PERSPECTIVES ON THE UNREST
IN THE ALTAI REGION OF THE USSR
H. B. Paksoy, D. Phil.
[Published in Eurasian Studies (Ankara) Vol. 2, No. 2,
Summer, 1995.
[First distributed electronically by Radio Liberty,
from Munich, Germany, via the SOVSET computer network
(Report on the USSR), on 10 September 1990]
In a recent article on the potential dissolution of the
USSR, Russian nationalist Eduard Volodin included
historically non-Russian lands (the Volga-Urals,
Siberia, the Altai) in his picture of a "new Russia."
Concerning the Altai Turks, he wrote, "The peoples of
the Altai... preserved for themselves, for us, and for
humanity, one of the most ancient cultures of the
world."1 The implication of this statement, in the
context of authors' arguments, is that Altai is now
considered a part of "Russia" and "Russian territory" to
be preserved in case of dissolution of the Soviet
Union.2
The designation "Altai," as Uzbek and Kazakh, are
primarily geographical, tribal or confederation names,
not ethnonyms.3 Those names were taken from geographic
reference points, by early explorers or ethnographers
and mistakenly or deliberately turned into "ethnic" or
"political" classifications. Early in the 8th century,
the Turks themselves provided an account of their
identity, political order and history. These were
recorded on the scores of stelea, written in their
unique alphabet and language, and erected in the region
of Orkhon-Yenisey.4 The designation "Turk"5 and its
variants are encountered centuries earlier, in the
Byzantine and Chinese sources, the Turks' Western and
Eastern neighbors, respectively. Most mountains, cities,
lakes, deserts, rivers in this region, from early
historical times until the Soviet period, carried Turk-
origin names.6 They are being restored in the late
1980s. Turk language and its many dialect groupings such
as Orkhon, Kipchak, Uyghur, Chaghatay, constitute a very
large portion of the Altaic family. The dialect
currently spoken in the Altai region is related to old
Orkhon and Uygur. Only since the Soviet language
"reforms," especially of the 1930s, have the dialects
been asserted to be "individual and unrelated Central
Asian languages." They are mutually intelligible. As
Denis Sinor points out in his introduction to Radloff's
PROBEN,7 in the past 100 years, "new, artificial,
names have been created and it is not always easy to
establish equivalencies." For example: Altai was known
as Kara-Tatar, later changed to Oirot (doubly
misleading, since Oirot is a Mongolian dialect), and
back to Altai; Tuvinian was originally Soyon and
Urinkhai and sometimes Shor; Khakass was called Abakan
or Abakan-Tatar; Kachin and Sagay were jointly
"converted" into Khakass; Taranchi became "Modern
Uyghur"; Kazakh was Kirghiz.
Thus, when it was recently reported that political
unrest and ethnic conflict broke out in the Tuva ASSR,
that news came as a surprise to some Moscow based
politicians.8 This is primarily because, in the Soviet
historiography, the Altai region rates only spotty
coverage, mostly recording the past 100 years of Russian
settlement and exploitation. It can be stated that after
the Turk Empire (East and West) of the 4th-6th c., (in
the vicinity of the Orkhon-Yenisei stelea), came various
Uyghur and Kirghiz political entities. There was a
period of Chinese subjugation, which culminated in large
scale uprisings by the Turks prior to the 8th c. Between
the 9th-12th c., Karakhanid, Ghaznavid and the Seljuk
empires were contiguous from the Chinese to the
Byzantine Empires. In that era, the Altaians constituted
a sub-grouping of the then powerful Karluk
confederation.9 During the Mongol irruption, most Turk
entities came under Mongol suzerainty (13th and 14th
c.). After the dissolution of the Mongol empire, the
Chinese (Manchu) asserted control over portions of the
previous eastern Mongolian territories in the 18th c.
