The monograph by Albert Kaganovich, a native of Uzbekistan and now a researcher at the University of Manitoba (Canada), is devoted to the conquest of Central Asia by the Russian Empire in the 1860s and 1880s and the attitude of the Russian authorities to the Bukharian Jews, who differed, at least outwardly, from the Muslims with their ever-blue hands and paces. These subjects are extremely poorly studied in both foreign and domestic historiography. A. Kaganovich was critical of the recently published monograph by T. Emelianenko, the only one in Russian historiography, or rather ethnology, [Emelianenko, 2012], noting a number of errors and inaccuracies, the analysis of which "deserves a separate independent article" (p.382).

Alexander Yefimovich LOKSHIN-Candidate of Historical Sciences, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

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A. Kaganovich's monograph includes an introduction, 8 chapters and a conclusion. A number of chapters are devoted to the legal situation of Bukharan Jews on the eve of the conquest of Turkestan by the Russian Empire and especially in the subsequent colonial period. An important place is given to the policy of the Russian administration towards Bukharian Jews from the 1860s up to 1917, and its evolution. Their separate chapters and sections deal with education, modernization, acculturation of Bukhara Jews, and women's emancipation during the colonial period.

The source base of the study is quite extensive and relies to a large extent on archival documents issued both from the bowels of the central imperial institutions and from the Russian administration in Turkestan and concerning the daily policy of the authorities in relation to the Bukharian Jews. A number of archival sources allow us to consider the reaction primarily of the wealthy strata of the Jewish-Bukhara community to the actions of the central and local authorities. Unfortunately, there are practically no sources that can reconstruct the daily life of local Jews. This is not the fault, but the trouble, of any study of Jewish communities in the empire. The popular masses, as a rule, did not write memoirs (because they were often illiterate) and very rarely addressed various petitions and complaints to the authorities. A. Kaganovich uses sources in Hebrew, Tajik-Jewish, French and German and documents from the private archive of Shmuel Moshe Rivlin, who collected materials for writing his never-published book. books about Bukharian Jews.

One of the important research topics is the legal status of Bukharian Jews in the Russian Empire from the beginning of the conquest of Central Asia in the 1860s until the February Revolution of 1917.

Russia, with its considerable experience in colonizing the Caucasus, had no similar experience with the Muslim population of Central Asia. Nevertheless, in comparison with the Caucasus, the conquest and colonization of Turkestan, according to A. Kaganovich, was more successful. To characterize the colonization policy of the Russian authorities, the author successfully turned to the terms used by E. Ranelander when studying the colonization of the Caucasus: "centralists "and"regionalists". While Russian military and civilian officials ("centralists") believed that colonization should be carried out quickly and decisively, the" regionalists " advocated the gradual integration of new subjects of the empire [Rhinelander, 1975, p. 218-235]. The first Governor-General of Turkestan, K. Kaufman (1867-1882), undoubtedly belonged to the regionalists. Realizing the danger of a possible anti-Russian uprising of millions of Muslims, K. Kaufman developed a pragmatic method of colonization. As a military commander and a major military official, he was largely formed under the influence of an outstanding Russian statesman, the Minister of War, Dmitry Medvedev. Milyutin, who believed that religious tolerance should become the basis of Russian colonial policy in Turkestan. It is significant that K. Kaufman came into conflict with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, defending the right of local Muslims to visit the holy sites of Islam Mecca and Medina and to provide Russian diplomatic protection during the pilgrimage. A. Kaganovich calls this policy "nonviolent acculturation" (p. 9). This approach differed from the policy pursued by Russia in the West in relation to Catholicism as a result of the Polish uprising of 1830-1831. In Turkestan, Kaufman abandoned his original idea of confiscating waqf lands, the proceeds of which went to Islamic institutions. Moreover, he exempted these lands from paying taxes. A similar policy was applied to Bukharan Jews. As part of the chosen approach, Russia also refrained from completely annexing the Khanate of Khiva and the Emirate of Bukhara.

However, since the beginning of the 1880s, with the accession of Alexander III, new winds began to blow from St. Petersburg. And in the Jewish question, as well as in the Turkestan question in general, the authorities, in which the centralists began to set the tone, preferred to live according to their old stereotypes. With Milyutin's departure, the Military Department has become a bulwark of conservatism. And yet, as the researcher notes, it is impossible to draw Russia's policy in Turkestan either only with black or, on the contrary, with white paint. It is quite versatile. The Russian administration's approach to Jews in Turkestan, as A. Kaganovich was able to show, was complex and contradictory, but it was nevertheless relatively tolerant in comparison with the repressive and discriminatory attitude of the imperial authorities towards Ashkenazi Jews both inside and outside the pale of settlement.

Central Asian Jews spoke the Jewish dialect of the Tajik language, lived mainly in the largest city of the region, Bukhara, as a result of which, with the light hand of European travelers, the name "Bukharian Jews"was already assigned to them in the 1820s.

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By the time of the Russian conquest of Central Asia, native Jews played an important role in the region's economic system. Bukharian Jews differed in a number of ways from other groups of Eastern Jews in the Russian Empire. Unlike the mountain and Georgian Jews, Bukharian Jews were initially mainly engaged in handicraft production, especially silk-winding and dyeing (hence the ever-blue hands). However, this picture was correct until the 1870s. In the future, their second profession was trading.

Under Muslim rule, the situation of Bukhara Jews was unenviable. They had the status of dhimmi (patronized monotheists of Jews and Christians), the foundation of which was laid by Caliph Omar II in the eighth century. Jews were forbidden to ride a horse or donkey, wear a turban and colored silk clothing, have more than one synagogue, leave the city after sunset, and when they met a Muslim, they were obliged to get up and greet him standing. Men were required to appear on the street belted only with a rope, women were required to wear an identification mark in the form of a patch of a different color on their outer clothing. The houses and shops of Bukharan Jews were supposed to be lower than those of Muslim Jews. Men from the age of sixteen were required to pay a poll tax from the "infidels" - jizya. This tax was collected by the head of the community, who, after being handed over to the Muslim collector, received a symbolic slap in the face. In addition to the jizya, Jews had to pay zakat (tax on profits from goods sold), which was twice as high as that of Muslims. In practice, it turned out to be even greater: local collectors were constantly engaged in extortion. The legal situation of Bukhara Jews was humiliating, and Jewish testimony against Muslims was not accepted in court. There were also many other restrictions in various regions of the region. For example, in Tashkent, Jews were not allowed to wear boots - only galoshes. Muslims avoided all contact with Jews, and they did not enter homes where Jews lived. Jews were not allowed to enter the homes of Muslims. In the bathhouse, Jews had to be especially careful to avoid splashing water from them on the Muslims. To prevent this from happening, Jews in the mid-nineteenth century had to wear a special apron on their hips. For violating these and other rules, severe punishments were imposed, up to the death penalty. The convict could receive full forgiveness only if he converted to Islam.

It is significant that, despite severe discrimination, some Bukharian Jews were able to make a fortune from trade with Russia. Although, as a rule, they themselves did not travel with caravans to Russian borders, but acted through Muslim intermediaries. Jews were afraid to leave their homes for fear of permanently losing their families, who were abducted in order to convert to Islam or at least get a ransom for them. Successful Bukharan-Jewish merchants had to hide their wealth. They invested what they had not in luxury goods and clothing, as the Muslims did, but in new trade activities, which played an important role in the development of Jewish entrepreneurship. There was another factor that kept Bukharan-Jewish merchants from traveling to Russia. They had heard that even in Russia there were legal restrictions on Jews living there. In this regard, in 1802, they addressed the Jews of the Belarusian city of Shklov in Hebrew, but received a reassuring answer. By the way, A. Kaganovich is clearly mistaken when he reports that "Shklov in the late XIX - early XX centuries was one of the most important commercial and spiritual centers" (p.45) of the Jews. As evidence, he refers to a study by D. Fishman [Fishman, 1995]. But he was wrong exactly for a century, and D. Fishman's monograph is another confirmation of this.

It is not surprising that during the period of the conquest of Central Asia by the Russian Empire, native Jewish communities, as repeatedly emphasized by A. Kaganovich, without hesitation, supported the actions of the Russians. But pro-Russian sentiments were characteristic of the Bukharan Jewish community several decades earlier. Ivan Velyaminov, one of the most influential representatives of the Russian military elite, reported from Tobolsk to the Minister of War A. Chernyshev in 1834: "Bukhara Jews and merchants... happily and secretly express their sympathy for the transition... Russian citizenship... Jews crave Russian rule in Central Asia... "(pp. 403-474). Such an orientation promised Bukharan Jews liberation from the harsh restrictive Muslim laws that applied to them as "infidels", as well as excellent trade prospects.

