On July 17, 1916 (July 4, old style) in the Central Asian city of Khujand (now it is called Khujand), mass unrest began, which became the impetus for the Turkestan uprising - one of the largest anti-Russian uprisings in Central Asia, accompanied by bloody pogroms of the Russian population, and then retaliatory brutal measures by the Russian army.
Walking Jamolak and the Khujand uprising
The city of Khojent (Khujand) at the time of the described events was the administrative center of the Khojent district of the Samarkand region of the Russian Empire. The district was inhabited mainly by Tajiks.
When on June 25, 1916, Nicholas II published a decree "On the attraction of the male alien population to work on the construction of fortifications and military communications in the area of active armies." Thus, the inhabitants of Central Asia, who were previously not subject to conscription, had to be mobilized for hard work in the front line. Naturally, the local population, who had never particularly associated themselves with Russia and its interests, was outraged.
From Khujand itself, 2,978 workers were to be sent to the front line. One of them was supposed to be a certain Karim Kobilkhodzhaev - the only son of Bibisolekha Kobilkhodzhaeva (1872-1942), better known as "Hodimi Jamolak".
Bibisolekha was the widow of a poor artisan, but she enjoyed great prestige among the female population of her quarter, as she regularly organized various ritual and social events. Karim was her breadwinner and, naturally, Hodimi Jamolak was very afraid of losing him. But Karim, despite the requests of his mother, was included in the list of mobilized.
Monument to Hodimi Jamolak
When local residents indignant at the mobilization of men began to gather in the Guzari Okhun, Kozi Lucchakon and Saribalandi districts in the morning, Hodimi Jamolak went with them to the building of the district head of the Khojent district.
The district chief, Colonel Nikolai Bronislavovich Rubakh, preferred to leave the building, after which his assistant, Lieutenant Colonel V. K. Artsishevsky ordered the police and soldiers of the guard service to disperse the crowd. It was at this moment that Hodimi Jamolak rushed forward and, hitting the policeman, snatched the checker from him. After that, the enthusiastic crowd crushed the policemen. Shots rang out in response. The soldiers of the Khojent fortress opened fire on the crowd, several people among the rebels were killed.
The reasons for the uprising and its spread throughout Central Asia
The Hodimi Jamolak uprising in Khujand became the starting point for further uprisings in other regions of Central Asia. Only in the second half of July 1916, there were 25 performances in the Samarkand region, 20 performances in the Syrdarya region, and the Fergana region was in the lead in terms of the number of performances - 86 small uprisings took place here. On July 17, 1916, martial law was declared in the Turkestan military district.
The uprising quickly took on an international character, embracing not only the sedentary Tajik population of the Samarkand region and the Uzbek population of the Fergana region, but also the Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and even the Dungans. The inhabitants of Central Asia were not only dissatisfied with the mobilization. They were generally very dissatisfied with the policy of the Russian Empire in Turkestan.
First, since 1914, a massive requisition of cattle for the needs of the front has been carried out in the region, and the cattle were requisitioned for scanty compensation, equal to 1/10 of its real value. Locals viewed these requisitions as a banal robbery.
Secondly, which is also important, during the previous decade, starting in 1906, there was a massive resettlement of peasants from the central regions of Russia to Turkestan. For the needs of the settlers, more than 17 million acres of land were allocated, already developed by local residents. In total, the number of settlers was several million people - up to 500 thousand peasant farms moved to the region from Central Russia as part of the Stolypin agrarian reform.
Third, there was growing discontent with Russia's overall cultural influence in the region. Conservative circles saw in him a great danger to the established way of life and traditional values of the local population. These fears were spurred on in every possible way by the Ottoman Empire, which considered itself the protector of the Muslims of Central Asia and, even before the start of the First World War, flooded the region with its agents, who established ties with the local clergy, the courtiers of the Bukhara Emir and Khiva Khan, with the feudal lords.
Ottoman agents disseminated anti-Russian appeals, called on the local population for a "holy war" against the Russian Empire and liberation from the "power of the giaurs." At the same time, Ottoman agents were actively operating in the Chinese Kashgar - the center of East Turkestan, from where they had already penetrated into Russia. Anti-Russian sentiments were most influenced in the Fergana region, whose population has always been famous for its religiosity.
Interestingly, having organized the resettlement of Russian peasants to Central Asia and Kazakhstan, the tsarist authorities did not think much about their safety in their new place of residence. And when in 1916 anti-Russian demonstrations broke out practically throughout Central Asia, many Russian and Cossack settlements were practically defenseless, since most of the men of combat-ready age were mobilized to the front. The army units in the Turkestan military district were also not numerous, since at that time there were no real opponents near the Russian borders in Central Asia - neither Persia, nor Afghanistan, nor China could be considered as such.
The introduction of martial law could no longer stop the uprising, which, after the Samarkand and Fergana regions, swept Semirechye, Turgai and Irtysh regions. On July 23, 1916, the rebels captured the Samsa post station in the vicinity of the city of Verny. This allowed the rebels to interrupt the telegraph communication between Verny and Pishpek (Bishkek). On August 10, the Dungans, the Chinese Muslims, joined the uprising and slaughtered several Russian villages in the vicinity of Lake Issyk-Kul. So, already on August 11, most of the inhabitants of the village of Ivanitskoye, the village of Koltsovka, were killed.
