Otto Hoetzsch, Russian Turkestan and Present Trends in Russian Colonial Policy... (Schmoller’s Jahrbuch, 37th year, 1913, No. 2).
((The author knows Russian, has been to Turkestan N.B. and has made a thorough study of the relevant literature.))
| N.B. |
Russia consumes about eleven million poods of cotton (100 million rubles) from Turkestan (+Khiva+Bukhara), and about 11-12 million from America. |
| Turkestan=1.5 million square versts (1 sq. verst= 1.13 sq. km.) |
| Khiva= | 0.05 |
| Bukhara= | 0.2 |
Σ=1.75 (nearly four times the size of Germany). The population [of Turkestan] =5.3 million (1897) and 6.7 million (1910).
The population is an “Indo-Iranian” mixture, mostly “Turco-Mongolian”.
Branches of the big Russian banks are to be found everywhere....
...“there is lively and constantly expanding colonialeconomic activity”... (p. 388).
Islam prevails. Complete freedom of religion. Pan-Islamism:
| N.B. |
...“Pan-Islamic agitation among the Mos- lem Sarts and Kirghiz, which hitherto have been tranquil in this respect, has been introduced by the Moslem Tatars coming from the North, the Volga area (Nogaitsy) and Western Siberia. These Tatar intellectuals belong to the literary and political elite of present-day Islam, and are among its most energetic and in- fluential adherents. And it is primarily to them that Islam owes its great inter- nal and external strengthening and its cultural growth. In 1880, Russia’s Moslem population was estimated at 11 million; their printed literature was con- fined to 7 or 8 books, and they had one printing-press; there were four leaders and twelve persons with higher education, in- cluding one who had studied in Western Europe. In 1910 there were already 20 million; they had over 1,000 printed books, 14 printing-presses and 16 periodical publi- cations; 200 persons had received higher education in Russia and 20—in Western Europe, there were about 100 writers, six higher and 5,000 lower schools, 37 chari- table institutions, three small banks and three village banks. 1) This great “Mos- lem” movement, which embraced also such ethnic groups as the Votyaks, the Chere- misy, the Chuvashi, has been described in a study... 2), dealing especially with schools and education. Russia’s Moslem population has undergone considerable cul- tural development in the past 10 years: there is a mosque and a mullah to every 150 Kazan Tatars compared with 1 priest to 1,500 of the Russian and non-Russian population of the area; the Tatars have one school to every hundred of the population; the Orthodox Christians— one to 1,500 - 3,000. Book and news- paper circulation among the Tatar Mos- lems is, proportionally, still greater. |
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| Pan-Islamism in Russia |
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| 1880 | |||||||
| and 1910 |
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1880 and 1910 12-200 with higher education, 1-14 printing presses, 0-16 periodical publications 8-1,000 books N.B. |
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| !!! | |||||||
| 1:100 1:2,000 |
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1) Ostroumov, The World of Islam, Tashkent, 1912. By the same author, The Sarts, Tashkent, 1908, also The Koran and Progress, Tashkent, 1903. |
N.B. | |||
2) Bishop Andrei and N. V. Nikolsky, Basic Statistics of the Non-Russians of Eastern Russia, Kazan, 1912.
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While this cultural superiority and vitality lead to easier assimila- tion of the non-Russians, both Christian and pagan, with the Moslem Tatars, the latter are greatly disquieted by the gov- ernment’s school policy” (Russian-language schools!) “endorsed by the Duma . They are inclined to be less submissive and to join in the agitation that has now spread to the whole Moslem world, and are ready to seek support among the Moslems of China and India. Contact with the Turkestan Moslems comes as a matter of course; in fact pan- Islamic unrest is already being brought in from the North. The Russian Government fears this penetration of Ta- tar Moslems and has tried to keep them out of Turkestan. True, Russia’s school policy in Turkestan is by no means discri- minatory” ... freedom of religion and na- tive schools.... The Sarts are eager to learn Russian: “the natives readily attend Rus- sian-language schools”.... “Economic reali- ties are making the importance of the Rus- sian language as the general commercial and official language increasingly clear to the practical Sart.” A “very gradual” “cul- tural Russification” is taking place (406-09).... |
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| N.B. drawing closer to the Moslems of India and China |
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| “unrest”... “from the North |
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On irrigation, p. 362 in No. 3: in the Transcaspian region + Syr-Darya + Samarkand + Ferghana, there are 2¼ million dessiatines of irrigated land, of which 1.0 million are under wheat, and 0.379 under cotton. Hence (p. 363), out of a total land area of 159 million dessiatines, 156¾ are dry and barren; only 2¼ are irrigated. |
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Literature:
N.B.: Count York von Wartenburg, Russian Penetration in Asia, Berlin, 1900.
H. Vambéry, Russian Power in Asia, Leipzig, 1871.
Curzon, Russia in Central Asia, London, 1889.
Abaza, The Conquest of Turkestan, St. Petersburg, 1902.
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