Moscow: IV RAS, "Space-2000", 2014. 367 p.

The history of international relations of Central Asia and its relations with other regions and states - India, Persia, China, and European powers-were in the sphere of attention of Russian and foreign historians and were one of the research priorities. The main discourse was the opposition in the 19th and early 20th centuries to British (later German and partly Turkish) imperialism in Central Asia on the part of Russian historians and Russia's expansionist aspirations on the part of Western and Turkish authors. At the same time, when studying the relations between Turkey and Central Asia, researchers mainly used either only documents from Russian (Soviet) archives, or only documents from Turkish (and partially English) archives.

In this regard, A. D. Vasiliev's book is of great interest, since it is based on the study of both Turkish and Russian sources on the history of relations between the peoples of Central Asia and Turkey, using a comparative historical approach. Undoubtedly, the author's merit is the use of a significant array of previously published and unpublished Ottoman archival documents, their comparison with Russian archives and chronicles of Central Asian authors. This gives the work scientific significance and allows the author to achieve interesting results in comparison with those works that were previously published on this topic.

Preferring the description of political and cultural contacts, the author analyzes the existing historiography of Ottoman-Central Asian relations in chapter I. At the same time, this chapter itself is a complete scientific historiographical study. In it, the author highlights the main approaches and stages of understanding the historical experience of interaction between the Ottomans and local dynasties in the context of various historical challenges that gave rise to the relevance of such military-political alliances. A balanced analysis of each of the domestic or foreign works that touch on any of the aspects of the topic is given. In my opinion, even the description of documents in various archives, the list of reports on the relations of the Porte with the khanates and the Muslim population of the Volga region and Russia is read with interest, as it gives an idea of the influence of the Ottoman Empire not only through official relations, but also at the domestic level (through pilgrims, trade relations, religious influence).

The main part of the study is preceded by an introductory part (highlighted by the author in chapter II), which tells about the origin and activation of contacts in the XVI century, their development during the formation of the Ottoman state as a world empire, the continuation of diplomatic and trade contacts in the XVII-XVIII centuries against the background of Shiite-Sunni, Ottoman-Safavid contradictions. The author also demonstrates the emerging factor of Russia, which was gaining strength in the vast expanses of the Eurasian steppes, in the Black Sea region, the Caspian region, Siberia, which put under its control transport arteries from East to West and seized the last fragments of the Golden Horde.

In the last quarter of the 18th century, the Russian factor in relations between the Ottoman Empire and the khanates of Central Asia (especially Bukhara) became strategically important in the light of Russia's successful struggle with the Ottoman Empire for the Crimea and the Ottomans ' attempts to put together a Muslim state.

anti-Russian alliance with Bukhara. It is interesting that Russia, the rulers of Central Asia, and the Ottoman sultans had different views on the future development of multilateral relations. As it appears from the above documents, Russia pursued geostrategic interests, trying to open the way to India with the help of established contacts with Bukhara and appealing to the authority of the Sultan as caliph. Bukhara khans and elites sought to establish profitable trade with Russia, while enlisting its support for organizing the Hajj. The Ottomans sought to use the Bukhara Khanate as a military and political ally in the fight against Russia. At the same time, the aspirations of all participants in this complex game ended in nothing - Russia's involvement in European affairs, the remoteness of Bukhara from the theater of Russian-Ottoman military operations, as well as the presence of restless steppes and hostile Khiva rulers who interfered with trade affected.

Chapter III deals with the renewed interest in Central Asia in Turkey, which occurred at the beginning of the 19th century, when the Emirate of Bukhara and the Kokand Khanate were primarily trying to build mutually beneficial ties with the Ottoman Empire. Contacts between Bukhara and the Ottoman Empire, which were determined by their traditional historical ties, but in the context of the growing influence of the Russian Empire in the region, are considered in the most detail. The situation was complicated by the fact that in addition to the Russian factor, the British one also began to act. Citing examples from the materials of Russian and Ottoman archives, the author comes to the conclusion that during the reign of Emir Haidar, the Khanate of Bukhara had priority issues of resuming trade with Turkey through Russia, strengthening the authority of its own emir's power by obtaining its international recognition by the Ottoman Sultan. An important role was played by the personal interests of Emir Haidar, who sought to add to the collection of theological books in Bukhara with the help of Constantinople meetings. Contacts with Constantinople often took place against the background of active ties with Russia, and the tsarist government often allowed Bukhara envoys to use their territory to travel to Turkey.

