Identity, History and Trans-Nationality in Central Asia: The Mountain Communities of Pamir 0815357559, 9780815357551

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Identity, History and Trans-Nationality in Central Asia: The Mountain Communities of Pamir
 0815357559, 9780815357551

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
List of figures
List of tables
Notes on contributors
Abbreviations
1 Introduction: locating Pamiri communities in Central Asia
PART 1 Identity formation, borders and political transformations
2 Geography, ethnicity and cultural heritage in interplay in the context of the Tajik Pamiri identity
3 Pamiri ethnic identity and its evolution in post-Soviet Tajikistan
4 The Wakhi language: marginalisation and endangerment
5 The Tajiks of China: identity in the age of transition
PART 2 Archaeology, myths, intellectual and cultural heritage
6 A Badakhshānī origin for Zoroaster
7 The Silk Road castles and temples: ancient Wakhan in legends and history
8 Nasir-i Khusraw’s intellectual contribution: the meaning of pleasure and pain in his philosophy
9 Religious identity in the Pamirs: the institutionalisation of the Ismā ͑īlī Da ͑wa in Shughnān
10 Forgotten figures of Badakhshan – Sayyid Munir al-Din Badakhshani and Sayyid Haydar Shah Mubarakshahzada
PART 3 Social cohesion, interactions and globalisation
11 Blessed people in a barren land: the Bartangi and their success catalyser Barakat
12 Promoting peace and pluralism in the rural, mountainous region of Chitral, Pakistan
13 A ‘shift’ in values: the educational role of parents in the Gorno-Badakhshan region
14 Project identity: the discursive formation of Pamiri identity in the age of the internet
15 Religious education and self-identification among Tajik Pamiri youth
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Source: University of Jena, Germany. Pamir (“World Tag”) is a common name in an area of mountain ranges and highlands in Central Asia, located in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, ­A fghanistan, China and Pakistan.

Identity, History and Trans-Nationality in Central Asia

Pamiris, or Badakhshanis in popular discourse, form a small group of Iranic peoples who inhabit the mountainous region of Pamir-Hindu Kush, being the historical region of Badakhshan. Pamiri communities are located in the territories of four current nation states: Tajikistan, Afghanistan, China and Pakistan. This book provides insights into the identity process of a group of mountain communities whose vigorous cultures, languages and complex political history have continued to shape a strategic part of the world. Its various chapters capture what being a Pamiri may entail and critically explore the impact of both trans-regionalism and the globalisation processes on activating, engaging and linking the dispersed communities. The book presents a variety of lines of argument pertaining to Pamiri identity and identification processes. Structured in three parts, the book first addresses themes relevant to the region’s geography and the recent history of Pamiri communities. The second section critically explores the rich philosophical, religious and cultural Pamiri heritage through the writings of prominent historical figures. The final section addresses issues pertaining to the contemporary diffusion of traditions, peace-building, interconnectivity and what it means to be a Pamiri for the youth of the region. Contributions by experts in their field offer fresh insights into the Ismaili communities in the region while successfully updating the historical and ethnographic legacy of Soviet times with present-day scholarship. As the first collection of scholarly contributions in English entirely focusing on the Pamiri people, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of the history, anthropology, religious studies, sociology, linguistics, education and geography of Central Asia and/or East Asia as well as of Islam, Islamic thought, minority-majority relations, population movements and the processes of defining and affirming identity among minority groups. Dagikhudo Dagiev is Research Associate in the Department of Academic Research and Publications at The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, UK. Carole Faucher is Professor in the Nazarbayev University, Graduate School of Education, Kazakhstan and Visiting Researcher with the Department of Anthropology at the Université de Montréal. She is also Research Affiliated with the UNESCO Chair “Global Health and Education”.

Central Asian Studies Series

27 Growing Up in the North Caucasus Society, family, religion and education Irina Molodikova and Alan Watt 28 Soviet Orientalism and the Creation of Central Asian Nations Alfrid K. Bustanov 29 Soviet Nation-Building in Central Asia The making of the Kazakh and Uzbek nations Grigol Ubiria 30 The Afghan-Central Asia Borderland The State and Local Leaders Suzanne Levi-Sanchez 31 Kyrgyzstan – Regime Security and Foreign Policy Kemel Toktomushev 32 Legal Pluralism in Central Asia Local jurisdiction and customary practices Mahabat Sadyrbek 33 Identity, History and Trans-Nationality in Central Asia The Mountain Communities of Pamir Edited by Dagikhudo Dagiev and Carole Faucher

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge. com/asianstudies/series/CAS

Identity, History and Trans-Nationality in Central Asia The Mountain Communities of Pamir Edited by Dagikhudo Dagiev and Carole Faucher

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Dagikhudo Dagiev and Carole Faucher; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Dagikhudo Dagiev and Carole Faucher to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-8153-5755-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-12426-3 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra

Contents

List of figures List of tables Notes on contributors Abbreviations 1 Introduction: locating Pamiri communities in Central Asia

ix xi xiii xv 1

Ca rol e Fauc h e r a n d Dagi k h u d o Dagi e v

Part 1

Identity formation, borders and political transformations 2 Geography, ethnicity and cultural heritage in interplay in the context of the Tajik Pamiri identity

9 11

Su nat u l l o Jon b ob oe v

3 Pamiri ethnic identity and its evolution in post-Soviet Tajikistan

23

Dagi k h u d o Dagi e v

4 The Wakhi language: marginalisation and endangerment

45

Sh i r a l i Gu l om a l i e v

5 The Tajiks of China: identity in the age of transition

61

A m i e r Sa i du l a

Part 2

Archaeology, myths, intellectual and cultural heritage

77

6 A Badakhshānī origin for Zoroaster

79

Y usu fsho Yaqu b ov a n d Dagi k h u d o Dagi e v

viii Contents 7 The Silk Road castles and temples: ancient Wakhan in legends and history

91

A bdulmamad I loliev

8 Nasir-i Khusraw’s intellectual contribution: the meaning of pleasure and pain in his philosophy

106

Ghulam A bbas H un z ai

9 Religious identity in the Pamirs: the institutionalisation of the Ismāʿīlī Daʿwa in Shughnān

123

Daniel Beben

10 Forgotten figures of Badakhshan – Sayyid Munir al-Din Badakhshani and Sayyid Haydar Shah Mubarakshahzada

143

M u z affar Zoolshoev

Part 3

Social cohesion, interactions and globalisation

173

11 Blessed people in a barren land: the Bartangi and their success catalyser Barakat

175

S tefanie K icherer

12 Promoting peace and pluralism in the rural, mountainous region of Chitral, Pakistan

193

M ir A fz al Tajik , A li Nawab and A bdul Wali K han

13 A ‘shift’ in values: the educational role of parents in the Gorno-Badakhshan region

210

Na z ira S odatsayrova

14 Project identity: the discursive formation of Pamiri identity in the age of the internet

227

A slisho Qurboniev

15 Religious education and self-identification among Tajik Pamiri youth

249

Carole Faucher

Bibliography Index

265 293

List of figures

3.1 This 1866 map of Khujand portends the detailed topographic and ethnographic work that Russian academics would produce in the aftermath of Turkestan’s absorption into the Russian empire 27 3.2 Map showing the Wakhan Corridor, which prevented the Russian empire having a border with the British Empire. Map courtesy Russell Harris 28 3.3 Map courtesy Russell Harris 30 4.1 Map of Wakhi Speakers. The Wakhi speakers indicated by gray colour. Prepared by Gulomaliev 45 5.1 Map courtesy Russell Harris 62 5.2 Map courtesy Russell Harris 69 6.1 Map courtesy of Russell Harris 84 7.1 An arrow loop, the Namadgut Fortress (© Iloliev) 97 10.1 Sayyid Munir al-Din Badakhshani (1882–1957). Courtesy of F. M. Hunzai 145 10.2 Genealogical table of Sayyid Munir according to information provided by A. Shokhumorov (1992), A. V. Stanishevskiĭ (n.d.) and A. Muboraksho (1992) 147 10.3 Imam Sultan Muhammad Shah’s letter of recommendation for Sayyid Munir. This document is preserved in the collection of Dr. Faquir Muhammad Hunzai, who kindly agreed to share it for the purposes of this research 151 10.4 A photocopy of Sayyid Munir’s edition of Kitab-i Khayrkhwah-i Muwahhid Wahdat. Courtesy of F. M. Hunzai 152 10.5 A photocopy of a page from Wajh al-Din of Nasir-i Khusraw copied by Sayyid Munir (It is dated 27 Dhu alQaʿda 1342/June 6, 1924.  Courtesy S. Saidibroimov 152 10.6 Pages from Fidaʿi Khurasani’s Hidayat al-Muʾminin al-Talibin copied by Sayyid Munir. Dated: April 1924.  Courtesy S. Saidibroimov 153

x  List of figures 10.7 A photocopy of Sayyid Munir’s book, Guldasta-i Falsafa. Courtesy of F. M. Hunzai 153 10.8 Sayyid Munir al-Din Badakhshani (1882–1957). Courtesy of F. M. Hunzai 154 10.9 Sayyid Haydar Shah Mubarakshahzada. Courtesy of Ms. Z. Karimova 156 10.10 Sayyid Haydar Shah Mubarakshahzada and his family (c. 1930–1931). Right: Sayyid Haydar Shah: Top left; Laʿlbegim (daughter) and Ziyadabegim (wife); Zebinissa (Sayyid Haydar Shah’s daughter sitting next to him): Shah Haydar (Laʿlbegim’s son sitting on his grandmother’s lap): Shah Qambar (Laʿlbegim’s son, in the middle) and Mamadalishoh (Sayyid Haydar Shah’s son) sitting on Laʿlbegim’s lap. Courtesy of Ms. Z. Karimova 162 12.1 Conceptual framework 200 12.2 Respect for diversity 208 12.3 Role of CSIs in promoting peace and pluralism in Chitral 208 13.1 Sample of Gorno-Badakhshani house courtesy of Eraj Sodatsairov 216 14.1 ©Akim Zavqibekov. Da’vati Nosir. Oil on canvas 236

List of tables

3.1 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 14.1 14.2

Area and languages 38 Information about the Wakhi people in four countries 47 Pamiri languages 48 The different Wakhi dialects in Tajikistan 49 Lexical differences and similarities of dialects in Wakhi language in Tajikistan 50 The main dialects and other related sub-dialects in Wakhi language 51 Wakhi words from the notes of Burnes A. (1835, p. 179) 57 The result of testing words related to horse among Wakhi speakers across four countries 58 Competing theories regarding the ethnicity of the population of the Gorno-Badakhshan in late Soviet ethnographic studies 231 The results of a survey of the most popular Russian language SNW conducted by the present author (February 2017). These numbers should be treated as approximate as they may include users living in other nearby cities and districts 234

Notes on contributors

Ghulam Abbas Hunzai Master’s Degree in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism, McGill University, Montreal, Canada Daniel Beben Assistant Professor of History School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nazarbayev University Dagikhudo Dagiev Research Associate, Department of Academic Research and Publications, The Institute of Ismaili Studies Carole Faucher Full Professor, Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education Shirali Gulomaliev  PhD Candidate, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Doctoral Program in Literature and Linguistics, University of Tsukuba Abdulmamad Iloliev Research Associate, The Institute of Ismaili Studies Sunatullo Jonboboev  Senior Research Fellow, Cultural Heritage and Humanities Unit, University of Central Asia Abdul Wali Khan Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development, Pakistan Stefanie Kicherer PhD Candidate, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology Institute for Asian and Oriental Studies, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Ali Nawab  Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development, Pakistan Aslisho Qurboniev PhD Candidate, University of Cambridge Amier Saidula Research Associate, Department of Academic Research and Publications, Central Asian Study Unit, The Institute of Ismaili Studies Nazira Sodatsayrova PhD Candidate, University of Tsukuba, The Doctoral Program in International and Advanced Japanese Studies, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences Mir Afzal Tajik  Professor at Nazarbayev University, Graduate School of Education

xiv  Notes on contributors Yusufsho Yaqubov Professor of Archaeology and Ethnography, Academy of the Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan Muzaffar Zoolshoev  Research Assistant, Department of Academic Research and Publications, Central Asian Studies Unit, The Institute of Ismaili Studies

Notes on Transliteration and Names Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another; it implies converting a foreign text from one language to another. Transliteration is utilised in order to correct pronunciation of foreign words. The contributors of this volume have used sources in multiple languages, including Chinese, Arabic, Persian, Tajik (Cyrillic), Urdu, Uyghur, Russian, French and German. However, the disciplinary scope of the volume being very wide, we decided to leave to each contributor the freedom to choose the most suitable style for lettering their essay. However, since the majority of sources used throughout the manuscript were in Russian, Persian, Arabic and Tajik, the transliteration was used for these languages when deemed appropriate. I have modified the ALA-LC Romanisation tables for Slavic alphabets which is set of standards for Romanisation of texts in various writing systems used by the American Library Association and the Library of Congress of translation from Russian (Cyrillic) into English, and I represent ‘й’ as (ĭ); ‘я’ as (ia); ‘ю’ as (iu); ‘ё’ as (ë); ‘ц’ as (ts); ‘ы’ as (y); ‘щ’ as (shch); ‘э’ as (ė); ‘ъ’ as (ʺ); ‘ь’ as (‘). Otherwise, I followed the standard Library of Congress system for Russian words and terms. For the Chinese we used the pinyin, the modern Romanisation used to transliterate Mandarin in mainland China. To transcribe the Cyrillic Tajik alphabet, I have used World’s Writing System, which seems to represent Tajik letters more satisfactorily. Most letters of the Cyrillic Tajik alphabet are identical with the Russian alphabet apart from five letters such as ‘ғ’ as (gh); ‘қ’ as (q); ‘ӯ’ as (ū); ‘ḩ’ as (h); ‘ъ’ as (‘). The transliteration system for Arabic and Persian characters is the one used by the Encyclopaedia Islamica. Consonants

Short Vowels

‫ء‬ʾ ‫ز‬z ‫ک‬k ‫ــَـ‬a ‫ب‬B ‫ژ‬zh ‫گ‬g ‫ـُــ‬u ‫پ‬P ‫س‬s ‫ل‬l ‫ــِـ‬i ‫ت‬T ‫ش‬sh ‫م‬m ‫ث‬Th ‫ص‬ṣ ‫ن‬n Long Vowels ‫ج‬J ‫ض‬ḍ ‫ه‬h ‫ىا‬ā ‫چ‬Ch ‫ ط‬ṭ ‫و‬w ‫و‬ū ‫ح‬ḥ ‫ظ‬ẓ ‫ی‬y ‫ي‬ī ‫خ‬Kh ‫ع‬ʿ ‫ د‬D ‫غ‬gh Diphthongs ‫ ذ‬Dh ‫ف‬f ‫ وــَـ‬aw ‫ر‬R ‫ق‬q َ‫ ي ــ‬ay ‫ ة‬a; at (construct state) ‫ لا‬al- (article)

Abbreviations

AFAQ AKDN AKES AKF AKRSP AKU-PDCC BCE CAD CIADP CIS CSI FATA GB GBAO GPU HEC ICD ITREB ITREC IUCN KKH KP NGO NKVD OBLPO OSCE PRC SMC SNW SRSP STEP

Association for Academic Quality Aga Khan Development Network Aga Khan Education Service Aga Khan Foundation Aga Khan Rural Support Programme Aga Khan University—Professional Development Centre Chitral Before Common Era Creative Approaches to Development Chitral Integrated Area Development Programme Commonwealth of Independent States Civil Society Institutions Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan Gilgit - Baltistan Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie Higher Education Commission Ismaili Centre of Dushanbe Ismaʿili Tariqah Religious Education Board Ismaʿili Tariqah and Religious Education Committee International Union for Conservation of Nature Karakoram Highway Khyber Pukhtunkhwa A Non-Governmental Organisation People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (Regional Consumers’ Society) of Gorno Badakhshan in Khorog Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe People’s Republic of China School Management Committees Social Networking Websites Sarhad Rural Support Programme (Pakistan) Secondary Teacher Education Programme

xvi Abbreviations Tajik SSR TASOT TSIK TTP UCA UNESCO USSR VEC YSDO

Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic Tajik Autonomous Soviet Oblast of Tajikistan (Central Executive Committee) Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan University of Central Asia United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics Village Education Committees Young Star Development Organization

1 Introduction Locating Pamiris in Central Asia Carole Faucher and Dagikhudo Dagiev

This book represents the first collection of scholarly articles in English language entirely focusing on the Pamiri people. The Pamiris are also called Badakhshani, a small group of Iranic peoples inhabiting the mountainous region of Pamir-Hindu Kush, a historical region of Badakhshan. The Pamirs are divided among Tajikistan, Afghanistan, the northern area of P ­ akistan and the south-west of China’s Xinjiang province. Even though ‘Pamir’ is most of the time used in the context of Tajikistan, Postnikov (2001) argues that the geographical name of Pamir can be applied to a much broader area than the current territories of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) of Tajikistan. Several names have been used to indicate GBAO which literary translates into English as Autonomous Region of Mountain Badakhshan. In Tajikistan, the region is officially called Viloyati Mukhtori Kuhistoni Badakhshon. However, initially GBAO was created in 1925, and the Russian designated appellation of GBAO has been widely accepted by scholars as allusion to Badakhshan of Tajikistan. Therefore, in this book GBAO has been used to refer to Badakhshan of Tajikistan. It is also important to note that other groups are inhabiting the Pamirs, including the Kyrgyzs who live in the eastern part of the GBAO of Tajikistan. This book does not pretend to cover all communities living in the Pamirs region but instead focuses on the groups whose members call themselves loosely Pamiri and are united on the basis of their religious confession, Ismailism, a branch of Shiʿa Islam whose presence in the region dates back to as early as the 10th and 11th centuries and is associated with the activities of the Ismaili daʿi and hujja Nasir-i Khusraw (1004–1088). Furthermore, Pamiris speak heterogeneous languages, all included in the Eastern Iranian group of the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. These languages are currently on the UNESCO’s list of endangered languages. In writings referring to Tajikistan and Afghanistan, Pamiri or Badakhshani is often adopted interchangeably while regional or linguistic group names such as Wakhi or Shughnani are used when the focus is on one specific community of the Mountainous region or to emphasise the linguistic, political or ­cultural ­h istory of that same community.

