The seismic colony: earthquakes, empire and technology in Russian-ruled Turkestan, 1887–1911

For much of Russia’s fractious history, the earth’s stability at least could be taken for granted. The imperial heartland was situated deep on the Eurasian tectonic plate, rarely experiencing fatal seismic activity. As the empire expanded, however, it acquired several of Eurasia’s most earthquake-prone regions. This interplay between colonization and seismic landscapes produced a novel entity: the ‘seismic colony’. With its occasional earthquakes and perpetual risks, the seismic colony posed a significant challenge to Russian rule, particularly in Turkestan. Earthquakes devastated infrastructure, gave lie to the civilizing mission and fostered social disorder, thereby undercutting the technologies of rule that the empire relied on to exploit the region. Engaging analytical tools from the history of environment and technology, this article details this threat and the developments it prompted from Russian experts and settlers, including first-response efforts, reconfigured construction practices, and the concretization of seismology as a science and infrastructure.