Central Asia, history of

Introduction

      history of the area from prehistoric and ancient times to the present.

      In its historical application the term Central Asia designates an area that is considerably larger than the heartland of the Asian continent. Were it not for the awkwardness of the term, it would be better to speak of Central Eurasia, comprising all those parts of the huge Eurasian landmass that did not develop a distinctive sedentary civilization of their own. But the real boundaries of Central Asia are determined at any given time in history by the relationship between the “civilized” and the “barbarian”—the two opposed but complementary. The equation so often propounded—of the civilized with the sedentary and the barbarian with the nomad (nomadism)—is misleading, however. The most significant distinction between the two groups in Eurasia lies probably in the successful attempt of the civilized to alter and command the physical environment, whereas the barbarian simply uses it, often in a masterly fashion, to gain an advantage. In its essence, the history of Central Asia is that of the barbarian, and its dominant feature is the sometimes latent, sometimes open conflict in which the barbarian clashes with the civilized. Two basic patterns of conquest are evident in the history of Central Asia: that of the barbarian, accomplished with arms and ephemeral in its results, and that of the civilized—slow, rather unspectacular, achieved through technological superiority and absorption.

      The principal difficulty for the historian of Central Asia lies in the paucity and relative lateness of indigenous written sources. The first aboriginal sources—written in a Turkic language—date from the 8th century AD, and source material of similar value does not become available again until the 13th century. Most of the written sources dealing with Central Asia originate in the surrounding sedentary civilizations and are almost always strongly prejudiced against the barbarian; the most important among them are in Chinese, Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Persian.

      Without a sufficient number of indigenous written sources, the language of a given Central Asian people is difficult to determine. It is, however, reasonable to suppose that many of them spoke a Uralic (Uralic languages) or an Altaic (Altaic languages) language, and it can be taken for certain that Paleo-Asiatic (Paleo-Siberian languages) languages were in wider use in early times than they are now. While it seems likely that the principal languages of many great nomadic empires were Turkic (Turkic languages) or Mongol (Mongol language), the attribution of such languages to peoples about whose speech insufficient linguistic evidence exists—as in the case of the Hsiung-nu or the Avars—is unwarranted; it is wiser to confess ignorance.

      Two of the natural vegetation zones of Central Asia have played a prominent part in history: the forest belt, 500 to 1,000 miles (800 to 1,600 kilometres) wide, and, south of it, the steppe, a vast grassland extending eastward from Hungary to Mongolia, facilitating communications and providing grass, the only raw material absolutely essential to the creation of the great nomad empires. The northern frozen marshes and the southern deserts played a minor role in Central Asian history.

      Within the broad concept of Central Asia as defined above, there is in terms of historical geography a more precisely delineated Central Asian heartland consisting of three adjacent regions, collectively referred to by 19th-century explorers and geographers as Russian and Chinese Turkestan.

      The first of these regions, known to the ancient Greeks as Transoxania and to the Arabs as Mā warāʿ an-Nahr (“That Which Lies Beyond the River”), consists of the area between the Amu Darya (the Oxus River of the Greeks and the Jāyḥun of the Arabs) and Syr Darya (the Jaxartes River of the Greeks and the Sāyḥun of the Arabs). It is an arid, semidesert country where, before the development of large-scale irrigation projects in the 20th century, the sedentary population maintained itself by intensive cultivation of the fertile tracts bordering the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya or by cultivation of the oases, in which were situated the major urban centres such as Bukhara and Samarkand.

      The second, predominantly steppe, region extends northward from the upper reaches of the Syr Darya to the valley of the Ili River and to the foothills of the ranges lying between the Altai Mountains and the Tien Shan. Bounded on the south by the line of the Tien Shan and to the north by Lake Balkhash, this area was known to the Turks as the Yeti Su, the “Land of the Seven Rivers,” hence its Russian name of Semirechye.

      The third region, centring on the Takla Makan Desert, is bounded on the north by the Tien Shan, on the west by the Pamirs, on the south by the Kunlun Mountains, and on the northeast by the Dzungarian (Jungarian) Basin. Often referred to as Kashgaria, from its principal urban centre, Kashgar (K'a-shih), the region is characterized by small oasis settlements lying between the desert and the surrounding ranges, such as Khotan (Ho-t'ien), Yarkand, Kashgar itself, and Aksu (A-k'o-su), which served as way stations on the famous Silk Road between China and the West.

Prehistory and antiquity

      The beginnings of human history in Central Asia date back to the late Pleistocene Epoch, some 25,000 to 35,000 years ago, which includes the last full interglacial period and the last glaciation, the latter being followed by the interglacial period that still persists today. The Aurignacian culture of the Upper Paleolithic coincided with the last glaciation, which was much less severe in northern Asia than in Europe. In a period when ice covered northern France, Siberia below latitude 60° N was ice-free. The Paleolithic Malta site, 28 miles northwest of Irkutsk, is clearly Aurignacian, and it is safe to assume that in this period Siberia and the subarctic areas of Europe belonged to the same civilization. The differentiation between Central Asia and the surrounding civilization did not begin until Neolithic times, marked by tremendous technical progress and a wide diversification of cultures. This article does not discuss the development of these cultures or their contacts with eastern, southern, and western cultures; most of the archaeological results, however important, are controversial and are subject to different interpretations in the light of new finds.

Early western peoples

      The first human groups to emerge at the dawn of history that are identifiable by name rather than by their artifacts are the Cimmerians (Cimmerian) and the Scythians (Scythian), both located in the western half of Central Asia as reported by the Greeks.

      The Cimmerians, whose name appears in the Odyssey of Homer, occupied the southern Russian steppe from about 1200 BC. Their civilization, which belongs to the Late Bronze Age, is barely distinguishable from that of other peoples with whom they mingled. From the second half of the 8th century BC, the Cimmerians were replaced by the Scythians, who used iron implements. The Scythians created the first known typical Central Asian empire. The chief thrust of their expansion was directed against the south rather than the west, where no major power existed and which thus offered little chance for valuable booty. In the late 8th century BC, Cimmerian and Scythian troops fought against the Assyrian king Sargon II, and, at the end of the 6th century BC, conflict arose between the Scythians and the Achaemenian (Achaemenian Dynasty) king Darius I.

      Darius' expedition (516?–513? BC) against the Scythians in southern Russia was described in great detail by the Greek historian Herodotus, who provided the first and perhaps the most penetrating description of a great nomad empire. In more than one respect the Scythians appear as the historical prototype of the mounted warrior of the steppe; yet in their case, as in others, it would be mistaken to see in them aimlessly roaming tribes. The Scythians, like most nomad empires, had permanent settlements of various sizes, representing various degrees of civilization. The vast fortified settlement of Kamenka on the Dnieper River, settled since the end of the 5th century BC, became the centre of the Scythian kingdom ruled by Ateas, who lost his life in a battle against Philip II of Macedon in 339 BC.

      The Scythians had a highly developed metallurgy, and in their social structure the agriculturalists (aroteres), who grew wheat for sale, constituted a class of their own. The quality of Scythian art, characterized by a highly sophisticated style called “animal art,” remained unsurpassed in Central Asia. Although the Scythians had no script, it has been established, nevertheless, that they spoke an Iranian language (Iranian languages).

      The Scythians appear as Śakas in the Old Iranian rock inscriptions, where three distinct groups are identified, and it is by the latter name that they appear in the history of northwestern India, which they penetrated during the 1st century BC. On the steppes of Central Asia they were gradually subsumed into the Kushān empire (Kushan dynasty) (see below), while on the southern Russian steppes they were absorbed by the Sarmatians (Sarmatian), another Iranian nomad people whose hegemony lasted until the 4th century AD.