2  Carole Faucher and Dagikhudo Dagiev With respect to the academic literature addressing issues pertaining to Pamiri identity, we can identify two major trends. The first one regroups relatively recent scholarly writings published in English, German and French. Through this body of work, identity is not so much engaged directly nor problematised but the different contextualisations provide strong grounds for its articulation. Over the past two decades, the number of academic publications in English referring to Pamir and Pamiri has grown substantially. Recent peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters in English focus on issues pertaining directly to Pamiri identity (see, e.g. Elnazarov and Aksakolov 2011; Dodykhudoeva, 2004; Yountchi, 2011; Goodhand, 2016; Straub, 2014; Faucher, 2017; Iloliev, 2008; Mock, 2011; Mostowlansky, 2017; Goibnazarov, 2016). Critical book contributions in English to the field of Pamiri studies address aspects of political, social and religious life, past or present, that are no doubt pertinent to the entire Central Asian region. The list of academic books in English dedicated entirely to Pamiri issues includes the following works: The Ismaili Sufi Sage of Pamir by the historian Abdulmamad Iloliev (2008) and Nasir Khusraw: The Ruby of Badakhshan by Alice C. Hunsberger (2000). Three books on contemporary issues have problematised the aspects of the Pamiri identity’s framework in ways that have helped to shift the discussion from a Central Asian or Tajikistan focus to one that exposes the unique social and political dynamics of the Pamirs. Among those works are Frank Bliss’ Social and Economic Change in the Pamirs (2006), Otambek Mastibekov’s Leadership and Authority in Central Asia: The Ismaili Community in Tajikistan (2014) and Suzanne ­Levi-Sanchez’s The Afghan-Central-Asia Borderland (2016). Literature in Russian, on the other hand, shows a greater focus on identity formation, and scholars publishing in Russian have engaged in debates concerning identity and labelling more directly compared to Western-based scholars. The focus on group identity was already a strong prerogative of Soviet and pre-Soviet scholarship. Soviet Oriental Studies, especially, were preoccupied with defining historical and cultural identities of the populations living in the Soviet republics (Kemper, 2011:4) by producing extremely detailed ethnographic and historical accounts and were, in the majority of cases, commissioned by governmental institutions. It is worth noting that Soviet scholarship has been instrumental in setting the parameters of Pamiri identity in Tajikistan, and, to a lesser degree, in ­Afghanistan. Among those scholars who have written in Russian are A.A.  Semenov and V.V. Bartol’d, who has done several important studies on Pamiri Tajiks including history, religious belief, religious ceremonies, religio-­philosophical views and pre-Islamic beliefs and rituals. M. S. ­Andreev’s volumes, Tadzhiki doliny Khuf (1953, 1958), represent a significant contribution to the ethnography of the Tajiks of the Khuf Valley and serve as a valuable source in regard to the material and spiritual culture of the mountaineers of the Pamir region. I.I. Zarubin’s ‘Materialy i Zametki po Ėtnografii Gornykh Tadzhikov. Dolina Bartanga’ collected materials about Rushanis and their language, calendar of rituals and celebrations,

Introduction  3 weddings, funerals and memorials rites. D. Putiata’s ‘Ocherk Ėkspeditsii v Pamir, Sarykol, Wakhan i Shugnan v 1883 g.’ is one of the first ethnographical studies on the people of Shughnan, Wakhan and Sariqol in which we see for the first time the acknowledgment that these people are Muslim Shʿi [Ismaili] followers. V.V.  Grigorev in his note gives detailed information on the geography, ethnography and political situations in Badakhshan. I.P. Minaev’s work, ­Svedenie o stranakh po verkhov’iam Amu-Dar’i (1879), similar to V.I. Masal’skiĭ (1913), presents the collection of geographical, ethnographic, archaeology, history and linguistic information about the countries of ­Central Asia with the aim of discovering the Aryan homeland. D.L. ­Ivanov, Puteshestvie na Pamir (1884), was one of the first researchers on the region to record account on local languages and nationalities in the Pamirs. A.P. ­Fedchenko was one of the first among Russian researchers to study the political and administrative division of the Pamir lands. G. Grumm-­Grzhimaĭlo’s work, Ocherk Pripamirskikh Stran (1886), provides information on the economic life of the population of Eastern Bukhara and the Pamirs. B.L. Grombchevskiĭ (1891) a Russian military and researcher made a great contribution to the study of the history and ethnography of the peoples of the Pamirs and Pri-pamir. N.L. Korzhenevskiĭ, another ­Russian traveller, visited Pamir in 1906 and wrote ‘Poezdka na Pamiry, Wakhan i Shugnan’ on socio-economic issues and collected ethnographic material. In addition to this list and many other Russian explorers, there were two famous German geographers, Karl Ritter and Alexander von Humboldt. Furthermore, several remarkable works on the Pamir region and Pamiri people have been produced by scholars who are themselves from the region, including B.I. Iskandarov (1962–1963), Kh. Iusufbekov (1973), R.M. Masov (1987), O. ­Boqiev (1994), and Kh. Pirumshoev (1998). Among the works worth mentioning here are Shugnantsy (2004) by T.S. Kalandarov and Pogranichniki i zhiteli Pamira (1995) authored by Dodikhudo Karamshoev in collaboration with major general Igor’ Afanas’evich Kharkovchuk. In terms of the historical study referring to the geography of the Pamirs, we have to mention the exceptional contribution of O.A. Agakhaniants and A.A. ­A zat’ian. ­Agakhaniants’ work, Mezhdu ­Gindukushem i Tian’-Shanem outlines and recognises the broad boundaries of the natural area of the Pamirs. Other important writings presenting exhaustive ethnographic accounts of the Pamir are Ocherki po Istorii Badakhshan (1964) by Abaeva and D.A. Ol’derogge’s Strany i Narody Vostoka (1974). Among the major contributions from the post-Soviet period are A.S. ­Davydov Ėtnicheskaia Prinadlezhnost’ Korennogo Naseleniia Gornogo Badakhshana (2005), which analyses a body of ethnographic, linguistic, anthropological and archaeological data relating the indigenous people of Gorno-Badakhshan (see Chapter 3) and Pamirskaia Ekspeditsiia, a collection edited by Almazova (2006) focusing on the history, livelihood, traditions and cultures of the people living, in what the author refers to as the amazing mountain region called the ‘roof of the world’ in Tajikistan and Afghanistan Badakhshan(s).

4  Carole Faucher and Dagikhudo Dagiev Prior to the Soviet era, Russian and British explorers, among others, have also produced a detailed ethnographic, geographic and sometime poetic account on Pamirs’ communities and landscapes. However, for this introduction we have decided to limit ourselves to work produced by scholars.

Identity narratives and historical constructions In public discourse as well as in scholarly work, Pamiris are alternatively referred to as an ethnic group, a regional community, a religious diaspora and a dozen of distinct linguistic groups. Every one of these referents is regularly alluded to and debated by scholars and politicians alike; they inevitably involve specific political and sociocultural narratives. In today’s Tajikistan’s public sphere, the use of ‘Pamiri’ may refer to a political community or even a specific political position as well as a specific set of circumstances rooted as much in both Russian Imperialism and Soviet past as in Tajikistan’s post-­ independence regional identities construction. In this respect, the post-civil war nation-building initiated by the president of Tajikistan since 1992, Emomali Rahmon, dwells heavily on the Soviet construction of Tajik identity developed by Soviet Orientalists such as Bobojon Gafurov (1908–1977), himself an ethnic Tajik born in Khujand and Rahim Masov (1939–2018), another prominent Tajik historian and strong figure of the Academy of Science of Tajikistan. Soviet Orientalists tediously categorised peoples and communities of Central Asia in ethnic groups based on a number of criteria determining similarities and differences and associated each group with a given territory (Bliss, 2006; Levi-Sanchez, 2016). Similar to the same fashion of the Russian and Soviet scholars, Gafurov also classified all groups whose languages were related to one of the Iranian linguistic families as Tajiks. Even though prior to the establishment of Tajikistan as a Union Republic within the Soviet Union, the Pamiri people mainly referred to themselves as Tajiks, through the framework of this dominant narrative, the inhabitants of the West Pamir became ‘Mountain Tajiks’ and were further divided into ethnicised units based on territory and language. Emomali Rahmon, used the widespread but contested claim put forward by Rahim Masov that Tajiks are at least as old as Persian, and their origins were rooted in the Aryan civilisation and Zoroastrianism which traditions could be traced to the Pamir region (Laruelle, 2007; Horak, 2010; see Chapter 6). The references to Aryan and Zoroastrian myths were further used by the Tajikistan’s government to unify the country and minimise religious differences between Sunni and Ismaili (Yountchi, 2011:229; Laruelle, 2007:65; Buisson and Khunesova, 2011:98). The Zoroastrian narrative especially remains today alive through Pamiri ancestral rituals and cultural practices (Yountchi, 2011:229; ­Levi-Sanchez, 2016:1124). In research scholarship, there is still a wide range of views as far as the self-identification patterns are concerned. Davydov, for example, argues that for centuries the ‘non-Tajik’ (Farsi)-speaking people of Gorno-Badakhshan

Introduction  5 were calling themselves Tajiks and referred to their neighbours who spoke the Tajik (Farsi) language as Farsiwans (Persian speakers) (Davydov, 2005). What is particularly interesting to us in Davydov argument is that Pamiri, who identified themselves as Tajik for centuries, were nevertheless drawing a line between them and others, the Farsi speakers. Chapter 3 agrees with Davydov and brings to our attention the role played by Russian and Soviet Orientalists in the complicated process of group naming.

Being Pamiri across borders Pamiris are primarily known today as forming communities united by culture, languages and religion across the porous border of two currently unstable countries: Afghanistan and Tajikistan (Levi-Sanchez, 2016). C ­ hapter 2 discusses the consequences of the extremely tragic territorial division of the Pamirs at the end of the ‘Great Game,’ a conflict that has opposed Russian and British colonial rulers for the largest part of the 19th and early 20th centuries. As we have already mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, Pamiri communities are located at both the geographical and political fringes of at least four nation-states, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and China. Thus, talking about Pamiri identity construction is also talking about borders and state’s margins and the role of geo-political frontiers in structuring identity processes at specific periods of the history. The centrality of borderlands, an expression coined by the French anthropologist Michel Agier (2016) is immensely pertinent here. For Agier, liminality is the most universal characteristic of the border. Borders are part of the everyday life of Pamiri, many of whom cross one of the bridges between Afghanistan and Tajikistan on a regular basis. We have been witnessing over the past years the re-affirmation of frontiers (Foucher, 2016:14), and Pamiris on both sides of the Afghan-Tajikistan border are more and more subjected to restraints and regulations since the involvement of the OSCE in increasing border control and promoting the construction of new customs infrastructure that had initially for objective stopping illicit drug trafficking (Makhuka & Al, 2014). Globalism and transnationalism also represent two major themes when considering Pamiri identity issues. However, interestingly, the term ‘Pamiri’ in itself has been in fact only used in the context of Tajikistan (Straub, 2014), at least, until recently (see Chapter 3). Agreeing or not with that statement depends to a great extent on if one refers to an official discourse, to oral history or self-identification. Pamiri who do cross the border frequently and have relatives on both sides tend to call themselves as such even if they are from Afghanistan, largely with the aim of demarcate themselves from Tajik (Farsi) speakers who are Sunni, not Ismaili. Nobody so far has disputed the fact that the scope of Pamiri group identity (or identities) transcends by large the boundaries of one country. The level of international mobility of both Afghanistan and Tajik Ismaili Pamiris has been increasing

6  Carole Faucher and Dagikhudo Dagiev steadily as people move to find work or pursue higher education in other parts of the world, chiefly driven by the harsh economic conditions back home. Relatively large communities of Pamiri can be found in Russia, elsewhere in Europe and North America. Social networking has been conducive in redefining the meaning of being Pamiri, or ‘Pamiriness,’ in cyberspace. Claiming to be Pamiri (instead of Tajik) and political activism have become increasingly linked following growing mistrust and instances of high political tension over the past years between government forces and GBAO communities (see Chapter 14). Social media have also transformed the ways norms and values are transmitted from one generation to the next, taking the role away from the fathers (see Chapter 13). In most cases, the Pamiri identity process is articulated around religion and languages (even the multiplicity of languages) rather than around claim of nationhood. Religious practices, including the ways of engaging Ismailism, have become deeply intertwined with transnationalism and globalisation as it is the case with other religious movements around the world. In Tajikistan today, Badakhshani, Pamiri and Ismaili are practically synonymous with each other (Mastibekov, 2014). Standardisation of religious practices and the development of a stronger link with the global Ismaili community are having a tremendous impact on the way Pamiri youth perceive and define themselves (see Chapter 15). Language has also remained an important identity marker as it was the case for a great period of the history of the region and the sudden change of name of the Persian language into the ‘Tajik’ language, legislated by the Soviet authorities left its impact on identity formation of the people. Persian was a common language for all the Iranic people of Central Asia, but when the same language was renamed Tajik in 1936, it was then exclusively applied to one group of the Iranic people of Central Asia and inclusive to others (see Chapters 3 and 4).

Objective and outline of the collection The contributors to this volume do address Pamiri identity from a range of perspectives and disciplines. It is worth noting that, across all chapters, religion and/or language(s) are central to the arguments put forward by the authors. Brubaker argues that language and religion deserve as much scholarly attention as ethnicity and nationalism in any study about identification process: ‘Like ethnicity and nationhood, religion and language are powerfully shaped by political, economic, and cultural processes, and they change as circumstances change’ (Brubaker, 2015: 87). Following this line, it may be a better strategy to shift from the largely dominant ethnicity and nation-­ centred academic discourse on identity to one that uses language and religion as key analytical categories. Nevertheless, contrary to Brubaker (2015), who also advocates for the use of categories instead of identity when addressing issues pertinent to groups’ difference, we prefer ‘identity’ as an operative concept as it has remained central to the scholarship on Pamiri until today.

