Tajik Civil War Research Articles

TATARNESS REIMAGINED: LANGUAGE, MEMORY, AND IDENTITY IN POST-CIVIL WAR TAJIKISTAN

This paper examines the transformation of ethnic identity among the Tatar community in Tajikistan in the wake of the Tajik Civil War. Drawing on in-depth interviews, it analyses how the war and subsequent dispersion and migration have reconfigured Tatar ethnic ties and fostered the emergence of a hybrid identity. The findings reveal a complex process of identity formation, where the loss of homeland and language intertwines with the development of a Tajikistani national identity and the experience of differentiation through labour migration. The paper argues that the Tatar community’s self-definition as ‘Tatar of Tajikistan’ epitomises the resilience of people navigating multiple contexts and transcending conventional categories of ethnicity and migration. It offers insights into the dynamics of identity politics amidst post-socialist transition and war.

The History of the Tajik Civil War, 1992–1997, written by Parviz Mullojonov

The History of the Tajik Civil War, 1992–1997, written by Parviz Mullojonov

Soviet-Afghan War Veterans as Violent Specialists amidst State Disintegration and Civil War in Tajikistan, 1990–1992

ABSTRACT The Soviet collapse in the early 1990s left a security vacuum in Tajikistan, where the regime retained few instruments of coercion after Moscow’s rule melted away. One potential source of informal coercive power was Soviet-Afghan War veterans, or afgantsy, who were militarily trained and in many cases combat-experienced and represented what Charles Tilly has termed ‘violent specialists’. This article argues that organized afgantsy initially offered security functions to the Tajik regime but that, as state authority crumbled, their relationship to state bodies became increasingly tenuous. Eventually, many veterans aligned with non-state violent actors during the civil war, performing several coercive functions on their behalf, including establishing, training, and commanding armed formations. The trajectory of the veterans, hence, paralleled that of the state collapse and the informalization of coercive power in Tajikistan. The changing relationship between veterans and political authority offers a point on which to explore wider shifts in the control and deployment of coercive power in the context of the Soviet collapse in Tajikistan.

The Tajik Civil War and Russia’s Islamist moment

ABSTRACT Contra the often-held assumption that the Islamist danger has been at the forefront of Moscow’s security agenda since the Soviet–Afghan War, this article shows how different Russian decision-makers held different views of Islamism during the Tajik Civil War (1992–97). It argues that different relations to the Soviet past, especially to the Soviet–Afghan War, explain the differences in assessing Islamism in Tajikistan between the security agencies and political elites. Unlike the reformers in the Kremlin, the legacy Soviet security elites and diplomats in Russia and the neo-communist leaders in Central Asia recalled the Islamist danger from Soviet times. They emphasized it to the Kremlin who came to embrace their view as the Tajik Civil War progressed and tensions rose in Chechnya.

Long-term Consequences of Civil War in Tajikistan: The Gendered Impact on Education and Labor Market Outcomes

ABSTRACT Tajikistan experienced a violent internal conflict between 1992 and 1997. This study examines the long-term consequences of civil war in Tajikistan on education and labor market outcomes twenty years after the end of the civil war. We compare individuals who should have completed their mandatory schooling before the war and individuals who were of school age during the war with a wide variety of geographical exposures to the war. We confirm a negative and significant effect on completing basic education for females exposed to the war during their school ages. Moreover, we see significant adverse effects on work status for receiving cash wages for females exposed to armed conflicts in their basic education ages.

Refugees as a new emigration channel from Tajikistan to Western and Eastern Europe

The article examines the situation with refugees during the civil war in Tajikistan after the collapse of the USSR. The factors and scale of refugees and features of asylum seekers from Tajikistan are considered. The scale and prospects for the development of the flow of refugees and asylum seekers from Tajikistan to Western and Eastern Europe are investigated. Every year, a huge number of people leave their homes due to armed conflicts, wars, poverty, and persecution on various grounds. One of the reasons for the refugees influx from Tajikistan to other countries is the civil war in the republic. After the collapse of the USSR, a power struggle between nationalists and Islamists began in Tajikistan that led to a civil war. The emergence of the refugees flow from Tajikistan to other countries is related with the civil war in the republic. Another reason is the ban by the Tajik authorities of two major opposition organisations – the Group of 24 and the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT). Among the Tajik political refugees who received asylum in European countries, there are also former migrant workers who worked in Russia. Deportations, decline in earnings after the 2015 currency crisis, and tightening of Russia’s migration policy towards migrants from Tajikistan forced some migrants to reorient themselves in other countries, primarily in European countries, the United States and Canada. There are cases of deliberate destruction of their passports by Tajik migrants when moving to Germany, followed by an appeal to the authorities under the guise of refugees from Afghanistan (since both Tajiks and Afghans speak Farsi (Dari)) to obtain refugee status and corresponding benefits in Germany. Among asylum seekers from Tajikistan in European countries, political asylum is the most popular. The purpose of the article is to identify trends and prospects for the development of asylum as a new emigration channel from Tajikistan to the countries of Western and Eastern Europe.

