Emirate of Bukhara
The emirate of Bukhara was an Islamic state in what is now Uzbekistan , previously called Bukhara Khanate and was a successor state to the Uzbek Khanate . Under Russian rule after 1868 a slow and arduous transition into modern times took place.
prehistory
From 1488 to 1500, Mohammed Scheibani was a vassal of the Mughal khans who had previously helped him on his campaigns in Transoxania . Then he gained independence, moved against the Timurid successor states such as Samarkand and Bukhara - and founded the Uzbek Khanate . Scheibani's main opponents were the Timuride Babur and the Persian Shah Ismail. In 1506 the Uzbek Khanate became the Bukhara Khanate .
Khanate
At the time of Mohammed Scheibani's death in 1510, Bukhara was ruled by his nephew Ubaidullah b. Mahmud as Sultan. The Timurid Babur advanced to Bukhara and Samarkand with Persian help in 1511/12 , but was repulsed.
In 1533 Ubaidullah b. Mahmud Khan of Bukhara (until 1539) and tried - unsuccessfully - to conquer the Khiva Khanate in 1538 . He continued the war against Iran, but failed to defeat Shah Tahmasp .
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Abdullah II ruled from 1583 to 1598 ; his long reign brought peace and prosperity, but wars broke out and around 1598 the Kazakhs attacked Bukhara.
With the death of only Abdullah's son and his cousin the dynasty 1598/99 moved to from the Astrakhan Khanate derived Dschaniden Dynasty (1599-1785).
1723 fled large groups of Kazakhs to Bukhara and Samarkand: Your people were from the then Dzungars brought to the brink of existence.
In July / September 1740 the Persians attacked under Nadir Shah . The Khan Abu'l Faiz wanted to submit on the advice of the Mangite clan, but the nobility forced him to go to war. Nadir Shah triumphed with the help of his superior artillery and entered Bukhara as a victor and refrained from looting. Abu'l Faiz had to confess himself as a vassal and make a marriage alliance.
emirate
In 1753 Muhammad Rahim Bi , who was dependent on Nadir Shah, took control of Bukhara; this ended the rule of the Janids. Muhammad Rahim Bi founded the Mangit dynasty and introduced the new title “Emir” instead of “Khan”.
The rulers now invoked Islamic principles instead of Genghisid ancestry. Bukhara was now one of the few states in Central Asia that was not ruled by the Genghisids or Timurids .
From 1785, Shah Murad followed, who made the official transition to the emirate and pursued internal Islamization. His external goals were in particular Persian, i.e. Shiite, cities. He managed to conquer the city of Marw . However, the important dam was destroyed, the population was relocated to Bukhara and the city fell into disrepair - in 1884 it was largely abandoned. Murad's son Amir Haidar ruled 1800-26; but his plans for conquest were not particularly successful. With Khiva there were conflicts over Marw with Kokand because Ura-Tepe and Afghanistan because of Balkh , which was occupied 1817-50. In 1842, Amir Nasrallah captured Kokand. But such successes were short-lived.
The emirate was caught between Persia , Kokand and Russia .
Russian conquest
The tsar's court had been looking covetously at Central Asia since the early 17th century. In 1852, the Russian expansion in Central Asia began with the attack on to Kokand (independent khanate since 1710) belonging fortress Aq-mast schid the Syr Darya . It ended in 1884 with the subjugation of the Turkmens and the conquest of Merw . The contrast between Russian and English colonial policy (" The Great Game ") prevented further expansion.
The Emir of Bukhara was the target of the Russians from 1866 to 1868. On May 20, 1866, his army lost the battle of Irjar and the Bukharans were completely wiped out. As a result, the Russians entered Khojent on June 5th . On May 13, 1868, his army lost the battle in the Seravshan Valley , after which Samarkand fell into Russian hands and the last of the emir's troops were crushed on the way to Bukhara . The emir had to cede Samarkand to Russia and pay war compensation equivalent to 0.75 million euros. In addition, all foreign relations of the emirate were now controlled by Russia.
The Emir Abd al-Ahad received the rank of adjutant general to the tsar. But the emirate was not dissolved for political reasons, Russia wanted to impress its neighbors with this generosity. However, there was no lack of plans to annex the emirate, and in 1909 the staff of the Governor General of Turkestan submitted appropriate proposals to the Tsar.
After the conquest
Until the Russian conquest of Turkestan, only a few foreigners visited the country. Emir Nasr Allah judged z. For example, in 1842 the British ambassadors Charles Stoddart and Arthur Connolly went there, and every other Russian embassy was concerned with the ransom of Russian slaves, of which there were 500 to 600 in 1834. The trade routes were completely unsafe, as they were threatened by constant attacks by the Kazakhs and Turkmens. In 1825 a Russian caravan came into the country, escaped several attacks with a military escort and had to turn back shortly before Bukhara because of a war.
After the Russian conquest the picture changed, there was an influx of foreign visitors, mainly diplomats, and fewer traders. Most of the foreign reports revolved around incessant state controls, an arbitrary and strict moral police, gruesome prisons and the death penalty for petty crimes. It is worth noting that an estimated 25% of the population could read and write - more than in what was then Russia. However, this was often dismissed with reference to a strong religious component in the teaching and memorizing the Koran.
