Эволюция взглядов на личность и деятельность первого туркестанского генерал-губернатора К. П. фон Кауфмана в отечественной историографии

Кунсткамера. 2019. № 2. С. 164–176.

Pochekaev R. Y.

The article aims to trace the evolution of the evaluation of the personality and activities of
K. P. von Kaufman, the first Governor-General of the Turkestan Region, in the Russian pre-revolutionary, Soviet
and modern historiography. Using the methods of political anthropology in the historical research allows a clear
understanding of why the first authors who wrote about Kaufman tried to idealize him and then transformed him
into a “sketchy” figure among the other heads of Turkestan administration who personified the successes of the
Russian Empire in the region. Analysis of specific features of the political situation and personal attitudes of some
authors towards the contemporary Turkestan authorities allows to clarify the reasons of the establishment of
Kaufman’s negative image in the beginning of the twentieth century as well as in the historical works of the first
decades of the Soviet period, the later “neutral” relation to him by historians and, at last, the attempts to “rehabilitate”
this statesman in the post-Soviet Russian historiographical tradition. The author finds that, despite the interest
Kaufman was paid since 1880s and up to the present day, his personality was rather contradictory and his activities
too large-scaled to create his general and unambiguous historical biography, especially keeping in mind the
changing attitudes towards Russian imperial policy in general and, particularly, its Central Asian direction.

Keywords: Центральная Азия, Central Asia, Russian Empire, Российская империя, отечественная историография, russian historiography, личность в истории, К.П. фон Кауфман, person in history, K. P. von Kaufman, anthropology of power, антропология власти

Publication based on the results of: К.П. фон Кауфман и формирование российской правовой политики в Центральной Азии (2018)