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{{Infobox Former Subdivision
|native_name = Русский Туркестан
|conventional_long_name = Russian Turkestan
|common_name = Turkestan
|subdivision = Governorate-General
|nation = Russian Empire
|year_start = 1867
|date_start = July 11
|year_end = 1918
|date_end = April 30
|p1 = Orenburg General-Governorate
|flag_p1 =
|p2 = Caucasus General-Governorate
|flag_p2 =
|p3 = Khanate of Kokand
|flag_p3 = Bandera de Kokand.svg
|p4 = Qing Dynasty
|flag_p4 = Flag_of_the_Qing_Dynasty_(1889-1912).svg
|s1 = Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
|flag_s1 = Flag of Turkestan ASSR (1919-1921).svg
|image_flag = Flag of Russia.svg
|flag = Flag of Russia
|flag_type = Flag
|image_coat = Coat of arms of Russian Turkestan.svg
|image_coat_caption = coat of arms
|image_map = Turkestan 1900-en.svg
|image_map_caption = Provinces of Russian Turkestan in 1900
|capital = Tashkent
|political_subdiv = [[Oblast]]s: 5 (since 1899)
|stat_pop1 = 5280983
|stat_area1 = 1707003
|stat_year1 = ([[Russian Empire Census|1897]])
}}
'''Russian Turkestan''' ({{lang-ru|link=no|Русский Туркестан}}, ''Russkiy Turkestan'') was the western part of [[Turkestan]] within the [[Russian Empire]] (administered as a [[Krais of the Russian Empire|Krai]] or [[Guberniya|Governor-Generalship]]), comprising the oasis region to the south of the [[Kazakhstan|Kazakh]] steppes, but not the protectorates of the [[Emirate of Bukhara]] and the [[Khanate of Khiva]].

==History==
[[Image:Defence of the Samarkand Citadel.JPG|left|300px|thumb|The Defence of the Samarkand Citadel in 1868]]
[[Image:Ilin 186x Karta Syr Darinskoj oblast 72.jpg|left|300px|thumb|Map of the [[Syr-Darya Oblast]] in 1872]]

===Establishment===
{{main article|Russian conquest of Turkestan}}

Although Russia had been pushing south into the steppes from [[Astrakhan]] and [[Orenburg]] since the [[Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky|failed Khivan expedition]] of [[Peter I of Russia|Peter the Great]] in 1717, the beginning of the Russian colonial conquest of Turkestan is normally dated to 1865. That year the Russian forces took the city of [[Tashkent]]<ref name="Brower2012">{{cite book|author=Daniel Brower|title=Turkestan and the Fate of the Russian Empire|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xrH_YPr4gOsC&pg=PA20|date=12 November 2012|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-14501-9|page=26}}</ref> under the leadership of General [[Mikhail Chernyayev]] expanding the territories of Turkestan Oblast (part of Orenburg Governorate-General). Chernyayev had exceeded his orders (he only had 3,000 men under his command at the time) but [[Russian Empire#Government and administration|Saint Petersburg]] recognized the annexation in any case. This was swiftly followed by the conquest of [[Khujand|Khodzhent]], [[Jizzakh|Dzhizak]] and [[Istarawshan|Ura-Tyube]], culminating in the annexation of [[Samarkand]] and the surrounding region on the [[Zeravshan River]] from the [[Emirate of Bukhara]] in 1868 forming the Zeravsh Special Okrug of Turkestan.

An account of the Russian conquest of Tashkent was written in ''"Urus leshkerining Türkistanda tarikh 1262-1269 senelarda qilghan futuhlari"'' by Mullah Khalibay Mambetov.<ref name="Sanders2015">{{cite book|author=Thomas Sanders|title=Historiography of Imperial Russia: The Profession and Writing of History in a Multinational State|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3G6mBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA451&dq=qilghan&hl=en |date=12 February 2015|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-46862-2|pages=451–}}</ref><ref name="Allworth1994">{{cite book|author=Edward Allworth|title=Central Asia, 130 Years of Russian Dominance: A Historical Overview|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X2XpddVB0l0C&pg=PA400&dq=qilghan&hl=en |year=1994|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=0-8223-1521-1|pages=400–}}</ref>

