The 1916 Revolt

What were the long-term and

short-term causes of the revolt?

Why was the revolt confined to

certain areas?

How did the 1916 revolt

influence the idea of a Qazaq
nation?
 Historiography of 1916
1920s: Evidence of revolutionary
consciousness of Central Asians in
radical anti-colonialism
1950s: Class Struggle, Central Asians
fighting side-by-side with Russian
settlers against regime
1980s: National-liberation Movement
1990s: GENOCIDE of
Kyrgyz/Kazakhs
Central Asias legacies from an
often painful past are complex, and
cannot be properly understood
through a modern nationalist prism.
[We should] avoid instrumentalizing
the suffering of its victims for
contemporary political purposes
Alexander Morrison
Article on 1916
Ethnic tensions
The goal of Russifying the region [tsel
obruseniya kraya] by means of forcibly
disseminating Russian nationality is also
unattainable, at least through resettlement. All
those attracted to resettle in the borderlands
by the free distribution of land and
Government loans turn out to be, as
experience shows, the weakest elements of the
Russian peasantry and petty-bourgeoisie, and
also the sweepings of Siberian colonisation.
Finally, possessing considerable privileges,
when compared with the natives, in their
relations with the administration, they provoke
the native population, which considers itself
aggrieved through the forcible requisition of
land and water, and sow the seeds of national
discord and enmity, which could soon have
consequences.
Palen Pereselencheskoe Delo p.418
Petition from Kantarbai Karimbaev
to the Asu Uchastkovyi Pristav,
reporting the murder of his wife by
peasants from the settlement of
Novo-Georgievskoe 01/06/1913
Tsentralnyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv
Respubliki Kazakhstan F.433 Op.1
D.287 Po obvineniyu krestyan
Kuyukskoi volosti Shevchenko,
Beznosova, Popova i drugikh v
napadenii na aul i za uchastie v
drake ll.6-ob
Kantarbai Karambaev from Kuyuk canton (volost) wrote that at
midday on the 29th May 1913 forty peasants from the settler
village of Novo-Georgievskoe, led by their village elder
(starosta) and clerk, had attacked his settlement (aul) and:

wounded by breaking her head my wife, [...] Sugur

Kankhozhina, who lies near death, and my other wife
Orumbai Karymbaeva from fear had a miscarriage,
and all the men who were there at the time to the
number of 6 they drove off to the mountains with
stones and took two ketmens and many other things.
Petition from Kantarbai Karimbaev to the Asu Police Chief 01/06/1913 TsGARKaz [Central State Archive of the
Republic of Kazakhstan] F.433 Op.1 D.287 Po obvineniyu krestyan Kuyukskoi volosti Shevchenko,
Beznosova, Popova i drugikh v napadenii na aul i za uchastie v drake ll.6-oborot.
 Petition from the settlers of Belovodskaya volost
We have been living almost forty years in the village of Novo-Troitskaia, formerly Sukuluk.
We had land for 206 male souls allotted to us, i.e. 2060 desyatinas in all. Now we have 550
souls, and the land is entirely insufficient, together with which it is exhausted as it is not
chernozem [black earth] but suchlinok [dried up], and without irrigation is not productive.
Although we would water it we do not have enough from the river, we receive 1/5 and the
majority is taken by the Kirgiz, who rent to the Dungans for the irrigation of the rice sown
below the post-road [] Nevertheless it would still be possible to live somehow, if the Kirgiz
rented out their spare land which is lying uncultivated and which would be enough not just
for our village, but also for others. Before the Kirgiz of the Sukuluk volost rented [to us]
when they had good administrators from the manaps. Dikanbai Djandrachev and others who
lived with us in a friendly and neighbourly way and did not forbid their Kirgiz from renting us
land. Now the Kirgiz of that volost Cholpankul Tymalin has acquired some sort of power over
all the Kirgiz and things have become very hard for us as Cholpankul Tymalin has forbidden
and forbids his Kirgiz from renting us land under pasture and the Kirgiz are more afraid of
him than of the Governor-General and consider him to be almost a Khan.
Zhaloba Krestyan Semirechenskoi Oblasti Pishpekskogo Uyezda Belovodskoi volosti sela Novo-Troitskogo (1909) RGIA F.1396 Op.1 D.45
Zhaloby zhitelei Turkestanskogo Kraya na pritesneniya i vzyatochnichestvo mestnoi administratsii l.238
 Religious Tensions?

1868 Steppe Statute Removed Kazakhs from the jurisdiction of the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual
Assembly. Each Volost allowed to have only one, official mullah, sanctioned by oblast governor.
Waqf (religious endowment) prohibited.

1877 Prohibition of the use of Tatar language in official documents in the steppe, and ordered
the replacement of Tatar clerks with Kazakhs.

