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Imperialism in Central Asian History, Research Paper Example
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The history of Central Asia can be read as a history of conquest and colonization, of imperialist agendas from a variety of countries throughout Central Asian history. And a history of being colonized means a history of having various influences effecting a country’s culture, influences that can effect that culture even once colonization has ended. These effects can be influential in the ethos of a country, in fact, even if it has been independent for many centuries. And in a region like Central Asia, with a history of multiple colonization, these influences can grow quite complicated and layered. This paper will explore the history of imperialism in Central Asia in chronological order and talk about four different historical periods that are especially important when looking at history through the lens of imperialism. The periods include the Arab conquest, the conquest of Ghengis Khan, the Mongolian conversion to Buddhism under the Yuan Dynasty, and the conquest of the Soviet Union. All four of these imperialist periods in Central Asian history left deep marks upon this region. All information from this study comes from Svat Soucek’s “A History of Inner Asia” and direct quotations from the text will be cited.
The Arab conquest
This is arguably one of the culturally most important instances of imperialism in the history of Inner Asia, because of the long-lasting impact it had on the region, particularly in terms of religion but also on other aspects of culture like the arts and literature. The Arabs entered Inner Asia after conquering Persia and took Khurasan, then Transoxiana, and had important military campaigns in Tokharistan, Sogda, and Khirawarzm. As they spread their empire, a strong campaign for conversion to Islam was part of their jihad and along the way, many cultural artifacts – such as representations of pre-Islamic gods – were destroyed as the Arab-Islamist hold was cemented in Inner Asia.
The expansion of the Arab Empire was halted with the death of Qutayba and the Arabs did not find their colonization very easy: Khurasan in particular was a source of unrest and was later important in the revolution which shifted the region from the Umayayd to the Abbasid caliphate. The Arab influence began to wane and power shifted back to native populations; it was in the reign of the Samarinds that Islamic culture found its full flowering and its wealth was based firmly on farmers, artisans, and tradesmen. It was a richly cultural time which produced many beautiful things in the areas of architecture, ceramics, as well as being a rich time for the creation of Islamic poetry. This cultural and religious heritage is still an important part of Inner Asian culture even today.
The conquests of henges khan
The military and cultural conquests of the Mongols under the leadership of Genghis Khan had significant and long-reaching impacts on Inner Asia culture, impacts that were arguably even more significant than that of the Arab Conquest. At the time that Ghengis Khan became dominant, Mongolia had largely reverted back to a nomadic society of loosely associated tribes. Khan emerged from this as a strong tribal leader who was able to cement alliances and on the strength of that, began a military campaign that would, by 1223, bring all of central Asia under the Mongol rule; his sons and grandsons would follow in his footsteps in regards to expansion of the empire and by the third generation, the empire would stretch from China in the east to Russia and Iraq in West.
The Mongol code was spread throughout the region, but unless it directly clashed with Islamic sharia law, the Mongols were content not to interfere and largely left the administration of taken lands to Muslim governors. Even so, their impact was tremendous: the extent of the Mongol Empire from China to Russia cemented Inner Asia’s cultural role of the “crossroads of trade and civilization” (Soucek 114). Not all effects were so positive, however: the conquest lead to the absolute decimation of a number of cities, many of which never recovered, and many agricultural communities reverted back to steppe land to suit the Mongolian nomadic lifestyle. Also, even more significantly, the conquests of the Mongols led to the spread of bubonic plague: marmots in the steppe have fleas which carry the plague, but it was an endemic disease and only effected the Mongols to a certain extent; however, after the siege of Caffa, the disease was spread via ships leaving the port both to Egypt and to Europe. This in turn led to the wiping out of nearly one-third of Europe’s population by the 14th century.
Mongolian conversion to Buddhism under the yuan dynasty
When the Ming Dynasty began in China in 1368, the then Yuan Emperor Temur fled the country and it was under the Yuan rule of Mongolia, claimed by his descendants, that Mongolians largely converted to a form of Buddhism called Lamaism, which emphasized a monastic life and whose spiritual leader was known as the Dalai Lama. The effect of this conversion was “profound, pervasive, and persistent, lasting until the establishment of Communist rule in 1921” (Soucek 196). It altered nearly every aspect of Mongolian life, and a new Mongol code was established which was based on Buddhist principles. The Oirat converted slightly later than their counterparts in Eastern Mongolia, and it was from the Oirat that Galdan Khan emerged, and briefly held sway until he was conquered by China in 1690. The result of this conquest was that the Manchu suzerainty was established in Inner Mongolia. The effects of this were significant for the country: for one thing, a large influx of Chinese immigrants came to this area, jostling against the native population; for another, Inner Mongolia remained a dependent on China until the end of the Manchu dynasty in 1911 and is known today as the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China. Stepping back a bit in time, it is also important to note that Galdan Khan’s successor, Tseung Rabdan, challenged China to control over Tibet and lost: it was then that a Chinese-support Dalai Lama was set up and Tibet taken as a Chinese protectorate. The impact of this happening, and the controversy of China’s presence in Tibet, remain an emotional political issue to this day.
Soviet Russia’s conquest
When the Bolsheviks led their successful revolution in 1917, various peoples who had been subjugated under Tsarist Russian were hopeful that this shift would lead them to new freedoms. However, it quickly became clear that the Russian had no intentions of giving any real degree of freedom to the predominantly Muslim territories and in the early twenties went on to reshape Central Asia according to enthnolinguistic lines, a process they called delimitation. This took some time to put into practice but by 1937, the area had acquired the political “shape” that it would keep until the end of the Soviet Empire: Central Asia was now five separate Soviet Socialist Republics: Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Apart from being reshaped by Soviet policies, the impact on Central Asian culture was profound. Not all the impacts were negative: the means of agricultural and industrial production were nationalized, women were given equal rights, there was an increase in the population due to a decrease in warfare and important advances in medicine and the natives were actively encouraged to be part of the political scene. But the negative consequence of Soviet rule cannot be ignored or brushed under the rug: there was a strong effort to eradicate Islam and replace it with Communism or atheism, forcing Muslims to worship in secret and cling to parts of their culture that the state could not touch: marriage, burial and diet customs among them. The Russians essential turned Central Asia into one large cotton farm, which led to depletion of the soil, the heavy use of often dangerous pesticides, herbicides and artificial fertilizers, and to the use of cheap Central Asian labor, including child labor. The author notes that the “main goal of the repression may have been the ultimate integration through a total abandonment of national will to that of the Russians” (Soucek 234).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is apparent from a survey of Central Asian history that an understanding of this complex and multi-faceted part of the world would be impossible without understanding the role that imperial policies of many peoples and their subsequent conquests have played in shaping what it is today. Four significant time periods of imperialism in Asian history – the conquest of the Arabs, the conquest of Genghis Khan, the conversion of Mongolia to Buddhism, and the rule of Soviet Russia in the Communist era, are all examples of the imperial policies that have been enforced in the region throughout its history; it also shows the profound impact they have had on this region. Inner Asia is a region where many empires have staked their metaphorical flags over the centuries, and all of them have left their mark upon this diverse and complicated area of the world.
Works Cited
Soucek, S. “A History of Inner Asia”. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 2000. Print. 1-360
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