===Expansion===
{{see also|The Great Game}}
In 1867 [[Turkestan]] was made a separate [[Governor-General]]ship, under its first Governor-General, [[Konstantin Petrovich Von Kaufman]]. Its capital was Tashkent and it consisted initially of three [[Oblasts of the Russian Empire|oblasts]] (provinces): [[Syr Darya Oblast|Syr Darya]], [[Semirechye Oblast]] and the Zeravshan [[Okrug]] (later [[Samarkand Oblast]]). To these were added in 1873 the [[Amu Darya]] Division ({{lang-ru|link=no|отдел, ''[[otdel]]''}}), annexed from the [[Khanate of Khiva]], and in 1876 the [[Fergana Oblast]], formed from the remaining rump of the [[Kokand Khanate]] that was dissolved after an uprising in 1875. In 1894 the [[Transcaspian Region]], which had been conquered in 1881–1885 by Generals [[Mikhail Skobelev]] and [[Mikhail Annenkov]], was added to the Governor-Generalship.

===Colonization===
The administration of the region had an almost purely military character throughout. Von Kaufman died in 1882, and a committee under Fedor Karlovich Giers (or Girs, brother of the Russian Foreign Minister [[Nicholas de Giers|Nikolay Karlovich Giers]]) toured the [[Krai]] and drew up proposals for reform, which were implemented after 1886. In 1888 the new [[Trans-Caspian railway]], begun at Uzun-Ada on the shores of the [[Caspian Sea]] in 1877, reached Samarkand. Nevertheless, Turkestan remained an isolated colonial outpost, with an administration that preserved many distinctive features from the previous Islamic regimes, including [[Qadi]]s' courts and a 'native' administration that devolved much power to local '[[Aksakal]]s' (Elders or Headmen). It was quite unlike European Russia. In 1908 [[Count Konstantin Konstantinovich Pahlen]] led another reform commission to Turkestan, which produced in 1909–1910 a monumental report documenting administrative corruption and inefficiency. The [[Jadid]] educational reform movement which originated among Tatars spread among Muslims of Central Asia under Russian rule.

A policy of deliberately enforcing anti-modern, traditional, ancient conservative Islamic education in schools and Islamic ideology was enforced by the Russians in order to deliberately hamper and destroy opposition to their rule by keeping them in a state of torpor to and prevent foreign ideologies from penetrating in.<ref name="Forbes1986">{{cite book|author=Andrew D. W. Forbes|title=Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: A Political History of Republican Sinkiang 1911-1949|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IAs9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA16&dq=Warlords+and+muslims+Isolating+stagnation&hl=en |date=9 October 1986|publisher=CUP Archive|isbn=978-0-521-25514-1|pages=16–}}</ref><ref name="BennigsenLemercier-Quelquejay1967">{{cite book|author1=Alexandre Bennigsen|author2=Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay|author3=Central Asian Research Centre (London, England)|title=Islam in the Soviet Union|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YG9AAAAAIAAJ&dq=isolating+the+country+from+all+outside+influence%2C+and+at+maintaining+it+in+a+state+of+medieval+stagnation%2C+thus+removing&q=medieval+stagnation#search_anchor|year=1967|publisher=Praeger|page=15}}</ref>

The Russians implemented [[Turkification]] upon the Ferghana and Sarmakand Tajiks replacing the Tajik language with Uzbek resulting in an Uzbek dominant speaking Samarkand whereas decades before Tajik was the dominant language in Samarkand.<ref name="NourzhanovBleuer2013">{{cite book|author1=Kirill Nourzhanov|author2=Christian Bleuer|title=Tajikistan: A Political and Social History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nR6oAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA22 |date=8 October 2013|publisher=ANU E Press|isbn=978-1-925021-16-5|pages=22–}}</ref>

