Scholarship on the Russian Empire’s identity and its relationship with Central AsiaRoksana Gabidullina

May 20, 2016Professor Mitchell

I have neither received nor given unauthorized aid on this assignment.Roksana Gabidullina

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When discussing colonial and imperial countries and power relations, people

usually do not distinguish one empire from another. In the US context, the Russian

empire is rarely mentioned and if it is, then people assume that it operates under

similar characteristics as the British and French empires do. In the scholarship,

though, different opinions emerge when placing the Russian Empire within the

imperial context. Some consider it to be an exception to the western, European

imperial project and others include it fully within the European colonial and

imperial society. These both viewpoints use Russia’s conquest and incorporation of

Central Asia to establish either the Russian empire as exception to the rule or as

proof of its western-style colonial nature. In this essay, I argue that the nature of the

Russian empire as a western or non-western power continues to be debated even as

the language surrounding colonialism and imperialism changes over time to post-

colonial studies diction. The monographs and articles I will focus on are published in

a chronological order with the oldest monograph used first.

Earlier monographs published during the days of the empire recognize

Russian empire’s project in Central Asia as a civilizing force comparable to that of

Britain’s, which suggests it being a European power, but they nonetheless point out

its “Oriental” features. Francis Henry Skrine and Edward Denison Ross’s The Heart

of Asia: A History of Russian Turkestan and the Central Asian Khanates from the

Earliest Times was a book published in 1899. Skrine was a member of Her Majesty’s

Indian Service and Ross was a professor of Persian at University College, London.

They are writing at the time when the British, Russian, and other empires existed in

this world and, thus, they recognized, supported, and criticized imperial institutions

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and projects within the frameworks established by British Empire, of which they

were citizens.

They started with the history of Central Asia but for the purposes of this

paper, I will focus on their work on Russia in Central Asia only. They began the

second part of their book with a chapter titled “Making of Russia”, tracing the

history of the current empire through the first emergence of Slavs, Kievan Rus,

Muscovy, and the principalities bid for consolidation and creation of the Russian

Empire. Here they give a deeply ingrained reason for Russia’s expansion: “the

Mongolian restlessness”.1 They argued that the “dreamy, sluggish” nature of the

Slavs was affected by Mongol’s domination2; Slavs became just as expansionist.

Thus, Russia became “destined [to] sweep away the effete political organizations of

the Asiatic continent” just as Mongols have done hundreds of years before them.3

Russia’s expansion into Central Asia was presented by the understandable

terms to them that of security against the marauding tribes in the empire’s frontiers.

They mention Gorchakov’s well written and logical memorandum on Russian

Empire’s annexation of new land, which argued that Russia strove for nothing but

peace and security and to do that, they, like any other empire, were forced to

conquer territory to achieve those goals.4 Economic considerations played a role as

well when the Russian Empire continuously asked or sometimes, demanded of its

protectorates to treat Russian merchants on par with native ones. The last

consideration was Russian Empire’s “Great Game” (a phrase that is unmentioned)

1 (Skrine & Ross, 1899, 237)2 (ibid, 234)3 (ibid, 409)4 (ibid, 247)

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with Great Britain, which fed into Russian feelings of insecurity at its borders and

was only solved when Afghanistan and the understood spheres of influence were

created in the 1880s.5 The last two played a role in feeding Russia’s drive but they

were not the main one. In the authors’ view, the main reason for expansion was

security of its frontiers in Central Asia, a matter that they understood as logical for

an empire to do.

They mentioned Russian Empire’s influence on Central Asian societies.

Russians attempted to change over time the legal framework of Central Asian

societies by leaving private cases, such as marriage and inheritance, to shari’a law

but everything else to Russian and non-shari’a native sources.6 The empire detested

the religious leaders, whom they saw as fanatical, and tried to subvert their

power.7Russians also tried to promote non-native settlers but the areas in Central

Asia were too harsh for their “European constitutions” and many died and few came

to settle.8 The authors mention that Russians “dread[ed] the responsibility of

granting citizenship to two and a half millions of Asiatics” and, thus, allowed the

emir of Bukhara to remain as such because that cost the Russian government

nothing and it continued to profit from that arrangement.9 They never truly

extrapolated why it would have been costly.

