Epidemic and empire: Ethnicity, class, and "civilization" in the 1892 Tashkent cholera riot

Slavic Review

Volumn 64, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 117-139

  Sahadeo, Jeff ^a  

^a CARLETON UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

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EID: 33646450421     PISSN: 00376779     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3650069     Document Type: Review

References (149)

1. These figures (which place the Muslim population at exactly 100,000) are from the Obzor Syr-Dar'inskoi Oblasti za 1890 god (Tashkent, 1892), ii-v.
2. In his history of Tashkent, A. I. Dobrosmyslov reports 1890 figures of 12,981 non-military personnel in the Russian city, and 107,705 in Asian Tashkent. He gives no sources for his figures, nor does he offer an ethnic breakdown. Dobrosmyslov, Tashkent v proshlom, i nastoiashchem (Tashkent, 1912), 80.
3. Donald L. Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot (Berkeley, 2001), 8.
4. Tsarist authorities applied the term cholera riot (kholernyi bunt) to describe the events of 24 June 1892. By their definition, the "rioters" were uniquely the Central Asians. I employ cholera riot because it suits the actions of the day, but with an understanding that the instigators of the deadly violence were, by an accounts, Russian settlers and soldiers.
5. Central Asians of the period relied far more on oral than written transmissions. See Adeeb Khalid, The Politics of Muslim; Cultural Reform (Berkeley, 1997), 24-25, 126.
6. On the importance and likelihood of ethnic riots in promoting such cohesion, see Horowitz, Deadly Ethnic Riot, 458.
7. A. Shvarts, "XXV-letie 1-i muzhskoi lechebnitsy tuzemnoi chasti gor. Tashkenta," Sredniaia Aziia, 1911, no. 8:114.
8. Paul Brass, "Introduction: Discourses of Ethnicity, Communalism, and Violence," in Paul Brass, ed., Riots and Pogroms (New York, 1996), 5.
9. On the cholera epidemic and subsequent unrest elsewhere in Russia in 1892, see Nancy M. Frieden, Russian Physicians in an Era of Reform and Revolution, 1856-1905 (Princeton, 1981), 135-60;
10. Theodore H. Friedgut, "Labor Violence and Regime Brutality in Tsarist Russia: The Iuzovka Cholera Riots of 1892," Slavic Review 46, no. 2 (1987): 245-65;
11. Sylvain Bensidoun, "'L'émeute du choléra' de 1892 dans les provinces du Tchernozem-central," Revue historique 243, no. 2 (1970): 337-54;
12. and Bensidoun, "A propos d'un centenaire: Le choléra et les émeutes de 1892 dans l'empire de Russie," Revue historique 287, no. 2 (1992): 379-385.
13. Turkestanskiia viedomosti, no. 22, 2 June 1892.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Richard J. Evans, "Epidemics and Revolutions: Cholera in Nineteenth-Century Europe," Past and Present, no. 120 (August 1988): 124-25;
17. Charles E. Rosenberg, "Cholera in Nineteenth-Century Europe: A Tool for Social and Economic Analysis, "Comparative Studies in Society and History 8, no. 4 (July 1966): 452-63.
18. Cholera struck quickly, without warning, with often fatal consequences. A victim feeling perfectly well could be dead within five hours. A vague feeling of anxiety and sickliness quickly yielded to violent spasms of vomiting and diarrhea. Stools turned to a grayish liquid involuntarily expelled from the body. Intense seizures and a burning thirst followed, before a deep lethargy set in and the pulse faded. Muscular cramps could contort the body once more, but the victim at this point was near death, the face sunken and cadaverous, the lips puckered and blue. Death from cardiac and renal failure quickly resulted. Roderick E. McGrew, Encyclopedia of Medical History (New York, 1985), 59.
19. R. J. Morris, Cholera 1832: The Social Response to an Epidemic (London, 1976), 17.
20. Colonial officials in India frequently referred to cholera as an "enemy force" that required constant monitoring. David Arnold, Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India (Berkeley, 1993), 169.
21. On the importance of military considerations in epidemics in the colonial world, see Warwick Anderson, "Where Is the Postcolonial History of Medicine?" Bulletin of the History of Medicine, no. 72 (1998): 524.
22. Turkestanskiia viedomosti, no. 22, 2 June 1892.
23. Richard Evans, Death in Hamburg. Society and Politics in the Cholera Years 1830-1910 (Oxford, 1987), 266. Koch's theories, however, met with skepticism from many quarters in the European medical community and only gained full acceptance after 1892.
