‘Nechto eroticheskoe’, ‘courir après l'ombre’? – logistical imperatives and the fall of Tashkent, 1859–1865

Abstract

This article explores the debates that preceded the Russian conquest of Tashkent in 1865. It argues that none of the explanations usually given for this – the ‘men on the spot’, ‘cotton hunger’, or the Great Game with Britain – is satisfactory. Instead, it shows that the War Ministry and the governors of Orenburg had advocated the capture of Tashkent from the late 1850s, and that General Cherniaev's assault in 1865 was at least tacitly authorized. The motives for the Russian advance combined the need for better supply chains to the steppe fortresses, a desire to ‘anchor’ their new frontier in a region with a sedentary population, and concern for security from attacks by the Khoqand Khanate. Economic considerations and rivalry with Britain played very minor roles.

Keywords:

• Tashkent
• steppe
• Khoqand
• imperialism
• Cherniaev
• Miliutin
• Orenburg
• Omsk

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ian Campbell, Beatrice Penati, David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye and the anonymous reviewers for Central Asian Survey for their comments and suggestions.

Funding

The research for this article was funded by the University of Liverpool, the British Academy and the Leverhulme Foundation.

Notes

1. In more ways than one. Sergei Abashin tells me that the late Anatolyi Remnev always insisted that what Valuev had actually written was nechto erraticheskoe (something erratic), and that the editor of the diary, Zaionchkovskii, had made an error.

2. Duhamel to Cherniaev 12/11/1864 RGIM OPI F.208 Op.1 D.5 l.27ob.

3. ‘Kopiia s rezoliutsii Voennogo Ministra, na pis'mo General-Maiora Cherniaeva, prislannoe Polkovniku Poltoratskomu 18 Avgusta 1864 g’ RGIM OPI F.208 Op.1 D.6 ll.10-ob.

4. Duhamel to Miliutin 23/09/1864 RGIM OPI F.208 Op.1 D.6 ll.11-12.

5. Kryzhanovskii to Cherniaev 25/02/1865 (Serebrennikov 1914b Doc.63, 88).

6. The initial published report on the fall of Tashkent noted that it had been an essential step to prevent such a valuable centre of trade falling into the hands of the Bukharans (Anon. 1865, 195–196).

7. Danzas to Katenin 11/10/1857; 01/12/1857 RGVIA F.67 Op.1 D.242 l.1-12ob.

8. ‘Vsepoddanneishee donesenie A. A. Katenina’ 22/09/1858, cited in Khalfin 1960, 120, Erofeeva 2010, 373, 392 n. 60.

9. ‘Zapiska Komandira Otdel'nogo Sibirskogo Korpusa i General Gubernatora Zapadnoi Sibiri o neobkhodimosti zaniatiia verkhov'ev r. Chu i predvaritel'nykh k tomu rasporiazheniiam’ 21/01/1859 RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.51 ll.4-5ob.

10. This consisted of Prince A.M. Gorchakov (Foreign Ministry), N.O. Sukhozanet (War Ministry), A.F. Kniazhevich (Finance Ministry), Baron V.K. Lieven, E.P. Kovalevskii (former director of the Asiatic Department), N.P. Ignat'ev (current director of the same), Katenin and Gasfort himself. 28/01/1859 RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.51 ll.12-14ob.

11. ‘Kokanskaya Voennaya Liniya’ 15/07/1859 RGVIA F.1449 Op.1 D.7 ‘O dostylenii General-Kvartirmeisteru Glavnogo Shtaba Ego Imperatorskogo Velichestva, Opisanie Kokandskoi voennoi linii na r. Chu, sostavlennago General'nogo Shtaba Kapitanom Veniukovym’ ll.2-3.

12. ‘Sobstvenno EGO VELICHESTVA rukoiu pisana karandashym: soglasen’ 20/12/1859 RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.51 l.241.

13. Statskii Sovetnik Artsimovich ‘O vliianie Rossii v Srednei Azii i merakh k uvelichenii’ 1859 RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.53 ll.1-5ob.

14. Rear Admiral A. I. Butakov ‘O budushchikh deistviiakh Rossii v Srednei Azii’ 1859 RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.53 ll.9-ob.

15. Butakov ‘O budushchikh deistviiakh Rossii v Srednei Azii’ 1859 RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.53 ll.10ob-11.

16. Cherniaev ‘Sravnitel'nyi ocherk Amu i Syra’ RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.53 ll.40-41. In Cherniaev's private papers the same text appears as ‘Dokladnaia Zapiska General'nogo Shtaba Podpolkovnika Cherniaeva G-nu Komandiru Otdel'nogo Orenburgskogo Korpusa 1858 g’ RGIM OPI F.208 Op.1 D.4 ‘Materialy kasaiushchiii 1858 g po Syr-D. Linii’ ll.48-9. Cherniaev's description of the routes to Kungrad is on ll.10-35 of this file, and as cited by Butakov in RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.53 ll.19-28. It was published in Russkii Arkhiv in 1905.

