Kazakh nationalist who led the Kokand Autonomy and dreamed of an independent Turkestan
"I cannot accept the offer to lead the Turkestan Legion and refuse further cooperation. All the consequences of my decision, I realize." — Letter to Ribbentrop, 1941
Mustafa Shokay was a Kazakh nationalist political leader who headed the Kokand (Turkestan) Autonomy, the first modern autonomous government in Central Asia after the collapse of the Russian Empire. A graduate of Petrograd University's law faculty, he served as secretary of the Muslim faction in the State Duma and opposed the Tsarist colonial administration's policies in Central Asia. When the Bolsheviks crushed Kokand by force in 1918, he fled to France and spent two decades in exile, propagating the idea of Turkestan independence internationally through journals such as Yash Turkestan. In 1941, the Nazis offered him leadership of the Turkestan Legion, but after witnessing the conditions of Soviet POWs, he refused, and died in Berlin shortly afterward under suspicious circumstances.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1914–1917Secretary, Muslim Faction, Russian State Duma
- 1917Chairman, Turkestan National Council
- 1917Member, Turkestan Committee of the Provisional Government
- 1917–1918Foreign Minister, then Head, Kokand (Turkestan) Autonomy
- 1918–1919Member, Alash Orda Government
- 1921–1941Exiled journalist and editor, editor-in-chief of Yash Turkestan
Related historical events
Between the Kokand Autonomy and the Alash movement
In 1917, while working with the Muslim faction of the State Duma in Petrograd, Mustafa Shokay entered the political arena opened by the revolution. He took part in the congress of Turkestan Muslims and, as a Kazakh politician fluent in Russian, helped advance regional autonomy alongside Jadid reformers. The Turkestan Autonomy sought territorial self-government within a federated democratic Russian republic and reserved one third of seats in its regional constituent assembly for non-Muslims. Shokay was also connected to the Alash movement led by Kazakh politician Alikhan Bukeikhanov: the First All-Kazakh Congress in July 1917 approved him as a candidate for the Constituent Assembly, and he attended the Second All-Kazakh Congress in December.
When the Kokand congress proclaimed autonomy, Mukhametjan Tynyshbayev was its first prime minister; after Tynyshbayev left for Orenburg, Shokay replaced him. The 1917 autonomy project was not a declaration of full independence. In a tenth-anniversary article, Shokay recalled that congress participants had not regarded independence as a practical option in the absence of an army and bureaucracy. The autonomous government had almost no military resources and fell in February 1918 after a military expedition from the Tashkent Soviet. The Tashkent authorities declared members of the autonomous government outlaws and moved to arrest them. Alash Orda and the Turkestan Autonomy both emerged within the framework of political participation and federal autonomy promised by the February Revolution, but their regional power relations and military capacities differed.