Russia and Turkmenistan
In the 18th century, after centuries of poverty and isolation, the Turkmen began to rebuild their way of life. The poet Magtymguly created a literary language for the Turkmen and laid the foundations for their modern culture and traditions. Keimir-Ker, a Turkmen from the Tekke clan, led a rebellion of the Turkmen against the Persians, who were occupying most of Turkmenistan. Popular ballads and folk legends still recount the deeds of Keimir-Ker.
At this time, the Russian Empire was expanding into central Asia from the plains and forests of eastern Europe. The Russian czar, Peter the Great, sent the first Russian expeditions into Turkmenistan. Peter was seeking a route for Russian trade with southern Asia and the Middle East. In 1716, however, members of a Turkmen clan murdered the czar’s representatives near Khiva. Russia waited for more than a century before sending another mission into Turkmenistan.
Nevertheless, trade between Turkmen merchants and Russia continued and was helped by the building of a port on the Caspian Sea at Krasnovodsk, (modern Turkmenbashi). In 1802, members of several Turkmen clans officially became Russian subjects. During the 19th century, the Turkmen also asked for Russia’s help during their frequent rebellions against the khans and against the shahs of Persia. The Russians were seeking new markets for their goods, fertile land for the growing of cotton, and access to Turkmenistan’s natural resources. As a first step in the conquest of the region, the Russians agreed to provide arms and food to the Turkmen rebels.
Russia began sending military expeditions into Turkmenistan in the second half of the 19th century. Russian attempts to encroach upon Turkmen territory began in earnest in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Of all the Central Asian peoples, the Turkmen put up the stiffest resistance against Russian expansion. From 1863 through 1868, Russian armies defeated and annexed the khanates of Bukhara and Khiva. The people of western Turkmenistan, who were seeking independence from the khans, willingly joined the Russian Empire.
In 1869 the Russian Empire established a foothold in present-day Turkmenistan with the foundation of the Caspian Sea port of Krasnovodsk (now Turkmenbashy). From there and other points, they marched on and subdued the Khiva Khanate in 1873. But the Turkmen of eastern and southern Turkmenistan fiercely resisted Russian annexation. Because Turkmen tribes, most notably the Yomud, were in the military service of the Khivan khan, Russian forces undertook punitive raids against the Turkmen of Khorazm, in the process slaughtering hundreds and destroying their settlements. In 1879, at Geok-Tepe near Ashkhabad (modern Ashgabat) Turkmen warriors of the Tekke den stopped a large Russian force.
In 1881 the Russians under General Mikhail Skobelev besieged and captured Gokdepe, one of the last Turkmen strongholds, northwest of Ashgabat. With the Turkmen defeat (which is now marked by the Turkmen as a national day of mourning and a symbol of national pride), the annexation of what is present-day Turkmenistan met with only weak resistance. Later the same year, the Russians signed an agreement with the Persians and established what essentially remains the current border between Turkmenistan and Iran.
By 1885, all of the Turkmen clans had submitted to Russian control. The Russians annexed Mary and pushed across Turkmenistan to the borders of Persia and Afghanistan. The building of the Transcaspian Railroad, which connected Krasnovodsk (modern Turkmenbashi), Mary, and trading centers to the east, opened up the region for economic development. In 1897 a similar agreement was signed between the Russians and Afghans.
Following annexation to Russia, the area was administered as the Trans-Caspian District by corrupt and malfeasant military officers and officials appointed by the Guberniya (Governorate General) of Turkestan. In the 1880s, a railroad line was built from Krasnovodsk to Ashgabat and later extended to Tashkent. Urban areas began to develop along the railway.
From 1890 to 1917, Turkmenistan was part of Russian Turkestan, a province that included central Asia and its Muslim nationalities—the Kazakhs, the Uzbeks, the Kyrgyz, the Taliks, and the Turkmen. Within Turkestan, however, the Turkmen had a lesser status. Their lands were defined as the Transcaspian Region and were ruled as a military colony. This neglect by Russia’s government allowed the Turkmen to maintain their culture, language, and nomadic way of life. Although the Trans-Caspian region essentially was a colony of Russia, it remained a backwater, except for Russian concerns with British colonialist intentions in the region and with possible uprisings by the Turkmen.
In the early 20th century, discontent with strict czarist rule spread among the people of the Russian Empire. At the same time, the empire was being drawn into a bloody international conflict. During World War I (1914-1918), the Turkmen and other people of central Asia moved to reclaim their homelands. A violent uprising broke out in 1916, when the Turkmen, led by Dzhunaid Khan, defeated the Russians at Khiva. The Turkmen established a national government that lasted until 1918.
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