Yastrebova, Olga. “The Bukharian [Sic] Emir Abd Al-Ahad’s Voyage from Bukhara to St. Petersburg”. In Looking at the Coloniser: Cross-Cultural Perceptions in Central Asia and the Caucasus, Bengal, and Related Areas, edited by Beate Eschment and Hans Harder, 63–74. Mitteilungen Zur Sozial- Und Kultur-Geschichte Der Islamischen Welt 14. Würzburg: Ergon, 2004.
The author investigates how the official journey to St. Petersubrg of the Emir of Bukhara ‘Abd al-Ahad in 1892-3 impacted on the ruler’s own perception of Russia (through his travelogue published in Kazan in 1894-5, by Ismail Gasprinskii), and of the Russian reflection on Central Asia in the popular press of the time (especially the high-circulation journals Niva and Rodina). The author compares the Emir’s formal account of his visit and the exhilarated accounts of the Russian press introducing the ruler of Bukhara as a reforming monarch who had notably abolished slavery.
CER: I-3.4.C-315