(approx. 1757-1912), including a part of a larger Altai
region, the "Tuva" area Altaian Turks became vassals of
the Chinese. Tuva was designated a "country" for the
benefit of the tsarist government, and in 1912, like
Mongolia, gained independence from China. It became a
Russian "protectorate" in 1914.10 During 1921, the
Tuva People's Republic was created, much like the
Mongolian Republic, theoretically not part of USSR. In
1944, Tuva "asked" to join the Soviet Union. The Altaian
Turks eventually were incorporated into the Russian
Empire, in the Altai okrug, administered directly by the
tsarist Cabinet, though counted as "aliens." This okrug
was about the size of France and had a total population
of 3.6 million, including many Russian settlers. The
number of settlers grew, displacing the native
population from their land. During 1907-09 alone,
750,000 Russian settlers came to the Altai region,
taking land that had been declared "excess." During the
19th c., the railroad had linked Altain towns to Russian
markets, thus strengthening the exclusive economic links
with Russia. A Bolshevik-dominated soviet took power in
the capital, Barnaul in 1920. Thus the greater part of
Altai region was incorporated into the expanding USSR.
The recent news concerning the economic initiatives by
the Altaians, and their desire to establish economic
contacts with the outside world independent of Moscow
ought to be taken in this context.11
It should be noted that the 18th to 20th century Western
authors have produced interpretive volumes on the
history of the Turks, some of which are speculative
narratives, including assertions pertaining to a certain
"Pan-Turkism," ostensibly a movement by the Turks to
establish hegemony over the world, or at least Eurasia.
This "pan" movement has now been documented to be a
European creation, to accommodate 19th century European
balance-of-power politics, related to the "Great Game in
Asia" between the British and the Russian empires.
Accusations of "Pan-Turkism" are still employed today,
especially, but not exclusively, in the Soviet Union. It
will come as no surprise if Moscow institutions invoke
that bogey-man notion once again in connection with the
recent outbreak of demands for freedom and independence
in the Altai.12
NOTES:
1. "The New Russia in a changing world,"
LITERATURNAIA ROSSIYA (26 January 1990). For an analysis
of the referenced piece, see John Dunlop, RL Reports, February
20, 1990.
2. 50 of the 168 deputies elected in nationalities
districts (that entitles them to seats in the RSFSR Council of
Nationalities) are high-placed Russian officials who had
almost no chance to be elected in Moscow and sought the safe
seats in the country. See Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL DAILY
REPORT, 7 June 1990.
3. See H. B. Paksoy, "Z. V. Togan On the origins of
the Kazakhs and the Uzbeks." Presented to the 42nd annual
meeting of the Association for Asian Studies annual meeting.
(Chicago, March 1990); published in CENTRAL ASIA READER:
The Rediscovery of History (NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994).
4. See T. Tekin A GRAMMAR OF ORKHON TURKIC
(Bloomington, 1968). Indiana University Uralic Altaic Series
Vol. 69. [Contents dating from the 8th c.]
5. There is no distinction between "Turkish" and
"Turkic" in the language of the Turks. Therefore the present
article uses simply "Turk."
6. See Kashgarli Mahmud, COMPENDIUM OF THE TURKIC
DIALECTS: DIWAN LUGAT AT- TURK, Robert Dankoff (Tr., Ed.)
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Printing Office, V.1 1982,
V.2 1984, V.3 1985) [Original written in 11th c.].
7. (Bloomington and The Hague, 1967)
8. See Ann Sheehy TUVA--A NEW CENTER OF ETHNIC
CONFLICT. RFE/RL DAILY REPORT July 30, 1990 ; idem, TENSION IN
TUVA. RFE/RL DAILY REPORT August 3, 1990.
9. W. Bartold (Fourth Ed.) TURKESTAN DOWN TO THE
MONGOL INVASION (London, 1977).
10. For "treaty" details, see J. R. V. Prescott, MAP
OF MAINLAND ASIA BY TREATY (Melbourne, 1975).
11. See Bess Brown, ALTAI SEEKS FOREIGN INVESTMENT.
RFE/RL DAILY REPORT August 1, 1990.
12. See H. B. Paksoy ALPAMYSH: CENTRAL ASIAN IDENTITY
UNDER RUSSIAN RULE (Hartford, CT: Association for the
Advancement of Central Asian Research Monograph Series, 1989).