17. V.V. Grigor'ev ‘Chto predstavliaetsia vygodneishim dlia nas: zaniatie del'ty Amy, ili dvizhenie vverkh po Syru do Tashkenta vkliuchitel'no?’ RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.53 ll.42-57. On Grigor'ev's difficult relationship with his superiors in Orenburg, see Knight (2000).

18. Dandevil’ ‘O deistviiakh nashikh v Srednei Azii’ RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.53 ll.58-83.

19. Head of the Orenburg Customs Region to the Department of External Trade, Ministry of Finance, 08/01/1861 RGIA F.19 Op.3 D.961 ‘Otchety nachal'nikov tamozhennykh okrugov o khode torgovli za 1860 god’ l.300ob.

20. Head of the Orenburg Customs Region to the Department of External Trade, Ministry of Finance, 12/01/1862 RGIA F.19 Op.3 D.962 ll.288ob – 289.

21. Head of the Orenburg Customs Region to the Department of External Trade, Ministry of Finance, 09/01/1863 RGIA F.19 Op.3 D.963 ll.296-7; Head of the Orenburg Customs Region to the Department of External Trade, Ministry of Finance, 14/01/1863 RGIA F.19 Op.3 D.964 ll.29ob – 30ob.

22. The ‘evidence’ advanced by the likes of Khalfin, and subsequently parroted by many Western historians, consisted almost exclusively of articles in metropolitan journals speculating about the value of Central Asian markets, without demonstrating any connection whatsoever between these and the reasoning of the ministers and officers who took the crucial decisions in the course of the conquest (see Khalfin 1960, 60–66, 151–7, 213–6). The most Khalfin was able to do was to demonstrate that some Moscow-based merchants took an interest in the commercial opportunities opened up by the conquest after it happened, which is hardly surprising. Even these hopes would remain largely unrealized, and in any case it hardly suggests they had the ear of Miliutin or the tsar.

23. Kryzhanovskii to Miliutin 12/08/1865 (Serebrennikov 1915, Doc.196, 14–16).

24. Some half-hearted attempts were made in the 1840s, but imported cotton was better and cheaper (Rozhkova 1949, 113).

25. ‘Zapiska o slukhakh i sobytiiakh v Srednei Azii’ 31/12/1859 RGVIA F.1433 Op.1 D.7 ll.12-15.

26. Bezak to Miliutin 27/02/1864 (Serebrennikov 1914a, Doc.37, 73).

27. Sergeev (2012, 89–90) quotes a supposed earlier letter from Bezak to Miliutin (cited in Khalfin 1960, 137) as evidence that the Orenburg governor was concerned with the threat that British trade would penetrate Khoqand, before acknowledging that in this memorandum he more or less dismissed its importance. He still takes it as evidence that the British threat was what drove Russian expansion, which is not supported by the evidence.

28. ‘Vypiska iz pis'ma Voennogo Ministra’ n.d. (after Dec. 1862) TsGARKaz F.382 Op.1 D.47 ‘O budushchikh deistviiakh nashikh v Srednei Azii’ l.2ob.

29. Bezak to Miliutin 29/11/1861 RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.62 ll.6ob-8ob.

30. Bezak to Miliutin 29/11/1861 RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.62 ll.13-ob. Khalfin (1960, 142) cites the copy of this memorandum made by Serebrennikov from his Fond in the Tashkent archives, and (I can only assume) invents a line about ‘valuable mineral deposits for national industry’ which does not appear to be in the original.

31. Bezak to Miliutin 29/11/1861 RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.62 l.15.

32. Duhamel to Gorchakov 26/05/1862 RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.62 ll.70-ob.

33. ‘Je souffre d'un violent acès de goutte qui me rends pour le moment inhabile pour tout travail serieux.’ Gorchakov to Miliutin 15/06/1862 RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.62 l.72. Fuller (1992, 268) also notes that Gorchakov's hypochondria features heavily in his letters to the tsar.

34. Miliutin to Duhamel 28/06/1862; Duhamel to Miliutin 04/09/1862; Duhamel Memorandum 23/01/1863 RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.62 ll.77-85ob, 89, 128–30.

35. Making nonsense of Khalfin's (1960, 60–62) claim that Reitern saw the conquest of Central Asia as a means of restoring the imperial finances after the Crimean War.

36. 02/03/1863 RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.62 ll.160-178.

37. Bezak to Miliutin 11/06/1863 & 25/06/1863 RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.62 ll.189-197.

38. Miliutin to Gorchakov 01/?/1863 RGVIA F.483 Op.1 D.62 ll.198ob-199ob.

39. Sergeev (2012, 92-3) gives a clear account of these deliberations, though he lays a greater stress on Miliutin's arguments about threatening Britain than is really warranted, given that these seem to have been put forward almost as an afterthought to the debate about the consolidation of the frontier.

40. Miliutin to Bezak 12/08/1863 TsGARKaz F.382 Op.1 D.47 ll.33ob-34ob.

41. ‘Circular dispatch addressed by Prince Gortchakow to Russian Representatives abroad,’ 21/11/1864. Parliamentary Papers Central Asia No.2 (1873) ‘Correspondence Respecting Central Asia’ C.704: 70–75. Miliutin (2003, 520-1) later echoed these sentiments, which, as we have seen, originated with the War Ministry.