Published in Russian, see Russian pages of this website.

SUMMARY:

In his essay, Sergei Abashin shares reflections on the volume Central Asia within the Russian Empire. He compares this volume with other volumes published in the series Borderlands of the Russian Empire. Abashin observes that the task of writing histories of different regions of the Russian Empire according to a single plan has failed. The author contends that attempts made in the series to overcome the influence of national narratives were unsuccessful. Proof that national narratives have crept into a new analytical framework is found in the fact that the volume was eventually titled Central Asia, despite the fact that the region had never constituted geographic or administrative unit prior to the twentieth century. Moreover, Abashin contends that putting all the borderlands of the Russian Empire into a single analytical framework conceals imperial diversity and inequitable relations between different borderlands and the imperial center. Though Central Asia briefly fascinated Dostoevsky and other champions of mission civilisatrice, it never occupied a place in governance and symbolic geography of imperial mindscape similar to that of the Caucasus. At the same time, the efforts undertaken in the series to overcome the inertia of past imperial narratives, with their concomitant focus on the imperial center, led to a paradoxical situation in which the center did not merit a separate volume. Still, study of the history of diverse borderlands evokes the image of the center and judging by the various volumes of the series, the imperial center was perceived differently in different borderlands. Reflecting on the volume dedicated to Central Asia, Abashin observes that the period of entry (conquest and incorporation) of new territories into the Empire receives more scholarly attention than periods of ruling routine. This creates an imbalance in the historical analysis of colonialism and pushes historians to rely on the visionary designs of a short heroic period, thus missing the importance of the dissipation of these visions during the longer period of imperial routine. Abashin also describes other imbalances apparent in historical reconstructions of the steppe region and Turkestan, both of which (contrary to historical evidence) are usually taken together and thought of as homogenous colonial peripheries. In conclusion, Abashin defends the view of the steppe region and Turkestan as a peculiar borderland in the Russian Empire, based on a number of historical factors. More to the point, Abashin reminds the reader that the region of Central Asia appears to be a peculiar part of the Russian Empire because its study is contested between two hardly compatible traditions: historiography (or studies of Russian history) and Oriental Studies.