Transcaspian Oblast

Turkmenistan, 1881–1921. Draft, not yet reviewed

The Transcaspian Oblast, or simply Transcaspia, was an oblast of the Russian Empire and early Soviet Russia to the east of the Caspian Sea. Part of Russian Turkestan, it corresponded roughly to the territory of present-day Turkmenistan and southwestern Kazakhstan. Transcaspia was conquered by Russia in 1879–1885, in a series of campaigns led by Generals Nikolai Lomakin, Mikhail Skobelev, and Mikhail Annenkov. Until 1898 Transcaspia was part of the Governor-Generalship of the Caucasus Viceroyalty administered from Tiflis, but in that year it was made an oblast of Russian Turkestan governed from Tashkent.

Seat of power: Ashgabat

No rulers documented for this era yet.

Culture

• As of 1897, 382,487 people populated the oblast. Turkmens constituted the majority of the population, and significant minorities were Kazakhs and Russians.
• The construction of the Transcaspian Railway was started from the shores of the Caspian in 1879 in order to secure Russian control over the region and provide a rapid military route to the Afghan border.
• In 1885 a crisis was precipitated by the Russian annexation of the Panjdeh oasis, to the south of Merv, which nearly led to war with Britain, as it was thought that the Russians were planning to march on to Herat in Afghanistan.

Picture

The Transcaspian Oblast corresponded roughly to the territory of present-day Turkmenistan and southwestern Kazakhstan.

Image: Milenioscuro, CC BY-SA 4.0, file

Sources

• Transcaspian Oblast (Wikipedia)
• Transcaspian Oblast (Wikidata)
• About the picture (Wikipedia)

Text adapted from the Wikipedia articles listed as sources, CC BY-SA 4.0.