Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Iran

467 Pages·2016·3.44 MB·English

by  Dilip Hiro

INSIDE
CENTRAL
ASIA
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Inside the Middle East (1982)
Inside India Today (1977)
The Untouchables of India (1975)
Black British, White British (1973) The Indian Family in Britain (1969) FICTION
Three Plays (1985)
Interior, Exchange, Exterior (Poems, 1980) Apply, Apply, No Reply & A Clean Break (Two Plays, 1978)
To Anchor a Cloud (Play, 1972)
A Triangular View (Novel, 1969)
INSIDE
CENTRAL
ASIA
A POLITICAL AND CULTURAL HISTORY OF
UZBEKISTAN, TURKMENISTAN, KAZAKHSTAN,
KYRGYZSTAN, TAJIKISTAN, TURKEY, AND IRAN
DILIP HIRO
DUCKWORTH OVERLOOK
This eBook edition 2013
This edition first published in the UK and US in 2011 by
Duckworth Overlook
LONDON
90-93 Cowcross Street
London EC1M 6BF
[email protected]
www.ducknet.co.uk
NEW YORK
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New York, NY 10012
www.overlookpress.com
Copyright © 2009 Dilip Hiro
Epilogue © 2011 Dilip Hiro
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBNs
Paperback: 978-0-71564150-7
Mobipocket: 978-0-7156-3956-6
ePub: 978-0-7156-4038-8
Library PDF: 978-0-7156-4039-5
CONTENTS
MAPS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1: Turkey: From Militant Secularism to Grassroots Islam
CHAPTER 2: Uzbekistan: The Complex Hub of Central Asia
CHAPTER 3: Turkmenistan: Molded by a Megalomaniac Despot
CHAPTER 4: Kazakhstan: Rising Oil State Courted by Big Powers
CHAPTER 5: Kyrgyzstan: The Tulip Revolution, A False Dawn
CHAPTER 6: Tajikistan: The Rise and Fall of Political Islam
CHAPTER 7: Iran: The Geopolitics of the Islamic Revolution
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
EPILOGUE
NOTES
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Central Asian Republics and Their Neighbors
Soviet Union 1918-1991

PREFACE
D
URING THE SOVIET ERA AND ITS IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH, THE CENTRAL
Asian region was officially known as “Middle Asia and Kazakhstan.” In
this book, however, the term “Central Asia” includes Kazakhstan. The
names of the republics have undergone changes since the Bolshevik revolution
of 1917, the latest version during the Soviet period being Uzbek Soviet Socialist
Republic, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, and so on. But once again, to
simplify matters, I have used Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan,
and Kyrgyzstan (even though its 1993 constitution names it Kyrgyz Republic).
In the course of providing the political, economic, and military history of the
five Central Asian republics, I have at the appropriate points sketched a cultural
profile of the peoples living in these countries. I have described their evolution
from the era of nomadic cattle-rearing to the modern era of launching spacecraft,
thus highlighting what has changed in their day-today existence and what has
remained largely unchanged at the core.
Every writer knows that to make sense of contemporary events one has to
delve into the past. This is all the more so in the case of the Central Asian
republics. They were delineated chiefly during the 1920s along ethnic lines, but
containing some enclaves of those speaking a minority language, as a result of
the policies devised mainly by Joseph V. Stalin (1878–1953). That is why this
book’s Introduction covers the period up to his death.
The breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 signaled a new phase in the history
of each of the Central Asian republics. Given the strategic location of Central
Asia, its predominantly Muslim population, and its hydrocarbon and other
valuable resources, the emergence of five independent states in 1991 opened up
a fresh chapter in international relations—with the United States, China, Turkey,
and Iran trying to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of Russia’s nearly 150-
year-old dominance. By the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century—
following several ups and downs in the fortunes of the competing foreign powers