24. Frieden, Russian Physicians, 135-36.
25. Arnold, Colonizing the Body, 195-99.
26. K. K. Kazanskii, "V vidu slukhov o kholere," Turkestanskiia viedomosti, no. 40, 2 October 1890.
27. The project, begun in 1868, was abandoned when sections of the canal were found to be running uphill. Engineers blamed inaccurate instruments. No other effort was made, and the ditch that was to be the canal provided a constant reminder of the failed endeavor. See Jeff Sahadeo, "Creating a Russian Colonial Community: City, Nation and Empire in Tashkent, 1865-1923" (PhD diss., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 2000), 60.
28. Lev Kostenko, Turkestanskii krai: Opyt voenno-statisticheskago obozreniia Turkestanskago voennago okruga; Materialy dlia geografii i statistiki Rossii, 3 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1880), 1: 310.
29. For more on the Russian difficulties in curing this local water-borne disease, called by the settlers "Sart [local] disease," see A. Satinskii, "Tashkentskaia iazva ili sartovskaia bolezn′," Turkestanskiia viedomosti, no. 45, 15 November 1877.
30. For more on the relationship between Russian and Central Asian medicine and medical practitioners in the late imperial period, see Cassandra Cavanaugh, "Backwardness, Biology, and Byt: Russian and Soviet Medicine in Central Asia, 1868-1934" (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2001), 67-79.
31. On the term Sart, see note 90.
32. Kazanskii, "V vidu slukhov."
33. On dirt and the colonized population in the European colonial world, see Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (New York, 1995), 152.
34. The term "race" was known to early settlers; the term was in fact employed with reference to the "British race." See Sahadeo, "Creating a Russian Colonial Community," ch. 3.
35. V.I. Cherevanskii, "Skachka (Tashkent, 9 Marta)," Syn otechestva 1868, no. 97.
36. Kazanskii, "V vidu slukhov."
37. Syr-Dar'ia military governor to Tashkent city commandant, 19 June 1872, Tsentral'nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Respubliki Uzbekistan (The Central State Archive of the Republic of Uzbekistan, hereafter TsGARUz) f. I [Istoricheskaia chast']-36 (Upravlenie nachal'nika goroda Tashkenta), op. 1, d. 876 (O poiavleńiia kholery v 1872 g.), 1. 3. On the importance of medicine as a "civilizing influence" in the early years of Russian Turkestan, see Cavanaugh, "Backwardness, Biology, and Byt," 17-94.
38. TsGARUz, f. I-36, op. 1, d. 876, 1. 3.
39. I. A. Shishmarev, "Neskol'ko strok o Tashkente," Turkestanskiia viedomosti, no. 20, 7 May 1891.
40. An accord to this effect was promulgated between the conquering general of Tashkent, M. G. Cherniaev, and local elites. A translation of the accord can be found in Eugene Schuyler, Turkistan: Notes of a Journey in Russian Turkistan, Khokand, Bukhara, and Kuldja (New York, 1877).
41. Governor-General fon-Kaufman and his successors generally held to the accord to allow a form of "indirect rule" to Asian Tashkent. Local administration, however, did not preclude meddling. See F. Azadaev, Tashkent vo vtoroi polovine XIX veka: Ocherki sotsial'no-ekonomicheskoi i politicheskoi istorii (Tashkent, 1959), 90-126.
42. On a general theory of what Ronald Robinson calls a "collaborative mechanism," see Robinson, "Non-European Foundations of European Imperialism: Sketch for a Theory of Collaboration," in Roger Owen and Bob Sutcliffe, eds., Studies in the Theory of Imperialism (London, 1972), 117-42.
43. Success in transplanting productive strains of cotton to Turkestan sparked an economic boom, based also on local trade and services to provide for a growing Slavic and Central Asian urban population. See Azadaev, Tashkent, 128-200.
44. Sergei Idanov, "Po povodu sozdaniia bezplatnoi stolovoi i nochlezhnogo priiuta," Turkestanskiia viedomosti, no. 50, 18 December 1884.
45. Tashkent city commandant to guardian (popechitel') of the first sanitary district, TsGARUz, f. I-36, op. 1, d. 876, 1. 41.
46. See N. A. Maev, "Russkii Tashkent," Niva, Literaturnoe Prilozhenie, 1894:150
47. and Dobrosmyslov, Tashkent, 98-9.
