2013), which is well worth a read.
At one point Kołodziejczyk quips: “one gets the impression that the Ottomans were true postmodernists, as they were unable to answer the simple question whether the Crimean khan was a sovereign ruler or not.” Of course, that question is not at all simple, which is entirely Kołodziejczyk’s point.
It is also the point of my recent article, “Written into Submission: Reassessing Sovereignty through a Forgotten Eurasian Dynasty,” which was just published with The American Historical Review as part of a forum on “Vernacular Ways of Knowing” (June 2018). The “forgotten dynasty” in question was the city-state of Shahrisabz (in modern day Uzbekistan). Certainly, as the birthplace of Timur / Tamerlane, the city itself will be familiar itself to most Central Asianists.
Timur’s Aq-Saray palace (source: Wikimedia commons)
What is perhaps less familiar is the fact that its rulers defied their arch nemeses in Bukhara for over a century, only to be decisively subdued by Russian forces in 1870. Why is it, then, that textbooks generally characterize Shahrisabz as a “province” of Bukhara, even if an unruly one? Just like Poland vis-à-vis the Ottoman Empire, or Badakhsan vis-à-vis Kunduz (vis-à-vis Bukhara), this question is not nearly as straightforward as it seems.
I won’t recapitulate my full argument here, allowing the article to speak for itself (with the broad strokes summarized in the abstract). But suffice it to say this puzzle serves as an entry point for thinking about source use – how we know what we think we know – as well as a way of interrogating the concept of sovereignty itself during the pre-colonial period.
The aforementioned article is based on a wide variety of primary sources unavailable in published form, and certainly never translated. One of the most exciting of them is what I think of as the “smoking gun” piece of evidence for the article’s broader argument: a Persian-language petition sent in secret by Shahrisabz residents to the Russian Empire, complaining about Bukhara’s infringement on the city-state’s sovereignty – along with other outrages. Parts of the petition are summarized and contextualized between pages 842 and 843 of the article, but the raw content of the document is fascinating in its own right.
With that in mind, I am going to take advantage of this venue to provide some “enhanced content”: a full (albeit rough) translation of Shahrisabz’s final gambit to escape Bukhara’s clutches, and reestablish some approximation of its former sovereign status.
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Translation of a petition from the people of Shahrisabz to the Russian Empire, date unknown (likely the mid-1870s, translation by author):
To the General Governor and Governor Golovachev [i.e. Nikolai Nikitich], Majestic and Dignified, Refuge of Mercy and Executor of the Domain (mamlakat) of Turkestan:
We write in the hope that our petition of servitude will be accepted. We, a group of servants and sufis (khwāja-gān) and all of the people of Shahrisabz, had petitioned you [Russians] at the time when General Abramov conquered the city of Shahrisabz. You gave Shahrisabz to the Amir of Bukhara, while knowing full well the enmity the Amir of Bukhara held for us, [a hatred] that is known to everyone, and that he [the Amir] was slaughtering us (halāk mē-kunad). We then implored you to appoint a governor from amongst yourselves [i.e. a Russian governor] so that we might live in the dominion (dawlat) of the White Emperor (aq-pādishāh).
General Abramov had said that the Amir of Bukhara would neither forcibly relocate us nor kill us nor or oppress us in any fashion, and that we should rest easy, and assured us he would specify [these conditions] to the Amir and write a letter to that effect. We were all very much reassured, and he [indeed] gave us just such a letter.
Snapshot of petition from Shahrisabz (photo by author)
After General Abramov left, the Amir came from Bukhara [to Shahrisabz], and read the letter written by Abramov when we proffered it to him. Upon reading the letter, the Amir’s wrath immediately increased several fold, [and] he forcibly resettled a number of [Keneges] soldiers, farmers, and religious scholars in Bukhara. Moreover, he put Muhammad Yusuf Mirakhur and Shahim-quli Eshik-aghasi to death in Bukhara, and imprisoned twenty-two other noblemen in the Zindan. Several others he exiled to Charjuy, selling their property and pocketing the proceeds.
As for those people who remained behind in Shahrisabz, the oppression and cruelty is as follows. Our ancient rulers (ḥākimān) had taken one-tenth of the harvest in agricultural tax (dah-i yak-i kharāj) from dry (lālmī) farms one-fourth from irrigated lands. Nowadays, [by contrast], a person [Bukharan official] from a position of perfect enmity takes one-fifth from dry lands and one-third from irrigated ones. Moreover, landowners (amlāk-dār), clerks (mīrzā), and other collectors (dārūgha) come up with a pretext to take additional taxes (kharāj) from what remains, leaving us with [only] around half of the harvest. And from the irrigated land, they take an additional tax (ṭanābāna), even from people who have already paid. From the tobacco farmers they take one third of the crop in kharāj tax even beyond the ṭanāb tax.
They also extort the merchants. We have two bazaar days per week in Shahrisabz, and two bazaars per week in Kitab [Shahrisabz’s sister city]. [These Bukharan officials] take one tanga [a Central Asian coin] from every single bazaar merchant, calling it an ‘amīnāna‘. We have never before been subjected to such a tax.
Moreover, men weak in religion (bē-diyānat) have been appointed to the positions of judge (qāżī) and public morality enforcer (raʾīs [synonymous Central Asia with muḥtasib by the nineteenth century]), who charge young children a fee (yak tanga) for attending primary school (maktab).
And they commit many other similar injustices. For instance, aside from the regional governor’s officials, two thousand infantry remain [in Shahrisabz], who appropriate melons, fruits, and alfalfa [i.e. animal fodder] without paying any money. If anyone demands payment, [the soldiers] pummel them with blows and invective.
Twice every year the Bukharan Amir comes to Shahrisabz in person. People out of touch with local circumstances had supposed that this was for the purpose of receiving petitions from the people and gauging the realm’s general state of affairs. That is not so, however. The Amir actually [visits Shahrisabz] in order to abduct the wives and daughters of [Shahrisabz] residents, and he commits adultery (zinā) with them as soon he returns to gets back to his house in Bukhara. Every evening he selects a few of the women, and after having his way with them he casts them out. Among these abducted women are the daughters of many esteemed Shahrisabzis: the daughter of Hajji Mufti, the daughter of Mulla Abd al-Qayyum, the daughter of Nur-bay, the daughter of Abd al-Rashid-bay, and the daughter of Yar-bay. The Amir kept all of these women for several days and nights before returning them to their fathers. And there are many other outrages analogous to this one.
After reading our petition, we hope that you will now understand the plight of our people and the scale of injustice. In the time of the dominion of the White Padishah [i.e. the Russian Tsar] the entire territory ought to be tranquil, yet us wretches are subjected to tyranny upon tyranny. We have no justice. The water of our tears has purified us such that you might accept or prayers and somehow save us from the grasp of this oppressor (ẓālim). And of course we wrote this petition [in the first place] in the hopes that you will save us from the grip of this malefactor (bē-dādgar).
Let it be known that this dominion (mamlakat) of Shahrisabz from the beginning to the end had no attachment (taʿalluq) to the