In the last chapter, titled “Friends or Foes”, Skrine and Ross explicitly

mentioned Russia’s European and Oriental characteristics. The Russian empire

5 (ibid, 415)6 (ibid, 326)7 (ibid, 335)8 (ibid, 329)9 (ibid, 385)

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seemed to be a part of the European powers when they mentioned that “no

European Power which is not Mistress of the Seas” could have conquered and held

India; thus, Russia, a European power but not a Mistress of the Sea, posed no threat

to Britain’s hold on India.10 They mentioned that although, methods of governance

in Asia differed between Russian and British empires, Russia was inspired and

indeed, imitated Anglo-Indian models in “Russian Asia”.11 Then, they mentioned

Russia’s “Oriental strain” and a “tinge of barbarism”, therefore distinguishing it from

the more civilized British, but continued to add that it was a “young and vigorous

race, imbued with a passionate love of their country, [and] a steadfast belief in its

high destinies”.12 It may not have been a “chosen home of freedom” as England was

but with time, the Russian empire may have caught up to England.13 The authors did

not compare the Russian empire to others besides the British one and they

continued to hold the patronizing and progressive view of the Russian empire.

Russia had much to learn from Britain but the authors had the confidence that

Russians would “set their own house in order”, get rid of autocracy, and create a

better, more stable world.14 The characterization of the Russian empire as a curious

blend of European and Oriental and its colonial relationship with Central Asia

continued in the 1960s but with a twist: in was separate from western powers.

In the 1960s, the Russian Empire is not seen as being part of the European

world anymore, although it continues to blend European and Oriental features and

10 (ibid, 408)11 (ibid, 414)12 (ibid)13 (ibid, 415)14 (ibid)

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the language changes to a more modern one. Seymour Becker’s Russia’s

Protectorates in Central Asia: Bukhara and Khiva, 1865-1924 is an attempt to

understand how Bukharan and Khivan states came under the influence of the

modern West through Westernized Russia.15 In his introduction, Becker believes

that Russia was “sufficiently” Westernized to be immune to encroachment of New

Imperialism. Instead, it “competed for empire in the Near and Far East and in

Central Asia as an equal with the Western powers”.16 Becker believes Russia to be

different from European powers though he shares opinions similar to those of

Skrine and Ross but with a more modern language. For the Skrine and Ross, Russia

has “Asiatic” features, while Becker believes it be non-Western and traditional. The

former talks about Russia’s civilizing force in Central Asia, while the latter writes

about Russia’s (limited) modernizing influences instead.17 Yet, although Skrine and

Ross thought that Russia was different from England, they included it in the

European world as a European power. Becker completely divorces the Russian

empire from the western world but he imbues Russia with sufficient western

features. In Becker’s writing, the discourse surrounding Russian Empire’s status and

its influences has shifted to a more post-colonial world of the 20 th century and thus,

the words ‘civilization’ mission and ‘Asiatic’ are in disuse in this monograph. Skrine

and Ross rarely mention the word colony when describing Central Asia and while

Becker puts Central Asia in that category, he does not dwell on it further and instead

emphasizes Bukhara and Khiva’s status as protectorates.18 Becker mentions Russia’s

15 (Becker, 1968, xiv)16 (ibid, xii)17 (ibid, xiii)18 (ibid, xii)

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reason for not directly ruling over these territories because they were not “primitive

and anarchic tribal groups” and had “relative social and political stability”.19 Russia

also wanted to save money and men, which it would have to expend if it were to

govern them directly.20 In the around sixty years that separate Skrine and Ross and

Becker’s monographs, the language and Russia’s characterization have changed

from it being a European power with Asiatic features to a non-western empire with

a western features. In the 21st century monographs, the colonial relationship

between the Russian empire and Central Asia is made explicit and takes the front

stage, so to speak, but the language has again shifted and the Russian empire

continues to be non-western.

