Uzbekistan

Transition to Authoritarianism

Neil J. Melvin

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781135287504
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Uzbekistan more than any other country in the area is likely to play a critical role in shaping Central Asia's future. Situated at the heart of the region and sharing borders with all the other Central Asian states, Uzbekistan is the most powerful and populous of the new states of Central Asia.
In this volume, the historical origins of Uzbekistan are explored and the range of political, economic and social challenges faced by the country since independence is charted. Particular attention is given to the emergence of highly authoritarian politics in the country and the implications of this regime for the prospects of economic development, ethnic peace, and the growth of political Islam.
The emergence of Tashkent as a force in the international system and the importance of Uzbekistan to other countries in the area, to regional powers and to the leading western countries and international organizations is also examined.

Chapter 1
HISTORY AND CULTURE

INTRODUCTION

In the twentieth century, Uzbekistan has emerged as home to the most powerful and populous political community in Central Asia. The appearance of Uzbekistan on the world stage is, however, a comparatively new phenomenon. Moreover, the Uzbek community itself is of relatively recent origin. Edward Allworth argues that the roots of Uzbek history can be traced to the fourteenth century. He thereby challenges the thesis popular among Soviet and Uzbek historians that the beginnings of Uzbek society and politics stretch back to the ancient civilisations of Central Asia, such as Achemedia, Bactria, Sogdia and Tokaria, and the rule of Alexander of Macedonia.¹

Other scholars have suggested that the label ‘Uzbek’ only acquired a political and socio-cultural significance in the twentieth century as a result of Soviet policies of nation-founding. Indeed, Uzbek nationhood may be considered one of the most successful Soviet-era inventions. While incomplete at the time of independence, the Soviet nationbuilding project in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic nevertheless laid the basis for the emergence of the current nationalism in the area.

Establishing the relationship between past and present in Uzbekistan is a contentious project but, at the same time, an intrinsic part of the process whereby the modern political community is constituted. Contemporary Uzbekistan has clearly been shaped by political, cultural and economic history and it would be foolish to suggest that the identities of the current populations of Uzbekistan have not been influenced by the past. The key issue is the way in which the link between past and present is formulated and the way in which elements of the past that are abstracted to establish a dominant, official historical narrative, that all too frequently excludes the past of minorities.

Contemporary accounts of history in Uzbekistan reflect the project to merge real and imagined events, persons and places in a coherent and largely seamless vision of the past. Within this project, interpretations of the pre-colonial, Russian imperial and Soviet periods are being used to legitimate and discredit forms of political power and organisation. The past has become the prism through which contemporary political struggle is refracted.

While the visible elements of the contemporary struggle for the past are debates about important figures in history, the role and nature of core cultures and languages, and the military, scientific and political character of past regimes, the central purpose of these debates is less obvious. Fundamental understandings about the nature, boundaries and origins of the contemporary political community are being forged. At the centre of this debate is a struggle to define the nature of the Uzbek nation and its relationship to the past. Critically, it is important to be clear that the terms Uzbekistan, the Uzbek community and the territory of Uzbekistan have only been established as an interrelated, indeed inseparable, set of ideas in recent history.

Examination of the history of the territories of contemporary Uzbekistan is thus clearly an important subject because it tells us much about contemporary society. More than this though, the past of the Transoxiana region is worthy of consideration for the fascinating and rich nature of history of the area. For the sake of simplicity, the history of the region can be divided into three main periods: early history; the Russian colonial era; and the Soviet period.

EARLY HISTORY

The territories of the Republic of Uzbekistan have been populated for thousands of years and have served as the centre for a variety of civilisations, cultures and peoples. The earliest recorded inhabitants of the region were Persian-speaking peoples who inhabited the valleys of the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) and Amu Darya (Oxus) rivers. The plains to the north of the Syr Darya were largely populated by Scythians, as well as Persian-speakers, and groups of nomads.

The area between the two great rivers was identified by Persian and Arabic historians as the Transoxiana region. By the sixth century BC, Transoxiana was the location for two kingdoms. The Persian monarch Cyrus the Great founded the city of Cyropolis on the banks of the Jaxartes, while the Bactrian kingdom, centred in what is today Afghanistan, controlled the territories along much of the Oxus.

