H. B. Paksoy
Oct. 1991
During the past two and a half millennia, Central Asia was buffeted by several political and religious doctrines. Although the invasion of Alexander of Macedon (356-323 B. C.) did not leave an enduring imprint, the event itself might be taken as an early date marker. The later direct participation of Central Asia in world events did, and still continues to influence the political and cultural events in Europe as well as the rest of Asia.1
Locus and Labels
Today, many authors use the designation "Muslim" in their analyses when referring to the territories or people of Central Asia. This is a relatively new phenomenon among a long string of classifications. Central Asia was was labelled "Tartary," or "Independent Tartary" by romantic European cartographers and travellers in the 15th-17th centuries, and the inhabitants were called "Tartar."2 Perhaps Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), by writing fiction about Timur (d. 1405), with a stretch of imagination calling him Tamburlane,3 is one popular source of this peccadillo. But Marlowe's and like-minded authors' writings also betray the inadequate information the Western world possessed on Central Asia despite their fascination with the area. What they did not know, the authors created.4 Only later would the Westerners begin to learn the Central Asian languages and dialects, in order to read what the Central Asians had written about themselves.
With the Russian encroachments (East of the Urals, South of Siberia) after the turn of the 18th century, the designation began to be changed to "Kirghizia" and "Kirghiz,"5 a tribal confederation.6 After the Occupation by tsarist armies, when tsarist bureaucrats began to understand the language and dialects of the region in the 19th century, they commenced employing the terms "Turkistan," "Turk" and "Sart." However, the Imperial Russian bureaucratic designations inorodtsy (aliens) and "Muslim" were employed with the establishment of tsarist Military Governorships in Central Asia, especially after 1865.7 The designation Turkistan Military District has been in continuous use since the late 19th c. Meanwhile, portions of the population, on some of whom tsarist citizenship was imposed, were still regarded Turk, Tatar, Kirghiz, Sart; including those living to the West of the Urals (Tatars, Bashkurt), and either side of the Caucasus mountain ranges, including Azerbaijan.8 The Central Asians living around the Altai mountain range were assigned still other designations, despite what they called themselves. Moreover, those designations were changed at various junctures. As Denis Sinor points out in his introduction to Radloff's Proben,9 in the past 100 years, "New, artificial, names have been created and it is not always easy to establish equivalencies."10
This tendency applied to the labels of "languages" as well: Altai was known as Kara-Tatar, later changed to Oirot (doubly misleading, since Oirot is a Mongolian tribal sub-division), and back to Altai; Tuvinian was originally Soyon and Urinkhai and sometimes Shor; Khakass was called Abakan or Abakan-Tatar; Kachin and Sagay were jointly converted into Khakass; Uyghur first became Taranchi, and later Modern Uyghur; Kazakh was Kirghiz. It should be noted that in no Turk dialect is there any such differentiation as Turkic and Turkish. This distinction is a new introduction into the politics of nationalities, and exists in some Western languages, as well as Russian, with the latter referring to the Ottoman or Turkish republican domains and the former, to other Turks.11
With the advent of the glasnost (openness) in Moscow's thinking, the Russian chauvinism began to gain publicity once more. In a recent article on the potential dissolution of the USSR, a Russian nationalist included historically non-Russian lands (the Volga-Urals, Siberia, the Altai) in his picture of a "new Russia."12
The designation "Altai," as Ozbek and Kazakh, are primarily geographical, tribal or confederation names, not ethnonyms. Those appellations were mistakenly or deliberately turned into "ethnic"or "political" classifications by early explorers or intelligence agents arriving in those lands ahead of the Russian armies and bureaucrats. Early in the 8th century, the Turks themselves provided an account of their identity, political order and history. These were recorded on the scores of stelea, written in their unique alphabet and language, and erected in the region of Orkhon-Yenisey.13 This information is corroborated in earlier written sources, in the Byzantine and Chinese chronicles, the Turks' Western and Eastern neighbors, respectively. Most mountains, cities, lakes, deserts, rivers in this region, from early historical times until the Soviet period, carried names of Turkish origin.14 They are being restored in the late 1980s as demanded by the Central Asians. Turkish language and its many dialect groupings such as Orkhon, Kipchak, Uyghur, Chaghatay, constitute a very large portion of the Altaic family. The dialect currently spoken in the Altai region is related to old Orkhon and Uygur. Only since the Soviet language "reforms," especially of the 1930s, have the dialects been asserted to be "individual and unrelated Central Asian languages." They are mutually intelligible.
After the dissolution of the Mongol empire, the Chinese (Manchu) asserted control over portions of the previous eastern Mongolian territories in the 18th c. (approx. 1757-1912), including a part of a larger Altai region, the "Tuva" area Altaian Turks became vassals of the Chinese. Tuva was designated a "country" for the benefit of the tsarist government, and in 1912, like Mongolia, gained independence from China. It became a Russian "protectorate" in 1914.15 During 1921, the Tuva People's Republic was created, much like the Mongolian Republic, theoretically not part of USSR. In 1944, Tuva People's Republic "asked" to join the Soviet Union. The Altaian Turks eventually were incorporated into the Russian Empire, in the Altai okrug, about the size of France and had a total population of 3.6 million, including many Russian settlers. administered directly by the tsarist Cabinet. The inhabitants were counted as inorodtsy (aliens). The number of settlers grew, displacing the native population from their land. During 1907-09 alone, 750,000 Russian settlers came to the Altai region, taking land that had been declared "excess." During the 19th c., the railroad had linked Altaian towns to Russian markets, thus strengthening the exclusive economic links with Russia. A Bolshevik-dominated soviet took power in the capital, Barnaul in 1920. Thus the greater part of Altai region was incorporated into the ever expanding USSR.
These were and are part of the Nationalities Policies originally designed by the tsarist bureaucrats and put into use by Lenin and expanded by Stalin. By and large, these policies subsequently remained in force regardless of the changes in the CPSU leadership.16 Hence, the discussion centering on one appellation may not provide the full understanding of events in Central Asia. Religion --specifically Islam-- has its place in this society as in any other, in the realm of individual conscience or in mass politics. Whether or not religion reached the point of a universal identity for the Central Asians, submerging all other possible identities, has been a matter of prolonged debate. The tsarist era historian (of German origin) W. Barthold (1869-1930) declared that, when asked, a Central Asian would identify himself in a three step process: 1. local (i.e. name of village or tribal origin); 2. regional (Bukhara, Khorasan, etc); 3. religious (Muslim). Bennigsen reversed that order. Later observers emphasized a crucial fact: the identity of the questioner. The Central Asians may indeed have answered as outlined
above, but due to considerations not immediately clear to the questioner. The Central Asian respondent did not know the true motivation for the outsiders' curiosity. Perhaps he was a tsarist colonial tax collector, Bolshevik political agent or military surveyor, none of whom was especially welcome. The Central Asian did not have to bare their souls to those "aliens." Bennigsen, recognizing this phenomenon and the tendency to "conceal the true self- identification" born out of concern for self-preservation, later called that practice (of giving variable responses according to the perceived identity of the questioner) "the tactical identity."17
The Soviet apparatus had other opinions concerning the identity issue, including the designation of "nationalities" in the smallest possible sizes. No small "nation" could block the creation of a new breed, the "Soviet person" (Sovetskii chelovek) devoid of past affiliations and allegiances.18 The Central Asians' own expressions of identity were contained in their own dialects in their local and regional media. These declarations are by no means a product of the Soviet period, for they go back centuries. Only recently have those examples reached the attention of the outside observers.19
Arrival of Islam in Central Asia
Islam is the latest religion to reach Central Asia. The indigenous Tengri and Shamanism,20 which appears to have co- existed with Zoroastrianism, prevailed even after the arrival of other religions such as Buddhism and Manichaeanism.21 The introduction of Islam into Central Asia went through roughly three stages: force of arms and alms; the scholasticist madrasa; Sufism. But the first group to come into contact with Islam in Central Asia were not the Shamanistic or Buddhist Turks. It was the Zoroastrian Persians.22
Within 100 years of the death of the Prophet Muhammad, i.e. by 750, the Muslim Arabs had expanded their political state far beyond the Arab lands. Consequently, the Muslim community of believers, umma, began to encompass ethnicities beyond the Arabs themselves. The first non-Arabs to accept Islam in large numbers were the Persians, whose empire the Arab forces defeated in a series of battles between 637-651.
Far more numerous than the Arabs, and with a tradition of kingship and bureaucracy going back for many centuries, the Persians altered the character of Islam in southwest Asia. As Richard N. Frye has put it, the influx of Persians into the umma "broke the equation that Arab equals Muslim." He calls this process the "internationalization" of Islam. The large number of Zoroastrians in the vast Sassanian bureaucracy (scribes, tax- gatherers, translators, civil and foreign service officials, etc) forced the Arabs eventually to allow them special "protected" status like those of the Christians and Jews, though the Zoroastrians were not people of any "book." Thus administrative practice --including the caliph's rule when it was moved to Baghdad from Damascus in 750-- bore an unmistakable Persian stamp. The language of bureaucracy was Persian, though the language of religion remained Arabic.23
From here, early in the 8th century, the Islamic forces sought to extend their sway into Transoxania, to the Iranian (Samanid Empire centered in Bukhara)24 and Turkish (Uygur, Karluk)25 Empires centered in their ancient cities.26 Beyond the cities were the Chinese. The campaigns began around 705 and led within ten years to the defeat or subduing of the major cities and empires of Transoxania. This was also the time when Bilge Kagan and Kul Tigin of the Orkhon-Yenisey stelea were rebuilding their empire.27 But the death of the leading Arab general in Transoxania and civil wars among the Muslims were coupled with the rise of Chinese power in Mongolia, ended the contests for Transoxania and gave the local rulers some respite.28
Fighting resumed by mid-century. The execution of a Turkish ruler in Tashkent led the people of the town to call for aid from the Arabs and perhaps also from the Karluk Turks.29 In July 751, the Chinese forces lost to these combined armies ending Chinese influence in Central Asia. According to Barthold, this day was decisive in determining that Central Asia would be Turkish rather than Chinese. The Chinese, however, were also diverted by an uprising in the center of their own domains and entirely lost Central Asia.30
Thereafter, the local rulers throughout Transoxania and the empires built there --both Persian and Turkish-- partially professed Islam, until the Mongol conquests of Chinggiz Khan and his armies in the 13th c. The members of the steppe societies remained beyond the Islamic lands, and entered into the Islamic world almost exclusively as individuals, as military bondsmen, or mamluks. The mamluks came to constitute an elite cavalry (later palace guard) in many Muslim states, Arab, Persian and Turkish, for no training in a sedentary empire could produce a horseman and warrior equal to the steppe nomad. There are cases in which a mamluk would seize power from a weak ruler and found his own dynasty. Such is the case of Alptigin, founder of the Ghaznavid dynasty (994-1186) that ruled from Ghazna in what is now Afghanistan.31 On the Western edges of Central Asia, other tribal confederations --such as the Karakalpak and the Khazar-- held power "in a checkerboard pattern," as Peter Golden points out, centuries prior to the arrival of Mongols. Some had been converted to Judaism, others to Christianity.32 Both groups have left Turkic language documents using a number of alphabets, the first one being unique to themselves.33 The European missionaries were active among them, and one such group translated an eulogy to Jesus Christ into their language.34
By means of the mamluk phenomenon and by conversion of Turkish empires and populations, a third major people began, slowly at first, to enter the Islamic community and to alter it in their turn. The language of the Turks became the third major language of the Islamic world by the 10-11th centuries --the language of the military and, in sizeable number of cases, of imperial rule:35 In the East, the Ghaznavids (dynasty r. 994- 1186) and Karakhanids (10th-11th c.);36 in the Center, Seljuks/Oghuz (1018-1237)37 and the Timurids (15th-16th c.)38; in the West, the Ottomans (13th-20th c.);39 the Golden Horde Khanates (14th-16th c.)40 to the Northwest. The famed North African origin traveller Ibn Battuta (1304-1368) indicates that Islam was found to be making inroads into Crimea by the 14th century.41
"From the 11th century onwards, the Islamic world became increasingly ruled by Turkish dynasties until eventually, rulers of Turkish origin were to be found in such distant places from their homeland as Algeria and Bengal" writes C. E. Bosworth.42 It was in the 11th c. that Kasgarli Mahmud wrote the Kitab Diwan Lugat at Turk, to teach Turkish to non-Turks, as he explained in his introduction.43 Ettuhfet uz zekiyye fil lugat it Turkiyye, a mamluk period Kipchak Turkish grammar and dictionary appears to have been written with the same intention, but a bit later.44 It was also under the patronage of the 11th c. Turkish Ghaznavid ruler Mahmud that the Persian poet Firdawsi compiled the surviving fragments of the old Persian epic and "resuscitated" Persian in his Shahnama.45
In the 13th century, the armies of Chinggiz Khan (d. 1227), his sons and generals "reinvigorated" Transoxania (and other places from China to the Volga and eventually Budapest) with steppe elements, both Mongol and Turk. The Rus were but one of their vassals. The new empire was religiously tolerant, as were its predecessors, with the khans (rulers) often having Christian or Muslim wives. The khans themselves adhered to their traditional beliefs, Shamanism and, according to at least one source, of Tengri, the monotheistic pre-Islamic religion of the Turks. Within one century after the conquests ceased, however, most of the successor states, except that in China under Kublai Khan, would also embrace Islam, and became markedly less tolerant of other religions. Although this conversion contributed to their own political decline, the process strengthened the Islamic and Turkish (for the Turkish element was greater in those armies that moved farthest west) patterns that had existed in Central Asia before the Chinggizid conquests.46
After the Mongol irruption, the older political entities began a long process of fusion. Timur and his dynasty arose after that period, uniting Central Asia under his rule. Timur, a Turk of the Barlas clan used Chinggizid legitimacy, even taking a Mongol wife. He and his successors ruled Central Asia and northern India from the 14th century until the end of the Moghul dynasty of India in the 18th century (his direct descendant Babur 1483-1530 founded the Moghul dynasty).47 The Ottomans, whom Timur defeated, underwent serious difficulties in reasserting their authority in their former territories.48 Thus the three major peoples to accept Islam were firmly established --Arabs, Persians and Turks-- and knowledge was preserved and literature created in all three languages.
