Part Nine: Tajikistan

Quick facts from the CIA World Handbook

Population: 6,863,752 (July 2003 est.)
Capital: Dushanbe
Ethnic Groups: Tajik 64.9%, Uzbek 25%, Russian 3.5% (declining because of emigration), other 6.6%
Religions: Sunni Muslim 85%, Shi'a Muslim 5%
Languages: Tajik (official), Russian widely used in government and business

Tajikistan, as the Lonely Planet guide notes, is "a curiously incomplete country." This is, in part, because traditionally Tajik areas like Samarkand and Bukhara are now in Uzbekistan, thanks to Soviet balkanization. In fact, Tajikistan was originally part of Turkmenistan, then Uzbekistan, before the Soviets made it an autonomous republic in 1929. Tajikistan spent much of the post-independence 1990s in chaos, as a civil war raged over various factions vying for power. The civil war waged on and off through most of the decade; even today there are parts of the country that are still out of control (especially the area that borders Afghanistan), and the land is seen as a fertile breeding-ground for terrorist cells.

Most Central Asian languages are Turkic; however, Tajik's language is Persian, making the group closer historically to Iranians than to other Central Asians. Since Tajiks were separated from Iran for decades under Soviet domination, these Persian ties are only now being renewed. Hence, where there is a desire to move Tajik culture closer to their Persian brethren, Tajik music today is still closely aligned with Uzbek music. This is especially true because Samarkand and Bukhara, two Uzbek cities that were once largely Tajik, were for centuries the two main centers of classical and folk music in Central Asia. In short, Tajik and Uzbek musical cultures today are closely aligned.

There are specific, geographical reasons for this close association between Tajiks and Uzbeks. The two countries as they now exist actually inhabit an area known as Transoxiana, or the land "beyond the Oxus," which is the area between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya rivers. As Theodore Levin notes in his book, The Hundred Thousand Fools of God, the area now comprising Uzbekistan and Tajikistan has a long, rich musical history, one that closely links Uzbeks and Tajiks and other ethnic groups. This blurring of boundaries is still evident today. Sadly, because of the problems in Tajikistan, little information about the musical culture within the country is available, and what is out there is usually tied in with Uzbekistan.

This is Tajikistan: gigantic mountains and sweltering deserts, with a few fertile areas (near the rivers) in between.

There are few pictures on the Internet of Tajik music or musicians; here's one of the few I could find. Yes, it's a stamp, but those are traditional musical instruments there. Guess which one is which!

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