Izzat (or Izzet) Kutebar (c. 1800 – after 1858) was a Kyrgyz (or Kirghiz) rebel and guerrilla leader who was active from the 1820s to 1858. He first robbed the Bukhara caravan in 1822, and was at his height as a raider and scourge of the Russian invaders in the 1840s. They eventually persuaded him to suspend his activities and rewarded him with a gold medal, but he rebelled again in the early 1850s. He was captured in 1854, but he either escaped or was released.[1]
Izzat raised a revolt of the Kirghiz against the Russian occupation of their lands and lived as a rebel in the Ust-Yurt. Russian expansion into central Asia was stalled and they were held on the Syr Darya for four years.[2] In 1858, General Katenin, newly appointed as Russia's Governor-General of the Orenburg district, decided to attempt conciliation by offering a general amnesty to all rebels.[3] At first, Izzat refused to enter into negotiations with the Russians but changed his mind after he learned about Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev's mission en route for Khiva and Bokhara. Izzat met Ignatyev and agreed to make his peace with Russia, promising future loyalty to the Tsar. Nothing is known of him after 1858.[4]
In popular culture, Izzat is a major character in Flashman at the Charge (1973), written by George MacDonald Fraser. Although Izzat's character in the novel is loosely based upon him as a real person, Fraser added an appendix in which he summarised his researches of the real Izzat.[5]
References
edit- ^ Boulger, D.C. (1880). Central Asian Portraits: The Celebrities of the Khanates and the Neighbouring States. W. H. Allen & Company. p. 153. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
But Izzet Kutebar held aloof. He had not even cared to ... In 1854 a force was sent in pursuit of him, and for the first and last time Izzet was surprised and taken prisoner. This was, apparently, accomplished in an unfair ...
Full text available online - ^ Rashid, A. (2017). The Resurgence of Central Asia: Islam or Nationalism?. New York Review Books. p. 156. ISBN 978-1-68137-089-7. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
As Russia extended its advance into Central Asia in the nineteenth century, building forts along the Orenburg line, the first ... In the 1850s the Kyrgyz achieved sudden notoriety in Moscow as a Kyrgyz bandit, Izzet Kutebar, threw the whole of Russian-controlled Turkestan into disarray.
- ^ Gifford, W.; Coleridge, J.T.; Lockhart, J.G.; Elwin, W.; Macpherson, W.; Smith, W.; Murray, J.; Ernle, R.E.P.B.; Prothero, G.W. (1865). The Quarterly Review. John Murray. p. 551. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
A Kirghiz leader of the name of Izzet Kutebar, an hereditary robber, threw the whole country into disorder from the Orenburg line to the Aral; and, for five years, from 1853 to 1858, set at defiance all the Russian efforts to capture or expel him.
- ^ Officer, A.I. (1894). Russia's March Towards India. Russia's March Towards India by "an Indian Officer". S. Low, Marston & Company. Retrieved 5 July 2018. Full text available online
- ^ Fraser, G.M.D. (2013). Flashman at the Charge. Flashman. Penguin Publishing Group. p. 293. ISBN 978-1-101-63384-7. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
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