Beyond the River

Whitlock, Monica. Land Beyond the River: The Untold Story of Central Asia. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2003.

Interesting Gems

While most of Hindustani’s students maintain that he studied at Deoband, in his writings Hindustani himself never mentions Deoband and repeatedly specifies Ahmir (35).

Why did the Russians screw Tajikistan during delimitation and hook up Uzbekistan? It may have been because they saw improved relations with Turkey as more desirable than with Iran (44).

When the tides turned in their battle against the communists, many basmachi actually switched sides and became Soviet officials (56).

The first Russian paratrooper mission in history was in 1929 into the mountain village of Gharm to take on Ibrahim Bek, the last senior basmachi commander (59).

Before the Soviet period, “jesters” in Central Asia sometimes had their kneecaps removed to create a wobbly walk (67).

The Soviets claimed that before the revolution only 2% of the population was literate. This claim is impossible to evaluate because using the old Arabic script was immediately outlawed following the revolution (73).

During World War II Mongolian cavalry rushed advancing German machine gunners only to be completely wiped out without killing a single German (81).

Another Vali-Khan type shows up in this book. Apparently there was a Kazakh defector to the German side in World War II named Vali Qayum Khan. Relation to Valikhanov not specified (89).

Central Asians did listen to at least some Middle Eastern and Afghani radio stations, despite KGB surveillance (115).

 

Fascination of Revolution

Adeeb, Khalid. “The Fascination of Revolution: Central Asian Intellectuals, 1917 - 1927.” In Empire, Islam, and Politics in Central Eurasia, edited by Uyama Tomohiko, 137-152. Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, 2007.

Summary

This chapter is the quick and dirty version of Khalid’s previous two books, mostly The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform.

It chronicles the drama of the Jadids, a group of Central Asian modernizers. They began committed to Enlightenment political ideals, arguing that achieving a “modern” society was the duty of all Muslims (138).

However, with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, their ideals shifted dramatically (144). They no longer looked to Europe as a source of potential inspiration, but lashed out at the entire colonial order, and became committed to more radical, revolutionary ideals (145).

Consequently, when the Soviets came to power in Central Asia in the 1920s, the Jadids leapt at the opportunity, and collaborated with the Bolsheviks (148). Their ideals, however, did not envision radical class revolution, but rather a national revolution of modernization (146). Once the Bolsheviks consolidated their power, they put real control in the hands of more Russified Central Asians committed to the Soviet cause (150). Nevertheless, the Jadids remained in control of the cultural transformation of Central Asia throughout the 1920s until they were eliminated in the Stalinist purges (150).

Interesting Gems

Bishkek used to be called Pishpek (149).

Before switching to the Latin alphabet, Jadid reformers had converted to a modified Arabic alphabet that used all the vowels (151). More info about lingual transformations:

Perry, John. “Script and Scriptures: The Three Alphabets of Tajik Persian, 1927-1997.” In Journal of Central Asian Studies 2, no. 1 (1997): 2-18.

 

Central Asia in Early Photographs

Dikovitskaya, Margaret. “Central Asia in Early Photographs: Russian Colonial Attitudes and Visual Culture.” In Empire, Islam, and Politics in Central Eurasia, edited by Uyama Tomohiko, 99-121. Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, 2007.

Summary

Dikovitskaya challenges previous conclusions that the Russians were less “orientalist” than their European counterparts by analyzing photography of the time (100). (I was not aware of this conclusion, so that conclusion didn’t seem as surprising as it might have.) Along the way she makes some fair points about photography not being “a transparent medium but an artifact capable of determining or changing the way one sees its content” (102). In other words, when analyzing a photograph we can tell as much about the photographer as what is being photographed, and that is exactly what she proceeds to do.

Photography was used by the Russians to categorize ethnicities (107)*, as well as develop a xenophobic Russian nationalism (114). The photos were used to portray Central Asians as a backward, history-less, “other,” and the Russians as the civilized saviors.

* Francine Hirsch’s recent book is about Russian imperial ethnographers and how they continued their legacy under the Soviets.

Hirsch, Francine. Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union (Culture and Society After Socialism). Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005.

Evaluation

I had very mixed feelings about this chapter. On one hand, it is extremely well-written and engaging, thanks in part to the included photographs. On the other hand, I also found it rather speculative in parts. For instance, she frequently makes very specific interpretations of the supposed attitudes and thoughts of the Russians through her analysis of the photographs. I have no doubt that the Russians were guilty of stereotyping and orientalizing Central Asia, and she is probably right in her speculations. But they are still just educated speculations, not really grounded in sources. Moreover, she is only looking at the work of two photographers, which constitutes a pretty low sample size.

