hist final
TRANSCRIPT
Scholarship on the Russian Empire’s identity and its relationship with Central AsiaRoksana Gabidullina
May 20, 2016Professor Mitchell
I have neither received nor given unauthorized aid on this assignment.Roksana Gabidullina
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When discussing colonial and imperial countries and power relations, people
usually do not distinguish one empire from another. In the US context, the Russian
empire is rarely mentioned and if it is, then people assume that it operates under
similar characteristics as the British and French empires do. In the scholarship,
though, different opinions emerge when placing the Russian Empire within the
imperial context. Some consider it to be an exception to the western, European
imperial project and others include it fully within the European colonial and
imperial society. These both viewpoints use Russia’s conquest and incorporation of
Central Asia to establish either the Russian empire as exception to the rule or as
proof of its western-style colonial nature. In this essay, I argue that the nature of the
Russian empire as a western or non-western power continues to be debated even as
the language surrounding colonialism and imperialism changes over time to post-
colonial studies diction. The monographs and articles I will focus on are published in
a chronological order with the oldest monograph used first.
Earlier monographs published during the days of the empire recognize
Russian empire’s project in Central Asia as a civilizing force comparable to that of
Britain’s, which suggests it being a European power, but they nonetheless point out
its “Oriental” features. Francis Henry Skrine and Edward Denison Ross’s The Heart
of Asia: A History of Russian Turkestan and the Central Asian Khanates from the
Earliest Times was a book published in 1899. Skrine was a member of Her Majesty’s
Indian Service and Ross was a professor of Persian at University College, London.
They are writing at the time when the British, Russian, and other empires existed in
this world and, thus, they recognized, supported, and criticized imperial institutions
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and projects within the frameworks established by British Empire, of which they
were citizens.
They started with the history of Central Asia but for the purposes of this
paper, I will focus on their work on Russia in Central Asia only. They began the
second part of their book with a chapter titled “Making of Russia”, tracing the
history of the current empire through the first emergence of Slavs, Kievan Rus,
Muscovy, and the principalities bid for consolidation and creation of the Russian
Empire. Here they give a deeply ingrained reason for Russia’s expansion: “the
Mongolian restlessness”.1 They argued that the “dreamy, sluggish” nature of the
Slavs was affected by Mongol’s domination2; Slavs became just as expansionist.
Thus, Russia became “destined [to] sweep away the effete political organizations of
the Asiatic continent” just as Mongols have done hundreds of years before them.3
Russia’s expansion into Central Asia was presented by the understandable
terms to them that of security against the marauding tribes in the empire’s frontiers.
They mention Gorchakov’s well written and logical memorandum on Russian
Empire’s annexation of new land, which argued that Russia strove for nothing but
peace and security and to do that, they, like any other empire, were forced to
conquer territory to achieve those goals.4 Economic considerations played a role as
well when the Russian Empire continuously asked or sometimes, demanded of its
protectorates to treat Russian merchants on par with native ones. The last
consideration was Russian Empire’s “Great Game” (a phrase that is unmentioned)
1 (Skrine & Ross, 1899, 237)2 (ibid, 234)3 (ibid, 409)4 (ibid, 247)
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with Great Britain, which fed into Russian feelings of insecurity at its borders and
was only solved when Afghanistan and the understood spheres of influence were
created in the 1880s.5 The last two played a role in feeding Russia’s drive but they
were not the main one. In the authors’ view, the main reason for expansion was
security of its frontiers in Central Asia, a matter that they understood as logical for
an empire to do.
They mentioned Russian Empire’s influence on Central Asian societies.
Russians attempted to change over time the legal framework of Central Asian
societies by leaving private cases, such as marriage and inheritance, to shari’a law
but everything else to Russian and non-shari’a native sources.6 The empire detested
the religious leaders, whom they saw as fanatical, and tried to subvert their
power.7Russians also tried to promote non-native settlers but the areas in Central
Asia were too harsh for their “European constitutions” and many died and few came
to settle.8 The authors mention that Russians “dread[ed] the responsibility of
granting citizenship to two and a half millions of Asiatics” and, thus, allowed the
emir of Bukhara to remain as such because that cost the Russian government
nothing and it continued to profit from that arrangement.9 They never truly
extrapolated why it would have been costly.
