KHIVA’S DIPLOMATIC CALCULUS: SOVEREIGNTY AND RUSSIAN ENGAGEMENT IN EARLY 19TH-CENTURY CENTRAL ASIA
Keywords:
Khivan Khanate, Russian Empire, Muhammad Rahim Khan I, frontier diplomacy, sovereignty, Central Asian history.Abstract
This thesis explores the calculated diplomatic engagements of the Khivan Khanate with the Russian Empire during the reign of Muhammad Rahim Khan I (1806–1825). It argues that Khiva’s foreign policy was not reactive or subordinate, but a deliberate set of institutional and performative strategies for preserving sovereignty in asymmetrical power relations. Drawing on Persian and Chagatai manuscripts from Central Asian collections, Russian imperial archives, Ottoman diplomatic correspondence, and contemporary travel accounts, the study highlights how Khiva negotiated political autonomy through frontier diplomacy, economic leverage, temporal management, and multilateral balancing. These findings reposition Khiva as an active agent in early 19th-century Eurasian politics rather than an inert subject of imperial expansion.
References
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[7] Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA). Orenburg Frontier Administration Records and Asian Department Correspondence concerning Khiva, 1806–1825.
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[11] IOM RAS, Central Asian Collection, Persian and Chagatai diplomatic correspondence of the Khivan court, early 19th century; see also Becker, Russia’s Central Asian Frontier, 201–209.
[12] IOM RAS, Central Asian diplomatic correspondence (Persian & Chagatai); see also Lauren Benton, A Search for Sovereignty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 87–92.