In the fourth century BC Alexander the Great passed through Central Asia on the way to conquer India. The Central Asia of this era consisted largely of city states. The Sogdian kingdom at this time was centred upon the city of Samarkand. Khorezm, situated in the west of today’s Uzbekistan, was already an independent region. Popular beliefs hold that Alexander was the founder of Samarkand, although most historians discount this version of the past. In fact, many Central Asian cities were renamed in honour of Alexander, and he remains a folk hero in the region to this day.

Following the death of Alexander, Greek influence in Central Asia declined, and the region fell under the influence of the Parthian empire. With the rise of the Samanid dynasty in Persia, the influence of Baghdad was replaced by Persian influence. Bukhara emerged as a major trading region and eventually became the capital of the Samanid dynasty.

During this period, the first Turkic invasions of Central Asia from the north occurred. Often destructive, the Turkic invaders left little of lasting significance from their early forays. The arrival of Turkic invaders nevertheless indicated the future political trajectory of Central Asia; although it was not to be until the thirteenth century that the Turkic presence in Central Asia became permanent.

Between the time of the first invasions and the conquest of Central Asia by Turkic tribes, several important external forces were to influence the development of the region in important ways. Arab armies came to Central Asia following the death of Muhammad in 632. In the century following his death, the Arab empire grew to stretch from North Africa and Spain in the west to Asia Minor and Persia in the east. The Arabs arrived in Central Asia in the middle of the seventh century, reaching Merv in 651. But the Arab advance faced opposition and was not able to penetrate deep into the region until later decades. Over the next century, Arab influence grew incrementally, eventually coming to encompass all the major settled regions of Central Asia.

The Arab arrival brought important change in the form of science, new cultural forms and, in particular, Islam. Direct rule by the Arabs was relatively short, but their real importance lay with the ideas and cultural patterns left behind. Arabic became the language of science and commerce in the region for the next three hundred years, while the Arabic script persisted until the Soviet era. Islam emerged as the dominant and almost exclusive religion of the region, displacing other forms of belief to the margins of Central Asian society.

During the Dark Ages in Europe, scholarship and knowledge prospered in Central Asia. The rich legacy of Arabic learning was particularly important in the oases cities of Khorezm and Bukhara. During this period, a variety of notable scholars and thinkers were active, including Al Khwarezm, Abu Rai Raihan Al Biruni, and Abu Ali Ibn Sina.

By the turn of the millennium, Samanid rule had collapsed and such power and authority as existed passed into the hands of the Turkic invaders who swept through the region at this time. In the thirteenth century, the Mongol chieftain, Chingis Khan, descended upon Transoxiana, attacking the main oasis settlements. He captured the great cities of Bukhara and Samarkand in about 1225 and subsequently Central Asia fell under the control of various Mongol tribal chieftains. In 1227, the Mongol leader died leaving a vast empire for his descendants, who divided up the newly conquered territories.

Under the rule of Chingis Khan and his heirs, much of Eurasia was united for the first time. The rule of the Mongols was, however, far from benign. Many of the great cities of Central Asia were destroyed, as was much of the irrigation system that lay at the heart of settled life in the region. The common political space established by Mongol rule nevertheless laid the basis for the emergence of a vibrant pattern of commerce in the two succeeding centuries. Under Mongol rule, the great trade routes of the Silk Road began to flourish.

The rule of Chingis Khan and his descendants also left a continuing cultural legacy in the form of the Turkic languages. Prior to the thirteenth century invasions, Turkic languages were already widely used in Central Asia, however, with Mongol conquest the importance of these languages was to change significantly. While the Mongol leaders spoke a common language, the waves of settlers that moved to Central Asia accompanying Mongol domination brought a variety of other Turkic languages to the region.

The destruction of the main Arabic and Persian centres of learning also helped Turkic languages to become prominent in the region. Persian and Arabic nonetheless continued to be important in the fields of science and learning. While the Turkic dynasties became ascendant, the traditions of Islam continued to prosper.