Introduction  7 The primary motivation behind this book was to bring forth insights into the identity process of a group of mountainous communities whose vigorous cultures, languages and complex political history have continued to shape a strategic part of the world. We invited scholars who have been active, some for many years, in research and writing on Pamirs and Pamiri from a range of perspectives, including, but not limited to, history, political sciences, cultural anthropology, linguistics, sociology and education to participate in the project. The richness of perspectives covered by the contributors encouraged us to open up to the multiplicity of narratives through which Pamiris’ identity’s historical, cultural, social and political fabric are articulated and unravelled. A number of chapters capture what being Pamir may entail and critically explore the impact of both trans-regionalism and the globalisation processes on activating, engaging and linking the dispersed communities. Other contributions discuss aspects pertaining to knowledge production and knowledge sharing in ways and forms that have been transforming over generations. The book is divided into three sections. The chapters regrouped in the first section, Identity Formation, Borders and Political Transformations, depict and analyse the past and present political influences on the production of identity among Pamiri across borders. The first chapter of this section, written by Sunatollo Jonboboev, discusses the major political schemes that led to the dramatic geographical division of the Pamir populations at the end of the ‘Great Game’. In Chapter 3, Dagikhudo Dagiev examines the formation and consolidation of Pamiri ethnic identity in Soviet and post-Soviet Tajikistan. The imposition of borders by Russia and Britain during the ‘Great Game’ is identified by Sherali Gulomaliev in Chapter 4 as the pivotal point that marks the decline of Wakhi, a Pamiri language spoken by people who currently reside in the modern territories of Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and China. Amier Saidula, in Chapter 5, explores the issue of identity and the dilemma which the Tajik-Pamiri people of China who live in Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous Province are faced with in their everyday life. The next section, Archaeology, Myths, Intellectual and Cultural Heritage, regroups five contributions from historians, all of whom introduce fresh theories and insights into their specific field of inquiry while fuelling current debates pertaining to the interplay between religion, philosophy and mythology in the formation of Pamiri identity. The introductory piece of this section, A Badakhshani Origin of Zoroaster by Yusufsho Yaqubov and Dagikhudo Dagiev discusses the major recent archaeological discovery of the Karan city, the ancient centre of Darvaz, which has thrown new lights on historically accepted facts and has raised the prospect of Darvaz in Badakhshan being the homeland of the Aryan prophet Zoroaster. In Chapter 7, Abdulmamad Illoliev demonstrates the significance of the ancient Wakhan route in the international network of trade and cultural exchanges, popularly known as the ‘Silk Road’, which used to connect China, India and Central Eurasia in the ancient and medieval ages. In Chapter 8, Ghulam Abbas

8  Carole Faucher and Dagikhudo Dagiev Hunzai delves into the vision and unparalleled contribution of the poet, philosopher and Ismaili daʿi (missionary) Nasir-i Khusraw and examines the concept of pleasure, prominent in his system of thought, which he has developed by integrating the Aristotelian theory of pleasure into an Ismaili approach. In the next chapter, Daniel Beben critically explores the affiliation of Ismaili and Pamiri identities and the crucial role played in this regard by the institutionalisation of the Ismaili daʿwa led by the rulers of Shughnan in the early 19th century. The last chapter of this section, written by Muzaffar Zoolshoev, presents and discusses the biographies of Sayyid Munir and Sayyid Haydar Shah, two leading religious figures of Badakhshan whose names and contributions have largely been ignored by their successors due to their political and ideological stance. These changes, which took place in the early 1920s, were initiated and instigated under the name of Panjebhai movement. The last section, Social Cohesion, Interactions and Globalisation, regroups contributions that look into patterns of continuity and changes among present-­day Pamiri by exploring the co-existence of ancestral views and practices with global processes, technology and transnational mobility. The first chapter of this section, written by Stephanie Kicherer, sheds some light on the concept of barakat (blessing) in the Bartang Valley in Tajikistan. The concept is widespread in the Islamic world and plays a pivotal role in the relationship between man and god, where elderly people can ask god to direct his barakat towards specific individuals. According to Kicherer, barakat is a resource which has been so far completely overlooked by economists. In Chapter 12, the theme of social cohesion is also addressed, but this time through an analysis of the implication of civil society organisations in the remote Pakistan’s Chitral district where a significant number of people are Ismaili. The three last chapters focus on the development of Pamiri identity among the youth. Nazira Sodatsayrova looks at the changing trend in the mode of value transmission from parents to child since Tajikistan’s independence. Her argument is that technology, instead of being an obstacle to the perpetuation of a local identity, is successfully used today by parents, especially mothers, as a tool for the transmission of social norms and values. The use of the internet, more precisely of social media, is central to Aslisho Qurboniev’s argument in the following chapter, in which he engages the concepts of defensive identities and project identities developed by Manuel Castells. His findings suggest that historical memory, as well as the social and political conditions of the Ismaili community in Tajikistan, contributed to the construction of a defensive identity with clearly defined boundaries, namely, the Pamiri identity. The last contribution, from Carole Faucher, approaches the topic of the self-identification process among Pamiri youth in Tajikistan from the perspective of religious education. She argues that local and regional identities have been slowly displaced to give way to a more assertive and encompassing Pamiri identity, but one with global connections and that puts religious identity at the forefront of their social imaginary.

Part I

Identity formation, borders and political transformations

2 Geography, ethnicity and cultural heritage in interplay in the context in the Tajik Pamiri identity Sunatullo Jonboboev Introduction The Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) of the Republic of Tajikistan, known commonly as the Pamirs, is an ethnically diverse region with a manifold cultural heritage. The Pamirs region is populated by different ethnic groups, most of which are of Iranic origin apart from a small group of Kyrgyz nomads who settled two centuries ago in the Eastern part of GBAO, in the Murghab district. In the Islamic era, the Iranic people of this region became known collectively as “Tajiks.” This chapter discusses some issues pertaining to the political, linguistic, cultural and religious identities of the Tajiks of the Pamirs, with a focus on their historical transformations and state policies towards them.1 It is useful to consider the transformation of the people of the Pamirs and their culture through the prism of geography and history in order to understand how their culture has survived despite severe environmental and historical constraints. In doing so, the intention is to demonstrate the hardships endured by the people of the Pamirs during the most dramatic period of their history, namely, the partition of the Badakhshan region during the period of the late 19th and the early 20th century designated as the ‘Great Game’ (Hopkirk, 1994). This chapter will also analyse existing data, including historical sources addressing historical, cultural and linguistic considerations, and will delve into previous ethnographic research on Central Asia. This study argues that their Eastern Iranic cultural and linguistic heritage and their Shiʿi Ismaili Muslim identity2 differentiate the Pamiri Tajiks from other Tajiks in Central Asia. The Pamiri peoples today accept an inclusive concept of citizenship and operate under an autonomous regional government and arrangement with the central government of Dushanbe. Moreover, there have been so far very few concerns in regards to religious or cultural differences with neighbouring regions inside Tajikistan. Nonetheless, due to the fact that Gorno-Badakhshan is an autonomous province with a unique interplay of geographical, cultural, religious and linguistic features, from time to time its people have opposed certain government initiatives,3 especially when state officials disregard the need for a specifically regional

12  Sunatullo Jonboboev cultural expression. At times, it has been difficult for state officials to accept the ethnolinguistic and cultural diversity of the region. In this regard, there even have been attempts to abolish the autonomy of ­Gorno-Badakhshan, but these attempts were largely unsuccessful.

A brief history of the region This section will outline the way Tajik Pamiri identity has expressed itself through historical, cultural and linguistic interaction in a particular geographical context over centuries. Before continuing this discussion, a brief introduction is needed with regard to the notion of the word “Tajik.” It is commonly accepted that the Tajik people are one of the ancient sedentary people of the region historically known by different names such as Khurasan and Ma waraʾ al-nahr (an Arabic term meaning, ‘That which is beyond the river,’ synonymous with the Latin name Transoxania) and now Central Asia. The term “Tajik” systematically excludes Arab and Turkic people and refers to the Iranic people of the region, such as Sogdians, Bactrians, Khwarazmis, Kurds, Pashtuns, Mazandaranis, Pamiris and many others, who used to speak their own different ancient Iranian dialects before the emergence of new Persian in the 8th and 9th centuries (Johanson, 2006:1–15). Later, most of them adopted the modern Persian language.4 The spoken languages in Central Asia were, for a long time, primarily the dialects of sedentary people like the Sogdians, Bactrians and other indigenous Iranic people, before the arrival of the nomadic Turks (Soucek, 2000). However, in recent centuries the notion of “Tajik” was mostly applicable only to the people residing between the two main rivers of Central Asia; the Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya. Alekseĭ Bobrinskoĭ, a leading Russian orientalist, visited the ­region at the beginning of the 20th century and noted: In the summer of 1901, I was able to visit our Central Asian territories. Along the way, I visited within the Upper Panj the impoverished Tajik society of Wakhan, Ishkashim, Gharan, Shughnan and Rushan. Regarding the origin and meaning of the word ‘Tajik’, much has been written before now, yet the question remains quite open. In Turkestan, the Tajiks call themselves mountain tribes and lowlanders, who speak Iranian dialects and consider themselves not of Turkic-Mongol origin. In my opinion, at this point it is difficult to relate the word ‘Tajik’ to a particular concept of race or nation. (Bobrinskoĭ, 1902:2) In addition to the term “Tajik,” Arabs called all the peoples of present-day Iran and Central Asia “Ajami” (which means ‘not Arabs’ or ‘dumb people’). However, according to some scholars, it would in fact refer to the people of Jamshid.5 The identity of the Pamiri Tajiks is multilayered by its nature and the product of a complex political trajectory. Before the

Geography, ethnicity and cultural heritage  13 Russian Revolution in 1917, the Pamiri Tajiks identified themselves as Tajiks of Shughnan, Wakhan, Rushan, or by specific localities such as Shughni, Wakhi, etc. At the same time, they differentiated themselves from other Tajiks, such as those of Darvaz and Gharm, by referring to them as parsiwan or parsigu, which means ‘Persian speaking people’ (Bartol’d, 1963:466). The situation was the same with the Pamiri Tajiks of the Sarikol autonomous region in China.6 Presently, the names ‘Pamir’ and ‘Badakhshan’ are applied to nearly the same geographical territory, whereas not so long ago these names indicated distinct places with their own histories. Until the Russian involvement in the region, only the eastern part of today’s GBAO was called the Pamirs, and the rest of the territory was known by local names such as Darvaz, Shughnan and Wakhan. This lasted until the occupation of these territories by their western and southern neighbours, including the rulers of Badakhshan (meaning present-day Afghan Badakhshan, with its historical capital in Faizabad), Bukhara, Khoqand and Afghanistan. Accordingly, the territories of Shughnan, Wakhan and Darvaz over the centuries shifted between periods of autonomy and submission to larger, neighbouring state (Iskandarov, 1980; Postnikov, 2001). During the Soviet era, the region was divided into the Eastern and Western Pamirs, and even prior to the Soviet era it had been fragmented for centuries. It was considered to be a particularly vibrant area, consisting of diverse kingdoms, owing to its location on the ancient Silk Road, which connected trade between China and India to Europe and the Middle East (Iskandarov, 1996). During pre-historic times, this area was populated by the Aryan tribes who crossed the mountains of the Pamirs in their migrations towards India and Europe. The early occupation by Aryan tribes has been well documented due to a large presence of petrographic evidence (Bubnova, 2005:116–117).7 Historically, the Pamirs were part of the Persian Empires and also played a huge role during the invasion of Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE), thereafter linking the central part of the famous Seleucid Empire (312–363 BCE) with the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (256–125 BCE), and the Kushan Empire (20–375) with the Sassanid Empire (224–651) (Maĭtdinova, 2011:135). During the Arab invasion, the region was attacked by Tibet and China, and later on was subjugated by the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258) in Baghdad, as was the rest of Sassanid territory (Surkhafsar, 1997). After that, the region was ruled by the first local Muslim Tajik dynasty, the Samanids (819–999). Subsequent to the collapse of the Samanid dynasty, local rulers governed independently until the Timurids (1370–1507) took control over the region, followed by the Uzbeks, who ruled until the end of the 19th century (Surkhafsar, 1997). In the meantime, according to most historical sources, the Badakhshan region was ruled by different local kings, who regarded themselves as the descendants of the shahs (kings) of Iskandar Zulqarnain (Alexander the Great), in recollection of the Seleucid kings (Bartol’d, 1963:466). Hence, the land was populated by nomadic people of Aryan origin such as the Saka (Scythians),

14  Sunatullo Jonboboev from which the present names of Shughnan (Saka-Nana) and Shikashim (Saka-Shama) originated. The period that should be deemed the most dramatic for the region is the 19th century, when it became a battlefield for the world powers of the time: the British and the Russian empires. As a result, the two colonial powers ignited artificial rivalry among the local rulers such as amirs and khanates by implementing what is known as the ‘divide and rule’ policy. By the end of the 19th century, the Panj (Oxus) River had turned into a natural border between the colonial powers. Competition between these colonial powers led to the territorial partition of the Pamirs, which initially resulted in two parts—one integrated into Russia and the other one into Afghanistan, then under British supervision—and later on in four parts. Some parts of the Pamir region remained in modern China (Tashkurghan) and a fourth part in the northern provinces of India (Chitral and Hunza), currently the Northern Areas of Pakistan. Certainly, the division of the region had a negative impact on the lives of millions of people, as it not only divided the land but also separated families, communities, cultures and societies without any justification or reason beyond the political ambitions of imperial rivals. People in these regions were not indifferent to their destiny; there were protests and uprisings against the colonial powers and against the rulers of Bukhara and Afghanistan as well (Tukhtametov, 1961:140–177).

Tajik Pamiri communities as a bargaining chip between Bukhara and Russia With the arrival of Russian imperial rule over Central Asia, the region became used mainly as a producer of raw materials. The Russians skilfully exploited the feuds already existing between local rulers. Operating according to the ‘divide and rule’ policy, colonial rulers conquered and abolished the Khanate of Khoqand, which consequently became part of the Russian Empire. In the 1870s, Darvaz was also occupied by the Emirate of Bukhara. For a short period, Darvaz was granted back its independence. A Russian Soviet historian, V.V. Bartol’d, quoted by A. Semenov, stated that, following the occupation of Darvaz, Siroj-khan, the last shah of Darvaz (who claimed descent from Alexander the Great), following the occupation of Darvaz, died in a Bukharan prison. Mahmud-Khan, the younger brother of the last shah, fled from Darvaz to Ferghana and was later invited to Kabul by the Amir of Afghanistan, ʿAbd al-Rahman-Khan (1880–1901), and became his vizier (minister) (Bartol’d, 1963:466; Ḥaydar Shāh, 1916). Shughnan and Wakhan, on the other hand, were not occupied due to their geographical inaccessibility and rough terrain. As the Tajik proverb says, ‘there is no forest without wolves’, consequently, Shughnan was threatened by its neighbours from the South, the Afghans. Using the unrest in Shughnan to his advantage, ʿAbd al-Rahman-Khan pursued an expansionist policy, also cunningly invited Yusuf ʿAli Khan, the

Geography, ethnicity and cultural heritage  15 ruler of Shughnan, to Kabul, where he was arrested and later killed in 1883. The Amir then initiated a military occupation of Shughnan and Wakhan. Fearing that with the onset of spring, Shughnan would become accessible to the Afghans, the leaders of Shughnan and Rushan turned to Russia and Bukhara for protection. In November 1888, two influential Shughnanis, Seyyid Khan-Shah-Salamat and Mir-Muzaffar-Shah, came to petition the head of the Bukharan troops in Darvaz and his brother, the ruler of Darvaz, Muhammad-Sharif Bekutoksabe, with a letter requesting that the Amir of Bukhara be informed of the desire of the population of Shughnan and Rushan to come under his authority. In January 1884, the Shughnan and Rushan elders appealed to the military governors of the Ferghana region, Muhammad Nasir and Muhammad Nazar Bek, who brought the petition to the Turkestan General Governor on behalf of the most influential Ismaili pirs, Sayyid-Farrukh-Shah, ­Manzar-Shah and others. This petition included a request for the liberation of Shughnan and Rushan from the tyranny of the Afghans and the acceptance of these countries under the rule of the ‘White King’, the Tsar (Ḥaydar Shāh, 1916:18). However, as noted by Semenov, neither of these requests was granted, and as a result of the imperial rivalry between the Russian and British at that time, the Turkestan Governor-General, Lieutenant-­General Chernyaev, declared his supreme command, ‘to abstain from any step that could lead us to armed intervention in the Afghans’ attempt to capture Shughnan’ (Ḥaydar Shāh, 1916:19). Meanwhile, Russian troops in 1892 occupied the Eastern Pamirs and established the Murghab post, which was followed by the delimitation of the spheres of influence between the Russian and British Empires in 1895. The left bank of Darvaz was assigned to Afghanistan, as per the agreement, while the right bank was assigned to Bukhara to compensate for other territories removed from Bukharan jurisdiction by the agreement. The R ­ ussian High ­ ossession – Command declared on June 26, 1896: ‘Upon entering into our p by agreement with England – the eastern parts of Shughnan, Rushan and the northern part of Wakhan are transferred to the possession of the Amir of Bukhara’ (Ḥaydar Shāh, 1916:20). However, seven years on, the rule of Bukhara proved to be extremely challenging for the local population of the Pamir region. Among other detrimental initiatives, Bukhara imposed harsh taxation and put in place different measures to compel the people to abandon their Shiʿi faith. But local resistance was strong, and widespread protests and unrest caused Bukhara to almost lose their control over this territory. Consequently, the rulers of Bukhara requested the Russian government to annex the Pamir territory and keep it under their administration while Bukhara would retain nominal legal rights over it (Iskandarov, 1973:25). In 1905, the administrative authority over all the Pamirs, Western and Eastern, was then assigned to the head of the Russian Pamir military detachment, which was based in Khorugh. Under these new arrangements, the administration of the Pamirs

16  Sunatullo Jonboboev was subordinated to the commander of the Russian detachment and, due to the poverty of the Pamirs’ population, they were released from any kind of taxation to either Bukhara or Russia. Also under the agreement, the post of bek (head or ruler) of Shughnan was abolished, and the commander of the Russian military detachment gave his instructions to the representative of the bek of Hisar, who was regarded as a representative of the local administration.

