History of Central Asia

The history of Central Asia is defined primarily by the area's climate and geography. The aridness of the region made agriculture difficult and its distance from the sea cut it off from much trade. Thus few major cities developed in the region; instead the area was for millennia dominated by the nomadic horse peoples of the steppe.

Relations between the steppe nomads and the settled people in and around Central Asia were long marked by conflict. The nomadic lifestyle was well suited to warfare, and the steppe horse riders became some of the most militarily potent peoples in the world, limited primarily by their lack of internal unity. Periodically great leaders or changing conditions would organize several tribes into to one force, and create an almost unstoppable power. These included the Huns invasion of Europe, the Wu Hu attacks on China and most notably the Mongol conquest of much of Eurasia.

The dominance of the nomads ended in the 16th century as firearms allowed settled peoples to gain control of the region. Russia, China, and other powers expanded into the region, and had captured the bulk of Central Asia by the end of the 19th century. After the Russian Revolution, most Central Asian regions were incorporated into the Soviet Union; only Mongolia remained nominally independent, although it was a Soviet satellite state. The Soviet areas of Central Asia saw much industrialization and construction of infrastructure, but also the suppression of local cultures, hundreds of thousands of deaths from failed collectivization programs, and a lasting legacy of ethnic tensions and environmental problems.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, five Central Asian countries gained independence. In all the new states former Communist Party officials retained power as local strongmen. In no state is repression as great as it was in Soviet times, but none of the new republics could be considered functional democracies. Other regions of Central Asia remain part of China.

Prehistory

Recent genetic studies have concluded that humans arrived in the region around 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, making the region one of the oldest sites of human habitation. The archaeological evidence of population in this region is sparse, however, whereas evidence of human habitation in Africa and Australia prior to that of Central Asia is well-known. Some studies have also identified this region as the likeliest source of the populations who later inhabited Europe, Siberia, and North America. The region is also often considered to be the source of the root of the Indo-European languages.

The domestication of the horse began in Central Asia in the fourth millennium BC. The horses (actually ponies) were bred for strength, and by the second millennium BC they were strong enough to pull chariots. This gave rise to nomadism, a way of life that would dominate the region for the next several millennia.

Scattered nomadic groups maintained herds of sheep, goats, horses, and camels, and conducted annual migrations to find new pastures (a practice known as transhumance). The people lived in gers, tents made of hides and woods that could be disassembled and transported. Each group had several ger, each accommodating about five people.

While the semi-arid plains were dominated by the nomads small city-states and sedentary agrarian societies arose in the more humid areas of Central Asia. The Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex of the early second millennium BC was the first sedentary civilization of the region, practicing irrigation farming of wheat and barley and possibly a form of writing. Bactria-Margiana probably interacted with the contemporary Bronze Age nomads of the Andronovo culture, the originators of the spoke-wheeled chariot, who lived to their north in western Siberia, Russia, and parts of Kazakhstan, and survived as a culture until the first millennium BC. These cultures, particularly Bactria-Margiana, have been posited as possible representatives of the hypothetical Aryan culture ancestral to the speakers of the Ural-Altaic and Indo-Iranian languages.

Later the strongest of Sogdian city states of the Fergana Valley rose to prominence. After the first century BC these cities became home to the traders of the Silk Road and grew wealthy from this trade. The steppe nomads were dependent on these settled people for a wide array of goods that were impossible for transient populations to produce. The nomads traded for these when they could, but because they generally did not produce goods of interest to sedentary peoples the popular alternative was to carry out raids.

A wide variety of peoples came to populate the steps. Nomadic groups in Central Asia eventually included the Huns and other Turkic peoples, the Tocharians, Persians and other Indo-European peoples, and a number of groups of Mongols. Despite these ethnic and lingusitic differences, the steppe lifestyle led the adoption of very similar culture across the region.

