Abstract

This study examines the forced displacement of the Taranchi population of Semirechye during the period of political interregnum between 1918 and 1920 through the analytical lens of settler colonialism. It argues that the migration of peasant settlers from Russia functioned as a key structural driver of repeated forced mobility, pushing Taranchi communities into exile in neighboring China. Drawing on previously unpublished archival materials, the study demonstrates that violence, confiscation of homes and land, and selective protection of settler property were not merely consequences of civil war chaos but integral elements of a longer colonial project aimed at securing settler dominance over land and resources. The collapse of imperial administration and the unstable establishment of Soviet power created a critical “window of opportunity” in which practices of dispossession intensified. Although an amnesty later enabled the return of refugees, their lands and households were not restored, reinforcing cycles of displacement. The research situates Taranchi flight as a case of recurrent forced migration embedded in settler-colonial transformation of Semirechye.