In the last chapter, titled “Friends or Foes”, Skrine and Ross explicitly
mentioned Russia’s European and Oriental characteristics. The Russian empire
5 (ibid, 415)6 (ibid, 326)7 (ibid, 335)8 (ibid, 329)9 (ibid, 385)
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seemed to be a part of the European powers when they mentioned that “no
European Power which is not Mistress of the Seas” could have conquered and held
India; thus, Russia, a European power but not a Mistress of the Sea, posed no threat
to Britain’s hold on India.10 They mentioned that although, methods of governance
in Asia differed between Russian and British empires, Russia was inspired and
indeed, imitated Anglo-Indian models in “Russian Asia”.11 Then, they mentioned
Russia’s “Oriental strain” and a “tinge of barbarism”, therefore distinguishing it from
the more civilized British, but continued to add that it was a “young and vigorous
race, imbued with a passionate love of their country, [and] a steadfast belief in its
high destinies”.12 It may not have been a “chosen home of freedom” as England was
but with time, the Russian empire may have caught up to England.13 The authors did
not compare the Russian empire to others besides the British one and they
continued to hold the patronizing and progressive view of the Russian empire.
Russia had much to learn from Britain but the authors had the confidence that
Russians would “set their own house in order”, get rid of autocracy, and create a
better, more stable world.14 The characterization of the Russian empire as a curious
blend of European and Oriental and its colonial relationship with Central Asia
continued in the 1960s but with a twist: in was separate from western powers.
In the 1960s, the Russian Empire is not seen as being part of the European
world anymore, although it continues to blend European and Oriental features and
10 (ibid, 408)11 (ibid, 414)12 (ibid)13 (ibid, 415)14 (ibid)
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the language changes to a more modern one. Seymour Becker’s Russia’s
Protectorates in Central Asia: Bukhara and Khiva, 1865-1924 is an attempt to
understand how Bukharan and Khivan states came under the influence of the
modern West through Westernized Russia.15 In his introduction, Becker believes
that Russia was “sufficiently” Westernized to be immune to encroachment of New
Imperialism. Instead, it “competed for empire in the Near and Far East and in
Central Asia as an equal with the Western powers”.16 Becker believes Russia to be
different from European powers though he shares opinions similar to those of
Skrine and Ross but with a more modern language. For the Skrine and Ross, Russia
has “Asiatic” features, while Becker believes it be non-Western and traditional. The
former talks about Russia’s civilizing force in Central Asia, while the latter writes
about Russia’s (limited) modernizing influences instead.17 Yet, although Skrine and
Ross thought that Russia was different from England, they included it in the
European world as a European power. Becker completely divorces the Russian
empire from the western world but he imbues Russia with sufficient western
features. In Becker’s writing, the discourse surrounding Russian Empire’s status and
its influences has shifted to a more post-colonial world of the 20 th century and thus,
the words ‘civilization’ mission and ‘Asiatic’ are in disuse in this monograph. Skrine
and Ross rarely mention the word colony when describing Central Asia and while
Becker puts Central Asia in that category, he does not dwell on it further and instead
emphasizes Bukhara and Khiva’s status as protectorates.18 Becker mentions Russia’s
15 (Becker, 1968, xiv)16 (ibid, xii)17 (ibid, xiii)18 (ibid, xii)
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reason for not directly ruling over these territories because they were not “primitive
and anarchic tribal groups” and had “relative social and political stability”.19 Russia
also wanted to save money and men, which it would have to expend if it were to
govern them directly.20 In the around sixty years that separate Skrine and Ross and
Becker’s monographs, the language and Russia’s characterization have changed
from it being a European power with Asiatic features to a non-western empire with
a western features. In the 21st century monographs, the colonial relationship
between the Russian empire and Central Asia is made explicit and takes the front
stage, so to speak, but the language has again shifted and the Russian empire
continues to be non-western.
