I fully agree with your critique of the Eurocentric approach of E. Sergeev. His statements remind me of some pre-Soviet and Soviet publications. …Seems to me, the author disregarded post-Soviet publications of Central Asian historians. (49)

In the early 1880s Russia failed to float a nine 9 million loan on the European markets for its strategic geopolitical enterprises, driving severe budget cuts by the Minister of Finance. For the construction of the Russo-Indian railway however, an operation supervised by renowned engineer General Mikhail Annenkov, funding had been freely furnished. [30] [33]Lawyer and mediator in Supreme Court of India, Aman M. Hingorani in his book Unravelling the Kashmir Knot that Winston Churchill directed War Cabinet to assess ‘the long-term policy required to safeguard the strategic interests of the British Empire in India and the Indian Ocean’, the report in respect of which was submitted on 19 May 1945. He states in the book: Salyer, Matt (29 October 2019). "Going All in on the Great Game? The Curious and Problematic Choice of Kiplingesque Inspiration in US Military Doctrine". Modern War Institute . Retrieved 31 January 2023. In the early 1920s, Roerich asserted that beings from an esoteric Buddhist community in India told him that Russia was destined for a mission on Earth. That led Roerich to formulate his "Great Plan," which envisaged the unification of millions of Asian peoples through a religious movement using the Future Buddha, or Maitreya, into a "Second Union of the East." There, the King of Shambhala would, following the Maitreya prophecies, make his appearance to fight a great battle against all evil forces on Earth. Roerich understood that as "perfection towards Common Good." The new polity was to include southwestern Altai, Tuva, Buryatia, Outer and Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, with its capital in "Zvenigorod," the "City of Tolling Bells," which was to be built at the foot of Mount Belukha, in Altai. According to Roerich, the same Mahatmas revealed to him in 1922 that he was an incarnation of the Fifth Dalai Lama. [168] Other uses of the term "Great Game" [ edit ] Whatever other strengths or weaknesses the work may have, Sergeev’s effort remains an impressive undertaking and no belittling of that accomplishment is intended in this critique. His clear strength is Russian and British diplomatic history within the broader context of ‘great power’ relations. To this he makes an important contribution, one from which the reader will richly benefit, just as this reviewer has, provided that the book is read with a critical eye.

Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India:1780-1870 By Christopher Alan Bayly. Cambridge University Press, 1996. p138 The Second Tournament of Shadows: Perceptions of great power politics in Turkestan, 1919–1933, youtube.com 18.11.2022. In The Great Game, 1856–1907: Russo-British Relations in Central and East Asia, Evgeny Sergeev –Professor of History and Head of the Center for the Study of 20th-Century Socio-Political and Economic Problems within the Institute of World History at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow – makes a substantial, indeed impressive and welcome, if at times eclipsed and provocative, contribution to the historical study of the ‘Great Game’ played out on the ‘chess-board’ of Asia by Russia and Britain amidst a host of other supportive as well as not-so-supportive actors in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The work situates itself primarily within the fields of diplomatic history and the history of international relations, with contributions to the fields of military and strategic, (comparative) colonial and post-colonial, transnational, world and global historical, as well as Middle Eastern, Central Asian, South Asian, and East Asian studies, among others. Several scholars have focused on the role of legends and mysticism (sometimes interpreted as a form of Orientalism that was prominent in the late 19th and early 20th century), during the Great Game and in its aftermath. Johnson, K. Paul (1 January 1994). The Masters Revealed: Madame Blavatsky and the Myth of the Great White Lodge. SUNY Press. pp.XVIII, 244. ISBN 978-0-7914-2063-8.Baten, Jörg (2016). A History of the Global Economy. From 1500 to the Present. Cambridge University Press. p.253. ISBN 9781107507180. a b Milan Hauner. Unwin Hyman, London 1990. What is Asia to Us?: Russia's Asian Heartland Yesterday and Today p76

Clements, Jonathan (11 December 2012). Mannerheim: President, Soldier, Spy. Haus Publishing. ISBN 978-1-908323-18-7. It would undermine the old Islamic regimes of central Asia leading to a frantic war among the powers for shares of the spoils. Hingorani, Aman M. (2017). Unravelling the Kashmir Knot (2nded.). New Delhi: Sage. pp.57–58. ISBN 9789351509714. Robert Middleton, Huw Thomas, and Markus Hauser. Tajikistan and the High Pamirs, Odyssey Books, p. 476 Curzon, George Nathaniel Curzon (1967). Russia in central Asia in 1889 and the Anglo-Russian question. New York, Barnes & Noble. pp.296–297.

What this means for the Russian advance into Central Asia is summed up most effectively in one particular passage: