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Notes
* The author would like to thank Marlène Laruelle, Alain Blum, Aaron Erlich and the anonymous reviewer of the journal for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.
1. This article is the result of a field research conducted from October 2006 to May 2007. Research was funded by the French Ministry of Education and Research and the French Institute of Studies on Central Asia (IFEAC) in Tashkent. A first draft was presented at the 12th Annual World Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN), 12–14 April 2007, under the title “The Treatment of Ethnic Minorities in Post-Soviet Population Census: A Comparative Approach in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.”
2. Substantial research works and publications exist on the census in the former Soviet Union area, mostly on the Russian and Soviet period (B. A. Anderson and B. D. Silver, B. Anderson, F. Hirsch, A. Blum and C. Goussef, and J. Cadiot). Apart from the articles by R. H. Rowland (I am grateful to Aaron Erlich for pointing out these references to me), post-Soviet censuses which took place in the target countries did not receive scholarly attention.
3. In this article, I follow the international spelling of all location names, except when specified otherwise.
4. In 1989–1990 several conflicts broke out in the Ferghana valley. Each one had a clear social or economic origin (access to irrigation water, land, accommodation, etc.), but it developed along ethnic lines. In May 1989, a first conflict opposed Uzbeks and Meskhetian Turks in Uzbekistan, followed in July by a clash between Tajiks and Kyrgyz. This unstable period reached its climax in June 1990 when fighting between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in the Osh and Uzgen areas resulted in 171 deaths and the wounding of more than 1,000, according to official data.
5. It should be acknowledged, however, that the connection between ethnic affiliation and resources dates back to the first years of Soviet power, when the nationalities policy was put into practice. Advantages for “titular nationalities” in resources redistribution (land, water, and then career opportunities in state apparatuses, in line with the so-called korenizatsiia) were granted, especially in regions where tsarist colonization had had a stronger impact on local populations (Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 125–81). I am grateful to the reviewer for emphasizing this point.
6. Darrow, “Census as a Technology of Empire,” 149–50.
7. In his treatise Marxism and the National Question (1913), Stalin proposed an evolutionary classification of peoples from ethnic groups to nationalities and nations, the latter being the ultimate development step. In a broader sense, “nationality” means “ethnicity” as a racial concept or “ethnic group” when qualifying peoples (for instance, the Uzbek nationality regroups all ethnic Uzbeks). It should be distinguished from “citizenship,” which applies to the residents of a country, regardless of their “nationality” (ethnicity). In this article, I will therefore consider both terms “nationality” and “ethnic group” as synonyms. In order to avoid confusion, I will use “ethnic” when qualifying a nationality (for instance, ethnic Uzbeks or ethnic minority), and “state” and derivative words when referring to the country level (in contrast with province or district levels).
8. From 1939 onwards, Soviet ethnologists decided to no longer apply Stalin's former graduation, as they could not do so objectively. In 1926, nationalities were classified per ethno-linguistic groups; in 1939, they were listed according to numerous, alphabetical or administrative criteria (Blum and Gousseff, “Nationalité, groupes ethniques, peuples,” 61).
9. Martin, “An Affirmative Action Empire.”
10. Hirsch, “Toward an Empire of Nations,” 225.
11. Tajik nationalists kept claiming their sovereign rights over Samarkand and Bukhara, both regions being incorporated into Uzbekistan during the national-territorial division of Central Asia. In Tajikistan, as the civil war was intensifying in the south, the governor of the northern province of Leninabad—an ethnic Uzbek—cut all road communication with Dushanbe and threatened to split off. The same willingness arose among some Uzbek leaders of the Jalalabat region in Kyrgyzstan.
12. Karakalpaks (a Turkic nationality) are, however, mentioned in all official documents. It is an exception due to the fact that this nationality is attached to the existence, in Uzbekistan, of an autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan, a Soviet legacy from the national-territorial delimitation of Central Asia.
13. Acronym for Gosudarstvennyi Komitet Statistiki (State Committee on Statistics), a Russian name still in use in Central Asia.
14. First I had to pass a police control, and second a KGB-style control on my motivations for visiting the Goskomstat, as well as a very detailed passport registration. After obtaining authorization, an official brought me to the bookshop and back to the entrance door in order to avoid any unauthorized contact with the staff (personal experience in October 2006).
15. Among the official statistics books that I have consulted without success are: Regional Statistic Yearbook of Uzbekistan 2004. Population of the Republic of Uzbekistan 1991–2001 (only 1 table out of 256 gives information on nationalities), Figures of the Population of the Republic of Uzbekistan 2004, and Social Development and Population Living Standard in Uzbekistan 2005.