1881 Russification policy of Alexander III included intensified missionary efforts among the
Kazakhs.
Continuum of crisis, 1914-1921
Peter Holquist argues that the Russian
Revolution and Civil war should be
considered in the context of a
continuum of mass-mobilization and
violence across Europe, beginning
with WWI, and extending into the
1920s.
The Outbreak of War
 The Battle of
Tanenberg
(August 1914)

Russian POWs
 Erosion of trust in the Tsarist State
Anti-German Hysteria

The Tsarina and Rasputin

Nicholas IIs assumption of personal

Command (Sept. 1915)

The Tsarist governments refusal to

work with the Duma

Pavel Miliukov: Is this folly, or

treason? (Nov. 1916)
 WW1 in the Kazakh Steppe
* Increased fiscal pressure (some
taxes doubled
* Requisition of livestock & horses for
the army
* Inflation (food prices doubled 1914-
1916).

Boom in the demand for

cotton, wool, and other raw
materials by Russian
industry. This only benefits a
minority
Beatrice Penati
How Prices are Growing; The Bread Question Turkestanskii Kurer
12/07/1916; 10/08/1916



,
.
[ 25 1916 ]

1. All inorodets men, 19 to 43

A. From various Russian provinces
B. Also from Steppe & Turkestan
C. Also Muslims of the Caucasus
 The Outbreak of Revolt
First unrest occurs in Khujand, Samarkand
Province, 4th July 1916

First serious outbreak of violence in Djizakh,

Samarkand Province, later in July 1916

Unrest in Ferghana, but no major outbreaks

Spreads to Semirechie and the Steppe Provinces

in July-August 1916.

After the initial outbreak among sedentary

peoples, mainly concentrated among nomads
Kyrgyz, Kazakhs, Turkmen but also the
Dungans.

Took the Russian colonial administration

entirely by surprise
 Revolt in Semirechie and Syr-Darya
Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Dungans all rose up in revolt in August 1916.
The rebels attacked native and Russian officials, destroyed telegraph
and railway lines, and killed settlers.
The main massacres of settlers were around Pishpek, Przhevalsk and
Aulie-Ata.
The movement was uncoordinated some regions elected Khans, in
others they used Islamic rhetoric.
Large crowds of people appeared in the steppe, but did not necessarily
attack anyone.
There is no evidence of any conscious aims shared by all the rebels other
than wanting to drive out Russian settlers and resist the conscription order
The revolt in this region had been suppressed by September 1916.
 Revolt in Turghai
Probably the best-organised rebellion, with over
50,000 participants.

Its leader, Amangeldi Imanov, had been planning a

revolt against local elites even before the ukaz, which
presented him with his opportunity.

The Qipchaqs and Arghyns in Turgai each elected a

Khan under Amangeldis authority, and set up a local
administration.

Persisted well into 1917, when it became entangled in

the politics of the Russian Civil War.

Amangeldi joined the Red Army until his death in

1919, while one of his Khans, Abdighapar
Janbosynov, fought against the Soviets.
 Reaction of the Kazakh Intelligentsia

Nobody wanted a minute of this war we did not want to see this, did not
want these days When our compatriots the Russian people, coreligionist
Muslims, the Tatar people, and other neighbouring people, are burning in the
flames of the fire. It is impossible for us not to be touched by the flame. If
we are to take the position of only defending ourselves, wont others say
Whose soul is of less dignity than yours? Isnt everything good and bad that
falls on the country common to all of us?
(Bukeikhanov, Baitursynov, Dulatov, To the citizens of Alash, Qazaq,
11/8/1916)
 Victims of 1916

3,709 Russian settlers killed in Semirechie,

2,179 of them in Przhevalsk District.
Punitive attacks kill ~35,000 (Semirechie)
At least 150,000 died while attempting to
flee.
We are all considering how to settle affairs in Semirechie, and restore peaceful life in
this rich region, and how to reconcile the Russian population with the Kirgiz. I am
coming to the conclusion that for a long time it will be essential to separate these two
peoples wherever possible. We will need to create a Russian district around lake
Issyq-Qul, taking away from the Kirgiz all the land around this lake for the evil they
have committed; on the other hand we will need to create a special Kirgiz mountain
district with a centre at the fortress of Naryn.
Diary Entry for 12/10/1916 by A. N. Kuropatkin in P. Galuzo (ed.) Vosstanie 1916g. v
Srednei Azii Krasnyi Arkhiv 34 (1929) p.60
 Some Tentative Conclusions:

1) The 1916 revolt was produced partly by long-term tensions in Turkestans society
and economy, partly by the immediate pressures of war

2) It should not have come as a surprise many of the tensions that produced it
were already visible ten years earlier. However a combination of bureaucratic
infighting, arrogance and the pressures of war ensured these were ignored.

3) It should not be viewed simply as a prelude to the February and October

Revolutions the latter arrived in Central Asia by telegraph (Buttino 2003), while
the 1916 revolt grew out of particular local circumstances and is highly revealing of
the nature and state of Russian colonialism at the time.

4) We are still a long way from understanding the motives and aims of those
Muslims who rebelled, though religion does not seem to have played an important
role.

5) The revolt was followed by extensive ethnic cleansing in Semriechie, and there
are signs that both the Tsarist regime and the Provisional Government were
proposing a much more radical separation of the settler and local population in
response