Record · Modern era · Central Asia · 1873

Humble servant of the Emperor of All the Russias: Khiva, August 1873

By the Our Earth's History editorial team · Researched and written with AI assistance, checked against the sources below · How we make it

Published 2026-09-22

two turquoise-tiled domed towers rising above pale mud-brick walls against a blue sky — Towers of the Kunya Ark, the khans' citadel inside the walls of Khiva, Uzbekistan. Petar Milošević / CC BY-SA 4.0. Source

TL;DR — In August 1873 the khan of Khiva declared himself the “humble servant” of the Russian emperor, ceded the right bank of the Amu Darya and owed 2,200,000 rubles.

“Said Muhamed Rahim Bogadur Khan, declares himself the humble servant of the Emperor of All the Russias.” So begins Article 1 of the treaty that closed the Russian campaign against Khiva, as J. A. MacGahan of the New York Herald printed it in 1874. Russian troops under K. P. von Kaufman, governor-general of Turkestan, entered the city on May 29, 1873 by the Julian calendar that the Encyclopaedia Iranica uses, June 10 by the Gregorian calendar that MacGahan used; the two run twelve days apart. The khan came to Kaufman’s camp on June 14 (June 2), proclaimed the end of slavery on June 24 (June 12), and in August signed 18 articles that gave Russia the right bank of the Amu Darya, the navigation of the river and a war indemnity of 2,200,000 rubles.

Quick facts

When: December 1839 to February 20, 1840 (Perovsky's winter march from Orenburg fails) · May 4, 1873 (Markozov's Caspian column turns back) · June 9 and 10, 1873 (fight at the walls; Kaufman enters Khiva; May 29 by the Julian calendar) · June 14 / June 2 (the khan submits) · June 24 / June 12 (slavery abolished by proclamation) · July 1873 (Golovachev's raid on the Yomut) · August 23 or 24, 1873 (treaty signed; August 12 Julian) · December 1, 1873 (first indemnity payment due)
Where: Khiva, on the lower Amu Darya in what is now Uzbekistan; Orenburg, Tashkent, Mangyshlak and Chikishlar on the Atrek, the four starting points; the Ust-Urt plateau; the Atrek river route to Persia; the House of Commons at Westminster
Who: K. P. von Kaufman, governor-general of Turkestan; Mohammad Rahim II, khan of Khiva; Vasily Perovsky; Verevkin, Lomakin, Markozov and Golovachev; J. A. MacGahan of the New York Herald; Viscount Enfield, under-secretary for foreign affairs; Count Shuvaloff and Earl Granville
Outcome: The khan declared himself the "humble servant" of the Russian emperor, ceded the right bank of the Amu Darya, granted navigation of the river to Russian vessels only, confirmed the abolition of slavery and owed a war indemnity of 2,200,000 rubles, the first installment due December 1, 1873

Orenburg, December 1839

The previous Russian attempt had frozen on the steppe. Vasily Perovsky, governor of Orenburg, left the town about December 1, 1839, with what MacGahan gives as “a body of about 5000 men, with twenty-two guns and a transport train of 10,000 camels.” By mid-December the thermometer read 32 degrees below zero Reaumur. By February 1, 1840, at Ak-Bulak on the Ust-Urt plateau, fewer than 5,000 camels were left and 236 men had died, and Perovsky turned back; the troops reached Fort Emba on February 20. Iranica’s entry on Khiva says the column returned “having advanced only half the way.”

Yuri Bregel’s Iranica entry on Central Asia lists Russia’s grievances: Khiva’s reach into the Kazakh steppe, the plundering of Russian caravans and the Russian slaves held in the khanate. A mission under N. P. Ignatiev in 1858 “gave no results.” Russia stormed Tashkent in 1865, took Samarkand in May 1868 and made peace with Bukhara that June. From 1867 Kaufman held the new governorate-general of Turkestan with “the right to wage wars, conduct diplomatic negotiations, and conclude conventions and treaties with the neighboring states at his own discretion,” a power that earned him the nickname “Half-Emperor.”

