Central Asian revolt of 1916

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Central Asian revolt of 1916
Part of the Asian and Pacific theater of World War I[2][3]
Date 3 July 1916 (16 July 1916, N.S.Tooltip New Style) – February 1917 Location Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia Result Russian victory[4][5][1][6][7][8][9][10]
Belligerents
Russian Turkestan  Emirate of Bukhara Kazakh tribes[1]	Turkic tribal confederations[citation needed] Kazakh rebels Kyrgyz rebels
Commanders and leaders
Aleksey Kuropatkin Nikolai Sukhomlinov Mikhail Folbaum Muhammad Alim Khan[1]	Kanaat Abukin †[11] Mokush Shabdanov[citation needed] Kokumbay Chiny [ky] Baatyrkan Rayymbek[12] Amankeldı İmanov Äbdiğapar Janbosynūly Alibi Dzhangildin Sami Bek[a] Ibrahim Tulayaf Makush[citation needed] 5 Ottoman officers[13]
Strength
14,5 battalions, 33 hundreds[6]	Unknown Small number of escaped POW volunteers[14]
Casualties and losses
97 killed, 86 wounded and 76 missing[15]	Tens of thousands dead and captured[16]
~100,000–500,000[17][18][page needed][19] Central Asian civilians (Turks, Tajiks) dead 2,325 Russian civilians dead[20] 1,384 missing[20]
^ According to Abdulla Gyun Dogdu, Sami Bek was a Rebel leader of Turkish origin.[citation needed]

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Independent Kyrgyzstan 1st Kyrgyz Revolution 2005 2nd Kyrgyz Revolution 2010 3rd Kyrgyz Revolution 2020
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The Central Asian revolt of 1916, also known as the Semirechye Revolt^{[citation needed]} and as Urkun^[21][a] in Kyrgyzstan, was an anti-Russian uprising by the indigenous inhabitants of Russian Turkestan sparked by the conscription of Muslims into the Russian military for service on the Eastern Front during World War I. The rampant corruption of the Russian colonial regime and Tsarist colonialism with regards to its economic, political, religious, and national dimensions are all seen as contributing causes.

The revolt led to the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Kyrgyz and Kazakhs into China, while the suppression of the revolt by the Imperial Russian Army led to around 100,000 to 500,000 deaths (mostly Kyrgyz and Kazakhs, but also Tajiks, Turkmen, and Uzbeks) both directly and indirectly. Deaths of Central Asians were either the result of violence by the Russian army, disease, or famine. The Russian state was not able to restore order to parts of the Empire until after the outbreak of the October Revolution, and the subsequent Basmachi revolt (1916–1923) further destabilized the Central Asian region.

The USSR regime's censorship of the history surrounding the Central Asian revolt of 1916 and the Basmachi revolt has led both Central Asian and international researchers to revisit the topic in the 2010s. The revolt is considered a seminal event in the modern histories of several Central Asian peoples. Special importance is given to the event in Kyrgyz historiography due to the fact that perhaps has many as 40% of the ethnic Kyrgyz population died during or in the aftermath of the revolt.

Alexander Kerensky and some Russian historians were the first to bring international attention to these events.^[22]

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