External influences

In the first and second millennia BC a series of large and powerful states developed on the southern periphery of Central Asia. These empires launched several attempts to conquer the steppe peoples, but met with only mixed success. The Median Empire and Achaemenid Empire both ruled parts of Central Asia. Chinese states would also regularly strive to extend their power westwards. Despite their military might, these states found it almost impossible to conquer the nomads. When faced by a stronger force the nomads could simply retreat deep into the steppe and wait for the invaders to leave. With no cities and little wealth other than the herds they brought with them the nomads had nothing they could be forced to defend. An example of this is given by Herodotus's detailed account of the futile Persian campaigns against the Scythians.

Some empires did make deep inroads into Central Asia by founding cities and gaining control of the trading centres. Alexander the Great's conquests spread Hellenistic civilization all the way to Alexandria Eschate (Lit. “Alexandria the Furthest”), established in 329 BC in modern Tajikistan. After Alexander's death in 323 BC, the Central Asian successor satraps of his territory fell to the Seleucid Empire during the Wars of the Diadochi. In 250 BC, the Central Asian portion of the empire ( Bactria) seceded as the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, which had extensive contacts with India and China till its end in 125 BC. The Indo-Greek Kingdom, mostly based in the Punjab but controlling a fair part of Afghanistan, pioneered the development of Greco-Buddhism. The Kushan Kingdom thrived across a wide swath of the region from the Second Century BC to the Fourth Century AD, and continued Hellenistic and Buddhist traditions. These states prospered from their position on the Silk Road linking China and Europe. Later, external powers such as the Parthian Empire and Sassanid Empire would come to dominate this trade.

At this time Central Asia was a heterogeneous region with a mixture of cultures and religions. Buddhism remained the largest religion, but was concentrated in the east. Around Persia Zoroastrianism became important. Nestorian Christianity entered the area, but was never more than a minority faith. More successful was Manichaeism, which became the third largest faith. Many Central Asians practiced more than one faith, and almost all of the local religions were infused with local shamanistic traditions. In the eighth century, Islam began to penetrate the region. It was far less accommodating, and soon Islam was the sole faith of most of the population, though Buddhism remained strong in the east. The desert nomads of Arabia could militarily match the nomads of the steppe, and the early Arab dynasties gained control over parts of Central Asia. The Arab invasion also saw Chinese influence expelled from western Central Asia. At the Battle of Talas an Arab army decisively defeated a Tang Dynasty force and for the next several centuries Middle Eastern influences would dominate the region.

Return of indigenous rule

Over time, as new technologies were introduced, the nomadic horsemen grew in power. The Scythians developed the saddle, and by the time of the Alans the use of the stirrup had begun. Horses continued to grow larger and sturdier so that chariots were no longer needed as the horses could carry men with ease. This greatly increased the mobility of the nomads; it also freed their hands, allowing them to use the bow from horseback. Using small but powerful composite bows, the steppe people gradually became the most powerful military force in the world. From a young age almost the entire male population was trained in riding and archery, both of which were necessary skills for survival on the steppe. By adulthood these activities were second nature. These mounted archers were more mobile than any other force at the time, being able to travel forty miles a day with ease.

The steppe peoples quickly came to dominate Central Asia, forcing the scattered city states and kingdoms to pay them tribute or face annihilation. The martial ability of the steppe peoples was limited, however, by the lack of political structure within the tribes. Confederations of various groups would sometimes form under a ruler known as a khan. When large numbers of nomads acted in unison they could be devastating, as when the Huns arrived in Western Europe. Tradition was that any dominion conquered in such wars should be divided among all of the khan's sons, and these empires thus often declined as quickly as they formed.

Once the foreign powers were expelled several indigenous empires formed in Central Asia. The Hephthalites were the most powerful of these nomad groups in the sixth and seventh century and controlled much of the region. In the tenth and eleventh centuries the region was divided between several powerful states including the Samanid dynasty, that of the Seljuk Turks, and the Khwarezmid Empire, but all were fairly shortlived. The most spectacular power to rise out of Central Asia developed when Genghis Khan united the tribes of Mongolia. Using superior military techniques, the Mongol Empire spread to comprise almost all of Central Asia, as well as large parts of China, Russia, and the Middle East. After Temujin, most of Central Asia continued to be dominated by the successor Chagatai Khanate. This state proved to be short lived as in 1369 Tamerlane, a Turkic leader in the Mongol military tradition, conquered most of the region.