Early eastern peoples

      From its earliest history China had to contend with barbarian pressures on its borders. The group of barbarians called the Hu played a considerable role in early Chinese history, leading to the introduction of cavalry and the adoption of foreign clothing, more suitable than its traditional Chinese counterpart for new types of warfare. About 200 BCa new and powerful barbarian people emerged on China's western borders, the Hsiung-nu (Xiongnu). Little is known of T'ou-man, founder of this empire, beyond the fact that he was killed by his son Mao-tun, under whose long reign (c. 209–174 BC) the Hsiung-nu became a major power and a serious menace to China. In many respects the Hsiung-nu are the eastern counterparts of the Scythians. The Chinese historian Ssu-ma Ch'ien (Sima Qian) (145?–c. 85 BC) described Hsiung-nu nomadic tactics and strategy in terms almost identical with those applied by Herodotus to the Scythians: the Hsiung-nu

move about in search of water and pasture and have no walled cities or fixed dwellings, nor do they engage in any kind of agriculture.

      The centre of the Hsiung-nu empire was Mongolia, but it is impossible even to approximate the western limits of the territory under its direct control. For more than two centuries the Hsiung-nu, more or less constantly warring with China, remained the major force in the eastern regions of Central Asia.

      In AD 48 the Hsiung-nu empire, long plagued by internecine struggles, dissolved. Some of the tribes, known as the southern Hsiung-nu, recognized Chinese suzerainty and settled in the Ordos region. The other remaining tribes, the northern Hsiung-nu, maintained themselves in Mongolia until the middle of the 2nd century, when they finally succumbed to the Hsien-pei, their neighbours. Another group, led by Chih-chih, brother and rival of the northern Hsiung-nu ruler, moved westward. With the death of Chih-chih in AD 36, this group disappears from the records, but according to one theory the Huns (Hun), who first appeared on the southern Russian steppes about AD 370, were descendants of these fugitive tribes.

      Meanwhile, in the second half of the 2nd century BC, the Hsiung-nu, at the height of their power, had expelled from their homeland in western Kansu (China) a people probably of Iranian stock, known to the Chinese as the Yüeh-chih (Yuezhi) and called Tokharians in Greek sources. While a part of the Yüeh-chih confederacy, known as the Asii, moved as far west as the Caucasus region, the remainder occupied the region between the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya before overrunning Bactria between 141 and 128 BC. After penetrating Sīstān and the Kābul River valley, they crossed the Indus and established the Kushān (Kushan dynasty) (Kuṣāṇa) empire in northwestern India. In its heyday, under Kujūla Kadphises during the 1st century AD, this empire extended from the vicinity of the Aral Sea to Vārānasi (Benares) in the Gangetic Plain and southward as far as Nāshik, near modern Bombay (Mumbai). The Kushāns were thus able to control the growing transcontinental caravan trade linking the Chinese empire with that of Rome.

The Middle Ages

 During the last decades of the 4th century AD, a new, powerful empire emerged in Mongolia, the political heartland of Central Asia. The Juan-juan had stepped into the place vacated by the Hsiung-nu. Chinese descriptions barely distinguish them from their predecessors. Their history is an incessant series of campaigns against their neighbours, especially the Chinese.

The Turks

      In 552 the Juan-juan empire was destroyed by a revolution of considerable consequences for world history. The tribe of the Turks (Turkic peoples) (T'u-chüeh in Chinese transcription), living within the Juan-juan empire and apparently specializing in metallurgy, revolted and seized power. It established an empire that for about two centuries remained a dominant force in Asia. The Turks are the first people in history known to have spoken a Turkic language and the first Central Asian people to have left a written record. Inscribed funerary stelae still standing in Mongolia, mostly near the Orhon River, are invaluable from both a linguistic and a historical point of view. These Orhon (Orhon inscriptions) (or Orkhon) inscriptions provide insights into the internal stresses of a pastoral nomad state that, at the height of its power, stretched from the borders of China to those of Byzantium.

Division of the empire

      The founder of the Turk empire (Turkistan), Bumin—who bore the title of khagan—died shortly after his victory. Soon afterward the empire split into two halves. The eastern part, ruled by Bumin's son Muhan (ruled 553–572), was centred on Mongolia; the seat of the western part, ruled by Bumin's brother Ishtemi (553–573?), lay in Ektagh, an unidentified place, possibly in either the Ili or Chu river valley.

      In alliance with the Sāsānians (Sāsānian dynasty), the Turks attacked and destroyed the Hephthalite empire (560), thereby gaining control over an important portion of the Silk Road leading from China to Byzantium (Istanbul). Under Ishtemi's successor, Tardu (573–603), the western Turk empire continued to thrive and, in its westward expansion, reached the borders of Byzantium. By that time the eastern Turk empire was facing grave difficulties caused partly by internal strife and partly by the vigorous Central Asian policies of the Chinese Sui dynasty. While the weakening of the eastern Turks gave preponderance to the western Turks, basic solidarity between the two parts of the Turk empire apparently was maintained. They both fell victim to Chinese attacks. In 630 the T'ang (Tang dynasty) emperor T'ai Tsung (Taizong) occupied Mongolia, and in 659, under Kao Tsung (Gaozong), Chinese forces penetrating as far west as Bukhara and Samarkand subdued the western Turks.

Reunification

      In 683 the Turks revolted. The Turk empire was reborn and reunified under the khagan Elterish (683–692). Temporary setbacks notwithstanding, the Turk empire was now centred on Mongolia, and it prospered under the rule of Kapghan (c. 692–716) and Bilgä (Bilge) (716–734) but disintegrated soon afterward. In spite of the relatively short duration of their state, the historical role of the Turks is considerable. They linked China, Iran, India, and Byzantium and gave their name to all the Turkic-speaking peoples. The solidarity that exists between these peoples to this day goes back to the Turks.

The Uighurs

      The replacement of the Turks by the Uighurs (Uighur) in 744 was little else than a coup d'état. There was virtually no difference between the Turk and Uighur languages, and the bulk of the Turks, although no longer the ruling stratum, probably remained within the boundaries of the newly formed Uighur state.

The Uighur empire

      This new empire comprised many tribes and seems to have been headed by a smaller tribal confederation standing under Uighur leadership. This federation is referred to in Chinese sources as the Nine Clans (Chiu Hsing), whereas Islāmic sources and the Orhon inscriptions call it the Tokuz Oğuz. There are some indications that the Uighur empire stood under dual leadership, the khagan belonging to one tribe and the prime minister, in whose hands much of the effective power rested, to another.

      Relations with China were the dominant factor in Uighur foreign affairs. The Uighurs proved somewhat less threatening for the Chinese than had the Hsiung-nu or the Turks. Their help to the Chinese, plagued by the rebellion of An Lu-shan (An Lushan) (755) and by repeated Tibetan incursions, was appreciated and paid for through trade conducted on terms unfavourable to China. In exchange for Uighur horses, often of dubious quality, the Chinese were expected to provide the Uighurs with much-coveted riches. The third Uighur khagan—Mou-yü by his Chinese name (759–780)—visited Lo-yang in China, where he was converted to an Iranian religion, Manichaeism. Its adoption brought to the Uighur land many Sogdians, whose growing influence on state affairs was resented by the Turkic Uighurs and led to Mou-yü's assassination.

      The Uighur empire was governed from a city on the Orhon River, Karabalghasun, the foundations of which were probably laid by the Turks and can still be seen. A Muslim traveler, Tamīm ibn Baḥr, who visited the city about 821, speaks in admiring terms of this fortified town lying in a cultivated country—a far cry from the traditional picture of the pastoral nomad existence.