Four columns and the questions in the Commons

In 1873 MacGahan counted “four different columns, starting from as many different points of the compass, more than a thousand miles apart”: Kaufman’s own from Tashkent, Verevkin’s from Orenburg, Lomakin’s from Mangyshlak on the Caspian, and Markozov’s from the Caspian shore by the Atrek, which ran short of water and on May 4 turned back. Iranica’s Khiva entry counts three directions, Bukhara, Orenburg and Mangyshlak. Verevkin’s guns bombarded the northern gate on June 9; Kaufman, ten miles off, entered by the Hazar-Asp gate the next day.

In the House of Commons on March 21, 1873, Viscount Enfield, under-secretary for foreign affairs, said he “had every reason to believe that neither English nor Russian representatives of the Press would be allowed to accompany the Expedition to Khiva”; MacGahan went anyway. On April 1 Enfield told Viscount Mahon that the government did “not intend sending either Captain Wellesley, the Military Attaché at St. Petersburg, or any other British Officer.” On June 12 the Foreign Office had “no official information” on a reported Russian move into the Atrek valley.

The khan on foot, June 14

Mohammad Rahim II had fled to the Turkmen. On June 14 he rode into his own garden, dismounted and “came forward on foot, taking off his tall sheepskin hat, and bowing low.” He climbed a carpeted brick platform and knelt before Kaufman.

After the occupation, MacGahan wrote, “open war arose between the slaves and their masters.” Persian slaves robbed Khivans, and a court-martial hanged two Persians for robbery, an act that many of Kaufman’s officers “strongly condemned.” Kaufman then ordered the khan to proclaim the end of slavery, and criers read it through the streets on June 24. No precise count existed. MacGahan gathered that about 30,000 Persians lived in Khiva, 27,000 of them slaves, while the dignitary Mat-Murad, who owned 400 himself, put the total at “only 3000 or 4000.” Iranica gives two figures for those freed, more than 5,000 in a Khorezmian history and fewer than 2,000 in a Russian source. Of three convoys of about 500 each sent toward Persia, those by Kinderly Bay and Krasnovodsk arrived; others “who went by the Attrek, fell into the hands of the Tekki-Turcomans, and perished miserably.” Iranica, citing Bregel’s study of 1961, records the same attack.

Wood engraving of Russian soldiers and horsemen passing through a gate into a walled city — Russian troops entering Khiva, wood engraving from The Illustrated London News, November 22, 1873. Public domain. Unknown authorUnknown author / Public domain. Source

Kaufman's 300,000 rubles from the Yomut

Kaufman stayed two and a half months. The Yomut Turkmen, in Iranica’s words, “were not in a hurry to release their slaves and to pay to the Russians the considerable fine imposed by Kaufman.” MacGahan gives the fine: 300,000 rubles, due in two weeks. In July Kaufman sent General Golovachev against them. Iranica calls it “a brutal punitive raid against Khivan Turkmen, slaughtering hundreds of them and destroying their settlements.” MacGahan, who rode with the column, wrote after the fight of July 27 that “the power of the Yomud Turcomans was broken.”

Article 1 to Article 18, and a promise to Earl Granville

MacGahan dates the signing to “the 23rd of August”; Iranica’s Central Asia entry gives August 24, and its Khiva entry August 12, the same day by the Julian calendar. Article 3 reads: “The right bank of the Amu, with all the neighbouring territories which formerly belonged to Khiva, pass from the possession of the Khan to Russia, with all the peoples who inhabit them, including the nomads.” Article 5: “The navigation of the Amu is accorded exclusively to Russian vessels.” Article 17 kept “the emancipation of the slaves, as well as the prohibition against slavery in all future time,” in full force. Article 18 levied “a war indemnity of 2,200,000 rubles,” payable with interest at five percent, 100,000 rubles a year at first and 200,000 a year from 1881. On the ceded bank Russia set up the Amu Darya Department at Fort Petro-Aleksandrovsk.