The USSR is Dead: Long Live the USSR? Tajikistan’s Inconclusive Transition to Security (In)dependence, 1991–1992

This essay re-evaluates the history of Tajikistan’s close security and military links to Russia and the influence of this relationship on Tajikistan’s sovereignty. By analysing Tajikistan’s security services during the period of Soviet collapse, it suggests that the basic contours of these links can be observed developing in the early 1990s. Following the end of the Tajik Civil War (1992–1997), moreover, these links have only grown, leading to a current situation in which Tajikistan’s and Russia’s security services operate in close coordination. As a result, the Tajik state remains bound in a semblance of a centre–periphery relationship not dissimilar from what it experienced before 1991.

Civil War, Famine and the Persistence of Human Capital: Evidence from Tajikistan

The dissolution of the Soviet Union and 1992–96 Tajik civil war resulted in huge human and economic losses. Nevertheless, contemporary data suggest the persistence of investments in human capital in the region most affected by famine and least favoured since the cessation of hostilities, Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast. Famine-affected women have greater stature and final educational attainment, later ages at marriage and lower fertility than do those in the neighbouring border province, Khatlon. Educational interactions between adults and children under age six are much more frequent. The continued emphasis on human capital after economic collapse is consistent with a locational imperative for households to earn incomes outside of agriculture, and with a higher relative status of women in non-agrarian societies.

The Legacy of Conflict: Reconstruction and Migration in the Aftermath of Civil War in Tajikistan

How do civil war and subsequent reconstruction efforts affect international migration? Although a wealth of evidence points to violent conflict’s effects on contemporaneous migration and although a rich body of literature examines development’s effects on migration, we know less about the intersection of conflict, development, and migration. This article examines the intersection of these factors nearly a decade after the 1992–1997 civil war in Tajikistan, combining data from the 2007 Tajikistan Living Standards Survey, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, and original interviews. In a series of logistic regression models, I show that conflict fatalities do not have a direct effect on subsequent migration, while the number of years a district has had a development resource center directly increases the likelihood of migrating. However, the interaction between development and conflict is negative and significant. These findings suggest that conflict’s legacy does not directly impact the likelihood of respondents migrating but instead changes the nature of the relationship between development and migration. This finding illuminates conflict’s potential long-term consequences for migration and extends the migration-development nexus by addressing the role of conflict in the relationship between development and migration. In particular, it suggests that migration research in conflict-affected countries should incorporate measures of both conflict and development, even after a given conflict has ended.

Donor-Funded Women\u2019s Empowerment in Tajikistan: Trajectories of Women\u2019s NGOs and Changing Attitudes to the International Agenda

This article investigates internationally funded women’s empowerment initiatives in Tajikistan. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent Tajik civil war (1992–1997), this newly independent, Muslim-majority country has experienced an influx of foreign aid, including in the field of women’s rights. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the article analyzes the growth and diversification of local, Western-funded women’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs) between 1991 and 2020, paying attention to their leadership and aims, as well as changing perceptions of donors’ interventions. It is argued that, initially, local activists were supportive of international projects, which promoted gender equality by supporting women’s integration into the new, capitalist economy. In the last decade, however, an increasing conditionality of funding and deteriorating donor-NGO relations has fueled local contestations of the international agenda. The donor-enhanced women’s empowerment model, which fosters individual responsibility and self-reliance, is increasingly criticized for aggravating the conditions of local women in the context of a growing economic insecurity characterizing the local capitalist economy. Against this resentment, an alternative women’s empowerment model, advancing gender equity based on complementarity of male and female social roles and stressing the importance of family as a safety net against economic precarity, is gaining prominence locally.

Central Asian and Middle Eastern policy towards Tajikistan

The article analyzes the main policy directions towards Tajikistan, neighboring countries of Central Asia and culturally related to the Tajiks of the Middle East towards Tajikistan. The civil war in Tajikistan between supporters of the country’s secular and religious paths of development (1992-1997) caused mixed attitudes and policies on the part of various state, political and religious circles in Afghanistan. However, after it became clear that the struggle between secular and Islamist forces in Tajikistan could destroy the country as such, the culturally and linguistically close to the Tajiks political elite of Afghanistan (B. Rabbani and A. Masood) and Iran (A. Rafsanjani) made significant efforts to end the civil war in Tajikistan as mediators and expressed interest in the sustainable development of Tajikistan. In the 2000s, Iran abandoned attempts to influence Tajik policy in order to promote the establishment of a religious state in Tajikistan, turning to cooperation with the secular Tajik authorities in the economic sphere.
 Important issues complicating relations between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are the construction by Tajiks of large hydropower plants on mountain rivers, which Uzbekistan considers a threat to national security, and unresolved border disputes, which are a source of constant aggravation in Kyrgyz-Tajik. In general, Tajikistan has complex problems of various kinds with most of its neighbors (with Afghanistan - drug trafficking and Islamic influences, with Uzbekistan - water energy, with Kyrgyzstan - border), which prevent bilateral relations to reach a new level of quality.