The Kyrgyz invasion

      In 840 another Turkic people, the Kyrgyz, put an abrupt end to Uighur rule in Mongolia. Coming from the upper reaches of the Yenisey River in north-central Siberia, the Kyrgyz represented a lower degree of civilization than the rather sophisticated Uighurs. Their political ambitions did not lead them into campaigns against China, and thus virtually no records exist concerning their activities. Content to stay in the backwaters of history, the Kyrgyz were among the very few peoples to survive the Mongol tide that was to come in the 13th century.

The Uighur kingdom

      The Kyrgyz invasion, while putting an end to Uighur power, did not annihilate the people. Fleeing Uighur groups settled on the Chinese border in what is now Kansu province and in East Turkestan in the Turfan (Turfan Depression) (T'u-lu-p'an) region, which had been an Uighur protectorate since the end of the 8th century. Falling back now on the Turfan oases and setting up their capital city in Kucha (K'u-ch'e), the fugitive Uighurs created a remarkably stable and prosperous kingdom that lasted four centuries (c. 850–1250). Because of the dry climate of the region, many buildings, wall paintings, and manuscripts written in a variety of languages have been preserved. They reveal a complex, refined civilization in which Buddhism, Manichaeism, and Christianity existed side by side, practiced by Turks as well as by Tokharians, Sogdians, and other Iranian peoples in the region.

      When the time of the Mongol (Yuan dynasty) conquests came, the Uighurs lived up to their best cultural traditions. Realizing that resistance would be vain and would lead only to the destruction of his country, Barchuk, the ruler of the Uighurs of Kucha, of his own free will submitted to the Mongols. Uighur officials and scribes were the first “civil servants” of the Mongol empire and exerted a beneficial civilizing influence on the conquerors. The Sogdian script used by the Uighurs was adopted by the Mongols, who in turn passed it on to the Manchus. Side by side with the Cyrillic alphabet, it is still in use in Mongolia.

The Khitans

      The first people known to have spoken a Mongol language were the Khitans (Khitan). Mentioned from the 5th century AD, this people, living in the forests of Manchuria, had contacts with the Turks as well as with the Uighurs. In 924 their leader, A-pao-chi (Abaoji), defeated the Kyrgyz and offered the Uighurs the possibility of a resettlement in their former country. The Khitans conquered northern China, which they ruled under the dynastic name Liao (Liao dynasty) (907–1125) until they were ousted by the Juchen, also originating in Manchuria, who founded the Chin (Jin dynasty) (Juchen) dynasty (1115–1234) of northern China, which was in turn replaced by that of yet another Altaic people, the Mongols. Cathay, an early Western denomination of China, derives from the name Khitan (variant: Khitai). The spread of this name, still used in Russian for China, is but one sign of the Khitans' extraordinary impact on history.

      Driven from China by the Juchen, in 1124 some Khitans moved westward under Yeh-lü Ta-shih's (Yelü Dashi) leadership and created the Karakhitan (Black Khitai, or Western Liao) state. Its centre lay in the Semirechye and the Chu valley, where the city of Balāsaghūn was located. Founded by the Sogdians, Balāsaghūn was by then occupied by the Muslim (Islāmic world) Karakhanids (Qarakhanid Dynasty) (Qarakhanids), a Turkish people closely related to the Uighurs and whose ruling house was probably descended from the Karluks. The Karakhanids, who became Muslims during the mid-10th century, ruled over both the Semirechye and the Tarim Basin south of the Tien Shan. While Balāsaghūn remained the residence of their principal ruler, Kashgar seems to have served as a religious and cultural metropolis. In 992 they occupied Bukhara (Uzbek khanate), previously the capital of the Iranian Sāmānid dynasty (819–1005), under whose benign rule the cities of Transoxania had become celebrated centres of Islāmic culture and learning.

      The Karakhanids maintained the tribal traditions of the steppe world to a much greater extent than did other Muslim Turkish dynasties, such as the Ghaznavids or the Seljuqs, but they proved no less accomplished at combining native Turkish and Irano-Islāmic culture. The earliest surviving work of Turkish literature shaped by Islāmic values, the Kutudgu bilig (“The Wisdom of R oyal Glory”), was written by Yusuf Khass Hajib of Balāsaghūn in the style of contemporary Irano-Islāmic “mirrors for princes” and was completed in Kashgar about 1070. Almost contemporary with it was the Dīwān lughat at-Turk (“Compendium of the Turkic Dialects”), an Arabic dictionary of Khakani, the Middle Turkish dialect spoken by the Karakhanids and written by Maḥmūd al-Kāshgarī.

      From the late 11th century the Karakhanids in Transoxania became vassals of the Seljuqs (Seljuq), who by this time were already masters of much of the Middle East. Nevertheless, the Karakhitans had set their hearts on acquiring the Seljuqs' loosely controlled eastern provinces. In 1137 Yeh-lü Ta-shih had obtained the submission of the Karakhanid ruler Maḥmūd II, and in 1141, in a battle fought near Samarkand, he decisively defeated the last “Great Seljuq” sultan, Sanjar. The territories under Karakhitan hegemony now extended across Central Asia as far as the northern bank of the Amu Darya and threatened Khwārezm, located in the Amu Darya delta. However, their hold on this vast domain was finally shattered in 1211, through the combined actions of the Khwārezm-Shah ʿAlāʾ ad-Dīn Muḥammad (1200–20) and Küchlüg, a fugitive Naiman chieftain in flight from Genghis Khan's Mongols.

The Mongol epoch

      The creation of the Mongol empire (Mongol) by Genghis Khan was a great feat of political and military skill that left a lasting imprint on the destinies of both Asia and Europe. The geographic basis of Genghis' power, the northwestern parts of which later became known as Mongolia, had been the centre of such Turkic empires as those of the Turks and Uighurs. There are no indications of the time and the manner in which the Mongols took over this region.

Creation of the Mongol empire

      It is probable that Turks were incorporated in the nascent Mongol empire. In a series of tribal wars that led to the defeat of the Merkits and the Naimans, his most dangerous rivals, Genghis gained sufficient strength to assume, in 1206, the title of khan. Acting in the tradition of previous nomad empires of the region, Genghis' aggressive policies were directed primarily against China, then ruled in the north by the Chin dynasty. His western campaigns were set in motion quite accidentally by a senseless attack on Mongol forces by the fugitive Naiman prince Küchlüg, and they maintained their momentum through the pursuit of ʿAlāʾ ad-Dīn Muḥammad of Khwārezm, who in 1218 ordered the execution of Mongol envoys seeking to establish trade relations.

      As a result, many of the flourishing cities of Khwārezm, Khorāsān, and Afghanistan were destroyed, and, by 1223, Mongol armies had crossed the Caucasus. Although an important Russo-Kipchak force was defeated on May 31, 1223, at the battle of the Kalka, the Mongols did not make a definite thrust into eastern Europe until the winter of 1236–37. The fall of Kiev in December 1240—with incalculable consequences for Russian history—was followed by a Mongol invasion of Hungary in 1241–42. Although victorious against the forces of King Béla IV (Béla IV), the Mongols evacuated Hungary and withdrew to southern and central Russia. Ruled by Batu (d. 1255 or 1256), the Mongols of eastern Europe (the so-called Golden Horde) became a major factor in that region and exerted a decisive influence on the development of the Russian states.

      Simultaneously with these western campaigns, Genghis' successor Ögödei (ruled 1229–41) intensified Mongol pressure in China. Korea was occupied in 1231, and in 1234 the Chin dynasty succumbed to Mongol attacks. The establishment of the Yüan (Yuan dynasty) (Mongol) dynasty in China (1260–1368) was accomplished by the great khan Kublai (Kublai Khan) (1260–94), a grandson of Genghis.