As seen with Becker, the use of western and non-western continues but
modern is added into the literature to distinguish the Russian empire from western
empires but keep it within the modern world. Furthermore, Russian empire’s
colonial relationship and disagreements over policy-making are mentioned more
than in previous monographs. Daniel Brower’s Turkestan and the Fate of the Russian
Empire is different from the previous two monographs since it emphasizes explicitly
Russians as colonizers, who hoped to “incorporate alien people’s into a modern
empire, on a par with the great Western empires”.21 He writes, that “Turkestan could
claim title of Russia’s ‘real’ or ‘only’ colony” because of its long distance from the
center of the empire, its “Islamic integrity”, and the constant comparisons with
British Empire’s India, thus emphasizing its significance as a colony to the Russian
19 (ibid, xii-xiii)20 (ibid, xii)21 (Brower, 2003, ix)
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empire.22 Brower writes, that the Russian empire had a ‘forward policy’ when it
came to Central Asia that was partly formed after the humiliation suffered in the
Crimea War and partly to check Britain’s empire building in Asia.23 It was to
“strengthen empire’s ‘desirable extremities’”, which sometimes led to rapid
conquest of Central Asia, thus echoing Skrine and Ross’s argument for security.24
Brower also mentions the different clashing ideologies within the empire that
affected Russia’s policies and governance in Central Asia. There were views of the
authoritarian border rule by the military due to the dangers of religious fanaticism
and the other focused on integration and introduction of grazhdanstvennost to the
natives based on Russian experience in Siberia, which meant civilian rule above all.25
But the policy that was chosen by the Turkestan’s administration was “‘limiting [the
empire] to military occupation and allowing the natives to organize their affairs as
they wish’”26 since complete domination was undesirable due to the possibility that
it could lead to the same problems the Russian Empire encountered in the
Caucuses.27 The Russian empire continued to introduce certain judicial and social
reforms but Brower argues that the project in Central Asia was “deeply flawed”
because it tried to “reconcile autocracy with civil rights, Western secular civil order
with a deeply religious and tightly organized community of Muslim faithful…it
permitted colonization to take precedence over colonial reform.”28 In Brower’s
22 (ibid, xi)23 (ibid, 20)24 (ibid)25 (ibid, 28)26 (ibid, 29)27 (ibid, 21)28 (ibid, 174)
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characterization of the Russian empire, it is not part of the western world—it may
be “on par” due to it being modern and acquiring colonies that were essential to
being seen as a great power, which is the role that Central Asia plays in establishing
but it is separate from the western, European world. Brower also differs from the
previous authors because he focuses on different policy prescriptions offered by
various sides invested in the colonial project—military and civilian. The previous
authors did not invest much time in distinguishing various ideologies in the empire.
This shows a certain shift within the scholarly world into recognizing different ideas
that were dominant at one point or another within Russian elite societies even
though they continued to focus only on policies formed. The more recent
scholarship does not distinguish the Russian empire from the western world and it
adds a focus on the implementation of the policy.
In the more recent scholarship, two differences from the previous works
emerge: the Russian empire is part of the modern, European world and the
dynamics between policy and practice are explored to better understand its
imperial project’s successes and failures. Jeff Sahadeo’s Russian Colonial Society in
Tashkent, 1856-1923 seeks to explain Russian Empire’s imperial and colonial
relationship with Central Asia by focusing on Tashkent. For Sahadeo, Russia’s
imperial project in Central Asia reflects the changes taking place in the wider
imperial world. He writes, “[Russians] consciously sought to use their position not
only to fix Russia as a modern European empire, but also to define relations
between core and periphery, elite and mass, Russian and non-Russian in the late
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imperial era”.29 The Russian empire used heavily the “western imperial images
opposing the clean European to the dirty Asian”.30 Sahadeo uses the words ‘modern’,
‘European’, and ‘western’ when characterizing the Russian empire, thus not
distinguishing it from the other empires unlike the previously mentioned scholars.
