In the name of enlightenment… Isma‘il Gasprinsky and Turkestan palace elite

Abstract

At the end of the 19th century, the territory of Turkestan administratively consisted of Russian Turkestan, Bukhara and Khiva Khanates. The last two were dependent on Russia both politically and economically, although they were officially considered independent. The Russian authorities were reluctant to interfere in the internal affairs of these vassal states. Because of this policy, the khan's administrations, until the events of 1917, tried to preserve the old method of management, as well as land and economic affairs. Despite the conservative attitude of the authorities to various innovations and the efforts of the Russian administration to reduce all ties with the outside world, the sparks of the modernist movement that swept the entire Muslim East in the last quarter of the 19th century still penetrated into the khanates. Muslims of the interior regions of Russia, in particular the leader of the Jadid reformist movement Isma‘il Gasprinsky, played a special and main role in this matter.The article examines the relations and cooperation of Gasprinsky with the palace elites of the Bukhara and Khiva Khanates on the basis of primary sources.