Mikhail Dmitriyevich Skobelev, a Russian general, became famous for his conquest of Central Asia and for his heroism during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. Dressed in a white uniform and mounted on a white horse, and always in the thickest of the fray, he was known and adored by his soldiers as the "White General". During a campaign in Khiva, his Turkmen opponents called him goz ganly or "Bloody Eyes".

In the 16th century, the Tsardom of Russia embarked on a campaign to expand the Russian frontier to the east. This effort continued until the 19th century under the Russian Empire, when the Imperial Russian Army succeeded in conquering all of Central Asia. The majority of this land became known as Russian Turkestan—the name "Turkestan" was used to refer to the area due to the fact that it was and is inhabited by Turkic peoples, excluding the Tajiks, who are an Iranian ethnicity. Upon witnessing Russia's absorption of the various Central Asian realms, the British Empire sought to reinforce India, triggering the Great Game, which ended when both sides eventually designated Afghanistan as a neutral buffer zone.