===Basmachi===
In 1897 the railway reached [[Tashkent]], and finally in 1906 a direct rail link with European Russia was opened across the [[steppe]] from [[Orenburg]] to Tashkent. This led to much larger numbers of ethnic [[Russians|Russian]] settlers flowing into Turkestan than had hitherto been the case, and their settlement was overseen by a specially created [[Emigration|Migration]] Department in [[Saint Petersburg]] (Переселенческое Управление). This caused considerable discontent amongst the local population as these settlers took scarce land and water resources away from them. In 1916 discontent boiled over in the [[Basmachi Revolt]], sparked by a decree conscripting the natives into [[labour battalion]]s (they had previously been exempt from military service). Thousands of settlers were killed, and this was matched by Russian reprisals, particularly against the nomadic population. To escape Russians slaughtering them in 1916, Uzbeks, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz escaped to China.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Sydykova |first=Zamira |date=20 January 2016 |title= Commemorating the 1916 Massacres in Kyrgyzstan? Russia Sees a Western Plot |url=http://www.cacianalyst.org/publications/analytical-articles/item/13325-commemorating-the-1916-massacres-in-kyrgyzstan?-russia-sees-a-western-plot.html |magazine=The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst |location= |publisher= |access-date= }}</ref> Xinjiang became a sanctuary for fleeing Kazakhs escaping the Russians after the Muslims faced conscription by the Russian government.<ref name="Forbes1986 2">{{cite book|author=Andrew D. W. Forbes|title=Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: A Political History of Republican Sinkiang 1911-1949|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IAs9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q&f=false|date=9 October 1986|publisher=CUP Archive|isbn=978-0-521-25514-1|pages=17–}}</ref> The Turkmen, Kyrgyz, and Kazakhs were all impacted by the 1916 insurrection caused by the conscription decreed by the Russian government.<ref name="Peyrouse2012">{{cite book|author=Sébastien Peyrouse|title=Turkmenistan: Strategies of Power, Dilemmas of Development|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rXihuVtUgrEC&pg=PA29#v=onepage&q&f=false|date=January 2012|publisher=M.E. Sharpe|isbn=978-0-7656-3205-0|pages=29–}}</ref><ref name="Peyrouse2015">{{cite book|author=Sebastien Peyrouse|title=Turkmenistan: Strategies of Power, Dilemmas of Development|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uGKmBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA29 |date=12 February 2015|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-45326-0|pages=29–}}</ref> The corvée conscription issued on 25 June 1916.<ref>{{cite thesis |last=ÖZTÜRK |first=SELİM |date=May 2012 |title=THE BUKHARAN EMIRATE AND TURKESTAN UNDER RUSSIAN RULE IN THE REVOLUTIONARY ERA: 1917 - 1924 |type=A Master’s Thesis |chapter= |publisher=Department of International Relations İ hsan Doğramacı Bilkent University Ankara |docket= |oclc= |page=56-57 |url=http://www.thesis.bilkent.edu.tr/0006051.pdf |access-date=}}</ref> Order had not really been restored by the time the [[February Revolution]] took place in 1917. This would usher in a still bloodier chapter in Turkestan's history, as the [[Bolsheviks]] of the [[Tashkent Soviet]] (made up entirely of Russian soldiers and railway workers, with no Muslim members) launched an attack on the autonomous [[Jadid]] government in Kokand early in 1918, which left 14,000 dead. Resistance to the Bolsheviks by the local population (dismissed as 'Basmachi' or 'Banditry' by [[Soviet historians]]) continued well into the beginning of the 1930s.

===Governors of Turkestan===
Turkestan had 21 Governor-generals.<ref>Didar Kassymova, Zhanat Kundakbayeva and Ustina Markus{{Google books|BbRsMq03dh0C|Historical Dictionary of Kazakhstan|page=228}}</ref>
[[File:XXth Century Citizen's Atlas map of Central Asia.png|thumb|300px|The borders of the Russian imperial territories of [[Khanate of Khiva|Kiva]], [[Khanate of Bukhara|Bukhara]] and [[Khanate of Kokand|Kokand]] in the time period of 1902–1903.]]
{{History of Kazakhstan}}
* 1865–1867 Mikhail Grigoryevich Chernyaev (Military Governor)
* 1866–1867 Dmitri Ilyich Romanovskiy (Civil Governor)
* 1867–1881 [[Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufman]]
* 1881–1882 Gerasim Alexeevich Kolpakovsky
* 1882‒4 [[Mikhail Chernyayev]]
* 1884‒9 [[Nikolai Rozenbakh]]
* 1889–1898 Alexander Borisovich Vrevsky
* 1898–1901 Sergey Mikhailovich Dukhovsky
* 1901–1904 Nikolay Alexandrovich Ivanov
* 1904–1905 Nikolay Nikolayevich Tevyashev
* 1905–1906 Vsevolod Victorovich Zaharov
* 1906 Demyan Ivanovich Subbotin
* 1906 Yevgeny Osipovich Matsievsky
* 1906–1908 [[Nikolai Grodekov|Nikolai Ivanovich Grodekov]]
* 1908–1909 Pavel Ivanovich Mischenko
* 1909–1910 [[Alexander Samsonov|Alexander Vasilyevich Samsonov]]
* 1910–1911 [[Vasiliy Pokotilo|Vasiliy Ivanovich Pokotilo]]
* 1911–1914 Alexander Vasilyevich Samsonov (restored)
* 1914–1916 Fedor Vladimirovich Martson
* 1916 [[Mikhail Yerofeyev|Mikhail Romanovich Yerofeyev]]
* 1916‒17 [[Aleksey Kuropatkin]]