Even harder than keeping a steppe empire together was governing conquered lands outside the region. While the steppe peoples of Central Asia found conquest of these areas easy, they found governing almost impossible. The diffuse political structure of the steppe confederacies was maladapted to the complex states of the settled peoples. Moreover, the armies of the nomads were based upon large numbers of horses, generally three or four for each warrior. Maintaining these forces required large stretches of grazing land, not present outside the steppe. Any extended time away from the homeland would thus cause the steppe armies to gradually disintegrate. To govern settled peoples the steppe peoples were forced to rely on the local bureaucracy, a factor that lead to the rapid assimilation of the nomads into the culture of those they had conquered. Another important limit was that the armies, for the most part, were unable to penetrate the forested regions to the north; thus, such states as Novgorod and Muscovy began to grow in power.

In the fourteenth century much of Central Asia, and many areas beyond it, were conquered by Tamerlane. His large empire collapsed soon after his death, however. The region then became divided among a series of smaller Khanates, including the Khanate of Khiva, the Khanate of Bukhara, the Khanate of Kokand, and the Khanate of Kashgar.

Conquest of the steppes

The lifestyle that had existed largely unchanged since 500 BC began to disappear after 1500. An important change in the world economy in the fourteenth and fifteenth century was brought about by the development of nautical technology. Ocean trade routes were pioneered by the Europeans, who were cut off from the Silk Road by the Muslim states that controlled its western termini. The trade between East Asia, India, Europe, and the Middle East began to move over the seas and not through Central Asia. The disunity of the region after the end of the Mongol Empire also made trade and travel far more difficult and the Silk Road went into steep decline.

An even more important development was the introduction of gunpowder-based weapons. The gunpowder revolution allowed settled peoples to defeat the steppe horsemen in open battle for the first time. Construction of these weapons required the infrastructure and economies of large societies, and the nomads were unable to produce them. The domain of the nomads began to shrink as beginning in the fifteenth century the settled powers gradually began to conquer Central Asia.

The last steppe empire to emerge was that of the Dzungars who conquered much of East Turkestan and Mongolia. However in a sign of the changed times they proved unable to match the Chinese and were decisively defeated by the forces Manchu Dynasty. In the eighteenth century the Manchu emperors, themselves originally from the far east edge of the steppe, campaigned in the west and in Mongolia with the Qianlong Emperor taking control of Xinjiang in 1758. The Mongol threat was overcome and much of Inner Mongolia was annexed to China. The Chinese dominions stretched into the heart of Central Asia and included the Khanate of Kokand, which paid tribute to Peking. Outer Mongolia and Xinjiang did not become provinces of the Chinese empire, but rather were directly administered by the Manchu dynasty. The fact that there was no provincial governor meant that the local rulers retained most of their powers and this special status also prevented emigration from the rest of China into the region. Persia also began to expand north, especially under the rule of Nadir Shah who extended Persian dominion far past the Oxus. After his death, however, the Persian empire slowly crumbled and was annexed by Britain and Russia.

The Russians also expanded south, first with the transformation of the Ukrainian steppe into an agricultural heartland, and subsequently onto the fringe of the Kazakh Steppes, beginning with the foundation of the fortress of Orenburg. The slow Russian conquest of the heart of Central Asia began in the early nineteenth century, although Peter the Great had sent a failed expedition under Prince Bekovitch-Cherkassky against Khiva as early as the 1720s. By the 1800s, the locals could do little to resist the Russian advance, although the Kazakhs under Kenesary Kasimov rose in the 1820s-30s. Until the 1870s, for the most part, Russian interference was minimal, leaving native ways of life intact and local government structures in place. With the conquest of Turkestan after 1865 and the consequent securing of the frontier, the Russians gradually expropriated large parts of the steppe and gave these lands to Russian farmers, who began to arrive in large numbers. This process was initially limited to the northern fringes of the Steppe, and it was only in the 1890s that significant numbers of Russians began to settle farther south, especially in Semirechie.

