The ‘Turkestan Generals’ and Russian Military History

Abstract

This article is a short collective biography of six so-called ‘Turkestan Generals’, all of whom played a prominent role in the Russian conquest and administration of Central Asia. These campaigns are usually seen as marginal to the military history of the Russian empire in the nineteenth century, but they were central to the reputations of three of the most prominent generals of the period, who became important public figures – Cherniaev, Skobelev, and Kuropatkin. The article shows that this was not accidental, but the product of a carefully constructed narrative in Russian military historiography.