Этноязыковая ситуация в Горно-Бадахшанской Автономной Области Республики Таджикистан

In this paper I researched the language situation of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast’ of Tajikistan. In the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast’ the status of Pamiris is now very low, and even they are ignored. And their languages are serving as a colloquial language in everyday life. Until the 1920s, Pamir languages are regarded as a different languages, but in 1926 it fell to dialects of Tajik language. In post-Soviet Tajikistan, Pamir languages are still a minority languages. Although the Language law adopted by Tajikistan in 1989 created conditions for the preservation, use and development of Pamir languages of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast’, there is still ostensible preservation, use and development, and described their function problems as autonomous areas of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast’, the status of these languages is still low. The issue of ethnic minority language was completely excluded from everyday life during the Tajikistan civil war, and as political centralization accelerated after the civil war, there is no meaningful policy for Gorno-Badakhshan at present. The declarative status of Gorno-Badakhshan s need to support and develop ethnic minority languages is only ostensible and does not exist.

ANALYSIS OF AMERICAN POLICIES TOWARD TAJIKISTAN SINCE 9/11

Tajikistan is a landlocked state and has a unique position in the Central Asian region due to its border attached with Afghanistan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and near to Pakistan. It is the poorest among the Central Asian states with lack of energy resources. Tajikistan faced several challenges such as poor democratic performance, economic dependence on foreign remittances, unemployment, bad governance, and security threat. Next year after independence in 1992 the Tajik Civil War had started and ended in 1997, which had deep impacts on the country’s economy and social life. Since 9/11 when the terrorist attack on the United States of America, Tajikistan got special attention due to its location. It condemned those attacks and keen to cooperate with American war against terrorism. This study focuses on American policies towards Tajikistan during 2001-2012. The paper also investigates American political, economic and security relations with Tajikistan and analyses the American interests and its strategic importance of Tajikistan towards America.

Мотивы «своего» и «чужого» в современной постколониальной отечественной прозе

The article examines the role of the opposition of “one’s own” and “someone else’s” in modern Russian prose – in V. Rasputin’s novel “Ivan’s Daughter, Ivan’s Mother” (2003), A. Volos’ novels “Khurramabad” (2000), V. Medvedev’s “Zahhok” (2017) and V. Galaktionova’s “On the Island of Buyan” (2003). The actualization of this opposition is due to the traumatic effect of the post-Soviet reality both in Russia and on the national outskirts of the former USSR. The article also clarifies the features of the post-colonial situation for the post-Soviet world and uses the metaphor of colonization proposed by Habermas. In particular, the destruction of the social environment familiar to the characters under the onslaught of the “alien” has become one of the most noticeable plot-forming factors of modern prose. The xeno- phobia of Rasputin and Galaktionova extends not so much to other nations, but to everything “alien”, including foreign discursive practices, new things, and the totality of the Lebenswelt surrounding the protagonists. The characters of Rasputin’s story overcome alienation and self-alienation, undergo a crisis of “their” common world and “their” personal one. The village of Buyan, which is similar to an island in Galaktionova’s novel, is portrayed as a unique archaic place where only «friends» who do not accept “strangers” live. It preserves the communal id- yll and traditional austerity of morals. Postcolonial novels about the civil war in Tajikistan are united by the motifs of loss of the motherland for the Russian natives of the country who are forced to leave for Russia which is foreign for them (“Khurramabad”) or to flee to an even more hostile location – a rural village (“Zahhok”). However, the Tajik characters are also divided into “friends” and “strangers”. The hybrid ethnic and cultural identity of the characters that lies between “their own” and “alien” (the Russian and Tajik worlds respectively) is inherent to several of the most important characters of both novels and it creates a dangerous conflict for them. The resolution of conflicts and collisions in both novels is the characters’ attempt to migrate to a new space which leads to an increase in alienation.

Civil War, Famine and the Persistence of Human Capital: Evidence from Tajikistan

The dissolution of the Soviet Union and 1992-96 Tajik civil war resulted in huge human and economic losses. Nevertheless, contemporary data suggest the persistence of investments in human capital in the region most affected by famine and least favoured since the cessation of hostilities, Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast. Famine-affected women have greater stature and final educational attainment, later ages at marriage and lower fertility than do those in the neighbouring border province, Khatlon. Educational interactions between adults and children under age six are much more frequent. The continued emphasis on human capital after economic collapse is consistent with a locational imperative for households to earn incomes outside of agriculture, and with a higher relative status of women in non-agrarian societies.