Another important aspect of cooperation was diplomatic cooperation, in particular, the Emir of Bukhara Nasrullah secured permission from the Ottoman Sultan to conduct military operations against Kokand in order to justify military operations against fellow Muslims. In addition, in the 1830s, the Emir of Bukhara appealed to both the Russian and Ottoman authorities to send experts in minerals and precious stones to the Khanate, but the sultan could not fulfill his request. It is interesting that at the beginning of the century contacts were initiated by the Bukhara rulers, but in 1838-1841 and 1862-1863, at the request of the European governments of England and Italy, respectively, the Ottoman Sultan acted as a guarantor and defender of the Europeans captured in Bukhara, although, apparently, not very successfully.

Bukhara-Ottoman contacts became more active in the mid-1860s and early 1870s, as Russia expanded into Central Asia. In the face of the advancing tsarist troops, the Bukhara rulers asked for military and diplomatic support, which they never managed to get. In this regard, the Turkish archival materials are supplemented by reports of the Russian envoy to Constantinople, N. P. Ignatiev, who actively defended Russia's position on the Central Asian issue at the court of the Sultan. After joining Russia, Bukhara's ties with Turkey were not interrupted, although the emir was forbidden to conduct an independent foreign policy. According to Russian archival documents, these relations reached the level of interpersonal contacts and continued until the beginning of the 20th century. A new phenomenon is the significantly expanded opportunities for the local population to perform Hajj due to the inclusion of Bukhara in the Russian transport network. Bukharians, who were at the court of Turkish sultans, played an important role in the development of relations between the Ottoman Empire and Central Asia. The intermediary role of translators and political consultants in Central Asian affairs allowed them to influence the policy of the Ottoman government in relation to Bukhara's competitors-Khiva and Kokand, who also claimed to receive the Sultan's moral or material support.

The Kokand Khanate also actively sought to enlist Turkish help. Based on the published documents, the author comes to the conclusion that education in the late XVIII-early XIX centuries. on the territory of Ferghana, the Kokand Khanate caused contacts between the Kokand khans and the Ottoman sultans. The rulers of Kokand, building relations with the sultan, sought to legitimize their own power, receive diplomatic, technical and military assistance-firmans were requested who could confirm Kokand's rights to power over the Kirghiz people of Semirechye and the nomadic Desht-and Kipchak peoples, and specialists were required in the following areas:

mining engineers, foundry workers, and military instructors. The influence of the Ottoman-Kokand relations was exerted by the Bukhara diaspora living in Turkey. Its representatives were involved as interpreters and consultants at meetings of the Kokand ambassadors. Being well aware of the state of Bukhara-Kokand relations, the sheikhs of Bukhara (or, as the Ottomans called them, "Uzbek") tekke in Istanbul formed a "pro-Bukharan" party at the Sultan's court. The Russian authorities were aware of the contacts between Kokand and Istanbul and tried to use the stay of the Kokand ambassadors in the Ottoman capital to strengthen Russian-Kokand ties and discuss the problems of Russian-Kokand trade, although these attempts did not bring much result. At the same time, the Kokand gifts to the Turkish sultans, poetic works written personally by the Kokand khans in imitation of Eastern poets, carried an important political subtext, emphasizing the political continuity that went back to the Genghisids.

As L. D. Vasiliev notes, Turkey's contacts with Khiva remained the most fragmentary. This was due to the fact that the states that were historically formed in the Amu Darya Delta were forced to defend their independence from the rulers of Bukhara, who sought to establish a strong centralized power in Transoxiana. Therefore, in the XVI-XVII centuries, the rulers of Khorezm were more focused on Iran, in contrast to the attempts of the rulers of Bukhara to form a military-political alliance with the Ottomans. In the 19th century, attempts to establish diplomatic relations with Istanbul were initiated directly by the khans of Khiva after the unsuccessful campaign of A.V. Perovsky to Khiva in 1839, and also in 1873, before the establishment of the Russian protectorate over Khiva. However, after the conclusion of the Russo-Bukhara treaty of 1873, even the fragmentary contacts that were observed earlier almost completely ceased, remaining only at the level of personal contacts and giving way to hajj.

