 |
Chapter 4. The responsibilities and dangers of the empire. Central Asia
|
|
|
|
Chapter 4
The responsibilities and dangers of the empire
By the mid‑ 17th century, it had become clear that Russia was primarily a north Eurasian empire, rather than an Orthodox ecumene or an embryonic nation‑ state. The way in which it acquired and extended that empire illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of Russia’s geopolitical situation. It expanded to fill a vacuum which was both alluring and threatening. In Siberia, after defeating the Khanate in 1582, it faced only weak tribes, some of whom put up vigorous resistance, but none of whom could face down Cossacks equipped with firearms. Sweeping them aside, Russia expanded eastward all the way to the Pacific and became the largest territorial empire on earth, with immense resources. The exploitation of them, however, was hampered by the sheer size and remoteness of the territory.
The tools of imperial policy varied over time. In the 16th and 17th centuries, priority was usually given to suppressing any lingering resistance, then ensuring the integration of populations and making them loyal to the Tsar, whatever their internal arrangements, customs, and beliefs might be. This was usually achieved by co‑ opting the indigenous elites as local chieftains or religious leaders under the Tsar’s ultimate authority. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, attention gradually shifted to bringing ‘civilization’ to non‑ Russian peoples, together with religious toleration and more direct administrative control. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, serious disagreements began to arise among imperial officials. Some of them aimed to inculcate grazhdanstvennost (civic consciousness) among non‑ Russians, to give them a feeling of pride in belonging to the empire and political identification with it. This implied preserving non‑ Russian culture, but reducing it to an auxiliary and folkloric status. Other officials considered this policy dangerous, likely in practice to strengthen non‑ Russian cultural and political movements; they preferred to stick to more authoritarian methods, to emphasize administrative integration, and to encourage indigenous populations to convert to Orthodoxy and to adopt the Russian language for all public business.
These policies were pursued in different ways in different regions. In the Volga region, the first non‑ Russian territory to be conquered, in the 1550s, the Muscovite authorities at first tried to convert the Muslim Tatar elites to Orthodoxy. However, they soon abandoned this policy, judging it was likely to produce effective leaders of popular resistance and thus threaten internal security. All the same, they periodically resumed conversion campaigns, extending them further down the social scale. Priests and local officials went around the mostly pagan Chuvash, Mari, Mordvin, and Udmurt villages, driving their inhabitants down to the river to be baptized. The results, however, were superficial: by and large, the populations continued their previous observances. In places, moreover, the policy aroused serious turbulence, and the authorities eventually abandoned it.
|
|
|
Central Asia
In Central Asia, the main priority became vacuum‑ filling. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, Russia gradually pushed its defence lines southwards and eastwards into the steppe land of the Kazakh Hordes. The Kazakhs had themselves appealed to the Tsar for protection against invading Kalmyks from further out.
Russia complied willingly. Its motives were articulated by Foreign Minister Gorchakov in the mid‑ 19th century:
The situation of Russia in Central Asia is similar to that of all civilised states which come into contact with half‑ savage nomadic tribes without a firm social organisation. In such cases the interests of border security and trade relations always require that the more civilised state have a certain authority over its neighbours, whose wild and unruly customs render them very troublesome. It begins by first curbing raids and pillaging. To put an end to these it is often compelled to reduce the neighbouring tribes to some degree of close subordination.
Dealing with Kazakh nomads was easier if Russia could exercise some degree of authority over them, make them more dependent on Russian trade, and adapt their laws and customs to the needs of Russian officials and traders. Kazakhs welcomed Russian protection but sporadically rebelled against this incorporation into empire.
Until the mid‑ 19th century, most of the Russian inhabitants of the steppe were Cossacks in mixed ranching and military settlements. From the 1870s onwards, increasing numbers of peasants came from the depressed central provinces of Russia, driven by the desire to create a better life for themselves. The Kazakhs at first tolerated this diminution of their pastures in the interests of the security the Cossacks afforded them. With the Resettlement Act of 1889, the state began systematically to survey and allot land to incoming settlers, whose numbers thereafter increased markedly. Their holdings began to cramp the nomads’ movements and thus compelled them to take up a more settled life. Landholdings became more strictly delineated, disrupting inherited notions of land and property.
Between the 1860s and 1880s, the Russians conquered the Khanates of Kokand (which controlled the fertile Ferghana Valley), Khiva, and Bukhara. The latter two became protectorates, while the first was abolished and Russian military rule was installed. By now, Russia was adopting a more pervasive method of imperial rule: imperial officials were brought in at higher and medium levels, while only the lower levels of authority were left to native headmen.
It was one thing to operate such a system within a culture familiar to all those intermediate administrators, quite another where the laws, customs, religion, and language were alien to them. Moreover, most Russian officials were military men, whose training ill fitted them to empathize with locals. Very few of them had even an elementary knowledge of local languages; they had to rely on indigenous interpreters, who were embedded in local networks and, undetected, could offer biased translations of the kind their colleagues wanted to hear. Russian officials guessed what was going on, but could do little about it. Such mismatches bedevilled many aspects of life: tax‑ collection, irrigation control, the administration of justice, and the settlement of disputes over religious endowments.
|
|
|
There were special difficulties when imperial concepts of law, custom, or hygiene differed markedly from those of locals. Among the Kazakh nomads, for example, the custom of barimta was widespread: it was considered honourable and proper, when other means of settling clan conflicts had failed, for one clan to take cattle, or even abduct a woman, to be returned when a settlement was finally reached. To Russian officials, this was theft or kidnapping, a criminal offence. Yet it was difficult to outlaw it without having anything effective to put in its place as a means of mediation.
The difficulties were intensified by the fact that Russian officials themselves disagreed on the ultimate purposes of their rule. General Kaufman, the first Governor‑ General in Tashkent, had long experience of the Caucasus, loathed Muslim ‘fanaticism’, and gave absolute priority to establishing good order as that was understood by senior army officers. In the long term, he expected Turkestan to evolve into an orderly, law‑ abiding region, but thought he could expedite the process by marginalizing Islam as far as possible. Many civilian officials, on the other hand, were committed ‘Westerners’, who believed Russia had a civilizing mission and aspired – like many of their counterparts in British India – to enhance the welfare of their colonial subjects and gradually turn them into full citizens of the Russian Empire. Such an outlook entailed tolerating Islam, allowing the ulema to continue their role, while gradually ‘enlightening’ them in the ways of the modern world, as interpreted by Russia.
The relative peace of Central Asia lasted only as long as the state’s demands on its inhabitants were not too importunate. But in the middle of the First World War, when Muslims were for the first time conscripted to serve in the army, long‑ pent‑ up resentment exploded. There were riots in most major towns, and the army had to be called in to quell them. The loss of life and subsequent emigration into China meant that Turkestan lost nearly one‑ fifth of its inhabitants in 1916–17.
|
|
|
