Tajikistan
Tajikistan History of
history of the area from ancient times to the present.
The Tajiks are the direct descendants of the Iranian peoples whose continuous presence in Central Asia and northern Afghanistan is attested from the middle of the 1st millennium BC. The ancestors of the Tajiks constituted the core of the ancient population of Khwarezm (Khorezm) and Bactria, which formed part of Transoxania (Sogdiana). They were included in the empires of Persia and Alexander the Great, and they intermingled with such later invaders as the Kushans and Hepthalites in the 1st-6th centuries AD. Over the course of time, the eastern Iranian dialect that was used by the ancient Tajiks eventually gave way to Farsi, a western dialect spoken in Iran and Afghanistan. (See Tajikistan, history of, Tajik, Afghanistan, Khwarezm, Bactria, Transoxania.)
The Arab conquest of Central Asia that began in the mid-7th century brought Islam to the region. But tribal feuds weakened the Arabs, and, with the rise of the Samanids (819-999), the Tajiks came under the rule of an Iranian dynasty. The first Turkic invaders (from the northeast) seized this area of Transoxania in 999, and in time, because both conquered and conquerors were Muslim, many Tajiks--especially those in the valleys of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya--became Turkicized. This resulted in the transformation of a formerly purely Iranian land into "Turkestan." The name Tajik, originally given to the Arabs by the local population, came to be applied by Turkic invaders and overlords to those elements of the sedentary population that continued to speak Iranian languages. (See Arab, Islamic world, Turkic peoples.)
Until the mid-18th century the Tajiks were part of the emirate of Bukhara, but then the Afghans conquered lands south and southwest of the Amu Darya with their Tajik population, including the city of Balkh, an ancient Tajik cultural centre. (See Uzbek khanate, Balkh.)
Russian conquests in Central Asia in the 1860s and '70s brought a number of Tajiks in the Zeravshan and Fergana valleys under the direct government of Russia, while the emirate of Bukhara in effect became a Russian protectorate in 1868. (See Russia, history of.)
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, a considerable proportion of the Tajik people was included in the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic established in April 1918. In August 1920 the Revolution was extended to the khanate of Bukhara, which embraced most of the territory occupied by modern Tajikistan; the Bukharan People's Soviet Republic was declared in October 1920, and early in 1921 the Soviet army captured Dushanbe and Kulob. Tajikistan was the scene of the Basmachi revolt in 1922-23, and rebel bands under Ibrahim Bek operated in eastern Bukhara until 1931. The Tadzhik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created as part of the Uzbek S.S.R. in 1924; in January 1925 a Special Pamirs region was created out of the Kara-Kirgiz and Tajik parts of the Pamirs; and in December 1925 this region was renamed the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region. On Dec. 5, 1929, the status of the Tadzhik A.S.S.R. was raised to that of a Soviet socialist republic. (See Russian Revolution of 1917, Basmachi Revolt, Gorno-Badakhshan.)
As a full-fledged member of the Soviet Union, the backward, mountainous Tadzhik S.S.R. underwent a spectacular economic and social transformation. A small-scale industrial base was established, and the quality of health care and education improved. As leader of Tajikistan's Communist Party from 1926 to 1956, B.G. Gafurov--a historian respected in the West--instilled a sense of nationhood in the Tajik people.
The disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to the somewhat reluctant declaration of full independence on Sept. 9, 1991. After independence, political chaos and endemic turmoil--occasionally degenerating into civil war--plagued the new nation; communists fought to retain power in the face of opposition from an alliance of Islamic and democratic forces. The presidential election of November 1991 was won by Tajikistan's former communist strongman Rahman Nabiyev; in March 1992 massive nonviolent protests began in Dushanbe. After government forces opened fire on the demonstrators in April, violence soon spread to the southern city of Kulob and elsewhere. Opposition forces drove Nabiyev from office in August and briefly took power, but by November a government led by Imomali Rakhmonov had regained control, backed by Russian troops. A mass exodus to Afghanistan followed. Sporadic fighting continued as the Islamic fundamentalist forces and their allies, now based in Afghanistan, continued to launch attacks on the Russian and Tajik troops guarding the border. By the mid-1990s the fighting had left tens of thousands dead and displaced more than a half million people. In 1994 Rakhmonov was elected president, and under his authoritarian leadership Tajikistan began the long process of national reconciliation.
(D.Si.) (See Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Nabiyev, Rahman.)
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