Abstract:

Bazaars and caravanserais of the Turkestan Governorship-General: ethnic composition of merchants and handicraftsmen

The ethnic composition of the traders and handicraftsmen of the bazaars and caravanserais of the Turkestan Governorship-General, represented by local and alien, merchants and traders, as well as a large army of participants in the purchase, sale, exchange, intermediaries and money changers, has not been fully studied. Thus, researchers of the colonial and Soviet periods, as well as Uzbek and foreign historians, limited themselves mainly to covering the trade and economic activities of a particular ethnic group. Interesting facts and information about the trade and economic activities of local Muslim peoples such as Sarts, Kyrgyz (the common name of Kazakhs in the literature of the colonial period - mine) and Tajiks are given in the works by Uzbek and Russian authors. Foreign authors also often mentioned in their works the representatives of local and alien Muslim peoples involved in the trade and economic activities of the traditional trading institutions of the region.

This study examines and summarizes information about the ethnic origin and specificity of occupations of a particular nationality/ethnic group of participants in economic activity in bazaars and caravanserais, as well as the role and degree of influence on society as a whole in the Turkestan Governorship-General in the second half of the 19th - early 20th century. The provisions and conclusions of this article are based on archival materials and works of authors of the period of the Russian Empire, the Soviet period and the period of Independence, as well as studies by foreign, primarily English-speaking authors of the 19th -21st centuries.