THE JADID MOVEMENT IN TURKESTAN IN THE LATE 19th AND FIRST HALF OF THE 20th CENTURIES: IDEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION AND THE TRAGEDY OF REPRESSION (An Analysis of Archival Documents)

Abstract

This article examines the activities of the Jadids, who constituted the core of the
socio-political and educational revival in the Turkestan region in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, alongside the evolution of their ideology and their surveillance by the secret
services (the Okhrana / Protection Section) of Imperial Russia. Within the scope of this study, the
secret surveillance diaries of the Turkestan District Protection Section covering the years 1916
1917 (Fond I-461, Inventory 1) are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. Based
on archival documents, the paper provides a profound analysis of the operational aliases,
movement trajectories, meetings, and the socio-political environment surrounding national
leaders such as Munawwar Qari Abdurashidkhanov, Mustafa Chokay, and Ubaydulla Khojayev,
who were monitored under the label of “Pan-Islamists”. Utilizing archival materials, the study
substantiates the thesis that the foundational mechanisms of the mass Soviet-era repressions were
originally established by the tsarist secret police.