Paper short abstract:

Daily life of Russian Tashkent in the first post-revolutionary months (March-September 1917).

Paper long abstract:

The February Revolution of 1917 brought fundamental changes to the life of post-revolutionary Turkestan. Various strata of Turkestan’s society, regardless of their national, social affiliation, assigned their expectations and hopes to the revolution. The Turkestan society was united by the ideas of democratization, the revitalization of public life, the ideas of equality and political freedom that were put forward, made it possible to make plans for a new political future of the region without a tsar and imperial power, both in the Russian part of Tashkent and in its old city. To what extent the Russian population of Tashkent perceived the revolution could be proceeded by a set of documentary materials deposited in the archival funds of both Uzbekistan and Russia, materials of the periodical press, memoirs and visual sources.

The post-February everyday life in the Russian part of Tashkent was marked by the stormy political activity of various strata of Tashkent society - railway workers, teachers, doctors, engineers, students, officers, men and women, young people and the elderly. There were created trade unions, were held revolutionary evenings, the balls were organized.

The February Revolution of 1917 caused activity among the former imperial leaders of the region, "redirecting" their activity into the mainstream of the political struggle for the rights of the local population, both the city and the entire region, and also it became a time of certain "repentance" for 40 years of Russian presence in the Turkestan region, making relevant the issues of education, citizenship.

At the same time, the revolution became the impetus for the search for "enemies of the revolution", was the time to "pay off for past grievances", because the Turkestan Committee of the Provisional Government, as well as the newspapers, received a stream of papers about secret and overt "lurking" enemies of the revolution. The revolutionary fever affected not only the minds, public consciousness, rhetoric of the inhabitants of Tashkent, it was also reflected in the Tashkent Russian cuisine, clothing, folklore, and artistic creativity. However, as the political influence of the Soviets grew in July-August 1917, the situation in the city changed and from enthusiastic speeches and activity about the revolution, the inhabitants of the city took a temporizing attitude, which was clearly manifested in attempt of the Soviets to carry out the September coup in Tashkent.