Construction of the image of Russian Turkestan in the travelogues of imperial experts of the second half of the 19th – early 20th century

The category "image of the region," widely spread in the spheres of humanitarian geography, cultural studies, philology, in the modern situation of polydisciplinarity in the first quarter of the 21st century, gradually covers the space of historical research. The situation of "turns" in humanitarian knowledge reorients historians today from the study of events to the comprehension of states: discourses of power and society, reflecting the intellectual, ideological, cultural perceptions of people in different phases of historical reality. In this regard, the experience of Russian colonisation was invariably associated with the construction of the "Other" in relation to which the empire implemented colonial practices, defining it as a subordinate, subaltern. As part of this process, the carriers of knowledge about the "Other" considered it sufficient justification for their own civilisational mission and cultural regeneration addressed to subalterns. The agents of the Russian Empire in the eastern peripheries, including the Turkestan region, were imperial experts - officials, writers, publicists, public figures, who, either by duty or personal motives, travelled to the peripheral regions that fully or fragmentarily participated in the system of Russian administration. During or as a result of their trips, the experts recorded their observations of territories and people in texts that reflected the perceptions of people whose consciousness had been shaped by the Enlightenment ideology. In their reception of the world of the "Other," they had a firm conviction that Russia was on the path of European civilisation and was not a multinational empire consisting of a metropolis and a dependent colonial periphery, but a nation-state in the process of formation. In this respect, the literature of journeys to the Turkestan region represented the formula of "Russia's own East" and Turkestan as an organic part of the Russian Empire. The image of Russian Turkestan as an intellectual construct had a multicomponent and complex structure. In translating the perceptions of the region in travelogues, the expert community in its observations and conclusions sought to comply with the main principles of state policy in the Turkestan region: active Russification by means of education and the resettlement movement, cultural levelling by means of Christianisation and "pacification" of Islam supporters, and the iconic functional role of Russian administration. At the same time, in the process of penetration and familiarisation with the region, its stencil image changed, being filled with additional content, which set new contours for the region's image perception, making certain adjustments in the implementation of imperial policy in the eastern suburbs of the country. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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