What is beyond the River?

This book investigates the dialectics of power and social order in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Ma Wara? al-Nahr from an intrinsic perspective. Relying on a rich corpus of Bukharan primary sources, the study is a work of fundamental research that combines established traditions of social historical research and approaches borrowed from the social sciences. The resulting narrative stretches from the Mongols and Abu’l-Khairids to the eighteenth century and the late Tuqay-Timurids, when the established spatial-administrative framework crumbled into an archipelago of petty Uzbek principalities, chiefdoms and “city states,” continuing with the Manghits and finishing in the late nineteenth century with the colonial penetration. While beginning with a conventional bird’s-eye view of steppe society worldviews and established patterns of authority, the author soon abandons the sole dynastic focus and comes up with a range of local histories. The reader will be acquainted with places like Nur, Shahr-i Sabz, Tirmidh, ?i?ar and other areas, which, having been dominated by competing military, religious and economic networks, remained partly outside the sphere of Tuqay-Timurid and later on Manghit authority. A large part of the book addresses the language employed in the chronicles by highlighting the semantics of key terms such as favor, loyalty or obedience. Those concepts are manifest in practices like patronage, mediation and gift exchange. Based on the materials of the Koshbegi Archive, the final part culminates in a range of micro-level studies of various socio-political domains in faraway villages and canal systems. Inspired by relational ideas of power, the analysis enhances our understanding of the factors that were decisive for social interaction in that period. Moreover, it gives fresh impulses to the debate on concepts of power and authority among historians and social scientists. This book investigates the dialectics of power and social order in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Ma Wara? al-Nahr from an intrinsic perspective. Relying on a rich corpus of Bukharan primary sources, the study is a work of fundamental research that combines established traditions of social historical research and approaches borrowed from the social sciences. The resulting narrative stretches from the Mongols and Abu’l-Khairids to the eighteenth century and the late Tuqay-Timurids, when the established spatial-administrative framework crumbled into an archipelago of petty Uzbek principalities, chiefdoms and “city states,” continuing with the Manghits and finishing in the late nineteenth century with the colonial penetration. While beginning with a conventional bird’s-eye view of steppe society worldviews and established patterns of authority, the author soon abandons the sole dynastic focus and comes up with a range of local histories. The reader will be acquainted with places like Nur, Shahr-i Sabz, Tirmidh, ?i?ar and other areas, which, having been dominated by competing military, religious and economic networks, remained partly outside the sphere of Tuqay-Timurid and later on Manghit authority. A large part of the book addresses the language employed in the chronicles by highlighting the semantics of key terms such as favor, loyalty or obedience. Those concepts are manifest in practices like patronage, mediation and gift exchange. Based on the materials of the Koshbegi Archive, the final part culminates in a range of micro-level studies of various socio-political domains in faraway villages and canal systems. Inspired by relational ideas of power, the analysis enhances our understanding of the factors that were decisive for social interaction in that period. Moreover, it gives fresh impulses to the debate on concepts of power and authority among historians and social scientists. Dieses Werk untersucht die Dialektik von Macht, Herrschaft und sozialer Ordnung in der Region Ma Wara? al-Nahr aus einer intrinsischen Perspektive. Die Studie basiert auf einem reichen Korpus bucharischer Primärquellen und stellt ein Stück Grundlagenforschung dar, indem es geschichtswissenschaftliche Methoden mit soziologischen Ansätzen verbindet. Das vorliegende Narrativ beginnt mit den Mongolen und Abu‘l-Khairiden und zieht sich zunächst bis ins 18. Jahrhundert und zu den späten Tuqay-Timuriden, einer Zeit, als das existierende räumlich-administrative Machtgebilde zusehends in ein Setting von usbekischen Kleinfürstentümern, tribalen Machtzentren und „Stadtstaaten“ zerfiel. Die Entwicklung findet ihren Höhepunkt mit der Konsolidierung der Dynastie der Manghiten und der kolonialen Durchdringung im 19. Jahrhundert. Der Autor erzählt die Geschichte der den zentralasiatischen Reitervölkern eigenen Weltsichten und Herrschaftspraktiken zunächst aus der Vogelperspektive. Der dynastische Fokus wird später zugunsten der Lokalgeschichte von Orten wie Nur, Shahr-i Sabz, Tirmidh, ?i?ar und anderen aufgegeben, die oftmals außerhalb des tuqay-timuridischen und manghitischen Machtraumes standen und von konkurrierenden militärischen, religiösen und militärischen Netzwerken beherrscht wurden. Ein großer Teil des Buches widmet sich der semantischen Ebene der von den Chronisten verwendeten Sprache und analysiert Schlüsseltermini wie Gunst, Loyalität und Gehorsam. Letztere manifestieren sich in Patronage und Schlichtungsmechanismen sowie in der Verteilung von Geschenken. Das abschließende Kapitel basiert auf Archivdokumenten des Koshbegi-Archivs und gipfelt in einer Reihe von Mikrostudien mit Fokus auf abgelegenen Dörfern und Bewässerungssystemen. Mit dem relationalen Machtansatz trägt das Buch zum Verständnis der für die soziale Integration ausschlaggebenden Faktoren bei. Darüber hinaus verleiht es der Debatte um Macht- und Herrschaftskonzept unter