A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

206 A history of Inner Asia
modern education propagated by the Muslims themselves; these reformers
were often from other, older parts of the Russian empire, or were
Central Asians who had lived or studied at Russian institutions.One
such reformer, a Crimean Tatar named Ismail Bey Gasprinskiy
(Gaspirali, 1851–1914), founded a movement known as usul-i jadid, “new
method,” because of the new type of education that was its main
purpose.A certain number of jadid schools thus appeared also in the two
provinces.Efforts to enlighten the people took other forms as well, such
as the periodical press (for example the newspaper Terjuman published in
the Crimean city of Bakhchesarai by Gasprinskiy from 1885 to 1914).
Despite its incipient nature and often ephemeral duration, the effect of
this press in forming the small but important group of those Central
Asians who were increasingly aware of a need for modernization was
considerable.Most of these new currents arrived by way of Russia and
thanks to familiarity with the Russian language through which native
intellectuals gained acquaintance with Western culture, but they were at
the same time part of the general awakening to the need for reform that
was gripping many Muslim countries, especially the Ottoman empire.
While Russian cities such as Orenburg or St.Petersburg were where the
select few from Central Asia would usually travel or study, some went to
Istanbul, where they imbibed ideas not only of modernization but also
of modern nationalism, mostly in its adapted forms of pan-Islamism or
pan-Turkism.Abdarrauf Fitrat (1886–1938) thus spent some time in the
Ottoman capital, and after returning to his native Bukhara he became
one of the newly formed group of “Young Bukharans” who, like the
“Young Turks” of the Ottoman empire, strove to reform their society.
Reform became the leading motto of the Young Bukharans toward the
end of the Tsarist period, and it began to surpass the parallel or competing
mottos of pan-Islamism or pan-Turkism.It was no accident that
the most articulate group appeared in Bukhara; in comparison with
areas under direct administration from Tashkent, the emirate’s backwardness
became that much more evident, while its relative independence
may have encouraged the Young Bukharans to consider reform
rather than liberation from Russia as the most urgent goal.Fitrat’s subsequent
career and life epitomize the drama, ultimately tragic, that
unfolded in Central Asia under Tsarist and then Soviet rule.The first act
took place during the final years of the Tsarist regime, when Fitrat wrote
his Munazara (“The Dispute”), a reformist essay urging his compatriots
to awaken to the needs of modern times.Although he eventually
became a major scholar and publisher of Chaghatay Turkic literature,