Interesting Gems

Russian citizens were not allowed to travel throughout the Empire without special permission (111).

Her analysis of the picture of the Alim-Khan of Bukhara is particularly convincing, but appears as a side note (118).

 

A Particularist Empire

Uyama, Tomohiko. “A Particularist Empire: The Russian of Christianization and Military Conscription in Central Asia.” In Empire, Islam, and Politics in Central Eurasia, edited by Uyama Tomohiko, 23-64. Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, 2007.

Summary

This chapter serves as an illustration of how ingrained stereotypes — orientalism, more specifically — directly led to a self-defeating, or at least ineffective, brand of imperial particularism, both in terms of Christian proselytizing and military conscription in Central Asia. In a feedback loop between government and academia (aka “group think”), 19th century Russian administrators and scholars developed a system of classification do clearly distinguish between ethnicities (61).

For Orthodox Christian proselytizing, this led to policies that were a) constantly changing and / or indeterminant, and b) specific to ethnicities. For instance, the Kazakhs / Kyrgyz were thought to be more prone to Shamanism and not well disposed toward Islam, and therefore easy to convert (27). While there was some truth in this notion, since the Kazakhs often equated religion with national identity, the relatively weak conversion efforts had very little effect. In sedentary Turkestan, where the locals were thought to be “extremist” and officials feared insurrections, the efforts of Russian Orthodox missionaries were severely restricted (37).

By Uyama’s account, military conscription policy fared little better. Primarily because officials believed Central Asians to be untrustworthy and alien, there was never any concerted universal conscription effort (49). Again, however, this policy was not uniform across time or ethnicities. For example, the Turkmen had a reputation as fearless warriors, and consequently had their own irregular brigade (50). In contrast, the Kazakhs were seen as less reliable fighters, and the sedentary population of Turkestan prone siding with the Ottoman Empire (53).

Context

Uyama identifies pretty clearly what crowd he is writing against (24-25): 1) Those who argue that Russian policy was uniformly against proselytizing (Sebastien Peyrouse), 2) Those who see Russian policy as part of a uniform nation-state construction process (Joshua Sanborn), 3) Those who see Russian policy as “divide and rule” (less clear who he is referring to there). Like any good academic, he does of course concede that there is truth to all these views.

Interesting Gems

Chokan Valikhanov makes an appearance in his chapter (though spelled as Shoqan Walikhanov); as a Russified intellectual, Valikhanov had some rather critical views of Islam, but Uyama doesn’t get into the content (27).

Almost as an afterthought, Uyama does address the limits of the obvious parallels between Soviet and Russian Imperial policy, worth quoting at length here:

In the Soviet Union, ethnic boundaries were made clear and ethnicities were given territorial autonomies, but the system of ethnoterritorial formation (Union republics – autonomous republics – autonomous oblasts) was common throughout the country, and peculiar ethnic characters were not used, at least explicitly, as reasons for privileging or discriminating some ethnic groups. In the Russian Empire, ethnic boundaries were confused and ethnoterritorial autonomy was not acknowledged, but there was no common policy for integrating diverse ethnic groups, and peculiar ethnic characters were extensively cited as reasons for adopting particularistic policies. (63)

Some Questions / Further Inquiry

The term “Cossack” seems to be very broad. It would be useful to gain a better understanding of the many definitions and connotations of the word.

Uyama identifies one “Sultan Vali-Khan” as “apparently a descendant of the Kazakh khan, Wali”) (47). Is this the same person as the “Walikhanov” he references earlier? Adding to the confusion, UNESCO has in their bio: “Чокан Валиханов родился в семье, где традицией, начиная с деда Вали…” Warrants further investigation.

 

Dar al-Islam Under Russian Rule

Komatsu, Hisao. “Dar al-Islam under Russian Rule.” In Empire, Islam, and Politics in Central Eurasia, edited by Uyama Tomohiko, 3-22. Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, 2007.

Summary

In his chapter, Komatsu Hisao discusses the views and attitudes toward Tsarist rules of contemporary Muslim intellectuals of the late Tsarist period, most specifically the 1890s. His goal is to demonstrate that there was no unified resistance to Tsarist rule among Muslims, who were nevertheless grappling with how to define “Dar al-Islam” with non-Muslims in control. Despite poignant demonstrations of resistance — in this chapter most notably the Andijan uprising of May 18, 1898 — such militant resistance was not the norm in most areas, and was condemned by many Islamic scholars.