Scholarship in its many branches --philosophy, theology, law, medicine, astronomy and mathematics, poetry, manuals of statecraft-- were produced over the centuries by native Central Asian scholars who adhered to the new religion. Individuals such as Farabi (ca. 870-950)49, and Ibn-i Sina (d.1037)50 made original contributions and preserved knowledge of the ancient world when libraries were destroyed in warfare, including the Crusades.51 Others, for example, Ibn Turk (10th c.),52 Ulugbeg (d. 1449)53, Khorezmi (10th c.)54 contributed to the expansion of knowledge, especially mathematics. From their translations Europe was later able to recover that knowledge.
The post-Mongol period reflected the flexible use of languages. Babur (1483-1530) wrote his memoirs, the celebrated Baburname55 in Turkish, while his cousin held his court in Herat56 and produced enduring works of both Persian and Turkish poetry. Meanwhile, Fuzuli (d. 1556) was creating some of the best examples of poetry of the period in Turkish.57 In the famous correspondence of 1514 between Shah Ismail (r. 1501-1524), the Turkish founder of the Safavid dynasty of Iran (dynasty r. 1501- 1736)58, and the Ottoman sultan Selim I (r. 1512-20), Selim wrote in Persian, while the Ismail wrote in his native Turkish. Selim would defeat Ismail later that year in the famous battle of Chaldiran in 1514 thereby preserving his hold over eastern Asia Minor.
Political legitimacy in Central Asia always required mass communication. Perhaps the Shibaninama59 of the early 16th c. is a good example, seeking to convince the population that this ruler, Shiban of the Ozbeks, was every bit a good and capable ruler as those preceded him.60 This task, in an age before movable type, was accomplished through the medium of literature. Poetic anthologies, often in manuscript, were duplicated by copyists in palace libraries or by private savants. The contents of these collected treasures (or single poems) were committed to memory by individuals for later oral recitation. The "minds and hearts" campaigns were used more often than armed troops, for the poetry proved more effective than the sword in convincing the Central Asians. In this manner, the rulers also wished to preserve the history of their reigns.
The impetus for communication also came from the people, wishing to safeguard their heritage. The Oghuz, also called the Turkmen,61 constituted the basis of the Seljuk empire.62 After the fall of the Seljuk empire, the Oghuz/Turkmen groups did not disappear. Abul-Ghazi Bahadur Khan (1603-1663), ruler of Khiva, was asked by his Turkmen subjects (which constituted a large portion of the population) to compile the authoritative genealogy of their common lineage from many extant written variants. He prepared two, under the titles Secere-i Terakime (probably completed in 1659) and Secere-i Turk.63
These genealogies are quite apart from the dastan genre. The two constitute parallel series of reference markers on the identity map. The dastans are the principal repository of ethnic identity, history, customs and the value systems of its owners and composers, which commemorates their struggles for freedom.64 The Oghuz Khan dastan, recounting the deeds and era of the eponymous Oghuz Khan was one of the fundamental dastans.65 Despite their non-Turkish titles, genealogies, histories, or political tracts belonging to the Turks were originally written in Turkish. An example of this phenomenon is Firdaws al-Iqbal,66 written in the Chaghatay dialect. This is is also true of Ali Shir Navai (1441-1501) and his Muhakemat al Lugateyn.67 Quite a few of those original Turkish works were translated into Persian and Arabic, and came to be known in the west from those languages rather than the original Turkish.
Thus language alone was no sure indicator of ethnicity, for the educated came to be versed in the major languages of the Islamic world at --Arabic, Persian and later, Turkish. Yet, the differences among them remained. Many pre- Islamic values of each culture survived the transition to Islam and was preserved in the native language of each people. Islamic period works of various courts reflected the retention of traditional values. Among the "mirror for princes" works68 the earliest is the Turkish-Islamic work of statecraft, the 11th c. Kutadgu Bilig. It calls upon the king to be a just ruler, mindful of the needs of the people, and thereby echoes older traditions.69
Those Central Asians farthest from the border of Islamic lands were the last to adopt Islam and retained their traditional beliefs to the greatest degree. The Kazakh and Kirghiz of the steppe were converted to Islam only in the late 18th-early 19th centuries by Volga Tatars thanks to policies of Catherine II, of Russia (r. 1762-96), who apparently hoped that Islam would soften those populations and make them more receptive to the tsarist empire. She allowed the Tatars to represent her court in Transoxania trade. On the way, the merchants were encouraged to form settlements and convert nomads.70 The Kazakh and Kirghiz, even today, retain much of their pre-Islamic way of life including mastery of the horse, drinking kumiss71 and extensive personal independence of women so characteristic of steppe societies.72
Thus Arabs remained Arabs; Persians, Persians; and Turks remained Turks. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the non-Arabs would debate the real meaning of Islam for them and its role in their identities. The tension, even hostility, among them remained as well, and is documented by the slurs and stereotypes, and by frequent warfare (up to the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s) despite the ideal and rhetoric and dreams of Islamic brotherhood and the indivisibility of the umma.
Sufism
Sufism, one of the forces responsible for spreading Islam, is the "mystical dimension of Islam," as the preeminent scholar of Sufism, Annemarie Schimmel called her classic work on the subject.73 In each of the topics referenced in this study, the Western reader relying only on English-language works, must be extremely cautious. This is true also on the subject of sufism. Over the centuries, excesses and indulgences also took place in the name of sufism. More than a few Western writers have described the entire complex phenomenon of Sufism on the basis of such exaggerated events. Schimmel remains the most reliable, and sympathetic, source available in English. Her approach takes account of sufism as an individual mystical quest and as the basis for organized brotherhoods called tariqa. Because the tariqa develop later in history than sufism itself, she addresses them toward the end of her volume.74 One of the earlier sufis was Ahmet Yesevi (lived and died in current day Kazakistan), wrote his major work Hikmet in Turkish in the 12th c.75
Meanwhile, the other key institution responsible for the diffusion of Islam, the madrasas (scholastic schools), declined in quality; failing to square themselves to the changing social and economic conditions around them.76 They had not clarified a method of comparing and contrasting their own methods against the state of evolving knowledge in the world. As one result, the rote system in use sapped the vitality of original thinking and calcified what remained.
Tsarist Expansion
The tsarist state had been expanding across Asia since the conquest of the Volga in the 1550s by Ivan IV "the Terrible" (r. 1530-1583). In the 19th century, it began its southward expansion toward Transoxania from forts on the steppe. In the south, the British East India Company had established itself at the end of the 18th century in India, destroying independent princedoms in the South and the last of the Moghuls in the North. In post 17th century Central Asia, the earlier powerful land empires that held sway had been mortally wounded by internal and external forces-- struggles, even civil wars, for the thrones were fought for by an overabundance of heirs and other claimants; and the shift to maritime trade routes drew commerce to the coasts. After the fallof the Timurid empires in Central Asia and the later Safavid dynasty in Iran, the area from the Tigris-Euphrates to the Altai mountains broke into a number of relatively small (compared to the empires that preceded them) states. In the 18th century, the political landscape was marred by warfare among these states. Their economic decline continued.
This decline of the landed empires of Asia coincided with European expansion and accumulation of colonies. The Russians, perhaps the most expansionist of powers and Central Asia's nearest neighbor, was drawn to Central Asia by the lure of reputed riches in cities along the former Silk Road and the prestige of colonial holdings. An arch of forts built across the steppe south of Siberia during the 18th century was one step in the process of expansion. Catherine "the Great" not only used the Tatars to spread Russian influence in Transoxanian, but in an equally subtle policy, established a "Muslim Spiritual Board" in Orenburg. Ostensibly an instrument of "Muslim self-government," the Board operated according to strict state regulations. Under Nicholas II (1825-1855), two more would be established in Tbilisi for Sunni and Shi'i populations.77
Russian expansion in Asia would be further spurred in the 19th century by military defeats in other theaters. The most humiliating defeat was the Crimean War (1853-56) in which European states successfully blocked Russian pretensions in the eastern Mediterranean, including the tsar's claims for privileged access to the Holy Land as "protector" of the Orthodox in Ottoman domains (a claim first made by Catherine in the Treaty of Kuchuk Kaynarja [1774]). The now fragmented Central Asian states, proved more vulnerable targets than European rivals. The tsarist military occupation of Central Asia was done between the 1865 invasion of Tashkent and the massacre of the Turkmen at Gok-Tepe in 1881. Millions of Central Asians (and enormous amount of territory containing untold amount of natural resources) were added to the empire. The Central Asians comprised just under 20% of the population according to the 1897 Census.
In the wake of conquest, direct military rule was imposed (except in Khiva and Bukhara, which became protectorates for a spell78), Christian missionary activity strove to shape education, literature and publishing. One tsarist missionary was ingratiating himself to the Tashkent ulema with:
You cannot understand how I feel. Islam is the most perfect religion on this world. What makes me most depressed is that some of the youth of Turkistan are inclined towards Russian schools. They are studying in such schools. This causes them to lose their religious feelings. They are shaving their beards and mustaches, wearing Russian style clothes, neckties and boots. As a result, I can see that they are becoming Christians. This makes me melancholy.
This remorseful Christian was the advisor to the tsarist Military Governor in Tashkent, and his known activities suggest the existence of items other than Christianity or Islam on his operational agenda. He was attempting to prevent the Central Asians from learning tsarist methods of control, to forestall the time when the Central Asians could take a more knowledgeable stand against tsarist colonialism.79
Perhaps, the tsarist policies showed remarkable similarity to Roman policies in Britain. During the First century A. D., the Roman statesman and historian Tacitus wrote:
Once they [Britons] owed obedience to kings; now they are distracted between the warring factions of rival chiefs. Indeed, nothing helped us more in fighting against their very powerful nations than their inability to cooperate. It is but seldom that two or three states unite to repel a common danger; thus, fighting in separate groups, all are conquered.... Not only were the nearest parts of Britain gradually organized into a province, but a colony of veterans also was founded. Certain domains were presented to King Cogidumnus, who maintained his unswerving loyalty down to our own times --an example of the long- established Roman custom of employing even kings to make others slaves.... 80
Agricola had to deal with people living in isolation and ignorance, and therefore prone to fight; and his object was to accustom them to a life of peace and quiet by the provision of amenities. He therefore gave private encouragement and official assistance to the building of temples, public squares, and good houses. He praised the energetic and scolded the slack; and competition for honour proved as effective as compulsion. Furthermore, he educated the sons of the chiefs in the liberal arts, and expressed a preference for British ability as compared with the trained skills of the Gauls. The result was that instead of loathing the Latin language they became eager to speak it effectively. In the same way, our national dress came into favour and the toga was everywhere to be seen. And so the population was gradually led into the demoralizing temptations of arcades, baths, and sumptuous banquets. The unsuspecting Britons spoke of such novelties as 'civilization,' when in fact they were only a feature of their enslavement.81
Combination of cooptation by selective rewards, demoralization by pressure and corruption by comfort was practiced by the Russians. Later Russian peasants were settled in Central Asia to wage demographic battle. A strategically important railroad leading to the Far East was begun, employing many Russian workers who reinforced Russian presence and would be fertile ground for socialist agitation (some 200,000 Chinese laborers also working on this project were later armed by the Bolsheviks against all National Liberation Movements in Central Asia). The Russian state extracted natural resources, and imposed cotton cultivation to compensate for the loss of the U.S. cotton supply in the 1860s. Russia's growing textile and munitions industries acquired new source of cotton;82 Central Asia lost its food crops. In the 20th century, after a century of irrigation and the pesticides required to fulfill repeated Soviet Five Year Plans, Central Asia would lose the Aral Sea. After the first shock of conquest, Central Asian resistance to the Russians began. Initially it was limited to the literary field. Soon, armed struggle also began.83
The Great Game
The "Great Game," the Anglo-Russian competition for land and influence across Asia, was played in two adjacent arenas. The main arena was Turkistan-Afghanistan, where tsarist armies moved south to annex the former as the British tried to keep them north of the latter, in defense of British India. Second, but in some respects more complex, was the Caucasus-Iran threater. Caucasia was the place where the Great Game met the Eastern Question, the multipower struggle over the eastern Mediterranean and the fate of the Ottoman Empire. The Russian conquest of the Caucasus entailed two Russo-Iranian wars (1806-1813 and 1826-1828) and one Russo-Ottoman war (1828-1829). Russian power was now closer to the Mediterranean (and therefore Suez, a gateway to India) and to India's neighbor Iran. Perhaps more worrying for the British, the Russo-Iranian Treaty of Turkmanchai (1828) granted Russia concessions in Iran: Russian goods imported into Iran would be exempt from internal tariffs; Russian subjects would not be subject to Iranian law; only Russia could maintain a fleet on the Caspian. The latter potentially enabled Russian forces to land on the southeast Caspian shore, closer to Herat (Afghanistan), a possible stepping-stone to an invasion of India, or so the British feared. England thereafter strove to gain a foothold in Iran as both she and Russia competed for legal and economic concessions there as a means to exert political influence.84 The Great Game also had a Far Eastern component manifested in its advances against China and a series of unequal treaties signed with Chinese rulers after 1858.85 Later in the 19th century, competition for colonies and for influence in Central Asia grew sharper. Political deadlocks in Europe often led the Powers to carry their rivalry to Asia or Africa. Russian gains in the Russo-Turkish war of 1875-1877 alarmed Europe which feared a Power imbalance, but especially Britain, always concerned over lines of communication with India.The resulting Congress of Berlin (1878), hosted by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, deprived Russia of the fruits of her victories and also awarded the island of Cyprus to the British, assuring British dominance in the eastern Mediterranean. Though this arrangement by Bismarck and British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli soothed British nerves, it angered the Russians, seriously damaging German-Russian relations. To the Russians, expansion in Central Asia promised more certain returns on Russian "investments."