As seen with Becker, the use of western and non-western continues but

modern is added into the literature to distinguish the Russian empire from western

empires but keep it within the modern world. Furthermore, Russian empire’s

colonial relationship and disagreements over policy-making are mentioned more

than in previous monographs. Daniel Brower’s Turkestan and the Fate of the Russian

Empire is different from the previous two monographs since it emphasizes explicitly

Russians as colonizers, who hoped to “incorporate alien people’s into a modern

empire, on a par with the great Western empires”.21 He writes, that “Turkestan could

claim title of Russia’s ‘real’ or ‘only’ colony” because of its long distance from the

center of the empire, its “Islamic integrity”, and the constant comparisons with

British Empire’s India, thus emphasizing its significance as a colony to the Russian

19 (ibid, xii-xiii)20 (ibid, xii)21 (Brower, 2003, ix)

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empire.22 Brower writes, that the Russian empire had a ‘forward policy’ when it

came to Central Asia that was partly formed after the humiliation suffered in the

Crimea War and partly to check Britain’s empire building in Asia.23 It was to

“strengthen empire’s ‘desirable extremities’”, which sometimes led to rapid

conquest of Central Asia, thus echoing Skrine and Ross’s argument for security.24

Brower also mentions the different clashing ideologies within the empire that

affected Russia’s policies and governance in Central Asia. There were views of the

authoritarian border rule by the military due to the dangers of religious fanaticism

and the other focused on integration and introduction of grazhdanstvennost to the

natives based on Russian experience in Siberia, which meant civilian rule above all.25

But the policy that was chosen by the Turkestan’s administration was “‘limiting [the

empire] to military occupation and allowing the natives to organize their affairs as

they wish’”26 since complete domination was undesirable due to the possibility that

it could lead to the same problems the Russian Empire encountered in the

Caucuses.27 The Russian empire continued to introduce certain judicial and social

reforms but Brower argues that the project in Central Asia was “deeply flawed”

because it tried to “reconcile autocracy with civil rights, Western secular civil order

with a deeply religious and tightly organized community of Muslim faithful…it

permitted colonization to take precedence over colonial reform.”28 In Brower’s

22 (ibid, xi)23 (ibid, 20)24 (ibid)25 (ibid, 28)26 (ibid, 29)27 (ibid, 21)28 (ibid, 174)

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characterization of the Russian empire, it is not part of the western world—it may

be “on par” due to it being modern and acquiring colonies that were essential to

being seen as a great power, which is the role that Central Asia plays in establishing

but it is separate from the western, European world. Brower also differs from the

previous authors because he focuses on different policy prescriptions offered by

various sides invested in the colonial project—military and civilian. The previous

authors did not invest much time in distinguishing various ideologies in the empire.

This shows a certain shift within the scholarly world into recognizing different ideas

that were dominant at one point or another within Russian elite societies even

though they continued to focus only on policies formed. The more recent

scholarship does not distinguish the Russian empire from the western world and it

adds a focus on the implementation of the policy.

In the more recent scholarship, two differences from the previous works

emerge: the Russian empire is part of the modern, European world and the

dynamics between policy and practice are explored to better understand its

imperial project’s successes and failures. Jeff Sahadeo’s Russian Colonial Society in

Tashkent, 1856-1923 seeks to explain Russian Empire’s imperial and colonial

relationship with Central Asia by focusing on Tashkent. For Sahadeo, Russia’s

imperial project in Central Asia reflects the changes taking place in the wider

imperial world. He writes, “[Russians] consciously sought to use their position not

only to fix Russia as a modern European empire, but also to define relations

between core and periphery, elite and mass, Russian and non-Russian in the late

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imperial era”.29 The Russian empire used heavily the “western imperial images

opposing the clean European to the dirty Asian”.30 Sahadeo uses the words ‘modern’,

‘European’, and ‘western’ when characterizing the Russian empire, thus not

distinguishing it from the other empires unlike the previously mentioned scholars.

