In this comprehensive and up to date history, from prehistoric proto-Indo-Iranian times to the post-Soviet period, Richard Foltz traces the complex linguistic, cultural and political history of the Tajiks, a Persian-speaking Iranian ethnic group from the modern-day Central Asian states of Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan. In eight chapters, the author explores the revitalisation of Persian culture under the Samanid Empire in the Tajik heartlands of historical Khorasan and Transoxiana; analyses the evolution of the politics of Tajik identity; and traces the history of the ethnic Tajik diaspora today.
This revised edition includes a new chapter on the Tajiks’ situation in Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan since 2018, covering notably the effects of the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021 and the COVID pandemic in all three countries, as well as border clashes with Kyrgyzstan.
Author(s): Richard Foltz
Edition: 2
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 280
City: London
Cover
Halftitle page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface to the Second Edition
Preface to the First Edition
Acknowledgements
Historical Timeline
A Note on Transliteration
Introduction: Who Are the Tajiks?
1 The Prehistory of the Tajiks
The ancient Aryans
The Oxus Civilization
The religion of Zarathushtra
The Aryan-Oxus synthesis
2 Sogdians and Bactrians
Alexander in Central Asia
The Seleucid Empire
Nomadic invasions
Connecting with China
Sogdian trade
Sogdian art
Central Asian Buddhism
Muslim invasions
Sogdians and Uighurs
The Revolt of Muqanna‘
The end of Sogdian autonomy
3 The Samanid Empire and the New Persian Renaissance
Neo-Persian literature
Philosophy and science
Sufism
Trade and economy
The rise of the Turks
4 Tajiks and Turks
The Turk–Tajik symbiosis
The Ghaznavids
The Seljuks
The Ghurids – a Tajik dynasty
The Mongols
The Timurids
The Uzbeks
Growing Russian influence in Central Asia
The Jadidist movement
5 The Soviet Period
The redesigning of national identities
The creation of Soviet Tajikistan
Reform and reaction in Afghanistan
Development in the Tajik SSR
Religion and popular customs
Change and continuity in women’s roles
Cultural production during the Soviet period
War in Afghanistan 1979–89
The fall of the Soviet Union
Tajiks in the Uzbek SSR
6 The Republic of Tajikistan
Building a national identity
Islam, not Zoroastrianism
‘Gigantomania’ and the personality cult of the President
From bad to worse: Tajikistan’s economic decline
Corruption and the drug trade
The regression of women’s rights
Culture and the arts
7 Tajiks in Uzbekistan
From marginalization to active suppression
Severed from the literary tradition
Local dialects in search of a standard
Who is a Tajik?
Poetry: the keystone of Tajik-Persian identity
Tojikī in higher education
Tajik media – for those that want it
The youth are the future
Conclusion
Excursus: Afghanistan at a Stone’s Throw
Conclusion: Differing Contexts, Manifold Challenges
Tajiks in Afghanistan
Taliban 2.0
Tajik migrant workers: a fluid diaspora
Border disputes around Tajik enclaves in Kyrgyzstan
Preparing a dynastic succession
Restiveness in Gorno-Badakhshan
China’s Pamiri ‘Tajiks’
What future for the Tajiks?
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Plates