Indeed, his focus is not on establishing the character of the Russian empire vis-a-vis
other empires but rather its relationship with its colony—Central Asia. He mentions
Brower’s work and critiques Brower’s lack of focus on implementation, which
Sahadeo thought differed from policy. He believes that Russians never did get to
create a “controlled” environment to “carry out their experiments” but their and the
colonized people’s conceptions of race, class, nation, and empire were instead
shaped by the every day realities on the ground.31 As the other historians, Sahadeo
focuses on the colonialists’ perceptions. He mentions few of the Central Asian elites
(‘mediators’), especially those who were able to amass fortunes due to railroads,
trade, and development but their opinions are rarely expressed—they are seen only
through Russians’ eyes.32 Sahadeo does mention the Jadids more than the previous
authors but they do not play the main role in his chapters. His book is, indeed, about
the Russian colonial society and thus must focus on the colonizers but this,
nonetheless, reflects a pattern within the literature on the Russian empire and
Central Asia, where the focus is on the colonizers. This pattern of giving precedence
and voice to the empire’s officials over the Central Asian locals continues in the
29 (Sahadeo, 2007, 3)30 (ibid, 85)31 (ibid, 4)32 (ibid, 145)
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literature but there is a focus on showing inequalities, thus being critical of the
opinion that societies in the Russian empire were more equal than in others.
In this article, the Russian empire is neither western nor European but it is
modern but its relationship with Central Asia is very similar to that of Britain and
France’s relationships with their peripheries. In “Metropole, Colony, and Imperial
Citizenship in the Russian Empire”, historian Alexander Morrison is attempting to
fill in the blanks when it comes to Russian Imperial policy as a whole because he
thinks that people do not focus on Central Asia enough and thus, show a rather
skewed perspective on Russia's definition of citizenship and its relations with
Muslims. He writes that from the 1860s onwards, Russia's legal and administrative
systems parallel the divisions between the metropole and periphery seen in British
and French empires with fewer local elites being co-opted into the new civic
structures that were being established by the Russian Empire.33 But he distinguishes
the Russian empire from the European and western ones, when he writes that
Russia “participated in a shared European framework of modernity” and “frequently
invoked” the Western states and societies.34 It participated in the framework and
invoked models but he never explicitly mentions it as being European and explicitly
separates it from the western states. For Morrison, Central Asia was definitively a
colony that was not assimilated and incorporated into the empire in practice.
Instead, there was a “much more aggressive policy of Russian settlement and
economic exploitation” countering the assertion that Russians had a “commitment
33 (Morrison, 2012, 331)34 (ibid, 339)
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to equal enfranchisement” for everybody in their empire.35 There was an element of
a civilizing mission but the tsarist administration never truly saw them as people for
whom equal imperial citizenship was to be extended to.36 Morrison continues to
focus on the Russian perspective and policy but he, more so than others did, focuses
on the implementation and its unequal effects on the Central Asian colony. The
Russian empire is not different (where it matters—inequality and citizenship) from
the British and French ones but it not a western nor European power. As the
scholarship becomes more recent, there is an awareness that not only should
scholars focus on differences in policy and implementation and Central Asia’s
colonial status but also on its importance to the St. Petersburg vis-à-vis other
borderlands.
The previous perspectives were those of non-Russians residing in England or
the US but this article is from a Russian scholar’s perspective. For Sergei Abashin,
Central Asia was significant in a sense that it made the Russian empire a European
Great Power but it did not play a central role in the metropole, or St. Petersburg. 37
In his article titled “Reflections on Central Asia in the Russian Empire”, he also
recognizes Central Asia as a “typical colony” due to 1) distance between the
colonizers and the colonized, 2) elements of indirect and military rule, and 3)
economic exploitation of the region.38 This region added to the Russian Empire the
classical characteristics of an empire, as seen in the French and English ones. Yet, he
adds that the Russian Empire was unable to fully realize its imperial ambitions in
35 (ibid, 360)36 (ibid, 361)37 (Abashin, 2008, 460)38 (ibid, 466)
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this region as compared to in its experience in other borderlands (such as the
Caucasus)39 partly because it never was a priority for the metropole.40 There was
also a great cultural and linguistic gulf separating the colonizers and the colonized41
and Central Asia was added to the empire after the 1860 reforms, which to Abashin
added to the atypical Russian imperial experience in the region.42 He critiques the
existing scholarship on Central Asia and the Russian Empire, arguing that studies of
Russian history are dominated by the Russian imperial narrative,43 while Oriental
studies focus too much on Islam and the region’s struggle to maintain tradition.44 In
the end, Abashin believes that the Central Asia was a colony but it differed from the
empire’s other peripheries and that for him, this must be kept in mind to truly
understand the dynamics. He believes that the Russian empire was of the European
character and Central Asia a colony but he adds the perspective that it did not
preoccupy metropole’s formulation of policy. He continues the focus on the Russian
officials and does not mention Central Asian ones and still focuses on the metropole
and periphery but adds a more nuanced dimension to the actual importance of the
region to the empire.