48. N. A. Maev, "Tashkentskaia bezplatnaia stolovaia i nochlezhnyi priiut," Turkestanskiia viedomosti, no. 49, 11 December 1884.
49. Petition from Ivan Postinov to Tashkent city commandant, 27 March 1892, TsGARUz, f. I-36, op. 1, d. 3339 (Spiski pereselentsev, svedeniia o raznykh sobytiia goroda Tashkenta, 1892), 1. 213.
50. "Golod i kolonizatsiia," Sbornik materialov dlia statistiki Syr-Dar'inskoi Oblasti za 1894 god, vol. 5 (Tashkent, 1895), 58.
51. TsGARUz, f. I-718 (Zhurnal zasedanii Tashkentskoi gorodskoi dumy), op. 1, d. 12 (1892), 1. 1.
52. A. I. Ginzburg, Russkoe naselenie v Turkestane (konets XIX-nachalo XX veka) (Moscow, 1992), 121, 126.
53. TsGARUz, f. I-36, op. 1, d. 3384 (Broshiura o sanitarnykh merakh protiv rasprostraneniia zabolevaniia kholery), 1. 58.
54. Ibid., f. I-718, op. 1, d. 12,1. 215.
55. Turkestamkiia viedomosti, no. 21, 26 May 1892.
56. For the broadsheet, see TsGARUz, f. I-36, op. 1, d. 3384,1. 14.
57. M. A. Terent'ev, Istoriia zavoevaniia Srednei Azii, 4 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1906), 3:371.
58. TsGARUz, f. I-36, op. 1, d. 3384, 11. 30-34.
59. Alimov is identified simply as a "Sart [local] from the Kokcha district of Tashkent." Ibid., f. I-723 (Turkestanskii Voennyi Okruzhnoi Sud. Kholernyi bunt 24 iiunia 1892), op. 1, d. 3 (O vostanii protiv vlastei pravitel'stvom ustanovlen 24 iuniia 1892),1. 237.
60. A. A. Kadyrov, Istoriia meditsiny Uzbekistana (Tashkent, 1994), 139-42.
61. Note from police chief of Russian section of Tashkent, TsGARUz, f. I-36, op. 1, d. 3384, 1. 136.
62. Interrogation (protokol doprosa svidetelei) of Magomed Iakub Karim Berdaev [Muhammad Yaqub Karim Berdaev] to Syr-Dar'ia oblast procurator, 25 June 1892,
63. Ibid., f. I-723, op. 1, d. 3, 1. 16ob.
64. Kadyrov, Istoriia meditsiny Uzbekistana, 141-42.
65. N. S. L., "O zakrytii starykh musul'manskikh kladbishch v Tashkente," Turkestanskiia viedomosti, no. 36, 8 September 1892.
66. Interrogation of Mir Azimbaia Mir Salikhbaev, TsGARUz, f. I-723, op. 1, d. 4. (O vosstanii protiv vlastei pravitel'stvom ustanovlen 24 iiunia 1892), 1. 36.
67. Maulana Muhammad Ali, The Religion of Islam: A Comprehensive Discussion of the Sources, Principles, and Practices of Islam (New Delhi, 1968), 448-49.
68. Statement of S. R. Putintsev to Military Court, 10 December 1892, TsGARUz, f. I-723, op. 1, d. 4,1.76.
69. On Muslim burial practices see Ali Religion of Islam, 444-51
70. John A. Williams, ed., Islam (New York, 1961), 104-8.
71. Interrogation of Magomed Iakub, TsGARUz, f. I-723, op. 1, d. 3, 1. 17.
72. Terent'ev, Istoriia zavoevaniia, 3:377.
73. On preconquest Asian Tashkent, see O. D. Chekovich, "Gorodskie samoupravlenie v Tashkente XVIII v.," Istoriia i kul'tura narodov Srednei Azii (Moscow, 1976), 149-60.
74. TsGARUz, f, I-1 (Kantseliariia Turkestanskogo Generala-Gubernatora), op. 31, d. 33 (Ob obiavlenii Turkestanskogo kraia v polozhenii usilennoi okhrany v sviazy s epidemoi kholery), 1. 19.
75. One scheme allowed Russian officials to purchase land endowed as waqf at advantageous prices. Under Islamic law, waqf is a land endowment, generally awarded to religious or educational institutions. Title-holders of waqf land collect revenue produced from that land, often in terms of taxation, according to a contract. Revenue from waqf land, in turn, is not taxed by the state. V Zykin, "Pod dvoinom pressom: Vosstanie v Tashkente v 1892 t.n. 'kholernyi bunt,'" Uchenye zapiski permkogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta (otdel obshchestvennykh nauk), vol. 2 (Perm, 1931), 329-30.
