V. V. Bartol’d “The Tajiks: A Historical Essay”

SHIMADA Shizuo (Translation and Introduction)

This is the japanese translation of V. V. Bartol’d’s article “The Tajiks: A Historical Essay” (1925).

National delimitation of Central Asia (1924‒25) was one of the most important event in the modern history of Central Asia. As the result of this event that was operated according to Soviet national policy, the basic frameworks of today’s Central Asian nations and national republics were formed. So it can be said that national delimitation is a significant point in the discussion about the national questions in Central Asia.

In the process of the delimitation, not only took part Soviet politicians and officials, but Oriental scholars also contributed. In particular, the role of V. V. Bartol’d (1869‒1930), a prominent russian scholar at that time in this process is worthy of attention. Because Soviet authorities needed his great knowledge about Central Asia to carry out their national policy and they asked him to write national histories of newly established republics and its peoples.

In January 9, 1925 “The association for research on Tajikistan and Iranian ethnic groups in its territory” was constituted at the Sovnarkom of Tajik ASSR. This association published a collection of papers entitled “Tajikistan”, in which included 13 papers about geography, climate, nature, demography, history, ethnography, natural resources etc. Bartol’d’s article “The Tajiks: A Historical Essay ” was also published in this book.

In this work Bartol’d gave historial descriptions of ancient Khorazm people, cultural and commercial activities of Sogd people, the origin and the historical transition of meaning of the terms “tajik” “galcha” “tat” “sart”, historical and geographical informations about Badakhshan, Darvaz, Karategin, the language situation among local urban dwellers in the end of the Russian Empire period. In other words, he described the history of Iranian peoples in Central Asia from ancient times, not the history of Tajiks in the territory of Tajikistan. But this style of description of history was applied with the description of Soviet Tajik national history later. Bartol’d’s this article determined the direction of historical studies on Tajik people, and it has important significance for ethnic studies of Central Asia.