During the 1890s, the British and Russians negotiated the Russian-Afghan border, established Afghanistan as an official "buffer" under English influence in 1907-1909 and thereby called a halt to the Great Game, at least for the time being.86 Perhaps Britain had been pushed to the limit of tolerance and Russia knew that in a direct military conflict, victory could not be assured. Certainly both Powers feared the rise of Germany, mainly in Europe and on the seas, but also in the scramble for African colonies and because Germany was entering the Great Game. German interests envisioned a railroad from Berlin to Beijing, through the length of the Ottoman Empire and Central Asia. Due to the political and military conditions on the ground, the project was scaled down, and the railroad turned south towards Baghdad --remained entirely within the Ottoman Empire.
The Great Game was not limited even to these political, diplomatic and economic moves. European states systematically acquired, stored and studied knowledge of the "Orient" in the proliferating state-sponsored Oriental Institutes.87 European Orientalists, in service of their governments, laid the foundation for policies like Christian proselytization in education and publishing, but also elaborated justifications for Europeans' "civilizing" the peoples of Central Asia. Among these was the notion of "Pan-Turkism."88
"Pan" Movements
"Pan-Turkism" or "Pan-Turanism" was ostensibly a movement by Turks to establish hegemony over the world, or at least Eurasia. In fact, this "Pan" movement has no historical ideological precedent among Turks and has been documented to be a creation of the Westerners. Around the time of the occupation of Tashkent by Russian troops in 1865, the doctrine called or "Pan-Turkism" appeared in a work by Hungarian Orientalist Arminius Vambery. The premise of this notion was that since the overwhelming majority of the Central Asians spoke (and still speak) dialects of Turkish, share the same historical origins and history, "they could form a political entity stretching from the Altai Mountains in Eastern Asia to the Bosphorus," where the capital of the Ottoman Empire was located.89 This pseudo-doctrine was then attributed to the Turks themselves, and the Russians and Europeans claimed it was a revival of Chinggiz Khan's conquests, a threat not only to Russia, but the whole of Western civilization.90 In this tactic, attributing aggressive designs to the target, seemed to justify any action against Central Asia, a new "crusade" in the name of "self-defense."
After the Germans joined the Great Game, to undermine British control in Central Asia, Germans manipulated both "Pan- Turkism" and "Pan-Islamism."91 The Pan-Islamic Movement was an anti-colonial political movement of the late 19th century, and must be distinguished from the "orthodox" Islamic unity of all believers, the umma. Jamal Ad-Din al-Afghani (1839-1897) established the movement in its political form, striving to achieve the political unity of Muslims to fight against colonialism and the colonial powers. It was popular among Indian Muslims and in north Africa. However, the movement also served the colonial powers well. Painted as a reverse-Crusade --without necessarily using the terminology, but through graphic allusions-- the Colonial powers could mobilize both Western public opinion and secret international alliances to fight the "emerging threat." The Germans, after the death of al-Afghani, sought to make that threat as real as possible for the British in India.92 The manipulation of both "Pan"s would not die with the old century.
The early 20th Century
In 1905-1906 the defeat of the tsarist Russians by the Japanese began a new chapter against the Russian colonial rule in Central Asia. Since the tsarist military occupation of Central Asia, one of the inflexible Russian policies was the imposition of limits on printed material in Central Asian dialects by Central Asian authorship. Beginning with 1906, this long-standing ban against Turkish dialect publications were circumvented by the Central Asians through various ruses.93 Thereafter, there was a veritable explosion of periodicals and monographic publishing. According to one catalog, in one territory, more than one thousand different books were issued in less than ten years.94 This activity was to be ended by the Red Army's occupation of Central Asia. Soviet censorship took on an additional face, employing new and revised methods.95
Before all the elected Central Asian Delegates could reach St. Petersburg, the First Duma (1906) was abrogated by tsar Nicholas II.96 A number of the assembled Central Asian Delegates signed the 1906 Vyborg Manifesto, protesting the Duma's dissolution. The meeting was carefully planned, with a touch of cloak-and-dagger to escape the tsarist secret police.97 The act itself marked a new resistance to the Russians, but the basic issues were already articulated on the pages of the bilingual Tercuman newspaper, published by Ismail Bey Gaspirali in Crimea.98
The Second Duma (1907) was abrogated within three months, and the new electoral law of 1907 utterly disenfrenchised Central Asia. They had no representatives in the Third and the Fourth Dumas. The memory of the occupation and resentment of the occupiers' repressive policies were fresh in the minds of the Central Asians, when the tsarist decree of 25 June 1916 ordered the first non-voluntary recruitment of Central Asians into the army during the First World War. The Central Asian reaction marked the beginning of the Turkistan National Liberation Movement. Russians were to call this struggle "Basmachi," in order to denigrate it. The resentment was enhanced by historical memories: Central Asian empires antedated the first mention of the word Rus in the chronicles,99 and some had counted the Russians among their subjects.
The Turkistan National Liberation Movement was a reaction not only to conscription, but to the tsarist conquest itself and the policies employed by the tsarist state in that region. Zeki Velidi Togan (1890-1970) was for over half a century a professor of history [and shared similar objectives with his contemporary colleagues Czech Thomas Masaryk (1850-1937) and Ukrainian Michael Hrushevsky (1866-1934)]. A Central Asian himself and a principal leader of the 1916 Turkistan National Liberation Movement, Togan described the sources and causes of the movement as follows:
Basmachi is derived from baskinji, meaning attacker, which was first applied to bands of brigands. During tsarist times, these bands existed when independence was lost and Russian domination began in Turkmenistan, Bashkurdistan and the Crimea. Bashkurts [in Russian language sources: "Bashkir"] called them ayyar, by the Khorasan term. In Crimea and, borrowed from there, in Ukraine, haydamak100 was used. Among Bashkurts such heroes as Buranbay became famous; in Crimea, there was [a leader named] Halim; and in Samarkand, Namaz. These did not bother the local native population but sacked the Russians and the Russian flour- mills, distributing their booty to the population. In Ferghana, these elements were not extinct at the beginning of 1916.
.... after the proliferation of cotton planting in Ferghana the economic conditions deteriorated further. This increased brigandage. Among the earlier Basmachi, as was the case in Turkey, the spiritual leader of the Uzbek and Turkmen bands was Koroglu. Basmachi of Bukhara, Samarkand, Jizzakh and Turkmen gathered at nights to read Koroglu and other dastans.101 What has the external appearance of brigandage is actuality a reflection and representation of the thoughts and spirit of a wide segment of the populace. Akchuraoglu Yusuf Bey reminds us that during the independence movements of the Serbians, the hoduk; the kleft; and palikarya of the Greeks comprised half nationalist revolutionaries and half brigands. The majority and the most influential of the Basmachi groups founded after 1918 did not at all follow the Koroglu tradition, but were composed of serious village leadership and sometimes the educated. Despite that, all were labelled Basmachi. Consequently, in Turkistan, these groups are regarded as partisans; more especially representing the guerilla groups fighting against the colonial power. Nowadays, in the Uzbek and Kazakh press, one reads about Chinese, Algerian and Indian Basmachi.102
The Roman historian Tacitus also records the resistance of the Britons to the Romans, in the words of the Britons:
We [Britons] gain nothing by submission except heavier burdens for willing shoulders. We used to have one king at a time; now two are set over us --the governor to wreak his fury on our life-blood; the procurator, on our property. Whether our masters quarrel with each other or agree together, our bondage is equally ruinous. The governor has centurions to execute his will; the procurator, slaves; and both of them add insults to violence. Nothing is any longer safe from their greed and lust. In war it is at least a braver man who takes the spoil; as things stand with us, it is most cowards and shirkers that seize our homes, kidnap our children, and conscript our men --as though it were only for our country that we would not face death. What a mere handful of our invaders are, if we reckon up our own numbers! Such thoughts prompted the Germans to throw off the yoke; and they have only a river, not the ocean, to shield them. We have country, wives, and parents to fight for; the Romans have nothing but greed and self-indulgence. Back they will go, as their deified Julius [Caesar] went back, if we will but emulate the valour of our fathers. We must not be scared by the loss of one or two battles; success may give an army more dash, but the greater staying-power comes from defeat.... For ourselves, we have already taken the most difficult step; we have begun to plan. And in an enterprise like this there is more danger in being caught planning than in taking the plunge.103
Comparing Roman Britons to Russian held Turkistan, it appears that the Russians have not been as successful as the Romans and the Central Asians were also aware of their predicament.
One of the first actions of the Turkistan National Liberation movement was to establish educational societies, and prepare for the founding of universities. Though precedent existed in US, Europe, Togan states that the Central Asians were not acting on such Western examples104, as the tsarist censorship kept the Western works out of reach. The Central Asians were simply recalling their own past from their own sources, and wished to proceed with the educational reforms. Even though considerable amount of those manuscript sources were forcibly collected by the Russians and transported out of Central Asia.105
The Turkistan Extraordinary Conference of December 1917 announced the formation of Autonomous Turkistan, with Kokand as its capital. Bashkurdistan had declared territorial autonomy in January of 1918; the Tatars also took matters in hand in forming their autonomous region. Also in spring 1918, the Azerbaijan Republic and others came into being in the empire's former colonies. It seemed as if the Russian yoke had ended and freedom reigned. However, since the overthrow of the tsar (February 1917), local soviets were established, again by Russian settlers, railroad workers and soldiers, for Russians to rule over the Central Asians. These soviets were increasingly encouraged by Lenin and the Bolsheviks, especially after the October 1917 coup.
Soviets were often headed by professional revolutionaries arriving from Moscow. Generous promises were made to the Central Asians, including indemnities for all property expropriated earlier. It proved to be a time-buying ploy. As Togan demonstrated, the soviets had no intention of allowing the much- touted "self-rule" in Central Asia. This became clear when the Bolshevik forces burned Kokand on March 1918, and again massacred the population. The struggle not only had to continue, but became harsher. After a final series of conferences with Lenin, Stalin and the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, Togan realized that the aims of the Bolsheviks were not different than those of their predecessors. Organizing a secret committee, Togan set about forming the basis of the united resistance, the leadership of which moved south to Samarkand and environs. A new, large- scale, coordinated stage of organizing the Turkistan National Liberation Movement commenced.106
From 1918 into the 1920s Central Asia declared and exercised independence. Despite the Red Army's reconquest, several areas continued to hold out into the late 1920s and even the 1930s. The Turkistan National Liberation Movement was shaped directly by the attempt of the Bolsheviks to reconquer Turkistan. It must also be seen, however, as a culmination of a long process of Russian intrusion into Central Asia as reflected in the "Eastern Question" and what Kipling dubbed the "Great Game in Asia."
The Soviet Era
Bolshevik take-over of Central Asia occurred, like the tsarist conquest, in stages. Bolsheviks employed a combination of internal and external armed force, deception, promises and political pressure, as documented by Richard Pipes.107 Brutal conquest took another form in the Stalinist liquidations. With forced settlement of nomads and a man-made famine, caused by collectivization, millions of Central Asians perished. This is not unlike the Ukrainian experience.108
Only after defeating prolonged resistance and establishing military, political and economic control could the Communist regime consolidate its power by social and cultural policies, including the anti-religious campaigns of 1920s and 1930s. They embellished the cultural imperialism policies of the tsarists and used a firmer hand. The Central Asians fighting Bolsheviks in the 1920s saw in their Russian adversaries the sons of 19th century military expansionists and missionaries as well as the "godless" Marxists they proclaimed themselves to be. Echoing tsarist claims to a "civilizing" mission in Central Asia, and the Bolsheviks said they were "liberating" colonial peoples. In efforts to attribute an aggressive, expansionist character to Central Asia and their defensive unity, both imperial and Bolshevik Russians portrayed the Central Asians as a threat. The nature of this threat was still said to be "Pan-Turkism" and "Pan-Islamism."
Despite its European origins and apart from its European goals, the Pan-Turkism notion took root among some Central Asian emigres (in Central Asia, the idea has had few adherents), as a means to remove the Russians from their homelands. Yet, accusations of "Pan-Turkism" were employed freely in the Soviet Union (and outside), not against political action, but cultural movements or scholarly works on the common origins and language of the Turks.109 The latter studies are irksome to Moscow, for they refute the Russian position that the dialects are separate and distinct languages, a claim that the regime has exerted much effort to propagate.110 Even the distinction Turkic and Turkish is alien to the Turks themselves, who before the arrival of the Russians, communicated unhindered, apparently oblivious to the fact that they were speaking "totally separate and distinct languages."
