| Conventional Long Name: | Khanate of Khiva |
| Native Name: | |
| Common Name: | Khiva |
| Status: |
|
| Government Type: | Absolute hereditary monarchy |
| Title Leader: | Khan |
| Leader1: | (first) |
| Year Leader1: | 1511–1518 |
| Leader2: | Sayid Abdullah (last) |
| Year Leader2: | 1918–1920 |
| Capital: | Khiva |
| Image Map Caption: | The Khanate of Khiva (bordered in red), . |
| Common Languages: | |
| Religion: | Sunni Islam |
| Year Start: | 1511 |
| Year End: | 1920 |
| Date End: | 2 February |
| Date Event1: | 1740 |
| Event2: | Qungrad dynasty est. |
| Date Event2: | 1804 |
| Event3: | Russian conquest |
| Flag Caption: | Flag of Khiva (1917–1920) |
| P1: | Timurid Empire |
| S1: | Khorezm People's Soviet Republic Soviet Republic |
| Stat Year1: | 1902[1] |
| Stat Pop1: | 700,000 |
| Stat Year2: | 1908[2] |
| Stat Pop2: | 800,000 |
| Stat Year3: | 1911[3] |
| Stat Area3: | 67521 |
| Stat Pop3: | 550,000 |
| Today: |
The Khanate of Khiva (Chagatai: {{nq|خیوه خانلیگی, Persian: {{nq|خانات خیوه, Uzbek: Xiva xonligi, Turkmen: Hywa hanlygy, Russian: Хивинское ханство|Khivinskoye khanstvo) was a Central Asian polity[4] that existed in the historical region of Khwarazm from 1511 to 1920, except for a period of Afsharid occupation by Nader Shah between 1740 and 1746. Centred in the irrigated plains of the lower Amu Darya, south of the Aral Sea, with the capital in the city of Khiva. It covered present-day western Uzbekistan, southwestern Kazakhstan and much of Turkmenistan before the Russian conquest at the second half of the 19th century.
In 1873, the Khanate of Khiva was greatly reduced in size and became a Russian protectorate. The other regional protectorate that lasted until the Revolution was the Emirate of Bukhara. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Khiva had a revolution too, and in 1920 the Khanate was replaced by the Khorezm People's Soviet Republic. In 1924, the area was formally incorporated into the Soviet Union and today it is largely a part of Karakalpakstan, Xorazm Region in Uzbekistan, and Daşoguz Region of Turkmenistan.
The terms "Khanate of Khiva" and "Khivan Khanate", by which the polity is commonly known in Western scholarship, are a calque that derive from the Russian: Хивинское ханство|translit=Khivinskoe khanstvo|label=[[Russian language|Russian]] [[exonym]].[5] [6] The term was first used by the Russians in the second half of the 17th century,[6] or in the 18th century.[5] Locals of the polity did not use this term, and instead referred to it as the vilayet Khwārazm ("country of Khwārazm").[5]
Prior to the 17th/18th centuries, the polity was often called "Urgench" (or "Iurgench" in Russian sources). This name was also sometimes used in Iran and Bukhara, with the designation "Urganji" often being used as the collective name for its inhabitants.[7]
See Khwarazm, the local name of the region.
After the capital was moved to Khiva, Khwarazm came to be called the Khanate of Khiva (the state had always referred to itself as Khwarazm, the Khanate of Khiva as a name was popularized by Russian historians in honor of its capital, Khiva). Some time around 1600,[8] the Daryaliq or west branch of the Oxus dried up causing the capital to be moved south to Khiva from Konye-Urgench. Although based in the Oxus delta, the Khanate usually controlled most of what is now Turkmenistan. The population consisted of agriculturalists along the river, the Turkic Sarts, and nomads or semi-nomads away from the river. It is arbitrary to anachronistically project modern ethnic and national identifications, largely based on Soviet national delimitation policies, on pre-modern societies. The settled population was composed of aristocrats and peasants bound to the land. During the mid-1600s many Persian slaves were captured by Turkmens and a few Russian and Turkic slaves. Before and during this period, the settled area was increasingly infiltrated by Uzbeks from the north, with their Turkic dialects evolving into what is now the Uzbek language, while the original Iranian Khwarezmian language died out. The swampy area of the lower delta was increasingly populated by Karakalpaks and there were Kazakh nomads on the northern border. The Turkmen nomads paid taxes to the Khan and were a large part of his army, but often revolted. Since the heart of the Khanate was surrounded by semi-desert the only easy military approach was along the Oxus. This led to many wars with the Khanate of Bukhara further up the river (1538–40, 1593, 1655, 1656, 1662, 1684, 1689, 1694, 1806, and others).
