History - Central Asia - page 414

as the Zhungarian Gate, were cruelly and repeatedly pummelled un-
til the Oyrats were liquidated by Manchu China. Stories of this dark
period live on in the Alpamish and Manas epic poems.
The Russians had by this time established a line of fortified outposts
on the northern fringe of the Kazakh Steppe. Reeling from the Zhun-
garian attacks, the Kazakhs (first the Little Horde, then the Middle
Horde, then part of the Great Horde) gradually accepted Russian pro-
tection over the mid-18th century. It was a clear sign of things to come.

Memory of the
Oyrat legacy has
been preserved
in epic poetry by
the Kazakhs and
Kyrgyz, who both
suffered under
the Oyrats' ruth-
less predations.

The Khanates of Kokand, Khiva & Bukhara
In the fertile oases now called Uzbekistan, the military regime of a
Persian interloper named Nadir Shah collapsed in 1747, leaving a
political void which was rapidly occupied by a trio of Uzbek khanates.
The three dynasties were the Kungrats, enthroned at Khiva (in the
territory of old Khorezm), the Mangits at Bukhara, and the Mins at
Kokand; all rivals. The khans of Khiva and Kokand and the emirs of
Bukhara seemed able to will the outside world out of existence as they
stroked and clawed each other like a box of kittens. Boundaries were
impossible to fix as the rivals shuffled their provinces in endless wars.
Unruly nomadic clans produced constant pressure on their periph-
ery. Bukhara and Khiva claimed nominal control over the nomadic
Turkmen, who prowled the Karakum desert and provided the khanates
with slaves from Persia and the Russian borderlands. Kokand spread
into the Tian Shan mountains and the Syr-Darya basin in the early
19th century, while Bukhara further exercised nominal control over
northern Afghanistan and much of modern-day Tajikistan.
The khans ruled absolutely as feudal despots. Some of them were
capable rulers; some, such as the last emir of Bukhara, were depraved
and despised tyrants. In the centuries since Transoxiana had waned as
the centre of Islam, levels of education and literacy had plummeted,
and superstition and ignorance pervaded even the highest levels of
government.
It was no dark age, however - trade was vigorous. This was espe-
cially true in Bukhara, where exports of cotton, cloth, silk, karakul
fleece and other goods gave it a whopping trade surplus with Russia.
Commerce brought in new ideas, with resulting attempts to develop ir-
rigation and even to reform civil administrations. European travellers
in the 19th century wrote best-selling travelogues marvelling at the
exotic architectural splendour of these distant glimmering capitals.
In many respects, the three khanates closely resembled the feudal
city-states of late-medieval Europe. But it is anybody's guess how they
and the Kazakh and Kyrgyz nomads might have developed had they
been left alone.

For more on that
quintessential
Great Gamester,
Francis Young-
husband, read
Patrick French's
excellent biog-
raphy
Younghusband .

1731
lesser Kazakh Horde
places itself under
Russian protection,
opening up the ensuing
annexation of
Kazakhstan by tsarist
forces and settlers.

1842
Britain sufers disaster
in the First Anglo-
Afghan War. later that
year British oicers
Conolly and Stoddart
are beheaded in front
of the Ark by the Emir
of Bukhara, as the
Great Game kicks of.

1848
Russia abolishes the
Great Horde, ending
the last line of rulers
directly descended, by
both blood and throne,
from Chinggis Khan.

1857-1859
Exiled Russian writer
Dostoevsky lives in
Semey, Kazakhstan,
and starts work on one
of his most famous
novels, The Brothers
Karamazov .