The most articulate and thus dangerous opponent to Russian hegemony under the new "Communist" label was Mir Said Sultangaliev (1880-1939?).111
Sultangalievism
If a revolution succeeds in England, the proleteriat will continue oppressing the colonies and pursuing the policy of the existing bourgeois government; for it is interested in the exploitation of these colonies. In order to prevent the oppression of the toiler of the East we must unite the Muslim masses in a communist movement that will be our own and autonomous.112
Sultangaliev used the English example as a thin cloak for his true thoughts against the ideology and practise of the RCP(b)113. One had only to substitute the word "Russian," to understand the meaning of the statement. Having served as the deputy Commissar of Nationalities, as Stalin's assistant, Sultangaliev was well aware of Bolshevik methods and means of control. He, like many other non-Russians in the RCP(b), had seen the direction of the Bolshevik revolution: Russian domination. The only path to salvation was to form a separate party and political union to fight for independence.
Sultangaliev was briefly arrested in 1923 and Stalin denounced his former deputy:
....I accused [Sultangaliev] of creating an organization of the Validov114 type... nevertheless, a week later, he sent... a secret letter... to establish contact with the Basmachi and their leader Validov...115
Sultangaliev was purged and disappeared in 1928, along with other adherents of the movement. But even the existence of the idea presented by Sultangaliev was causing nightmares for Stalin. Frequent exhortations againt Sultangalievism among nationalities, especially Central Asians were made:
The ideological and organizational destruction of Sultangalievism does not yet mean that our offensive against nationalism must come to an end. The Tatar Obkom invites all members of the Communist party to hunt down Sultangalievists, to reinforce the struggle against all kinds of national manifestations among backward masses, and to unmask the still numerous bearers of Sultangalievism in our party and Soviet apparatus.116
Of course, the bogey-man Pan-Turkism and Pan-Islamism were once more put on display, this time even in more contradictory terms such as "Pan-Turkic Nationalism." Under the guise of slogans such as "internationalism," "brotherhood of nationalities," "coming closer," and "merging of nationalities," the policies beneficial to the Russians were pursued by the Soviet leadership in Moscow. The purges decimated the ranks of the educated Central Asians. A Russian dominated bureaucracy attempted to destroy Central Asian history, subvert their indigenous literature, exploit the Central Asian natural resources. While doing so, the regime destroyed the pristine environment. Not all of these crimes are yet known in the West, but more are gaining attention.
Central Asian issues under Gorbachev117
Only recently have the results of decades of political, economic, social, cultural, environmental abuse been aired. The Bolsheviks castigated tsarist use of Turkistan as a colony, but followed in their predecessors footsteps extracting cotton and raw materials for Soviet industry despite cost to the local population or environment. The cotton, irrigation, fertilizer "triad" has caused monstrous ecological and human health damage. Due to the overuse of chemical fertilizers and growth stimulants, infant mortality has jumped. Mothers were warned not to nurse their babies because their own milk is polluted. Shortened life expectancy plagues all Central Asian republics.
In 1987 almost one-third of all fish in the Volga basin died from pesticide poisoning. In many regions, pesticides are now turning-up in the water supply. According to Goskompriroda [State commissariat for the environment] more than 10,000 hectares of land contain concentrations of DDT above sanitary norms, some two to eight times the established norm. In one case, students were sent to the field to gather the onion crop. They were poisoned from handling the onions. It was discovered that the crop and the soil contained 120 times the norm prescribed for pesticides. The farm's director maintained that the students were suffering from exhaustion --apparently at the behest of local party officials worried about "alarming" the public.
Komsomolskaya Pravda reported in April 1990 that 43 persons,including 37 children, were hospitalized in Uzbekistan after eating a meal of mushrooms which turned out to be toxic. Two of the children died. The mushrooms were of an edible variety, but they were contaminated with "...toxic chemicals, pesticides, and other muck" which had leached into the soil after heavy rains stated the paper.
Perhaps the most dramatic result has been the destruction ofthe Aral Sea, well known thanks to mass media coverage. Several US universities have either conducted conferences on the subject,or are planning to do so.118 The waters of the Aral Sea have been used to irrigate cotton, the reason for its disappearance. This has profound effects. In addition to the destruction of the sea's fish (and fishing industry), salt driven by winds from the dry sea bed has destroyed vegetation as far away as Chimkent [Green City], 450 miles to the east. Plague, claimed Radio Moscow in May, threatens the region. A television marathon in Kazakhstan (which bordered the sea on the north) raised almost 40 million rubles for a fund to help the people whose health and livelihoods have been destroyed by the drying up of the Aral Sea.
Kazakistan has other environmental damage as well. In 1990, a Danish television documentary stated that inhabitants of a village in Kazakhstan's Semipalatinsk Oblast were used as guinea-pigs during an atmospheric nuclear test in 1953. The documentary, summarized by the French News Service (AFP), included an interview with a Kazakh man who had been one of the 40 guinea- pigs made to stay behind when other villagers were evacuated before the test. According to the report, all 40 contracted cancer, and 34 have already died from the disease. This report would not be news to the inhabitants of Semipalatinsk --the effects of the August 1953 test have been frequently described in great detail in the Kazakh press.
Even after the testing has stopped, the effects will linger. A recent news report indicated that out of the total population of Kazakhstan, seven million now suffer from some form of cancer. During 1990 a private philanthropic fund was established to provide medical assistance to children affected by nuclear testing in Semipalatinsk. The people who suffer from the ills of this state-caused disaster are spending their own money to find a cure.
Economic policies inflicting less overt damage involve trade between Moscow and the individual republics. In the case of Kazakhstan, the Kazak trade deficit is over one billion "trade rubles." This, despite the large exports of varying commodities from Kazakhstan to the Russian republic. The primary reason is that Moscow sets the prices and the republics have to sell their produce at artificially low prices, well below those of the world market. On the other hand, they must pay much more for their imports from Moscow usually at market prices. The republics never had control over the transactions; Gosplan (the Central State Planning Office) decided who manufactured what, where and when, including investment for construction of facilities. The same maybe said of every Central Asian republic. The economic issues are linked to fundamental matters of national identity and culture. Following again the tsarist precedent, the Soviet regime retained sharply divided education (technical education is in Russian), linguistic and attempted social and biological russification campaigns, low investment in Central Asia, and settlement of Russian workers as the "price" of new factory construction. The terminology has been changed, but the substance has not.119 Among the legacies of Moscow's rule was the death and destruction of forced collectivization, and against this protest has been pronounced.
A group of writers who made up an advisory council to the Kazakh literary weekly Qazaq Edebiyeti have called for the erection of a monument to the Kazakhs who died in the collectivization campaign in the 1930s. According to their appeal, published on the front page of Qazaq Edebiyeti April 13, 2.5 million Kazakhs perished under Stalin. The writers would like the memorial to be completed by 1992, the sixtieth anniversary of the collectivization-caused famine.
Anarchy in Central Asia?120
Central Asians' long standing demands can be summed-up in two broad categories: 1) the end of centrally ordered quotas, ranging from out-of-region-origin cadre appointments to colonial- style forced cotton production, and settlement of non-native populations; 2) an end to environmental pollution from nuclear tests to pesticide poisoning. Central Asians, like other non- Russians, have been interested in economic justice and greater autonomy in their internal affairs. But accurate information on Central Asia not readily available to Western journalists or policymakers. Moscow has been able to use that ignorance to play on various Western fears and prejudices, raising the specter of political chaos, nuclear proliferation and, the successor to the Pan-Islamic threat, Islamic Fundamentalism.
First, the "Treaty Principle of the Soviet Federation," raised by Gorbachev at the 28th Party Congress, was not abandoned after the coup attempt of August 1991. Treaty bonds are still said to have "the enormous advantages of the new Soviet federation," which would foil the plans of "all kinds of separatists, chauvinists, and nationalists" who are trying to "deal a decisive blow to perestroika which threatens their far-reaching aims."121 Whatever the nominal power relations in a new union treaty, the old economic realities would preserve Central Asia's de facto colonial position vis-a-vis Russian industry. Moreover, the "economic logic" of continued ties to Russia would make it that much more difficult to alter the pattern, and Central Asia would have to go on supplying raw materials for still higher priced Russian manufactures constructed under the Soviet regime.
Second is Moscow's "Revival of Islam" offensive. After the Bolshevik revolution, the Oriental Institute was gradually Bolshevized and attached to the USSR Academy of Sciences. It was reorganized many times between the late 1920s and late 1950s. The "Muslim Spiritual Boards" were revived in 1941, seemingly along the very same lines as under the tsars. The new Islamic ulama is trained by the state.
Both tsarist and Soviet regimes have blamed "Islam" for anti- colonial actions by the Central Asians against Russian conquest, colonization, economic exploitation, political discrimination, and russification. Many repressions by the center have been carried out to suppress alleged Islamic movements, "Pan-Islamism" in the last century, "Islamic fundamentalism" today. The "usual suspects" are targets: "zealots, fanatics, feudal remnants..." Gorbachev used these accusations the day before ordering troops to open fire in Baku in January 1990. More recently, a "senior member" of the Oriental Institute (Leningrad) has spoken of the danger of an "Islamic Explosion." The speaker stated that the "European- centered approach to Islam" had caused the USSR to pursue incorrect policies in Central Asia. He advocated the rejection of that approach in favor of one that treats Islam on its own terms.122
The Orientalist's words may have been meant to incite a debate within the Western scholarly community concerning perestroika in academe. The wish in the Soviet Oriental Institute may have been to keep the Western specialists too busy to pay attention to these demands Central Asia shares with other nationalities. This treatment of Islam is not only not new, it continues to err in the same way as before --attributing all of the grievances of the Central Asians to Islam, as if Moscow's understanding of Islam can help the government make better cotton policies. Is it lack of understanding Islam that led to the destruction of the Aral Sea? Further, by the continuing attribution of unrest to Islam, the government signals the West that no action is too drastic to quell it. If Western analysts grasped more clearly that national autonomy or political liberty were at the root of Central Asian discontent, Western governments might look upon it with a very different eye, one less tolerant of Moscow's use of force. Along the same lines, Moscow employs a "Sociological Approach." The anti-religious campaigns that started in the 1920s by the Bezbozhnik (Godless) League later became the task of the "Institutes of Scientific Atheism." The next step now appears to be embodied in the Institutes of Sociology, fathoming the depths of the society, attempting to conduct an opinion poll to determine the hold of Islam in Central Asia. A Soviet journal reportedly published one such survey, which revealed, contrary to the official line, that the USSR had not become a land of convinced atheists; Religious beliefs are not declining every year; Religion is not confined to more "backward groups" --women, the elderly.123
What probably began as a means of keeping responsible committees informed, may now be a public relations tool as well. Under the authority of a "Scientific Institute," the results can be disseminated and endorsed to form the bases of future actions. It can also serve as the seal of approval from the "intelligentsia," supporting the actions of the Center.
A recent program announced by several US scholarly societies and associations aims to develop Soviet Sociological Research Projects. One hopes that such an endeavor would develop to remove the abuses of such "opinion poll taking."
An especially popular, if unimaginative, tool of the Soviet government is "Corruption Charges." Since the Andropov period, several cycles of corruption charges have been brought against the Central Asians. Throughout the USSR, there are no doubt genuine cases of corruption as defined in a democratic society: influence peddling, embezzlement, bribe taking, skimming money from the cotton crop. On the other hand, some of these charges appear trumped- up to root out Central Asian efforts to gain some measure of local control over their own economy. What is labelled corruption by the Center, can be directly aimed at independently minded Central Asian elites. During the Gorbachev period, a similar crackdown was undertaken.124 The Special Prosecutors were later accused of using "inhuman methods to extract confessions" from the suspects. Soon afterward, the former Prosecutors themselves came under investigation for their excesses. Gorbachev also attributed the problems in Transcaucasia to "representatives of the shadow economy," i.e. the sort of entrepreneurship which perestroika purported to allow. This not only cast aspersions on the nature of his economic "restructuring," but also suggested that he nurtured a different vision of perestroika for Central Asians than for Russians or Balts.
Failing verbal dissuasion and political pressure, Gorbachev has been as willing as his predecessors to use force. He coupled it with justification, another tactic for international opinion that may be called "The Stick" (or, the Praise for the Armed Forces"). The use of lethal force during January 1990 in Azerbaijan, in the city of Baku was also meant as a demonstration to Central Asia. Similar brutality was used against Kazakhs in 1986,125 and Georgians in 1989, though it was worse in Baku where two hundred or more were killed by the Red Army. Later, Gorbachev warmly praised the armed forces for keeping order and warned the Soviet media not to engage in anti- Army propaganda. The message was clear: if you do not accept our political solutions, we shall use Leninist-Stalinist muscle, no matter what the new vocabulary. The citizens of the Baltic Republics, along with those Central Asians have been experiencing this "stick."
