Russian-Turkmen Encounters

In the mid-eighteenth century the Russian tsar sent two expeditions across the Caspian Sea in response to an extraordinary plea for assistance from the recently subjugated Kalmyk Khan. The official journals of these expeditions, here translated into English for the first time, record the encounters of Captains Tebelev and Kopitovskii (in 1741 and 1745, respectively) with the Turkmen tribes of the Caspian frontier zone. Together they form the basis for the author's study of the relationship between the expanding Russian empire and the tribal peoples of Central Asia over a period of more than 200 years. Drawing on Russian archival sources and Persian and Uzbek chronicles, this book provides a detailed exploration of the historical and political context of the encounters so vividly described in the two journals.--Publisher's description.