The Qїrghїz Baatïr and the Russian Empire: A Portrait of a Local Intermediary in Russian Central Asia

158 Pages·2021·5.995 MB·English

by  Tetsu Akiyama

The Qїrghїz Baatïr and the Russian Empire
Islamic Area Studies
Series Editor
Toru Miura (Ochanomizu University)
Advisory board
Abdul-Karim Rafeq (College of William and Mary)
Nelly Hanna (American University in Cairo)
Stephen R. Humphreys (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Dale F. Eickelman (Dartmouth College)
Fariba Adelkhah (Sciences Po-CERI)
Keiko Sakurai (Waseda University)
volume 5
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/isas
The Qїrghїz Baatïr
and the Russian Empire
A Portrait of a Local Intermediary
in Russian Central Asia
By
Tetsu Akiyama
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: photo by Tetsu Akiyama.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Akiyama, Tetsu (Professor), author.
Title: The Qїrghїz Baatïr and the Russian empire : a portrait of a local
 intermediary in Russian Central Asia / by Tetsu Akiyama.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2021] | Series: Islamic area
 studies, 2214-6555 ; volume 5 | Includes bibliographical references and
 index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020058130 (print) | LCCN 2020058131 (ebook) |
 ISBN 9789004436121 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004436138 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Shabdan Zhantaĭ uulu, 1839–1912. |
 Statesmen—Kyrgyzstan—Biography. | Statesmen—Asia, Central—Biography. |
 Kyrgyzstan—Politics and government—19th century—Sources. |
 Kyrgyzstan—Foreign relations—Russia. | Russia—Foreign
 relations—Kyrgyzstan.
Classification: LCC DK918.846.S5 A39 2021 (print) | LCC DK918.846.S5
 (ebook) | DDC 958.43/081092 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020058130
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020058131
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
ISSN 2214-6555
ISBN 978-90-04-43612-1 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-43613-8 (e-book)
Copyright 2021 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi,
Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Explanatory Notes ix
List of Illustrations x
Abbreviations xii
Prologue 1
1 The Man Called “the Last of the Mohicans” 1
2 Methodology 4
3 Sources 11
1 A Child of the Jookerchilik Zaman 16
1 Qїrghїz After the Collapse of the Junghar Khanate 17
2 The Formation of the Manap Stratum 20
3 Young Shabdan Stands Out as a Baatїr 23
2 Between Qoqand and Russia 27
1 Jantay as an Intermediary of the Qoqand Khanate 27
2 Jantay Encounters the Russian Advance 30
3 Under the Growing Russian Military Presence 31
4 Jantay on the Military Administration System 35
3 Between Ruling Reform and Military Expansion 40
1 Shabdan Appears Before the Russian Authority 42
2 From Baranta to “Military Service” 48
3 Shabdan as a Mediator 51
4 Kolpakovskii Mistrusts, Kaufman Pardons Shabdan 53
4 Aristocrat or Parasite 57
1 Shabdan’s Promotion to the Lieutenant Colonel 57
2 The Manaps as Qїrghїz Aristocracy 61
3 The Emerging “Anti-Manap Struggle” 65
4 Shabdan as an Impediment to Russian Rule 69
5 The “Queen Bee” of the Qїrghїz 74
5 On the Frontline of the Resettlement Policy 77
1 From “Sword” to “Money” 78
2 Leaving the Deep Recess 80
vi Contents
3 The Resettlement Administration as a New Player in Semirech’e 82
4 Searching for a Middle Ground 84
6 Growing Relationship to Islam under Russian Rule 90
1 Shabdan as a Murid 91
2 Baatïr to Baatïr Hajji 93
3 Shabdan as the Local Representative of Islam 98
4 Dilemmas Concerning the Engagement with Islam 101
Epilogue: Heading for Ruin 104
1 The Russian Authorities in Shabdan’s Funeral 105
2 Organizing the Ash 107
3 The Russian Authorities and the Ash 111
4 The Colonial Government Strengthens the Intervention 113
5 Shabdan Remains “Alive”: In the Name of Baatïr Hajji 115
Conclusion 118
Bibliography 123
Index 137
Acknowledgements
It has been almost five years since the prototype of this monograph was pub-
lished in Japanese by the University of Tokyo Press, in 2016. After complete and
drastic revision with much supplementation, it is my great honor to be given
this tremendous opportunity to provide this monograph to international read-
ers. I would first like to express my sincere gratitude to the chief editor of the
ISAS series, Toru Miura, and Brill for facilitating the publication and offering
sound advice and support.
With respect to preparing the manuscript, I owe thanks to many research-
ers for their comments, criticism, and advice. I was lucky to have many “test
readers” with various backgrounds, including specialists in not only Central
Asia but also the French colonial empire and the social anthropology of the
African nomads. My heartfelt thanks to Jin Noda, Tomohiko Uyama, Norihiro
Naganawa, Katsunori Nishiyama, Chikako Hirano, Chimedyn Shinjilt, Itsuhiro
Hazama, Daniel Prior, and Virginia Martin. I must also express special thanks
to Hisao Komatsu for reading the final manuscript and giving valuable com-