16. In Uzbekistan, the population is counted only before elections in order to prepare the voting lists. The process is carried out by makhalla (quarter) committees and school teachers (“The Uzbek Authorities Count the Population,” Central Asia News, Ferghana.ru Information Agency, 12 January 2007, ⟨http://enews.ferghana.ru/⟩ (accessed 15 January 2007)).
17. In comparison, Kazakhs were 46.0%, Kyrgyz 52.4%, Tajiks 62.3% and Turkmens 72.0% in their respective eponymous republics.
18. The most visible event in this tightening was the violent repression in May 2005 of a protest in Andijan, where hundreds of civilians were reportedly killed. The town of Andijan was cut off from the rest of the world for several weeks and foreign observers (diplomats, journalists, NGO workers) were banned from the area (International Crisis Group, Uzbekistan).
19. Beside the author's personal experience, this information was confirmed by various NGOs and foreign researchers working in/on Uzbekistan in the autumn of 2006.
20. ⟨http://www.stat.tj⟩ for Tajikistan, ⟨http://www.stat.kg⟩ for Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan also has a website in Russian, English and Uzbek (http://www.stat.uz/STAT/INDEX.PHP) but with limited information.
21. For instance, Goskomstat KR, Demograficheskii Ezhegodnik Kyrgyzskoi Respubliki 2001–2005 gg.
22. After the Second World War, the Soviet censuses took place on a decennial basis in 1959, 1970, 1979 and 1989.
23. Goskomstat RT, Instruktsiia o Poriadke Provedeniia Vseobshchei Perepisi Naseleniia 2000 g. i Zapolnenia Perepisnykh Dokumentov, 3.
24. According to the 1989 census, language fluency was as follows: in Tajikistan, 66.5% of the population declared fluency in Tajik, 36.4% in Russian and 25.1% in Uzbek. In Kyrgyzstan, 56.7% declared fluency in Russian, 53.6% in Kyrgyz and 14.2% in Uzbek.
25. Interview with the head of the census commission of Saidqurghon, Nov district, Sughd province, Tajikistan, 5 November 2006.
26. In 2004, Andijan province had a population density of 559 inhabitants per square kilometre, Ferghana 426 and Namangan 281 (Goskomstat RU, Naselenie Respubliki Uzbekistan na 1.1.2005 g.).
27. Sokh is an enclave of Uzbekistan surrounded by Kyrgyzstan. This geographical particularity results from the controversial delimitation of the Ferghana valley, which drew eight such inhabited enclaves: four Uzbek, three Tajik and one Kyrgyz (see Appendix Figure A1).
28. In preparation for the 1999 census, the Kazakh government undertook a global reshaping of its provinces to ensure an absolute majority for the Kazakhs in all the country's provinces (Arel, “Démographie et politique dans les premiers recensements postsoviétiques,” 805–07).
29. In 1999, 2000 and 2001 the mountainous province of Batken (Kyrgyzstan) was subject to incursions of armed Islamic fundamentalists, on their way to the Uzbek part of the Ferghana valley. These events gave rise to a firm response from the Kyrgyz and Uzbek authorities both in terms of administrative reinforcement of the region and ideological position against any form of religious extremism and terrorism.
30. Goskomstat RT, Instruktsiia o Poriadke Provedeniia Vseobshchei Perepisi Naseleniia 2000 g. i Zapolnenia Perepisnykh Dokumentov, 27.
31. According to the Soviet legislation that both countries maintained after independence, birth certificates do not mention the child's nationality. Each child chooses his nationality at 16 years of age when obtaining his/her first passport. The child has a legal choice between his/her mother's and father's nationality. In Central Asia, however, nationality is traditionally passed down according to a patrilineal logic: the children acquire the nationality of their father.
32. For instance, in the 1989 Soviet census, the Dictionary of Nationalities recoded 823 self-expressed nationalities into 128 pre-defined authorized nationalities. Most self-expressed responses were considered as regional or sub-ethnic affiliations rather than ethnic belonging (Arel, “Démographie et politique dans les premiers recensements postsoviétiques,” 808).
33. Interview with the head of the Census Section, Goskomstat, Dushanbe, Tajikistan, 13 November 2006.
34. In Soviet times, the Dictionary of Nationalities was drafted and updated in Moscow, without a major contribution from the republics (Blum and Mespoulet, 'Anarchie bureaucratique 260–91). After independence, National Academies of Sciences took over this responsibility.
35. Here I am using the spelling of tribal groups, as they appear in Tajikistan's census publications, in both English and Russian.
