ABSTRACT
Following Ignat’yev’s mission to Khiva and Bukhara Prince Gorchakov did not lack suggestions for settling Russia’s ‘Central Asia Problem’, but that was only one of three problems which constantly faced him and he must have been a sorely tried man in trying to balance them. As Mary Holdsworth has concisely put it, Central Asia was ‘but one sphere of an enormously complicated process of growth and strain at home and penetration into great power politics abroad’. There was ‘an outer ring of the powers concerned – Russia, Great Britain (acting directly or through the Government of India), China and, towards the end, Germany’. Within that outer ring was the local ring – Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan and the small khanates, from Kashgar westwards along the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush as far as the Caspian. Not only had Gorchakov to balance all the conflicting problems they presented but he had to deal with clashes of individual opinions and personalities as well – and finally to satisfy his Tsar. It is no wonder that he acted circumspectly, nor that his attitude exasperated the military administration of Central Asia which increasingly tended towards firm independent action.
