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A History of Inner Asia This page intentionally left blank A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA Geographically and historically Inner Asia is a confusing area which is much in need of interpretation.Svat Soucek’s book offers a short and accessible introduction to the history of the region.The narrative, which begins with the arrival of Islam, proceeds chrono- logically, charting the rise and fall of the changing dynasties, the Russian conquest of Central Asia and the fall of the Soviet Union. Dynastic tables and maps augment and elucidate the text.The con- temporary focus rests on the seven countries which make up the core of present-day Eurasia, that is Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Sinkiang, and Mongolia. Since 1991, there has been renewed interest in these countries which has prompted considerable political, cultural, economic, and religious debate.While a vast and divergent literature has evolved in consequence, no short survey of the region has been attempted. Soucek’s history of Inner Asia promises to fill this gap and to become an indispensable source of information for anyone study- ing or visiting the area. is a bibliographer at Princeton University Library. He has worked as Central Asia bibliographer at Columbia University, New York Public Library, and at the University of Michigan, and has published numerous related articles in The Journal of Turkish Studies, The Encyclopedia of Islam, and The Dictionary of the Middle Ages. A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA Princeton University Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge , United Kingdom Published in the United States by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521651691 © Cambridge University Press 2000 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2000 ISBN-13 978-0-511-06851-5 eBook (EBL) ISBN-10 0-511-06851-4 eBook (EBL) ISBN-13 978-0-521-65169-1 hardback ISBN-10 0-521-65169-7 hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521-65704-4 paperback ISBN-10 0-521-65704-0 paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of s for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Contents Listofmapspagevii Preface ix Introduction 1 1 The beginnings 46 2 The Kök Turks, the Chinese expansion, and the Arab conquest 51 3 The Samanids 70 4 The Uighur kingdom of Qocho 77 5 The Qarakhanids 83 6 Seljukids and Ghaznavids 93 7 The conquering Mongols 103 8 The Chaghatayids 117 9 Timur and the Timurids 123 10 The last Timurids and the first Uzbeks 144 11 The Shaybanids 149 12 The rise of Russia, the fall of the Golden Horde, and the resilient Chaghatayids 162 13 The Buddhist Mongols 167 14 Bukhara, Khiva, and Khoqand in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries 177 15 The Russian conquest and rule of Central Asia 195 v vi Contents 16 From Governorates-General to Union Republics 209 17 Soviet Central Asia 225 18 Central Asia becomes independent 254 19 Sinkiang as part of China 263 20 Independent Central Asian Republics 275 21 The Republic of Mongolia 297 Summary and conclusion 303 Appendix 1: Dynastic tables 316 Appendix 2: Country data 330 Select bibliography 341 Index 360 Maps 1 Inner Asia: principal political units page viii 2 Kök Turkic Empire, ca.622 52 3 Mongol Empire, ca.1294 102 4 Timurid Empire 124 5 Central Asia, ca.1825 176 6 Central Asia under Tsarist Russia 194 7 Sinkiang (Chinese Turkestan) 264 8 Kazakhstan 276 9 Kyrgyzstan 277 10 Tajikistan 278 11 Turkmenistan 279 12 Uzbekistan 280 13 Mongolia 296 vii Moscow RUSSIAN FEDERATIVE REPUBLIC Kazan Tatar A.R. Yakut A.R. Bashkir A.R. Yakutsk Ufa Elista Kalmyk A.R. Siberia RUSSIA Caspian Gorno-Altai Buriat Lake A.R. CHINA Sea Region Baikal Astana Gorno-Altaisk Aral Kyzyl Ulan-Ude U Sea Z B KAZAKHSTAN Tuva A.R. E TU K R I K S M T Ulaanbaatar E A N N . I MONGOLIA .R Ashgabat S A T A N Tashkent Bishkek IA N Urumchi L IRAN T O ) AJ KYRGYZSTAN G A IK N IN Dushanbe IS O H T M (C A SINKIANG R N NE (CHINA) IN Beijing AFGHANISTAN N A T S CHINA I KASHMIR Inner Asia: K TIBET A principal political units P Map 1 Inner Asia: principal political units Preface This book is an attempt to offer the reader a historical and topical intro- duction to several countries in the core of Eurasia which until recently were little noticed except by a small community of scholars or people who had special reasons to do so.One result of this neglect has been a lack of adequate literature of the kind presented here: a general survey of the past and present of this part of the world. Almost overnight, a few years ago, these countries – Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Sinkiang, and