36. Goldscheider, Population, Ethnicity and Nation-Building, 2.
37. As defined by Brubaker under the concept of “groupism” (Brubaker, “Ethnicity without Groups,” 164).
38. According to Francine Hirsch, the assimilation proved to be quick and effective, as nationality was introduced as a standard category of state organization in a society where most peoples lacked ethnic consciousness (Hirsch, “Toward an Empire of Nations,” 205).
39. Hirsch, “The Soviet Union as a Work-in-Progress,” 275.
40. See, for instance, Abramson, “Identity Counts.” Alisher Il'khamov, one of the few local scholars to have criticized the essentialist approach of ethnicity, provided detailed information on Barlos, Durmens, Catagans, Congrats and Yuz identities (Il'khamov, Etnicheskii Atlas Uzbekistana, 320–38).
41. Personal experience in Kolkhozabab district, Khatlon province, Tajikistan, March 1999.
42. Carrère d'Encausse, Réforme et révolution chez les Musulmans de l'Empire russe, 261.
43. Interview with the deputy president of the Society of Uzbeks in Tajikistan, Dushanbe, Tajikistan, 20 November 2006.
44. The Tajik nationality actually regroups people from various language and religious origins. The Dictionary of Nationalities prior to the 1926 census distinguished between Tajiks (both urban and mountainous) and several groups commonly named Pamiri (in reference to the Pamir Mountains in east Tajikistan), which could be classified according to their religion (Ismaili Shiites) and their languages (eastern Iranian dialects). However, from 1937 onwards, all censuses considered the sole Tajik nationality and consolidated all smaller groups into this titular nationality in the same way as Turkic tribes were merged into the Uzbek nationality (Blum and Gousseff, “Nationalité, groupes ethniques, peuples,” 58).
45. This figure concerns only the Pamiri living in eastern Tajikistan, but not those—a significant part—who settled in Dushanbe and southern Tajikistan during the Soviet period (Leclerc, “Tadjikistan,” 5–6).
46. For example, the Law on the Language of the Republic of Tajikistan, adopted in July 1989, set “favourable conditions for the free development and use of pamiri languages” (article 3).
47. Uzbekistan supported President Rahmonov's faction during the civil war but changed its position later on. Since then, personal relations between both presidents continued to deteriorate.
48. It should be noted, however, that Uzbeks from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan are not fully aware of their tribal affiliations. A quick survey among Uzbeks from the Uzbek and Kyrgyz territories of the Ferghana valley showed that no respondent knew about the nine Turkic nationalities that were introduced in the Tajik Dictionary of Nationalities. The only reference they could give was “Kipchak” (a tribe that has not been introduced in the Dictionary) and “Turk” (survey conducted on 25 respondents in Ferghana and Andijan provinces (Uzbekistan) and Jalalabat, Osh and Batken provinces (Kyrgyzstan) in November 2006).
49. For instance, in their periodic report to the UN Committee for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the Uzbek authorities provided data on the country's ethnic composition (CERD, Fifth Periodic Report of the States Parties, 8).
50. Anderson and Silver, “Demographic Sources of the Changing Ethnic Composition of the Soviet Union,” 170–76.
51. Most authors claim a 25–30% share of Tajiks in Uzbekistan: see, for instance, Masov, Istoriia topornogo razdeleniia; Shukurov and Shukurov, Peuples d'Asie centrale.
52. In the Tajik instruction guidelines, native language was defined as “the language that the respondent himself[/herself] considers to be his/her native language [or] the language which he/she has the best command of or usually speaks at home” (Goskomstat RT, Instruktsiia o Poriadke Provedeniia Vseobshchei Perepisi Naseleniia 2000 g. i Zapolnenia Perepisnykh Dokumentov, 27).
53. Interview conducted in Rishton, Ferghana province, Uzbekistan, 4 December 2006.
54. Goskomstat RT (2005), Monografiia i Atlas Respubliki Tadzhikistan, 27–28.
55. Goskomstat KR, Naselenie Kyrgystana, 110–12.
56. The net emigration is the number of emigrants minus the number of immigrants.
57. Goskomstat KR, Migration of the Population of Kyrgyzstan, 162–63.
58. Goskomstat RT, Monografiia i Atlas Respubliki Tadzhikistan po Dannym Vseobshchei Perepisi Naseleniia 2000 g., 44.
59. Rowland, Citation(2002), National and Regional Population Trends in Kyrgyzstan 529–581; Rowland Citation(2005), National and Regional Population Trends in Tajikistan, 219.
60. In Kyrgyzstan, natural increase (births minus deaths) proved to be similar between the Kyrgyz (19.6 per 1,000 population in 1997) and the Uzbeks (20.8). The small difference would have even given an advantage to the Uzbek group (Rowland Citation(2002), 52–53).
