Russian subjects captured in Khiva at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries: ways of problem solving and consequences

The aim of the research is to study Russia's foreign policy towards the Khiva Khanate in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in the context of the problem of Russian subjects in the Khiva captivity. One of the research objectives is to study the collective image of the Russian prisoner. The research is based on the unpublished archival documents from GAOO (Orenburg) and RGIA (St. Petersburg) including memoir materials, Khiva expedition reports. The article uses comparative-historical and problem-chronological methods, which allow to identify the tendency in the development of Russia's foreign policy towards Khiva and observe its qualitative changes. To assess the potential of archival materials the author used a historiographic method and source analysis. After the Patriotic War of 1812 and setting up of the European protectionism system Russia relatively reoriented its economy to the East. On the 18th of March 1813 the ministers' Committee officially came to the decision of a comprehensive development of trade with Eastern countries, including Central Asian khanates. In 1819, a military campaign to Khiva took place and the main reason for it, according to N.N. Muravyov, was the problem of Russian prisoners in the Khiva Khanate. However, in the sources of the 18th century this issue is poorly covered or not mentioned at all. There is a possibility that the first military prisoners in Khiva appeared after A. Bekovich-Cherkassky's expedition of 1714-1717. Unfortunately, the sources of that period do not give any information concerning robberies or capture of civil people. The first person to mention the problem of the Khiva captivity was Major Blankenagel in 1794. Apart from this, sources of the 18th century claim that civil servants were widely informed about Russian prisoners in Khiva. Despite the fact that in 1819 information about captured people was introduced to the public by N. Muravyov, until 1839 the government of the Russian Empire avoided open military conflicts with Khiva and arranged peaceful expeditions and diplomatic missions. The problem of Russian prisoners in Khiva at the governmental level was first designated by V.A. Perovsky in a well-known ultimatum to the Khiva Khan. Russia used the problem of captivity as the main reason for the Khiva military campaign in 1839. The details regarding Russian prisoners, the conditions of their detention began to appear in sources. Despite the failure of the military campaign, under the pressure of the United Kingdom Khiva set some of the Russian subjects (416 people) free. Each of the rescued prisoners was interrogated to fill in a special form, which allowed to create the collective image of Khiva prisoners, as well as the conditions of their captivity. Thus, the search for a consensus in Russian-Khiva relations as well as the problem of Khiva captivity was for a long time beyond the scope for the Russian government. The topics gained urgency through Russian-British contradictions in the region due to the beginning of the Anglo-Afghan war and the need for a weighty occasion for the military campaign in 1839.

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