CONTACT AND ENDOGENOUS MODERNIZATION OF A TRADITIONAL STATE: BUKHARA UNDER MUZAFFAR AND ABDULAHAD

Abstract

The article presents a comparative analysis of reforms in the Bukhara Emirate
during the reigns of two successive rulers – Emir Muzaffar (1860–1885) and Emir
Abdulahad (1885–1910). Based on the analysis of Eastern chronicles, Ahmad
Donish’s writings, Russian administrative records, and modern historiography, the
study reconstructs the yearly steps of modernization across four key sectors: state
administration, taxation, military organization, and the socio-cultural sphere. The
results demonstrate that under Muzaffar, modernization developed as an
endogenous rationalization of political consciousness focused on the functional meaning of power, while under Abdulahad it took an instrumental bureaucratic
form – through fixed registration of decisions, formal instructions, reporting, and
control. Thus, the two reigns represent a dual model of evolutionary modernization
of a traditional state: from the idea of rational governance to the mechanism of
rational governance.