Or Russia could simultaneously focus on both the West and the East.Yes I like that Full Focus on the East by Russia gives PLC a chance to survive 18th Century
Why would Slavophilism have an effect on C Asia?Difficult to say if any gains in the early 1700s would have translated to any long-term gains considering Russia's continued strategic vulnerability in Europe, which would have siphoned off the military elements (esp. soldier-settler Cossacks, artillery) most effective in the conquest of Central Asia.
There was also no specialized bureaucracy/lobby group for Russian C Asian expansion in the early 1700s and so the country's focus was still largely down to the whims of the monarch. Anna and Elizabeth saw Russia's mission in C Asia as Christianization and Russification while Catherine the Great preferred to leave them be. Neither saw C Asia as particularly important; Russia's interest there was really only entrenched after 1) the surge of Slavophilism in the 1800s, 2) the advance of Britain in India which demanded a corresponding Russian response, and 3) the emergence of bureaucratic groups that provided roadmaps for Russia in C Asia, starting with proposals for Kazakh administrative reform in the 1820s.
Why would Slavophilism have an effect on C Asia?
Also, why were Russians interested in C Asian administrative reform?
Slavophilism = "Russia's divine mission to take over C Asia" OR "Europe rejects us, so we must go back to our roots in Asia". Slavophilism tended to swing between the two lines of thought depending on Russia's relations with the West.
And they were interested in C Asian admin reform after Catherine the Great's general policy that C Asians were not to be treated as Russians (as a way of securing the frontier). So you had the establishment of offices like the Russian Asiatic Department in 1820s, whose jobs was to catalogue the habits/characteristics of C Asian people and calibrate Russian governance based on these findings, i.e. putting customary law onto paper, encouraging C Asians to join the Russian state etc.
So, you're saying that Russia's frontier would have been less secure if Central Asians would have been treated as Russians?
Understood.Well as the case of Russian administration of Poland and pre-WWI Finland demonstrates, people tend not to like you if you're trying to destroy their culture. Autonomy was also inevitable when we're talking about Central Asia, where reinforcements could take a year to arrive before the advent of rail.