Discourse and practices of migration in Turkestan region in the second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries: ethno-confessional aspect

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to reveal the content of the discourse of the resettlement case as a system of power ideas about the ethno-confessional aspect of the colonization of the Turkestan region, which determined the decisions related to the settlement and settlement in the region of migrants from the European provinces of Russia in the second half of the 19^th — early 20^th centuries. The main objectives of the study involve identifying the circle of actors of the power discourse, as well as correlating the ethnic and religious backgrounds of colonization with the practices addressed directly to the subjects of the resettlement case — the peasants who migrated from European Russia. Based on published and unpublished sources, it was determined that the process of formation and subsequent evolution of the resettlement case in the region, the subjects of which — the peasants of the European part of Russia were declared translators of the Russian civilizing mission, was closely dependent on a wide range of circumstances, experiencing the influence of the external ethnocultural and confessional environment. The study established that the “plasticity” of imperial policy in the ethnocultural sphere often resulted in confrontation between settlers and the indigenous population groups of Turkestan, and the government's policy towards Islam intensified the activities of Muslim propagandists, significantly reducing the productivity of support for Russian settlers in the region.