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Accepted Paper:
Annexation or Conquest? Russian approach to the history of Central Asia.
Khilola Nazirova
(Institute of the Oriental Studies of the Academy of the Sciences of Uzbekistan)
The Russian colonial history always differed from the European colonial history. In the late 19th century, the Russian empire conquered or “annexed” the large portion of Central Asia. “The Great Game”, by which term this historical period became known, was between the world powers such as Russia, the Great Britain and France. The Russian colonial politics in regards to Central Asia was never simple. In post-Soviet Central Asia, there is still tradition to write national history from the viewpoint of seeing one’s neighboring countries as enemies or colonizers. This tradition was created during the reign of the first Governor-General of the Russian Turkestan, Konstantin von Kaufman in order to rule in Turkestan with ease. The local people were named “tuzemtsy” and their voice was never taken into account. Even today in the Russian language secondary literature, the history of the Russian conquest of Central Asia is referred to as “annexation”! The present paper will analyze the archival materials, manuscripts, scholarly works of the Russian and local researchers. I will use the subaltern and postcolonial methodologies. Based on these methods and materials, the picture of the Russian colonizers as viewed by the local historians will be depicted.