In the centuries following Mongol conquest important changes occurred in the political, economic and cultural make-up of the Transoxiana region and the territories bordering the core area of Central Asia. During this period, Turkic and Islamic traditions under-went a process of mutual assimilation. At the same time, Turkic-based languages became more important, displacing the previous dominance of Persian and Arabic in key areas. By the fifteenth century, the Mongol language of the ruling elite had been replaced by other Turkic languages.

One of the most important descendants of Chingis Khan was Timur the Lame (known as Tamerlane in Europe, 1336-1405). In about 1350, Timur moved his rule from the city of Kish to Samarkand, which became the centre for one of the last great empires focused upon Central Asia. Timur built a powerful military force and, following Chingis Khan before him, he set out to conquer the then known world. He invaded Persia, the Siberian plains and also entered Anatolia, capturing Ankara in 1402. But Timur was the last of the leaders who succeeded in unifying Central Asia.

Following Timur’s death, subsequent leaders were unable to reunite Central Asia as a single ‘Turkestan’. Timur’s grandson, Ulugh-bek (1394-1449) was a ruler and leading scientist. He failed, however, to follow the expansionist policies of his grandfather. Zahiriddin Babur (1483-1530), a Timurid leader, had his imperial ambitions frustrated by the tribal fragmentation within Central Asia, and turned his energies to the south. Babur marched through Afghanistan and on to India where he founded the Mughal empire.

Despite Timur’s efforts to build a powerful empire in Central Asia, by the fourteen century Mongol influence was in decline and Central Asia became a patchwork of small principalities. The political organisation of the region was characterised by continually shifting alliances, and the growth and contraction of kingdoms. The decline of the Mongol dynasty and the fragmentation of territories once united under Mongol rule was accompanied by the emergence of the Uzbek tribal confederation as a powerful force, particularly in the settled areas of Transoxiana.

Early in the sixteenth century, Central Asia came under the control of the Uzbek tribes moving from the steppe regions of the north and led by Muhammad Shaibani Khan. The emergence of the Uzbeks as an important force in Central Asia was of particular importance. The Shaibanid invasion accelerated the disintegration and fragmentation of the political arrangements of the Mongol era. Reflecting the significance of this development, the Soviet authorities gave special support for work on the origins of the Uzbeks in Central Asia and Uzbek ethnogenesis in this period. Establishing the ethnic origins of the Uzbeks was central to the Soviet project of developing a socialist Uzbek nation. Despite the work of Soviet scholars, the nature and significance of the emergence of the Uzbeks continues to be contentious and contested.

Edward Allworth notes the development of the Uzbek tribal confederation in the areas of Khorezm in the west of Uzbekistan and in the area to the north of the Aral Sea in the fifteenth century. He stresses, however, that the consolidation of the Uzbeks was built upon the coming together of Turkic tribes, with the term Uzbek having a tribal rather than ethnic meaning.’…the Uzbek group, like many ethnic entities in the modern world, cannot reach into a distant past to anchor itself to an earlier counterpart. Both discontinuity with the past and insecure linkage between name and group complicate present Uzbek existence as well as the process of understanding the problem. The geographical distribution of people added to this complexity.’²

The consolidation of the Uzbek tribal confederation was accompanied by a migration to the south, into the core regions of Central Asia. Members of the confederation began to take control of the settled areas of Transoxiana from the fifteenth century and to mix with the peoples already in the region. Despite the migration of the Uzbek tribes, the groups within the confederation were widely dispersed and ethnically indistinct. Uzbek power was finally consolidated at the beginning of the sixteenth century when Muhammed Shaibani seized control of the last independent kingdoms in the region. Thereafter, the term Uzbek was associated with the several dynasties descended from Shaibani that ruled the region.

As the Uzbeks took control of Transoxiana, their previously nomadic lifestyle began to give way to a sedentary existence. Many Uzbeks settled in the cities and towns of the region and began to assimilate with the previous inhabitants of the region, including other Turkic peoples and Persian-speakers. While retaining their tribal identification, the sedentary Uzbeks simultaneously identified themselves with other settled peoples under the general label of Sart.