Community and confessional inclination as a focus At the end of the 19th century, the uprising of the Tajik Ismailis of the Pamirs against the domination of the amirs of Afghanistan and Bukhara, discussed in the preceding section, led to their “voluntarily joining” with the ­Russian Empire because of the persecutions by Sunni rulers. The local rulers of Shughnan and Wakhan repeatedly applied to the Russian governors in Khorugh and Ferghana with requests to protect them from the aggressions of their powerful neighbours (Bobrinskoĭ, 1902). Eventually, Russia placed the right-bank of the Panj River of the Pamir region under its direct political control and saved it from the persecution of the Sunnis of Bukhara.8 As was noted, the actions of the Russian Empire in the Pamirs were taken not merely for the sake of good will, but rather were an integral part of the ‘Great Game’ strategy. In the context of its contention with the British Empire at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian military expressed concern about the influence of Ismailism along their borders in Bukhara, Afghanistan and China. The General Imperial Consulate of Russia in Kashgar reported to the Russian Tsar that the Ismaili faith had spread to the western parts of China and in Osh (in the south of present-day Kyrgyzstan). This expansionist trend was perceived as a threat to Russian interests in the region. With India being part of the British Empire, the Russian Consulate viewed the Ismailis, whose Imam (Sultan Muhammad Shah, Aga Khan III) resided in Bombay, as agents of British colonialists, who could work against Russian interests in the region (Stanishevskiĭ, 1933). Therefore, Russia decided to cut off the Ismailis of Central Asia from their spiritual leader. According to Bobrinskoĭ, by the turn of the 20th century the Ismaili faith had spread in the Pamirs region and to neighbouring countries and was already well established in areas including the Wakhan valley, the Zebak and Munjan areas of Afghanistan, Chitral, Kanjut, Ishkashim, Gharan, Shughnan, Rushan and Sarikol, now in present-day China. Furthermore, Bobrinskoĭ states that in Darvaz of Afghanistan Ismailis were found in villages such as Jarf, Ghumaĭ, Omurd and Jamarj, and below Qalʿa-yi Khumb (the centre of Darvaz) on the Afghan side, and in villages such as Khodara and Zingiria. In the village of Yoged, on the other side of the Panj, most of the population were Ismailis with a minority being Twelver Shiʿa. In the village of Guria in Qataghan, a few people were Ismailis, while the majority

Geography, ethnicity and cultural heritage  17 were Sunnis. Furthermore, he wrote, Hazara communities near Kabul were mostly Ismailis, with only a small portion being Twelver Shiʿa. In Bukhara, Khoqand and Osh (now in modern-day Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, respectively), there were Ismailis among the Shughni and Wakhi residents (Bobrinskoĭ, 1902). These colonial policies resulted in the marginalisation of the broader ­Tajik Ismaili communities. This isolation continued into the Soviet era. Communities were isolated by the establishment of artificial boundaries, making conditions difficult for Ismailis in parts of Badakhshan in both T ­ ajikistan and Afghanistan, the western parts of China, and northern India (Yettmar, 1986). Until then, Ismailis of the region had been united in their common faith, cultures and history,9 and through the Persian language, who was used as their lingua franca all over Central Asia, Afghanistan, Northern India and Kashgar in the west of China.10 However, with the advance of the British in India and the Russians in Central Asia, Persian ended up being marginalised to the extent that it ultimately lost its status, and other languages became dominant, eventually replacing the Persian language as the common tongue of certain areas. During that time, Tajik Ismaili communities have switched to Urdu in the north of Pakistan since the 1950s and to Uyghur in western China as their official languages (Tsung, 2014:95). Meanwhile, the division of the Ismaili-populated areas of Central Asia between Russia, Afghanistan, China and the British Empire in the late 19th and the early 20th century led to a new era in the political and social development of the now divided Ismaili communities (Elnazarov & Aksakolov, 2011:52). This separation had a direct impact on these previously unified Ismaili communities and the institution of the pir. In the context of the Ismailis of Central Asia, the pir was regarded as a religious authority who possessed religious knowledge and who mediated matters such as sociopolitical issues between the Ismaili community and secular rulers and even foreign invaders.

The fate of the institution of Pirs among the Ismaili communities The institution of the pir, the local religious leaders of Ismaili communities, became crucial after the collapse of the Nizari Ismaili fortresses, which were built on the territories of present-day Iran and Syria under the leadership of Hasan al-Sabbah (1034–1124) and destroyed by the Mongols in the 13th century (Daftary, 2007:386–402). Following this devastation, the Ismaili religious leadership used taqiyya (dissimulation) and adopted Sufi structures and titles in order to safeguard the safety of their community. The term pir as one of the Sufi terms was widely used by the Ismailis of Central Asia in the post-Alamut period (mid-13th century onwards). The pirs amongst the Ismaili community were regarded as one of the highest positions and played a significant role in organising and maintaining the socio-religious

18  Sunatullo Jonboboev and sociopolitical matters of the community. Especially during the Anglo-­ Russian rivalry in Central Asia in the late 19th and the early 20th century, the pirs heroically fought to preserve the Ismaili faith and community during this tumultuous period and to pass it on to new generations. According to Bobrinskoĭ, at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, all the followers of the Ismaili tariqa in the Pamirs were grouped under 15 major pirs: These pirs are placed as follows: three pirs live in Sarikol [now in China] – one resides in Yarkand [China], 3 pirs are in Chitral [now in northern Pakistan], 2 pirs are in Wakhan, one pir in Shakhdara [in Shughnan], one in the village of Suchan in Ghund [in Shughnan], 1 pir in Parshniev [in Shughnan], 1 pir in the village of Bar-Rushan [in Rushan], 1 pir in the village of Wharf in Afghan Darvaz, 1 pir in Kulab [the pir of the Hazara tribe, who had moved from Afghanistan]. (Bobrinskoĭ, 1902:7) In addition, Bobrinskoĭ notes that there remain other pirs in countries like India and Persia, which are not on this list. However, he wanted to emphasise that these were the people who played a highly important role in leading the Ismaili community. In particular, he noted those individuals who lived in the Pamirs and who came under severe pressure from the neighbouring amirs of Bukhara and Afghanistan on the one hand, and from the geopolitics of the colonial powers such as the British and the Russians on the other hand (Bobrinskoĭ, 1902:7). The Tajiks of the Pamirs placed great hope in the Russian administration at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, as they felt acutely the threat from the amirs of Bukhara and Afghanistan, who persecuted the Pamiri Tajiks because of their different ethnicity and religion. Therefore, the pirs and the local leaders of Badakhshan insisted on the presence of the Russian military base, and their request coincided with the ­interests of the Russian colonial rulers in Turkestan.

Clash on the roof of the world: the impact of the ‘Great Game’ Finally, as a result of Russian and British colonial policy in Central Asia, the Pamir region was partitioned. As we know, this territorial division led to the marginalisation of local people who suddenly found themselves within the borders of different sovereign states. The main reason behind the colonial powers’ pursuit of this policy was to create a buffer zone for their defence. In the process, historical, cultural and socio-economic aspects shaping the everyday life of the local populations were considered secondary and were overridden by the strategic plans of colonial powers (Postnikov, 2001:6–28). During the period of the Great Game, the territories between British India and the Russian protectorates in Central Asia, such as Afghanistan and

Geography, ethnicity and cultural heritage  19 the Pamiri kingdoms, became a primary focus of contention (Postnikov, 2001:64). Many Badakhshani people took refuge in Osh province and Sarikol during this particularly difficult period. A letter from Nikolaĭ Petrovskiĭ, the head of the Russian general consulate in Kashghar, contains information on his meeting in 1883 with the last ruler of Badakhshan, J­ ahandar Shah, who became a refugee and lived until his death in the village of ­Uchqurgan of Ferghana (Abaeva, 1975). During his work in the general consulate, his duties included providing the Russian Empire with ­information about the people of the Hindu Kush, the Pamirs and Kashghar. In one of his dispatched reports, he suggested to the Russian Tsar to divide the Ismaili community by creating a faction of ‘Russian Ismailis’ against the ‘Ismailis of the Aga Khan’ (Iskandarov, 1980; Postnikov, 2001). Thus, the Ismaili Muslims became something of an apple of discord between Russian and British imperial rulers. In 1888, a letter was delivered to Tashkent from the local ruler of Shughnan, Akbar Ali Khan, who demanded that Shughnan be included in the Russia Empire in order to prevent the frequent invasions and assaults of the Afghans.

Life during the transition of power from the Russian Tsar to the Soviet Bolsheviks From that time until the October Revolution in Russia in 1917, the supreme power belonged to the Russian military forces under General Governor of Turkestan. In the Pamirs, this was implemented by the Russian Pamir military detachment in Khorugh. Eventually the Imam himself acknowledged the political sovereignty of Russia over his disciples in the Pamirs: In 1912, at the invitation of His Majesty Emperor of Russia Nicholas II the spiritual leader of the Ismailis – His Highness Sultan Muhammad Shah [Aga Khan III] visited St. Petersburg. He was on good terms with the Tsar of Russia. Subsequently, the Aga Khan blessed and was highly appreciative of the accession of the Pamirs to Russia. Already in 1913, the first delegation of the Pamirs came to Petersburg to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the ‘House of Romanovs’. Among them were Aziz Khan, the ruler of Shakhdara, a resident of Bartang-Mastali, and a resident of Alay-Tahur Bek, and others.11 This was a time of the stabilisation of sociopolitical life, at least on the western banks of the Panj River. However, this period also marked the beginning of the physical separation of the Pamiri people and their cultures. Indeed, the segregation and separation materialised as a result of imperial ambitions and interests of the Russian and British colonialists, who forcefully approved geographical delineation of the region. Despite the tragic policy of the colonial powers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries leading to the physical separation of the people of the Pamirs

20  Sunatullo Jonboboev region, Russian involvement in the region’s affairs also played some positive roles in the sociopolitical life of the people. Compared to the rulers of Bukhara and the Afghans, the Russians displayed a much more humane attitude in their treatment of the local people, especially the Ismailis. In addition, the Russians helped to develop education and to establish modern schools, which later contributed to the study of local cultures and traditions, and the teaching of sciences and modern languages. All that should count as a major contribution to the future development of the region. In the view of the Russian orientalist Bobrinskoĭ: In conclusion, I must express my opinion about our relationship with Islam in Central Asia. Currently we patronise only Sunnis, ignoring not only the small minorities (Ismailis, Babis), but even Shiʿa as if our goal is the division of Islam and the absorption of all of its wings by Sunnism, which, I think, does not fully coincide with our interests. I think that is our direct political calculation to recognise that all the sects of Islam have the right to official and independent life, and, as a consequence of this recognition, consider it obligatory for us to protect these rights, given to everyone, from the encroachments of the stronger sides or more militant confession. (Bobrinskoĭ, 1902:18) Bobrinskoĭ visited and paid tribute to the local pirs and discussed with them the Ismaili worldview, demonstrating a liberal and tolerant view towards Islam. The significance of the Pamiri pirs should be acknowledged for the crucial role they played in the modern history of the region. It was the contribution and tremendous efforts of the local pirs, local politicians and intellectuals of the Pamirs that preserved and maintained their cultural heritage, which not only survived foreign invasions and ethnic cleansing but also flourished and continues to develop today. Following the October Revolution in Russia, which brought new changes and challenges, some of the Russian officers and soldiers, together with local leaders, created the Revolutionary Committee and managed to establish the first Soviet of the People’s Committee in Badakhshan. The Pamirs, then ­ urkestan part of Tsarist Russia, became an independent Okrug of the Soviet T Autonomous Republic. In 1925, the Pamirs region was transformed into an autonomous oblast within the newly established Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which at that point was part of the Uzbekistan Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1924, Shirinshoh Shohtemur, Nustratullo Makhsum and other local ethnic Tajik Bolshevik leaders of Central Asia managed to persuade the Soviet leaders in Moscow, especially Stalin, and demanded the unification of two “autonomies” – the Tajik Autonomous Republic and GBAO – into a single Tajikistan Soviet Socialist Republic (Dagiev, 2013:28). According to Soviet ideology, the notion of ‘autonomy’ contained some degree of independence and statehood. As one scholar has written:

Geography, ethnicity and cultural heritage  21 This was done in recognition of the local people’s ethnic specifics. Today its ethnic groups are living in an area that demonstrates all the features typical of a self-administering region: for example, it is separated from the rest of the republic and its economy is highly specific.12 In fact, some signs of autonomy exist, but this was not put into practice either during the Soviet era or in post-independence Tajikistan. Of course, there is a law today referring to GBAO in the Constitution of the Republic of Tajikistan, in Article 7, that recognises its autonomy. However, the Constitution of the Republic of Tajikistan also declares Tajikistan a Unitarian Republic, which means that, in practice, legal autonomy is only nominal.

Conclusion Badakhshan, like Tajikistan and the rest of Central Asia, is very diverse, culturally, ethnically and geographically. The Pamiri Tajiks, who like the rest of the Tajik people are descendants from the Aryan people, managed to maintain their ancient eastern Iranian dialects and traditions as well as their faith as Ismaili Muslims. Furthermore, they played an active role in the formation and the foundation of modern Tajikistan. The Pamiri Tajiks went through major and dramatic changes during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the period of the ‘Great Game.’ Both colonial powers of the time were following their own interests but ignored those of the local communities, which were divided politically, geographical and culturally. Nevertheless, a large proportion of Pamiris acknowledge that, despite following their imperial interests, the Russians were instrumental in preventing the ethno-cultural cleansing of their communities. However, it should also be mentioned that an anti-Ismaili policy was put into place both by the Russians before the October Revolution and by Soviet authorities after the revolution, from the 1920s until the 1940s. Today, it is important to look at post-Soviet Central Asia in relation to the contemporary world powers that play a major role in the region, namely Russia, Iran, China, the US and India. Respective national interests drive their agendas, depending on the situation and circumstances of a given state. State interests are transitory and thus are bound to change at all time. At the same time, it should be possible to achieve a balance of state power in the modern world, which would entail accommodating the interests of small nations and making a globalised world more peaceful.

Notes 1 For more detail on the GBAO (the Pamirs), see D. Dagiev’s article ‘Pamiri ethnic identity and its evolution in post-Soviet Tajikistan’ in this volume. 2 Ismaili Shiʿa Muslims living in Tajik Pamirs, the community of ethnically and culturally diverse, who are residing over 25 countries around the world, united

22  Sunatullo Jonboboev in their allegiance to His Highness Prince Karim the Aga Khan IV, the 49th hereditary Imam and direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. 3 The unrest in Khorugh of 2014 is one example. 4 Pamiri languages belong to the branches of eastern Iranian languages of ­Into-European language family. The last discovery of Prof. Sarianidi in Afghanistan on text-fragments from Bactrian language (Kushans) shows that some elements of Pamiri languages are close to Bactrian. 5 Jamshid is a mythological figure of ancient Iranian culture and tradition. In tradition and folklore, Jamshid is described as the fourth and greatest king of the epigraphically unattested Pishdadian Dynasty (before the Kayanian dynasty). 6 For more information on Tajiks of China see, Amier Saidulla, ‘The Tajiks of China: identity in the age of transition’ in this volume. 7 Petroglyphs in Ravmeddara, Siponj (Bartang), Langar, (Wakhan, Ishkashim) and other places of Pamirs. 8 It is the name of a Mongolian-Turkic dynasty that reigned over the Khanate of Bukhara from 1160/1747 (de jure since 1170/1756) until 1920. 9 ‘Badakhshan and its neighborhood sharing the same historical and cultural heritage, Shi‘a Ismaili branch of Islamic religion through the channel of Farsi/ Sufism literature’, in Benjamin Koen D. 2003. ‘Devotional Music and Healing in Badakhshan, Tajikistan: Preventive and Curative Practices’. Ph.D. Dissertation, Ohio State University, 2003. 10 Farsi, the language of states, historical chronic and diplomacy in all ‘Shahigari’, khanats in Central Asia, Amir Temur (15th century) and till the last amir of Bukhara (20th century), See: Edward A. Allworth. The Modern Uzbkes. From the Fourteenth Century to the Present. Stanford University, 1990, p. 104. 11 Istoriia Pamira, available at: www.pamir-spb.ru/istoriya.html. 12 Nazarali Khonaliev. ‘Socioeconomic Development of Gorny Badakhshan’, Central Asia & Caucasus’, Sweden, 2008. See: www.ca-c.org/journal/2004-01-eng/22. honprimen.shtml.

