1990 Dushanbe riots

1990 Dushanbe riots
1990 Dushanbe riots
Part of the dissolution of the Soviet Union
	BMPs blocking off protesters in the city's main thoroughfare following the imposition of martial law, 14 February 1990
Date	12–14 February 1990
Location	Dushanbe, Tajik SSR, Soviet Union; 38°32′12″N68°46′48″E / 38.53667°N 68.78000°E
Caused by	Local anti-Armenian sentiment and Tajik anti-communist nationalism
Resulted in	Outbreak of the Tajikistani Civil War in 1992
Parties
Tajik nationalists Rastokhez ; Tajik Islamists	Soviet Union Communist Party of the Soviet Union KGB ; MVD ; Internal Troops ; OMON ; Communist Party of Tajikistan SCNS ; ;
Lead figures
	Tohir Abdujabbor ; Izatullo Khayoyev ; Qahhor Mahkamov ; Yaqub Salimov ;
Casualties
Death(s)	26
Injuries	565
	Dushanbe Location within Tajikistan Dushanbe Location within the Soviet Union

Last updated July 09, 2024

The 1990 Dushanbe riots marked a period of heightened civil disobedience and inter-ethnic violence in the capital city of the Tajik SSR of the Soviet Union. Existing tensions over lacking economic and political reforms were exacerbated by the arrival of Armenian refugees from the Azerbaijan SSR due to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The mass movement of Tajik nationalists (e.g., the Rastokhez), anti-communists, and Islamists targeted ethnic minorities, such as Armenians and Russians, as well as unaffiliated Tajiks—namely women who did not conform to Islamic clothing standards. By late 1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union gave way to the Republic of Tajikistan declaring independence, though this was followed by the Tajikistani Civil War less than a year later.

Causes

Armenian refugees

In 1988, in the aftermath of the Sumgait pogrom and anti-Armenian riots in Azerbaijan, 39 Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan were temporarily resettled in Dushanbe.^[1] In 1990, the Armenian influx became a subject of the rumour that triggered riots in Dushanbe.^[2] The rumour inflated the number of refugees to 2,500–5,000.^[1] According to rumour Armenians allegedly were being resettled in new housing in Dushanbe,^[1] which was experiencing an acute housing shortage at that time.^[1]^[3] Despite the fact that Armenian refugees resettled not in public housing but with their relatives, and by 1990 had already left Tajikistan for Armenia,^[1] official denouncement of the rumours was not able to stop the protests. Assurances by First Secretary of the Communist Party of Tajikistan Qahhor Mahkamov that no resettlement of Armenians were taking place were rejected by the demonstrators.^[4]

Economy, politics, and Islam

Soon, demonstrations sponsored by the nationalist Rastokhez movement turned violent.^[4] Radical economical and political reforms were demanded by the protesters.^[4] Government buildings, shops and other businesses were attacked and looted. Armenians, Russians,^[5] and other ethnic minorities were targeted. Abuse of Tajik women wearing European clothes in public also took place. The riots were put down by Soviet troops called into Dushanbe^[6] by Mahkamov. However Mahkamov's over-reliance on military force was criticized by Buri Karimov, a deputy chair of Council of Ministers, who called for the resignation of the leadership of the Tajik Communist Party. On February 14, 1990 Mahkamov and Prime Minister of Tajikistan Izatullo Khayoyev submitted their resignations, but they were not accepted by the Central Committee of the Tajik Communist Party.^[4]

Riots and other Central Asian SSRs

During the Dushanbe riots, a period lasting a couple of days, 26 people were killed and 565 were injured.^[4] Among the Tajik youth activists convicted for participation in the riots was a future minister of the interior of Tajikistan Yaqub Salimov.^[7] Smaller scale anti-Armenian incidents were also recorded in neighboring Turkmenistan.^[8]

Aftermath

Tajikistan would declare independence on 9 December 1991, from the collapsing Soviet Union. In 1992, a civil war would begin in the newly independent nation.

Related Research Articles

Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital and most populous city. Tajikistan is bordered by Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east. It is separated from Pakistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor.

Tajikistan harkens to the Samanid Empire (819–999). The Tajik people came under Russian rule in the 1860s. The Basmachi revolt broke out in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and was quelled in the early 1920s during the Russian Civil War. In 1924, Tajikistan became an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union, the Tajik ASSR, within Uzbekistan. In 1929, Tajikistan was made one of the component republics of the Soviet Union – Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic – and it kept that status until gaining independence 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Dushanbe is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. As of March 2024, Dushanbe had a population of 1,564,700, with this population being largely Tajik. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe, and from 1929 to 1961 as Stalinabad, after Joseph Stalin. Dushanbe is located in the Gissar Valley, bounded by the Gissar Range in the north and east and the Babatag, Aktau, Rangontau and Karatau mountains in the south, and has an elevation of 750–930 m. The city is divided into four districts, all named after Persian historical figures: Ismail Samani, Avicenna, Ferdowsi, and Shah Mansur.

The Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, also commonly known as Soviet Tajikistan, the Tajik SSR, or simply Tajikistan, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union which existed from 1929 to 1991 in Central Asia.

Khujand, sometimes spelled Khodjent or Chudzjand, and known as Leninabad from 1936 to 1991, is the second-largest city of Tajikistan and the capital of Tajikistan's northernmost Sughd province.