76. Terent'ev, Istoriia zavoevaniia, 3:372.
77. For figures on cholera deaths, see statistical tables in Turkestanskiia viedomosti, no. 27, 7 July 1892.
78. Declaration of Tashkent okrug military court, TsGARUz, f. I-723, op. 1, d. 2 (O tuzemtsakh aziatskogo chasti goroda Tashkenta v chisle 60 cheloveka (obviniaemy za uchastie vosstanii 24 iiunia 1892), 1. 76.
79. On this phenomenon elsewhere in Russia in 1892, see Frieden, Russian Physicians, 150-51
80. and Bensidoun, "A propos d'un centenaire," 379-85.
81. On rumors, see Horowitz, Deadly Ethnic Riot, 74-88.
82. These stories appear in several Central Asian witness accounts. Several refer to a deadly "white powder," which was likely lime, used as a disinfecting agent by Russian doctors during the 1892 epidemic. Cholera can furthermore cause confusion as afflicted bodies convulse after death. TsGARUz, f. I-723, op. 1, d. 3, 11. 17, 79, 224.
83. The Senate had been responsible for sending the Girs Commission, charged with investigating finances and local abuses of power in Turkestan, to the region in 1881.
84. TsGARUz, f. I-723, op. 1, d. 4,1. 36.
85. Interrogation of Magomed Iakub, ibid., E I-723, op. 1, d. M. 78ob.
86. N. A. Maev, Turkestanskiia viedomosti, no. 25, 23 June 1892.
87. Ibid.
88. One of the main cultural and religious holidays in the region, as across the Muslim world, Qurban-Bayram (also known as Qurban-Hayt) marks the Feast of the Sacrifice (commemorating God's saving of Abraham's son).
89. Interrogation of Stepan R. Putintsev, 25 June 1892, TsGARUz, f. I-723, op. 1, d. 3, 1. 13ob.
90. Ibid.
91. The origins and meanings of the term "White Tsar" remain unclear. Richard S. Wortman has argued that the term originated with the local population, who used the term "white tsar" to parallel Russia to the power of the golden horde, known in the region as the "white horde." Wortman, Scenarios of Power. Myth and Ceremony in the Russian Monarchy, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1995-2000), 2:63n19. Other contemporary discussions attributed the term to the white uniforms of the Russian soldiers in Central Asia. Although no explicit mention of the label as a racial marker exists, it was used, as in this case, in terms that applied a clear sense of superiority of European over Asian.
92. Interrogation of Magomed Iakub, TsGARUz, f. I-723, op. 1, d. 3,1. 79.
93. Interrogation of Seiful Mir Alimov, ibid., f. I-723, op. 1, d. 3,1. 237.
94. Interrogation of Magomed Iakub, ibid., f. I-723, op. 1, d. 3,1. 80ob.
95. Zykin, "Pod dvoinorn pressom," 336.
96. Fifty-one Muslims accused of participating in the crowd were eventually arrested. Russian statistics record nineteen of them as workers, twenty-two as artisans, eight as traders, and two as landowners.
97. Ibid., 340.
98. Testimony of Diuzhanbe Kokanbaev, TsGARUz, f. I-723, op. 1, d. 3,1.16.
99. Ibid., 1. 339.
100. G. P. Fedorov, "Moia sluzhba v Turkestanskom krae," Istoricheskii viestnik, 1913, no. 11:459.
101. TsGARUz, f I-723, op. 1, d. 3, 1. 39.
102. Ibid., 1. 37.
103. Ibid.
104. Interrogation of Putintsev, ibid., 1. 14.
105. Ibid., 1. 15ob.
106. Ibid., 1. 25.
107. Ibid., 1. 47ob.
108. The term Sart remains shrouded in mystery and has been the subject of considerable controversy. The term predates the Russian conquest and was apparently used to refer to the settled populations of Central Asia. Russian observers and authorities linked the term to Turkic-speaking town-dwellers, as opposed to the Persian-speaking "Tajiks." Russian ethnographers spent considerable time "discovering" traits of their new subject populations, in order to classify them into neat "ethnic" categories. In petitions to the authorities, Tashkent residents referred to themselves as "Sarts," but in informal communication were more likely to use terms such as "Tashkenters" or "Muslims." By the turn of the century, Russians used "Sart" as a pejorative. For this reason, I have chosen "Central Asian" as the most neutral term to describe the local population of the region. On the term Sart, see Khalid, Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform, 199-208
109. Ingeborg Baldauf, "Some Thoughts on the Making of the Uzbek Nation," Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique 32, no. 1:79-81.
