A History of Inner Asia, A Book Review

A History of Inner Asia by Svat Soucek is a scholarly work about the history of Inner Asia which includes the present day five independent states of Central Asia (in historic terms also known collectively as Russian or Western Turkestan), Mongolia (Outer Mongolia) and China controlled Sinkiang (Eastern or Chinese Turkestan). It is not customary to discuss the three areas together, but the author believes that the bonds unifying Western and Eastern Turkestan are stronger than the differences between them, and that without including Mongolia the historic picture would be incomplete. Svat Soucek, who is a bibliographer of Central Asian Studies at the New York Public Library, makes an excellent choice of considering these regions together as present day political boundaries are artificial and often irrelevant when tracing the ancient history of Inner Asia and looking at the big picture. After reading this book I cannot imagine thinking about the history of Central Asia without also thinking about its links, linguistic and cultural and so on, to Mongolia and Sinkiang as so much movement and fluidity between these regions has existed for centuries.

The narrative begins with the year 622 when the steppe empire of the Kok Turks stretched from Mongolia to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, with the valleys of the Orkhon and Chu representing the cores of its eastern and western wings. In Khurasan, Transoxania, and Khwazarm Islam was victorious by the time the second major Islamic dynasty, that of the Abbasids, came to power in 750. By and large, the author begins with the arrival of Islam in the region and proceeds with the rise and fall of changing dynasties (the Samanids, the Qarakhanids, the Chaghatayids, the Mongols, the Timurids, and many others), the Russian conquest of Central Asia of the late 19th century, the Soviet period and ends with the fall of the Soviet Union. Soucek also discusses Sinkiang up to the present day in the context of the modern Chinese state and covers the Republic of Mongolia after the fall of communism.

Reading this book was a fun adventure in and of itself. Because the author started by defining Transoxania and its boundaries in geographical terms as well as mentioned places that no longer exit, I checked out a few atlases from the library – An Historic Atlas of Islam, the Times Atlas of World History and the Historical and Commercial Atlas of China – to help me locate the places and understand what area he was talking about. Otherwise the book would have read like gibberish because of terms like Zarafshan, Kysyl Kum, Uzgend, Kalkh, Mevr, Sogdia, Bactria, to name a few. I was especially interested to read and to learn more about the ancient cities of Bukhara and Samarkand, located in present day Uzbekistan. I have known about their historical significance and wanted to learn more, but never had an opportunity to do so because I did not know what books to read nor had the time for that matter. For that reason, A History of Inner Asia was a really good read because it filled many gaps in my knowledge.

Bukhara was the Samanid (ruled 819-1005) capital of Khurasan and Transoxania, and Samarkand was one of its major cities. Rudaki, one of the greatest poets who wrote in Persian was born near Samarkand around 941. Ali ibn Sina (980-1037), known in the West as Avcienna was born near Bukhara during this period as well. The Timurid period (1370-1507) can be viewed as ultimately the most glorious one in the history of Central Asia. Timur or Tamerlane was born around 1336 in Transoxania near Kesh in the Kashka Darya region of what is today the Republic of Uzbekistan. His capital was Samarkand with grandiose architectural monuments some of which still constitute the pride of modern Uzbekistan: his own mausoleum, the Gur-i Emir (“the Sovereign’s Tomb”), is the most famous example. It was interesting to learn that Babur (1526-30) a 6th generation Timurid, and also a Genghisid, the ruler of Fergana and founder of the Mughal empire was born in Andijan in present day Uzbekistan. Thus the Timurid rule was resumed, however, in India in 1526 and lasted until 1858. When the Russian conquest of Transoxania began in the mid- to late 19th century, the khanates of Kukhara, Khiva and Khoqand were the last ones to be incorporated into the empire. The author gives an excellent account of the historical events when the Bolsheviks took power in Petrograd and how the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was formed and eventually delineated into the five Central Asian republics in 1924.

I found A History of Inner Asia both fascinating and useful. Besides discussing significant events the author also talks about prominent figures in Central Asian history both during the Tsarist and Soviet periods. I have read in several different books that Bukhara and Samarkand are historically Tajik cities because of their Persian heritage, but were included into the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic to implement the so-called divide and conquer rule. The author makes a strong case that if the Soviet wanted to erase the boundaries of the native population of Central Asia they could have drawn the borders even more arbitrarily. After having read this book I think history is more complex than that and that the ancient cities of the region have been parts of different empires at different times and their identities have been in flux for the thousands of years.