Credit banks were also established in the emirate under Russian rule and a railway line built over Qarshi . Emir Alim Chan's corrupt regime was only interested in money: he owned 100 million Russian gold rubles and 35 million pounds sterling. Its annual expense items were payments to the army (1 million) and to the tsar (1 million), then for police and other purposes (0.2 million). In his memorandum to the League of Nations he later stated that he had "built a bridge" for the good of his country (1921).
Only occasionally did his interests and the national welfare go hand in hand: For example, the tsarist inspector Graf von der Pahlen reported in Turkestan around 1908 that the emir regularly bribed the Russian administration with valuable medals in order to e.g. B. to bring more water to his area from a modern Russian dam.
End of the emirate
Domestically, the emir sat between two stools: the omnipresent influence of the clergy and, with the revolution in Russia in 1917, also the opposition from reformists trained abroad. In April 1917 a congress of the Muslims of Turkestan met in Tashkent to discuss the future of Central Asia. At the end of 1917 there were 8 governments with 6 different state orientations: the two emirates Bukhara and Khiva , two nationally semi-autonomous states ( Alasch Orda and Kokand ), the Soviet Commissariat in Tashkent, the White Guards in Omsk , the Alaj Horde in the mountains of the same name and a Cossack state in the Urals.
The Soviet Commissariat under Fyodor Kolessov launched an attack on Bukhara in 1918, which, like Khiva, was negotiating with London to place itself under the British protectorate instead of the previous Russian one. The commander opposed to Kolessov by the emir refused to take any action and was later executed: "If we make preparations, the well-trained Russian soldiers can attack us and the result will be that the population will be destroyed." But despite Soviet successes, such as the looting the second treasury of the emir when a fortress was conquered, the attack was canceled on March 25, 1918, Kolessov feared the general uprising propagated by the clergy. Then the Soviets recognized the emirate as an independent state and even gave the emir 40 guns.
Inside, Fajzullah Chodscha , a radical reformer with excellent contacts to the Soviets and the second richest man in Bukhara (after the emir), organized the resistance against the emir. He intended a cultural and social reform.
In 1920 his (insignificant) "Communist Party of Bukhara" took up arms and on August 29, 1920 asked the Soviets for help, who did not miss the support of the "working people of the emirate": Mikhail W. Frunze sent 7,000 infantry , 2,500 cavalry men , 5 armored trains , 40 guns and 11 planes to Bukhara, the “communists” of the emirate supposedly had 5,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry men. On the Emir's side were 8,700 infantry and 7,500 cavalry, plus allegedly 27,000 irregular fighters.
In the Battle of Bukhara on August 28, 1920, the two armed forces clashed. The fighting lasted until September 2nd, the emir lost and fled to Afghanistan.
Bukhara People's Republic
On October 18, 1920, the Socialist People's Republic of Bukhara was proclaimed, and Fajzullah Chodscha claimed the title of "Chairman of the Council of Ministers" for himself. However, the government lacked the cadres to implement reforms; it had to rely on the emir's old elites, who were accordingly little interested in the reforms. Added to this was the fear of not violating religious and social traditions. The government lost the support of the poor again. In the east of the country, the ousted Emir Said Alim Khan rallied fighters against the Soviets with British help, but was driven back to Afghanistan by the Red Army in early 1921. At the end of 1921 his followers crossed the border again and allied themselves with the Basmati and Enver Pascha . Enver, appointed by Alim Khan as "Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Islam and Governor of the Emir of Bukhara", actually conquered Dushanbe and occupied the whole of eastern Bukhara (Tajikistan), but was defeated by the Soviets in the summer of 1922 and fell in battle.
The People's Republic of Bukhara was recognized as independent on March 4, 1921 in an alliance treaty between Bukhara and the Soviet Union. But de facto the ministers of the republic were all arrested by the Soviets at the end of 1923 and, with the exception of Fajzullah Chodschas , who feared a popular uprising, were taken to Moscow. On September 19, 1924, the intimidated returnees proclaimed the "Socialist Republic of Bukhara", which was soon disbanded by Moscow from a national point of view and converted into the Uzbek SSR .
literature
- Adeeb Khalid: Making Uzbekistan. Nation, empire and revolution in the early SSSR. Ithaca, London 2015 (especially the chapter The Muslim Republic of Bukhara, pp. 117–155).
- B. Hayit: Turkestan in the XX. Century. Darmstadt 1956.
- Michael Kemper u. a. (Ed.): Muslim Culture in Russia and Central Asia from the 18th to the Early 20th Centuries. 1996 ( Islamic Studies 200, digitized version )
- Constantin Graf von der Pahlen (Ed. Rudolf Mirbt): On behalf of the Tsar in Turkestan 1908–1909. Stuttgart 1969 ( library of classic travelogues ).
Emirs of Bukhara from the Mangite dynasty
- 1785–1800 Mir Machzum Shah Murad
- 1800–1826 Haidar Torah
- 1826 Hussain
- 1826 Omar
- 1826-1860 Nasr Allah
- 1860–1885 Muzaffar ad-Din
- 1885–1910 Abd al-Ahad
- 1910-1920 Alim Khan
See also
literature
- Marion Linska, Andrea Handl and Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek: Introduction to the ethnology of Central Asia , script. Vienna, 2003, accessed on October 26, 2019.