This chapter deals with the large-scale evacuation of Ashkenazi Jews, perhaps as many as 1 million, to Central Asia following the German onslaught in 1941. It examines the encounter between the newcomers and this seemingly alien Asian region along with its native inhabitants, including the Bukharan Jews. This chapter also analyzes the cultural repercussions of the evacuation and its literary responses, especially the postwar writings of Grigory Kanovich and Dina Rubina.

After Tashkent’s fall General M. G. Chernyaev became the first governor of the new province of Turkestan, and immediately began lobbying to keep the city under Russian rule and to embark on further conquests. An apparent threat from Sayyid Muzaffar, Amir of Bukhara, provided him with a justification for further military action, but he retreated before the fortified town of Jizzakh and was recalled shortly afterwards. His successor, General D. I. Romanovskii, defeated the Bukharan forces at the Battle of Irjar, and then launched unauthorised assaults on Khujand and Jizzakh, adding further to Russian territory. After a brief lull, during which Turkestan was made a Governor-Generalship under General K. P. von Kaufman, war with Bukhara broke out again in 1868. Von Kaufman’s forces defeated Amir Sayyid Muzaffar’s army at Chupan-Ata, outside Samarkand, and at the Zirabulak heights. After the Russian garrison in the Samarkand fortress had been besieged and relieved, the whole of the upper Zarafshan valley was annexed to Russia and the Bukharan Emirate’s remaining territory became a Russian protectorate. Von Kaufman realised that in order to have a stable relationship with Bukhara he would need to strengthen the Amir’s authority, which he did by crushing the independent city-state of Shahrisabz and handing it over to Bukharan rule.

For some historians the conquest of Central Asia begins in 1865 with the fall of Tashkent to General M. G. Chernyaev. In fact this was the culmination of a series of steppe campaigns which had begun in the 1840s, but it did mark the point at which the Russian empire moved from the steppe to the settled zone of Southern Central Asia. Tashkent was Central Asia’s largest city and a major trading entrepôt, but it has long been argued that Chernyaev disobeyed orders when he captured the city. This chapter demonstrates that Chernyaev’s apparent disobedience was really a product of the ambiguity of his instructions, and above all of Russian ignorance of the geography of the region, which meant the War Ministry was convinced a ‘natural frontier’ would somehow present itself when it was needed. After Aulie-Ata, Chimkent and Turkestan had fallen to Russian forces, Chernyaev was instructed to separate Tashkent from the influence of Khoqand. While not quite the daring coup de main of legend, Chernyaev’s assault was risky, and resulted in two days of fighting in the streets before he reached an accommodation with the Tashkent ‘ulama. However, it was still unclear whether Tashkent would remain in Russian hands, or be turned into a city-state under Russian protection.