The
Khanate of Khiva was the name of a
UzbekThe Uzbeks are a Turkic ethnic group in Central Asia. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, and large populations can also be found in Afghanistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Pakistan, Mongolia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China...
state that existed in the historical region of
KhwarezmKhwarezm, or Chorasmia, is a large oasis region on the Amu Darya river delta in western Central Asia, which borders to the north the Aral Sea, to the east the Kyzylkum desert, to the south the Karakum desert and to the west the Ustyurt Plateau...
from 1511 to 1920, except for a period of Persian occupation by Nadir Shah between 1740–1746. It was the patrilineal descendants of
Shayban (Shiban)Shiban or Shayban was one of the Left Wing princes. He was Jöchi's fifth son and a grandson of Genghis Khan. Because he was too young when his father died in 1227, he did not receive any lands at that time....
, the fifth son of
JochiJochi was the eldest of the Mongol chieftain Genghis Khan's four sons by his principal wife Börte. An accomplished military leader, he participated in his father's conquest of Central Asia, along with his brothers and uncles.-Early life:...
and grandson of
Genghis KhanGenghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
. Centered in the irrigated plains of the lower
Amu DaryaThe Amu Darya , also called Oxus and Amu River, is a major river in Central Asia. It is formed by the junction of the Vakhsh and Panj rivers...
, south of the
Aral SeaThe Aral Sea was a lake that lay between Kazakhstan in the north and Karakalpakstan, an autonomous region of Uzbekistan, in the south...
, with the capital in
KhivaKhiva is a city of approximately 50,000 people located in Xorazm Province, Uzbekistan. It is the former capital of Khwarezmia and the Khanate of Khiva...
City, the country was ruled by the
KungradsThe Hongirat , also known as Qongirat is a Central Asian tribe, one of the major divisions of the Mongols. Variations on the name include Onggirat, Wangjila , Yongjilie , and Guangjila in Chinese sources and Ongrat or Kungrat in Turkish.The original pastures of the Hongirats were in eastern...
, a branch of the
AstrakhansThe Khanate of Astrakhan was a Tatar feudal state that appeared after the collapse of the Golden Horde. The Khanate existed in the 15th and 16th centuries in the area adjacent to the mouth of the Volga river, where the contemporary city of Astrakhan/Hajji Tarkhan is now located...
, themselves a
GenghisidGenghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
dynasty.
In 1873, the Khanate of Khiva was much reduced in size and became a
RussianThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
protectorateIn history, the term protectorate has two different meanings. In its earliest inception, which has been adopted by modern international law, it is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity...
. Following the
Russian Revolution of 1917The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, Khiva had a revolution too, and in 1920 the Khanate was replaced by the
Khorezm People’s Soviet RepublicKhorezm People's Soviet Republic was created as the successor to the Khanate of Khiva in February 1920, when the khan abdicated in response to popular pressure, and officially declared by the First Khorezm Kurultay on 26 April 1920...
. In 1924, the area was formally incorporated into the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and today is largely a part of
Karakalpakstan and
Xorazm ProvinceXorazm Province or Khorezm Province as it is still more commonly known, is a viloyat of Uzbekistan located in the northwest of the country in the lower reaches of the Amu-Darya River. It borders with Turkmenistan, Karakalpakstan, and Buxoro Province. It covers an area of 6,300 km²...
in
UzbekistanUzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
.
Economy
William GriffithWilliam Griffith was a British doctor, naturalist, and botanist.Griffith's botanical publications are from India and Burma. After a brief stay in Madras, he was assigned as a Civil Surgeon to Tenasserim, Burma, where he studied local plants and made collecting trips to the Barak River valley in...
reports seeing Khivan tea "of good quality" for sale in the bazaar in
KandaharKandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level...
in 1839.