Mongolia – began to attract considerable attention from politicians, journalists, businessmen, and academicians.The reason was the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.Since the formation of that Union in the early 1920s, the first five of the group had been almost sequestered by the rulers of the Soviet empire.The outside world was barred from unhindered access and communication with them, and their own citi- zens found contact with that world both difficult and risky.Mongoliawas officially independent, but its membership in the family of Soviet satel- lites had imposed on it similar strictures.For the same reason, the Soviet Union’s demise affected it almost as profoundly as it did the five Union republics.We are also including Sinkiang, although the course of its recent history has followed a somewhat different path.The inclusion is justified, we think, because the province is geographically as well as his- torically an integral part of the group, and because the evolution occur- ring among its members is likely to affect Sinkiang as well. The historic change rather unwittingly set in motion by Mikhail Gorbachev but then gaining its own momentum has thus generated a sudden surge of interest in these countries, an interest that spans the broad spectrum of political, cultural, economic, and even religious spheres, and that emanates from countries as divergent as the United States, China, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.This in turn has begun to produce a rapidly growing volume of literature, ranging from ix x Preface newspaper reports to financial analyses, statistical yearbooks, specialized periodicals, and learned articles and monographs.Paradoxically but perhaps understandably, however, a comprehensive survey of the kind attempted here has so far not been published.Our book is meant to fill this gap. The principal focus of this study, we have said, is on seven countries: the republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan; the Sinkiang Uighur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China; and the Republic of Mongolia.The first five units have also been known collectively as Western or Russian Turkestan, or, more recently, as Soviet Central Asia; the sixth unit, as Eastern or Chinese Turkestan, or High Tartary; and the seventh, as Outer Mongolia. It is not customary to discuss the three groups together when they are approached as specific political units, or when the historical narrative includes the modern period after the formation of these units.The reasons for this reside more in the different academic, journalistic, or political backgrounds of the observers than in any intrinsic justification for such a separation.Our treatment of the subject will demonstrate, we hope, that the bonds unifying Western and Eastern Turkestan are stronger than the differences between them, and that without Mongolia the historical picture would be incomplete. : The “centrality” of Inner Asia as the landlocked core of the Eurasian continent is graphically brought out by the brackets which Moscow and Beijing form to encompass the seven countries under discussion. The seven countries are Kazakhstan (capital: Astana), Kyrgyzstan (capital, Bishkek), Tajikistan (capital: Dushanbe), Turkmenistan (capital: Ashkhabad), Uzbekistan (capital: Tashkent), Sinkiang (capital: Urumchi), and Mongolia (capital: Ulan Bator). Area: Kazakhstan, 2,717,300 sq.km.(1,048,000 sq.miles); Kyrgyzstan, 198,500 sq.km.(76,641 sq.miles); Tajikistan, 143,100 sq.km.(55,251 sq.miles); Turkmenistan, 488,100 sq.km.(188,455 sq.miles); Uzbekistan, 447,400 sq.km.(173,591 sq.miles); Sinkiang, 1,646,000 sq. km.(635,829 sq.miles); and Mongolia, 1,565,000 sq.km.(604,247 sq. miles).Their order in terms of size is thus Kazkhstan, Sinkiang, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan. Preface xi Population: (approximate figures, due to the evolving situation; based on data from 1981–94): Kazakhstan, 17,200,000; Kyrgyzstan, 4,600,000; Tajikistan, 5,700,000; Turkmenistan, 4,000,000; Uzbekistan, 21,900,000; Sinkiang, 15,200,000; Mongolia, 2,400,000.Their order according to the size of the population is thus Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Sinkiang, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Mongolia.In ethnolin- guistic terms, the principal nationalities of these countries are Turkic (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Sinkiang, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan), Iranian (Tajikistan), and Mongol (Mongolia). In addition to the seven principal countries, Map 1 also shows eight other units based on ethnolinguistic
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