Mongol rule

      The great khan Möngke (1251–59), who had sent his brother Kublai to conquer China, entrusted another of his brothers, Hülegü, with the task of consolidating the Mongol hold on Iran. In 1258 Hülegü occupied Baghdad and put an end to the ʿAbbāsid caliphate. He laid the foundations of a Mongol state in Iran, known as the Il-Khanate (Il-Khanid Dynasty) (because the il-khan was subordinate to the great khan in faraway Mongolia or China), which embraced, in addition to the Iranian plateau, much of Iraq, northern Syria, and eastern and central Anatolia and which, under Abaqha (1265–82), Arghun (Arghūn) (1284–91), Ghāzān (Ghāzān, Maḥmūd) (1295–1304), and Öljeitü (1304–17), became both powerful and highly civilized. Although practically independent, the il-khans of Iran (Persia) remained loyal to Möngke and Kublai, but, with the passing of Kublai, the drift toward full independence grew stronger. With Ghāzān's decision to make Islām the state religion—a gesture intended to gain the confidence of the majority of his subjects—a big step toward integration in the purely Iranian (as opposed to Mongol) tradition was taken. A lengthy conflict that pitted the il-khans against the Mamlūks (Mamlūk) of Egypt was not resolved until 1323, when a peace was concluded between the sultan al-Malik an-Nāṣir and Abū Saʿīd (1316–35), the last effective il-khan. After Abū Saʿīd's death the Il-Khanate, no longer held together by Mongol efficiency, disintegrated.

      In Iran and China the Mongol rulers, who increasingly linked their destinies with those of their sedentary subjects, inevitably began to lose their Mongol identity. But in the Central Asian heartland the descendants of Chagatai and Ögödei, sons of Genghis, maintained traditional steppe polities geared to the interests of their nomad followers and increasingly opposed to the policies of the great khan in China and his ally, the il-khan, in Iran. After Möngke's death in 1259 there was a struggle between his two younger brothers, Kublai and Arigböge. The steppe candidate, Arigböge, lost in his bid for supreme power to the older Kublai, and further attempts to reestablish the centre of Mongol power in the Central Asian heartland also were unsuccessful.

      The most active and successful proponent of this policy was Kaidu, a grandson of Ögödei, who made several attempts to carve out an empire for himself in the heartland from lands ruled by other Mongol princes. In the course of time, he extended his control over most of the Semirechye, Kashgaria, and Transoxania, and in 1269 he even assumed the title of great khan. Chagatai's descendants, enfeoffed with the territories stretching from Bishbaliq in the Dzungarian Basin westward to Samarkand, were to some extent victims of Kaidu's ambitions but for lack of better alternatives lent him their support. After Kaidu's death in 1301, however, the Chagataid khan Duwa hastened to make peace with his Mongol kin in both Iran and China.

      Thereafter the Chagataid khanate, coterminous with the Central Asian heartland, enjoyed a checkered fortune. For the next 30 years it remained united, but during the 1330s and '40s it split into a western and an eastern khanate, the former consisting of the area between the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya, together with much of what is today Afghanistan, while the latter comprised the Semirechye and Kashgaria.

      The Chagataid khans who ruled in the western khanate, where they usually resided in Bukhara, openly espoused Islām and a Muslim lifestyle, as did perhaps the majority of their followers. Northeast of the Syr Darya, the Chagataid rulers of the eastern khanate endeavoured to maintain the nomadic traditions of their ancestors—descendants of Genghis Khan—with a considerable degree of success. They continued to locate their headquarters in the Ili or Chu valley, while emirs of the important Mongol Dughlat clan, with whom the Chagataids were closely linked through marriage alliances, ruled the Tarim Basin on their behalf from Kashgar. To the inhabitants of Transoxania and Iran, the eastern Chagataid khanate was known as Mughulistān (literally, “Land of the Mongols”) and its inhabitants, unflatteringly, as Jāṭs (literally, “Robbers”).

      During the last third of the 14th century, the western Chagataid khanate passed under the control of the Barlas Turk Timur (d. 1405; known in the West as Tamerlane), while the eastern khanate went through a protracted period of political instability but also gradual Islāmization. Under a succession of vigorous 15th-century rulers—Esen Buga, Yunus, and Ahmad—the eastern khanate held its own, ringed as it was by Oyrat foes in Dzungaria, the Kyrgyz in the Tien Shan, and the Kazaks in the Semirechye. But decline did set in, temporarily postponed during the reign of Ahmad's able son Sultan Saʿīd Khān (1514–33), who ruled from Kashgar. By the beginning of the 17th century, however, the Chagataid khans in the east had become mere figureheads, with the towns under the quasi-theocratic rule of a family of Khwājahs originating from Bukhara, while the countryside was dominated by rival Kyrgyz confederacies. The line seems to have died out obscurely before the end of the century.

      Developments within the most enduring Mongol successor state, that of the Golden Horde, with its headquarters at Sarai on the lower Volga River, followed a rather different course. Its Islāmization, begun under Batu's brother Berke (1257–67), led to tensions with the il-khans but resulted in the forging of strong links with the Mamlūks (Mamlūk) of Egypt. The Mamlūks were themselves Kipchak Turks from the Kipchak steppes of southern Russia over which the khans of the Golden Horde ruled.

      The prosperity of the Golden Horde under Ghiyath ad-Dīn Muḥammad Öz Beg (Uzbek (Öz Beg)) between about 1312 and about 1341 stands in sharp contrast to the disintegrating Il-Khanate and Chagataid khanate, yet it had its own problems, both internal and external. From within, the growing and unavoidable antagonism between the Turko-Mongol ruling class, Turkish-speaking and now Muslim, and their Christian Russian subjects was exacerbated by the ceaseless dissensions among the members of the ruling house and the military elite, increasingly referred to by their Slav neighbours as Tatars (Tatar). In foreign policy, the peace concluded in 1323 between the il-khans and the Mamlūks weakened the Golden Horde's influence in Egypt, while the establishment of the Ottomans (Ottoman Empire) on the Dardanelles (1354) put a virtual end to commercial relations between the Volga and Nile valleys. Perhaps the gravest political mistake of the rulers of the Golden Horde was their failure to recognize that the West—with which, through the Russians, they had excellent links—offered a more fertile ground for further expansion than the sunbaked deserts of Turkestan. The khans of the Golden Horde, instead of controlling the Russian and Lithuanian princes, increasingly relied upon their help in internal and dynastic struggles that were rending the khanate. While their attention was drawn southward and eastward, they overlooked the rise of dangerous Russian and Lithuanian enemies in their rear.

      The policies of the khan Tokhtamysh (1376–95) differed from those of his predecessors. Hereditary ruler of the White Horde, its pastures located in western Siberia and extending to the lower reaches of the Syr Darya, Tokhtamysh was able to enlarge his power base by uniting its resources with those of the Golden Horde, of which he eventually made himself master. He thus introduced fresh “steppe power” into the Golden Horde at a time when it was no longer the force it had once been (in 1380 the Muscovites had inflicted a crushing, if temporary, defeat on the horde at Kulikovo Pole). Furthermore, instead of seeking the assistance of petty eastern European princes, Tokhtamysh hitched his wagon to the rising star of Timur, with whose support he reasserted Mongol supremacy in Russia.

