The Birth of Tajikistan: National Identity and the Origins of the Republic

by Paul Bergne

When the Bolshevik Revolution broke out in October 1917, much of Central Asia was still ruled by autonomous rulers such as the Emir of Bukhara and the Khan of Khiva. By 1920 the khanates had been transformed into People's Republics. In 1924, Stalin re-drew the frontiers of the region on ethno-linguistic lines creating, amongst other statelets, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan - the land of the Uzbeks. But the Turkic Uzbeks were not the only significant ethnic group within the new Uzbekistan's frontiers. The Persian-speaking Tajiks formed a considerable part of the population. This book describes how, often in the teeth of Uzbek opposition, the Tajiks gained, first an autonomous oblast (administrative region) within Uzbekistan, then an autonomous republic, and finally, in 1929, the status of a full Soviet Union Republic. Once the Tajiks had been granted a territory of their own, they began to strive for a national identity and to create national pride. Their new government had not only to survive the civil war that followed the revolution but then to build an entirely new country in an immensely inhospitable terrain.
New frontiers had to be wrested from neighbours, and a new cultural identity, 'national in form but socialist in content', had to be created, which was to be an example to other Persian speakers in the region. Paul Bergne has produced the first documentation of how the idea of a Tajik state came into being and offers a vivid history of the birth of a nation.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Grad School, Asia

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Josh]

Useful history of Tajikistan in the early years of the USSR.

[Logan Streondj]

Interesting book explaining how the creation of a Tajikstan ethnocultural identity was a soviet project of divide and conquer of the middle eastern peoples they had captured from the Ottoman and such islamic kingdoms.
They did not want to deal with a pan turkic union which could be a threat to their own authority, so they decided to divide them on various grounds. Initially making regions based on water sources and transportation. And later creating further divisions based on linguistic differences.
The soviets went so far as to make a language with a writing system, and create a largely fictional history of animosity between the tajik and surrounding people. Even though historically there was little or no animosity.

Amazing how this divide and conquer strategy worked.

I didn't give it 5 stars, as I was hoping on hearing the regional history back a thousand years or so. But it seems instead it is just like a synthetic nation created by the soviets with only a very brief history which is mostly also synthetic in nature.

[Colin]

There is not many books to,choose from on this subject matter, so I was excited to "find" this one. A lot of pages are spent discussing the corruption of the census during the nascent stages of the new Soviet state and how they were used for selfish gain. I was not aware of how much agency the local, young and no doubt ardent Communists possessed. I assumed it came from Stalin. The book is only 134 pages and tackles the subject with gusto. I was hoping for more history and less statistics. I had no idea Enver Pasha died in Kulyob!

[Paul]

Brilliant and dense, this history of Tajikistan from the early 1900s until its establishment in the late 1920s is a must read for anyone trying to understand the current country. The author meticulously researched language, ethnicity and state building for a complete picture of the implausible birth of this country from an oblast to an SSR. Fascinating!

[Gabriele Azzaro]

Come nasce uno Stato? Un'identità nazionale? Bergne ripercorre la nascita di un'identità nazionale tajika, utile alla nascita di una Repubblica sovietica del Tajikistan indipendente dell'Uzbekistan. Le identità nazionali non sono qualcosa di così scontato e immediato come dimostra l'esempio tajiko.

[Becca Levy]

I liked it more than I thought I would. Was a really good analysis and history piece. A bit confusing with all the acronyms at first. Would have liked a bit more context at times

[Shane McClendon]

Probably one of the better books about the establishment of Tajik national identity I've read in the past few months.

[Alexander]

A tedious blow-by-blow account of the creation of the Tajik SSR, redeemed only by an extensive notes section on obscure Tajik politicians otherwise unknown in English language scholarship. A far better and more engaging work covering the subject far more succinctly is Chapter 4 of Francine Hirsch's excellent Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union

[Turhan Dilmaç]

An exhaustive read on the formation of an "accidental" nation-state, Tajikistan.

[Siyu]

Bukhara and Samarkand back to Ironis