from PART II - INDEPENDENCE AND REVIVAL C. 1919 TO THE PRESENT
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2011
The indigenous peoples of Central Asia and the Caucasus underwent profound changes from the First World War to the early twenty-first century. They experienced wars and revolutions. The states in which they lived broke apart, reassembled in a different way, and broke apart again. Their perceptions of who they were, what they believed and what would best serve their interests were in some ways quite different from what they had been in earlier times. Yet they were not completely divorced from what they had inherited from earlier generations, even if they might reinterpret their past in a way that would have surprised their ancestors.
The First World War
Although Central Asia was far from the main battlefields of the First World War, the region’s inhabitants were affected by the conflict, first in the form of an uprising against a military draft, then in the form of famine. Late in the war, conflict spread across the southern Caucasus to the territory that would become Azerbaijan.
Wartime demands imposed heavy burdens on many inhabitants throughout the Russian empire. For Central Asians these took the form primarily of increased taxation and the requisitioning of livestock and carts as Russia’s transport system neared collapse. That caused considerable hardship, especially for those peoples whose livelihood centred on animal husbandry. For the Kazakhs the problems were compounded by Russian officials’ seizure of Kazakh lands and bad weather, which took an additional toll on their herds.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.