Early history
The region that would become the Khanate of Khiva was a part of the
Chagatai KhanateThe Chagatai Khanate was a Turko-Mongol khanate that comprised the lands ruled by Chagatai Khan , second son of the Great Khan Genghis Khan, and his descendents and successors...
with its capital at
Old UrgenchKonye-Urgench also known as Konya-Urgench, Old Urgench or Urganj, is a municipality of about 30,000 inhabitants in north-eastern Turkmenistan, just south from its border with Uzbekistan. It is the site of the ancient town of Ürgenç , which contains the unexcavated ruins of the 12th-century capital...
, one of the largest and most important trading centers in Central Asia. However,
TimurTimur , historically known as Tamerlane in English , was a 14th-century conqueror of West, South and Central Asia, and the founder of the Timurid dynasty in Central Asia, and great-great-grandfather of Babur, the founder of the Mughal Dynasty, which survived as the Mughal Empire in India until...
regarded the state as a rival to
SamarkandAlthough a Persian-speaking region, it was not united politically with Iran most of the times between the disintegration of the Seleucid Empire and the Arab conquest . In the 6th century it was within the domain of the Turkic kingdom of the Göktürks.At the start of the 8th century Samarkand came...
, and over the course of 5 campaigns, he destroyed Old Urgench completely in 1388. In 1511, the Uzbek group the Yadigarid
ShaybanidsThe Shaybanids were a Persianized dynasty of Mongolian origin in central Asia. They were the patrilineal descendants of Shiban, the fifth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan. Until the mid-14th century, they acknowledged the authority of the descendants of Batu Khan and Orda Khan, such as...
installed themselves as khans of the region. Once Old Urgench was finally abandoned due to a shift in the course of the Amu-Darya in 1576, the center of the region shifted southward, and, in 1619, the khan, Arab Muhammad I, chose
KhivaKhiva is a city of approximately 50,000 people located in Xorazm Province, Uzbekistan. It is the former capital of Khwarezmia and the Khanate of Khiva...
as the capital of the khanate.
Russian Empire period
Much of Khiva's later history was framed against the khanate's relationship with the great powers Russia and Britain. The discovery of
goldGold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
on the banks of the
Amu DaryaThe Amu Darya , also called Oxus and Amu River, is a major river in Central Asia. It is formed by the junction of the Vakhsh and Panj rivers...
during the reign of Russia's
Peter the GreatPeter the Great, Peter I or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov Dates indicated by the letters "O.S." are Old Style. All other dates in this article are New Style. ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his half-brother, Ivan V...
, together with the desire of the
Russian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
to open a trade route to India, prompted an armed trade expedition to the region in 1717-18, led by Prince
Alexander Bekovich-CherkasskyPrince Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky was a Russian officer of Circassian origin who led the first Russian military expedition into Central Asia.-Background:...
and consisting of 750-4,000 men. Upon receiving the men, the Khivan khan, Shir Ghazi, set up camp under the pretense of goodwill, then ambushed and slaughtered the envoys, leaving ten alive to send back. Peter the Great, indebted after wars with the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
and
SwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, did nothing. The khanate was a dependency of Nadir Shah's Persia between 1740-1747.
Tsar
Paul IPaul I was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801. He also was the 72nd Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta .-Childhood:...
also attempted to conquer the khanate, but his expedition was woefully undermanned and undersupplied, and was recalled en route due to his assassination. Tsar
Alexander IAlexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....
had no such ambitions, and it was under Tsars
Nicholas INicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...
and
Alexander IIAlexander II , also known as Alexander the Liberator was the Emperor of the Russian Empire from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881...
that serious efforts to annex Khiva started.
A notable episode during
The Great GameThe Great Game or Tournament of Shadows in Russia, were terms for the strategic rivalry and conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running approximately from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813...
involved a Russian expedition to Khiva in 1839. The nominal purpose of the mission was to free the slaves captured and sold by Turkmen raiders from the Russian frontiers on the
Caspian SeaThe Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of and a volume of...