K. Kaufman, as the researcher notes, highly appreciated the support provided to Russia by local Jews and their important role in the regional economy. In Turkestan, he abandoned virtually all repressive and discriminatory measures applied to Ashkenazi Jews in European Russia. Very soon Bukharian Jews became an important link between the two countries.

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Turkestan and Russia. Their activities were significant primarily in the economic sphere, as well as in the military and foreign policy fields.

A. Kaganovich writes in sufficient detail about the various assistance that Bukhara Jews provided to Russian troops during the military operations and later. They used their connections, their knowledge of languages, and were informants and agents of the Russian command and civil administration. Some Bukharan Jews took a direct part in the fighting in auxiliary combat detachments, were scouts and guides. The author shows that the behavior of Bukhara Jews was not unique. Mountain Jews behaved in a similar way during the conquest of the Caucasus, as did the Jews of Algeria, who helped the French capture Algeria in 1830.

A. Kaganovich writes about the "golden age" in relations between the Russian authorities and Bukharian Jews and with good reason refers this time to the end of the 1860s-the first half of the 1880s. In comparison with the Ashkenazim in Russia itself, Bukharan Jews appeared to the Russian administration to be more friendly and loyal. As a result, Bukharian Jews actually immediately received Russian citizenship. Jews-subjects of the Bukhara Emirate, which was not annexed and remained formally independent, were granted the right to freely enter and leave Russia, as well as the right to purchase real estate. Thus, initially, they received almost complete equality along with Christians and native Muslims. As a result of these measures, mass emigration of Jews from the Bukhara Emirate to the Turkestan region began.

Over time, A. Kaganovich writes, most of the Muslims came to terms with the new situation of Bukhara Jews. The most open to contacts were those who, by the nature of their activity, were in business relations with Jews (artisans, merchants). A. Kaganovich somewhat grandiosely calls their relationship "interfaith dialogue" (p. 142). At the same time, anti-Semitic sentiments have also grown stronger among Muslims. New trends in the upper classes quickly reached the Turkestan region. They were regarded by many Muslims as an end to the patronage of Bukharian Jews during the time of K. Kaufman. Anti-Semitic incidents have become more frequent. In 1893, a mob of Muslims beat up a Jew who demanded repayment of a Muslim's debt. In April 1894, Muslims in Tashkent accused Jews of ritual murder. To the credit of the Russian administration, in order to refute these absurd rumors, it acted promptly and successfully. A. Kaganovich first introduces documents about the Jewish pogrom in Osh in September 1911. The pogrom arose as a reaction to a rumor that Jews were hiding a Muslim boy. As a result of the pogrom that broke out, one person was killed and fifteen were injured. Sixteen Muslims were brought to trial, which handed down a lenient sentence, some of the rioters were acquitted, and several people were sentenced to eight months in prison. Thanks to a number of measures taken by the Turkestan administration, the Osh pogrom became the only one in all the years of Russian rule in the region.

A. Kaganovich introduces archival materials from a number of archives in Russia, Israel, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine into scientific circulation. Obviously, he worked in the last two back in Soviet times. Their names have changed in recent decades, which the researcher did not take into account.

The author has some stylistic errors. It is not easy for the reader to understand, for example, the following phrase:" Among the Bukharian Jews, the process of modernization was smoother and broader, as a result of which it was more difficult for contemporaries to see it " (p.371). The process of modernization has also affected the Bukharan Jewish community. This, in particular, was reflected in the behavior, especially of young people, the increase in the marriageable age of girls (from 13 to 17 years), in the very appearance of native Jews. At the end of the century, women wore the burqa only when going to the Muslim part of the city, in their quarter in Samarkand they walked with their faces uncovered. It was a symbol, as the author rightly notes, of liberation from the need to submit to another culture. The wealthy families of Bukhara Jews were much more willing to be photographed than the Muslims. Some of the surviving photographs, now in the collection of the Library of Congress, A. Kaganovich included in his book. For men, the tradition of wearing a special hat with a high crown, velvet top and wide fur trim turned out to be more established. But by the end of the century, these hats were gradually replaced by lamb or astrakhan hats, resembling a small Russian papakha. These headdresses became at that time the only identifying element of the clothing of Bukhara Jews.

