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.