This last article is from the perspectives of a scholar from Europe. In
“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door: Russia, Central Asia and the Mediated Expansion of
International Society”, Filippo Costa Buranelli argues that the Russian Empire strove
39 (ibid)40 (ibid, 460)41 (ibid, 465)42 (ibid, 466)43 (ibid, 467)44 (ibid, 468)
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to add Central Asia to its territory to be seen as a European state, 45 especially after
the disastrous Crimean War, where it lost its prestige and was forced to accept
terms as if it were a lesser, “Asiatic” entity and thus, outside of the European
community.46 To make up for the feeling of inadequacy, the Russian empire sought
to instill in Central Asia a “healthy moral impulse and to spread in these countries
the benefits of European civilization”47 and, thus, by civilizing the uncivilized
become truly European.48 In the end, Russia was not fully accepted by the European
International Society and, Buranelli argues, the imperfect expansion into Central
Asia only showed Russia’s “Asiatic” character to the Europeans.49 While the author
mostly focuses on what the European International Society and Russia thought at
the time, in his conclusion, one can perhaps say that he thinks Russia is part of the
west as when he writes that the different standards of civilization existed not just
“between ‘the West and rest’ but also within the ‘West’ itself.50 The focus of this
paper is not elaborating the Russian-Central Asian dynamic but rather the dynamic
of Russia and the European International Society through Russia’s expansion into
Central Asia. As with previous authors, the Russian perspective is used and Central
Asia is its colony but in this case, Russia may be part of Europe and the ‘West’.
Throughout time and place, the Russian Empire continues to hold an
ambiguous position within the scholarship as either a western or non-western
imperial power. Central Asia is continuously seen as a region dominated by Russian
45 (Buranelli, 2014, 818)46 (ibid, 824)47 (ibid, 828)48 (ibid, 832)49 (ibid, 834-5)50 (ibid, 835)
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empire and as its colony but its significance to Russia’s identity and the language
surrounding that identity changes over time; it is a constant security threat and a
place for Russian’s civilizing burden or a region that makes the Russian empire a
truly European or, perhaps, even western state. But the Central Asian perspectives
are constantly underrepresented even though people have introduced certain elites
in their writings, such as the Jadids over time. The scholarship parallels the non-
academic world in which people are preoccupied with Russia and its role in the
world and Central Asia is mentioned in conjunction with it and from these academic
works we can perhaps see that different areas have different ways of characterizing
Russia and its place in the modern, European, and/or western world. This could be
useful in seeing how time, places, and people can have an effect on how we view the
same phenomenon.
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BibliographyAbashin, S. (2008). " Размышления о Центральнои Азии в составе
". РоссиискоиИмперии Ab Imperio , 456-471.
Becker, S. (1968). Russia's Protectorates in Central Asia: Bukhara and Khiva, 1865-1924. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Brower, D. (2003). Turkestan and the Fate of the Russian Empire . New York: RoutledgeCurzon.
Buranelli, F. C. (2014). Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door: Russia, Central Asia and the Mediated Expansion of International Society. Millennium: Journal of International Studies , 817-836.
Morrison, A. (2012). Metropole, Colony, and Imperial Citizenship in the Russian Empire. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History , 13 (2), 327-364.
Sahadeo, J. (2007). Russian Colonial Society in Tashkent, 1856-1923 . Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Skrine, F. H., & Ross, E. D. (1899). The Heart of Asia . London: Methuen & CO.
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