From May 31 to June 1, 2019, the international symposium “The 1916 Uprising in Central Asia: academic integration, new approaches and knowledge” took place in Karakol.
PLENARY REPORT: Vladimir Schwartz “The Semirechye Chronicles of 1916. Gregory Broydo was mistaken … but in what?”
Abstract: The so-called “theory of provocation” was formulated by G. I. Broydo already during the Semirechye events of 1916 and was based on his personal observations. According to Broydo, the prime cause of all the bloody events in the Pishpek district of the Semirechye region was the deliberate provocation of the Kyrgyz to unrest by representatives of the Russian administration at the country and regional level. Despite the fact that this “theory” explained well a number of circumstances that occurred during the riots in Semirechye, G. Broydo’s opinion in historiography was considered “absurd” and “conspiratorial”, despite the fact that in one degree or another it was shared by well-informed contemporaries of the events: M. Tynyshpaev, T. Ryskulov, I. Dzhaynakov, V.F. Zheleznyakov. This was justified by the fact that the author could not provide any documentary evidence of this theory either in 1916 or later when his “testimony to the prosecutor” was published. The lack of documentary evidence of the “theory of provocation” in the funds of the Central Asian archives was considered as a sufficient evidence that G. Broydo was mistaken when he claimed that the organizers of the provocation were in “Tashkent and Verny”.
The study of archival documents of the highest authorities of the Russian Empire (Department of Pension and Career Service of the Ministry of War, the Department of Migration of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Department of Military Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) conducted in 2016-2019 has revealed several dozen interrelated documents. These documents allow us to see the course of the preparation of the imperial command about the “requisition of natives”, and show how this action was originally conceived by a number of high-ranking officials of these ministries as “the “military call-up”, which will certainly cause the flight of the indigenous nomadic population of Turkestan to the borders of the Russian Empire. The real purpose of this adventure was an urgent release from the population of the lands used by the Kyrgyz of northern Semirechye for the future relocation of soldiers of the Russian army who distinguished themselves in the battles of the First World War. Thus, the authorities expected to prevent possible mass riots, of the same type that occurred in the Russian Empire after the Russo-Japanese war. To achieve this goal, the authors of this “diabolical plan” consciously and persistently tried to ensure that the form, time and conditions of recruiting aliens were unclear, frightening and obviously unacceptable for nomads. Since many participants in the preparation of the “highest command,” including Emperor Nikolay II, were not aware of the true purpose of the “requisition”, the documents found in the archives demonstrate a sharp opposition of departments, including elements of blatant blackmail and sabotage, which are extremely rare in interdepartmental bureaucratic correspondence. Thus, the “theory of provocation of G. Broydo” found documentary confirmation, with a principal amendment, that the initiators of the provocation were not the Turkestan authorities, but the highest-level officials in the capital of the empire.
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