History of Uzbekistan

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Uzbekistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia and gained independence on September 1, 1991.

The area of ​​today's Uzbekistan gradually came under Russian rule in the 19th century . After the Bolsheviks came to power in 1918, the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was formed, later the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic as part of the Soviet Union .

antiquity

The contrast between nomads and settled oasis farmers shaped the land of Bactria in ancient times . Greek influences due to the Alexander empire in the 4th century BC should be mentioned. ., AD Buddhist influences due to the Silk Road and its proximity to India (see. Kushan ) and the thronging nomads, including Saken , the so-called Iranian Huns (including the kidarites that Alchon group which Nezak group and finally the Hephthalites included ) and the Kök Turks . Above all in the south of the country there were numerous important cities ( Chaltschajan , Dalverzin-Tepe ).

A part of the Silk Road ran through what is now Uzbekistan since ancient times . This was at times the most important land transport and trade route from Europe and the Middle East to East Asia .

Islamization and the formation of Turkish empires

In the course of the Arab expansion , Islam prevailed from the beginning of the 8th century ; the then existing small Sogdian lordships were incorporated. After the victory on the Talas over the Chinese in 751, Transoxania finally belonged to the Islamic world. The following period was determined by the Samanids in Bukhara (819 to 1005), a dynasty that still loosely belonged to the Arab-Persian caliphate .

Then the Turkish element prevailed, the khans of the Karluken tribe ruled in Bukhara from 999 as " Kara-Chanids ". Further to the west, the Oghuz pushed south between the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea ; they reappeared in Khorassan in 1040 as Seljuks .

With the defeat of the Seljuk Sultan Sandschars (r. 1118–1157) in the Katwansteppe near Samarkand in 1141, the Khorezm Shahs and their rivals, the Kara Kitai who had fled China , determined the policy until 1220 the Mongols came. Despite all the rivalries, the era before the Mongol storm was considered a culturally very high-quality time with flourishing cities and extensive trade.

Mongols and Timurids

Timur Monument in Tashkent

The Mongol period was comparatively gloomy, the urban population had to endure again and again wars among the nomads, which shattered the country. The rest periods were hardly sufficient for the reconstruction. The last of these destroyers was Timur Lenk ( Tamerlan ) (r. 1370–1405): but he generously supported Bukhara and Samarkand with funds, artists and craftsmen from foreign countries, so that his works are still present today (Gur-e Amir etc.) . Then his grandson Ulug Beg came , so that the country blossomed again before the arrival of the actual Uzbeks.

The Uzbek khanates

The Uzbeks themselves were originally a Turkic people with a common origin with the Kazakhs from (Western) Siberia . Her name is derived from Uzbek Khan .

The Khan Abu'l-Chair (a Muslim and Scheibanide ) had united the nomads in the area between Tobol, Urals and Syr-Darja around 1430. He tried to build up a tightly organized state, whereupon other Genghisids refused allegiance to him and founded the Kazak Empire. In 1468 he was killed by the returning Kazakhs.

Abu'l-Chair's grandson Mohammed Scheibani reestablished the Uzbek empire and conquered Bukhara and Samarkand from the descendants of Timur Lenk in 1500 . But only the victory over the Timurid Babur (and the Persians allied with him) at Gajdiwan in 1512 secured the Uzbeks the possession of the land between Amu-darja and Syr-darja (with the exception of Khorezm ). The north remained with the Kazakhs.

The Uzbek empire tried to profit from the caravan trade, which continued to increase until 1600, which was also successful within certain limits. The economy, architecture, poetry and sometimes painting flourished in the 16th century. In the long run, however, the Uzbeks were cut off from developing world trade due to the Persian conquest of Khorassan .

There were also internal problems. Family rivalries hampered the Uzbeks in the first half of the 16th century, especially after the death of the energetic Ubaidullah Khan (r. 1510 / 33–39). Only Abdullah II of Bukhara (ruled 1556 / 83–1598) subordinated the princes again. However, he was not only a great builder and predominantly successful statesman, but also an Orthodox Muslim who ushered in a period of intellectual stagnation. Dervish orders spread and hardly any new influences came into the country via Balkh in the 17th century.

In the 17th century, the country experienced new stability and a modest prosperity under the princes of the Janid dynasty (1599–1785) from Astrakhan . Imam Quli Khan (r. 1610–1640 / 2), a fanatical follower of Orthodoxy, primarily promoted the construction of mosques and madrasas . Even among his successors, such buildings testified to the continued prosperity.

From the early 18th century the power of the khanate waned. The antagonisms between the feudal class, the dervish orders and the tribes became an internal problem, while there was great unrest on the borders on the Syr-darja. In 1710 the Khanate of Kokand was founded, in 1740 Nadir Shah entered Bukhara and ousted Khan Abu'l Faiz (ruled 1707–1747).

