The Socio-Economic Life of Jizzakh Uezd During the Period of The Turkestan General-Governorship (1867–1917)

Abstract

This article examines the socio-economic transformation of Jizzakh uezd, a district of the Turkestan Governor-Generalship, from the Russian conquest of 1866 to the collapse of tsarist rule in 1917. Using the comparative-historical method and drawing on published archival collections, colonial statistical surveys, and modern historiography, the study traces how Jizzakh's administrative incorporation into the Syrdarya and later Samarkand oblasts reshaped land tenure, taxation, irrigation, trade, and crafts in the district. It argues that the expansion of commercial grain and cotton cultivation, the imposition of new fiscal obligations, and the erosion of customary land rights created cumulative social strain that culminated in the Jizzakh uprising of July 1916, one of the most violent episodes of the wider Central Asian revolt. The findings suggest that Jizzakh's experience illustrates the broader colonial pattern of agrarian extraction in Russian Turkestan while also revealing locally specific dynamics tied to its position between the steppe and the Zarafshan valley.