The Russian Conquest of Central Asia: A Study in Imperial Expansion, 1814–1914 by Alexander Morrison

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Russian Conquest of Central Asia: A Study in Imperial Expansion, 1814–1914 by Alexander Morrison Alex Marshall Morrison, Alexander. The Russian Conquest of Central Asia: A Study in Imperial Expansion, 1814–1914. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 2021. xv + 613 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Tables. Glossary. Notes. Sources and bibliography. Index. £75.00. This book will become the essential reference work for all future studies of the expansion of the tsarist empire in Central Asia. Morrison has read a vast array of literature, including many previously untapped archival resources to write this work, and the effect is immediately apparent on every page. He has gone beyond the sources themselves however to also attempt something that has surprisingly rarely been attempted in the past; to not merely document the course of the Russian conquest of Central Asia in the nineteenth century, but to attempt to explain it. In seeking to advance his own explanation for the causes of Russian expansion in Central Asia, Morrison effectively skewers at least three explanations that have dominated past analysis. He dismisses the role of the 'Great Game' between Russia and Britain as an explanatory factor, correctly pointing out that British fears of a Russian invasion of India were always fatuous (although the fears themselves led to substantial military reform in the Indian army at the start of the twentieth century). He equally effectively dismisses the Russian conquest of Central Asia as being an example of 'empire by accident', brought about by adventurist frontier generals presenting St Petersburg with fait accompli after fait accompli. Logistics alone invalidates this explanation; the acquisition of the 10,000 camels needed to mount the failed winter campaign against Khiva in 1839–40 alone took eighteen months (p. 43). The vast majority of Russian expeditions could therefore only take place with the full knowledge and explicit consent of the War Ministry and the tsar himself; Central Asian campaigning in practice allowed for little spontaneity. Finally, Morrison dismisses the 'cotton canard' which some Soviet historians advanced as an economic explanation for the Russian conquest; cotton only began to become economically important in Central Asia during the 1890s, and the Turkestan governate itself was run at a consistent financial loss. In rejecting past attempts at a single overriding explanation for the Russian conquest of Central Asia, Morrison himself presents a 'microhistory' that favours examining interpersonal relationships and the role of personality itself instead. This brings a number of immediate benefits. In particular, it drives the traditional chronological narrative back to the 1820s, in the process highlighting some traditionally neglected figures, most notably War Minister Chernyshev and General Count V. A. Perovskii. By asserting the centrality of this earlier Napoleonic generation to starting the Russian advance in Central Asia, Morrison both situates the process in an era when Russian [End Page 768] administrators became acutely conscious of Russia's new-found great power status, and highlights the surprising psychological force of 'maintaining prestige' as a recurrent factor in Russian decision making. Whilst telling this story, Morrison also never forgets to give agency to Russia's Central Asian opponents, with results that are again refreshing. Sultan Kenesary Qasimov (1802–47) emerges here less as the national independence fighter that modern Kazakh historiography would like to portray him as, and more correctly as an insurgent motivated by his desire to restore Russian respect for his personal Chinggissid authority (pp. 78–79). The Amirs of Bukhara likewise benefit from a similar degree of refreshing reassessment. Morrison points out that by 1865, with the annexation of Tashkent, Russia's strategic objectives were in principle fully achieved; there existed the real possibility that Khoqand, Khiva and Bukhara would go on to exist as independent buffer states, like Afghanistan, between Russian and British territory (p. 255). What changed this was not inherent Russian aggressiveness, but the disruption to the existing balance of power between Khoqand and Bukhara created by the Russian presence, and the violent reaction of local elites within Bukhara itself to this, unleashing processes which the Amir himself could not fully control. Bukharan sources — Mirza 'Abd al-'Azim Sami's Ta'rikh-i Salatin-i Manghitiyya and Ahmad-i Donish's Risala ya...