Kolonialisierte Lebenswelten. Zentralasiens Nomaden als frontier-Gesellschaft des Zarenreichs

Abstract

The nomads of Central Asia initially neither knew nor took notice of the new borders erected by the Russian conquerors. They continued to move along their traditional trails. However, the number of Russian colonist families settling in Central Asia increased steadily and, finally, dramatically around 1900: Their farms and fields progressively limited the nomads’ mobility. Moreover, the colonial Tsarist power’s achievements of European modernity changed life in Central Asia: the railroad, the telegraph, the military and economic penetration of the region turned it into the periphery of a vast Russian empire, a periphery perceived as backward in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Although Central Asians benefited from the innovations of the colonial power, we can see a gradual colonization of their lifeworlds (Lebenswelten) at the beginning of the 20th century. This process of colonization and the resistance against it can be described through an analysis of the frontier in nomadic lifeworlds.