ИСТИНА

The territory of the Central Asia, forcibly occupied by Imperial Russia between 1865–1878, was mainly desert land that contained just a few small, densely populated oases. Why was it necessary to gain control of it? It did not serve any military purpose, because the better protection of the southern frontier of the Empire were the notorious deserts and dry steppes. Economically, it was also a questionable venture. To present it merely as an opportunity for the thievish embezzlement of public money – and theft there was – is somewhat beside the point. The advance of Great Britain into the same region from the opposite side reflected the same trend. What kind of rationality, then, informed these advances? Paradoxically, the only rational reason to move into the region was a scientific one. At that time, the Central Asia was still a blank spot on the European maps and it was the only region on earth in which the great empires had not yet confronted each other. The frontier lines of both empires were bound to move in on each other, even if unfavorable for each of them. In my talk, I am going to show how the war for the territory eventually turned into a war against the territory. The main agents of that war – as well as its contributors and beneficiaries – were the British and Russian military geodesists and surveyors, who used their skills to advance their careers as well as their social status and personal economic growth. Rather than a hostile confrontation, to them, their collaboration during the so called Afghan Demarcation between the Russian Empire and Great Britain in 1885, brought the pleasure of sharing topographical and geographical information. As a result, after the outer and inner demarcations had been fixed, this region – “Created by the Lord in Anger” – was surveyed and explained not only in terms of geography, but also economically, ethnically, and historically.