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Cover image of The Revolt of 1916 in Russian Central Asia
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The Revolt of 1916 in Russian Central Asia

Edward Dennis Sokol
with a foreword by S. Frederick Starr

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The definitive study of a nearly forgotten genocide, reissued with a new foreword.

During the summer of 1916, approximately 270,000 Central Asians—Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Tajiks, Turkmen, and Uzbeks—perished at the hands of the Russian army in a revolt that began with resistance to the Tsar’s World War I draft. In addition to those killed outright, tens of thousands of men, women, and children died while trying to escape over treacherous mountain passes into China. Experts calculate that the Kyrgyz, who suffered most heavily, lost 40% of their total population.

This horrific incident was nearly lost...

The definitive study of a nearly forgotten genocide, reissued with a new foreword.

During the summer of 1916, approximately 270,000 Central Asians—Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Tajiks, Turkmen, and Uzbeks—perished at the hands of the Russian army in a revolt that began with resistance to the Tsar’s World War I draft. In addition to those killed outright, tens of thousands of men, women, and children died while trying to escape over treacherous mountain passes into China. Experts calculate that the Kyrgyz, who suffered most heavily, lost 40% of their total population.

This horrific incident was nearly lost to history. During the Soviet era, the massacre of 1916 became a taboo subject, hidden in sealed archives and banished from history books. Edward Dennis Sokol’s pioneering Revolt of 1916 in Russian Central Asia, published in 1954 and reissued now for the first time in decades, was for generations the only scholarly study of the massacre in any language. Drawing on early Soviet periodicals, including Krasnyi Arkhiv (The Red Archive), Sokol’s wide-ranging and exhaustively researched work explores the Tsarist policies that led to Russian encroachment against the land and rights of the indigenous Central Asian people. It describes the corruption that permeated Russian colonial rule and argues that the uprising was no mere draft riot, but a revolt against Tsarist colonialism in all its dimensions: economic, political, religious, and national. Sokol’s masterpiece also traces the chain reaction between the uprising, the collapse of Tsarism, and the Bolshevik Revolution.

A classic study of a vanished world, Sokol's work takes on contemporary resonance in light of Vladimir Putin’s heavy-handed efforts to persuade Kyrgyzstan to join his new economic union. Sokol explains how an earlier Russian conquest ended in disaster and implies that a modern conquest might have the same effect. Essential reading for historians, political scientists, and policymakers, this reissued edition is being published to coincide with the centennial observation of the genocide.

Reviews

Reviews

Sokol's recitation of events has a compelling clarity. In 180 pages, he conveys the flavor of a region, a historical snapshot of a massacre, and several important observations.

Sokol carefully recreates events on the ground while relating some of the more instructive moments of the uprising... Sokol's account of the uprising—made possible by the publication of archival documents—remains topical and accurate.

About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
208
ISBN
9781421420509
Illustration Description
1 map
Table of Contents

Foreword, by S. Frederick Starr
Preface
1. The Revolt of 1916
2. The Economic Background to the Revolt of 1916
3. The Political Background to the Revolt of 1916
4. The Revolt of 1916: First Phase
5. The

Foreword, by S. Frederick Starr
Preface
1. The Revolt of 1916
2. The Economic Background to the Revolt of 1916
3. The Political Background to the Revolt of 1916
4. The Revolt of 1916: First Phase
5. The Revolt of 1916: Second Phase
6. The End of the Revolt
7. The Revolt in Retrospect
Bibliography
Index

Author Bios
Featured Contributor

Edward Dennis Sokol

Edward Dennis Sokol (1923–2014) earned his BA from Johns Hopkins University in 1947 and his PhD in 1952.
Featured Contributor

S. Frederick Starr

S. Frederick Starr is the founding chairman of the Central AsiaCaucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program. He is the author of Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane.