Khanate of Kokand

The Khanate of Kokand was the last great Uzbek state of Central Asia, ruling the Fergana Valley from about 1709 to 1876. It was founded by Shahrukh Biy, chief of the Ming tribe of Uzbeks, who broke away as the neighbouring Khanate of Bukhara decayed. From his fortress town of Kokand, Shahrukh and his successors built a multi-ethnic realm: settled Turkic and Persian-speaking townsmen farmed irrigated fields, nomadic Turco-Mongol tribes pastured the hills, and Persian served as the language of court, literature and administration. At its height in the early nineteenth century the khanate controlled Tashkent and the trade roads between the steppe, Kashgar and Bukhara, growing rich on grain, fruit and crafts. Its position between Russia and China made it a pawn of the Great Game: British and Russian agents intrigued at its court while its armies quarrelled with Bukhara and Khiva. From the 1860s Russian columns advanced town by town up the Syr Darya, and after a popular uprising toppled the last khan, the tsar's general annexed the whole country in 1876, turning it into the Fergana province of Russian Turkestan.