Indeed, his focus is not on establishing the character of the Russian empire vis-a-vis

other empires but rather its relationship with its colony—Central Asia. He mentions

Brower’s work and critiques Brower’s lack of focus on implementation, which

Sahadeo thought differed from policy. He believes that Russians never did get to

create a “controlled” environment to “carry out their experiments” but their and the

colonized people’s conceptions of race, class, nation, and empire were instead

shaped by the every day realities on the ground.31 As the other historians, Sahadeo

focuses on the colonialists’ perceptions. He mentions few of the Central Asian elites

(‘mediators’), especially those who were able to amass fortunes due to railroads,

trade, and development but their opinions are rarely expressed—they are seen only

through Russians’ eyes.32 Sahadeo does mention the Jadids more than the previous

authors but they do not play the main role in his chapters. His book is, indeed, about

the Russian colonial society and thus must focus on the colonizers but this,

nonetheless, reflects a pattern within the literature on the Russian empire and

Central Asia, where the focus is on the colonizers. This pattern of giving precedence

and voice to the empire’s officials over the Central Asian locals continues in the

29 (Sahadeo, 2007, 3)30 (ibid, 85)31 (ibid, 4)32 (ibid, 145)

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literature but there is a focus on showing inequalities, thus being critical of the

opinion that societies in the Russian empire were more equal than in others.

In this article, the Russian empire is neither western nor European but it is

modern but its relationship with Central Asia is very similar to that of Britain and

France’s relationships with their peripheries. In “Metropole, Colony, and Imperial

Citizenship in the Russian Empire”, historian Alexander Morrison is attempting to

fill in the blanks when it comes to Russian Imperial policy as a whole because he

thinks that people do not focus on Central Asia enough and thus, show a rather

skewed perspective on Russia's definition of citizenship and its relations with

Muslims. He writes that from the 1860s onwards, Russia's legal and administrative

systems parallel the divisions between the metropole and periphery seen in British

and French empires with fewer local elites being co-opted into the new civic

structures that were being established by the Russian Empire.33 But he distinguishes

the Russian empire from the European and western ones, when he writes that

Russia “participated in a shared European framework of modernity” and “frequently

invoked” the Western states and societies.34 It participated in the framework and

invoked models but he never explicitly mentions it as being European and explicitly

separates it from the western states. For Morrison, Central Asia was definitively a

colony that was not assimilated and incorporated into the empire in practice.

Instead, there was a “much more aggressive policy of Russian settlement and

economic exploitation” countering the assertion that Russians had a “commitment

33 (Morrison, 2012, 331)34 (ibid, 339)

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to equal enfranchisement” for everybody in their empire.35 There was an element of

a civilizing mission but the tsarist administration never truly saw them as people for

whom equal imperial citizenship was to be extended to.36 Morrison continues to

focus on the Russian perspective and policy but he, more so than others did, focuses

on the implementation and its unequal effects on the Central Asian colony. The

Russian empire is not different (where it matters—inequality and citizenship) from

the British and French ones but it not a western nor European power. As the

scholarship becomes more recent, there is an awareness that not only should

scholars focus on differences in policy and implementation and Central Asia’s

colonial status but also on its importance to the St. Petersburg vis-à-vis other

borderlands.

The previous perspectives were those of non-Russians residing in England or

the US but this article is from a Russian scholar’s perspective. For Sergei Abashin,

Central Asia was significant in a sense that it made the Russian empire a European

Great Power but it did not play a central role in the metropole, or St. Petersburg. 37

In his article titled “Reflections on Central Asia in the Russian Empire”, he also

recognizes Central Asia as a “typical colony” due to 1) distance between the

colonizers and the colonized, 2) elements of indirect and military rule, and 3)

economic exploitation of the region.38 This region added to the Russian Empire the

classical characteristics of an empire, as seen in the French and English ones. Yet, he

adds that the Russian Empire was unable to fully realize its imperial ambitions in

35 (ibid, 360)36 (ibid, 361)37 (Abashin, 2008, 460)38 (ibid, 466)

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this region as compared to in its experience in other borderlands (such as the

Caucasus)39 partly because it never was a priority for the metropole.40 There was

also a great cultural and linguistic gulf separating the colonizers and the colonized41

and Central Asia was added to the empire after the 1860 reforms, which to Abashin

added to the atypical Russian imperial experience in the region.42 He critiques the

existing scholarship on Central Asia and the Russian Empire, arguing that studies of