A. Kaganovich does not miss the revolt of the local population in Central Asia against the imperial power, which broke out in the summer of 1916. He wrongly claims that "during the uprising

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several thousand people from both sides were killed in the region " (p. 326). On the part of the participants of the uprising, the losses were several times higher than among the tsarist punitive troops, not to mention tens of thousands of natives (primarily Kyrgyz, who were forced to seek refuge in China). Thousands of refugees died en route [Uprising of 1916..., 1960].

In fact, the paper lacks an important subject concerning the analysis of relations in Central Asia between Bukharian Jews and Ashkenazim who came to Turkestan after the Russian conquest. In 1914, there were 19.2 thousand Bukharian Jews and approximately 6 thousand European Jews in the Turkestan region. A. Kaganovich often refers to the literature for comparison, which examines the situation of other Eastern communities in the empire, primarily Georgian and Mountain Jews. In studies of these communities, relations with Ashkenazim are an indispensable subject.

In the last decades of the pre-revolutionary period, the position of the local administration in relation to Bukhara Jews was ambivalent. On the one hand, the entrenched principle of the central authorities "Turkestan for Russians" seemed to open the way only to segregation and discrimination of Jews, but on the other hand, the local Russian authorities needed to take care of the economy of the region, in the development of which Bukharian Jews played, as A. Kaganovich notes, "a significant role" (p.471). The peculiarities of Bukharian-Jewish politics largely determined the views of the Turkestan governors-general. In the thirty-five years since Kaufman, there have been thirteen of them. The last Governor-General A. Kuropatkin, who intended to organize new persecutions against the Jews, was particularly inclined to the ideology of Russian nationalism. However, the February Revolution of 1917 and the coming to power of the Provisional Government did not allow these plans to be implemented.

On the whole, the Russian imperial rule in Turkestan was viewed with considerable nostalgia by Bukharian Jews, especially those belonging to the well-to-do circles. This period has entered their historical memory as the "golden age". In 1934, one of the most influential and wealthy merchants, R. Potelyakhov, wrote: "With the exception of a few benefits that we lacked, Bukharian Jews enjoyed all the rights of citizens in trade and industry... and now (after the revolution - A. L.) new dictators have appeared, such as they did not know, who seized everything like locusts and turned the way of life upside down... not only did they take away all the goods, but they also took out our souls" (pp. 473-474).

A. Kaganovich's monograph undoubtedly raises the question of the need for further research concerning the period after 1917: what features characterized the policy of the Soviet authorities towards Bukhara Jews? What was the fate of the Bukharan Jewish community in that era?

A. Kaganovich's book is undoubtedly relevant, because it is devoted to perhaps the most significant period in the history of the Bukhara-Jewish community. To date, the absolute majority of Bukharian Jews live outside Central Asia: in Israel, where they are quite actively involved in the political and social life of the Jewish state [Krylov, 2016, pp. 71-77], in the United States, Germany, Russia and other countries. Once a compact population in the Turkestan region and the Emirate of Bukhara, as well as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the Bukharian-Jewish ethno-linguistic group dispersed around the world during the Soviet era after the collapse of the USSR. And, undoubtedly, in each of the countries where Bukhara Jews now find themselves, they will face their own fate, which calls into question the loss of the actual Bukharian-Jewish identity. It is unlikely that anyone will take the liberty of predicting the future of the Bukhara-Jewish community now scattered around the world. A. Kaganovich's monograph can be considered not only as a study, but also as a source on the history of Bukharian Jewry.

list of literature

Vosstanie 1916 goda v Srednoi Alii i Kazakhstanii [The Uprising of 1916 in the Middle Aliyah and Kazakhstan].

Emelianenko T. Traditional costume of Bukharian Jews. St. Petersburg, 2012.

Krylov A. Jewish-Bukharian community in the social and political life of Israel // Jews of Europe and the Middle East: Tradition and Modernity. History, languages, and literature. St. Petersburg, 2016, pp. 71-77.

Fishman D. Russia's First Modern Jews: The Jews of Shklov. N.Y. & L., 1995.

Rhinelander A. Russia's Imperial Policy: Administration of the Caucasus in the First Half of the 19th Century // Canadian Slavonic Papers. 1975. Vol. 17. No. 2-3. P. 218-235.

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