Russian colonial times

Central Asia at the end of the 19th century

In the 19th century, the country came into the interests of the United Kingdom and Russia , which eventually gained colonial rule over Uzbekistan. In 1868 the Emir of Bukhara, who was easily defeated in two military conflicts, had to recognize Russian supremacy.

While the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khiva Khanate had to cede territories to Russia, but remained under the Russian protectorate as independent states, the third state previously existing on the territory of today's Uzbekistan, the Kokand Khanate , was completely annexed by the Russian Empire. The General Government of Turkestan was formed from the areas in Central Asia that came under Russian rule . Tashkent became its capital, making it the administrative and economic center of Central Asia.

Uzbekistan as a Soviet republic

After the Bolsheviks had taken power in Tashkent and in the Russian heartland at the end of 1917 , the former General Government of Turkestan was formed into the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkestan ASSR) within the RSFSR in 1918 .

In 1920, with the support of the Bolsheviks, the rulers of Khiva Khanate and the Bukhara emirate were overthrown and the People's Republic of Khorezmia and the People's Republic of Bukhara were proclaimed, which concluded cooperation agreements with the RSFSR. In the east of the country, the ousted Emir Said Alim Khan of Bukhara gathered fighters against the Soviets with British help, but was driven back to Afghanistan by the Red Army in early 1921. At the end of 1921 his followers crossed the border again and allied themselves with the Basmati and Enver Pascha . Enver, appointed by Alim-Khan as "Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Islam and Governor of the Emir of Bukhara", actually conquered Dushanbe and occupied all of eastern Bukhara (Tajikistan), but was defeated by the Soviets in the summer of 1922 and fell in battle.

Prefabricated buildings from the times of the Soviet republic

In 1924/1925 the Soviet republics in Central Asia were restructured according to national criteria and all three of the above-mentioned state structures were dissolved. The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR) was formed from parts of all three regions and became a member of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1925 . Tajikistan , which had initially formed an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Uzbek SSR, was separated from Uzbekistan in 1929 as an independent Tajik SSR .

In contrast, the Karakalpak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Karakalpak ASSR), which was initially part of the RSFSR or Kazakhstan , together with the Kyzylkum region, was spun off from Kazakhstan in 1932 and handed over to Uzbekistan by the RSFSR in 1936. In 1937, under party leader Usman Yusupov, a Moscow-based Stalinist party and state bureaucracy was formed after the local leadership recruited in the 1920s fell victim to the Stalinist terror. Active and passive women's suffrage was introduced in 1938.

From 1959 to 1983, the party prince Sharaf Rashidov ruled Uzbekistan in a prime example of a local partocracy with the attributes of a communist khanate. At the end of Rashidov's reign, embezzlement and plan forgery affairs in the Uzbek cotton sector became known.

Uzbekistan as an independent state

A few days after the failed August coup in Moscow , in the course of the collapse of the Soviet Union , Uzbekistan was declared independent on September 1, 1991 and the economy was recapitalized. With the parliamentary elections in Uzbekistan in 1994/95 , parliamentary elections were held for the first time in Uzbekistan, but to the exclusion of any opposition. In the 1990s there were repeated nationality conflicts in the Fergana Valley in the east of the country and conflicts with Islamic fundamentalists . President Islom Karimov exercised an authoritarian style of government until his death in 2016.

In 1999, 20 people died in a bomb attack allegedly carried out by political extremists in Tashkent. A suicide attack on March 29, 2004 killed at least 19 people. On March 30, 2004, a group of 20 extremists blew themselves up after a gun battle with the police near the capital Tashkent. Unknown detonated a car bomb in front of a dam. Uzbek security forces suspect that the party of Islamic liberation, which has also been banned in Germany since January 2003, or the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan, is behind the latest acts of violence . On July 30, 2004, terrorists blew themselves up near the embassies of Israel and the US in Tashkent, killing eight people. Terrorism experts say that Uzbekistan was targeted by Islamist terrorists because it is a leading ally of the US on the former territory of the Soviet states. On May 13, 2005, further unrest broke out in the country. Around 500 demonstrators were killed by Uzbek military and police forces at a protest demonstration in the city of Andijon . As a result, there were minor clashes between the population and the security forces in other cities in the Fargʻona province .

Web links

Commons : History of Uzbekistan  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The concept of the Iranian Huns goes back to the numismatic research of Robert Göbl : Robert Göbl: Documents on the history of the Iranian Huns in Bactria and India. 4 volumes. Wiesbaden 1967.
  2. ^ Mart Martin: The Almanac of Women and Minorities in World Politics. Westview Press Boulder, Colorado, 2000, p. 412.