. A year later they found Vernyi – the eventual Kazakh capital Almaty – and pushed on to Bishkek, today the capital of Kyrgyzstan but then a Khoqandi frontier post. The strategy of these operations illustrates the vast resources at Russia’s disposal: her giant pincers began to squeeze the remnant of Khazakhstan from west and east, the latter approach being realized from her Siberian frontier. The brief halt that followed was caused by external circumstances: the Crimean war and the uprising led by Shaykh Shamil in the Caucasus. These hindrances disappeared with the advent of 1860’s and the stage was set for the final assault: it began in 1864 with the fall of Chimkent and Aulie Ata (now Jambul) and culminated with the storming of Tashkent in June 1865.
Tashkent is of course the capital of Uzbekistan, and as such we associate it with that republic rather than with Kazakhstan. In 1865, however, the event was perceived more as the final step in the conquest of Kazakhstan. For the time being, accommodation with Khoqand, Bukhara and Khiva, rather than their conquest, was viewed by the principal policy planners in St. Petersburg as preferable to any further push Southward that might provoke Britain to action from India’s northwest frontier. The clashes with Khokandi forces did not yet mean war, and Tashkent was stormed almost against the wishes of the Russian government by the General Chernyaev.
In 1868, Russians were at war with Amir of Bukhara, routing his forces in several battles, annexing a substantial part of the emirate’s territory (including Samarkand) and allowing the rest to exist as de facto Russian protectorate. In 1873, they defeated the Khan of Khiva, annexing much of his territory as leaving rest as protectorate. By 1876 they did away with Khanate of Khoqand, annexing whole of it. Turkmenistan was defeated by crushing Turkmen resistance at the battle of Goktepe in 1881.
The Russian conquest of Central Asia was completed by 1884 with the acquisition of Merv. This fertile oasis contained the ruins of the great pre-Islamic and early-Islamic city, as well as a small settlement nearby which had the same name. However, it was not Merv’s history but its proximity to Afghanistan and thus to British India that made the event of 1884 so important.
