Khanate of Khiva


The Khanate of Khiva was an Uzbek state that existed in the historical region of Khwarezm in Central Asia from 1511 to 1920, except for a period of Afsharid occupation by Nadir Shah between 1740 and 1746. Centred in the irrigated plains of the lower Amu Darya, south of the Aral Sea, with the capital in the city of Khiva, the country was ruled by an Uzbek Turkic tribe, the Khongirads, who came from Astrakhan. It covered present western Uzbekistan, southwestern Kazakhstan and much of Turkmenistan before Russian arrival at the second half of the 19th century. The country's population consisted mainly of Uzbeks and Turkmens.
In 1873, the Khanate of Khiva was much reduced in size and became a Russian protectorate. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Khiva had a revolution too, and in 1920 the Khanate was replaced by the Khorezm People's Soviet Republic. In 1924, the area was formally incorporated into the Soviet Union and today is largely a part of Karakalpakstan and Xorazm Province in Uzbekistan.

History

Early history

See Khwarezm, the former name of the region.

After 1500

After the capital was moved to Khiva, Khwarezm came to be called the Khanate of Khiva. Some time around 1600 the Daryalik or west branch of the Oxus dried up causing the capital to be moved south to Khiva from Konye-Urgench. Although based in the Oxus delta the Khanate usually controlled most of what is now Turkmenistan. The population consisted of agriculturalists along the river, the so-called Sarts, and nomads or semi-nomads away from the river. The settled area was aristocratic with peasants bound to the land. There were many Persian slaves who had been captured by the Turkmen and a few Russian slaves. Before and during this period the settled area was increasingly infiltrated by Uzbeks from the north, their Turkic dialects evolving into what is now the Uzbek language while the original Iranian Khwarezmian language died out. Ethnically the population was Uzbek along the river and Turkmen in the nomad area. The swampy area of the lower delta was increasingly Karakalpak and there were Kazakh nomads on the northern border. The Turkmen nomads paid taxes to the Khan and were a large part of his army but often revolted. Since the heart of the Khanate was surrounded by semi-desert the only easy military approach was along the Oxus. This led to many wars with the Khanate of Bukhara further up the river.
Before 1505 Khwarezm was nominally dependent on the Timurid Sultan Husayn Mirza Bayqara who was based in Khurasan. From 1488 Muhammad Shaybani built a large but brief empire in southern central Asia, taking Khwarezm in 1505. At nearly the same time Shah Ismail I was building a powerful Shiite state in Persia. The two necessarily clashed and in 1510 Muhammad was killed and Khwarezm soon occupied. The Shah's religion provoked resistance and in 1511 his garrison was expelled and power passed to the Uzbek Ilbars who founded the long-lived Arabshahid dynasty.
Circa 1540 and circa 1593 the khans were driven out by the Bukharans. In both cases they fled to Persia and soon returned. In 1558 Anthony Jenkinson visited Old Urgench and was not impressed. Following Arap Munhammad, who moved the capital to Khiva, there was a period of disorder, including an invasion by the Kalmyks, who left laden with plunder. Disorder was ended by Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur who twice defeated the Kalmyks and wrote a history of central Asia. His son Anusha presided over a period of urban growth until he was deposed and blinded. From 1695 Khiva was for some years a vassal of Bukhara which appointed two khans. Shir Gazi Khan, who was killed by Persian and Russian slaves, is said to have been the last proper Arabshahid. Khan Ilbars was a Kazakh who unwisely killed some Persian ambassadors. In a repeat of the Shah Ismail story, Nadir Shah conquered Khiva, beheaded Ilbars and freed some 12-20,000 Persian slaves. Next year the Persian garrison was slaughtered, but the rebellion was quickly suppressed. Persian pretensions ended with Nadir's murder in 1747. After 1746 the Kongrat tribe became increasingly powerful and appointed puppet khans. Their power was formalized as the Kongrat dynasty by Iltuzar Khan in 1804. Khiva flourished under Muhammad Rahim Khan and Allah Quli Khan and then declined. After Muhammad Amin Khan was killed trying to re-take Merv there was a long Turkmen rebellion. In the first two years of the rebellion either, two or three Khans were killed by the Turkmen.