Russian history are dominated by the Russian imperial narrative,43 while Oriental

studies focus too much on Islam and the region’s struggle to maintain tradition.44 In

the end, Abashin believes that the Central Asia was a colony but it differed from the

empire’s other peripheries and that for him, this must be kept in mind to truly

understand the dynamics. He believes that the Russian empire was of the European

character and Central Asia a colony but he adds the perspective that it did not

preoccupy metropole’s formulation of policy. He continues the focus on the Russian

officials and does not mention Central Asian ones and still focuses on the metropole

and periphery but adds a more nuanced dimension to the actual importance of the

region to the empire.

This last article is from the perspectives of a scholar from Europe. In

“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door: Russia, Central Asia and the Mediated Expansion of

International Society”, Filippo Costa Buranelli argues that the Russian Empire strove

39 (ibid)40 (ibid, 460)41 (ibid, 465)42 (ibid, 466)43 (ibid, 467)44 (ibid, 468)

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to add Central Asia to its territory to be seen as a European state, 45 especially after

the disastrous Crimean War, where it lost its prestige and was forced to accept

terms as if it were a lesser, “Asiatic” entity and thus, outside of the European

community.46 To make up for the feeling of inadequacy, the Russian empire sought

to instill in Central Asia a “healthy moral impulse and to spread in these countries

the benefits of European civilization”47 and, thus, by civilizing the uncivilized

become truly European.48 In the end, Russia was not fully accepted by the European

International Society and, Buranelli argues, the imperfect expansion into Central

Asia only showed Russia’s “Asiatic” character to the Europeans.49 While the author

mostly focuses on what the European International Society and Russia thought at

the time, in his conclusion, one can perhaps say that he thinks Russia is part of the

west as when he writes that the different standards of civilization existed not just

“between ‘the West and rest’ but also within the ‘West’ itself.50 The focus of this

paper is not elaborating the Russian-Central Asian dynamic but rather the dynamic

of Russia and the European International Society through Russia’s expansion into

Central Asia. As with previous authors, the Russian perspective is used and Central

Asia is its colony but in this case, Russia may be part of Europe and the ‘West’.

Throughout time and place, the Russian Empire continues to hold an

ambiguous position within the scholarship as either a western or non-western

imperial power. Central Asia is continuously seen as a region dominated by Russian

45 (Buranelli, 2014, 818)46 (ibid, 824)47 (ibid, 828)48 (ibid, 832)49 (ibid, 834-5)50 (ibid, 835)

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empire and as its colony but its significance to Russia’s identity and the language

surrounding that identity changes over time; it is a constant security threat and a

place for Russian’s civilizing burden or a region that makes the Russian empire a

truly European or, perhaps, even western state. But the Central Asian perspectives

are constantly underrepresented even though people have introduced certain elites

in their writings, such as the Jadids over time. The scholarship parallels the non-

academic world in which people are preoccupied with Russia and its role in the

world and Central Asia is mentioned in conjunction with it and from these academic

works we can perhaps see that different areas have different ways of characterizing

Russia and its place in the modern, European, and/or western world. This could be

useful in seeing how time, places, and people can have an effect on how we view the

same phenomenon.

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BibliographyAbashin, S. (2008). " Размышления о Центральнои Азии в составе

". РоссиискоиИмперии Ab Imperio , 456-471.

Becker, S. (1968). Russia's Protectorates in Central Asia: Bukhara and Khiva, 1865-1924. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Brower, D. (2003). Turkestan and the Fate of the Russian Empire . New York: RoutledgeCurzon.

Buranelli, F. C. (2014). Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door: Russia, Central Asia and the Mediated Expansion of International Society. Millennium: Journal of International Studies , 817-836.

Morrison, A. (2012). Metropole, Colony, and Imperial Citizenship in the Russian Empire. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History , 13 (2), 327-364.

Sahadeo, J. (2007). Russian Colonial Society in Tashkent, 1856-1923 . Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Skrine, F. H., & Ross, E. D. (1899). The Heart of Asia . London: Methuen & CO.

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