Komatsu opens by demonstrating that many Muslim scholars did justify Russian rule (17), and rationalize the continuation of the Dar al-Islam without having to flee lands under foreign rule, under Islamic terms as well as traditional ones.

If Mulla Musa justified the submission by a moral norm of ancient Turkic origin, the “obligation of salt,” (the obedience of the obligee to his benefactor), Ta’ib did it based on the Hanafi law school tradition in Turkestan. (7)

This sentiment was, of course, not shared by everyone. Most vehemently opposed was Dukchi Ishan, or Muhammad ‘Ali [Madali], who ultimately led the Andijan uprising. Dukchi Ishan consolidated his power through charitable works (12) and by propagating Islam among the mountainous Kyrgyz (13). However, Komatsu doesn’t really portray Dukchi Ishan as embodying a popular upsurge, but rather as a political leader at the head of a very tightly controlled organization in a very specific region (the eastern Ferghana Valley).

Because his movement was isolated, when led the rebellion Muslim leaders saw him as not only a challenge to the Russian order, but their authority as well, as many of them had accepted the Russian legal system, which had in some ways secured their own positions (17).

Context

While I am not entirely familiar with the historiography of the late Russian imperial period, Komatsu leaves several clues about the context he is writing in. For instance, he makes a reference that portrays Muhammad Yunus Khwaja Ta’ib (Ta’ib throughout) as a “hero of the national liberation movement against Tsarist rule” (17).

Interesting Gems

The Russian imperial policy of disregarding Islam and leaving its administration to local religious leaders dates back to Kaufman, the first governor-general of Turkestan (8), though in 1886 a statute was introduced that gave extensive powers to civil judges in place of the religious ones (14).

In the 1890s, the Ferghana Valley suffered outbreaks of cholera and famines that resulted in ten thousand deaths (12).

Some Questions / Further Inquiry

Ta’ib refers to Dukchi Ishan’s group of Muslim agitators as Sufis. What makes a Sufi a Sufi in 1890s Central Asia? Why would he have referred to them this way? For instance, Ta’ib writes:

… in this country there are so many wretches, rascals, and Sufis who are worse than mad dogs in bazaars… (10)

What specifically is a “murshid”? In the context of Komatsu’s chapter, they appear to be Sufi priests, for lack of a better word.

Komatsu mentions that the Dukchi Ishan’s brand of Islam showed many aspects of “folk Islam,” despite the fact that it was clearly a return to Orthodoxy. It would be very interesting do dig deeper and find out what exactly this means.

Komatsu Hisao discusses the Andijan uprising of 1898 futher in:

Komatsu, Hisao. “The Andijan Uprising Reconsidered.” In Muslim Societies: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, edited by Sato Tsugitaka, 29-61. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004.

 

Japanese Central Asia Scholarship

The next series of posts are going to be about chapters from:

Tomohiko, Uyama, editor. Empire, Islam, and Politics in Central Eurasia. Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, 2007.

But first, this post attempts to briefly gather a few notes on Japanese scholarship of Central Asia (although authors of many nationalities contributed to the volume). Glancing at the Hokkaido Slavic Research Center’s website, Tomohiko appears to be the only among the minority of scholars there that specializes specifically on Central Asia. Others include Naganawa Norihiro (who only recently received a PhD) and Kikuta Haruka (who there is no information on).

Tomohiko is a scholar of modern history first, but also seems to dabble in contemporary political analysis; the English version of the site evidently lists only his English publications (presumably he publishes in Japanese as well). His (English) scholarship focuses on Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Komatsu Hisao has less of a web presence than Tomohiko, but that fact demonstrates that web presence is still not necessarily indicative of expertise. Adeeb Khalid, who wrote the book on Central Asian Jadidism, wrote this in the preface (xiv):

Hisao Komatsu also provided me copies of invaluable and impossible to find works fundamental to my work.

Komatsu might in fact be the only other person beside Khalid who has published in-depth on the subject of Jadidism. Born in 1951 and now with over 20 major publications, he could very well be Japan’s preeminent Central Asia scholar. He specializes in both Islam and modern Central Asian history.

At the very least, Japan has several highly esteemed Central Asia scholars. Pity I will never learn Japanese.

Some general facts to keep in mind as the edited volume is discussed

Like many volumes, it comes from papers produced for a conference held July 7-8, 2005, at Hokkaido University called: “Regional and Transregional Dynamism in Central Eurasia: Empires, Islam and Politics.” This means that most of the articles are probably condensed versions of research published elsewhere (which is not a bad thing, necessarily).

It is extremely wide ranging in content, covering the Russian imperial period, the early Soviet years, and even the present day.