3 Pamiri ethnic identity and its evolution in post-Soviet Tajikistan Dagikhudo Dagiev

Introduction During the Soviet era, one of the ramifications of its nationality policy was the institutionalisation of ethnicity and nationhood within the Soviet state, a process which inspired ethnic and national groups to assert their identity throughout the USSR. Like many other ethnic groups, the Pamiri people were accorded ethnic minority status. However, in contrast to many ethnic minorities1 who demanded independence from titular national states,2 the Pamiri people were generally reluctant to request any change to the status quo. The aim of this chapter is to examine the work of several academics and ethnographers who have identified the Pamiris as a distinct ethnic group within the Tajik nation. It will also aim to study and to examine the origin, development and evolution of Pamiri ethnic identity in Soviet and post-Soviet Tajikistan, and to demonstrate that the Pamiri people have regarded themselves as Tajik even before the establishment of Tajikistan as a Union Republic within the Soviet Union. It will argue that, similar to the rest of the Tajik people, the inhabitants of Pamir region have common Aryan ancestors such as Bactrians, Sogdians, Saka and other ancient sedentary peoples of Central Asia. The term “Pamiri” has been generally used in reference to a group of Iranic people in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast3 (GBAO) in Tajikistan and in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province (Minahan, 2014:215). In China, the same people are officially deemed to be Tajiks. Not so long ago the same was true in Afghanistan where they were identified as Tajiks, but more recently the Afghan government reclassified them as Pamiris. Therefore, currently by “Pamiris” we refer to a particular group of people who speak the diverse indigenous languages of the GBAO and the broader Pamir region. They share close linguistic, cultural and religious ties with the people of the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan, with the Sarikoli and Wakhi speakers in the Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County in Xinjiang province in China, as well as with the Wakhi speakers in Afghanistan and the Upper Hunza-Gojal region of the northern mountainous areas of Pakistan (Masov, 1985:54–72). These communities refer to themselves as Pamiri

24  Dagikhudo Dagiev or Badakhshani according to their historical connection to the Badakhshan region, and that the Pamir mountain was divided into four parts at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries as a part of the Anglo-Russian colonial rivalries known as the ‘Great Game’ (Dagiev, 2013:93–94).4 In 1925, the GBAO became part of the newly formed Soviet Autonomous Republic of Tajikistan, and since then there has existed an ongoing controversy surrounding the ethnic identity of the Pamiris. Scholars have claimed that the Pamiri languages are dialects of the Tajik/Persian languages5 and there has also been much debate as to whether Pamiri constitutes an ethnic group distinct from Tajik. However, there is a consensus amongst linguists that the Pamiri languages are East Iranian, a sub-group of Iranian languages, and Tajik is classified under the southwestern Iranian language group. In addition, to the linguistic variation there is another factor which has also played a crucial role over the past thousand years. This is the religious belief of the Pamiri people, the majority of whom confess the Shiʿi Ismaili faith. Probably due to these linguistic and religious differences, in the Soviet censuses of 1926 and 1937 Rushan, Shughnan and Wakhan were counted as separate nationalities. However, after 1937 residents of these districts were required by the Soviet government to categorise themselves as Tajiks (Suny, 2006:83–109). It should be noted, however, that before the creation of Soviet Tajikistan the Pamiris identified themselves as Tajiks, with the Persian-speaking Tajiks (Tajik-speaking people of present Central Asia) being called farsiwan ‘those who speak Farsi.’ This chapter will thus deal mainly with ethnic identity and the factors that have contributed to a definition of Pamiri ethnicity, as well as the processes by which Pamiri ethnic identity has been created and consolidated. The existence of Badakhshan as a geo-political entity goes back to the 7th century (Bretschneider, 1888:66), when the name Badakhshan is attested to in the travelogue of the Chinese Buddhist monk and scholar ­Xuanzang (玄奘, d. 664).6 The present region of Badakhshan spreads over north-­eastern Afghanistan and south-eastern Tajikistan, with some portions lying in today’s western China and northern Pakistan (Eduljee, 2017). Badakhshan is home to diverse ethno-linguistic and religious communities, with the majority being the Tajik (Pamiri) people along with significant Kyrgyz and Uzbek minorities. The Pamir region is called the high mountain area positioned on the nodal orogenic uplift known as the Pamir Knot from which several south-central Asian mountain ranges radiate, including the Hindu Khush, the Karakoram Range, the Kunlun Mountains, and the Tien Shan. Most of the Pamirs geographically belong to Tajikistan’s territory, but the fringes reach as far as Afghanistan, China and Kyrgyzstan (Arnaud, 1993). Although the precise extent of the Pamir range is debatable, it is commonly argued that it lies within the GBAO of Tajikistan, and since the beginning of the last century Russian and Soviet scholars carrying out research on the region have used the term Pamiri to refer to the Tajik people

Pamiri ethnic identity and its evolution in post-Soviet Tajikistan  25 of Gorno-Badakhshan, identifying as Pamiris those who speak East Iranian languages such as Shughni, Rushani, Wakhi, Sarikoli and Yazgulami (Wendtland, 2009:172–188). That fact that Russian and Soviet academic works referred to the Tajiks of the Pamir area as Pamiri eventually led to the development of a new identity: the Pamiri people of Gorno-Badakhshan. The use of term “Pamiri” is problematic, as many of the people covered by the definition consider themselves Tajiks, or prefer other local identities such as Rushani, Shughnani, Wakhi and Yazgulami, rather than that of Pamiri. However, the use of the term Pamiri has become commonplace and has been welcomed as a new and specific reference to the Pamiri-language speakers and the Ismailis of Tajikistan, as a result this has led sometimes to conflate the terms Pamiri and Ismaili. Prior to a detailed discussion of the concepts of ethnic groups or ethnicity, it is essential to define the term ethnicity, which is derived from ethnos, the Greek word for a nation or a group of people characterised by common descent (Connor, 1994:100). In the view of sociologists such as Anthony Smith, ethnicity is based on ‘myths, memories, values and symbols,’ which are defined by a shared heritage, which usually includes a common language, a common faith and a common ethnic ancestry (D. Smith, 2001:40; Kohn, 1944).7 Joane Nagel argues that identity and culture are fundamental to the central projects of ethnicity in terms of the construction of boundaries and the production of meaning for any ethnic groups (Nagel, 1994:152–176). Culture and history are the substance of ethnicity. They are also the basic material tools to construct ethnic meaning and are often intertwined in cultural construction activities (Nagel, 1994:161). Both the social anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Joane Nagel are of the view that cultures change and that they are borrowed, blended, rediscovered and reinterpreted. Culture is constructed in much the same way as ethnic boundaries are built, by the actions of individuals and groups and by their interactions with the larger society (Nagel, 1994:161; Barth, 1969). According to the leading scholars on nation and nationalism such as Alexander Motyl, Ernest Gellner, Rogers Brubaker, Benedict Anderson and Anthony Smith, it is accepted that nationalism arises under various circumstances: economic modernisation, the development of mass education, the dethronement of the monarchy and the decline of the role of religion in the state. It is even acknowledged that a nation materialises based on some ethnic ties. Even though, following the October Revolution in 1917, Bolshevik policies were directed against the rise of nationalism, they also inspired a ‘nation-state’ building process. It was the Bolshevik regime that ultimately brought economic modernisation, development and mass education to Central Asia by replacing the customary khanate system8 of governance with the modern state. Furthermore, it was the Bolshevik leaders who reduced the role of religion and substituted the Islamic identity of the Central Asian people with a national identity by forming five nominally independent national republics in Central Asia based on ethnic bonds. Central Asia was

26  Dagikhudo Dagiev one of the best examples of state-led nation formation where national institutions or a national consciousness had not previously existed. One of the main components of an ethnic group, according to the school of primordialists (Horowitz, 1985:57),9 is its territorial location. Regionalism has played an important role in the politics of Soviet and post-Soviet Central Asia. It is due to regionalism that territory gains a specific meaning. In this respect, the term ‘ethnic’ acquires the additional connotations of ‘being from the same original homeland’ (D. Smith, 1987:29). Ethnicity always possesses ties to a particular locus or territory, which they call their ‘own’ (D. Smith, 1987:28). The ethnic identity of the Pamiri people, in a fashion similar to the ethnic identity of the Central Asian national republics, is a product of Soviet rule. The development of Pamiri identity under the Soviet nationality and language policies played a key role in the formation and designation of the Pamiri people, which began strengthening from the 1970s towards the end of the Soviet period, and particularly following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Based on the accounts of different theorists with regard to the emergence of ethnic identities, this chapter will argue that, in spite of the fact that ethnic identities emerge on the basis of some primordial ties, it remains a construct that materialised as a result of economic modernisation and development, urbanisation and mass education.

Part one: Davydov’s account of Pamiri identity Scholars from various disciplines have referred to the people of the Pamir region as Pamiris, and since the last century the term has become a distinctive identity marker for the mountain people of the Pamir. A.S. Davydov’s Ethnicity of the Indigenous Inhabitants of Gorno-Badakhshan (2005) is a recent work on the Pamir region in which he challenges those scholars who claimed that the Pamiris do not share the same ethnic origins as the Tajiks. The author maintains that for centuries the non-Tajik-Persian-speaking people of Gorno-Badakhshan called themselves Tajiks, and that they referred to their neighbours, who spoke in the Tajik language ( farsi), as farsiwans (Persian speakers). Based on this line of argument, the author suggests that ‘the decisive factor in determining the ethnicity of Gorno-Badakhshanis is that they referred to themselves as Tajiks’ (Davydov, 2005:6) even before the 1929 establishment of Tajikistan as a Soviet Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union (Figure 3.1). Before the establishment of the Soviet republics of Central Asia, the entire region had been part of the Russian empire – a vast territory known as Turkestan and that now forms the republics of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan (Brower, 2012:26). In 1865, Russian forces under the leadership of General Mikhail Cherniaev (1828–1898) took the city of Tashkent. This was swiftly followed by the conquest of Khujand, Dzhizakh and Ura-Teppa and culminated in 1868 in the annexation of Samarkand and the surrounding region of the Zarafshan River from the

Pamiri ethnic identity and its evolution in post-Soviet Tajikistan  27

Figure 3.1  T  his 1866 map of Khujand portends the detailed topographic and ethnographic work that Russian academics would produce in the aftermath of Turkestan’s absorption into the Russian empire. Source: Turkestan Album, Library of Congress.

Emirate of Bukhara, thereby forming the Zarafshan Okrug of Turkestan (Brower, 2012:26). The demarcation of the western section of the northern border of Afghanistan was carried out in accordance with a Russian-British treaty signed in July 1887 in St. Petersburg. In March 1895 in London, the Russian ambassador and the British foreign secretary exchanged notes on the division of spheres of influence in the Pamir. Part of the Pamir went to Afghanistan, part to the Russian Empire and some to the Emirate of Bukhara which was also controlled by Russia. Russia and Britain created ‘the Wakhan corridor,’ a thin strip of land annexed to Afghanistan in order to prevent the Russia Empire having a border with British India. The demarcation of the Pamir marked the end of Russian expansion in Central Asia (Brower, 2012). The Pamir region, known as Gorno-Badakhshan since the Soviet era, lies on a high plateau at the heart of the mountainous Badakhshan region. The geography of the Pamir has been studied by a wide range of scholars who have described how, since ancient times, travellers and merchants crossed the Pamir mountains along the Silk Road. In the early Middle Ages, a more

28  Dagikhudo Dagiev regular trade and embassy route ran east-west along the north of the Pamir, but both the western and eastern sources also mention a southern Pamir route.10 There is much information to be found in the travel notes of Chinese pilgrims, the geographical and historical works of Arab travellers of the 7th and 8th centuries, and of course in the writings of European travellers of the 12th and 15th centuries.11 The starting points for topographic maps were noted by the famous geographers Karl Ritter and Alexander von Humboldt (Karl, 1867; von Humboldt, 1843) who analysed all the topographical information in medieval travelogues. Other pioneers were the famous Russian orientalists V.V. Grigorev and I.P. Minaev, and scholars such as V.I. Masal’skiĭ, D.L. Ivanov and V.V. Bartol’d. In addition, some other important Russian names in the field are A.P. Fedchenko, Severtsov, I.V. Mushketov, G. Grum-Grzhimaĭlo, B.L. Grombchevskiĭ and N.L. Korzhenevskiĭ, all of whom made significant contributions to the study of the geography of the Pamir region (Figure 3.2). The first geographic survey of the Pamir region was carried out by imperial Russian researchers, which was followed by Soviet and currently post-­ Soviet Russian and Tajik scholars. The position of the Soviet researchers O.E. Agakhaniants, K. Yusufbekov and the modern Russian researcher A.A. Postnikov (Agakhaniants, 1961:406–417; Yusufbekov, 1960), based upon their research, a reasonable conclusion is that the geographic name Pamir can be applied to a much broader area than the current territories of the GBAO. The area which they consider to be the geographic Pamir covers an area of 91,945 square kilometres, while the territorial-­administrative part of the GBAO of Tajikistan includes only 63,000 square kilometres. Most of this mountainous landscape is located within Tajikistan, but some of the Pamir extends into Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and Kyrgyzstan. The highlands of Tajikistan together with the GBAO form the core of the Pamir (Postnikov, 2001:35). A careful reading of the scientific literature appears to show that the concepts of ‘Pamir’ and ‘Badakhshan’ are separable, as Pamir refers to the geographical landscape, while Badakhshan refers to the territory with historical boundaries and state control.

Figure 3.2  M  ap showing the Wakhan Corridor, which prevented the Russian empire having a border with the British Empire. Map courtesy Russell Harris.

Pamiri ethnic identity and its evolution in post-Soviet Tajikistan  29 This section provides some details of the findings of scholars regarding the origin of the name ‘Pamir’. Agakhaniants believe, after a close analysis of the views of the 19th century scholars, that their conclusions are valid to this day (Agakhaniants, 1965). The Pamir represents a unique Central Asian mountain system that commands the central position of the Pamirian Knot, where in geo-logical terms several mountain ranges meet (Kreutzmann, 2015:20), and for this reason the region was known in Persian as ‘Bām-i Dunyā’ (‘the Roof of the World’) and ‘Pā-i Mihr’ (‘Foot of the Sun’). Moreover, a recent study has suggested that in Afghanistan people still write ‘Pamir’, as ‘Pā-i Mihr’ or ‘Mitr’ (‘Mithra’).12 However, a local scholar, Abusaid Shokhumorov in his book, Pamir-strana Ariev (Pamir the Land of Arians) has disputed the definition of Pamir suggested by the previous scholars and has argued that the term ‘Pamir’ is a very complex one, consisting of two parts: the first – ‘Pām’ or ‘Bām’, the second – ‘Er’ or ‘Ir’. Both are independently bearing specific meanings. So, ‘Pām’ (‘Bām’) is translated as ‘country’, ‘habitat’, which reflects the idea that such name is purely geographical, indicating a certain locality. Evidence for this is that the area ‘Bām’ or the ‘Bām-Dara’ gorge exists in Afghan Badakhshan, near the village of Bahārak (near Fayżābād). ‘Bām’, with the same meaning, is preserved in the city in Sistān (Eastern Iran), considered as one of the oldest in this territory, and is mentioned in early sources. In addition, in Afghanistan there exists the city of Bāmyān whose name undoubtedly comes from the same root. Yet another example can confirm this supposition: the toponym Kashmir (Keshmer) also consists of two roots: ‘Kishm’ meaning ‘city’ or ‘country’ and ‘Ir’ (‘Er’) – the self-addressed name of the Aryans (later known as Iranians). Two cities with the same name, Kishm, still exist both in Badakhshan and Eastern Iran. Moreover, the same name belongs to an island in the Persian Gulf. Kishm ‘can be compared with another ancient Indian word, kṣm – land or country’. The second component of this toponym is ‘Er’ (‘Ir’) which, as was mentioned above, is the ethnic name of the Aryan tribes and people (Shokhumorov, 1997:8–9). Meanwhile, the name now covers areas to the west of the Pamir, giving rise to the further terms of ‘Eastern Pamir’ and ‘Western Pamir’, which was coined by the Russian officers – orientalists prior to the Soviet period. Eastern applies to the Pamir plateau, and Western to the Gorno-Badakhshan region. With regard to the ethnicity of the inhabitants of Gorno-Badakhshan, two contradictory arguments have been put forward. One suggests that the inhabitants of Gorno-Badakhshan are Tajik, and the other rejects this opinion and describes them as a collection of different ethnicities (Davydov, 2005:13). At the same time, there are internal divisions among the people of Gorno-Badakhshan, with the population speaking several dialects such as Shughni, Rushani, Wakhi, Sariqoli, Yazgulami, Gharani and the Turkic Kyrgyz language and of course Tajik/Persian (Figure 3.3). This study is in line with Davydov’s understanding that includes many other researchers who visited the Gorno-Badakhshan before and after the

30  Dagikhudo Dagiev

Figure 3.3  M  ap courtesy Russell Harris.