61. Anderson and Silver, “Demographic Sources of the Changing Ethnic Composition of the Soviet Union,” 176–84.
62. Interview with the deputy director of the Goskomstat section of Jalalabat province, Kyrgyzstan, 7 December 2006.
63. Goskomstat KR, Migration of the Population of Kyrgyzstan, 162–63.
64. Interviews with leaders of the Uzbek society of Jalalabat and the Uzbek centre of Osh, Kyrgyzstan, 11–15 December 2006.
65. In 1995 their natural increase was 24.5 and 24.9, respectively. Here again, the Uzbeks had an even greater natural increase than the titular nation (Rowland Citation(2005), 213).
66. Interview with the deputy director of the Goskomstat section of Sughd province, Tajikistan, 24 November 2006.
67. For instance, Rowland (Citation2005, 217); Olimova, “Protsess suverenizatsii strany i migratsionnye protsessy v Tadzhikistane,” 221–33.
68. For an insightful analysis of the Tajik conflict, see, for instance, Atkin, “Thwarted Democratization in Tajikistan” or Tadjbakhsh, “National Reconciliation: the Imperfect Whim,” 325–48.
69. With regard to the Uzbeks, Muriel Atkin states that contemporary animosities did play on the historically blurred distinction between the Tajiks and the Uzbeks. However, alliances and clashes were never motivated by ethnic affiliations during the civil war. Most Uzbeks sided overwhelmingly with the defenders of Soviet institutions on the same political basis as others did, regardless of their ethnic identity (Atkin, “Thwarted Democratization in Tajikistan,” 299–300).
70. As reported by the 1996 UNHCR, Refworld 2006.
71. Data on officially registered refugees in 1996 (UNHCR, Refworld).
72. These Tajikistan Kyrgyz may have accounted for a majority of the 18,043 Kyrgyz immigrants mentioned above.
73. Interview conducted in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 2 December 2006.
74. Goskomstat RT, Monografiia i Atlas Respubliki Tadzhikistan po Dannym Vseobshchei Perepisi Naseleniia 2000 g., 44.
75. As a comparison, in 1989–2000 the rate of Uzbek decline was –21.8% at the country level, –19.2% in the southern province of Khatlon (where the fighting actually concentrated), –17.5% in the central province and –18.3% in the capital Dushanbe (Goskomstat RT, Natsional'nyi Sostav Naseleniia Respubliki Tadzhikistan po Dannym Vseobshchei Perepisi Naseleniia 2000 g., 4–12).
76. Interview conducted in the town of Khujand, Sughd province, Tajikistan, 24 November 2006.
77. Anderson and Silver, “Demographic Sources of the Changing Ethnic Composition of the Soviet Union,” 157, for the Soviet censuses; Rowland Citation(2005), 217, for the 2000 Tajik census.
78. In 1926, Tajikistan was an autonomous republic within the fully fledged Soviet republic of Uzbekistan. The urban Tajiks from Samarkand and Bukhara did recognize a certain cultural affinity with their fellow Tajiks from mountainous areas of present-day Tajikistan, but at the same time they considered themselves as being part of the urban civilization of Central Asia, an identity they would share with urban Uzbeks. This pluralism of identities among the urban Tajiks was a favourable ground for the “Uzbekization” that they eventually experienced within the Uzbek SSR (Haugen, The Establishment of National Republics in Soviet Central Asia, 149–64).
79. All the following interviews were conducted in the village of Saidqurghon, Sughd province, Tajikistan, 4–5 November 2006.
80. After claiming to upgrade Uzbek to the rank of the country's official language, a status it would share with Russian, Kyrgyz being the state language, Uzbek leaders have recently changed their position. Rather than asking for a countrywide status, they now demand that the Uzbek language be officially used in those municipalities where ethnic Uzbeks have a compact settlement. If accepted by the government, drafting the list of municipalities would need prior agreement on the threshold of Uzbek speakers. Here again, decision making would entail the use of census data in order to assess whether the threshold is reached in all municipalities (Osmonov, “Uzbek Community in Kyrgyzstan Want Uzbek as Official Language”; Mamaraimov, “Deputy Kadyrjan Batyrov”).
81. Two years after publishing the Atlas, the Soros Foundation was obliged to close its representation in Uzbekistan and the editor, Alisher Il'khamov, had to leave the country. He is presently working in London.
82. Laruelle, “Ethnologie, question nationale et état dans l'Ouzbékistan contemporain,” 330.
83. Ibid., 344.
84. Brubaker, “Ethnicity without Groups,”169–70.