The Consequences of the Tajikistani Civil War for Abortion and Miscarriage.

Although a great deal of attention is paid to reproductive health during violent conflicts, the literature is sparse on the consequences of conflict for abortion and miscarriage. This research provides an analysis of a recent historical case: the 1992-1997 civil war in Tajikistan, using the female questionnaire of the 2007 Tajik Living Standards Survey to examine a subsample of 1,445 women surveyed who had reached menarche during or after the war and had been pregnant at least once by the time of the survey. The analysis leverages the uneven geographical scope of conflict events during the civil war to pinpoint women's exposure to violence, measured by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program. The results show that for women who had reached menarche during or after the civil war, exposure to conflict events increases the likelihood of ever experiencing miscarriage, but not abortion. Including a spatial lag operator reveals that there were also spillover effects for abortion, in which women who were in a broader region of uncertainty were more likely to induce an abortion. These findings highlight the role of institutional changes in affecting pregnancy loss during and after civil war.

Post-war, peri-youth: Physical and social remnants of the Tajik Civil War in childhood environments

Militarism shaped the physical dimensions of childhood in Tajikistan during the Tajik Civil War (1993–1997). Even in civilian zones, children interacted with military artifacts during daily play: children made slingshots from gas masks, played on rubble, and constructed whistles from bullets. Through a qualitative study exploring space construction and normalization among Tajik youth, the article examines the role physical remnants of militarism played in their childhoods. The analysis of their narratives explores how youth navigate and understand environments shaped by conflict.

ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS FACTOR IN THE IRAN-TAJIKISTAN RELATIONS

During the last thirty years the ethnic and religious factor has had an important impact in the relations between two Iranian-speaking countries, for Iran and Tajikistan. Having cultural, linguistic and ethnic strong ties with Tajikistan, Iran attached great importance to the development of this Iranianspeaking country after the collapse of the USSR. During the civil war in Tajikistan in the 1990s, Tajikistan was particularly important for Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of those countries whose immediate efforts made peace approved in this country after several years of civil war. Heedless of the fact that after the collapse of the USSR relatively warm relationship was formed between Tehran and Dushanbe, thus after the civil war the relations between these two Iranian-speaking countries were developed in an atmosphere of mutual mistrust as a result of policy conducted both by Iran and Tajikistan. Even though in different periods Tehran and Dushanbe tried to build mutually beneficial relationships, the sides did not succeed in continuing such initiatives.

Russian Troops in the Badakhshan-Mountain Autonomous Region in 1992-1997

The study is devoted to the most dramatic period of the stay of Russian troops on the territory of Badakhshan-mountain - the era of the civil war in Tajikistan (1992-1997). The authors of the work tried to overcome the schematism and descriptive nature of the historiography of the topic. For this, documents from the archives of the Badakhshan mountain Autonomous Region (BMAR), data from the regional periodical press, and previously unpublished analytical materials and photographs from the funds of the Central Border Museum of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation were used. As a result of studying the opposing forces, instead of confronting the faceless, monolithic and mechanically opposed “Russians” and “fighters”, a complex picture of the interaction of various actors involved in the thick of events with the unpredictable dynamics of the context is formed. The authors conclude that the armed forces of the former “Center” at some point turned out to be the only significant economic agent, security guarantor and socialization institution that prevented the development of the region according to the “Afghan” scenario.

The Role of Media in Peaceful Resolution of Civil Wars: The Case of Tajikistan from the Point of Peace Communication

The role of the media in conflicts has recently gained importance due to the fact that civil wars have taken place in various parts of the world. This role can either be positive or negative. Therefore, it is important to investigate how media outlets have been used during conflict situations in countries where civil wars have occurred. In light of the background information regarding Northern Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Ruanda and Sierra Leone, the case of Tajikistan civil war was explored in this study from a peace communication perspective. Content analysis, interviews and document analysis techniques were used to collect data. In particular, newspaper coverage, brochures, and radio broadcasts during the civil war were analyzed. The results show that the Tajikistan civil war started in the context of weak socio-political climate, visible influence of foreign countries, and a loss of long-exercised control over media through the state apparatus. Before the war media caused increasing tension in the society but the role of media has changed during the peace talks. Significant work has been done to end the civil war in Tajikistan in terms of all aspects of peace communication. The media generally played a vital role in promoting peace among people and encouraging the fighting parties to reach a consensus. In general, both the pro-government and pro-opposition media acted toward the direction of making peace. In particular, the pro-government newspapers Jumhuriyat and Sadoi Mardum reflected a peaceful view on behalf of the official government. The radio program Khoki Vatan (Homeland), which was created and broadcasted by the Radio of Tajikistan, also played a major role in promoting peace.