Soviet establishment and referred to the inhabitants of this area as Tajiks (Davydov, 2005). It was actually the Soviet ethnologist, L.F. Monogarova (1921–2011), who claimed for the first time that the residents of Gorno-­ Badakhshan have never considered or called themselves Tajik. At this point, one may refer to the works of two well-known scholars in the field, namely A.A. Semenov (1873–1958) and I.I. Zarubin (1887–1964). In this regard Semenov, for example, wrote: ‘The inhabitants of the mountainous areas where the Oxus (Amu Darya) river begins, and also the Iranian people of the plains of Bukhara, all called themselves Tajiks’ (Semenov, 1903:20, 1910:47). Further he writes, ‘for their love of the mountainous homeland, the Shughnanets called themselves . . . Khughnane, the people of Khughnan, but they used “Tajik” in self-reference when they are outside Gorno-­Badakhshan’ (Semenov, 1912:556). Interestingly, according to the understanding of local people, the adjective “Pamiri” was understood to refer to a wide area or pasture. In local languages such as Shughni, at the first instance Pamir meant to emphasise the size of the field or a traditional home, which was first recorded by Dmitriĭ Vasil’evich Putiata, captain of the Russian general staff, who was researching the sedentary population in the area (Putiata, 1884:40). D.L. Ivanov, one of the pioneers of Pamiri studies, asked rhetorically: What area do the local people call the Pamir? All my research findings point to the fact that for the indigenous people of the broader Pamir region, the Pamir is unquestionably a certain topographical area lying between Alay, Qashgar, the Hindu Kush, including the Wakhan area, Badakhshan, Shughnan, Rushan and the bekstva13 of Darvaz. (Ivanov, 1885:131–145, 132)

Pamiri ethnic identity and its evolution in post-Soviet Tajikistan  31 Meanwhile, in classifying the mountain tribes of Badakhshan on linguistic grounds, Zarubin stated that these tribes did not deny their affiliation with the Tajiks (Zarubin, 1925:6). One of the first archaeologists to visit the Pamir, A.N. Bernshtam, a well-known Russian orientalist, wrote: ‘We have established that the boundary of the land of the ancient nomads and agriculturalists coincides with the boundary of the recent settlement of Tajiks and ­Kyrgyz’ (Bernshtam, 1952:285). Bernshtam quotes evidence from Chinese sources in order to confirm what was called the Pamir: ‘I note that the term Pamir is clearly implied to be the Eastern Pamir. . . . This is especially clear from the text of Hui Chao [Hyecho]’14 (Bernshtam, 1952:276). Therefore, based upon these studies, in 1925 the territory which in the pre-­revolutionary period was called the Pamir was restyled as the Tajik autonomous region of Gorno-Badakhshan and in 1929 it was subsumed into Soviet Tajikistan. Theoretically speaking, the integrity of ethnic territory is determined by concentrations of people who over time become linked by potential sources of ethnic identity such as language or religion (Armstrong, 1982). Monogarova argued that ‘[t]he modern population of the Pamir region is of mixed origin and has common roots with the Tajik ethno-genesis’ (­Monogarova, 1959:81–83), even though in her later works, she suggests that the inhabitants of Gorno-Badakhshan have never considered or called themselves Tajik. It should be noted, however, that long before the creation of Soviet Tajikistan the Pamiris identified themselves as Tajiks. In fact, Monogarova wrote on this topic only once about the Yazgulami people: ‘In the early 20th century, Yazgulamis did not consider themselves Tajik, as they called themselves “Zgamic”’ (Monogarova, 1959:82). Clearly, she was not able to provide a convincing argument, either in this work or elsewhere, to buttress her claim and simply made the assumption that in the early 20th century the inhabitants of Gorno-Badakhshan did not consider or call themselves Tajik. Monogarova further argues that it was not until the 1970s that the perception of the inhabitants of Badakhshan started to change, reflecting Pamiri rapprochement with the Tajiks. In the second half of the last century, there was an evolution in Pamiri self-awareness, which was expressed in multi-­ staged self-identification. Pamiri ethnic consciousness manifested itself in three forms: first, a common ethnic affiliation in which they called themselves variously Zgamic [from Yazgulam], Rikhen [from Rushan], Wakhi [from Wakhan], and so on. Secondly, when these people conversed with Tajiks from outside the Pamir region, they called themselves Pamiri or Pamiri Tajiks, in order to emphasise their singularity. Thirdly, outside Tajikistan, Pamiris called themselves Tajik. (Monogarova, 1980:25–26)

32  Dagikhudo Dagiev However, those who are familiar with the broader Central Asian region and its people understand that its inhabitants primarily identify themselves with their villages, districts and regions. For instance, people from the regions such as Bukhara, Samarkand, Hissar and Kulab call themselves Bukharai, Samarqandi, Hissari and Kulabi and the same applies to Gorno-­Badakhshan, where these people called themselves Pamiri by the place of their origin. In one of her essays, Monogarova gives a very peculiar overview of the way in which Gorno-Badakhshanis have been termed in the academic literature: ‘Researchers called these people “the Iranian tribes of the Western Pamir,” “mountain people of the Pamir,” “Pamiri peoples” or “pre-Pamiri people” and “pre-Pamiri Tajiks”’ (Monogarova, 1965:21). In another article, the same author explicitly refers to the Wakhanis, Ishkashimis, Shughnanis, Rushanis, Badjuis, Khufis, Bartangis and Yazgulamis as: ‘ethnic Pamiris (or Pamiri Tajiks)’ (Monogarova, 1968:570). However, these terms, “ethnic Pamiris” and “Pamiri Tajiks,” are not only ambiguous but also mutually exclusive: if ethnic Pamiris or Pamiri Tajiks are part of the Tajik nation living in the Pamir region, logically they cannot be other nationalities at the same time. Drawing from this and other research, Davydov argues that before the October Revolution of 1917, the mountain people of the Pamir region were aware of their ethnic identity as Tajiks but were also aware that they were different from the Tajiks of lowland areas. A number of scholars visited the mountainous regions of Badakhshan and, based upon their observations and studies, they corroborated the particular ethnic identity of the people in the region.15 For some time Monogarova claimed to have proven that the inhabitants of Gorno-Badakhshan are not ethnically Tajik, and both Monogarova and Mukhitdinov wrote against those who considered the inhabitants of Gorno-Badakhshanis to be Tajiks. Monogarova and ­Mukhitdinov attacked the opinions of the most experienced and respected scholars in the field, such as M.C. Andreev, A.K. Pisarchik and A.A. ­Semenov. Initially, they tried to undermine the authority of these scholars and their works by criticising their work on the issue of the ethnic identity of the inhabitants of Gorno-Badakhshan. Monogarova and Mukhitdinov specifically criticised Andreev for stating that the Khufis16 are ‘representatives of the ancient settled people of Central Asia [referring to the Tajiks], who inhabited the upper reaches of the Āmū Darya . . . they are descendants of the ancient indigenous people of the land’ (Monogarova and Mukhitdinov, 1981:316). According to Monogarova and Muhiddinov, the linguistic data on the Khufi dialect proved that other languages had existed before the spread of the East Iranian languages. However, they both failed to provide evidence to support their claims, which never found support among linguists up till now. However, Davydov provides references to the works of Russian officers and scholars from the second half of the 19th century until the 1930s who all

Pamiri ethnic identity and its evolution in post-Soviet Tajikistan  33 appear to confirm the Tajik identify of the Pamir people. A common understanding amongst Davydov’s sources is that Russian officers and scholars all confirmed that the Pamiri people called themselves Tajiks. According to the Russian scholars, these Pamiri people called the other Tajik-speaking people of Darvaz, Qarategin and other areas of Tajikistan, farsiwans, i.e. those who speak Persian. Captain Putiata wrote in 1883: ‘The Chinese territory of Sariqol is inhabited by Tajiks and Kyrgyz’ (Putiata, 1884:49). Adrian Georgievich Serebrennikov, who worked as a military engineer and spoke Persian, lived for some time in Khorugh, studied the culture of the local people and conducted a census on the size of the population. He stated in 1889 that ‘the eastern part of Pamir is inhabited exclusively by nomadic Kyrgyz…, the western khanstvo of Shughnan, Rushan and Wakhan17 are inhabited by ­Tajiks who belong to Aryan tribes and are sedentary people’ (Serebrennikov, 1889:447). The famous traveller and explorer of Central Asia, Grum-Grzhimaĭlo, wrote in 1896: ‘Tajiks constitute the people of Darvaz, Shughnan, Rushan, Qarategin, Kulab, Hissar . . . the eastern and the western border regions of the eastern Pamir also contain the same ethnic group with similar cultural traits’ (Grumm-Grzhimaĭlo, 1896:101). In 1902, B.A. Fedchenko, a renowned geographer and botanist, who made a great contribution to the study of the history and ethnography of Central Asia, noted: ‘The people of Shughnan belong to a homogenous ethnic group, and speak a particular dialect, which is very close to Tajik’ (Fedchenko, 1902:300). General-Staff Officer Mukhanov reported in 1912: The population of Pamir is about 21,500 and belongs to two groups. The Pamir area is inhabited solely by the Kara-kirghiz people of nomadic Turkic origins, who speak a Turkic language, and by Tajiks who are a sedentary people of Aryan descent. The Kyrgyz people, like the Tajiks, profess Islam: with the former being Sunni and the latter Shiʿi. The latter also include people of the Ismaili denomination. (Mukhanov, 1912:37) Similar arguments were supported by a range of Russian officers, such as A.G. Skerskiĭ, V.V. Ėgert, D.L. Ivanov, V.I. Masal’skiĭ, I. Slutskiĭ, B.V. Stankevich, L.I. Iavorskiĭ, U.N. Kosienko, B.N. Litvinov, B.N. Zaĭtsev, N.L. Korzhinskiĭ and many others (Davydov, 2005:90–109). These are just a few examples of the many Russian officers, travellers and scholars, who have claimed that the inhabitants of Gorno-Badakhshan are ethnically Tajik. The most noticeable of all is the work of Baron Alexander Cherkasov, secretary of the Russian political agent in Bukhara, who visited Badakhshan in 1904–1905, who could speak the Persian language and studied the culture and ethnography of the population very closely, as evidenced by his extensive reports wherein he wrote:

34  Dagikhudo Dagiev The Western Pamir occupies an area of about 300 square miles, of which more than 10 percent is arable. In this area up to 14,500 mountain people live, who call themselves Tajik, although they have nothing in common with the Tajiks of central areas . . . neither in terms of religion, nor language or customs. (Khalfin, 1975:90–123) As well as Cherkasov, other researchers working in the Pamir also wrote that the residents of this area were Tajiks, even though these researchers were well aware of the differences between the language and religion of Gorno-­Badakhshanis and of other Tajiks (Davydov, 2005:95). A.M. D’iakov, who played an active role in the establishment of Soviet Badakhshan and was well-acquainted with the life of its people, wrote: ‘These people call themselves Tajik and their language Tajiki, although in the local languages the Tajik language is called Persian [or] farsi’ (D’iakov, 1931:8). After the October Revolution, the same argument with regard to the population of the Pamir area was supported by a range of scholars such as Boris Lapin, A.B. Stanishevskiĭ, T.G. Abaeva, A.M. D’iakov, N.I. ­K hrisanfer, T.N. Zhukov, B.M. Bardner, A.A. Bobrinskoĭ and A.K. Pisarchik. The well-known Tajik historian and expert on the history of Badakhshan, B.I. Iskandarov, who was a native of Shughnan, wrote: ‘By its national composition the people . . . in the western Pamir are Tajiks’ (Iskandarov, 1962:28), and the ‘[p]eople in the upper reaches of Panj River may speak in different East Iranian languages, but they call themselves Tajiks’ (Iskandarov, 1960:24–25). Andreev, a recognised ethnographer who conducted research in Badakhshan for several years, provides evidence that the inhabitants of Gorno-Badakhshan called themselves Tajiks, and he also referred to them as Tajiks (Davydov, 2005:100). Archaeological and anthropological data allowed Vadim Aleksandrovich Ranov, a Soviet and Tajik archaeologist and Nikolaĭ Andreevich Kisliakov, a Soviet and Russian historian and ethnographer, to suggest that the ancient people of Gorno-Badakhshan/Pamir were the same ethnicity as the population of southern Tajikistan and its neighbouring territories. A common origin and a number of other factors contributed to the inclusion of the population of the upper Oxus region, including the Pamir, in a single ethno-cultural people termed Bactrian. Bactria (also known as the “Oxus civilisation” which flourished 2200–1700 BCE, covered territory in present-­ day eastern Turkmenistan, northern Afghanistan, southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan, and was centred on the upper River Oxus) occupied a large part of the ethnic territory of the Tajik people: it extended north to the Hissar Range, south to the Hindu Kush, east to the source of the Oxus, and west to the so-called Iron Gates on the border of the modern regions of Surkhandarya and Qashqadarya in Uzbekistan. The Bactrians spoke Bactrian, a north-eastern Iranian language descended from Avestan and closely related to the extinct Khwarezmian language, modern Yaghnabi

Pamiri ethnic identity and its evolution in post-Soviet Tajikistan  35 and Ossetian (Kisliakov, 1960:114–117; Steblin-Kamenskiĭ, 1981:314–346). The principal religions of the area before Islam were Zoroastrianism and Buddhism (Abdullaev and Akbarzadeh, 2010:8). The Bactrian people, like the Sogdians located in the Zarafshan River Valley which extends from Bukhara in modern Uzbekistan to Khujand in Tajikistan, were an eastern Iranian people and the ancestors of the modern-day Tajiks (Gafurov, 1989:313–365; Frye, 1993). Similarly, another group of Iranic (Aryan) people of Central Asia were the Saka or Saca, originally nomadic Iranic people from the north-western steppe in Eurasia, who thereafter migrated to Sogdiana and Bactria first and then to the north-west of the Indian subcontinent where they became known as the Indo-Scythians (Rene, 1970:29–31; Christopher, 2011:68). Linguistic evidences show that the Saka dialect was an Eastern Iranian language and shared features with modern Wakhi and Pashto (Litvinsky, 1999:421–448). The first part of this chapter has provided an overview of the accounts of the various scholars, travellers, military officers inter alia in defining the argument as to whether the people of the Pamir region are Tajik or whether they constitute a different ethno-linguistic group. This study has demonstrated that the evidences emerging from the annals of the Russian explorers of the Pamirs, in particular, have suggested that the inhabitants of the Pamir mountains considered themselves as Tajiks rather than Pamiri. The second part of this study will analyse the factors that have contributed towards an identity shift among some Pamiris. It also should be noted that this does not represent the view of the majority in Badakhshan, since the majority still consider themselves as Tajiks rather than Pamiri. However, there are groups of people who believe strongly, and argue convincingly, that the ­Pamiri-speaking people of Gorno-Badakhshan are not Tajiks.

Part two: the evolution of Pamiri identity This section will look at the evolution of Pamiri identity in post-Soviet, postcivil war (1992–1997) Tajikistan. The Soviet nationality policy instructed scholars to study every ethnic group’s language, culture, history, folklore and religion in order to create a written alphabet and literature for those languages within the USSR that lacked an alphabet (Martin, 2001:126). This eventually led to the institutionalisation of ethnic identities, which in turn inspired a degree of self-awareness among various ethnic groups in defining their national or ethnic belonging (Dagiev, 2013:38). However, on the other hand, the Soviet state also tried to marginalise those identities, as their intention was to promote and impose titular national identities upon the ethnic minorities within the titular national republics (Dagiev, 2013:58). For this reason, the identities of ethnic minorities remained partial during the Soviet era, as these minority identities were never able to progress the way titular national identity was able to flourish within the national republics, as ethnic minorities were treated only as a part of the titular nations.