Foreign control of Turkestan

Russia's Campaigns

The forces of the khanates were poorly-eqipped, and could do little to resist the advance of the Tsars' armies, although the Kokandian commander Alimqul led a quixotic campaign before being killed outside Chimkent. The main opposition to Russian expansion into Turkestan came from the British, who felt that Russia was growing too powerful, and threatening the North-West frontiers of British India. This rivalry came to be known as The Great Game, where both powers competed to advance their own interests in the region: it did little to slow the pace of conquest north of the Oxus, but did ensure that Afghanistan remained independent as a buffer-state between the two Empires.

After the fall of Tashkent to General Cherniaev in 1865, Khodjend, Djizak, and Samarkand fell to the Russians in quick succession over the next three years, as the Khanate of Kokand and the Emirate of Bukhara were repeatedly defeated. In 1867 the Governor-Generalship of Russian Turkestan was established, with its headquarters at Tashkent, under General Konstantin Petrovich Von Kaufman. In 1881-85 the Transcaspian region was annexed in the course of a campaign led by Generals Annenkov and Mikhail Skobelev, and Ashkhabad, Merv and Pendjeh all came under Russian control. Russian expansion was halted in 1887 when Russia and Great Britain delineated the northern border of Afghanistan. Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva remained quasi-independent, but were essentially protectorates along the lines of the Princely States of British India. Although the conquest was prompted by almost purely military concerns, in the 1870s and 1880s Turkestan came to play a reasonably important economic role within the Russian Empire. Because of the American Civil War, cotton shot up in price in the 1860s; this became an increasingly important commodity in the region, although its cultivation was on a much lesser scale than during the Soviet period. The cotton trade led to improvements: the Transcaspian Railway from Krasnovodsk to Samarkand and Tashkent, and the Trans-Aral Railway from Orenburg to Tashkent were constructed. In the long term the development of a cotton monoculture would render Turkestan dependent on food imports from Western Siberia, and the Turkestan-Siberia Railway was already planned when the First World War broke out. Russian rule still remained distant from the local populace, mostly concerning itself with the small minority of Russian inhabitants of the region. The local Muslims were not considered full Russian citizens. They did not have the full privileges of Russians, but nor did they have the same obligations, such as military service. The Tsarist regime left substantial elements of the previous regimes (such as Muslim religious courts) intact, and local self-government at the village level was quite extensive.

Chinese Influence

Internal turmoil largely halted Chinese expansion in the nineteenth century. In 1867 Yakub Beg led a rebellion that saw Xinjiang regain its independence as the Taiping and Nian Rebellions in the heartland of the Empire prevented the Chinese from reasserting their control. Instead the Russians expanded, annexing the Chu and Ili Valleys and the city of Kuldja from the Chinese Empire. After Yakub Beg's death at Korla in 1877 his state collapsed as the area was reconquered by China. After lengthy negotiations Kuldja was returned to Peking by Russia in 1884.

Revolution and Revolt

During the First World War the Muslim exemption from conscription was removed by the Russians, sparking the Central Asian Revolt of 1916. When the Russian Revolution of 1917 occurred, A provisional Government of Jadid Reformers, also known as the Turkestan Muslim Council met in Kokand and declared Turkestan's autonomy. This new government was quickly crushed by the forces of the Tashkent Soviet, and the semi-autonomous states of Bukhara and Khiva were also invaded. The main independence forces were rapidly crushed, but guerrillas known as basmachi continued to fight the Communists until 1924. Mongolia was also swept up by the Russian Revolution and, though it never became a Soviet republic, it became a communist People's Republic in 1924.