There was no mercy for the Russians: they were cut, beaten, sparing neither women nor children. Heads, ears, noses were cut off, children were torn in half, stuck on pikes, women were raped, even girls, young women and girls were taken prisoner, - wrote the rector of the Przhevalsky city cathedral, priest Mikhail Zaozersky.
On August 12, a 42-strong Cossack detachment arriving from Verny managed to destroy one of the Dungan gangs. But the killings of the civilian Russian population continued. Thus, the rebels broke into the Issyk-Kul monastery and killed the monks and novices who were there. The victims of the bandits were peasants, railway employees, teachers and doctors. The account of the victims of the uprising quickly went to thousands.
Is it worth describing the horrific atrocities that the rebels committed to the peaceful Russian inhabitants?Unable to resist the army, the rebels took out all their anger on innocent people, almost always accompanying their path with outright criminality - robbery, murder, rape. They raped women, girls and even children and old women, most often killing them later. The corpses of the killed people were lying on the roads, plunging into shock the soldiers and officers of the Russian army, aimed at suppressing the uprising. During the uprising, about 9 thousand Russian resettlement households were destroyed, many infrastructure facilities were destroyed.
General Kuropatkin's retaliatory measures
The Turkestan Governor-General and Commander of the Turkestan Military District, General of Infantry Alexei Nikolaevich Kuropatkin, was to lead the suppression of the uprising. He was appointed to the post almost immediately after the outbreak of the uprising.
The Russian troops, seeing the cruelty with which the rebels dealt with civilians, responded in kind. The victims of the suppression of the uprising numbered many hundreds of thousands - from 100 thousand to 500 thousand people. For example, at the Shamsi pass, 1,500 Kyrgyz were shot.
More than 100 thousand Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, fearing revenge for the crimes committed by the rebels, were forced to migrate to neighboring China. In Semirechye alone, 347 insurgents were sentenced to death, 168 insurgents to hard labor, and 129 insurgents to imprisonment.
Uprising in the Turgai steppes
On the territory of modern Kazakhstan, in the Turgai region of the Russian Empire, the uprising turned out to be the most successful and structured. It covered the Turgai, Irgiz districts and the Dzhetygarinsky volost of the Kustanai district of the Turgai region. The peculiarities of the landscape allowed the rebels to operate here with greater success than in other regions of modern Kazakhstan.
The Turgai rebels also created their own power vertical - they elected khans and sardarbeks (military leaders), and the khans were subordinate to the general khan Abdulgappar Zhanbosynov. Amangeldy Imanov (pictured) was elected commander-in-chief (sardarbek) of the rebels. He also headed the kenesh - the council of commanders of the rebel formations. Thus, the rebels formed a parallel power structure and in the areas they controlled, the power of the Russian Empire did not actually function.
In October 1916, the rebels under the command of Amangeldy Imanov began the siege of Turgai. The situation was saved only by the approach of the corps of Lieutenant General V. G. Lavrentieva. The rebels turned to guerrilla warfare, which lasted until 1917. After the February Revolution of 1917, the position of the rebels improved, as Russian troops were withdrawn, and at the end of 1917 Amangeldy Imanov still captured Turgai and swore allegiance to Soviet power.
Aftermath of the uprising
Turkestan uprising of 1916-1918 deepened the already existing ethnic contradictions in Central Asia, turned a significant part of Central Asians against Russia and the Russian people in general. At the same time, during the Soviet period of national history, the Turkestan uprising was viewed as anti-imperialist and anti-colonial, raised by the local population against the tsarist government. They preferred to remain silent about the atrocities committed by the rebels against the Russian population. But the leaders of the rebels, especially Amangeldy Imanov, turned into revered national heroes.
This “consecration” of the anti-Russian uprising did not in fact improve the attitude of local residents towards Russians. Indeed, in Soviet history textbooks, in numerous popular literature, especially published in the republics of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, they spoke exclusively about the atrocities of the Russian army during the suppression of the uprising, about the "criminal" economic policy of the Russian Empire. As a result, the rebels were exposed only as victims, their crimes were not covered.
In the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia, the Turkestan uprising is viewed exclusively through the prism of prevailing ethnic nationalism. Even in Kyrgyzstan, which is a member of the CSTO and the Eurasian Economic Union, a national holiday was established in memory of the Turkestan uprising. Instead of covering not only the mistakes of the tsarist government and its economic policy, but also the atrocities of the rebels, this approach actually whitewashes, legitimizes the lawlessness, monstrous crimes that were committed against the civilian population of Russian villages and villages, Cossack farms.
Unfortunately, the Russian authorities, preferring not to spoil relations with Astana and Bishkek, Tashkent and Dushanbe, do not actually react to such coverage of historical events. But isn't it too big a price to pay for loyalty - to neglect both the memory of the fallen compatriots and the safety of the Russian and Russian-speaking population still remaining in the region? After all, where the Russophobia of the past is sanctified and promoted, nothing holds back from its manifestations in the present.