Before 1505, Khwarazm was nominally dependent on the Timurid Sultan Husayn Mirza Bayqara based in Khorasan. From 1488 Muhammad Shaybani built a large but short-lived empire in southern Central Asia, taking Khwarazm in 1505. At nearly the same time, Shah Ismail I was building a powerful Shiite state in Persia. The two consequently clashed in 1510 near Merv with Muhammad killed in the battle and Khwarazm shortly occupied.[9] The Shah's religion provoked resistance and in 1511 his garrison was expelled and power passed to Ilbars, who founded the long-lived Arabshahid dynasty.[10]
Around 1540 and 1593, the Khans were driven out by the Bukharans. In both cases they fled to Persia and soon returned. In 1558, Anthony Jenkinson visited Old Urgench and was not impressed. Following Arap Muhammad (1602–23), who moved the capital to Khiva, there was a period of disorder, including an invasion by the Kalmyks, who left laden with plunder. Disorder was ended by Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur (1643–1663) who twice defeated the Kalmyks and wrote a history of Central Asia. His son Anusha (1663–1685) presided over a period of urban growth until he was deposed and blinded. From 1695, Khiva was for some years a vassal of Bukhara which appointed two khans. Shir Gazi Khan (1714–1727), who was killed by slaves, is said to have been the last proper Arabshahid.[11] Khan Ilbars (1728–40) was a Shibanid ruler, son of Shakhniyaz khan[12] who unwisely killed some Persian ambassadors. In a repeat of the Shah Ismail story, Nadir Shah conquered Khiva, beheaded Ilbars and freed some 12,000–20,000 slaves. Next year the Persian garrison was slaughtered, but the rebellion was quickly suppressed. Persian pretensions ended with Nadir's murder in 1747. After 1746, the Qongrat tribe became increasingly powerful and appointed puppet khans. Their power was formalized as the Qongrat dynasty by Iltuzar Khan in 1804. Khiva flourished under Muhammad Rahim Khan (1806–1825) and Allah Quli Khan (1825–1840) and then declined. After Muhammad Amin Khan was killed trying to retake Sarakhs on March 19, 1855,[13] there was a long Turkmen rebellion (1855–1867). In the first two years of the rebellion, two or three Khans were killed by Turkmens.
See also: Turkoman Revolt of 1912–1913.
See main article: article and Khivan campaign of 1873. Russians made five attacks on Khiva. Around 1602 some free Ural Cossacks unsuccessfully raided Khwarazm. In 1717 Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky attacked Khiva from the Caspian Sea. After he won the battle, Shir Ghazi Khan (1715–1728) made a treaty and suggested that the Russians disperse so that they could be better fed. After they dispersed they were all killed or enslaved, only a few surviving to tell the tale. In 1801 an army was sent toward Khiva but was recalled when Paul I was murdered. In the Khivan campaign of 1839 Perovsky tried an attack from Orenburg. The weather was unusually cold and he was forced to turn back after losing many men and most of his camels. Khiva was finally conquered by the Khivan campaign of 1873. The Russians installed Sayyid Muhammad Rahim Bahadur Khan II as the vassal ruler of the region.[14]
The conquest of Khiva was part of the Russian conquest of Turkestan. British attempts to deal with this were called the Great Game. One of the reasons for the 1839 attack was the increasing number of Russian slaves held at Khiva. To remove this pretext Britain launched its own effort to free the slaves. Major Todd, the senior British political officer stationed in Herat (in Afghanistan) dispatched Captain James Abbott, disguised as an Afghan, on 24 December 1839, for Khiva. Abbott 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 slaves. He left on 7 March 1840, for Fort Alexandrovsk, and was subsequently betrayed by his guide, robbed, then released when the bandits realized the origin and destination of his letter. His superiors in Herat, not knowing of his fate, sent another officer, Lieutenant Richmond Shakespear, after him. Shakespear had more success than Abbott: he convinced the khan to free all Russian subjects under his control, and also to 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 the time being.
A permanent Russian presence on the Aral Sea began in 1848 with the building of Fort Aralsk at the mouth of the Syr Darya. The Empire's military superiority was such that Khiva and the other Central Asian principalities, Bukhara and Kokand, had no chance of repelling the Russian advance, despite years of fighting.[15] In 1873, after Russia conquered the great 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 10 June 1873 and, on 12 August 1873, a peace treaty was signed that established Khiva as a quasi-independent Russian protectorate. The conquest ended the Khivan slave trade. After the conquest of what is now Turkmenistan (1884) the protectorates of Khiva and Bukhara were surrounded by Russian territory.
The first significant settlement of Europeans in the Khanate was a group of Mennonites who migrated to Khiva in 1882. The German-speaking Mennonites had come from the Volga region and the Molotschna colony under the leadership of Claas Epp Jr. The Mennonites played an important role in modernizing the Khanate in the decades prior to the October Revolution by introducing photography, resulting in the development of Uzbek photography and filmmaking, more efficient methods for cotton harvesting, electrical generators, and other technological innovations.[16]
See main article: Khivan Revolution. After the 1917 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. By early February 1920, the Khivan army under Junaid Khan was completely defeated.[17] 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 it was finally incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1924, 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.
Data on the Khivan Khans is sparse and sometimes contradictory, especially for the minor khans. Names and dates from Bregel/Muniz[18] which probably gives the best modern scholarship. Short biographies are from Howarth's 1880 book[19] which is old but has biographies of most of the khans.
According to Howorth, the ancestors of Ilbars were Arabshah, Haji Tuli, Timur Sheikh, Yadigar Khan, Bereke, Ilbars. Arabshah's brother was Ibrahim Oghlan, ancestor of the khans of Bukhara.
From the 9th to the 19th Century, By Sir Henry Hoyle Howorth (biographies of the Khans)
