Thread by @Peter_Nimitz

Thread with excerpts from "The Revolt of 1916 in Russian Central Asia" by Edward Sokol

Russian Central Asia

The book was published in 1954. Settled peoples of the Ferghana Valley (Eastern Uzbekistan, Northern Tajikstan, & Southern Kyrgyzstan) are referred to as “Sarts”.

Turkic nomads were a third of the region’s population, with the rest mostly Sarts & Tajiks living in oases. There were Armenians, Persians, Jews, & Russian minorities.

Discovery of the sea route to India led to decline of Silk Road. Central Asia, impoverished by the shift in trade routes, intellectually stagnated & regressed.

Kazahs & Kirgiz nomads were both mostly shamanistic until the Russians converted them to Islam in 1700s & 1800s.

Turkmen were most warlike & fiercely resisted the Russians. Sarts were easily conquered.

Russia’s Asiatic trade as a whole was a mere 7% of her exports in the first few decades of 1800s. This trade grew almost 1000% (in absolute terms, not a percentage) in the 1850s with the suppression of banditry in Kazahstan.

USA Civil War drove cotton prices up to the point Russia imported the inferiorvarities from Central Asia. Introduction of American cotton in 1880s & rise in price drove another cotton boom to point where it took 60% of Ferghana’s labor.

A colony bereft of industry due to Russia, instability in cotton prices, usury, & high taxes immiserated the small scale farmers. Rich natives, not reliant on loans prospered.

Early Russian settlers tended to be skilled workers. The Russian peasants had much larger plots of land, & grew sustenance rather than cotton.

Russian government pushed for heavy Slavic settlement in Asia to relieve agrarian unrest & immiseration in Europe. They seized the best lands of many nomads to clear the way for settlers.

Russian trade goods, including alcohol, drove many nomads into debt. With their reduction to peonage, loss of their best lands, & repossession of their livestock; herds decreased to 75% & nomads to 90% of their respective populations the decade before.