The defence of Khujand in 1866 through the eyes of Russian officers

Abstract

This article is a microhistory of the siege and capture of the fortified city of Khujand by Russian forces under Major-General D.I. Romanovskii in May 1866. It explores what this episode can tell us about the nature of siege warfare and frontal assaults in the course of the Central Asian campaigns of the Russian army, but more particularly the nature of Khujandi resistance and the motivations for it. It argues that these are to be found, above all, in a strong sense of local patriotism connected with the city itself, rather than in any form of proto-nationalism, loyalty to the Khan of Khoqand or the Emir of Bukhara, or Islam.

Keywords:

• Khujand
• siege
• Romanovskii
• Turkestan

Acknowledgements

I thank the Open Society Institute for granting me a CARTI (Central Asia Research Training Initiative) senior fellowship in 2011–2013, which allowed me to complete the research for this article.

Notes

1. This is seen most clearly in the new national histories which have recently appeared in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

2. Memorandum from A.M. Gorchakov and D.A. Miliutin, 20 November 1864 (Serebrennikov 1914 Doc.326, 201–202).

3. Romanovskii to Kryzhanovskii, 30 May 1866 (Serebrennikov 1915a Doc.149, 241–2).

4. ‘Donesenie generala Romanovskogo ot 11-go Maya 1866 g’ (Trotskii 1872, 60).

5. Bogaevskii to Romanovskii, 29 May 1866 (Serebrennikov 1915a Doc.147, 238–9).

6. Ibid.

7. Romanovskii to Kryzhanovskii, 30 May 1866 (Serebrennikov 1915a Doc.149, 244). Characteristically, the standard Soviet history of Leninabad (Radzhabov and Khaidarov 1986, 157–9), which is wedded to the prisoedinenie narrative, suppresses the detail that Khwaja ‘Azamat's bid to negotiate with the Russians was supported by the religious authorities in the city.

8. Romanovskii to Kryzhanovskii, 30 May 1866 (Serebrennikov 1915a Doc.149, 244).

9. Ibid, 246.

10. ‘The Military Governor of the Turkestan Oblast’ to the wise and honourable people of Khujand’ (Serebrennikov 1915a Doc.149 Pril.4, 250).

11. ‘Address of the inhabitants of the town of Khujand, presented to General Romanovskii on the 5 June 1866’ (Romanovskii 1868, 263).

12. P.N. Stremoukhov to D.A. Miliutin, 8 October 1866 and 25 October 1866 (Serebrennikov 1915b, Docs.249 & 263, 112, 124–5).