Moscow seems to create conditions in which it can use force. The decision to "announce," or "leak the news" of the settlement of Armenians in Tajikistan antagonized the housing- poor Tajiks. It is inconceivable that Moscow would not have anticipated a Tajik response. The media, predictably, report on "a Muslim population's violence." Such manipulation was by no means isolated. The retired KGB General Oleg Kalugin stated that the KGB probably had a role in inciting the anti-Armenian violence in Baku: "Naturally, it is their job to stir up everyone against everyone else." Kalugin sharply criticized the Moscow leadership for withholding information on the KGB's involvement in Sumgait and in Tbilisi.126 In this light, perhaps the events connected with the Kirghiz-Ozbek, Georgian-Ossetian, Ozbek-Meskhetian127 confrontations of 1989-1990, and the Kazakh-Russian "incident" of 1986, ought to be reexamined as well.128 Even the center's support for creating of "hostage" pockets in ethnically uniform populations seems aimed at diluting homogenous areas capable of mounting national movements and to incite inter- ethnic enmity.129
If "the Stick" was applied to Central Asia, "the Carrot" is used elsewhere. The invitation to the West to believe that the USSR has been trying very hard to become just a Western democracy was yet another aspect of the image manipulation. Anyone in the West expressing doubts as to the genuineness of the Soviet efforts was dubbed "a grave digger of perestroika." Further, Soviet spokesmen stated that they "are confident that West would decide against those individuals."130 To fortify the image of efforts being expended to make the transition to a Western type democracy, a number of other public relations demarches were also undertaken. Authorities grant exit visas to Jews, and hold talks with the Iranian government on border crossing points for the Azerbaijan Turks. These, of course, addressed the humanitarian issues raised in the West with respect to reuniting divided families.
Whether or not the Center was expecting "Anarchy in Central Asia," Moscow clearly anticipated Western impatience with "turmoil," especially if it threatens to upset the status- quo. This appears to be true even when the elements of the existing government, which assaulted human rights throughout its existence, attempted to seize power in a coup and the challenge is mounted by a population seeking to regain its independence. Nonetheless, current democracies seem to prefer dealing with one great power they know than numerous new and small powers. The view is similar to those when the Bolshevik regime was in its infancy but Great Powers at Versailles refused to recognize independence of most tsarist colonies except Poland and the Baltic. Such refusal policies are more easily justified when those groups seeking independence can be dismissed as "fanatical" or at least "anti- democratic;" even if the challenged power is not democraticor democratically elected.
As if to help his Western counterparts support him and the empire --and in case Moscow decides to use force as in Azerbaijan-- Gorbachev provides justification for their fears and his use of force. Russian spokesmen continue to claim in the 1990s that they "civilized" Central Asia, protected and fed it. Western observers seem rarely to ask how Russia "civilized" a demonstrably older civilization than itself, from whom Russia protects Central Asia, or how the Central Asians managed to feed themselves before the arrival of the Russians and their cotton agenda.
Perspective on the "Post-openness" prospects
President Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945, in his famed 5 October 1937 "Quarantine speech," stated:
...Those who cherish their freedom and recognize and respect the equal right of their neighbors to be free and live in peace, must work together for the triumph of law and moral principles in order that peace, justice and confidence may prevail in the world. There must be a return to a belief in the pledged word, in the value of a signed treaty. There must be recognition of the fact that national morality is a vital as private morality.... It ought to be inconceivable that in this modern era, and in the face of experience, any nation could be so foolish and ruthless as to run the risk of plunging the whole world into war by invading and violating, in contravention of solemn treaties, the territory of other nations that have done them no real harm and are too weak to protect themselves adequately.131
World War II began two years after this speech. It would not be a credible assertion today to claim that the Central Asians are preparing to attack the Russian Federation. But the Russians are behaving just as Hitler did in the period when F. D. Roosevelt gave his speech: demanding more land.
The coup attempt of August 1991 might represent a new turn in Russian politics. Whether this turn is towards true democracy with its full implication of freedom, or a turn towards yet another kind of Russian domination, it is too early to surmise. Some pronouncements from the "center," immediately after the failure of the hardliner's coup attempt, began talking of "border adjustments" in favor of the Russian Federation should the republics opt to secede. Those "adjustments" are precisely in the areas where the Russians have earlier expropriated lands from other nationalities; for example, in Kazakistan.132 A "border agreement" was soon signed between the Russian Federation and Kazakistan. The Bolshevik leadership, too, had signed a variety of agreements with the Bashkurts and other Central Asian polities in the 1920s but shortly afterward disregarded them as "so much paper."133 It was also the USSR that signed the United Nations Charter in 1945, and the very next day demanded land from another UN Charter Member, the Turkish Republic; precisely in the areas covered in the 1921 border treaty signed between the two states.134 The idea is still not abondoned in Moscow, or the Russian circles, and public policy speeches are being delivered on the subject.135 In fact, the newly constituted Russian Rapid Deployment Forces are also seen as the instruments of this policy, in preparation for anticipated action. The ostensible reason, of course, is going to be the "protection of Russians" in "those" territories. This is clearly seen in the behavior of the 14th Russian/CIS Army in Moldova during 1991 and 1992.
Russians have no significant experience with democracy. Many Russian thinkers and groups have fought democracy at every turn.136 Slavophiles and even some Westernizers of the 19th century tsarist empire preferred an "organic link" of autocrat and subjects to the artificial guarantees of constitutions and the rule of law. Though the tsar declared Chaadaev insane to discredit his "dangerous" notions,137 it was society that produced the People's Will terrorists, the Union of the Russian People,138 Lenin, and Stalin and Dzerzhinsky,139 who despite their actual ethnic origins, sprang from the ruling Russian society. Konstantin Pobedenostsev, legal scholar, head of Holy Synod and tutor to Alexander III and Nicholas II, wrote of "The Falsehood of Democracy."140 The lack of a Russian legal consciousness or sense of legality has been analyzed.141 It was an environment in which private initiative was always suspect. What caused the citizen to heed the commands of the state was not a sense of citizenship, or civil consciousness, but compulsion, often coercion by the state. After the fall of the tsarist regime and its Okhrana, that body's place was taken by the Bolshevik Cheka, and its successors.
Two days "at the barricades" during August 1991, around the Russian Federation Parliament, is not likely to transform and "democratize" the deeply autocratic experiences of the Russian tradition. Yeltsin's proclamation that Russia had "saved democracy for Russia and the world" gave no hope that "democratic Russia" --should it ever materialize-- forsaw any place for non- Russian democracy.
After the failed coup of August 1991, the Central Asians have again taken to organizing and publicly articulating their wide ranging grievances. To restrict our view of Central Asia's troubles to the economic realm alone is to overlook the essential threat to their conscious existence as a people. Overt demonstrations against economic policy or political administration have been possible only rarely. But Russian and Soviet cultural policies have affected the way the Central Asians could see themselves and describe their custom and past for future generations. Recovery of the true sources of history and regeneration of the true identity has been in progress, continuing a conflict in the cultural realm that Central Asia conducted againts tsarist policy a century ago. Political and cultural responses are different aspects of the same struggle for greater control over their own lives and land. Whether the former Communists leadership of Central Asian polities have also reformed themselves overnight, as they have stated, remains to be seen.
At the moment Boris Yeltsin, career communist, is now regarded as the "Savior" of democracy in Russia, and as its guide. "A nation's guides are those who can awaken their people from their witless slumber of ignorance.... The Savior of every tribe shall come."142 If the awaited savior causes harm to other "tribes" in the process, knowingly or not, there can be vast repercussions. This is also true of the former Communist leadership in Central Asia. "Four freedoms" are enshrined in the United Nations Charter. If the "Four Freedoms" cease to apply uniformly, they may cease to exist alltogether.
NOTES:
1. Gavin Hambly, Editor, Central Asia (London, 1969). First English Edition.
2. The designation "Tatar" is found in the Orkhon-Yenisey stelea, erected beginning early 7th c. See T. Tekin, A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic (Indiana, 1968), Uralic and Altaic Series, Vol. 69, which contains the texts and their English translations. The Latin "Tartarus," meaning "the infernal regions of Roman and Greek mythology, hence, hell" had already came into use through chronicles written by the clergy of Europe. Perhaps St. Louis of France was the first, in 1270, to apply this unrelated term to the troops of Chinggis Khan.
3. Timur (or Temur) Bey, was wounded in a battle, which caused him to become lame. Therefore, in some Turkish sources he is sometimes referred to as Aksak Timur. Arab sources call him Amir Timur. In Persian sources, he became Timur-i leng. Hence, the corruption. See Ahmad Ibn Arabshah, Tamarlane or Timur the Great Amir, J. H. Sanders, Tr. (London, 1936); idem, The Timurnama or Ajayabul magfur fi akhbar-i Timur, H. S. Jarrett (Calcutta, 1882); Beatrice Forbes Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamarlane (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
4. The poem "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) is another example of this "abundance of enthusiasm."
5. Kirghiz are also found in the Orkhon-Yenisey stelea. See Tekin, A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic. See also Remy Dor and Guy Imart, Être Kirghiz au me siecle (Marseilles: Universite de Provence, 1982).
6. For the nature and compositions of confederation structures, see "Z. V. Togan: On the Origins of the Kazakhs and the Ozbeks" H. B. Paksoy, Editor, Central Asia Reader (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1994).
7. See H. B. Paksoy, "A. A. Divay : Intellectual Heritage and Quiet Defiance." Presented to the 21st annual Middle East Studies Association meeting, Baltimore, 1987. An abstract may be found in Turkish Studies Association Bulletin, Vol. 12, No. 1. (1988), pp.22-23.
8. See H. B. Paksoy, "Introduction." (as Special Editor of "Muslims in the Russian Empire: Response to Conquest") Studies in Comparative Communism Vol. XIX, Nos. 3 and 4, Autumn/Winter 1986; idem, "Chora Batir: A Tatar Admonition to Future Generations." Studies in Comparative Communism Vol. XIX, Nos. 3 and 4, Autumn/Winter 1986.
9. A German born and trained compiler of Turkish materials, 1837-1918.
10. (Bloomington and The Hague, 1967).
11. Since 1917, many studies have been made of the so-called language reforms in the USSR, making some outrageous claims. Those Soviet propagandist assertions include "giving new languages" to the various "nationalities." For details, among others, see especially Z. V. Togan, Turkili Turkistan (Istanbul, 1981) 3rd. Ed.; Stefan Wurm, Turkic Peoples of the USSR: Their Historical Background, their Language, and the Development of Soviet Linguistic Policy (Oxford, 1954); idem, The Turkic Languages of Central Asia: Problems of Planned Culture Contact (Oxford, 1954).
12. The person in question is Eduard Volodin. The implication of this statement, in the context of authors' arguments, is that Altai is now considered a part of Russia to be preserved in case of dissolution of the Soviet Union. An earlier version of the discussion in this section was disseminated: see H. B. Paksoy, "Perspectives on the Unrest in the Altai Region of the USSR" Report on the USSR (Electronic version, on Sovset), September 1990. See also R. L. Canfield, "Soviet Gambit in Central Asia" Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. 5, No. 1.
13. See Tekin, A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic.
14. Kasgarli Mahmud, Kitab Diwan Lugat at Turk. Completed ca. A. D. 1074?/ 1077. Editio Princeps by Kilisli Rifat (3 Vols.) (Istanbul, 1917-19). English Translation by R. Dankoff with J. Kelly as Compendium of Turkic Dialects (3 Vols.) (Cambridge, MA., 1982-84).
15. For "treaty" details, see J. R. V. Prescott, Map of Mainland Asia by Treaty (Melbourne, 1975).
16. For an early study on the subject, see Helene Carrre d'Encaussee, Decline of an Empire: The Soviet Socialist Republics in Revolt (NY, 1979); Paul B. Henze, "Marx on Russians and Muslims" Central Asian Survey Vol 6, No. 4 1987.
17. For a discussion of the subject, see Hisao Komatsu, "Bukhara in the Central Asian Perspective: Group Identity in 1911-1928" Research Report on Urbanism in Islam (University of Tokyo, 1988) No. 2; also Nazif Shahrani, "'From Tribe to Umma': Comments on the Dynamics of Identity in Muslim Central Asia" Central Asian Survey Vol. 3, No. 3 (1984).
18. Such insistence also found its way into the Soviet Census of 1939, whose compilers were shot when accused by Stalin for underestimating the population. One surmises, the real reason for the liquidation of the Census compilers that they affirmed by numbers what was known in the earlier Censuses: the ethnic Russians constituted less than half of the total Soviet population.
19. For the Moscow's attempts to write a history for Central Asians, see L. Tillett, The Great Friendship (Chapel Hill, 1969).
20. According to the late I. Kafesoglu, the original religion of the Turks was the worship of Tangri, a monotheistic belief, quite different from shamanism. See his Turk Milli Kuluturu (Istanbul, 1984) (3rd Ed) pp. 295-7, and the sources cited therein. Grousset, in Empire of the Steppes (N. Walford Tr.) (New Brunswick-NJ, 1970) identifies the word Tangri as Turkic and Mongol, meaning "Heaven" (p. 20); he states (p. 23) that the Hsiung-nu (considered as Turks and often identified with the Huns) practiced a religion that "was a vague shamanism based on the cult of Tangri or Heaven and on the worship of certain sacred mountains." Based on Pelliot and Thomsen, he seems to confirm Kafesoglu's contention of monotheism, but still related to shamanism:
"The moral concepts (in the Kul Tegin stela)... are borrowed from the old cosmogony which formed the basis of Turko-Mongol shamanism... Heaven and earth obeyed a supreme being who inhabited the highest level of the sky and who was known by the name of Divine Heaven or Tangri." (p. 86).
"Tengri" (in this form) is referenced in Tekin, A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic; Mahmud, Kitab Diwan Lugat at Turk. Consult also M. Eliade, Shamanism; Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Princeton, 1974), 2nd Printing, who identifies Tangri only as one god of the Yakut (p. 471); elsewhere he describes the hierarchy of gods (Chapter 6).
21. R. N. Frye, "Zoroastrier in der islamischen Zeit" Der Islam (Berlin) 41, 1965; idem, The History of Ancient Iran (1958); idem, The Heritage of Persia (1963).
22. Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (1984); idem, A History of Zoroastrianism (1975-1991) 3 Vols. (Vol. 3 with Franz Grenet).
