Isfandiyar Khan

Asfandiyar Khan (Isfandiyar Khan) was a ruler of the Khanate of Khiva from the Uzbek Kungrad dynasty and khan from 1910 to 1918. He was born in Khiva in 1871 (the National Encyclopedia of Uzbekistan gives 1870). His father was Khan Muhammad Rahim II.

After his father’s death in 1910 he came to the throne with the support of the Russian government. His ties with the Russian Empire show in his titles: in 1910 he was given the rank of major-general, in 1911 he was enrolled in the Tsar’s retinue, and in 1913 Nicholas II granted him the title of «Highness». He was decorated with the Orders of St Stanislaus and St Anna, and in 1911 with the Order of the White Eagle. He visited St Petersburg in 1910 and 1914, and on 22 February 1913 attended, together with the Emir of Bukhara, the opening of the Cathedral Mosque there.

In the early years of the reign the enlightened vizier Islam Khoja played a large part in running the state: on his initiative Khiva got a post and telegraph service, a hospital, new-type schools and a cotton-ginning plant, and in 1908–1910 the Islam Khoja complex was built in the Ichan Kala. In 1913 Islam Khoja was killed on the khan’s orders. Clashes with the Yomut Turkmens went on, and in 1915 at Mangit and in January 1916 at Khojeli popular protests against taxes broke out.

Under Asfandiyar Khan new madrasas and mosques went up in Khiva. In 1912 a reception building was added to the Nurullabai Palace complex: it has several ceremonial halls of different shapes and a throne room decorated in the Russian Art Nouveau style, and many of the decorative elements were ordered from the Imperial Porcelain Factory in St Petersburg. In 1910 the photographer and first Uzbek film director Khudaybergen Devonov filmed the khan riding in a carriage with his heir, one of the first Uzbek documentary pieces.

After the February Revolution of 1917 the Young Khivans began to act openly. On 5 April they presented the khan with demands for reform; he issued a manifesto promising a representative body, the Majlis, whose chairman was Boboakhun Salimov. Later the situation sharpened, the Young Khivan government was overthrown and the manifesto’s reforms were cancelled.

In January 1918 the khan appointed the Yomut Turkmen leader Junaid Khan commander of the armed forces (sardar-i karim), and Junaid soon gathered power in his own hands. Asfandiyar Khan was killed by Junaid Khan on 1 October 1918 in the Nurullabai Palace in Khiva (the Encyclopaedia Iranica places the event on 30 September). Sayid Abdullah was put on the throne, but real power stayed with Junaid Khan; Sayid Abdullah’s rule ended in February 1920.