Back to the Future: Möhämmäd Zahir Bigiev and His Journey to Bukhara in the Age of Steam and Print

Following Nile Green’s analysis of Muslim travelers heading west, this article probes the nature of the Muslim subjectivities expressed by a Tatar who traveled eastwards to Russia’s new periphery. First, I explore the place of Zahir Bigiev’s A Journey to Mawara’annahr within the growing number of Tatar accounts of westward travels including the hajj at the turn of the century. Second, I compare Bigiev’s travelogue with Esper Ukhtomskii’s From the Kalmyk Steppe to Bukhara to reveal the different imaginary pasts each author experienced in their almost identical itinerary. Third, I examine how these two authors’ imaginary travels “back to the future” functioned to assess Turkestan’s colonial present.