The 1916 National Liberation Uprising in Zhetysu province in Central Asia: The historical fate of Kazakh and Kyrgyz refugees who fled to China

Kanat Yensenov; Hadisha Ermukhanova; Lazzat Zhamanbayeva; Assemgul Koskeyeva; Aiman Zhumanova

doi:10.5007/2175-7976.2025.e106543

Authors

Kanat Yensenov L. N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University https://orcid.org/0009-0000-1853-4869
Hadisha Ermukhanova Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan https://orcid.org/0009-0009-7762-0826
Lazzat Zhamanbayeva Sarsen Amanzholov East Kazakhstan University https://orcid.org/0009-0002-2021-3516
Assemgul Koskeyeva S.Seifullin Kazakh Agro Technical University https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8649-3286
Aiman Zhumanova Karaganda Buketov University https://orcid.org/0009-0002-0122-4383

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7976.2025.e106543

Keywords:

World history, Emigration, Revolution, The collapse of the Empire, Historical facts, Nomadic people

Abstract

The research aims to highlight the archival data on the disastrous consequences inflicted on the Kazakh and Kyrgyz peoples during their forced relocation to China. The main approach to the study of this problem is a system-structural method of research. In the course of this study, the following results were achieved. The historical facts that caused the 1916 rebellion in the Zhetysu district of Central Asia were presented. The research of contemporaries of the resettlement of Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other peoples from repressions to the Chinese lands was revealed, as well as the detailed description of their location and the problems they faced at that time as a challenge. New insights into the national-liberation uprising of the oppressed population in the lands of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in the Zhetysu district and the extent of its spread were uncovered by comparing the archival data with information from other sources. It was substantiated how Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Dungans, Uigurs and other natives of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan became refugees and were forced to emigrate to China during the uprising in Zhetysu. It is proved that the recognition forced relocation of Kazakhs and Kyrgyz people as a catastrophic episode in the historical destiny of these peoples will allow to give the problem of the national-liberation uprising in 1916 the status of a world-historical event.

References

Allworth, E., Hambly, G. R. G., Smith, D. R., & Sinor, D. (2021). History of Central Asia. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Central-Asia-102306

Central State Archives of the Republic of Kazakhstan (CSA RK). (n.d.). F.-938, Series-1, File-50.

Central State Archives of the Republic of Kazakhstan (CSA RK). (n.d.). F.-938, Series-1, File-51.

Cooley, A. (2023). Central Asia: A political history from the 19th century to present. https://asiasociety.org/central-asia-political-history-19th-century-present

Hojer, L. (2020). What does it take “to migrate”? Uyghur perspectives from Kyrgyzstan. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen.

Keating, J. (2022a). Introduction: Towards a political ecology of aridity. In On arid ground: Political ecologies of empire in Russian Central Asia (pp. 1–31). Oxford: Oxford Academic.

Keating, J. (2022b). Ecologies of war and revolt. In On arid ground: Political ecologies of empire in Russian Central Asia (pp. 181–209). Oxford: Oxford Academic.

Khalid, A. (2021). A new history from the imperial conquests to the present. Saint Paul: Princeton University Press.

Le Corre, P. (2019). Kazakhs wary of Chinese embrace as BRI gathers steam. https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/02/28/kazakhs-wary-of-chinese-embrace-as-bri-gathers-steam-pub-78545

Morrison, A. (2019). Refugees, resettlement and revolutionary violence in Semirech’e after the 1916 revolt. In The Central Asian Revolt of 1916: A collapsing empire in the age of war and revolution (pp. 209–226). Manchester: Manchester Scholarship Online.

Noda, J. (2019). Kazakh migrants and Soviet-Chinese relations during the 1940s: A background of Xinjiang refugees to the Middle East. In Emigrants/Muhacir from Xinjiang to Middle East during 1940–60s (pp. 25–42). Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa.

Oh, C. J. (2021). Socio-economic relationship of Korea and Kazakhstan: The role of the Korean diaspora and homeland engagement. Cappadocia Journal of Area Studies, 3(1), 3–21.

Peterson, M. (2019). The land of bread and honey? Settlement and subversion in the Land of Seven Rivers. In Pipe dreams: Water and empire in Central Asia’s Aral Sea Basin (pp. 164–214). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pianciola, N. (2020). Nomads and the state in Soviet Kazakhstan. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pianciola, N., & Zharassov, A. (2020). Elusive rebels: Researching the uprisings on the eve of the Great Famine in Kazakhstan (1921–1931). Journal of History, 97(2), 34–43.

Proń, E. (2021). Tokayev’s approach to Kazakh asylum seekers from China: An assessment and foreign policy implications. Asian Affairs, 52(4), 872–889.

Shykhov, P. (2022). Theoretical approaches to the study of migration processes in the Soviet period in the second half of the 20th century. Society. Document. Communication, 7(2), 226–246.

Svoboda, E. (2021). Has Kazakhstan failed Xinjiang’s ethnic Kazakhs? https://www.lawfareblog.com/has-kazakhstan-failed-xinjiangs-ethnic-kazakhs

Tomohiko, U. (2019). Why in Central Asia, why in 1916? The revolt as an interface of the Russian colonial crisis and the World War. In The Central Asian Revolt of 1916: A collapsing empire in the age of war and revolution (pp. 27–44). Manchester: Manchester Scholarship Online.

Xavier, H., & Ohayon, I. (2020). Making political rebellion “primitive”: The 1916 rebellion in the Kazakh steppe in long-term perspective (1840–1930). In The Central Asian Revolt of 1916: A collapsing empire in the age of war and revolution (pp. 256–288). Manchester: Manchester Scholarship Online.

Zafer, N. (2020). The Kazakh identity and its transformation after 1990 in Turkey. Istanbul: Yildiz Technical University.