      After Tokhtamysh's death the Golden Horde survived under the aegis of an able usurper, Edigü, but after Edigü's death in 1419 a process of disintegration set in. The core territories of the former Golden Horde, centred on the Volga-Don steppes, became known as the “Great Horde,” while outlying regions seceded to form independent khanates based on Kazan and Astrakhan on the Volga, the Crimea (Crimea, khanate of the), western Siberia, and the Nogay steppe east of the lower Volga. All eventually fell victim to dynastic feuds, internecine rivalry, and Muscovite expansionism. Thus, in the case of the Kazan khanate, its founder Ulugh Muḥammad (c. 1437–45) bequeathed the throne to his able son Maḥmud (or Maḥmutek), who reigned with conspicuous success between 1445 and 1462. Maḥmud's brothers, however, fled for sanctuary to Vasily II of Moscow, who set up a puppet khanate for one of them (Kasim) at Gorodets-on-the-Oka (thereafter renamed Kasimov). The khanate of Kasimov was to be a thorn in Kazan's flesh until the latter's extinction in 1552. Kasimov itself survived as a political fiction until about 1681, by which time the last khans had abandoned Islām for Christianity.

      In 1502 the Great Horde was extinguished and its lands annexed by the khan of the Crimea, Mengli Girai, who had already placed himself under Ottoman suzerainty in 1475. Kazan fell to the troops of Ivan IV the Terrible (Ivan IV) of Moscow in 1552, and Astrakhan was annexed two years later. The khanate of Sibir (western Siberia), after a stubborn resistance, submitted to Boris Godunov, the regent for Ivan's son Fyodor I (1584–98). Only the khanate of the Crimea was left, separated from Muscovy by the still-unconquered Ukrainian steppe and enjoying some protection because of its status as an Ottoman vassal. It survived for two more centuries, until Catherine the Great's conquest in 1783. Its capital, Bakhchisaray (Bakhchysaray), long a centre of Tatar culture, was to take on a new life in the late 19th century as the home of the Tatar national revival associated with the name of Ismail Bey Gasprinski.

Timur

      While the Golden Horde was beginning to enter its long decline in the late 14th century, the demise of Chagataid rule in the area between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya was taking place as a result of the rise of Timur (Timurid Dynasty). Timur first united under his leadership the Turko-Mongol tribes located in the basins of the two rivers. With the assistance of these tribes he expanded into the neighbouring regions of Khorāsān, Sīstān, Khwārezm, and Mughulistān before embarking upon extensive campaigning in what are now Iran and Iraq, eastern Turkey, and the Caucasus region. In addition, he launched two successful attacks on his erstwhile protégé, Tokhtamysh, ruler of the Golden Horde. In 1398–99 Timur invaded northern India and sacked Delhi, and between 1399 and 1402 he turned westward again to harry the Egyptian Mamlūks in Syria and the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I, whom he captured in battle near Ankara. At the time of his death at Otrar on the Syr Darya in 1405, Timur was leading his forces on an invasion of China.

      Timur never assumed openly the full attributes of sovereignty, contenting himself with the title of emir while upholding the fictional authority of a series of puppet khans of the line of Chagatai, to whom he claimed kinship by marriage; in consequence he styled himself güregen, meaning “son-in-law” (i.e., of the Chagataid khan). He seems to have lacked the innate administrative capacity or the foresight of Genghis Khan, and after Timur's death his conquests were disputed among his numerous progeny. In the ensuing struggles his fourth son, Shāh Rukh (Shāh Rokh) (1407–47), emerged victorious. He abandoned his father's capital of Samarkand for Herāt in Khorāsān (now in western Afghanistan), where he ruled in great splendour, leaving his son, Ulūgh Beg, as his deputy in the former capital. Ulūgh Beg's rule in Samarkand between 1409 and 1447 probably brought a considerable measure of tranquility to the long-troubled region. An enthusiastic astronomer and the builder of a celebrated observatory, Ulūgh Beg ensured that during his lifetime Samarkand would be a major centre of scientific learning, especially in astronomy and mathematics. He was killed on the orders of his son, ʿAbd al-Laṭīf, in 1449.

      Throughout the second half of the 15th century, the western part of Central Asia was divided into a number of rival principalities ruled by descendants of Timur, among which Bukhara and Samarkand were the most important. The courts of these rulers witnessed an extraordinary cultural florescence in literature, the arts, and architecture, with Chagatai Turkish, a dialect derived partly from Khakani, the language spoken at the Karakhanid court (and a precursor of modern Uzbek), emerging as a flexible vehicle for sophisticated literary expression. These Timurid epigones, however, were locked in unceasing rivalry with each other and were unable to combine against intruders from beyond their frontiers. By the close of the century, therefore, all the Timurid possessions in Central Asia had passed into the hands of the Uzbeks.

The Uzbeks

      The early history of the Uzbek people (Uzbek) (whose rulers were descendants of a younger brother of Batu, khan of the Golden Horde) is wrapped in obscurity, but by the mid-15th century they had migrated from their original homeland, east of the Ural Mountains, southeast toward the lower Syr Darya, whence, under their leader, Abūʾl-Khayr Khan, they began to threaten the Timurids across the river. However, before Abūʾl-Khayr could undertake a full-scale invasion, he was killed in battle in 1468 by two rebellious kinsmen who, refusing to recognize his assertion of paramountcy, had defected, together with their tribal followers, and placed themselves under the nominal suzerainty of the Chagataid khan of Mughulistān. Their descendants were to become the Kazak (Kazakh) hordes of later centuries.

      With the death of Abūʾl-Khayr, the fortunes of the Uzbeks temporarily declined, only to be revived under the leadership of his grandson, Muḥammad Shaybānī, who by 1500 had made himself master of Samarkand as well as of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya basins and was advancing into Khorāsān (Herāt fell to him in 1507) when he was defeated and killed in 1510 by Shah Ismāʿil Ṣafavi. He had, however, changed the course of Central Asian history. By the time of his death, all the lands between the Syr Darya and Amu Darya were in Uzbek (Uzbek khanate) hands, and so they were to remain. Throughout the 16th century, Muḥammad Shaybānī's kinsmen ruled over a powerful and aggressive khanate from Bukhara. They continued Muḥammad Shaybānī's feud with the Iranian Ṣafavids (Ṣafavid Dynasty), articulated along Shīʿite-versus-Sunnite lines, and with the Mughal Dynasty in India, whose founder, the Timurid Babur, had been driven out of Central Asia by Shaybānī. In contrast, friendly, if sporadic, ties with the Ottomans (Ottoman Empire) were maintained by way of the Volga-Don steppes. Unlike the Ottomans, Ṣafavids, and Mughals, however, the Uzbeks had only limited access to firearms (gun), which placed them at a considerable disadvantage with their rivals.

      During Shaybanid rule, and even more under the Ashtarkhanids (also known as Astrakhanids, Tuquy-Timurids, or Janids) who succeeded them during the 1600s, Central Asia experienced a decline in prosperity compared with the preceding Timurid period, in part because of a marked reduction in the transcontinental caravan trade following the opening of new oceanic trade routes. In the 1700s the basins of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya passed under the control of three Uzbek khanates claiming legitimacy in their descent from Genghis Khan. These were, from west to east, the Qungrāts based on Khiva in Khwārezm (1717–1920), the Mangits in Bukhara (1753–1920), and the Mings in Kokand (Qǔqon; c. 1710–1876), in the upper valley of the Syr Darya. During this same period, east of the Pamirs, Kashgaria was torn apart by the rivalries of Khwājahs and Kyrgyz; in the Semirechye the Kazaks were locked in conflict with the Mongol Oyrats and Dzungars; while between the Aral and Caspian seas the Turkmens roamed the northern borders of Iran, enslaving the sedentary peoples there and transporting them to Bukhara to labour in the oases. The time was ripe for Russian intervention, made easier by the intruders' possession of cannon and firearms.