Goals that unify this diverse volume include: 1) the inclusion of Turkic and Persian sources rather than just Russian ones, 2) the interaction between internal and broader, external trends.

 

Etherton at Kashgar, Waugh at Washington

Waugh, Daniel C. “Etherton at Kashgar: Rhetoric and Reality in the History of the ‘Great Game.’” Seattle: Bactrian Press, 2007.

Link (PDF)

The Author

A glance at Daniel Waugh’s very cool website takes away the mystery of why he is interested in a topic like the the Great Game; he himself fits the mold as well. For example, according to his site, he was in Uzbekistan in 1969 and summited Pik Lenin in 1991.

Looking over his CV, Waugh appears a generalist, with publications all over the board. He definitely seems to be of the Russianist / Central Asianist mold, though he has publications on Ottoman - Muscovite correspondence, authoritarian politics to name a few. Also commendable, he publishes in Russian as well as English and doesn’t seem afraid to cross disciplines. Many of his publications - like this one - seem to be in-depth analyses of specific historical figures (or documents), usually travelers and adventurers.

Context

The Great Game is an idea with very broad appeal to many, the author of this blog included. However, it seems defensible to appreciate the romance of the mythologized great game while recognizing the historical inaccuracy of that same notion; Waugh seems to understand this perfectly. (Otherwise, presumably he would have chosen a different topic.)

Other authors, most notably Peter Hopkirk, end up dominating the small field of Great Game writing, and the result is exciting, but lacking in historic authenticity. Aside from Waugh, the other author I know of that has attempted a serious study of the Great Game is Gerald Morgan:

Morgan, Gerald. Anglo-Russian Rivalry in Central Asia 1810-1895. London: Routledge, 1981.

Waugh also mentions this book, which I have not yet read:

Johnson, Robert. Spying for Empire: The Great Game in Central and South Asia, 1757-1947. Mechanicsburg: Greenhill Books, 2006.

Finally, there is a Russian source I am slowly making my way through:

Постников, А. В. Схватка на “Крыше Мира.” Москва: Памятники Исторической Мысли, 2001.

Summary

The thrust of the article is quite simple: Scholars have thus far taken the words of Percy T. Etherton - British Consul in Kashgar from 1918-1922 - at face value, despite the fact that there is substantial evidence that he is anything but a reliable source. So far the popular narrative - and that of both Hopkirk and PT Etherton himself - has been that he waged a dogged and inspired covert war against the Soviets in Central Asia during this period. In short, Etherton has been presented as another British Great Game hero of the gentleman-diplomat-spy mold.

While Etherton was virulently anti-communist, London had not taken an active anti-Bolshevik policy, so the initiative he did take were somewhat insubordinate (27). Moreover, Waugh suggests that Etherton’s efforts were not nearly as effective as he would have had the world believe. For instance, he portrays the Chinese officials as at his beck and call, but Waugh suggest they probably had their own motives, and that the information likely flowed both ways (20). The information he did gather was often unsubstantiated rumor, planted by the Bolsheviks, and was in any case outdated by the time it got to London (22). Finally, there is evidence that Etherton was personally corrupt both in terms of his shady budgeteering in the British consulate (56) to his misrepresentation of the facts in his own book (63).

According to Waugh, Etherton also drastically underestimated the severity of the Soviet threat, believing they had little traction and were militarily weak in Central Asia (40). The covert propaganda measures he employed were largely ineffective (51).

Interesting Gems

One of the reasons the British had a consul in Kashgar in the first place during this period was to protect the interests of Indian merchants, who controlled the trade between Russia, Xinjiang, and Kashmir (7).

The celebrated exploits of FM Bailey were indeed “the stuff of legends,” according to Waugh, but the intelligence value of his “Mission to Tashkent” was probably very low since he was cut uoff from outside communication (13).

Etherton broadcast in Ferghana a Fatwa from the Sheikh-ul-Islam denouncing Bolshevism (34).

Etherton was very interested in the potential of Pan-Islamic movements in Central Asia, but concluded that they had little real potential (38).

Final Thoughts

The scholarship in this article is very thorough, but it is a very specific niche piece. It’s broader relevance is buried beneath a carefully crafted and documented argument designed to refute a popular misconception of a specific historical figure. It is useful very specifically as a Great Game source, and offers some broader lessons about the realities of espionage in the early nineteenth century. The latter lesson is similar to that learned in Morgan’s book (cited above): there wasn’t that much of it, what did take place was dramatically different from what we consider espionage today, and it wasn’t terribly effective.