CREES Lecture - Looking into the 'Black Holes' of Central Asian History: The Rise of Khoqand and Why it Matters

Scott Levi, associate professor, Department of History, Ohio State University. Sponsored by the Center for Russian and East European Studies and Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies. 1636

Abstract

Studies of Central Asia in the eighteenth century have generally tended to write off the region as an unimportant backwater that had been unwittingly pushed to 'the margins of world history.' This presentation juxtaposes focused research in local primary sources with a global perspective in an effort to illuminate some of the ways in which the region remained interactively engaged with its neighbors and, through them, with historical processes unfolding across the globe. More specifically, it seeks to address why it was that the Khanate of Khoqand (1799-1876) emerged during the era of Russian and Chinese imperial expansion into Central Asia; it will argue that an improved understanding of this phenomenon has much to offer to the historical community in general.