The modern period: the age of decadence

      From the beginnings of recorded history, pastoral nomadism, practiced on a grandiose scale, was the economic basis of the great Central Asian empires. Once the domestication of the horse was sufficiently advanced to allow for its use in warfare (military technology), the superiority of the mounted archer (cavalry) over the foot soldier or the war chariot was never effectively challenged.

The waning of nomadic military power

      When headed by capable leaders, well-trained and disciplined mounted troops were almost invincible. The sedentary civilizations could not, by their very nature, put aside for breeding purposes pastures sufficiently large to sustain a cavalry force that could equal that of the pastoral nomads (nomadism); hence the latter's military superiority remained a constant for about 2,000 years of Eurasian history.

      At its highest degree of development, Central Asian nomad society constituted a very sophisticated and highly specialized social and economic structure, advanced but also highly vulnerable because of its specialization and the lack of diversification of its economy. Geared almost entirely to the production of war matériel—i.e., the horse—when not engaged in warfare, it was unable to provide the people with anything but the barest necessities of life. To ensure their very existence, Central Asian empires had to wage war and obtain through raids or tribute the commodities they could not produce. When, owing to circumstances such as severe weather decimating the horse herds or inept leadership, raids against other peoples became impossible, the typical Central Asian nomad state had to disintegrate to allow its population to fend for itself and secure the necessities for a subsistence. Hunting and pastoral nomadism both needed vast expanses to support a thinly scattered population that did not naturally lend itself to strong, centralized political control. The skill of a Central Asian leader consisted precisely in the gathering of such dispersed populations and in providing for them on a level higher than they had been accustomed to. There was but one way to achieve this: successful raids on other, preferably richer, peoples. The military machinery was dependent on numbers, which then precluded self-sufficiency. In case of prolonged military reverses, the nomadic aggregation of warriors had to disband because it was only in dispersion that they could be economically autonomous without recourse to war.

      In the course of the 15th century, the steppe territory suitable for great horse herds began to shrink. In the east the Yung-lo (Yongle) emperor of the Ming led five major campaigns against the Mongols (1410–24), all successful but none decisive. Yet when, under the leadership of Esen Taiji (1439–55), the Mongol Oyrats (Oyrat) pushed as far as Peking (Beijing), they found the city defended by cannon, and they withdrew. In the Middle East, as noted above, the Ottoman and Ṣafavid gunpowder empires barred the road to the no-longer-invincible nomad cavalry, and, along the western borders of Central Asia, the Russians were soon to start on their decisive and irresistible march across Central Asia to the borders of China, India, and Iran.

The Russian conquests

      The most spectacular advance (colonialism, Western) of the Russians into Central Asia carried them eastward through the forest belt, where the hunting and fishing populations offered little resistance and where the much-coveted furs of Siberia could be found in abundance. Acting on behalf of the Stroganov (Stroganov Family) family of entrepreneurs, in 1578 or 1581 the Cossack Yermak (Yermak Timofeyevich) crossed the Urals and defeated the Shaybanid prince Kuchum, who alone represented organized political power in Siberia.

      The Russian advance from west to east across Siberia, motivated by commercial rather than political considerations, remains unparalleled in history for its rapidity. The native Finno-Ugrians—Samoyed or Tungus hunters accustomed to paying their fur tribute—were little concerned with the nationality of the tax collectors and found it no more unpleasant to deal with the Russians than with Turks or Mongols. Russian penetration was marked by the building of small forts, such as Tobolsk (1587) near the former capital of Kuchum, Tara (1594) on the Irtysh River, and Narym (1596) on the upper Ob River. The Yenisey was reached in 1619, and the town of Yakutsk on the Lena River was founded in 1632. About 1639 the first small group of Russians reached the Pacific Ocean in the neighbourhood of present-day Okhotsk. About 10 years later, Anadyrsk was founded on the shores of the Bering Sea, and, by the end of the century, the Kamchatka Peninsula was annexed. When advanced Russian parties reached the Amur River about the mid-17th century, they entered the Chinese sphere of interest. Although some clashes occurred, restraint on both sides led to the signing of the treaties of Nerchinsk (Nerchinsk, Treaty of) (1689) and Kiakhta (1727), which remained in force until 1858. To this day, the border delineated at Kiakhta has not been altered substantially.

      The thorniest question to be dealt with in the early Russo-Chinese negotiations concerned the Mongols—wedged between the two Great Powers—who, in the course of the 16th and 17th centuries, reasserted their control over most of the steppe belt. In the 15th century the western Mongols, or Oyrats, had become quite powerful under Esen Taiji, but, under the strong leadership of Dayan Khan (ruled 1470–1543) and his grandson Altan Khan (Altan) (1543–83), the eastern Mongols—more precisely the Khalkha tribe—gained ascendancy. In 1552 Altan took possession of what was left of Karakorum, the old Mongol capital. Altan's reign saw the conversion of a great many Mongols to the tenets of the Dge-lugs-pa (Yellow Hat) sect of Tibetan Buddhism, a religion that, until the 1920s, played a major role in Mongol life. The attempts of Ligdan Khan (Ligdan) (1604–34) to unite the various Mongol tribes failed not only because of internal dissensions but also on account of the rising power of the Manchu, to whom he was forced to surrender. The active Central Asian policy of China's Ch'ing (Qing dynasty) (Manchu) dynasty brought a lasting transformation in the political structure of the region.

      More distant from China, the Oyrats could pursue a more independent course. One of their tribes, the Dzungars (Dzungar), under the leadership of Galdan ( Dga'-ldan; 1676–97), created a powerful state that remained a serious menace to China until 1757, when the Ch'ien-lung emperor defeated their last ruler, Amursana, and thus put an end to the last independent Mongol state prior to the creation, in 1921, of Outer Mongolia (the Khalkha princes had submitted to the Manchu in 1691).

      The treaties of Nerchinsk and Kiakhta established the northern border of the Chinese zone of influence, which included Mongolia. In the wars against the Dzungars, the Chinese established their rule over East Turkestan and Dzungaria. China's western boundary remained undefined, but it ran farther west than it does today and included Lake Balkhash and parts of the Kazak steppe.

      Wedged between the Russian and Chinese empires, unable to break through the stagnant but solid Ottoman and Ṣafavid barriers, the Turkish nomads of the steppe lying east of the Volga and the Caspian Sea and south of Russian-occupied Siberia found themselves caught in a trap from which there was no escape. If there is cause for surprise, it lies in the lateness rather than in the fact of the ultimate Russian conquest.

Denis Sinor Gavin R.G. Hambly

      West of the Uzbek khanates, between the Aral and Caspian seas, were the nomad Turkmens (Turkmen), notorious robbers who roamed the inhospitable land. The Kazaks, who during the 17th century divided into three “hordes,” roamed between the Volga and the Irtysh. During the 16th and 17th centuries they fought Oyrats and Dzungars but succeeded in holding their own, and in 1771 Ablai, ruler of the “Middle Horde,” located west of Lake Balkhash, was confirmed as ruler by both China and Russia. Yet Russian expansion, motivated by the urge to get closer to the Indian Ocean, forced the Kazaks to yield. Although some Kazak leaders, such as the sultan Kinesary, put up spirited resistance (1837–47), the line of the Syr Darya was reached by the Russians toward the middle of the 19th century.

      The Uzbek khanate of Kokand was annexed in 1876; those of Khiva and Bukhara became Russian protectorates in 1873 and 1868, respectively. The conquest of the Turkmens in the last quarter of the 19th century defined Russia's (now Turkmenistan's) southern frontier with Iran and Afghanistan.