ments and advice with the copy of related sources.
I am also grateful to the researchers from Central Asia: Janyl Abdyldabek
kyzy, Askar Bedelbaev, Aiida Kubatova, Gulmira Sultangalieva, and Ulzhan
Tuleshova. Owing to their collaboration, in 2018, I had great opportunities to
hold international workshops in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, where I spoke
about my research and the book project. I gratefully acknowledge the com-
ments and criticism I received from the audience, which I made note of and
have incorporated in this monograph as much as was possible. Unfortunately,
I regret to say that Janyl Abdyldabek kyzy passed away on January 6, 2021. As a
great-granddaughter of Shabdan, she not only managed the private archive but
also showed great interest in her great-grandfather, publishing his biography.
Every time I saw her, I was exposed to intellectual stimulation and inspiration,
which, needless to say, helped enormously to accomplish this monograph. I
would like to take this occasion to extend my most heartfelt wishes of peace
to her soul.
In organizing the workshops and preparing the manuscript, I was sup-
ported by the “Project to Promote Joint Research Centers of Distinction
to Provide Enhanced Support for Waseda’s Islamic Area Studies Center”
(FY 2016–2018), approved by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science
and Technology, Japan (MEXT). I express my cordial gratitude to Keiko Sakurai,
ex-director of the Waseda University Organization for Islamic Area Studies.
Without her understanding and encouragement, this monograph would not
viii Acknowledgements
have been possible. I deeply appreciate my current affiliation, the Waseda
Institute for Advanced Study (WIAS), for providing the superior research en-
vironment that allowed me enough time to complete the project. This project
also owes much to the generous financial support from the Waseda University:
“Humanities and Social Sciences English-language Scholarly Book Publishing
Support Program (FY 2019)” and “Support for Academic Paper Publication
(FY 2020).” I wish to express my thanks to Space-Time, Inc. (https://www.stxst
.com/) for preparing the maps and Yoko Yamashita for index building.
Finally, I would like to thank my family—Yuriko, Subaru, Hideaki, Yumi,
Taizo, and Keijiro—for their daily support and encouragement. I dedicate this
monograph to my late grandfather, Kenzaburo Aoki (1915–2002), whose career
and experience as an army officer of the Empire of Japan and way of life after
WWII is the biggest inspiration for this book.
Tetsu Akiyama
Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, Tokyo
January 2021
Explanatory Notes
Dates in this monograph are, in principle, represented as Arabic numerals
based on the Russian Julian Calendar. By adding twelve and thirteen days to
the Julian Calendar dates in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, respec-
tively, dates under the present Gregorian Calendar can be derived. Regarding
the Russian units of measurement used in this monograph, the unit of area,
dessiatine (desyatina), corresponds to 1.09 hectares.
Texts quoted directly from historical source documents are transcribed in
the Latin alphabet. The transcription method of the Turkic languages follows
the system in Edward Allworth, Nationalities of the Soviet East: Publications
and Writing Systems: A Bibliographical Directory and Transliteration Tables for
Iranian-and Turkic-Language Publications, 1818–1945, Located in U.S. Libraries
(New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1971). The transliteration of
the Russian alphabet also follows the Allworth system, except I(i), Ѣ(e), Ю(yu),
Я(ya), Э(e), Ѳ(f), V(i).
Russian archival documents are cited according to the following order:
Abbreviated archive, f. (fond: collection), op. (opis’: inventory), d. (delo: file),
l. (list: leaf).
Illustrations
Maps
1 Central Asia under Russian rule at the beginning of the twentieth century xiv
2 The Russian Empire and neighboring countries in the early
twentieth century xiv
3 Semirech’e at the turn of the eighteenth century 19
4 The Russian advance in Central Asia in the mid-nineteenth century 32
5 Za-Chui Krai and its surrounding regions 37
6 Toqmoq Uezd in the latter half of the 1860s 43
7 The Qїrghїz Volosts in Semirech’e at the turn of the nineteenth century 75
Figures
1 Shabdan (third from the left) with family members (1908) 2
2 The tent of Shabdan with his banner erected behind 2
3 The inside of the tent 3
4 Kuropatkin 4
5 The class structure of a Qїrghїz encampment 7
6 The gravestone of Shabdan 9
7 Qїrghїz warriors in the mid-1850s 25
8 Kaufman 56
9 Kolpakovskii 56
10 Central Asian delegates to the coronation ceremony of Aleksandr III 57
11 A spectacle at the coronation ceremony of Aleksandr III 58
12 The certificate for the conferral of the rank of lieutenant colonel on
Shabdan 59
13 Shabdan in Cossack Kaftan 60
14 The admission ticket to the coronation ceremony of Aleksandr III 62
15 Ivanov 66
16 Krivoshein 82
17 Fol’baum 86
18 Samsonov 86
19 Shabdan’s mosque 93
20 The shamail print 95