Central Asia Reader The Rediscovery of History H.B. Paksoy, ed. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1994. 206 pp.

Abstract

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the creation of new independent
states has generated great interest among scholars and politicians
in the history and contemporary situation in the region. Central
Asia is not an exception to this case. Viewed in this light, Central Asia: The Rediscovery of History is a welcome contribution toward
introducing the western scholarly community to the politics of Central
Asia.
The book is composed of a number of articles published by Turkic
language specialists from 1904 to 1990, and of official documents from
Central Asia and Azerbaijan. The integration processes of the Turkic
peoples, which began during the Soviet period, are now in full force. In
1990, the heads of the Central Asian republics signed a treaty for economic
and cultural cooperation. The treaty was also signed by Tajikistan,
the only representative of the Indo-European family in Central
Asia. The integration envisioned a united economic space between
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgystan. In the 1992 and 1994 summits
held in Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey and five newly independent Turkic
states confirmed their desire to cooperate in the economic and political
arenas. Therefore, attention to Central Asian problems and the publication
of several scholarly works from this region are symbolic, to some
extent, of the attention being paid to the significance of a common
Turkic tradition and the possibilities of a meaningful integration in the
“Great Turan.”
The book begins with Ayaz Malikov’s “The Question of the Turk:
The Way out of the Crisis.” This chapter actually sets the tone for the
whole book by making a case for the need to attract the attention of
scholarly and political circles from around the world to the problems of
the Turkic nations and their suffering under Soviet rule. His statement
that “our peoples do not have their own history” seems to be true, for
all of the nations (not only the Turkic ones) in the former Soviet Union
had to study mainly the history of the Russian state at the expense of
developing their own historical consciousness. No doubt the author is
right in his claims about Soviet violations of the rights of Turkic communities
in Russia, especially the right to study in their own languages
at schools and universities and even the right to listen to programs
broadcast by western radio stations in their native languages. Arguing
that the political history of the Turkic nations extends backwards for
more than two thousand years (p. 4), Malikov calls for the right of
Turkic peoples to seek unification without fear of being charged with
advocating “Pan-Turkism” (p. 6). The author appeals for the formation
of a terminological commission that will be entrusted with seeking the
unification of the Turkic language.
All of the other chapters-Muhammad Ali’s “Let Us Learn about Our
Heritage: Get to Know Yourself,” Zeki Togan’s “The Origins of the
Kazakhs and Ozbeks,” and Kahar Barat’s “Discovery of History: The
Burial Site of Kashgarli Mahmud”-are attempts to prove the Turkic origins
of Central Asia since antiquity. Ali’s attempt to connect the term
“Turan” with the ethnic term “Turkic” by referring to the Shah-ndma of
Abul Qasem Firdousi is quite novel, if not eccentric, as is his attribution
of the Iranian language’s dominance in Central Asia as being the result ...