A 'Russian' Revolution?: 1905 in Turkestan

• In Event: The Revolution of 1905 and Its Aftermath in the Borderlands of the Russian Empire

Abstract

This paper will explore the course of the Revolution of 1905 in the Russian Empire's most colonially separate periphery, the Governor-Generalship of Turkestan. While the capital of Tashkent saw significant demonstrations, one of which was violently suppressed outside the City Duma, the focus of Social Democrat and Social Revolutionary agitation was the military garrisons and railway workers of the region. They remained curiously indifferent to the revolutionary potential of the Muslim population, meaning that the story of 1905 largely played out along narrow railway corridors. However even within these constraints it was not a purely "Russian" revolution, as Armenians and Jews played a disproportionately prominent role.

Author

• Alexander Morrison, U of Oxford (UK)