A third proponent of empire was at once more practical and more traditional. N. Ilminskii was an oriental-languages expert who taught at the Orthodox seminary at Kazan and then at Kazan University. An ideological crusader, he saw himself in the vanguard of Russia’s cultural advance against Islam, and the objects of his particular attentions were the Tatars, Bashkirs, Kazakhs and Turkmens of the old frontier lands along the Volga. In 1863 he founded a school for baptized Tatars, intended to serve as a model for others. Tatar was the language of instruction; the school was equipped with appropriate dictionaries and grammars as well as school books, and the curriculum was infused with Christian content. A few years later he also established a teacher-training college for non-Russians. By 1904 it was attended by Korean as well as Tatar, Chuvash, Votiak and Cheremis teachers and priests, and even a Yakut. One of his students, N. Ostroumov, introduced Ilminskii’s system into the Far Eastern and Central Asian provinces. It proved highly successful in insulating animists and new Christians against Islam, but had only limited impact in areas where the rival religion was already entrenched.
The government assumed that the indigenous peoples of the middle Volga and Urals were already integrated into the Empire. They were subject to military service on the same terms as Russians, and their nobility were co-opted into the imperial nobility. Reforms introduced around the turn of the century restricted the autonomy of some other native peoples, but imperial administrators treated the Buriats, for example, in the same way as Russian peasants, even though most still clung to Buddhism. 8Russian imperialists made very limited progress in converting the peoples in their Central Asian possessions.
British officials in India became increasingly concerned as they observed Russia’s advance into the continental heartland. In 1864 (on the initiative of a local commander) Russian forces entered Chimkent and occupied Turkestan, a useful producer of cotton. The next year they took Tashkent, and in 1868 Samarkand on the ancient silk road to China. Five years later the khanate of Khiva followed, and in 1876 Kokand. Most of these new acquisitions became Russian protectorates, like Bukhara, the Russians assuming responsibility for their foreign relations but otherwise leaving government in the hands of their respective khans. However, a rising staged against the Khan of unstable Kokand called for a full-scale intervention. An Uzbek tribe had recently appropriated the most fertile area, the Fergana valley, the Persian Tajiks were at daggers drawn with the inward-migrating Turkic Sarts; and the Sarts and Kipchaks tried to exterminate each other. These troubles had preceded Russian occupation. Most of the population came to accept Russian rule, but the Sufi Muslims of Fergana continued to give problems. In 1898 they mounted an armed attack on Russian barracks. Kokand had to be administered directly. 9
In general, Russian colonial administration was closer to the French than to the British model, in that the territories were regarded as part of Russia. They were governed by a military hierarchy down to district level, although local courts, taxation, irrigation and other functions were usually delegated to elected officials. In this fashion Russian norms were adapted to local realities. The Muslim population lacked the rights prevalent in Russia proper, but were not subject to military service or Russian taxation. The problem in Central Asia, however, was not the regime as such but the administrators on the ground. Some Russian colonial governors, such as Muravev-Amurskii in the Far East, combined humanity with efficiency and were first-rate by any standard, but the dross of the service tended to be posted to Central Asia. Many officials in Turkestan in particular had been sent there as a punishment. They were overworked, and rarely bothered to learn the local language; and their low pay encouraged many to take bribes. 10
The acquisition of Central Asia added a further million and a half subjects to the Empire’s population, not counting another 3.5 million in the khanates of Khiva and Bukhara. Apart from the enlargement of its domestic market, Russia also acquired some commercial assets and strategic advantages. As Gorchakov had claimed, Russia was only rounding out its frontiers and ensuring their stability. Nevertheless, though Bukhara, north of the Amu-Darya, might be a Russian protectorate, Afghanistan to the south was a British one. 11 As yet there was no confrontation between the two powers, but it was to come before long.