Black January, also known as Black Saturday or the January Massacre, was a violent crackdown on Azerbaijani nationalism and anti-Soviet sentiment in Baku on 19–20 January 1990, as part of a state of emergency during the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The Tajikistani Civil War, also known as the Tajik Civil War, began in May 1992 and ended in June 1997. Regional groups from the Garm and Gorno-Badakhshan regions of Tajikistan rose up against the newly-formed government of President Rahmon Nabiyev, which was dominated by people from the Khujand and Kulob regions. The rebel groups were led by a combination of liberal democratic reformers and Islamists, who would later organize under the banner of the United Tajik Opposition. The government was supported by Russian military and border guards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sumgait pogrom</span> 1988 anti-Armenian riots in Azerbaijan SSR

The Sumgait pogrom was a pogrom that targeted the Armenian population of the lakeside town of Sumgait in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic in late February 1988. The pogrom took place during the early stages of the Karabakh movement. On February 27, 1988, mobs of ethnic Azerbaijanis formed into groups and attacked and killed Armenians on the streets and in their apartments; widespread looting occurred, and a general lack of concern from police officers allowed the violence to continue for three days.

National delimitation in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was the process of specifying well-defined national territorial units from the ethnic diversity of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and its subregions.

Soviet Central Asia was the part of Central Asia administered by the Soviet Union between 1918 and 1991, when the Central Asian republics declared independence. It is nearly synonymous with Russian Turkestan in the Russian Empire. Soviet Central Asia went through many territorial divisions before the current borders were created in the 1920s and 1930s.

The First Secretary of the Communist Party of Tajikistan was the head of the Communist Party of Tajikistan and the highest Executive power in the republic of Tajikistan from 1924 until November 1990.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qahhor Mahkamov</span> Tajik politician

Qahhor Mahkamov was a Tajik politician who served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Tajikistan from 1985 to 1991 and was the first President of Tajikistan from November 1990 until his fall in the August 1991 coup.

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The Osh riots were an ethnic conflict between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks that took place in June 1990 in the cities of Osh and Uzgen, part of the Kirghiz SSR. The immediate cause of the riots was a dispute between an Uzbek nationalist group Adolat and a Kyrgyz nationalist group Osh Aymaghi over the land of a former collective farm. While official estimates of the death toll range from over 300 to more than 600, unofficial figures range up to more than 1,000. The riots have been seen as a forerunner to the 2010 ethnic clashes in the same region.

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References

1 2 3 4 5 Horowitz, Donald L. (2002). The Deadly Ethnic Riot. University of California Press. p. 74. ISBN 0-520-23642-4 . Retrieved 23 October 2008.
↑ Michael Waller; Bruno Coppieters; Alekseĭ Vsevolodovich Malashenko, eds. (1998). Conflicting Loyalties and the State in Post-Soviet Russia and Eurasia. Routledge. pp. 169–170. ISBN 0-7146-4882-5.
↑ Payin, Emil. "Settlement of ethnic conflicts in post-Soviet society". United Nations University Press. Archived from the original on 7 June 2007. Retrieved 23 October 2008.
1 2 3 4 5 Takeyh, Ray; Nikolas K. Gvosdev (2004). The Receding Shadow of the Prophet. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-275-97629-7.
↑ Kolstø, Pål; Andrei Edemsky (1995). Russians in the Former Soviet Republics. Indiana University Press. p. 213. ISBN 0-253-32917-5.
↑ Collins, Kathleen (2006). Clan politics and regime transition in Central Asia . Cambridge University Press. pp. 155. ISBN 0-521-83950-5 . Retrieved 23 October 2008. Dushanbe riots islamists.
↑ ГАФАРЛЫ, МЕХМАН (25 February 2004). На родину в наручниках Россия экстрадировала в Душанбе бывшего главу МВД Таджикистана Якуба Салимова (in Russian). Novye Izvestiya. Archived from the original on 13 March 2010. Retrieved 23 October 2008.
↑ Allworth, Edward (1994). Central Asia, 130 Years of Russian Dominance. Duke University Press. pp. 586–587. ISBN 0-8223-1521-1 . Retrieved 23 October 2008.

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[Horowitz-1] 1 2 3 4 5 Horowitz, Donald L. (2002). The Deadly Ethnic Riot. University of California Press. p. 74. ISBN 0-520-23642-4 . Retrieved 23 October 2008.

[Conflict-2] Michael Waller; Bruno Coppieters; Alekseĭ Vsevolodovich Malashenko, eds. (1998). Conflicting Loyalties and the State in Post-Soviet Russia and Eurasia. Routledge. pp. 169–170. ISBN 0-7146-4882-5.

[Payin-3] Payin, Emil. "Settlement of ethnic conflicts in post-Soviet society". United Nations University Press. Archived from the original on 7 June 2007. Retrieved 23 October 2008.

[Takeyh-4] 1 2 3 4 5 Takeyh, Ray; Nikolas K. Gvosdev (2004). The Receding Shadow of the Prophet. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-275-97629-7.

[Kolsto-5] Kolstø, Pål; Andrei Edemsky (1995). Russians in the Former Soviet Republics. Indiana University Press. p. 213. ISBN 0-253-32917-5.

[Collins-6] Collins, Kathleen (2006). Clan politics and regime transition in Central Asia . Cambridge University Press. pp. 155. ISBN 0-521-83950-5 . Retrieved 23 October 2008. Dushanbe riots islamists.

[izv-7] ГАФАРЛЫ, МЕХМАН (25 February 2004). На родину в наручниках Россия экстрадировала в Душанбе бывшего главу МВД Таджикистана Якуба Салимова (in Russian). Novye Izvestiya. Archived from the original on 13 March 2010. Retrieved 23 October 2008.

[Allworth-8] Allworth, Edward (1994). Central Asia, 130 Years of Russian Dominance. Duke University Press. pp. 586–587. ISBN 0-8223-1521-1 . Retrieved 23 October 2008.

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