36  Dagikhudo Dagiev The following section aims to provide an answer to the question of how the same people [Pamiris] who regarded themselves as Tajiks prior to the establishment of Tajikistan, as a union republic within the Soviet Union, now viewed their identity as being ethnically different. Even if these people do not constitute the majority within the younger generation, there is a tendency for them to consider their identity differently from other Tajiks. Before going into further detail, it is essential to mention that Tajikistan might never have been promoted to the status of a union republic within the Soviet Union in 1929 had it not been for the Pamiri (Tajik) people, Pamir territories, and the crucial role played by the Chairman of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the Tajik SSR – Shirinshoh Shohtemur (1899–1937).18 Over the long period of the Soviet (1917–1991) and post-Soviet eras, several factors contributed to the development of a distinctive ‘Pamiri’ identity. Very few studies have tackled the issues, but one of the first debates in this regard was the exchange in the journal of Sovetskaia Ėtnographiia19 between A.S. Davydov, S.B. Cheshko and L.F. Monogarova. Cheshko in his early article argued that in the territory of Gorno-Badakhshan besides Tajiks and Kyrgyz there are other categories of people including those ascribing to Shughni, Yazgulami, Rushani, Ishkashimi and Wakhi identities (Cheshko, 1988:3–15). In defence of his argument that Pamiri people are Tajik, Davydov refers to the Russians who worked in or visited the region, a large majority of whom claimed that the people in Gorno-Badakhshan called or referred to themselves as Tajiks even though one group spoke West Iranian and the other group East Iranian languages. The West Iranian language he refers to was called Persian ( farsi), but is now called Tajik (Davydov, 1989:15–23). The argument proposed by Monogarova has already been mentioned above. However, a more recent study carried out by Suhrobsho Davlatshoev, The Formation and Consolidation of Pamiri Ethnic Identity in Tajikistan, suggests that the majority of Pamiris claim that they perceive themselves as coming from the same ethnic origin as the Tajiks, a view not held by some of the Tajiks of the mainland (Davlatshoev, 2006). Another study carried out by Aslisho Qurboniev in this volume concludes that the consolidation of Pamiri identity and its representation in the social networking websites confirms that the sense of insecurity and instability contributes to the consolidation of resistance identity, since it emphasises the distinctiveness of the Pamiri community in terms of its culture, religion and language (Qurboniev, Chapter 14). However, as well as giving consideration to these studies, one must also consider, as a factor, developments during the Soviet period and the later events during and after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the latter being a period that witnessed a civil war in Tajikistan. During the Soviet era, development became evident in every sphere of life, such as road construction, administrative institutions, hospitals, schools and a greatly increased level of literacy, which had an immediate impact on the life of the mountain people and saw the population increase from 21,000

Pamiri ethnic identity and its evolution in post-Soviet Tajikistan  37 to 200,000. Education played a key role in Gorno-Badakhshan, in particular in 1989 with the establishment of the Khorugh Institute for the Study of the Pamir Region, a branch of the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan (Bushkov and Monogarova, 2000:221). Since 1992, when the Khorugh State University was established as an independent academic institution, it has engaged in the research and study of the social sciences and humanities. Furthermore, study and research on the Pamiri languages has led to the use of different scripts in their mother tongue, for the Shughnani, Rushani, Bartangi, Wakhani and Yazgulami languages which has undoubtedly contributed to the development of a new Pamiri identity. The use of a script for these local languages has enabled native speakers to write books and transcribe poems in their mother tongues, a factor which has helped with the preservation of the Pamiri languages in recent years. Linguistic factors have been, and continue to be, a powerful tool for the consolidation of a Pamiri identity, the development of which has corresponded with the population increase in the region. Over the past 50 years, the decline in the number of speakers of native Pamiri languages has largely ceased and the proportion of people who have retained their native languages ​​among the entire population of GBAO has stabilised. On the one hand, the linguistic factor has become one of the indicators of local identity, on the other hand, the confessional factor of being followers of the Ismaili branch of Shiʿa Islam has provided a bulwark against the spread of Sunni Islam, aiding the consolidation process among the inhabitants of high Pamirs. The Pamiri people, according to the official view of the Tajikistan’s government and the Academy of the Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan, similar to the Bactrians, Sogdians, Saka and other sedentary peoples of Central Asia regarded as the ancestors of the present Tajiks, on the basis of which the contemporary Tajik ethnicity has formed and developed. As a result, in the process of the formation of the Tajik nation many of the above-­mentioned ethnic groups ceased to exist. However, the present Pamiri people, like the Yaghnabis who are descendants of the Sogdian-speaking people of Central Asia, have been able to maintain their ancient dialects and traditional customs up to the present-day in Tajikistan and elsewhere. As mentioned, the language factor, as an indicator of local identity, has also played a crucial role in triggering the shift of the identity of the Pamiri Tajiks. The change of the name of the Persian language into the ‘Tajik’ language, legislated by the Soviet authorities, if, on the one hand, certainly had a positive impact on the formation of a Tajik identity for the Tajik/ Persian-­speaking populace, on the other hand, definitely held a negative effect on the Pamiri-speaking Tajiks in Soviet Tajikistan. As mentioned above, D’iakov stated: ‘These [Pamiri] people call themselves Tajik and their language Tajiki, although in the local languages the Tajik language is called Persian farsi’ (D’iakov, 1931:8). Thus, it was a turning point when the Soviet authorities decided to upgrade the Autonomous Republic of Tajikistan to the status of the Union Republic within the Soviet Union and changed

38  Dagikhudo Dagiev the name of the Persian language into the Tajik language. This spurred the Persian-speaking people of Tajikistan to claim their ‘Tajikness’, whilst underprivileged Pamiri-speaking Tajiks, in contrast, became a minority in Tajikistan with their language no longer regarded as a Tajik language. Up until the establishment of Tajikistan as a Union Republic, Pamiri Tajiks could claim to be Tajik ethnically, just like the rest of the Tajik/Persian-speaking people. However, the sudden shift seemed to be exclusive, which evidently benefited one group over the other in terms of their ability to assert the same identity (Table 3.1). Persian was a common language for all the Iranic-speaking peoples of Central Asia, but when this language was renamed Tajik through an official process completed in 1936, it was then exclusively applied to one group of the Iranic-speaking people of Central Asia – the Tajiki (Persian)-speaking people; a consequence of this has been that other groups of Iranic-speaking people in Central Asia, such as the Pamiri Tajiks (Pamiri-speakers), were viewed as ‘outsiders’. This was part of the Soviet nationality policy where minorities like the Pamiri-speaking people somehow felt less Tajik in relation to the majority Tajiki (Persian) speaking Tajiks. All their religious literature was written, and their religious rituals performed, in Persian, which has also served as a lingua franca amongst Pamiri-speaking people for centuries, as attested by Nasir-i Khusraw’s (1004–1088) love and admiration for the Persian language: I am he who does not throw before swine These precious pearls of the Persian language.20 Indeed, it is important to notice that the name Tajik in itself was used with reference to a group of Iranic people of Central Asia; however, such term was not denoting also the language – Persian (Dari) – spoken by such individuals. The term ‘Tajik language’, currently used in the Central Asian context, was devised by the Bolshevik government and possibly in collaboration with local elites in an attempt to forge a new national identity, as well as, to establish ethnic borders. Despite this, prominent Soviet scholars of Persian literature and language such as I.S. Braginskiĭ, A.E. Bertel’s and many others refer in their works to a ‘Tajik-Persian language,’ a usage which has been implemented also in the former Soviet Union. Table 3.1  A rea and languages Area

Languages

Badakhshan Tajikistan Afghanistan Iran

Pamiri (Eastern Iranian Languages) Tajik/Persian Dari/Persian Persian

Pamiri ethnic identity and its evolution in post-Soviet Tajikistan  39 Moreover, during the 19th and 20th centuries, ethnic amalgamation in the Western Pamir was influenced by political factors, such as the historical Pamir region’s inclusion in the Russian Empire (later the USSR) and its development into an autonomous region within the Tajik SSR. Even though following Tajikistan’s declaration of independence in 1991, Gorno-­ Badakhshan has formally remained an autonomous oblast within the Republic of Tajikistan. This has had the effect consolidating Pamiri identity, and this, to a certain extent, has contributed to the self-awareness of the Pamiri people. During the Soviet era, the rise of regionalism, in political and economic terms, became a barrier, if not the primary one, to the national consolidation of the population of Tajikistan, which was also the case in post-Soviet Tajikistan. Pauline Jones Luong argues that the Soviet era emphasised identities that were regional rather than national or sub-national, thereby fostering stronger regional identity, which had the latent potential to undermine the titular national identity (Luong, 2002:52–53). Regional divisions were very deep in the Soviet state, and from time to time hobbled the authority of the central government, with people showing more loyalty to the regions than to their national identity. In addition, as argued by Monogarov’s research in the region, many people in the Pamir also viewed their religion, language and customs as primary source of identification. On the eve of Tajikistan’s independence, on 30 May 1991, the popular movement Laʿli Badakhshan, was founded. The chief aim of the movement, which claimed to represent the Pamiri people, was to win greater autonomy for the oblast of Gorno-Badakshan whereby Pamiri identity could be categorised as an identity emerging in parallel to national identity. Furthermore, in the early days of independence, Tajikistan experienced a civil war, which crystallised and strengthened the ethnic consciousness of the Pamiri people in some respects. The civil war has left a negative impact on the memories of the whole of Tajikistan and on the Pamiri people in particular, as they became one of the main targets of the forces who eventually seized power in Dushanbe, in the cities and areas outside Badakhshan.21 Since the languages spoken in the Pamiri differ greatly from Tajik/Persian which is spoken in other areas of Tajikistan and Central Asia, the Pamiri accent of spoken Tajiki is quite recognisable. Adding to their distinctiveness, the Pamiri people’s Shi‘i Ismaili religion differentiates them from adherents of the Sunni form of Islam professed by the majority of the Tajik people, and this also caused great problems for many Pamiris during the war. The horrifying experience of the civil war has left deep wounds in the psyche of the Pamiri people, who certainly felt that they were treated differently from the rest of the Tajiks (Straub, 2013:175–183). Bennigsen points out that ‘the national consciousness of the Pamiri peoples is based on religion’ (Bennigsen and Wimbush, 1985:122). As has been mentioned above, the Badakhshan region has occasionally also been referred to as the Pamir, which is a direct reference to the high Pamir mountain

40  Dagikhudo Dagiev range and the people associated with it. In addition, due to their Ismaili religious faith, the Pamir region as well as having a geographic meaning has also gained an ethnic meaning as a marker of religious identity, which is relatively a new phenomenon. Due to the religious confessional affiliation of the Pamiri people, their religious distinctiveness played a leading role in the exclusion of ‘Pamiris’, and as such has served, to a certain degree, as the main factor in preventing the assimilation of the Pamiri people with the Sunni people of Tajikistan. Although religious affiliation did not constitute a fundamental aspect of Pamiri ethnic identity during the Soviet era, it gained importance after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The economic and humanitarian assistance received from the leader of the Ismaili community, Aga Khan IV, during the Tajik civil war, revived a religious consciousness among the Pamiris (Waljee, 2010:159). However, today the secular-minded people of the Pamir perceive Ismailism more as a religious-­political identity rather than as a spiritual confession (Davlatshoev, 2006:107). In this respect, religion, besides providing a sense of regional belonging for Pamiris, is a new source of ethnic self-consciousness. However, it must be also emphasised that neither language nor belief can be identified as distinctive factors for the identity of the Pamiri Ismailis distinguishing them from the rest of the Tajiks; indeed, within the territory of Tajikistan and Afghanistan, i.e. Badakhshan(s), there exist Ismaili communities who are native ‘Tajik/­ Persian’ speakers, sharing the same customs and traditions as the rest of the Sunni Tajiks. A contributing factor in promoting national identity during the Soviet era used to be the economic and regional interdependence of the national republics as well as the union, which allowed the stabilisation of the domestic economy and the engagement of ethnic and regional groups to define their identity at both regional and national levels (Hughes and Sasse, 2001:1–35). However, in terms of the economy, during the Soviet era, the GBAO was not greatly interlinked with the other regions of Soviet Tajikistan, and following the collapse of the Soviet Union, those ties loosened further (International Crisis Group, 2001:10–11). The civil war almost completely destroyed all the economic ties between the regions of Tajikistan, which led to the collapse of the domestic economy. In 1993, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) began providing vital economic and humanitarian assistance in the GBAO, which has perceptibly endorsed and strengthened a Pamiri-­ Ismaili identity. Therefore, the economic factor has also partly contributed towards consolidating Pamiri identity. Many Pamiri people, like their compatriots from other parts of Tajikistan, go to Russia as migrant labour and send remittances back to their families (International Crisis Group, 2001:10). According to official sources, one and a half million Tajiks (unofficial sources estimate the number to be over two million) work as economic migrants in the Russian Federation. Upon their arrival in a city or a region of the Russian Federation these migrants established communities and were often followed by families, friends

Pamiri ethnic identity and its evolution in post-Soviet Tajikistan  41 and others who were mostly from the same villages, districts, cities or regions. This once again reinforced and strengthened their regional identity at the expense of a national identity. In this regard, the Pamiris have been a successful community who has been able to create and establish cultural centres for their community with the support of the AKDN network in Russia, in order to practice and preserve their traditions, rituals and culture, all of which once again strengthens and fosters Pamiri identity. So, the migration of the Tajiks to Russia, which is tied up to kinship, also fosters the Pamiri identity of the local. Finally, the contribution of the scholars who studied the Pamir region has been enormous since these were the people who introduced and coined the term Pamir and Pamiri, which later on developed as a marker of identity for the Tajik people of the GBAO. Russian and Soviet scholars played an instrumental role in the development of a Pamiri, and equally Tajik, identity, and since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the same trend has been pursued by western scholars.

Conclusion To sum up, this essay has argued that the term Tajik can be defined in two different categories: one is a narrow definition that can only be applied to the Persian/Tajik-speaking people of present Central Asia and Afghanistan. The second definition can be applied to the Iranic people of Central Asia, Afghanistan and elsewhere who speak different ancient languages of the Iranic family, but historically defined themselves Tajiks. From this perspective, the term Tajik has a historical and contemporary definition that needs to be reflected in its historical context, both of time and space. Certainly, the definition of the term Tajik as an ethnic identity was different in the minds and perceptions of people prior to the establishment of Tajikistan as a ‘nation-state’ in 1929. Whether, since then, the term Tajik has reflected the cultural, social, political and topographical landscape of the region, is a problematic issue. In addition, the concepts of nation and ethnicity were not only imposed upon them but also were largely alien to the people in the region. Moreover, the concept of nationalism became more problematic during the Soviet period as the concepts of nation and nationalism ran counter to Marxist-Leninist ideology, and for the Soviets nationalism was a tactical step as a part of ‘divide and rule’ policy to foster socialist consciousness amongst people who were ideologically far removed from the proletariat movement (Beissinger, 2002:5). Meanwhile, Pirumshoev has rightly pointed out that due to the common ethnicity, common traditions and the common lifestyle in the whole geographical space of historical Badakhshan, scholars were not able to change the historical name of the region from Badakhshan to “Pamir” because the name of Badakhshan was greater than the eponymous district within Tajikistan in terms of historical narrative and geographical size and scale.

42  Dagikhudo Dagiev Furthermore, Pirumshoev articulates the possibility that both the Russians and the Soviets believed that the inclusion of Badakhshan within Tajikistan would guarantee the Oblast a better future (Pirumshoev, 2012). Consequently, in post-Soviet Tajikistan, apart from some sporadic demands for the region to become an autonomous republic within the Republic of Tajikistan, the Pamiri people have never demanded independence because they generally do not see themselves as a different ethnic group but a part of the Tajik ethnicity. Finally, to define the Pamiris as an ethnic group, and different from the rest of Tajik/Iranic people of Central Asia, would be to deprive the Pamiris of their rightful heritage in respect of the contributions they have made to the broader Central Asian civilisation associated with the Tajik/Persian culture and language. Since Pamiris are one of the ancient inhabitants of the region, descendants of the Bactrian, Sogdian, Saka and other groups of people who comprised the core of Tajik ethnicity or the Iranic (Aryan) people of Central Asia, it may not be accurate to consider them as a different entity. From what has emerged in this study, Pamiri identity is an evolving concept with further developments awaiting. As long as it evolves avoiding developing into separatist-oriented movements, it stands good chances of remaining within the confines of a national debate for the Pamiri Tajiks and the Tajik state alike. At the same time, the central government of Tajikistan and its leadership need to be constantly mindful of the sensitivity of this issue while responding to the needs of the Tajiks of Badakhshan and particularly the policies which are related to the religion, the language and, of course, the economic development of the region. Often the religio-ethnic and cultural diversity might be considered as a weakness against challenges, however, in the specific case of the Iranic people, it played a favourable role for a thousand years, contributing to keep them united among countless attempts to impose alien values and foreign invasions whose protagonists became accustomed to the Persian culture and civilisation. Moreover, the Persian language, which is at the core of Persian civilisation, not only served as the lingua franca throughout an enormous area of Central Asia but also remained a key unifying factor bonding all Iranic peoples notwithstanding the various conflicting rulers, empires and ideologies. Pamiris are one such example of an Iranic people, divided across four countries and living under different ideologies and different political systems, but never losing their Iranic identity as the mountain people of the Pamir.

