Military Oriental Studies on the Homeland of the Alaï Queen

THROUGH CENTRAL ASIA WITH A RIFLE AND A NOTEBOOK

And yet, by the end of the 19th century, when the Russian army was triumphantly marching through Central Asia, conquering its last stronghold - the bastions of Kokand, Russia could boast not only of military victories. At that time, no European country knew as much about the Middle East as the Russian Empire. In this regard, it
left far behind even its long-standing geopolitical rival - Britain. This turn of events was due to a completely unique scientific discipline for that time - military oriental studies. It was this that later pointed out in one of his works Academician I.Yu. Kratchkovsky, lamenting that in our homeland, few know of orientalists "from the military environment" and that "such undoubtedly existed and one cannot indiscriminately classify them all as practical translators." This chapter will discuss a few brave lone scholars - courageous scientists who had the honor of introducing the European world to the homeland of the Alay Queen.

Unfortunately, after the lightning-fast dizzying rise, this promising field of regional studies soon faced a decline: for many decades after the October Revolution, even discussions about the scientific direction that once existed in Russia were considered a sign of political nonconformism.

The first mentions in modern times of Russian military orientalists began only after the collapse of the USSR. It was then that the names of many remarkable scholars-officers, long forgotten in their homeland, migrated from the special storage of archives to the pages of periodicals and popular science publications.

Our story about five of the many orientalists who did much to familiarize European science with the life and customs of the Kyrgyz will begin with a brief excursion into the history of Russian military oriental studies. Emerging in Russia in the first half of the 19th century as an applied, scientific-practical form of research, by 1917 the young field of oriental studies had transformed into an independent branch of knowledge about Central Asia. They accumulated parallel to the expansion of the territorial possessions of the Russian Empire. Moreover, two factors were of fundamental importance - military-strategic and military-administrative. The first was dictated by the necessity, conditioned by Russia's access to the borders of neighboring Asian states, to plan troop preparations for Asian theaters of military operations, while the second was the requirement to ensure governance over the vast territories that had been conquered.

Before World War I, which is referred to in Russian pre-revolutionary and foreign historiography as the "Great War," military oriental studies in Russia took shape into a system of theoretical and applied research that made a significant contribution to Russian oriental studies. At that time, several major military-oriental centers emerged - in St. Petersburg, in the Caucasus (in Tiflis), in Turkestan (in Tashkent), as well as in the Far East - in Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, and Harbin. Moreover, military orientalists were trained quite quickly - at officer courses in Eastern languages, which operated under the Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in St. Petersburg and in Tashkent. Thus, in record time, over 500 military specialists-orientalists were prepared, and an unknown military specialty was born in Russia - "officer-orientalist." Soon it was included in the list of official positions in border military districts, corps, divisions, and even individual fortresses and posts. Specialized periodicals also emerged, such as the St. Petersburg "Collection of Geographical, Topographical, and Statistical Studies," the "Herald of the Tashkent Officer School of Eastern Languages" published in Tashkent, "Information Regarding Countries Neighboring the Turkestan Military District," "News of the Caucasian Military District Headquarters" (Tiflis), "China and Japan," and "Materials on Manchuria, Mongolia, China, and Japan" (Harbin). It was from the pages of these publications that the enlightened West first learned about the life and activities of remarkable Russian officers such as N.M. Przhevalsky, M.V. Pevtsov, V.I. Roborovsky, P.K. Kaulbars, B.L. Grombchevsky, and many others. Their contributions to the study of Asia were duly recognized by the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences and the Imperial Russian Geographical Institute, as well as by a number of foreign scientific institutions and societies. Some of them left a significant mark in the history of Kyrgyzstan.

Moreover, the indomitable spirit of inquiry drove these romantic scholars into the very heart of political events, sometimes onto the battlefields and into the enemy camp. The biographical data of some of these regional scholars are sometimes as captivating as any adventure novel. Below, we will discuss Russian officer-orientalists whose fates intertwined with that of another well-known figure in our national history - the famous Alay Queen Kurmandjan Datka.

Expedition to Pamir