Russia and Central Asia: Coexistence, Conquest, Convergence

361 Pages·2019·21.818 MB·English

by  Shoshana Keller

RUSSIA AND CENTRAL ASIA

Russia and
C entral Asia
Coexistence, Conquest, Convergence
Shoshana Keller

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Russia and Central Asia : coexistence, conquest, convergence / Shoshana Keller.
Names: Keller, Shoshana, author.
Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: Canadiana 20190187271 | ISBN 9781487594350 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9781487594343 (softcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Russia (Federation)—Relations—Asia, Central—History. |
LCSH: Asia, Central—Relations—Russia (Federation)—History.
Classification: LCC DK857.75.R8 K45 2020 | DDC 303.48/247058—dc23
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
A Note on Spelling ix
Place Names xi
Introduction 1
chapter 1 Early Coexistence 21
chapter 2 The Balance of Power Shifts 45
chapter 3 Conquest 81
chapter 4 Imperial Rule 109
chapter 5 Revolutions 133
chapter 6 Founding Soviet Central Asia 157
chapter 7 Breaking and Building—The Stalin Era 179

chapter 8 Stability and Growth 211

chapter 9 From Reform to Independence 235

Notes 259
Glossary 309

Bibliography 313
Index 341

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe a great deal to my colleagues in the field and at Hamilton College for
their deep knowledge and generosity. At Hamilton, thanks to Kevin Grant,
Lisa Trivedi, Bonnie Urciuoli, Chaise Ladousa, Nathan Goodale, and Sally
Cockburn for their careful reading, comments, and help with anthropologi-
cal theory and Venn diagrams. Scott C. Levi, Gulnara Kendirbai, Alisher
Khaliyarov, Alexander Morrison, Sarah Cameron, Marianne Kamp, Russell
Zanca, R. Charles Weller, Erika Monahan, and the two anonymous reviewers
contributed their scholarship and advice to make this a better book, although
all mistakes are my responsibility. The maps were made by Bill Nelson at
Bill Nelson – Cartography. My spouse, Deborah Reichler, gets my deepest
gratitude for everything.

A NOTE ON SPELLING
It is a truth universally acknowledged in Central Asian studies that spelling
is a nightmare. The languages of Central Asia have been written in multiple
versions of the Perso-Arabic, Latin, and Cyrillic alphabets. Almost thirty
years after the end of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and
Kazakhstan each use mixed, and still evolving, Latin and Cyrillic alphabets
while Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan use different Cyrillic alphabets. In class
I tell my students that any spelling that is recognizably “in the ballpark” will
do. That standard, of course, will not do here. I use the Library of Congress
system for transliterating from Russian. For Central Asian languages I have
opted to use the American standard or most accessible spelling available,
rather than the most historically accurate. Hence “Kazakh” as the standard
rendering of “Qozoq”; “Kyrgyz” for what could be written as “Kirghiz,”
“Kirgiz,” or “Qyrgyz”; and “Kokand” for the city that is spelled “Khoqand”
in pre-Soviet manuscripts and “Qo’qon” in Uzbekistan’s current Latin alpha-
bet. An exception is made for the fact that, until 1925, Russians called the

Kazakhs “Kirgiz,” and the Kyrgyz “Kara-Kirgiz” (Black Kirgiz). In this case
I transliterate “Kirgiz” from the Russian to indicate the old nomenclature.

For Uzbek words and names I use the current Uzbek Latin alphabet. There
are a few letters that need explanation:

G’ a voiced glottal “gh,” as in clearing one’s throat

J American pronunciation, as in “July”

Q a glottal hard “k” sound
O’ a short “u,” similar to the German “ö”
X p ronounced as the Yiddish “ch” in “chutzpah”; written as “Kh”
from the Cyrillic