A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

chapter fifteen
The Russian conquest and rule of Central Asia
The time, manner, and purpose of this conquest can be divided into two
stages: in the first, Russia acquired the greater part of Kazakhstan
except its Semireche and Syr Darya – thus southernmost – segments; in
the second, the latter two and all the rest, thus territories of present-day
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.The earlier
stage was longer and more gradual (1730–1848), and at certain points
structurally resembled the preceding acquisition of Siberia (which in
turn could be viewed as an analogy to the “winning of the West” by the
United States); the later stage was relatively brief – lasting from 1864 to
1884, the decisive move, however, being compressed into several campaigns
between 1865 and 1868 – and stood squarely in the psychological
context of Europe’s contemporary “scramble for the colonies.”
By 1730 the Kazakhs, as we have seen, had asserted themselves as a
distinct group of nomadic tribes living in the eastern part of the Dashti
Kipchak, speaking a distinctive Kipchak Turkic idiom, but lacking
overall political unity.As a somewhat peculiar substitute for the latter,
though, the tribes had coalesced into three confederations, the aforementioned
Greater, Middle, and Lesser Hordes.Geography as much as
tribal politics no doubt played a role in their formation: the Greater
Horde occupied a territory roughly coterminous with Semireche, the
Middle Horde that of central Kazakhstan, and the Lesser Horde that of
western Kazakhstan.Although the Russian “orda” and English “horde”
are originally Turkic words, the more common Kazakh name for their
hordes was “jüz,” meaning “hundred” (thus Ulu Jüz, Orta Jüz, Kishi
Jüz).Except for brief periods early in their history, the Kazakhs never
managed to forge a unified khanate that would in turn become a steppe
empire, in the manner of their medieval Turkic and Mongol predecessors.One
of the reasons for this may have been the proliferation of
sultans – in this instance steppe aristocrats claiming Genghisid descent
who alone were entitled to become khans – still holding positions of
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