, but the expedition was also an attempt to extend Russia's borders while the
British EmpireThe British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
entangled itself in the
First Anglo-Afghan WarThe First Anglo-Afghan War was fought between British India and Afghanistan from 1839 to 1842. It was one of the first major conflicts during the Great Game, the 19th century competition for power and influence in Central Asia between the United Kingdom and Russia, and also marked one of the worst...
. The expedition, led by General
V.A. PerovskyCount Vasily Alekseevich Perovsky was an imperial Russian general and statesman.After studying in Moscow University, he joined the emperor's retinue in 1811...
, the commander of the
OrenburgOrenburg is a city on the Ural River and the administrative center of Orenburg Oblast, Russia. It lies southeast of Moscow, very close to the border with Kazakhstan. Population: 546,987 ; 549,361 ; Highest point: 154.4 m...
garrison, consisted of 5,200 infantry, and ten thousand camels. Due to poor planning and a bit of bad luck, they set off in November 1839, into one of the worst winters in memory, and were forced to turn back on 1 February 1840, arriving back into
OrenburgOrenburg is a city on the Ural River and the administrative center of Orenburg Oblast, Russia. It lies southeast of Moscow, very close to the border with Kazakhstan. Population: 546,987 ; 549,361 ; Highest point: 154.4 m...
in May, having suffered over a thousand casualties.
At the same time, Britain, anxious to remove the pretext for the Russian attempt to annex Khiva, launched its own effort to free the slaves. Major Todd, the senior British
political officerPolitical officer may refer to:*Political officer , Occasionally, a synonym for political commissar*Political officer , in the context of the British Empire, for a pseudo-ambassadorial role in areas bordering imperial territories...
stationed in
HeratHerāt is the capital of Herat province in Afghanistan. It is the third largest city of Afghanistan, with a population of about 397,456 as of 2006. It is situated in the valley of the Hari River, which flows from the mountains of central Afghanistan to the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan...
(in
AfghanistanAfghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
) dispatched Captain James Abbott, disguised as an Afghan, on Christmas Eve, 1839, for Khiva. Abbott arrived in late January 1840 and, although the khan was suspicious of his identity, he succeeded in talking the khan into allowing him to carry a letter for the Tsar regarding the slave issue. He left on 7 March 1840, for Fort Alexandrovsk (Aqtau), and was subsequently betrayed by his guide, robbed, then released when the bandits realized the origin and destination of his letter. His superiors in
HeratHerāt is the capital of Herat province in Afghanistan. It is the third largest city of Afghanistan, with a population of about 397,456 as of 2006. It is situated in the valley of the Hari River, which flows from the mountains of central Afghanistan to the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan...
, not knowing of his fate, sent another officer, Lieutenant
Richmond ShakespearSir Richmond Campbell Shakespear was an Indian-born British Indian Army officer. He helped to influence the Khan of Khiva to abolish the capture and selling of Russian slaves in Khiva...
, after him. Shakespear had more success than Abbott: he convinced the khan to free all Russian subjects under his control, and also to make the ownership of Russian slaves a crime punishable by death. The freed slaves and Shakespear arrived in Fort Alexandrovsk on 15 August 1840, and Russia lost its primary motive for the conquest of Khiva, for the time being.
A permanent Russian presence in Khwarezm began in 1848 with the building of Fort Aralsk at the mouth of the
Syr DaryaThe Syr Darya , also transliterated Syrdarya or Sirdaryo, is a river in Central Asia, sometimes known as the Jaxartes or Yaxartes from its Ancient Greek name . The Greek name is derived from Old Persian, Yakhsha Arta , a reference to the color of the river's water...
. The Empire's military superiority was such that Khiva and the other Central Asian principalities,
BukharaThe Emirate of Bukhara was a Central Asian state that existed from 1785 to 1920. It occupied the land between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, known formerly as Transoxiana. Its core territory was the land along the lower Zarafshan River, and its urban centres were the ancient cities of...
and
KokandThe Khanate of Kokand was a state in Central Asia that existed from 1709–1883 within the territory of modern eastern Uzbekistan, southern Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan...