110. Protocol of assistant to the arbitration court (mirovoi sud) Lukashevich concerning the course of the riot, TsGARUz, f. I-723, op. 1, d. 3, 1. 3.
111. Horowitz, Deadly Ethnic Riot, 2.
112. Terent'ev, Istoriia zavoevaniia, 3:377.
113. Interrogation of Gal'kin, TsGARUz, f. I-723, op. 1, d. 3,1. 38.
114. Ibid., 1. 18ob.
115. Dobrosmyslov, Tashkent, 488.
116. Interrogation of Gal'kin, TsGARUz, f. I-723, op. 1, d. 3,1. 37.
117. The one Central Asian convicted for this particular incident was accused only of yelling to others not to trust any promises the Russians might make regarding easing anticholera measures. Sentence handed down by his Imperial Majesty,
118. Zykin, "Pod dvoinom pressom," 348.
119. Turkestanskiia viedomosti, no. 27, 7 July 1892.
120. Ibid.
121. The epidemic peaked from 29 June to 12 July; official statistics record cholera striking an average of thirty people in the Russian city and one hundred and fifty people in the Asian city daily. See statistical tables in Turkestanskiia viedowsti, no. 28, 14 July 1892.
122. Grodekov to the Tashkent city commandant, 2 July 1892, TsGARUz, f. I-36, op. 1, d. 3384,1. 155.
123. The military trial began on 28 November 1892. For the background to the trial, see Zykin, "Pod dvoinom pressom," 347-50. The transcripts are held in TsGARUz, f. I-723, op. 1, d. 2.
124. Zykin, "Pod dvoinom pressom," 333.
125. "Voprosnyi list" of the accused in the trial, TsGARUz, f. I-723, op. 1, d. 4,1. 38.
126. Ibid., f. I-1, op. 31, d. 33, 1. 1.
127. Vrevskii to the minister of war, 21 July 1892, ibid., 1. 10ob.
128. K. Proskupiakov, "Zhurnal osobago pri Tashkentskom, gospitale meditsinskago soveta, 9 avgusta 1892," Turkestanskiia viedomosti, no. 33, 18 August 1892.
129. K. Shul'gin, "Kholernaia epidemiia 1892 goda v Tashkente," Turkestanskiia veidomosti, no. 51, 22 December 1892.
130. Concluding report of the military okrug sud, 10 December 1892, TsGARUz f. I-723, op. 1, d. 4,1. 78.
131. Ibid., 1. 77.
132. Vrevskii to the minister of war, 3 September 1892, ibid., f. I-1, op. 31, d. 33, 1.25
133. Ibid., 1. 386.
134. For more examples of this, see Sahadeo, "Creating a Russian Colonial Community," 203-4.
135. TsGARUz, f. I-1, op. 31, d. 33,1. 386.
136. Fedorov, "Moia sluzhba," 459.
137. Terent'ev, Istoriia zavoevaniia, 3: 374.
138. Fedorov, "Moia sluzhba," 458.
139. Report of Tashkent city commandant to Syr-Dar'ia military governor, TsGARUz, f. I-1, op. 31, d. 33,1.36.
140. Central Asians' visits to Russian doctors decreased by one-third in the wake of the cholera epidemic. Cavanaugh, "Backwardness, Biology, and Byt," 81.
141. Friedgut, "Labor Violence," 245-65.
142. Terent'ev, Istoriia zavoevaniia, 3:378.
143. Shvarts, "XXV-letie 1-i muzhskoi lechebnitsy," 128.
144. Ibid., 129.
145. Horowitz, Deadly Ethnic Riot, 458.
146. "Tashkent, 1 ianvaria," Okraina, 3 January 1894. On the background of the newspaper,
147. see Russkaia periodicheskaia pechat'v Turkestane, 1870-1917gg. (Moscow, 1974).
148. Stephen P. Frank, "Confronting the Domestic Other: Rural Popular Culture and Its Enemies in Fin-de-Siècle Russia," in Stephen P. Frank and Mark D. Steinberg, eds., Cultures in Flux: Lower- class Values, Practices, and Resistance in Late Imperial Russia (Princeton, 1994),77.
149. Okraina, 3 January 1894.