The essential division that emerged in Central Asian society in this period was between Sarts and nomads. These were socio-economic categories, although categories that were also marked by important cultural distinctions based upon language and religion. Elite level bilingualism became an important part of the region’s identity with the political life of the court conducted predominantly in a Turkic language (Chagatai), while high culture was largely the province of Persian. Contemporary historians are divided about the nature of cultural divisions in this period, with many Uzbek interpretations identifying the noted writer of this period, Alisher Navoi (1441-1501), as the father of Uzbek literature. There were also important minority communities in the region, notably Central Asian Jews.

From the seventeenth century, the previously united Uzbek khanate began to fragment and was replaced by smaller, highly autonomous kingdoms or khanates. Initially, the two most powerful khanates were Bukhara and Khiva. From the eighteenth century, however, the Khanate of Kokand, centred on Fergana, began to rival the other two. The near constant state of conflict between these states assisted Russian conquest of the region.

On the eve of Russian conquest, the power of Central Asia’s kingdoms relative to that of their neighbours had declined significantly from previous centuries. By the seventeenth century the fragmentation of political power in the central region of Central Asia had produced three khanates, disunited and lacking well-defined borders, each led by a powerful khan: Kokand in the Fergana Valley; Bukhara in the Zerafshan Valley; and Khiva in the west on the Amu River. The Bukharan ruler continued the Persian influence of earlier centuries, maintaining the title of emir.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the dominant form of society was feudal slave owning and the economy was built around agriculture and handicrafts. A strong set of cultural traditions existed around the idea of deference and respect for elders and the more powerful. Society was structured around patriarchal forms with strict hierarchies for male and female groups. Islam continued to be an important factor in society and Islamic leaders also operated in an uneasy relationship with the dynastic political leaders. While trade remained important, from the sixteenth century the Silk Road entered a period of decline with the development of global sea travel.

RUSSIAN CONQUEST

The relative decline of Central Asia from the sixteenth century was matched by the steady expansion of Russian imperial power. The competition between external empires and the stagnating kingdoms of Central Asia reached its climax in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In this period, Central Asia became the location for a complex series of struggles as imperial powers, native rulers, conservatives, and modernisers fought for control over the region.³

In the fifteenth century under the leadership of Ivan III (Ivan the Great), Russia began to unify following two centuries of domination by the Mongols. The expansion of the Russian empire from the core territories on the European plains began to gather pace in the sixteenth century. The troops of Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) captured the Tatar city of Kazan in 1552. Soon after this, the Turkic populations of the Volga region were incorporated into the Russian empire.

In the seventeenth century the Russian empire spread deep into Siberia. Over the next two centuries, the Russian empire pushed eastward and southwards across the steppe regions of Central Asia reaching the northern edge of the Kazakh Steppe by the 1820s. Gradually the local tribes were absorbed into the Russian colonial system. As the borders of the Russian empire approached the periphery of Central Asia, various attempts were made to conquer the core areas of Central Asia. It proved, however, to be the latter half of the nineteenth century before Russian conquest of the Transoxiana region was effected.

By the mid-nineteenth century, the population of the Bukharan Emirate was about two and a half million. Russian accounts identify about half of the population as Uzbeks, one third Tajiks, and one tenth Turkmen, however, the ambiguous nature of ethnic identification in this period make establishing definitive numbers problematic. The lands of the Khan of Khiva were located south of the Aral Sea focused upon the oasis of Khiva. The Khivan Khanate had a population of three-quarters of a million, consisting of a mixture of Karakalpaks, Turkmen, Kazakhs and Uzbeks. Finally, Kokand controlled large territories, between the Syr Daria and Muslim China, with its centre located in the Fergana Valley and the Tashkent oasis. The population was about three million, mostly Uzbeks, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz. Various groups of nomadic populations were found on the pe...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• CHRONOLOGY
• PREFACE
• CHAPTER 1: HISTORY AND CULTURE
• CHAPTER 2: CONTEMPORARY POLITICS
• CHAPTER 3: ECONOMY AND SOCIETY
• CHAPTER 4: THE EXTERNAL POLICY OF INDEPENDENT UZBEKISTAN
• CONCLUSION
• BIBLIOGRAPHY