==Administrative Division==
Turkestan was divided into five [[oblast]]s.
*[[Transcaspian Oblast]] ([[Ashgabat|Askhabat]]) (until 1898 part of Caucasus Governorate-General)
*[[Samarkand Oblast]] ([[Samarkand]]) (until 1886 Zeravsh Okrug, the occupied east territories of [[Khanate of Bukhara]])
*[[Semirechye Oblast]] ([[Almaty|Verny]]) (1882–1899 part of the [[Governor-Generalship of the Steppes]])
*[[Syr-Darya Oblast]] ([[Tashkent]])
*[[Fergana Oblast]] ([[Fergana|New Margelan (Skobelev)]]) (part of [[Kokand Khanate]] until 1876)

==Soviet rule==
After the [[Russian Revolution of 1917]], a [[Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic]] (Turkestan ASSR) within the [[Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic]] was created in [[Soviet Central Asia]] (excluding modern-day [[Kazakhstan]]). After the foundation of the [[Soviet Union]] it was split into the [[Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic]] ([[Turkmenistan]]) and [[Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic]] ([[Uzbekistan]]) in 1924. The [[Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic]] ([[Tajikistan]]) was formed out of part of the Uzbek SSR in 1929, and in 1936 the [[Kyrgyz SSR]] ([[Kyrgyzstan]]) was separated from [[Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic]]. After the [[History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991)|collapse of the Soviet Union]], these republics gained their independence.

==See also==
*[[Semirechye Cossacks]]
*[[Orenburg Cossacks]]
*[[Turkestan Military District]]
*[[History of Uzbekistan]]
*[[History of Kazakhstan]]
*[[History of Turkmenistan]]
*[[History of Tajikistan]]

==References==
{{reflist}}
*Eugene Schuyler ''Turkistan'' (London) 1876 2 Vols.
*[[George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston|G.N. Curzon]] ''Russia in Central Asia'' (London) 1889
*Ген. М.А. Терентьев ''История Завоевания Средней Азии'' (С.Пб.) 1903 3 Vols.
*[[Vasily Bartold|В.В. Бартольд]] ''История Культурной Жизни Туркестана'' (Москва) 1927
*Count K.K. Pahlen ''Mission to Turkestan'' (Oxford) 1964
*Seymour Becker ''Russia's Protectorates in Central Asia, Bukhara and Khiva 1865–1924'' (Cambridge, Mass.) 1968
*Adeeb Khalid ''The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform. Jadidism in Central Asia'' (Berkeley) 1997
*T.K. Beisembiev ''The Life of Alimqul'' (London) 2003
*Daniel Brower ''Turkestan and the Fate of the Russian Empire'' (London) 2003
*Hisao Komatsu, The Andijan Uprising Reconsidered a: Symbiosis and Conflict in Muslim Societies: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, ed. by Tsugitaka Sato, Londres, 2004.
*Aftandil Erkinov. ''Praying For and Against the Tsar: Prayers and Sermons in Russian-Dominated Khiva and Tsarist Turkestan.''Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2004 (=ANOR 16), 112 p.
*Aftandil S.Erkinov. The Andijan Uprising of 1898 and its leader Dukchi-ishan described by contemporary Poets'[https://www.academia.edu/2632450/Aftandil_S.Erkinov._The_Andijan_Uprising_of_1898_and_its_leader_Dukchi-ishan_described_by_contemporary_Poets._TIAS_Central_Eurasian_Research_Series_No.3._Tokyo_2009_118_p.]' TIAS Central Eurasian Research Series No.3. Tokyo, 2009, 118 p.

{{coord missing|Russia}}

{{Kazakhstan topics}}
{{Turkmenistan topics}}
{{Uzbekistan topics}}
{{Tajikistan topics}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2013}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turkestan, Russian}}
[[Category:Subdivisions of the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:History of Central Asia|Russian Turkestan]]
[[Category:History of Uzbekistan]]
[[Category:Kazakhstan in the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:History of Turkmenistan]]
[[Category:History of Tajikistan]]
[[Category:1860s establishments in Russia]]

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