23. R. N. Frye, "The Iranicization of Islam," delivered at the University of Chicago (May 1978) as the annual Marshall Hodgson Memorial Lecture. Printed in R. N. Frye, Islamic Iran and Central Asia: 7th-12th centuries (London: Variorum, 1979).
24. R. N. Frye, The History of Bukhara (Cambridge, Mass. 1954). See also Michael Zand, "Bukharan Jews" Encyclopedia Iranica, Ehsan Yarshater, Ed. Vol IV, fasc. 5. (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1989).
25. Colin Mackerras, Ed., Tr., The Uighur Empire According to the T'ang Dynastic Histories: A Study in Sino-Uighur Relations 744-840 (University of South Carolina Press, 1972); A. von Gabain, Das Leben im uigirischen Knigreich von Qoo 850-1250 (Otto Harrassowitz, 1973); Gunnar Jarring, Return to Kashgar: Central Asian Memories in the Present. (Durham, 1986).
26. R. N. Frye and A. M. Sayili, "The Turks of Khurasan and Transoxiana at the Time of the Arab Conquest" The Moslem World XV. (Hartford) 1945, concerning the Turks of Transoxiana prior to the arrival of Islam.
27. See Tekin, A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic.
28. Grousset, Empire of the Steppes; further, W. Barthold, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (London, 1977) 4th edition; Christopher Beckwith, The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia: A History of the Struggle for Great Power among Tibetans, Turks, Arabs, and Chinese during the Early Middle Ages (Princeton, 1987); R. W. Dunnell, Tanguts and the Tangut State of Ta Hsia (University Microfilms International, 1983).
29. See "M. Ali--Let us Learn our Inheritance: Get to Know Yourself" Central Asia Reader, H. B. Paksoy, Editor, (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1994); "Sun is also Fire." Central Asian Monuments, H. B. Paksoy, Editor, (Istanbul: ISIS Press, 1992).
30. W. Bartold, in Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (London, 1977) 4th Ed. (p. 195-196) states "...according to the narrative of the Arabic historian, probably exaggerated, as many as 50,000 Chinese were killed and about 20,000 taken prisoner, but in the Chinese records the whole army of Kao-hsien-chih is given as 30,000 men...but it is undoubtedly of great importance.... In 752 the ruler of Usrushana begged help against the Arabs from the Chinese, but met with a refusal."
31. See C. E. Bosworth, The Gaznavids: Their Empire in Afghanistan and Eastern Iran, 994-1040 (Beirut, 1973) (2nd Ed.); F. Sumer Oguzlar (Turkmenler) (Istanbul, 1980) (3rd. Ed.); Thomas Barfield, The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan: Pastoral Nomadism in Transition (Austin-TX, 1981).
32. Peter Golden, Khazar Studies (Budapest, 1980); D. M. Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars, (Princeton, 1954); N. Golb, O. Pritsak, Khazarian Hebrew Documents (Ithaca, 1982); Turks, Hungarians and Kipchaks: A Festschrift in Honor of Tibor Halasi- Kun. P. Oberling, Editor, Special issue of Journal of Turkish Studies Vol. 8. 1984.
33. Beginning with the "Kok-Turk" alphabet of the Orkhon-Yenisei, that is regarded unique to them; later Uyghur (which is modified Sogdian); Hebrew; Arabic; Latin.
34. Peter Golden, "Codex Comanicus" Central Asian Monuments H. B. Paksoy, Editor, (Istanbul: ISIS Press, 1992). The only known copy of the Codex Comanicus is in the Venice library. It should be noted that the Uyghur Turks wrote eulogies to Buddha; the Ottomans, to Muhammad.
35. Although Ottoman became a "constructed" language, taking elements of Turkish, Arabic and Persian via the development of the Ottoman court poetry. More books of statecraft were written, in Ottoman, in the 16th and the 17th centuries.
36. O. Pritsak, "Karachanidische Streitfragen 1-4" Oriens II. (Leiden, 1950).
37. Followed by the Khwarazm-Shahs 1156-1230, and preceded by the Gaznavids 994-1186. Akkoyunlu dynasty, another tribal confederation related to the Oghuz/Seljuk ruled in the 15th century. For the Oghuz, See F. Sumer, Oguzlar (Turkmenler) (Istanbul, 1980) 3rd. Ed.
38. A Century of Princes: Sources on Timurid History and Art, W. M. Thackston (Tr.) (Cambridge, MA., 1989).
39. S. J. Shaw and E. K. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (Cambridge University Press, 1976-1978) Two Vols. Second Printing 1978.
40. Uli Schamiloglu, "The Formation of a Tatar Historical Consciousness: Shihabddin Mercani and the Image of Golden Horde" Central Asian Survey Vol. 9, No. 2 (1990); idem, "Tribal Politics and Social Organization" Unpublished PhD dissertation (Columbia, 1986).
41. Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa: 1325-1354 H.A.R. Gibb (Tr.) (New York, 1929); see also the bibliography in Ross E. Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century (Berkeley, 1986).
42. Bosworth, The Gaznavids, p. 205.
43. Kasgarli Mahmud, Kitab Diwan Lugat at Turk.
44. Ettuhfet uz zakiyye fil lugat it Turkiyye. Besim Atalay, Ed., Tr. (Istanbul, 1945). Atalay provides an introduction to place the work in its context.
45. See Theodor Noldeke, (tr.) (Bombay, 1930). See also W. L. Hanaway, "Epic Poetry" Ehsan Yarshater, Editor, Persian Literature (Ithaca: Bibliotheca Persica, 1988); R. L. Canfield, Editor, Turco-Persia in Historical Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 1991).
46. Elizabeth Endicott-West, Mongolian Rule in China (Harvard, 1989); Morris Rossabi, Khubilai Khan, His Life and Times (Berkeley, 1988); Thomas Allsen, Mongol Imperialism (Berkeley, 1987).
47. See Lt. Col. Sir Wolseley Haig and Sir Richard Burn (Eds.) The Cambridge History of India (1922-1953), Vol III, Turks and Afghans (1928). M. G. S. Hodgson, in his The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization (Chicago, 1974), 3 Vols., suggests that the above cited 1928 volume is written from the now outdated British Empire point of view. See also V. Smith, Oxford History of India (Oxford, 1958).
48. Rashid al-Din, The Successors of Genghis Khan, trans. by John A. Boyle (New York, 1971). For example, the Akkoyunlu had no wish to come under Ottoman or Safavid dominion. See John Woods, The Aqqoyunlu Clan, Confederation, Empire: A Study in 15th/9th Century Turco-Iranian Politics (Minneapolis, 1976).
49. Alfarabi's Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, Muhsin Mahdi, Tr. (Free Press/Macmillan, 1962).
50. Known in the West as Avicenna. See Avicenna: Scientist and Philosopher. G. M. Wickens, Ed. (London, 1952).
51. For additional personae, see for example The Cambridge History of Islam, P. M. Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton and B. Lewis (Eds.). (Cambridge University Press, 1970) 4 Vols.; Carl Brockelmann, History of the Islamic Peoples, J. Charmichael and M. Perlmann (Tr.) (London, 1948). 7th Printing, 1982.
52. Aydin Sayili, Logical Necessities in Mixed Equations by 'Abd al Hamid ibn Turk and the Algebra of his Time (Ankara, 1962).
53. Timur's grandson, who ruled Samarkand and environs, author ofprincipal astronomical and mathematical works which were translated into Western languages beginning with the 17th century. See Ulugh Bey Calendar, John Greaves, Savilian Professo rof Astronomy, Tr. (Oxford, 1652). Ulug Beg's works influenced European studies on the subject. Bartold utilized a French translation by Sedillot, Prolgomenes des tables astronomiques d'Oloug-beg (Paris, 1847-53). See Barthold, Four Studies on the History of Central Asia Vol. II, Ulug Beg. (Leiden, 1963). For a more detailed bibliography, see Kevin Krisciunas, "The Legacy of Ulugh Beg" H. B. Paksoy, Editor, Central Asian Monuments (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1992).
54. Muhammad ibn Musa al Khwarazmi, Kitab al Mukhtasar fi Hisab al Jabr wa'l Muqabala, F. Rosen, Editor, Translator, (London, 1830).
55. The Babur-Nama in English, (Memoirs of Babur) Anette S. Beveridge, Tr. (London, 1922). It has been reprinted in 1969. See also Muhammad Haidar, A History of the Moghuls of Central Asia Being the Tarikh-i Reshidi of Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlad, E. D. Ross, Translator; N. Elias, Editor, (London, 1898). Reprint (New York, 1970).
56. Huseyin Baykara (r. 1469-1506), a direct descendent of Timur, ruled Herat and Khorasan. His contemporary, friend and boon- companion Navai is exemplified as the ultimate literati of this period. Reportedly of Uyghur descent, Navai (1441-1501) wrote voluminously and with apparent ease in Chaghatay, a Turk dialect, and Persian, and concomitantly was the long-time serving 'prime minister' to Huseyin Baykara. Much of Navai's writings remain untranslated. For his collected works, see A. S. Levend, Ali Sir Nevai (Ankara: Turk Dil Kurumu, 1965-68) 4 Vols.
57. Fuzuli, Kulliyat-i Divan-i Fuzuli (Istanbul, 1308/1891); idem, Turkce Divan. K. Akyuz, S. Beken, S. Yuksel, M. Cumhur, Eds. (Ankara, 1958); idem, Eserler (Baku, 1958). See also Keith Hitchins, "Fuzuli [pseudonym of Muhammad ibn Suleiman]" The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet Literatures. Harry B. Weber, Ed. (Academic International Press, 1987) Vol. 8.
58. Roger M. Savory, Iran under the Safavids (Cambridge University Press, 1980).
59. For example, see Muhammed Salih, Shaibani-nama (Chaghatay text) (St. Peterburg, 1908).
60. Maria Eva Subtelny, "Art and Politics in Early 16th Century Central Asia" Central Asiatic Journal Vol. 27, No. 1-2 (1983); idem, "The Poetic Circle at the Court of the Timurid Sultan Husain Baiqara, and its Political Significance." Unpublished PhD Dissertation (Harvard University, 1979).
61. The identification was first made by Kasgarli Mahmud in Diwan Lugat at Turk, as a branch of the Turks.
62. A History of the Seljuks: Ibrahim Kafesoglu's Interpretation and the Resulting Controversy Gary Leiser (Tr., Ed) (Southern Illinois University Press, 1988).
63. According to Y. Bregel, in his Introduction to the facsimile of Munis and Agahi's Firdaws al-Ikbal: History of Khorezm (Leiden, 1988), the latter was completed c. 1665 by another person. Secere-i Turk is rather difficult to locate, causing a determination of the sources for the translated works tenuous. This is especially true with respect to the early French and English translations: [Bentinck] Historie Genealogique des Tatars (Leiden, 1726) Two Vols.; Abu Al Ghazi Bahadur, A History of the Turks, Moguls, and Tatars, Vulgarly called Tartars, Together witha Description of the Countries They Inhabit (London, 1730) Two Vols.; [Miles] Genealogical Tree of the Turks and Tatars (London,1838). Imperial Russian Academy at St. Petersburg published a facsimile of Terakime in 1871, edited by Desmaisons, who later prepared a French translation. A modern-day translation is long overdue. See H. F. Hofman Turkish Literature: A Bio- Bibliographical Survey (Utrecht, 1969) for additional comments. Dr. Riza Nur endeavored to popularize the genre with his edition of Turk Seceresi (Istanbul, 1343/1925). One of the earlier Russian translations prepared is Rodoslovnoe drevno tiurkov, (Kazan, 1906), with an afterword by N. Katanov (1862-1922). Apparently this 1906 version was not published until 1914, minus Katanov's name from the title page, and his afterword from the body of the book. See A. N. Kononov, Rodoslovnaia Turkmen (Moscow-Leningrad, 1958), page 181. In order to understand the reason, one must turn to Z. V. Togan's memoirs, Hatiralar, where Togan relates an incident taking place prior to 1917, when Katanov poured his heart to Togan.
64. See H. B. Paksoy, Alpamysh: Central Asian Identity under Russian Rule (Hartford, CT: Association for the Advancement of Central Asian Research, Monograph Series, 1989), p. 1.
65. Z. V. Togan compiled his version Oguz Destani: Residettin Oguznamesi, Tercume ve Tahlili (Istanbul, 1972) (published posthumously) from twelve manuscripts. Though originally composed and later put down on paper in a Turkish dialect prior to 13th century, it was widely rendered into Persian. Known translations include Oughouz-name, epopee turque, Riza Nur (Tr.) (Societe de publications Egyptiennes: Alexandrie, 1928); Die Legende von Oghuz Qaghan. W. Bang and R. Arat (Eds.) (Sitzb. d. Preuss. Akad. D. Wiss. 1932. Phil.-Histr. K1. V, Berlin). To my knowledge, there is no English rendition as yet. See also D. Sinor, "Oguz Kagan Destani Uzerine Bazi Mulahazalar" Turk Dili ve Edebiyati Dergisi, 1952 (Tr. from French by A. Ates); Faruk Sumer's book length article, "Oguzlar'a Ait Destani Mahiyetde Eserler" Ankara Universitesi DTC Fakultesi Dergisi, 1959; and the Introduction of G. L. Lewis to The Book of Dede Korkut (London, 1982), Second Printing.
66. Munis and Agahi, Firdaws al-Iqbal: History of Khorezm.
67. Ali Shir Navai, Muhakemat al-lughateyn, Robert Devereux, Tr. (Leiden, 1966).
68. Although there are some incuding guidance to sensual pleasures, such as the Persian Kabusnama. Nizam al-Mulk, The Book of Government, H. Darke (Tr.) (Yale University Press, 1960), is a combination of autobiography (written partly to exonerate himself), and political advice to two Seljuk rulers.