, had no chance of repelling the Russian advance, despite years of fighting. Khiva was gradually reduced in size by Russian expansion in
TurkestanTurkestan, spelled also as Turkistan, literally means "Land of the Turks".The term Turkestan is of Persian origin and has never been in use to denote a single nation. It was first used by Persian geographers to describe the place of Turkish peoples...
and, in 1873, after
RussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
conquered the neighbouring cities of
TashkentTashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was about 2.2 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million.-Early Islamic History:...
and
SamarkandAlthough a Persian-speaking region, it was not united politically with Iran most of the times between the disintegration of the Seleucid Empire and the Arab conquest . In the 6th century it was within the domain of the Turkic kingdom of the Göktürks.At the start of the 8th century Samarkand came...
, General
Von KaufmanKonstantin Petrovich von Kaufman was the first Governor-General of Russian Turkestan.-Early life:His family was Austrian in origin, but had been in the service of the Tsars for over 100 years, and had long since converted to Orthodoxy...
launched an attack on Khiva consisting of 13,000 infantry and cavalry. The city of Khiva fell on 28 May 1873 and, on 12 August 1873, a peace treaty was signed that established Khiva as a quasi-independent Russian
protectorateIn history, the term protectorate has two different meanings. In its earliest inception, which has been adopted by modern international law, it is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity...
.
The first significant settlement of Europeans in the Khanate was a group of Mennonites who migrated to Khiva in 1882. The German-speaking Mennonites had come from the Volga region and the
MolotschnaMolotschna Colony was a Russian Mennonite settlement in what is now Zaporizhia Oblast in Ukraine. Today is called Molochansk with a population of under 10,000. The settlement is named after the Molochna River which forms its western boundary. Today the land mostly falls within the Tokmatskyi and...
colony under the leadership of
Claas Epp, Jr.Claas Epp Jr. was a Russian Mennonite minister known for leading his followers into Central Asia where he predicted Christ would return in 1889....
The Mennonites played an important role in modernizing the Khanate in the decades prior to the
October RevolutionThe October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
by introducing photography, which resulted with the development of the Uzbek photography and filmmaking, more efficient methods for cotton harvesting, electrical generators, and other technological innovations.
Civil war and Soviet Republic
After the 1917
BolshevikThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
seizure of power in the
October RevolutionThe October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, anti-monarchists and Turkmen tribesmen joined forces with the Bolsheviks at the end of 1919 to depose the khan. On 2 February 1920, Khiva's last
KungradThe Hongirat , also known as Qongirat is a Central Asian tribe, one of the major divisions of the Mongols. Variations on the name include Onggirat, Wangjila , Yongjilie , and Guangjila in Chinese sources and Ongrat or Kungrat in Turkish.The original pastures of the Hongirats were in eastern...
khan, Sayid Abdullah, abdicated and a short-lived
Khorezm People’s Soviet RepublicKhorezm People's Soviet Republic was created as the successor to the Khanate of Khiva in February 1920, when the khan abdicated in response to popular pressure, and officially declared by the First Khorezm Kurultay on 26 April 1920...
(later the
Khorezm SSR) was created out of the territory of the old Khanate of Khiva, before in 1924 it was finally incorporated into the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, with the former Khanate divided between the new
Turkmen SSRThe Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic , also known as the Turkmen SSR for short, was one of republics of the Soviet Union in Central Asia. It was initially established on 7 August 1921 as the Turkmen Oblast of the Turkestan ASSR. On 13 May 1925 it was transformed into Turkmen SSR and became a...
and
Uzbek SSRThe Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic , also known as the Uzbek SSR for short, was one of the republics of the Soviet Union since its creation in 1924...
. Following the collapse of the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in 1991, these became
TurkmenistanTurkmenistan , formerly also known as Turkmenia is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic . Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states...
and
UzbekistanUzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
respectively. Today, the area that was the Khanate has a mixed population of
UzbeksThe Uzbeks are a Turkic ethnic group in Central Asia. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, and large populations can also be found in Afghanistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Pakistan, Mongolia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China...