Under Russian rule

 The Russian conquests in Central Asia had given the tsars control of a vast area of striking geographic and human diversity, acquired at relatively little effort in terms of men and money. The motives for the conquest had not been primarily economic; peasant colonization of the virgin steppes and the systematic cultivation of cotton were later developments. The factors that determined the Russian advance into the area were complex and interrelated. They included the historic pull of the frontier, the thirst for military glory on the part of the officer corps, and the fear of further British penetration into Central Asia from across the Indus River, as well as the infectious rhetoric of imperialism common to the age.

      From the outset, Russia's objectives as a colonial (colonialism, Western) power were strictly limited: to maintain “law and order” at minimum cost and to disturb as little as possible the traditional way of life of its new subjects. Such an approach was favoured by the remoteness of the area and its isolation even from the rest of the Muslim (Islāmic world) world. It was improbable that an almost wholly illiterate population, its prejudices formed by a venal and obscurantist ʿulamā (ulama)ʾ (class of Muslim theologians and scholars), could offer any concerted resistance to the Russian presence; and such, indeed, proved to be the case. The Russians, like other colonial powers, did experience an occasional uprising, generally of a very localized character, but the overwhelming military superiority displayed by the Russians at the time of the initial conquest, the inability of the inhabitants of the khanates to offer effective resistance, and the heavy-handedness with which subsequent insurrection or insubordination was dealt ensured minimal opposition. Finally, by preserving the titular sovereignty of the emir of Bukhara and the khan of Khiva, they left a substantial part of the population, especially the urban classes, most deeply devoted to the Islāmic way of life, under traditionally minded Muslim rulers.

Tsarist rule

      Yet the Russians, whether intentionally or not, became agents of change throughout the area in much the same way as any other colonial power. The regional economy was gradually realigned to meet the Russian need for raw materials and new markets. This required the construction of railroads (railroad): by 1888 the Trans-Caspian Railroad had reached Samarkand; between 1899 and 1905 the Orenburg-Tashkent Railroad was completed; the Turkestan-Siberian Railroad came later, begun just before World War I and not completed until 1930. In Tashkent and Samarkand new European suburbs were laid out at a distance from the walled native cities, but, as in the case of the newly established garrison towns, such islands of European life required local services and supplies. Nor did the Russians wholly ignore the welfare of their new subjects. An effort was made, halfheartedly at first, to put down the indigenous slave trade, irrigation projects were initiated, and bilingual elementary education was cautiously introduced. As elsewhere in colonial Asia, the work of Russian scholars studying the literature, history, and antiquities of the Central Asian peoples aroused on the part of a numerically small but influential Russian-educated elite, especially among the Kazaks, nostalgic awareness of a colourful past and a sense of national, or cultural, identity.

      Of the major ethnic groups in Central Asia—Uzbeks, Kazaks, Turkmens, Tajiks, and Kyrgyz—the Kazaks were the first to respond to the impact of Russian culture. Their early contacts with their new masters had in the main been carried out through intermediaries—Kazan Tatars, who, paradoxically, had contributed to strengthening the Kazaks' awareness of being part of a greater Muslim world community and their sense of being a “nation” rather than a welter of tribes and clans. Moreover, through the Tatars they were exposed to current Pan-Turkish (Pan-Turkism) and Pan-Islāmic propaganda. In the 1870s the Russians countered Tatar influence by establishing bilingual Russian-Kazak schools, from which emerged a Westernized elite of considerable distinction.

Kazak unrest

      This “dialogue” between the Russians and Kazaks was, however, doomed by the government's policy of settling peasants (peasant) from European Russia and Ukraine on the Kazak steppe, where agricultural settlement on an extensive scale could be undertaken only by curtailing the area available for grazing by the nomads' livestock and by restricting their seasonal migrations. As early as 1867–68 the northwestern fringes of the Kazak steppe had been the scene of violent protests at the presence of colonists, but it was not until the last decade of the century that the movement got fully under way with the arrival of upward of one million peasants, resulting in the inevitable expropriation of Kazak grazing grounds and in savage conflict between the Kazaks and the intruders. Finally in 1916, during World War I, the Kazaks, driven to desperation by the loss of their lands and by the ruthlessness of the wartime administration, rose up in protest against a decree conscripting the non-Russian subjects of the empire for forced labour. The rebellion assumed the character of a popular uprising, in which many colonists and many more Kazaks and Kyrgyz were massacred. The revolt was put down with the utmost savagery, and more than 300,000 Kazaks are said to have sought refuge across the Chinese frontier.

      With the collapse of tsarist rule, the Westernized Kazak elite formed a party, the Alash Orda, as a vehicle through which they could express their aspirations for regional autonomy. Having found during the Russian Civil War that the anticommunist “Whites” were implacably opposed to their aspirations, the Kazaks cast in their lot with the “Reds.” After the war the Kazaks were granted their own republic, in which, for the first few years, the leaders of the Alash Orda maintained a fairly dominant position and were active in protecting Kazak interests. After 1924, however, direct confrontation with the Communist Party became more intense, and in 1927–28 the Alash Orda leaders were liquidated as “bourgeois nationalists.” The history of the Kazaks in the first half of the 20th century was bleak indeed—expropriation of their grazing lands under the tsars, the bloody uprising and reprisals of 1916, the losses in the civil war and in the famine in 1921, the purges of the intelligentsia in 1927–28, collectivization during the 1930s, and further peasant colonization after World War II.

      In Transoxania—which was divided between the administration of the Russian governor-general of Turkestan, based on Tashkent, and that of the emir of Bukhara and the khan of Khiva—opposition to colonial domination was centred in the most conservative elements of a profoundly Islāmic society, the ʿulamā (ulama)ʾ and the inhabitants of the bazaar. Nonetheless, the Russians favoured, for reasons of expediency, the preservation of the traditional social framework and endeavoured, with only partial success, to insulate the inhabitants of the region from contact with the more “advanced” Muslims of the empire—the Volga and Crimean Tatars. In this they were aided by the fact that the virtual absence of European colonization provided no fuel for popular resentment comparable to that felt by the Kazaks; and, in consequence, the Westernized products of the bilingual Russian-Uzbek educational system, concerned primarily with reform of the Islāmic way of life, regarded the Muslim “ultras” as their most dangerous opponents.

      If the main influence in shaping the outlook of the Kazak intelligentsia was the educational system imported from European Russia, the catalyst in the case of the Uzbeks was knowledge of the educational (education) reforms and the Pan-Turkish ideology of the Crimean Tatar renaissance of the late 19th century. The Uzbek reformers, known as Jadids, advocated the introduction of a modern educational system as a prerequisite for social change and cultural revitalization; despite intense opposition from the clerical classes, they opened their first school in Tashkent in 1901 and by 1914 had established more than 100. After 1908, influenced by the Young Turks of the Ottoman Empire, the Young Bukharans and the Young Khivans worked for a program of radical institutional change in the ramshackle governments of the khanates. It may be doubted, however, whether by 1917 the Uzbek intelligentsia had made any substantial impact outside a fairly narrow circle of like-minded persons.

Soviet rule

      Neither before nor after the Russian Revolution (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) of 1917 were the nationalist aspirations of the Muslims of Central Asia compatible with the interests of the Russian state or those of the European population of the region. This was demonstrated once and for all when the troops of the Tashkent Soviet crushed a short-lived Muslim government established in Kokand in January 1918. Indeed, the Soviet authorities in Central Asia regarded the native intelligentsia, even the most “progressive” of them, with lively and (from their point of view) justifiable apprehension. At the same time, there was the problem of an active resistance on the part of conservative elements, which was anti-Russian as much as anticommunist. Having extinguished the khanate of Khiva in 1919 and that of Bukhara in 1920, local Red Army units found themselves engaged in a protracted struggle with the Basmachis (Basmachi Revolt), guerrillas operating in the mountains in the eastern part of the former khanate of Bukhara. Not until 1925 did the Red Army gain the upper hand.

