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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Tajikistan
Index
After several unsuccessful attempts in earlier times, the Russian
conquest and settlement of Central Asia began in earnest in the second
half of the nineteenth century. Spurred by various economic and
geopolitical factors, increasing numbers of Russians moved into Central
Asia in this period. Although some armed resistance occurred, Tajik
society remained largely unchanged during this initial colonial period.
The Occupation Process
By 1860 the Central Asian principalities were ripe for conquest by the
much more powerful Russian Empire. Imperial policy makers believed that
these principalities had to be subdued because of their armed opposition
to Russian expansion into the Kazak steppe, which already was underway to
the north of Tajikistan. Some proponents of Russian expansion saw it as a
way to compensate for losses elsewhere and to pressure Britain, Russia's
perennial nemesis in the region, by playing on British concerns about
threats to its position in India. The Russian military supported campaigns
in Central Asia as a means of advancing careers and building personal
fortunes. The region assumed much greater economic importance in the
second half of the nineteenth century because of its potential as a
supplier of cotton.
An important step in the Russian conquest was the capture of Tashkent
from the Quqon Khanate, part of which was annexed in 1866. The following
year, Tashkent became the capital of the new Guberniya (Governorate
General) of Turkestan, which included the districts of Khujand and
Uroteppa (later part of Tajikistan). After a domestic uprising and Russian
military occupation, Russia annexed the remainder of the Quqon Khanate in
1876.
The Bukhoro Khanate fought Russian invaders during the same period,
losing the Samarqand area in 1868. Russia chose not to annex the rest of
Bukhoro, fearing repercussions in the Muslim world and from Britain
because Bukhoro was a bastion of Islam and a place of strategic
significance to British India. Instead, the tsar's government made a
treaty with Bukhoro, recognizing its existence but in effect subordinating
it to Russia. Bukhoro actually gained territory by this agreement, when
the Russian administration granted the amir of Bukhoro a district that
included Dushanbe, now the capital of Tajikistan, in compensation for the
territory that had been ceded to Russia.
In the 1880s, the principality of Shughnon-Rushon in the western Pamir
Mountains became a new object of contention between Britain and Russia
when Afghanistan and Russia disputed territory there. An 1895 treaty
assigned the disputed territory to Bukhoro, and at the same time put the
eastern Pamirs under Russian rule.
Tajikistan under Russian Rule
Russian rule brought important changes in Central Asia, but many
elements of the traditional way of life scarcely changed. In the part of
what is now Tajikistan that was incorporated into the Guberniya of
Turkestan, many ordinary inhabitants had limited contact with Russian
officials or settlers before 1917. Rural administration there resembled
the system that governed peasants in the European part of the Russian
Empire after the abolition of serfdom in 1861. Local administration in
villages continued to follow long-established tradition, and prior to 1917
few Russians lived in the area of present-day Tajikistan. Russian
authorities also left education in the region substantially the same
between the 1870s and 1917.
An important event of the 1870s was Russia's initial expansion of
cotton cultivation in the region, including the areas of the Fergana
Valley and the Bukhoro Khanate that later became part of Tajikistan. The
pattern of switching land from grain cultivation to cotton cultivation,
which intensified during the Soviet period, was established at this time.
The first cotton-processing plant was established in eastern Bukhoro
during World War I.
Some elements of opposition to Russian hegemony appeared in the late
nineteenth century. By 1900 a novel educational approach was being offered
by reformers known as Jadidists (jadid is the Arabic word for "new.")
The Jadidists, who received support from Tajiks, Tatars, and Uzbeks, were
modernizers and nationalists who viewed Central Asia as a whole. Their
position was that the religious and cultural greatness of Islamic
civilization had been degraded in the Central Asia of their day. The
Tatars and Central Asians who shared these views established Jadidist
schools in several cities in the Guberniya of Turkestan. Although the
Jadidists were not necessarily anti-Russian, tsarist officials in
Turkestan found their kind of education even more threatening than
traditional Islamic teaching. By World War I, several cities in
present-day Tajikistan had underground Jadidist organizations.
Between 1869 and 1913, uprisings against the amir of Bukhoro erupted
under local rulers in the eastern part of the khanate. The uprisings of
1910 and 1913 required Russian troops to restore order. A peasant revolt
also occurred in eastern Bukhoro in 1886. The failed Russian revolution of
1905 resonated very little among the indigenous populations of Central
Asia. In the Duma (legislature) that was established in St. Petersburg as
a consequence of the events of 1905, the indigenous inhabitants of
Turkestan were allotted only six representatives. Subsequent to the second
Duma in 1907, Central Asians were denied all representation.
By 1916 discontent with the effects of Russian rule had grown
substantially. Central Asians complained especially of discriminatory
taxation and price gouging by Russian merchants. A flashpoint was Russia's
revocation that year of Central Asians' traditional exemption from
military service. In July 1916, the first violent reaction to the
impending draft occurred when demonstrators attacked Russian soldiers in
Khujand, in what would later be northern Tajikistan. Although clashes
continued in various parts of Central Asia through the end of the year,
Russian troops quickly brought the Khujand region back under control. The
following year, the Russian Revolution ended tsarist rule in Central Asia.
In the early 1920s, the establishment of Soviet rule in Central Asia
led to the creation of a new entity called Tajikistan as a republic within
the Soviet Union. In contrast to the tsarist period, when most inhabitants
of the future Tajikistan felt only limited Russian influence, the Soviet
era saw a central authority exert itself in a way that was ideologically
and culturally alien to the republic's inhabitants. The Tajik way of life
experienced much change, even though social homogenization was never
achieved.
Data as of March 1996
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