Russian Empire Period

Russians made five attacks on Khiva. Around 1602 some free Ural Cossacks unsuccessfully raided Khwarazm. In 1717 Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky attacked Khiva from the Caspian. After he won the battle, Shir Ghazi Khan made a treaty and suggested that the Russians disperse so that they could be better fed. After they dispersed they were all killed or enslaved, only a few surviving to tell the tale. In 1801 an army was sent toward Khiva but was recalled when Paul I was murdered. In the Khivan campaign of 1839 Perovsky tried an attack from Orenburg. The weather was unusually cold and he was forced to turn back after losing many men and most of his camels. Khiva was finally conquered by the Khivan campaign of 1873.
The conquest of Khiva was part of the Russian conquest of Turkestan. British attempts to deal with this were called the Great Game. One of the reasons for the 1839 attack was the increasing number of Russian slaves held at Khiva. To remove this pretext Britain launched its own effort to free the slaves. Major Todd, the senior British political officer stationed in Herat dispatched Captain James Abbott, disguised as an Afghan, on Christmas Eve, 1839, for Khiva. Abbott arrived in late January 1840 and, although the khan was suspicious of his identity, he succeeded in talking the khan into allowing him to carry a letter for the Tsar regarding the slave issue. He left on 7 March 1840, for Fort Alexandrovsk, and was subsequently betrayed by his guide, robbed, then released when the bandits realized the origin and destination of his letter. His superiors in Herat, not knowing of his fate, sent another officer, Lieutenant Richmond Shakespear, after him. Shakespear had more success than Abbott: he convinced the khan to free all Russian subjects under his control, and also to make the ownership of Russian slaves a crime punishable by death. The freed slaves and Shakespear arrived in Fort Alexandrovsk on 15 August 1840, and Russia lost its primary motive for the conquest of Khiva, for the time being.
A permanent Russian presence on the Aral Sea began in 1848 with the building of Fort Aralsk at the mouth of the Syr Darya. The Empire's military superiority was such that Khiva and the other Central Asian principalities, Bukhara and Kokand, had no chance of repelling the Russian advance, despite years of fighting. In 1873, after Russia conquered the great cities of Tashkent and Samarkand, General Von Kaufman launched an attack on Khiva consisting of 13,000 infantry and cavalry. The city of Khiva fell on 10 June 1873 and, on 12 August 1873, a peace treaty was signed that established Khiva as a quasi-independent Russian protectorate. See Khivan campaign of 1873. After the conquest of what is now Turkmenistan the protectorates of Khiva and Bukhara were surrounded by Russian territory.
The first significant settlement of Europeans in the Khanate was a group of Mennonites who migrated to Khiva in 1882. The German-speaking Mennonites had come from the Volga region and the Molotschna colony under the leadership of Claas Epp, Jr. The Mennonites played an important role in modernizing the Khanate in the decades prior to the October Revolution by introducing photography, which resulted with the development of the Uzbek photography and filmmaking, more efficient methods for cotton harvesting, electrical generators, and other technological innovations.

Civil war and Soviet Republic

After the 1917 Bolshevik seizure of power in the October Revolution, anti-monarchists and Turkmen tribesmen joined forces with the Bolsheviks at the end of 1919 to depose the khan. On 2 February 1920, Khiva's last Kungrad khan, Sayid Abdullah, abdicated and a short-lived Khorezm People's Soviet Republic was created out of the territory of the old Khanate of Khiva, before it was finally incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1924, with the former Khanate divided between the new Turkmen SSR and Uzbek SSR. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, these became Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan respectively. Today, the area that was the Khanate has a mixed population of Uzbeks, Karakalpaks, Turkmens, and Kazakhs.

Khans of Khiva (1511–1920)

Data on the Khivan Khans is sparse and sometimes contradictory, especially for the minor khans. Names and dates from Bregel/Muniz which probably gives the best modern scholarship. Short biographies are from Howarth's 1880 book which is old but has biographies of most of the khans. RU: is data from the Russian Wikipedia when nothing could be found in English or there was a major contradiction. RU: has sources in local languages.

Arabshahid Dynasty (Yadigarid Shabanid Dynasty, 1511–1804

Qungrat Inaks
Qungrat Khans