Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
assassinated and the army recalled while
struggling across the Kazakh steppes.
The next attempt, by Tsar Nicholas I in
1839, was really a bid to pre-empt expan-
sion into Central Asia by Britain, which had
just taken Afghanistan, although Khiva's
Russian slaves were the pretext on which
General Perovsky's 5200 men and 10,000
camels set out from Orenburg. In January
1840, a British officer, Captain James Abbott,
arrived in Khiva (having travelled from Her-
at in Afghan disguise) offering to negotiate
the slaves' release on the khan's behalf, thus
nullifying the Russians' excuse for coming.
Unknown to the khan, the Russian force
had already turned back, in the face of a dev-
astating winter on the steppes. He agreed
to send Abbott to the tsar with an offer to
release the slaves in return for an end to
Russian military expeditions against Khiva.
Incredibly, Abbott made it to St Petersburg.
In search of news of Abbott, Lieutenant
Richmond Shakespear reached Khiva the
following June and convinced the khan to
unilaterally release all Russian slaves in Khi-
va and even give them an armed escort to
the nearest Russian outpost, located on the
eastern Caspian Sea. Russian gratitude was
doubtlessly mingled with fury over one of
the Great Game's boldest propaganda coups.
When the Russians finally rallied 25 years
later, the khanates' towns fell like domi-
noes - Tashkent in 1865 to General Mikhail
Chernyaev, Samarkand and Bukhara in
1868, Khiva in 1873, and Kokand in 1875 to
General Konstantin Kaufman.
and composition over the years as it suited
Moscow, losing Tajikistan in 1929, acquiring
Karakalpakstan from Russia in 1936, taking
parts of the steppe from Kazakhstan in 1956
and 1963, then losing some in 1971.
For rural Uzbeks, the main impacts of So-
viet rule were the forced and often bloody
collectivisation of the republic's mainstay
(agriculture) and the massive shift to cot-
ton cultivation. The Uzbek intelligentsia
and much of the republic's political leader-
ship was decimated by Stalin's purges. This
and the traditional Central Asian respect for
authority meant that by the 1980s
glasnost
(openness) and
perestroika
(restructuring)
would hardly trickle down here and few sig-
nificant reforms took place.
Independence
Uzbekistan's first serious noncommunist
popular movement, Birlik (Unity), was
formed by Tashkent intellectuals in 1989
over issues that included having Uzbek as an
official language and the effects of the cot-
ton monoculture. Despite popular support,
it was barred from contesting the election
in February 1990 for the Uzbek Supreme
Soviet (legislature) by the Communist Party.
The resulting communist-dominated body
elected Islam Karimov, the first secretary of
the Communist Party of Uzbekistan (CPUz),
to the new post of executive president.
Following the abortive coup in Moscow in
August 1991, Karimov declared Uzbekistan
independent. Soon afterward the CPUz rein-
vented itself as the People's Democratic Par-
ty of Uzbekistan, inheriting all of its pred-
ecessor's property and control apparatus,
most of its ideology, and its leader, Karimov.
In December 1991, Uzbekistan held its
first direct presidential elections, which Ka-
rimov won with 86% of the vote. His only
rival was a poet named Muhammad Solih,
running for the small, figurehead opposi-
tion party Erk (Will or Freedom), who got
12% and was soon driven into exile (where
he remains to this day). The real opposition
groups, Birlik and the Islamic Renaissance
Party (IRP), and all other parties with a re-
ligious platform, had been forbidden to take
part.
A new constitution unveiled in 1992
declared Uzbekistan 'a secular, democratic
presidential republic'. Under Karimov,
Uzbekistan would remain secular almost
to a fault. But it would remain far from
democratic.
Soviet Daze
Even into the 20th century, most Central
Asians identified themselves ethnically as
Turks or Persians. The connection between
'Uzbek' and 'Uzbekistan' is very much a Sovi-
et matter. Following the outbreak of the Rus-
sian Revolution in 1917 and the infamous
sacking of Kokand in 1918, the Bolsheviks
proclaimed the Autonomous Soviet Socialist
Republic of Turkestan. Temporarily forced
out by counter-revolutionary troops and
basmachi
(Muslim guerrilla fighters), they
returned two years later and the Khiva and
Bukhara khanates were forcibly replaced
with 'People's Republics'.
Then in October 1924 the whole map was
redrawn on ethnic grounds, and the Uzbeks
suddenly had a 'homeland', an official iden-
tity and a literary language. The Uzbek So-
viet Socialist Republic (SSR) changed shape