The author covers in detail the course of contacts between the Ottoman Empire and the state of Yettishaar established in Kashgar in the second half of the 1860s. The interest in Kashgar-Ottoman relations is primarily due to the fact that of all the independent rulers of Central Asia, only the ruler of Yettishaar, Yaqub bey, managed to get more or less significant assistance from Turkey. Yaqub Beg recognized himself as a vassal of Sultan Abdulaziz, and received from him precious sacred gifts that confirmed his status as an independent Muslim ruler under the protection of the Porte. In addition, the Sultan, with the support of Great Britain, sent Yakub Beg a significant amount of weapons, ammunition, master gunsmiths, 4 military instructors and his diplomat-official. Using this rather formal vassalage, Yakub Beg sought to play on the contradictions between Russia and Great Britain in order to strengthen his own power in anticipation of the return of the Qing Empire to Western China. However, after the sudden death of Yakub Bek, a struggle broke out between his sons and associates, and the Chinese government took advantage of it to restore its power in East Turkestan. The chapter is of great interest due to the fact that the history of international relations in this region in the 1860s and 1870s is largely contradictory. The chapter could probably be expanded into a separate study, which would undoubtedly be in demand by specialists and those interested in this topic.

It is necessary to recognize the author's successful decision to include in a separate chapter (IV) the issues of Hajj, trade relations between the Ottoman Empire and Central Asia, and the activities of the Central Asian diaspora in Turkey. Pilgrimage, transit, and international trade have been interconnected in the Eurasian region since ancient times. Caravans of pilgrims from Central Asia to the holy centers of Islam Mecca and Medina after the formation of Safavid Iran faced significant obstacles, preferring alternative paths to the goal. One of these routes was the so-called northern route through Astrakhan and the Eurasian steppe belt to Istanbul, from where the Ottoman authorities sent those who wanted to go to Arabia in a fairly organized manner. The other route was through Afghanistan and India to Jeddah. The goods brought by the pilgrims provided for their needs during the Hajj. These circumstances are also associated with the formation of stable communities, tekke and caravanserais belonging to immigrants from Central Asia in the Ottoman Empire. The construction of the railway network in the late 19th century after the region's annexation to Russia made the Hajj more convenient. The number of pilgrims has increased, but at the same time there is a problem of regulating the legal status of pilgrims. In this regard, it should be noted that the author raises a rather important question of how the legal status of Sunni Muslims from Central Asia was viewed by the Ottoman and Russian authorities. It should be noted that the resumption of various types of activities in Turkey since the 1980s

Islamic institutions - from waqfs, tekke, Dervish orders-make the problem raised by the author extremely relevant.

The study concludes with chapter V, which contains a description of the relations between the Ottoman Empire and the Central Asian states in various historical conditions of their interaction. The author identifies various stages of mutual relations, connecting them with various historical periods in the history of the Ottoman Empire, Central Asia and Russia.

A. D. Vasiliev's monograph, being a serious work that is new to Russian research, also raises a number of new questions. Thus, the issue of the legal status of immigrants from Central Asia in the territory of the Ottoman Empire is not sufficiently covered.

The question of the perception of the Ottomans in Central Asia is also of interest. This is evidenced by numerous references in the text to the naming of the Sultan as "ruler of Rum" and the Turks as "Rumami", which needs further elaboration.

Of course, some of the shortcomings of this work can be considered fragmentary references to contacts between the population of Central Asia and the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the XX century, as well as links between local Jadids and Young Turks. However, the author's desire to take this issue out of the scope of the topic and prepare a separate study in this direction is quite understandable, given the domestic and foreign political situation in the world at the beginning of the First World War, as well as the role played by local Jadids and Young Turks in the revolutionary events in Central Asia in the 1920s.

The absolute advantage of the work is its excellent literary language, intriguing title, and well-chosen illustrations. The book is written not in a "boring" scientific style, but very vividly, interestingly, the documents are selected so that they give a clear picture of the events that took place. A.D. Vasiliev's insight into the history of each of the Central Asian Tekkes in Istanbul, such as Sultantepe, is striking (pp. 278-279), which gives an idea of the multifaceted ties with the Ottomans, the life and traditions of the Naqshbandiya brotherhood, and even the role of tekke in the fate of M. Ataturk's supporters during the occupation of Istanbul by British troops.

At present, the development of international relations, along with economic and geopolitical factors, is increasingly influenced by the historical traditions of mutual relations and the forms of these traditional ties. A. D. Vasiliev's work, I hope, will become an incentive for further study of relations between the Muslim areas of the Russian Empire within the framework of not only the Ottoman Caliphate, but also other countries in the region.

The monograph of the young scientist A. D. Vasiliev demonstrates the continuity of the traditions of the Russian scientific school of Oriental source studies and, of course, will be of interest not only to specialists, but also to anyone interested in the history and international relations in Central Asia.

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