      Thereafter, Central Asia was increasingly integrated into the Soviet system through the implementation of planned economy and improved communications, through the communist institutional and ideological framework of control, and, for young males, through compulsory service in the Red Army. The economy of the region became further distorted to meet the needs of the central planners. Traditional religion, values, and culture were suppressed, but in such areas as education, health care, and welfare Central Asians benefited to a degree from their forced participation in the system.

      Eventually the Soviets developed an ingenious strategy for neutralizing the two common denominators most likely to unite Central Asians against continuing control from Moscow: Islāmic culture and Turkish ethnicity. After a protracted period of trial and error, their ultimate solution was the creation of five Soviet socialist republics in the region: the Kazakh S.S.R. (now Kazakhstan) in 1936, the Kirgiz S.S.R. (now Kyrgyzstan) in 1936, the Tadzhik S.S.R. (now Tajikistan) in 1929, the Turkmen S.S.R. (now Turkmenistan) in 1924, and the Uzbek S.S.R. (now Uzbekistan) in 1924. The plan was to will into being five new nations whose separate development under close surveillance and firm tutelage from Moscow would preempt the emergence of a “Turkestani” national identity and such concomitant ideologies as Pan-Turkism or Pan-Islāmism (Islāmic world). To some extent, this ethno-engineering reflected colonial conceptions of the peoples of Central Asia dating back to tsarist times.

      Thus the Kazaks (Kazakh), whose absorption into the Russian Empire had been a gradual process extending from the early 18th to the early 19th century, were perceived as wholly separate from the Uzbeks (Uzbek) south of the Syr Darya, whose territories had been annexed during the mid-19th century. As speakers of an Iranian language (Iranian languages), the Tajiks (Tajik) could be clearly distinguished from their Turkish-speaking neighbours, while the Russian perception of the nomadic (nomadism) Turkmens (Turkmen), whom they had conquered during the closing years of the 19th century, set them apart from the sedentary Uzbeks. Similarly, the Kyrgyz of the Issyk-Kul region (whom the Russians of tsarist times had confusingly designated “Kara-Kirgiz,” while applying the name “Kirgiz” to the Kazaks) were declared to be distinct from their Kazak neighbours.

      The colonial experience and 19th-century Russian ethnological and anthropological fieldwork were, then, when appropriate, enlisted by the Soviets to serve very different ideological ends. Inevitably, the boundaries of these artificial creations willed into being by Soviet fiat did not reflect the ethnic and cultural patterns of Central Asia, and all five republics contained substantial minority populations (among them, immigrants from European Russia), a situation which, with the coming of independence in 1991, was fraught with the likelihood of future conflicts. To ensure the success of this design for stabilizing Central Asia under Soviet rule, school textbooks, scholarly research and publishing, and cultural policies in general were devised to stress, on the one hand, the particular and unique experience of each republic and, on the other, the enduring benefits of the Russian connection, which paradoxically required that the tsarist conquests and their consequences be represented as an overwhelming boon to Central Asians. Great significance was given to language policy, with strenuous efforts being made to emphasize the linguistic differences among the various Turkish languages (Turkic languages) spoken in the republics, clear evidence of intent to divide and rule.

      During the last two decades of Soviet history, the remoteness and economic backwardness of Central Asia meant that this region felt less intensely the winds of change beginning to blow through metropolitan Russia, Ukraine, or the Baltic republics, although from 1979 Soviet intervention in neighbouring Afghanistan produced ripple effects across the frontier. Historians, however, may conclude that the most significant aspects of the history of Central Asia under the Soviets were the extent to which its peoples managed to retain their traditional cultural heritage under the most debilitating circumstances.

      Now that all five are independent sovereign states, their future destinies will be of more than regional significance. Central Asia will no longer be the backwater that it became when the age of European maritime discovery brought to an end the centuries-old transcontinental caravan trade.

Gavin R.G. Hambly

Additional Reading

René Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia (1970; originally published in French, 1939), although dated, is still the most comprehensive and basically sound survey in English. Denis Sinor, Inner Asia: History—Civilization—Languages, 2nd rev. ed. (1971), serves as a broad overview. Additional works on the region's history include Gavin Hambly (ed.), Central Asia (1969; originally published in German, 1966); Geoffrey Wheeler, The Modern History of Soviet Central Asia (1964, reprinted 1975); and A.H. Dani et al. (eds.), History of Civilizations of Central Asia (1992– ). Various topics on Central Asia are treated in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed. (1954– ). The best short sketch on the region's history is found in Eshan Yarshater (ed.), Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 5, fascicles 2–3 (1990–91).Denis Sinor (ed.), The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia (1990), is a detailed survey down to the 13th century. Archaeology and ancient history are discussed in Grégoire Frumkin, Archaeology in Soviet Central Asia (1970); and Philip L. Kohl (ed.), The Bronze Age Civilization in Central Asia: Recent Soviet Discoveries (1981). Richard N. Frye, The Golden Age of Persia: The Arabs in the East (1975), provides a fine introduction on the coming of the Arabs and Islām. A pioneer study is H.A.L. Gibb, The Arab Conquests in Central Asia (1923, reprinted 1970). Works on the Ṣāmānids and Karakhanids include Richard N. Frye, Bukhara: The Medieval Achievement (1965); and W. Barthold (V.V. Bartold), Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion, 4th ed. (1977; originally published in Russian, 2 vol., 1898–1900).Excellent accounts of the age of Mongol domination include David Morgan, The Mongols (1986); and Bertold Spuler, The Mongols in History (1971; originally published in French, 1961), and History of the Mongols . . . (1972, reissued 1988; originally published in German, 1968). The culminating phase of Mongol rule is discussed in Thomas T. Allsen, Mongol Imperialism (1987). Much information relating to Central Asia in the Mongol and Timurid periods is found in The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 5 (1968), and vol. 6 (1986). Beatrice F. Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (1989), is essential reading on Central Asia during the lifetime of Timur. Information on the Chagataid and Timurid periods can be obtained from W. Barthold (V.V. Bartold), Four Studies on the History of Central Asia, 3 vol., trans. from Russian (1956–62). Audrey Burton, Bukharan Trade, 1558–1718 (1993), details foreign economic links during the Shaybanid and Ashtarkhanid periods. W.H. Abdi et al. (eds.), Interaction Between Indian and Central Asian Science and Technology in Medieval Times, 2 vol. (1990), discusses topics such as music, architecture, astronomy, and mathematics.The Russian conquest and colonization of Central Asia is fully described in Richard A. Pierce, Russian Central Asia, 1867–1917 (1960). Other useful works include Seymour Becker, Russia's Protectorates in Central Asia: Bukhara and Khiva, 1865–1924 (1968); Edward Allworth (ed.), Central Asia: 130 Years of Russian Dominance, 3rd ed. (1994); Serge A. Zenkovsky, Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia (1960); and Hélène Carrère D'encausse, Islam and the Russian Empire: Reform and Revolution in Central Asia (1988; originally published in French, 1966). The Soviet period is treated in Michael Rywkin, Russia in Central Asia (1963); Elizabeth E. Bacon, Central Asians Under Russian Rule: A Study in Culture Change (1966, reissued 1980); and Alexandre Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, Islam in the Soviet Union, trans. from French (1967). Shireen T. Hunter, Central Asia Since Independence (1996), chronicles the evolving republics.Edward Allworth David Roger Smith Gavin R.G. Hambly Denis Sinor

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