MacGahan’s own sum was a guess: a frontier “advanced 300 miles farther south” and “80,000 square miles of territory” annexed. On the British side he wrote: “I do not know what were the exact terms of the agreement entered into by Count Shuvaloff and Earl Granville. It is, I believe, generally understood that the Russians simply agreed not to annex any territory south of the Oxus.” The khan kept his throne on the left bank, and the same treaty, MacGahan wrote, “reduced the Khan to the most complete state of vassalage.” The War Office’s map of the expedition, FO 925/1989, is in the National Archives at Kew. Article 18 fixed the time for the first payment: December 1, 1873.

Key facts

Perovsky’s expedition left Orenburg about December 1, 1839, with about 5,000 men, 22 guns and 10,000 camels; it reached Fort Emba on the way back on February 20, 1840 (MacGahan). Iranica says it advanced “only half the way.”
Kaufman, governor-general of Turkestan from 1867, could wage war and sign treaties “at his own discretion” and was nicknamed “Half-Emperor” (Iranica, Central Asia vii).
MacGahan counted four columns in 1873, from Tashkent, Orenburg, Mangyshlak and the Caspian shore; Markozov’s Caspian column turned back on May 4. Iranica’s Khiva entry counts three directions.
Kaufman entered Khiva on June 10, 1873 (May 29 Julian); the khan submitted on June 14 (June 2); slavery was abolished by proclamation on June 24 (June 12).
MacGahan’s local estimate was about 30,000 Persians in Khiva, 27,000 of them slaves; Iranica gives more than 5,000 freed in a Khorezmian history and fewer than 2,000 in a Russian source.
Three convoys of about 500 freed Persians each set out; those who went by the Atrek “fell into the hands of the Tekki-Turcomans, and perished miserably” (MacGahan).
Kaufman fined the Yomut Turkmen 300,000 rubles (MacGahan) and in July sent Golovachev on a raid that Iranica says killed hundreds.
The treaty, signed August 23 (MacGahan) or August 24 (Iranica; August 12 Julian), ceded the right bank of the Amu Darya, reserved the river to Russian vessels and levied 2,200,000 rubles, first payment December 1, 1873.

FAQ

When did Russia capture Khiva?

Kaufman entered Khiva on June 10, 1873, by the Gregorian calendar; the Encyclopaedia Iranica gives the same day as May 29 by the Julian calendar then used in Russia. The fighting at the walls took place on June 9.

Did the Treaty of Gandemian abolish slavery in Khiva?

The khan proclaimed the abolition on June 24, 1873 (June 12 Julian), before the treaty. Article 17 of the treaty, signed in August, confirmed "the emancipation of the slaves, as well as the prohibition against slavery in all future time."

How much did Khiva have to pay Russia in 1873?

Article 18 levied a war indemnity of 2,200,000 rubles, payable in installments with interest at five percent, starting at 100,000 rubles a year and rising to 200,000 a year from 1881, with the first payment due December 1, 1873.

Sources

Cite this article

APA: Our Earth's History. (2026, September 22). Humble servant of the Emperor of All the Russias: Khiva, August 1873. Our Earth's History. https://ourearthshistory.com/central-asia/modern/khiva-1873-kaufman-treaty-slavery-abolished/
Chicago: Our Earth's History. “Humble servant of the Emperor of All the Russias: Khiva, August 1873.” Our Earth's History, September 22, 2026. https://ourearthshistory.com/central-asia/modern/khiva-1873-kaufman-treaty-slavery-abolished/.
MLA: “Humble servant of the Emperor of All the Russias: Khiva, August 1873.” Our Earth's History, 22 Sep. 2026, https://ourearthshistory.com/central-asia/modern/khiva-1873-kaufman-treaty-slavery-abolished/.

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