There was some threat of a Red Army invasion of Chinese Turkestan, but instead the governor agreed to cooperate with the Soviets. The creation of the Republic of China in 1911 and the general turmoil in China affected its holdings in Central Asia. Kuomintang control of the region was weak and there was a dual threat from Islamic separatists and communists. Eventually the region became largely independent under the control of the provincial governor. Rather than invade, the Soviet Union established a network of consulates in the region and sent aid and technical advisors. By the 1930s the governor of Xinjiang's relationship with Moscow was far more important than that with Nanking. The Chinese Civil War further destablized the region and saw Turkic nationalists make attempts at independence. In 1933 the First East Turkistan Republic was declared, but it was destroyed soon after with the aid of the Soviet troops. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 Governor Sheng Shih-ta'ai of Xinjiang gambled and broke his links to Moscow, moving to ally himself with the Kuomintang. This led to a civil war within the region and Sheng was eventually forced to flee and the Soviet backed Second East Turkistan Republic was formed. This state was annexed into the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Soviet and PRC domination

In 1918 the Bolsheviks set up the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and Bukhara and Khiva also became SSRs. In 1919 the Conciliatory Commission for Turkestan Affairs was established, to try to improve relations between the locals and the Communists. New policies were introduced, respecting local customs and religion. In 1920 the Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, covering modern Kazakhstan, was set up. It was renamed the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1925. In 1924, the Soviets created the Uzbek SSR and the Turkmen SSR. In 1929 the Tajik SSR was split from the Uzbek SSR. The Kyrghiz Autonomous Oblast became an SSR in 1936.

These borders had little to do with ethnic makeup, but the Soviets felt it important to divide the region. They saw both Pan-Turkism and Pan-Islamism as threats, which dividing Turkestan would limit. Under the Soviets, the local languages and cultures were systematized and codified, and their differences clearly demarcated and encouraged. New Cyrillic writing systems were introduced, to break links with Turkey and Iran. Under the Soviets the southern border was almost completely closed and all travel and trade was directed north through Russia.

Under Stalin at least a million persons died, mostly in the Kazakh SSR, during the period of forced collectivization. Islam was also attacked. In the Second World War several million refugees and hundreds of factories were moved to the relative security of Central Asia; and the region permanently became important part of the Soviet industrial complex. Several important military facilities were also located in the region, including nuclear testing facilities and the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The Virgin Lands Campaign, starting in 1954, was a massive Soviet agricultural resettlement program that brought more than 300,000 individuals, mostly from the Ukraine, to the northern Kazakh SSR and the Altai region of the Russian SFSR. This was a major change in the ethnicity of the region. Since the 1950s, there has also been major Han Chinese migration to Eastern Turkestan, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia in the PRC.

Similar processes occurred in Xinjiang and the rest of Western China where the PRC quickly established absolute control. The area was subject to a number of development schemes and like West Turkestan one focus was on the growing of the cotton cash crop. Theses efforts were overseen by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. The XPCC also encouraged Han Chinese migration to Xinjiang leading to a major demographic shift and by the year 2000 some 40% of the population of Xinjiang were Han. As with the Soviet Union local languages and cultures were mostly encouraged, and Xinjiang was granted autonomous status. However, Islam was much persecuted, especially during the Cultural Revolution. As in the Soviet Union, many in Chinese Turkestan died due to failed agricultural policies.

Since 1991

From 1988 to 1992 a free press and multiparty system developed in the Central Asian republics as perestroika pressured the local Communist parties to open up. What Svat Soucek calls the "Central Asian Spring" was very short-lived, as soon after independence former Communist Party officials recast themselves as local strongmen. In no state has repression been as great as it was in Soviet times, but none of the new republics could be considered functional democracies. Political stability in the region has mostly been maintained, with the major exception of the Tajik Civil War that lasted from 1992 to 1997. 2005 also saw the largely peaceful ousting of Kyrgyz president Askar Akayev in the Tulip Revolution and an outbreak of violence in Andijan, Uzbekistan that left several hundred people dead.