,
KarakalpaksThe Karakalpaks are a Turkic speaking people. They mainly live in the lower reaches of the Amu Darya and in the delta of Amu Darya on the southern shore of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan. The name "Karakalpak" comes from two words: "qara" meaning black, and "qalpaq" meaning hat...
, Turkmens, and
KazakhsThe Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....
.
Arabshahid Dynasty (Yadigarid Shabanid Dynasty, 1511–1804)
- Ilbars I (1511–1518)
- Sultan Haji (1518–1519)
- Hasan Quli (1519–1524)
- Bujugha (1524–1529)
- Sufyan (1529–1535)
- Avnik (1535–1538)
- Qal (1539–1549)
- Aqatay (1549–1557)
- Dust Muhammad (1557–1558)
- Haji Muhammad I (1558–1602)
- Arab Muhammad I (1602–1623)
- Isfandiyar (1623–1643)
- Abu al-Ghazi I Bahadur
Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur was a khan of Khiva and a historian who wrote in the Khiva dialect of the Chagatai language....
(1643–1663)
- Anusha (1663–1685)
- Khudaydad (1685–1687)
- Muhammad Awrang I (1687–1694)
- Chuchaq (1694–1697)
- Vali (1697–1698)
- Ishaq Agha Shah Niyaz (1698–1701)
- Awrang II (1701–1702)
- Musa (1702–1712)
- Yadigar I (1712–1713)
- Awrang III (c. 1713 – c. 1714)
- Haji Muhammad II (c. 1714)
- Shir Ghazi (1714–1727)
- Sarigh Ayghir (1727)
- Bahadur (1727–1728)
- Ilbars II (1728–1740)
- Tahir (1740–1742)
- Nurali I (1742)
- Abu Muhammad (1742)
- Abu al-Ghazi II Muhammad (1742–1747)
- Ghaib (1747–1758)
- Abdullah Qara Beg (1758)
- Timur Ghazi (1758–1764)
- Tawke (1764–1766)
- Shah Ghazi (1766–1768)
- Abu al-Ghazi III (1768–1769)
- Nurali II (1769)
- Jahangir (1769–1770)
- Bölekey (1770)
- Aqim (first time, 1770–1771)
- Abd al-Aziz (c. 1771)
- Artuq Ghazi (c. 1772)
- Abdullah (c. 1772)
- Aqim (second time, c. 1772 – c. 1773)
- Yadigar II (first time, c. 1773–1775)
- Abu'l Fayz (1775–1779)
- Yadigar II (second time, 1779–1781)
- Pulad Ghazi (1781–1783)
- Yadigar II (third time, 1783–1790)
- Abu al-Ghazi IV (1790–1802)
- Abu al-Ghazi V ibn Gha'ib (1802–1804)
Qungrat Dynasty (1804–1920)
- Iltazar Inaq ibn Iwaz Inaq Biy
Biy were elected judges and administrators in Kazakhstan. Biys are below Sultans in rank.According to the website of the :In the 17th and 18th Centuries the nomadic Jungar tribes directed by the Chinese Bogdykhans started a large scale war against the Kazakh khanate...
(1804–1806)
- Abu al-Ghazi V ibn Gha'ib (1806)
- Muhammad Rahim Bahadur (1806–1825)
- Allah Quli Bahadur (1825–1842)
- Muhammad Rahim Quli (1842–1846)
- Abu al-Ghazi Muhammad Amin Bahadur (1846–1855)
- Abdullah (1855)
- Qutlugh Muhammad Murad Bahadur (1855–1856)
- Mahmud (1856)
- Sayyid Muhammad (1856 – September 1864)
- Muhammad Rahim Bahadur (10 September 1864 – September 1910)
- Isfandiyar Jurji Bahadur (September 1910 – 1 October 1918)
- Sayid Abdullah (1 October 1918 – 1 February 1920)
External links