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modern, sovereign states. Soviet nationality policies established the modern-day
republics as distinct national and territorial units, but they also planted the seeds
of an exclusionary approach to nationality and circumscribed their sovereignty. In
comparison with nation-building experiences around the world, the nationhood
of the newly independent Central Asian republics was
neither the result of mobilisation by local elites and
intelligentsia, nor the expression of nationalist senti-
ment by Central Asian residents. Despite the popu-
larisation of discourses and symbols of resistance to
foreign occupation and struggle for independence in
the new republics’ historiographies, there have been
few nationalist movements in the region. The most
prominent ones engaged in anti-colonial revolts against
the Tsarist regime and opposition to the Soviet gov-
ernment in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution.
While the processes and accomplishments of na-
tion-building have been diverse and varied across the
region, there are several common threads unique to
Central Asia. First, all of the republics had to deal with
the complex Soviet legacy of creating and maintain-
ing artificial nations. The new governments inherited
ethnically diverse territorial units whose borders zig-zagged the boundaries of the
ethnic groups populating them. The Fergana Valley, the most densely populated
part of Central Asia, for example, has been split among Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan,
and Tajikistan, although it had existed under a unified political entity for most of
its pre-Soviet history. Each of the three republics in the Fergana Valley contains a
significant level of ethnic and religious minorities, and the situation is further com-
plicated by the existence of several ethnic exclaves in the valley. The diverse and
intermingled populations, complex borders and dwindling natural resources have
turned the valley into the most unstable region of Central Asia. The new leader-
ship of the Central Asian republics had to strike a delicate balance between ethnic-
based ideas (in a bid for support) and unity in the titular nationality with appeals
to inclusive civic identities to assuage the concerns of the minority populations.
Second, similarly to the Soviet authorities, who took it upon themselves to cre-
ate a Soviet nation, the authorities in Central Asia have become the chief “nation-
makers” in their states (not that their conceptions of the nation have been uniform
or accepted by everyone in the population). Third, attempts by the elite to forge a
shared national identity, amidst the presence of ethnic and cultural diversity, were
central to their maintenance of power and stability of the governing regimes. As aThe nationhood
of the newly
independent Central
Asian republics was
neither the result
of mobilisation by
the local elite and
intelligentsia, nor
the expression of
nationalist sentiment
by Central Asian
residents.Opinion & Analysis How Central Asia understands democracy, Mariya Y. Omelicheva