Astronomers and Surveyors in the Struggle for the “Upper Oxus State”: A Few More Episodes in the Great Game of Middle Asia

The territory of Central Asia, forcibly occupied by Imperial Russia between 1865–1878, was mainly desert land that contained just a few small, densely populated oases. Why was it necessary to gain control of it? It did not serve any military purpose, because the better protection of the southern frontier of the Empire were the notorious deserts and dry steppes. Economically, it was also a questionable venture.
In my talk, I am going to show how the war for the territory eventually turned into a war against the territory. The main agents of that war – as well as its contributors and beneficiaries – were the British and Russian military geodesists and surveyors, who used their skills to advance their careers as well as their social status and personal economic growth. Rather than a hostile confrontation, to them, their collaboration during the so-called Afghan Demarcation between the Russian Empire and Great Britain in 1885, brought the pleasure of sharing topographical and geographical information. As a result, after the outer and inner demarcations had been fixed, this region – “Created by the Lord in Anger” – was surveyed and explained not only in terms of geography, but also economically, ethnically, and historically.
Dr. Konstantin Ivanov ist u. a. leitender wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am I. S. Vavilov Institut für Wissenschafts- und Technikgeschichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Moskau, Professor für Astronomie an der staatlichen berufsbildenden Universität in Tula, Mitherausgeber der Zeitschrift “Laboratorium: Russian Review of Social Research” sowie wissenschaftlicher Sekretär der Ausgabe "Studien in der Astronomiegeschichte" der Russischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.