Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 56 h Sergei Andreyev or strategic considerations that prompted them to advance either overseas or across the steppe appear to be unsubstantiated by sources 9 . Ideologically moti- vated minds usually find it difficult to accept a lack of some master plan. With its manipulative logic of searching for culpable masterminds this school of thought often borders on conspiracy theories. While zealous literary scholars of a decolonising persuasion may find plen- ty of fodder in Vvedenskiy’s writings to support their concepts of the systems of power and domination as they are primarily concerned with the production of derogatory stereotypes of the proverbial “other”, a hardnosed historian like this author is primarily interested in the presentation of the imperial idea in its Russian form and the justification of ensuing policies as vividly illustrated by the jailed civil servant in his memo. The Historical Section deals primarily with the complex diplomatic process around the Russian-Afghan north-western border demarcation that followed the Russian conquest of the Turkmen lands in the 1880’s and occupation of the Merv and Panjdeh oases. While the description of the diplomatic tug of war between London and St Petersburg is based on the official publication of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs 10 Vvedenskiy’s rationalisation of the Rus- sian position is of great interests as it sheds light on the Russian imperial way of thinking and contrasts it with the British one. Thus, he maintains that while the British advocated a historical approach combined with the “natural border” concept the Russians were in favour of what he describes as an ethnographic approach, i.e. the indivisibility of an ethnic or tribal group to be confined en masse to a single country 11 . That appears to be not a very principled position for Vvedenskiy goes into the trouble of providing historical arguments attest- ing to an ephemeral nature of the Afghan control of the disputed Turkmen lands 12 . They appear to be rather flimsy and the entire endeavour contradicts his own assertion that only the current state of affairs matters. Vvedenskiy often describes the Afghan Government as “Anglo-Afghans” ( anglo-afgantsy ) 13 . While this description was quite usual among Russian mili- tary and officials dealing with regional politics it has nothing in common with the British term “Anglo-Indian” and denotes not the mixed racial origin but rather the dependent position of Afghanistan perceived as carrying favours for 9 For more details see Morrison A. The Russian Conquest of Central Asia: A Study in Imperial Expansion, 1814–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. 10 Afganskoe razgranichenie: peregovory mezhdu Rossiey i Velikobritaniey 1872–1885. St Pe- tersburg: Izdanie Ministerstva inostrannykh del, 1886. 11 Vvedenskiy. P. 5, 13, 38, 54. 12 Vvedenskiy. P. 41–43. 13 Vvedenskiy. P. 38, 46, 64.