Modern Tajiks regard the Samanid Empire as the first Tajik
state. This monument in Dushanbe honours Ismail Samani,
ancestor of the Samanids and a source of Tajik nationalism.
The Capital Dushanbe
Between the eleventh and the sixteenth centuries, modern day
tajikistan was ruled successively by Turks, Mongals and Uzbeks.
In the 19th. century, the Russian Empire began to spread in
central Asia during the Great Game.Between 1864 and1885 it
gradually took control of the entire Territory of Russian Turkestan
from todays border with Kazakhstan in the north to the Caspean
Sea in the westand the border with Afganistan in the south.
Tajikistan was eventually was carved out of this territory, which
historically had a large Tajik Population.
After the overthrow of Imperial Russia in 1917, guerrillas throughout
central Asia , known as basmachi waged a war against Bolshevik
armies in a futile attempt to maintain Independence. The Bolshevik
prevailed after a four-year war , in which mosques and viaages were
burned down and the popuation were heavily suppressed. Soviet
authorities started a campaign of secularisation, practicing Muslims,
Jews, and the Christians were persecuted, and mosques, churches and
synagogues were closed.
Soviet Tajikistan :
In 1924, the Tajik auyonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was
created as a part of Uzbekistan, but in 1929 the Tajik Soviet
Socialist Republic (Tajik SSR) was made a separate constituent
republic.The predominantly ethnic Tajik cities of Samarkand
and Bukhara remained in the Uzbek SSR. Between 1926 and
1959 the proportion of Russians among Tajikistan's population
grew from less than1 % to 1.3 %. In terms of living conditions ,
education and Industry Tajikistan was behing the other Soviet
Republics. In the early 1980s, it had the lowest household saving
rate in the USSR, the lowest percentage of households in the two
top per capita income groups. and the lowest rate of university
graduates per 1000 people. in the late 1980s Tajik nationals were
calling for increased rights. Real disturbances didnot occur within
the republic until 1990. The following year the Soviet Union
collapsed, and Tajikistan declared its Independence.
