Mikhail Konstantinovich Churkin,
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor, Omsk State Pedagogical University, Omsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Case of Resettlement in the Discourse of Power and Practices of Russian Civilization in the Turkestan Region (Second Half of the 19th − Early 20th Centuries)
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2025-5-4
The article, based on the discourse of imperial experts − direct participants and eyewitnesses of the resettlement case in the Turkestan region in the second half of the 19th − early 20th centuries, evaluates the approaches and practices of the Russian bureaucracy to the organization of the settlement, arrangement, economic activity of agrarian migrants from European Russia in the region. It has been established that the ideas of the imperial authorities about the integration of the territories of Central Asia, the formulation and implementation of the principles of population policy, were determined by the awareness of the special civilizing mission of the Russian people on the outskirts, marked as “Russia’s own East”. In this regard, agrarian migrations of the Russian peasantry to the Turkestan region, along with Russification projects in the field of public education, were considered an important tool for cultural alignment and imperial incorporation of the region into the all-Russian space. The ideological background played a significant role in constructing the discourse of the resettlement case in Turkestan as a civilizing mission: the Russian Empire, being a dynasty, conveyed to society the concept of the personal nature of the political power of the emperor, who delegated part of his powers to the regional administration in the east of the country. Thus, the highest provincial authorities, in many ways independently and authoritarianly, determined the choice of scenarios for organizing the resettlement case, initially guided by the widespread beliefs among conservative elites in the high cultural potential of Russian farmers − Cossacks and peasants. Such an approach, in the context of a long-term absence or uncertainty of legal norms for the resettlement and settlement of peasants in the Turkestan region, the presence of controversial issues of land use of the nomadic and sedentary population, led to a serious imbalance in solving the agrarian issue in Central Asia. The agrarian crisis in the center of the country, the growth of unauthorized resettlements, and the amorphous nature of the colonization fund in peripheral regions have reoriented the discourse and practices of the authorities from developing long-term resettlement tasks to hasty and ill-considered decisions of a short-term nature.
Publishing: 28/10/2025
The article has been received by the editor on 29/06/2025
How to cite: Churkin M.K. The Case of Resettlement in the Discourse of Power and Practices of Russian Civilization in the Turkestan Region (Second Half of the 19th − Early 20th Centuries) // Historical Courier, 2025, No. 5 (43), pp. 40−45. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2025/ISTKURIER-2025-5-04.pdf]
Links: Issue 5 2025
Keywords: Turkestan region; resettlement case; power discourse; imperial bureaucracy; peasantry; Cossacks; indigenous population public sphere