69. The language of Kutadgu Bilig (Completed A. D. 1069) echoes the above referenced Orkhon-Yenisey inscriptions. A Turkish edition is: Yusuf Has Hacib, Kutadgu Bilig. R. R. Arat, Editor, (Ankara, 1974) (2nd Ed.). KB is translated into English as Wisdom of Royal Glory by R. Dankoff (Chicago, 1983).
70. Concerning related issues, see Janet Martin, Treasure of the Land of Darkness: A Study of the Fur Trade in Medieval Russia (Cambridge University Press, 1986); Azade Ayse Rorlich, The Volga Tatars: A Profile in National Resilience (Hoover, 1986); Alan W. Fisher, Crimean Tatars (Hoover, 1978); A. Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, Islam in the Soviet Union ((NY and London, 1967). A. Bennigsen and Marie Broxup, The Islamic Threat to the Soviet State (London, 1983); Uli Schamiloglu, "Umdet l-Ahbar and the Turkic Narrative Sources for the Golden Horde and the Later Golden Horde" Central Asian Monuments (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1992).
71. Also known as qumiss, etc. See, inter alia, Kasgarli Mahmud, Kitab Diwan Lugat at Turk (p. 184). It is still an immensely popular drink, contains --due to the fermentation process in its preparation-- natural alcohol. However, it is not in the same category as hard liquor, possessing much less intoxicating agents. Russians became aware of the nourishing and rejuvenating qualities of kimiz after their occupation of Kazakhstan. Currently, several sanatoriums are operating in the Kazakh steppe where ingestion of kimiz is the primary dietetic and therapeutic prescription, especially against diagnosed tuberculosis. Probably this discovery of the beneficial effects of kimiz on TB caused Moscow to reconsider and relax the sovhoz-kolhoz rules in the area, in order to insure the maintenance of large herds of mares necessary to supply the sanatoriums where the CPSU Officialdom is treated.
72. On the social position of women in Central Asia, even at the turn of the 20th c., see Z. V. Togan, Hatiralar (Istanbul, 1969).
73. Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (University of North Carolina Press, 1975); See also J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford, 1971).
74. See also A. Bennigsen and S. E. Wimbush, Mystics and Commisars (London, 1985), which contains a sizeable bibliography from the Soviet perspective. For the response of al-Ghazali (1058-1111), to Farabi (ca. 870-950), see The Faith and Practice of a-Ghazali, W. Montgomery Watt, Tr. (London, 1953). See also Devin DeWeese, "The Eclipse of the Kubraviyah in Central Asia" Iranian Studies Vol. I, No. 1-2, 1988; idem, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994).
75. He is believed to have died in 1166. Ahmet Yesevi's Hikmet appears to have been first published in Kazan, in 1878 or 1879. For a treatment of Yesevi, and an annotated bibliography, see Fuad Koprulu, Turk Edebiyatinda Ilk Mutasavviflar (Ankara, 1981). Fourth Ed.
76. For example, Bukhara of the 19th century. Fazlur Rahman, Islam (Chicago,1966); M. G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam. Vol. 2.
77. Audrey L. Altstadt, Azerbaijani Turks (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1992) Studies of Nationalities in the USSR; idem, "The Forgotten Factor: The Shi'i Mullahs in Pre- Revolutionary Baku," Passe Turco-Tatar, Present Sovietique, Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, Giles Veinstein, S. Enders Wimbush (Eds.) (Louvain/Paris, 1986).
78. S. Becker, Russian Protectorates in Central Asia: Bukhara and Khiva 1865-1924 (Harvard, 1968).
79. The Russian missionary in question is N. Ostroumov. Reporting the statement is Husamettin Tugac, Bir Neslin Drami (Istanbul, 1975). p. 159-160. Tugac learned of Ostroumov's story in 1918 while making his way through Central Asia, on the way to Istanbul, after escaping from a tsarist prison in the vicinity of the Mongolian border. For another example of Ostroumov's activity, see Z. V. Togan, Turkili Turkistan as personally observed by Togan. An English excerpt of Togan's observations is in H. B. Paksoy, Alpamysh, p. 19.
80. Tacitus, Agricola and the Germania, H. Mattingly, Tr. (London, 1948). pp. 62-63. Agricola was the father-in-law of Tacitus and the Roman military governor of Britain at the time.
81. Tacitus, pp. 72-73.
82. Apart from its use in textiles, etc, when processed with acids, termed "nitrating," cotton constitutes the basis of high grade explosives.
83. A. Park, Bolshevism in Turkestan 1917-1927 (Columbia, 1957); O. Caroe, Soviet Empire, the Turks of Central Asia and Stalinism (London, 1953); G. Wheeler, Racial Problems in Soviet Muslim Asia (Oxford, 1967); C. W. Warren, Turkism and the Soviets (London, 1957); E. Allworth, Uzbek Literary Politics (The Hague, 1964); M. Rywkin, Moscow's Muslim Challenge (M. E. Sharpe, 1990) (Revised ed.); E. Naby, "The Concept of Jihad in Opposition to Communist Rule: Turkestan and Afghanistan" Studies in Comparative Communism Vol. XIX, Nos. 3 and 4, Autumn/Winter 1986.
84. See Edward Ingram, The Beginnings of the Great Game in Asia 1828-1834 (Oxford, 1979); idem, Commitment to Empire: Prophecies of the Great Game in Asia 1797-1800 (Oxford, 1981); idem, In Defense of British India: Great Britain in the Middle East 1775-1842 (London, 1984). Although the major players were Britain and Russia, Germany also joined later in the century and the French were not disinterested.
85. J. R. V. Prescott, Map of Mainland Asia by Treaty.
86. Louis Dupree, Afghanistan (Princeton University Press, 1980).
87. R. N. Frye, "Oriental Studies in Russia;" Wayne S. Vucinich "Structure of Soviet Orientology" both in Russia in Asia: Essays on the Influence of Russia on the Asian Peoples Wayne Vucinich, Ed. (Stanford, 1972). The British Government periodically issues reports updating the history and structure of Oriental Studies in Great Britain, which is stated to go back to the 15th century. However, such efforts were thoroughly organized by the beginning of the 20th century. See Oriental Studies in Britain (London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office, 1975).
88. For an early treatment of the subject, see Yusuf Akura, Uc Tarz-i Siyaset (Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu, 1976). Akura's analysis was first printed in the newspaper Turk published in Cairo during 1904. For the English version, see Three Policies, David S. Thomas, (Tr.), H. B. Paksoy, Editor, Central Asian Monuments (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1992); Francois Georgeon "Yusuf Akura: Deuxieme Partie--Le Mouvement National des Musulmans de Russie (1905-1908)" Central Asian Survey Vol. 5, No. 2, 1986.
89. A. H. Vambery, Travels in Central Asia (London, 1865). Vambery masqueraded as a mendicant dervish across Central Asia, around 1860-61. Upon his return to Europe, he wrote several bookson his adventures. See, for example, his Sketches of Central Asia (London, 1868). See also C. W. Hostler, Turkism and the Soviets (London, 1957).
Vambery, it is now known, was in the pay of the British Government. For archival references, see M. Kemal Oke, "Prof. Arminius Vambery and Anglo-Ottoman Relations 1889-1907" Bulletin of the Turkish Studies Association, Vol. 9, No. 2. 1985.
90. For example, L. Cahun's Introduction a l'Histoire de l'Asie, Turcs, et Mongols, des Origines a 1405 (Paris, 1896) was written to suggest that a belief in racial superiority motivated the conquests of the Mongol Chinggiz Khan. This book was published on the heels of the 1893-1894 Franco-Russian rapprochement, at a time when Russia justified its conquest of Central Asia as part of its own "civilizing mission." In the Secret History of the Mongols, written c. 1240 A. D., after the death of Chinggiz, there is, of course, no reference to racial superiority. Instead, it quotes Chinggiz: "Tangri (God) opened the gate and handed us the reins." See Mogollarin Gizli Tarihi (A. Temir, Trans.) (Ankara, 1948), (p. 227) indicating that Chinggiz regarded only himself ruling by divine order. See also Francis Cleaves, Tr., Ed. The Secret History of the Mongols (Harvard, 1982). The "Great Khan" himself was and remained the focus of power, as opposed to the clans under his rule. In any event, the Mongol armies were distinctly multi-racial. See T. Allsen, Mongol Imperialism (Berkeley, 1987); M. Rossabi, Khubilai Khan (Berkeley, 1988).
Another representative sample of the use of the "Pan- Turkism" bogeyman is A Manual on the Turanians and Pan-Turanianism (Oxford: H. M. Government, Naval Staff Intelligence Department, November 1918), a work that was based on Vambery's Turkenvolk (Leipzig, 1885) and that it was compiled by Sir Denison Ross, as Sir Denison later personally informed Togan. On this work, see Togan's comments in Turkili (pp. 560-563). Even Alexander Kerensky, in Paris exile after the Bolshevik Revolution, was utilizing the same "Turanian" rhetoric, calling it "a menace threatening the world.
91. "Pan-Islam" never did obtain a foothold in Central Asia. Even when Enver Pasha was forced to sign declarations to that effect during 1920-1921, his audience had no clear conception of the specific term or its implications. The best work on Enver, which utilizes Enver's diaries and journals, is S. S. Aydemir, Makedonya'dan Orta Asya'ya Enver Pasha (Istanbul, 1974). Three Volumes (There are several printings). Enver left an autobiography. It was utilized by Aydemir. There is a German translation of Enver's autobiography, in typescript, located in the Sterling Library of the Yale University. See also Glen Swanson "Enver Pasha: The Formative Years" Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.16, N.3., October 1980. Azade-Ayse Rorlich provides a further view of Enver in her "Fellow Travelers: Enver Pasha and the Bolshevik Government 1918-1920" in Journal of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, Vol. XIII (Old Series Vol. 69), Part III, October 1982. See also Masayuki Yamauchi, "The Unromantic Exiles: Istanbul to Berlin --Enver Pasha 1919-1920" Research Report on Urbanism in Islam (University of Tokyo, 1989) No. 11; idem, The Green Crescent Under the Red Star: Enver Pasha in Soviet Russia (Tokyo, 1991). Close colleagues and classmates of Enver from the Ottoman Military academy left memoirs in which Enver is featured prominently. Among those, Marshal Fevzi akmak, General Kazim Karabekir, Ismet Inonu and Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) are notable. Approximately half of those were written at the height of Enver's success and powers.
92. Among many works on Jamal Ad-Din al-Afghani and Pan-Islamism, see, H. A. R. Gibb, Modern Trends in Islam (Chicago, 1947); Nikki Keddie, Sayyid Jamal ad-Din "al-Afghani:" a Political Biography, (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1972). About the Recidivist Movement of 31 March 1909, see Sina Aksin's 31 Mart Olayi (Ankara, 1970). For the political environment of the period, see: Ernest E. Ramsaur, The Young Turks: Prelude to the Revolution of 1908 (Beirut, 1965); Serif Mardin, Jon Turklerin Siyasi Fikirleri, 1895-1908 (Ankara, 1964); Feroz Ahmad, The Young Turks: The Committee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics, 1908-1914 (Oxford, 1969); M. Sukru Hanioglu, Bir Siyasal Orgut Olarak 'Osmanli Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti' ve 'Jon Turkluk' 1889-1902 Vol. I (Istanbul, 1985); Masami Arai, Turkish Nationalism in the Young Turk Era (Leiden, 1991).
93. Concerning this censorship, M. T. Choldin, A Fence Around the Empire: Censorship of Western Ideas under the Tsars (Duke University Press, 1985); B. Daniel, Censorship in Russia (University Press of America, 1979); Hugh Seton-Watson, The Russian Empire, 1801-1917 (Oxford, 1967). See also Thomas Kuttner "Russian Jadidism and the Islamic World: Ismail Gasprinskii in Cairo, 1908" Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovietique. 16. (1975).
94. B. Allahverdiyev, Kitablar Hakkinda Kitap (Baku, 1972). For further examples, see also Edward Lazzerini, "Gadidism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: A View >From Within" Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovietique. 16 (1975).
95. See H. B. Paksoy, Alpamysh; M. Dewhirst and R. Farrell, The Soviet Censorship (Metuchen-NJ, 1973); L. Branson, "How Kremlin Keeps Editors in Line" The Times (London) 5 January 1986. p. 1.
96. Under the influence of Peter Stolypin (1862-1911), the author of "We Need A Great Russia" Gosudarstvennaia Duma Stenograficheskie Otchety (St. Petersburg, 1907). Cf. Thomas Riha, Editor, Readings in Russian Civilization Vol. II, Imperial Russia 1700-1917, (Chicago, 1964).
97. Hugh Seton-Watson, The Russian Empire 1801-1917 (Oxford, 1967).
98. Ismail Bey Gasprinskii, Russkoe Musul'manstvo: Mysli, Zametkii Nablyudeniya (Simferopol, 1881) Society for Central Asian Studies (Oxford, 1985) Reprint No. 6; Edward J. Lazzerini, "Ismail Bey Gasprinskii's Perevodchik/Tercuman: A Clarion of Modernism" H. B. Paksoy, Editor, Central Asian Monuments (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1992); idem, "From Bakhchisaray to Bukharain 1893: Ismail Bey Gasprinskii's Journey to Central Asia" Central Asian Survey Vol. 3, No. 4 (1984); idem, Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia, 1878-1914 (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Washington, 1973); idem, "Gadidism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: A View From Within;" Cafer Seydahmet, Gaspirali Ismail Bey (Istanbul, 1934).