Notes 1 Chechens in Russia, Abkhazians and South Ossetians in Georgia, Transnistrians in Moldova, Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. 2 The Pamiri people did not ask independence but rather asked for more autonomy for their region for the sake of socio-economic development of the Pamir region. 3 Oblast: an administrative division.

Pamiri ethnic identity and its evolution in post-Soviet Tajikistan  43 4 Dagikhudo, D. (2013). Regime Transition in Central Asia: Stateness, Nationalism and Political Change in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, London & New York: Routledge, pp. 93–94. 5 Tajik is very similar to the modern Persian or Farsi language. From the 1920s it was officially fostered in the USSR as the national literary language of the Tajik SSR (since 1992, the Republic of Tajikistan). It is also spoken in parts of Uzbekistan (notably in the cities of Bukhara and Samarqand). In fact, most linguists considered and referred to Tajik as Persian language, to be an ancient form of the Persian language. Standard Farsi speakers have no difficulty understanding the Tajik language, which is also very similar to Dari, the form of Farsi spoken in Afghanistan. The primary differences between Persian and Tajik arise from the fact that Tajik is in many respects a more archaic language and has retained more aspects of the ancient Iranian from which these languages developed. Perry, J. ‘Tajik ii. Tajik Persian’, July 2009, Encyclopaedia Iranica (available online at www.iranicaonline.org/articles/tajik-ii-tajiki-persian); Lazard, G. ‘Persian and Tajik’. In T. A. Sebeok, C. A. Ferguson, C. T. Hodge and H. R. Paper (eds.), (1970). Current Trends in Linguistics, vol. VI. The Hague: Mouton, pp. 64–96; G. I. Kozlov, Razlicha mezhdu tadzhikskim i persidskim iazykami, Moscow, 1949; A. Z. Rozenfel’d, (1961). ‘Tadzhikskogo-persidskoe iazykovye otnosheniia (po materialam leksiki). Uchenie zapiski Vostochnogo fakul’teta LGU im A. A. Z ­ hdanova, Seriia vostokovedcheskikh nauk. Filologiia i istoriia stran Vostoka’, part 12 (249), pp. 12–42; Ali Ashraf Sadiqi, (1372 Sh./1993). ‘Pishinah-i tafowut-ha-i Farsi Tajiki wa Farsi Iran’, Kayhan-i farhangi, 103, pp. 40–42. 6 ‘The name Badakhshan occurs first in Hüan ts’ang’s narrative, about 630’ [as the kingdom of Po-to-chang-na]. The name Badakhshan first appears in ­Chinese writings of the 7th and 8th centuries ad. Ta-T’ang-Si-Yu-Ki: translated by S ­ amuel Beal (1884). In Buddhist Records of the Western World. London: Trubner & Co. Ltd., p. 291(Reprint by Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi, 2004). Part also available on the Silk Road Seattle website: www.depts.washington.edu/uwch/ silkroad/texts/xuanzang.html. 7 Smith, A. D. (2001). Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History. Malden: Polity Press, p. 40. See also: Kohn, H. (1944). The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in its Origins and Background. New York: Macmillan. 8 The pre-Soviet feudal political system in Central Asia where the ruler called himself the KHAN and the territory (e.g. Bukhara, Khiva, Kodand, etc.) over which his rule or control was exercised was called a khanate. 9 Adherents of primordialist accounts argue that ethnic groups and nationalities exist because there are traditions of belief and action towards objects such as biological features and especially territorial location. The primordalist approach relies on a concept of kinship between members of an ethnic group by arguing that kinship makes it possible for ethnic groups to think in terms of family resemblances. 10 People such as Dicaearchus (c. 350-c. 285 BCE) a Greek philosopher, cartographer and geographer; Zhang Qian (張騫: d. 113 BCE) a Chinese traveller, diplomat and historian; Ptolemy II Philadelphus (r. 283–246 BCE), the king of Ptolemaic Egypt who apparently knew of Badakhshan from reports from his merchants; Ban Gu (班固: 32–92 CE) a Chinese historiographer, traveller and poet; Daoan (道安: 312–385 CE), a Chinese Buddhist monk; Hui Chao (慧超: Hyecho in K ­ orean, who lived from 700–780 or 704–787) was a monk from the Silla kingdom of Korea. 11 Ibn Khordadbeh (820–912), a Persian geographer and the author of the earliest surviving Arabic book of administrative geography; al-Yaʿqubi (d. 897/898), a Muslim geographer and the author of the book Kitab al-Buldan; Ibn Rustah (10th century), a Persian explorer and geographer; Estakhri (d. 957), a Persian

44  Dagikhudo Dagiev

12

13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

21

geographer and traveller; and Hudud al-Alam [The Limits of the World], an important work written in Persian by an unknown author from Jozjan (now in Afghanistan). Mithra was the second-most important deity of the Zoroastrians and may even have occupied a position of near parity with Ahura Mazda. He was associated with the Sun, and in time the name Mithra [Mihr] became a common word for ‘Sun’, and the expression ‘Pa-i Mihr’ means ‘the foot of the sun or sun god’, indicating a mountain country in the east where the sun rises. Mina Mingaleeva, M. (ed.), (2011). Pamir – Krysha Mira. Sbornik proizvedeniĭ o Pamire, available online: www.skitalets.ru/books/pamir_mingaleeva/. A bekstva was a semi-feudal state headed by a bek. Hui Chao is Hyecho. Many scholars including Andreev, Zarubin, Semenov, Serebrennikov, ­Pisarchik, Bernshtam, and a range of Russian officers, such as A. G. Skerskiĭ, V. V. Ėggert, D. L. Iwanov, V. I. Masal’skiĭ, I.M. Slutskiĭ, B. V. Stankevich, L. I. Iavorskiĭ, U. N. Kosienko, B. N. Litvinova, B. N. Zaĭtsev and N. L. Korzhinskiĭ. Another ethnic group of people in the Rushan district. khanstva – a feudal state formation headed by a khan. He was awarded the title of national hero of independent Tajikistan and is regarded as one of the founders of modern Tajikistan, Dagiev, Regime Transition in Central Asia, p. 35. Sovetskaia ėtnografiia, 1989, vol. pp. 5, 15–35. Dari is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan and some parts of Tajikistan. Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language. Minovi, M. and Mohaghegh, M. (eds.), (1388/2009). Diwan Ashar-i Nasir-i Khusraw, Tehran, (64:32), p. 143. Human Rights Watch Press Backgrounder on Tajikistan Human Rights Watch: www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/eca/tajikbkg1005.htm.

4 The Wakhi language Marginalisation and endangerment Shirali Gulomaliev

This chapter discusses the Wakhi language and some of the causes behind its endangerment which eventually may lead the population that speaks this small language to be in danger of disappearing. This chapter represents, so far, the first study that investigates the names of place located in Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and China, where the Wakhi people currently live. By doing so, I intend to provide an accurate picture of the current state of the Wakhi language across borders. The subject has not attracted much scholarly attention and there are currently not enough resources available. Hence, this chapter draws from a very limited number of previous researches and relied highly on the data I collected during a recent fieldwork. Given the scarcity of scholarly work on this topic, this chapter will, hopefully, prove to be of great support to speakers of the Wakhi language as well as to the scholars of the field (Figure 4.1).

Figure 4.1  M  ap of Wakhi Speakers. The Wakhi speakers indicated by gray colour. Prepared by Gulomaliev.

46  Shirali Gulomaliev

Introduction to Wakhi speakers Wakhi speakers ([χik] or [wuχik]) are people of Iranian descent who live across four countries – Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and China. They call themselves [χik] while others refer to them as wakhi. wuχ is the name of Wakhan valley and -ik is the suffix which denotes people, clan and anything belonging to them. The word [wuχ] has been explained in various ways by various scholars. For instance, Morgenstierne (1973b:433) argued, without providing details, that the root wu] is taken from vax8u and related its meaning to the Vakhsh, a river located in the southern part of T ­ ajikistan. However, most scholars agree with Markwart (1938:52) who claimed that Wu] is taken from ancient Iranian language Vahvī which means bestowing kindness. This theory was fully supported and further developed by ­Stebline-Kamenskiĭ (1999:6). The data for this research was gathered from various local government councils and individual respondents. It is important to note that although Wakhi speakers may cohabit with people of language backgrounds in some locations, Table 4.1 presents an accurate picture of the number of people who have Wakhi as their mother tongue.

The Wakhi language Wakhi language (in Wakhi language ]iwor[χikwor]) is taken from the word ([χik] or [wuχik]), which means wakhi or Wakhi people. The suffix -wor denotes the ethnic and linguistic affiliation of the language. The Wakhi language is one of the Pamiri languages that belong to the eastern branch of the Iranian languages family. (See Table 4.2). Northern Pamiri languages have very close ties with each other and thus the speakers of any of these languages can easily understand each other while communicating. For example, if a shughni and rushani talk to each other, each of them can easily use his/her own dialect and communicate perfectly. According to Stebline-Kamenskiĭ (1999:8), even though the genetic relation among these languages is different, one could notice many phonetic, morphological and syntactical similarities. However, the main challenge faced by Pamiri languages is that there are many words from other languages that are used in place of genuine words. This is unfortunately endangering the language and could lead to its complete lost. As indicated in Table 4.2, the ancient Vanji language does not exit any longer. Andreev (1945, p.66) explains that 100 years ago there was an ancient Vanji language used by people of Vanj valley. He then provides as example that in 1925, when travelling to Vanj Valley, him and his travel companion met an old man who told that, when he was 11 years old, he was speaking Vanji language. Unfortunately, the old man could remember only 20–30 words, but even then, he was not sure if they were all correct. Drawing from this narrative, one could claim that the Wakhi language could face similar faith.

Table 4.1  Information about the Wakhi people in four countries Country

Province

District

Valley

Villages

Households

Population

Tajikistan

Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region

Ishkashima

Wakhan Center Ishkashimb

27 1 1 1 62

2,393 – 120 100 1,853

21,872 859 550 580 17,485

17 4 12 26 15 13 1 2 3 185

1,361 222 499 634 209 515 694 294 318 9,212

9,527 1,606 3,493 6,666 1,502 2,550 3,024 1,511 1,066 72,291

Afghanistan

Khatlon Badakhshan

Murghab c A. Jomid Wakhane

Pakistan f

Gilgit-Baltistan

Hunza

China

Khayber Paktunkhawa Kashgarg

Khotan h Total

Ghizer Chitral Tashkurgan Yarkand Puskom Gumo

Wakhan and Sahrad Gojal Shimshal Chipursan Ishqoman Broghil

Compiled by: Gulomaliev Shirali. a Number of population as of 01 January 2016. The Statistic Department of Ishkashim district. № 25, 14 October 2016. b In Ishkashim and surrounding villages, there are 2,862 people Wakhi people making it 30% of Wakhi speakers. A comparison of various sources indicates that up to 30% of the population of Ishkashim Center today are ethnically Wakhi (Müller, 2008:5). c Gulomaliev (2014a:14). d Gulomaliev (2014b:58–64). e Number of population as of 01 January 2016. The Statistic department of Wakhan district. 14 October 2016. f Informant: Karam Ali (37 years old), staff of Education Department of Ishqoman, Pakistan. 11 October 2016. g Chinese Government Census yearbook TASHIKUERGANNIANJIAN (2013). All the information and documents about the Wakhi people in China, we get from our informant Qaisar Khon. h Minzu Chuban She [Nation Publication] (2005) A simple History of the china Tajiks.

48  Shirali Gulomaliev Table 4.2  Pamiri languages Northern Pamiri languages

Eastern Pamiri languages

Shughni language (Tajikistan, Afghanistan) Sarikoli language (China) Rushani language (Tajikistan, Afghanistan) Khufi language (Tajikistan) Bartangi language (Tajikistan) Roshorvi language (Tajikistan) Yazghulami language (Tajikistan) Ancient Vanji language (has died out)

Wakhi language (Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China) Ishkashimi language (Tajikistan, Afghanistan) Munji and Yidgha languages (Afghanistan, Pakistan)

Source: Gernot (2009). Prepared by: Gulomaliev Shirali. Note: The order of the languages is indicated according to number of people speaking this language; thus, the ones with more speakers are listed first. The countries in brackets indicate the speakers’ country of residence.

Wakhi language as an endangered language: the main reasons Border demarcation of Wakhan by superpowers: On 27 August 1895, the British and Russian delegations established the last borders in Pamir, dividing the Wakhis into four parts (Khalfin, 1975:3). British missionaries claimed that ‘the problems of Pamir ended’ (Khalfin, 1975:3); however, for the local communities, it opened the doors to other challenges. It could be claimed that this border division was the first factor that triggered the weakening of the Wakhi language. For some, it put an abrupt end to interactions and ties with family members living across borders. In the following lines, I will illustrate this point with one example taken from my family’s past generation. My grandfather Gulomali, originally from Sast village, which remained on the Afghanistan side during the border division, crossed the borders with his sister and her child to the Russian Wakhan (Tajikistan’s Wakhan). Two of his brothers (Qadamali and Nazarali) remained in Broghil, located inside the border of current Pakistan, one of his sisters remained in the Ishkoman valley of Northern Pakistan and another sister remained in Dafdor village, now part of China. These separations imposed upon our family by the new border design forced the entire family, not only to change nationalities but we now even communicate among each other in various Wakhi dialects. The reason is that the Wakhi language ended up being influenced by other local languages, such as Russian and Tajik on the Russian side of the border, Pashtu and Dari on the Afghanistan side, Urdu and English in Pakistan and Uyghur and Chinese in China. One consequence of raising territorial borders at the heart of Wakhi population is to have today many dialects in the Wakhi language. Matrobov (2012:6) highlights in his book that previous scholars categorised Wakhi languages into different dialects. For example, Pakhalina (1975:8) categorised Wakhi language into eastern, central and western ones and indicated

The Wakhi language  49 the border between western and central as represented by Shitkarv village (current village in Wakhan valley of Tajikistan), and central and eastern by Langar (Kin) village (currently a village in Wakhan valley of Tajikistan). Similarly, Lashkarbekov (1984:3) divided Wakhi dialect into two – lower and upper dialects, where the sub-dialects include in the upper dialects are called [kiχni] or Langari. Stebline-Kamenskiĭ (1999:10) also divides Wakhi dialects into three branches – upper, central and lower (see Table 4.3). As a part of my doctoral project research, I conducted field work in Tajikistan in 2014 to identify the differences among Wakhi dialects in the country. I tested 312 adjectives in written, as well as in oral, form from 30 speakers of upper, central and lower Wakhi dialects. This test revealed many differences among upper and lower Wakhi dialects, especially in Dasht and Namadgut villages of current Wakhan, Tajikistan, which were closer to the centre of the district Ishkashim. In Dasht village, as there are also Tajik and Ishkashimi speakers, we can identify many words borrowed from those languages and incorporated into Wakhi. The central dialects are closer to the one spoken in upper dialects, as well as lower one. Drawing from this, it was suggested that in Tajikistan, there are only two dialects – upper and lower ones. The central one was very hard to identify as there was not much difference. This finding is very close to the one proposed by Lashkarbekov, as discussed above. Table 4.4 will show the process of how these different dialects have emerged in the Wakhi language of Tajikistan. Looking at the above-mentioned examples, one could notice how quickly the actual Wakhi words are disappearing. For instance, the word “you” is taw in Wakhi language, tava in ancient Iranian language, tavā in Avestan, tw, tō in Sogdian, ta in Munji, tō, taʷ in Idgha (Stebline-Kamenskiĭ, 1999:356), tu in Shugnhi and Rushani (pronounced as tō) and tu in Tajik. In lower and central dialects, tu, which is Tajik, has replaced taw. Similarly, one could observe the same changes in upper dialects of Wakhi, but the older generation using upper dialects still use taw. It is a good indication that this word taw will totally be removed from Wakhi language within few years if the speakers do not make any effort to preserve it. Table 4.3  The different Wakhi dialects in Tajikistan Pakhalina T.N.

The eastern dialect

Lashkarbekov B.L.

The upper dialect (little dialect under upper dialect ki]ni or langari sub-dialect) The upper dialect The central dialect

Stebline-Kamenskiĭ I.M.

The central dialect

The western dialect The lower dialect The lower dialect

Prepared by: Gulomaliev Shirali. Sources: (Matrobov, 2012:6), (Stebline-Kamenskiĭ, 1999:8), (Lashkarbekov, 1984:3), ­(Pakhalina, 1975:8).

50  Shirali Gulomaliev Table 4.4  L  exical differences and similarities of dialects in Wakhi language in Tajikistan Upper dialect

Central dialect Lower dialect

Tajik

English

ma