THE SHIRKATS OF TURKESTAN AS AN ECONOMIC PHENOMENON OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD

Abstract

At the end of the 19th century, new capitalist relations began to emerge in Turkestan, where agriculture formed the foundation of the entire economy, and all spheres of social life depended on its development. Turkestan agriculture was concentrated in the hands of small landowners. In Turkestan, the transition from subsistence to monetary farming occurred more quickly than in Western Europe, as this process was not complicated by land management issues. However, as in Western Europe, a lack of working capital became a major problem. However, in Western Europe, the view of land as a commodity predetermined the development of mortgage lending, which resolved the shortage of working capital. In Turkestan, however, due to religious tradition, land was perceived as a sacred object for labor, and therefore, mortgage transactions and long-term loans secured by land did not develop here. One way to overcome this situation was to establish credit cooperatives in Turkestan. The volume of economic activity and, consequently, the cash needs of small producers determined the limited amounts of credit available to them from credit cooperatives, hence the name— small loan. Small loan institutions were called shirkats.