Deserts, Natives, and Sylvan Cities: Russian Turkestan in American Travel Writing, 1890s – 1910s

Pelmegov, Maksim (2025) Deserts, Natives, and Sylvan Cities: Russian Turkestan in American Travel Writing, 1890s – 1910s. PRO&CONTRA : CENTRAL EUROPEAN STUDIES IN HUMANITIES, 7 (2). pp. 5-32. ISSN 2630-8916

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Abstract

The Russian conquest of Turkestan (the territories of modern Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, most of Kirghizstan, as well as the southern and southeastern areas of Kazakhstan), completed within three decades from the mid-1860s, brought controversial changes in the region’s economy, administration, and native lifestyle. The gradual emergence of railways and the development of agriculture (primarily cotton growing) attracted American entrepreneurs and travelers. This article covers two travel accounts in book form – parts of Siberia and Central Asia (1899) by Ohio businessman and philanthropist John Bookwalter (1839–1915) and Turkestan: “The Heart of Asia” (1911), written by journalist, travel writer, and diplomat William Curtis (1850–1911). I use the term “imperial view” to argue that the two Americans, despite their different social background and almost a decade passed between their travels, wrote about Russian Turkestan in a similar manner. They hoped to see the transformation of the “empty” nature of Turkestan for economic development, praised new Russian cities compared to native settlements, and created the image of Russia performing a “civilizing” mission in the region while lauding American economic presence there. However, they wrote differently about Central Asia as a geopolitical region due to the different life experiences of the authors and changes in the stance of both Russia and the U.S. in world politics in the 1900s.

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