Everything about The Khanate Of Khiva totally explained
The
Khanate of Khiva (
Uzbek:
Xiva Xonligi) was the name of a Central Asian state that existed in the historical region of
Khwarezm from
1515 to
1920 except Persian occupation by
Nadir Shah between
1740-
1746. It was ruled over by the Kungrads, a branch of the
Astrakhans, themselves a
Genghisid dynasty, and its capital was at
Khiva. In
1873, Khiva became a
Russian protectorate and, in 1920, the Khanate was abolished and 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
» See also Khwarezm, History of Uzbekistan
The region that would become the Khanate of Khiva was a part of the
Jagatai Khanate with its capital at
Old Urgench, one of the largest and most important trading centers in Central Asia. However,
Timur regarded the state as a rival to
Samarkand, and over the course of 5 campaigns, he destroyed Old Urgench completely in 1388. In 1515 the
Uzbek group, the Yadigarid
Shaybanids, installed themselves as khans of the region. Once Old Urgench was finally abandoned due to a shift in the course of the Amu-Darya in 1576, the center of the region shifted southward, and, in 1619, the khan, Arab Muhammad I, chose
Khiva as the capital of the khanate.
The discovery of
gold on the banks of the
Amu Darya during the reign of Russia's
Peter the Great, together with the desire of the
Russian Empire to open a trade route to India, prompted an armed trade expedition to the region in 1717-18, led by Prince
Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky, and consisting of 750-4,000 men.
Upon receiving the men, the Khivan khan, Shir Ghazi, set up camp under the pretense of goodwill, then ambushed and slaughtered the envoys, leaving ten alive to send back. Peter the Great, indebted after wars with the
Ottoman Empire and
Sweden, did nothing.
Tsar
Paul I also attempted to conquer the khanate, but his expedition was woefully undermanned and undersupplied, and was recalled en route due to his assassination. Tsar
Alexander I had no such ambitions, and it was under Tsars
Alexander II and
Alexander III that serious efforts to annex Khiva started.
A curious episode during
The Great Game involved a Russian expedition, in name to free the slaves captured and sold by
Turkmen raiders from the Russian frontiers on the
Caspian Sea, but also as an attempt to extend its borders while the
British Empire entangled itself in the
First Anglo-Afghan War in 1839. The expedition, led by General
V.A. Perovsky, the commander of the
Orenburg garrison, consisted of 5,200 infantry, and 10,000 camels. Due to poor planning and a bit of bad luck, they set off in November 1839, into one of the worst winters in memory, and was forced to turn back on
1 February 1840, arriving back into
Orenburg in May, suffering over 1,000 casualties without firing a single shot.
At the same time, the British, anxious to remove the pretext for the Russian attempt to annex Khiva, launched its own effort to free the slaves - a lone officer stationed in
Herat, now in
Afghanistan. Captain
James Abbott, disguised as an Afghan, set off on Christmas Eve,
1839, for Khiva. He 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 (Aqtau), and was subsequently betrayed by his guide, robbed, then released when the bandits realized the origin and destination of his letter. Yet his superiors in
Herat, not knowing of his fate, sent another officer, Lieutenant
Richmond Shakespear, after him. Shakespear was evidently more successful than Abbott in that he somehow convinced the khan to not only free all Russian subjects under his control, but also 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 now.
Khiva was gradually reduced in size from Russian expansion in
Turkestan and, in 1873, after
Russia conquered the neighbouring 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
28 May 1873 and, on
12 August 1873, a peace treaty was signed that established Khiva as a quasi-independent Russian
protectorate.
After the 1918
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 (later the
Khorezm SSR) was created out of the territory of the old Khanate of Khiva, before in 1924 it was finally incorporated into the
Soviet Union, 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 (1515-1920)
Arabshanid Dynasty (Yadigarid Shabanid Dynasty, 1515-1804)
- Ilbars I (1515-1525)
- Sultan Haji (1525-?)
- Hasan Quli
- Sufyan
- Bujugha
- Avnik
- Qal (1539-46)
- Aqataty (1546)
- Dust Muhammad (1546-58)
- Haji Muhammad I (1558-1602)
- Arab Muhammad I (1602-1623)
- Isfandiyar (1623-1643)
- Abu al-Ghazi I Bahadur (1643-1663)
- Anusha (1663-1687)
- Muhammad Awrang (1687-1688)
- Ishaq Agha Shah Niyaz (1688-1702)
- Arab Muhammad II (1702-?)
- Haji Muhammad II
- Yadigar (1714)
- Awrang (1714-1715)
- Shir Ghazi (1715-1728)
- Ilbars II (1728-1740)
- Abu al-Ghazi II Muhammad (1742-1745)
- Ghaib (1745-70)
- Abu al-Ghazi III (1770)
- Abu al-Ghazi ibn Gha'ib (1791–1804)
Qungrat Dynasty (1804-1920)
- Iltazar Inaq ibn Iwaz Inaq Biy (1804–1806)
- Abu al-Ghazi ibn Gha'ib (1806)
- Muhammad Rahim Bahadur (1806–1825)
- Allah Quli Bahadur (1825–1842)
- Muhammad Rahim Quli (1842–1846)
- Abu al-Ghazi Muhammad Amin Bahadur (1846–1855)
- Abdullah (1855)
- Qutlugh Muhammad Murad Bahadur (1855–1856)
- Mahmud (1856)
- Sayyid Muhammad (1856–Sep 1864)
- Muhammad Rahim Bahadur (10 Sep 1864–Sep 1910)
- Isfandiyar Jurji Bahadur (Sep 1910–1 Oct 1918)
- Sayid Abdullah (1 Oct 1918–1 Feb 1920)
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