Much of the population of the region was indifferent to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Large portions of the local population are Russian, especially in Kazakhstan (roughly 40%) and Tashkent, Uzbekistan; who had no interest in independence. Aid from the Kremlin had also been central to the economies of Central Asia, each of the republics receiving massive transfers of funds from Moscow. Independence largely resulted from the efforts of the small groups of nationalistic, mostly local intellectuals, and from little interest in Moscow for retaining the expensive region. While never a part of the Soviet Union, Mongolia followed a somewhat similar path. Often acting as the unoffical 16th Soviet republic, it shed the communist system only in 1996, but quickly ran into economic problems. See: History of independent Mongolia.

The economic performance of the region since independence has been mixed. It contains some of the largest reserves of natural resources in the world, but there are important difficulties in transporting them. Since it lies farther from the ocean than anywhere else in the world, and its southern borders lay closed for decades, the main trade routes and pipelines run through Russia. As a result, Russia still exerts more influence over the region than in any other former Soviet republics.

Increasingly, other powers have begun to involve themselves in Central Asia. Soon after the Central Asian states won their independence Turkey began to look east, and a number of organizations are attempting to build links between the western and eastern Turks. Iran, which for millennia had close links with the region, has also been working to build ties. The Central Asian states trade and enjoy good relations with the Islamic Republic. One important player in the new Central Asia has been Saudi Arabia, which has been funding the Islamic revival in the region. Olcott notes that soon after independence Saudi money paid for massive shipments of Qur'ans to the region and for the construction and repair of a large number of mosques. In Tajikistan alone she is estimates that 500 mosques a year were erected with Saudi money. The formerly atheistic Communist Party leaders have mostly converted to Islam. Small Islamist groups have formed in several of the countries, but radical Islam has little history in the region; the Central Asian societies have remained quite secular, and all five states enjoy good relations with Israel. Central Asia is still home to a large Jewish population, the largest group being the Bukharan Jews, and important trade and business links have developed between those that left for Israel after independence and those remaining.

The People's Republic of China sees the region as an essential future source of raw materials; most Central Asian countries are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This has affected Xinjiang and other parts of western China that have seen infrastructure programs building new links and also new military facilities. Chinese Central Asia has been far from the centre of that country's economic boom and the area has remained considerably poorer than the coast. China also sees a threat in the potential of the new states to support separatist movements among its own Turkic minorities.

One important Soviet legacy that has only gradually been appreciated is the vast ecological destruction. Most notable is the gradual drying of the Aral Sea. During the Soviet era, it was decided that the traditional crops of melons and vegetables would be replaced by water-intensive growing of cotton for Soviet textile mills. Massive irrigation efforts were launched that diverted a considerable percentage of the annual inflow to the sea, causing it to shrink steadily. Furthermore, vast tracts of Kazakhstan were used for nuclear testing, and there exists a plethora of decrepit factories and mines.

References & further reading

• V.V. Barthold, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (London) 1968 (Third Edition)
• Brower, Daniel Turkestan and the Fate of the Russian Empire (London) 2003
• Dani, A.H. and V.M. Masson eds. UNESCO History of Civilizations of Central Asia (Paris: UNESCO) 1992-
• Hildinger, Erik. Warriors of the Steppe: A Military History of Central Asia, 500 B.C. to 1700 A.D. (Cambridge: Da Capo) 2001.
• Olcott, Martha Brill. Central Asia's New States: Independence, Foreign policy, and Regional security. (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press) 1996.
• Sinor, Dennis The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia (Cambridge) 1990 (2nd Edition)
• Soucek, Svat A History of Inner Asia. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 2000
• В.В. Бартольд История Культурной Жизни Туркестана (Москва) 1927
• Н.А. Халфин; Россия и Ханства Средней Азии (Москва) 1974