99. For example, Annales Bertiniani of the 9th c. For related discussion, see D. Sinor, "The Historical Role of the Turk Empire" Journal of World History I, (1953); Edouard Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-kiue (Turcs) (St. Petersbourg, 1903); D. Obolensky, Cambridge Medieval History Vol. IV, Part 1; The Legacy of Islam, Joseph Schacht with C. E. Bosworth (Eds.) (Oxford, 1974) Second Edition.
100. An exclamatory term, akin to the exhortation "lets go," especially used when rounding-up or rustling livestock.
101. See H. B. Paksoy, Alpamysh.
102. The last references are to the respective anti-colonial movements. It should be remembered that Togan was writing the 1920s. For a treatment, see H. B. Paksoy, "'The Basmachi (Turkistan National Liberation Movement)" Modern Encyclopedia of Religions in Russia and Soviet Union, Vol. IV (Academic International Press, 1991), pp. 5-20; idem, "Zeki Velidi Togan's Account: The Basmachi Movement from Within," H. B. Paksoy, Editor, Central Asia Reader (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1994).
103. Tacitus, pp. 65-66.
104. Conceivably, examples such as the Britons were foremost in the minds of the men leading the 1776 American Independence movement. American Founding Fathers may have also have been remembering the admonitions that a republic can only exist with an educated public; and that both the Greeks and the Romans did not heed Plato's advice and saw the replacement of their republics with dictatorships. (Plato's Republic has been widely available). Hence, the early American battle-cries "Give me liberty, or give me death," and "No taxation without representation" were not mere accidents. The American Founding Fathers at once began establishing secular universities in the new republic. University of Pennsylvania (Established as College of Philadelphia) was founded in 1753 with the help of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). George Washington (1732-1799) gave encouragement and aid to the establishment of more than one college, one of which still bears his name. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) led the way in establishing the University of Virginia in 1819. Later, Johns Hopkins (1876) and University of Chicago (1892) were also founded as secular institutions of higher learning. As it is known, the universities established in colonial America were first and foremost training clergy. Later, these existing colleges and universities followed the lead of the new institutions by revising their curricula, giving weight to liberal arts education.
105. Y. Bregel, in his Introduction to Munis and Agahi, Firdaws al-Ikbal: History of Khorezm notes:
".....The West first learned about the existence of these works through a Russian orientalist named A. L. Kuhn, who accompanied, together with several other Russian scholars, the Russian military expedition against Khiva in 1873 which resulted in the capturing of Khiva and establishing of the Russian protectorate over the Khanate. In the Khan's palace the Russians found a great number of archival documents and about 300 manuscripts; they were all confiscated....Some of the publications confiscated in Khiva by the Russians in 1873 were transferred in 1874 to the Imperial Public Library in Petersburg, but others were kept by Kuhn in his private possession; these included the manuscripts of the works by Munis and Agahi....
[From p. 54, Note 304 of the Introduction] The MS C is slightly damaged by water from which several marginal notes at the beginning of the MS especially suffered. Many pages of E are also damaged by water, but it does not appreciably affect the legibility of the text. The cause of this damage is probably to be explained by a story told by Palvan (Pahlavan) Mirza-bashi, the secretary of the khan of Khiva, to a Russian official and orientalist N. P. Ostroumov in 1891. According to this secretary, "Kun [Kuhn] took away from Khiva about fifteen hundred different manuscripts, but when he transported them across [the Amu-Darya] in a boat, most of the manuscripts got wet, and he requested about 150 mullas from a madrasa to dry the wet copies." (Cited from Ostroumov's diary in Lunin, Srednyaya Aziya, 345, n. 523).
It may also be stated that, there was a second reason why Ostroumov and other Russians were seizing manuscripts: to study and understand the Central Asians better, to discover more effective means for control. Subsequent publication of some of those manuscripts have been largely confined to Soviet "nationalities specialists," in strictly controlled circulation.
106. For further details, see H. B. Paksoy, "'The Basmachi': Turkistan National Liberation Movement;" idem, "Zeki Velidi Togan's Account: The Basmachi Movement from Within."
107. Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917-1923 (Harvard, 1954).
108. Robert Conquest, Harvest of Sorrow. (New York, 1982).
109. J. M. Landau, Pan-Turkism in Turkey: A study of Irredentism (London, 1981). This volume is primarily concerned with the emigre aspects of "pan-Turkism."
110. H. B. Paksoy, Alpamysh.
111. For the career of Mir-Said Sultan Galiev, see Masayuki Yamauchi, "One Aspect of Democratization in Tataristan: The Dream of Sultangaliev Revisited" presented to the Conference on Islam and Democratization in Central Asia, held at the University of Massachusetts -Amherst, 26-27 September 1992; idem, The Dream of Sultangaliev (Tokyo, 1986); A. Bennigsen and S. Enders Wimbush, Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union: A Revolutionary Strategy for the Colonial World (Chicago, 1979).
112. Cf. Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union. p. 46, from Z. I. Gimranov, at the Ninth Conference of the Tatar Obkom, 1923, and published in Stenograficheskii otchot 9oi oblastnoi Konferensii Tatarskoi organizatsii RKP (b) (Kazan, 1924), p. 130. It is recalled that during 1922-1923, the British Labor party was rapidly becoming a parlimentary force. In January 1924, Ramsey Macdonald headed the first Labor government, which was replaced by Conservatives led by Stanley Baldwin in November the same year. Also, the Irish rebellion of 1921 was still in the background, that gave an added urgency to the nature and prospects of political leadership in Britain.
113. Russian Communist Party (bolshevik).
114. Ahmet Zeki Velidi Togan. See above. Before his move to West, he was known as Zeki Validov.
115. Speech at the Fourth Conference of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) with the responsible Workers of the National Republics and Regions, 10 June 1923. Published in "The Sultan Galiev Case." J. V. Stalin, Works Vol. 5, 1921-1923. (Moscow, 1953). Cf. Bennigsen and Wimbush, Moslem National Communism, pp. 158-165.
116. Cf. Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslim National Communism, p. 91.
117. A more detailed version of the discussion in this section was presented by H. B. Paksoy, to Yale University-Hopkins Summer Seminars, 9 July 1990.
118. See AACAR Bulletin Vol. IV, No. 1 (Spring 1991).
119. Gregory Gleason, "Educating for Underdevelopment: The Soviet Vocational Education System and its Central Asian Critics" Central Asian Survey Vol. 4, No. 2 1985; Patricia M. Carley, "Ecology in Central Asia: The Price of the Plan. Perceptions of Cotton and Health in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan" Central Asian Survey Vol. 8, No. 4, 1989.
120. A more comprehensive version of the discussion in this section was presented by H. B. Paksoy, to the Japanese Institute of International Affairs, Tokyo, during June, 1991.
121. RL Daily Report, Munich, February 6, 1990.
122. The interview was printed in the Leningrad youth newspaper Smena, and reprinted in Komsomolets Uzbekistana, in a "slightly abridged form." See "Islamic Explosion Possible in Central Asia" Munich, February 5, 1990, (RLR/P. Goble).
123. The January 1990 issue of Nauka i religiia. See "Three Soviet Myths on Religion Exploded" Munich, February 2, 1990 (RLR/P. Goble).
124. James Critchlow, "Corruption, Nationalism and the Native Elites in Soviet Central Asia" The Journal of Communist Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1988.
125. For reports, see Conflict in the Soviet Union: The Untold Story of the Clashes in Kazakistan (New York: International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, 1990) Cf. AACAR Bulletin Vol. IV, No. 1 (Spring, 1991); Turkestan, Supplement to AACAR Bulletin Vol. III, No. 2 (Fall, 1990), repinted in H. B. Paksoy, Editor, Central Asia Reader (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1994).
126. In an interview published in the West Berlin daily Tageszeitung of June 25, 1990. RL Daily Report, Munich, June 26, 1990 (Victor Yasmann). Moskovskie novosti published the biography of KGB General Oleg Kalugin, whose recent revelations about the KGB have attracted so much attention: Born in 1934, Kalugin joined the KGB in 1958. The next year, he was sent --along with Aleksandr Yakovlev-- as one of the first Soviet exchange students to study for a year at Columbia University. He stayed in the US for several years, working for the KGB first as a journalist and then as first secretary of the USSR Embassy in Washington under Anatolii Dobrynin. In 1972, Kalugin became chief of the KGB's counterintelligence service in Vladimir Kryuchkov's First Chief Directorate. In 1980, KGB boss Yurii Andropov transferred him to the post of first deputy chief of the KGB Administration in Leningrad. See RL Daily Report, Munich, June 26, 1990 (Alexander Rahr).
127. Moreover, some of the Soviet "ethnic" and "nationality" appellations were created by decree, partly for that purpose. For example, Meskhetians are not ethnically Turks, but were so designated during the Second World War (on 15 November 1944) to suit the needs of the Soviet regime. See S. Enders Wimbush and Ronald Wixman, "The Meskhetian Turks: A New Voice in Soviet Central Asia" Canadian Slavonic Papers Vol. XVII, No. 1, 1975.
128. See the supplement to AACAR Bulletin Vol III, No. 2 (Fall, 1990).
129. "...When he [Lenin] wanted faithful guards, Lenin took Latvian riflemen with him. He knew that if you want to protect yourself against the Russians, you put minorities in charge. If you are afraid of minorities, you use Russians." See S. Enders Wimbush, The Ethnic Factor in the Soviet Armed Forces (Rand Report, 1982) R-2787/1. p. 19. Also, Susan L. Curran and Dmitry Ponomareff, Managing the Ethnic Factor in the Russian and Soviet Armed Forces: An Historical Overview (Rand Report, 1982) R- 2640/1.
130. RL Daily Report, Munich, February 6, 1990.
131. Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Public Papers and Addresses, S. I. Rosenman, Ed. (New York, 1938-1950) Vol. VI.
132. George J. Demko, The Russian Colonization of Kazakhstan 1896-1916 (Bloomington, 1969). Indiana University Uralic-Altaic Series Vol. 99. Soviets also made land demands on other nationalities, and took land by military force, including in the Baltic region.
133. See Z. V. Togan, Turkili Turkistan; idem, Hatiralar; Stephen Blank, "The Struggle for Soviet Bashkiria 1917-1923" Nationalities Papers. No. 1, 1983; idem, "The Contested Terrain: Muslim Political Participation in Soviet Turkestan, 1917-1919" Central Asian Survey Vol. 6, No. 4, 1987; R. Baumann, "Subject Nationalities in the Military Service of Imperial Russia: The Case of Bashkirs" Slavic Review (Fall/Winter 1987).
134. For the 1921 Kars Treaty, see Kazim Karabekir, Istiklal Harbimiz (Istanbul, 1960).
135. Alexander Rahr, "Zhirinovsky's Plea for Dictatorship," RFE/RL Daily Report No. 124, 2 July 1992. The leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party, Vladimir Zhirinovskii, told Rossiya (No. 27) that a majority of Russians favor dictatorship. He said that he wants to reinstall the Russian empire, first within the boundaries of the former USSR, but subsequently along the borders of the former Tsarist empire. He stated that right-wing forces will come to power in Russia and Germany under the slogan of the protection of the white race and divide eastern Europe among themselves. He added that after the forthcoming demise of the United States, Alaska will also be incorporated into the Russian empire. He noted that, if elected president, he would strenghten the army and state security forces."
136. Isaiah Berlin, Russian Thinkers. H. Hardy and A. Kelly, Eds. (London, 1978); Edward L. Keenan, "Muscovite Political Folkways" Russian Review, Vol. 45, 1986.
137. Chaadaev (1794-1856) wrote the "A Philosophical Letter," "....that caused the suppression of the newspaper which published it, dismissal of the censor who passed it, its editor to be exiled, and Chaadaev was declared madman... By order of Nicholas I [Chadaaev was] put under police supervision. For a year he had to endure daily visits by a physician and policeman." See Readings in Russian Civilization Vol. II.
138. Also known as the "Black Hundreds," was founded in 1905 as a modern party in support of autocracy. "[This party] ....showed special hostility to the intelligentsia. Above all it was anti- Semitic and nationalist. Its support came from those who organized the pogroms of Jewish property in the southern and south-western provinces. It was essentially the forerunner of the fascist movements of the 1930s." Cf. Seton-Watson, The Russian Empire.
139. Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinskiy, founder of Bolshevik police to enforce the decisions of the Russian Communist Party, later to become KGB. See John J. Dziak, Chekisty: A History of the KGB (New York, 1988).
140. Konstantin Pobedonostsev (1827-1907), professor of civil law, Moscow University; member of government committee drafting judicial reforms of 1864; member of the ruling State Council. "Pobedonostsev is said to have served as a model for Dostoevski's Grand Inquisitor." See Readings in Russian Civilization Vol. II, Imperial Russia 1700-1917. "The Falsehood of Democracy" appeared in K. Pobedonostsev, Reflections of a Russian Statesman (London, 1898).
141. Leonard Shapiro, "The Pre-Revolutionary Intelligentsia and the Legal Order" Russian Studies. Ellen Dahrendorf, Editor, (London/New York: Penguin, 1987). Reprinted from Daedalus (Summer, 1960); Richard Wortmann, The Development of a Russian Legal Consciousness (Princeton, 1978).
142. See H. B. Paksoy, "Nationality and Religion: Three Observations from Omer Seyfettin" Central Asian Survey Vol. 3, No. 3 (1984).
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