Central Asian emigration refers to the migration of people from countries in Central Asia to other parts of the world. Typically this tends to encapsulate people from the former Soviet republics of the region, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Migration from these countries is a relatively modern phenomenon brought about by the persecution during the era of the Soviet Union between 1917 and 1991. Because of the isolated location of these countries away from the world’s major oceans, this emigration primarily involved neighboring countries in West Asia and the Middle East, notably Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Some limited Central Asia emigration has also taken place to countries like the United States, Canada, Britain and Germany, though it is much more limited than from other parts of the world. There are, for instance, only around 50,000 Kazakhs in the United States, 75,000 Uzbeks, and a much smaller figure for Tajiks and other Central Asian groups from the region immediately east of the Caspian Sea.[1]
Central Asian emigration chronology of eventsCentral Asian emigration chronology of events
Central Asia is a very broadly defined region that not everyone will agree on the parameters of. Generally speaking it represents the region between the Caspian Sea in the west and the Himalayas in the east and from the southern Russian border in the north southwards. However, parts of the lands further south are often considered as parts of other geopolitical regions. Iran, for instance, is typically considered as part of the Middle East, despite being east of the Caspian Sea, while Pakistan is sometimes viewed as an appendage to the Indian subcontinent. Therefore Central Asia as a homogenous entity could be primarily viewed as the five former Soviet Republics lying in a block immediately east of the Caspian Sea: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.[2]
These five countries have more in common than just geographical proximity. The people who live here are broadly Turkic groups that migrated into this part of Central Asia during the era of the Turkic migrations back between the fourth and eleventh centuries AD. Different Turkic groups moved south from what is now Siberia and colder lands to the north into more temperate parts of Asia all across the continent, from north-western China to Central Asia and the Middle East.[3] The Central Asian groups developed their own culture and identity through cultural interaction with the Persian people of Iran and then later intermingling with the Mongols who conquered most of Asia in the thirteenth century. Hence, the people of what would become Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan developed their own distinct regional culture.[4]
Over time the Mongol Empire and the successor empire of the Timurids collapsed and Central Asia came under the rule of various powers like the Kazakh Khanate and the Persians and then finally the Russians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.[5] These lands east of the Caspian Sea remained under Russian rule even after the Russian Civil War (1917–1924). Because of their distinct culture and widespread adherence to Islam here, the Kazakhs, Uzbeks and other Turkic groups were persecuted by the Soviets over the decades, leading to the flight of many of these Central Asia people in the course of the twentieth century into countries like neighboring Iran and Afghanistan and also to Turkey and the Middle East. Conversely, some Kazakhs, Uzbeks and others ended up migrating into Russia itself or being forcibly transplanted to work in Soviet factories during the Second World War and the like. In more modern times there has been a small, though not entirely inconsiderable flow of Central Asian people to Europe and North America.[6]
Extent of Central Asian emigrationExtent of Central Asian emigration
Millions of Central Asian people have emigrated around and beyond Central Asia over the last century or so since the late days of the Russian Empire. For instance, there are some 600,000 Uzbeks living in Kazakhstan, making them one of the largest ethnic minorities in the country.[7] Similarly, the largest ethnic minorities in Uzbekistan are Tajiks and Kazakhs, comprising over two and a half million of the country’s 35 million inhabitants. There are also smaller Turkmen and Kyrgyz minorities of several hundred thousand in the country. The same patterns are evident elsewhere in Central Asia, highlighting that Central Asia emigration is often simply a process of moving between countries within the region.
Many Central Asians have emigrated longer distances beyond Central Asia. The largest single recipient of Central Asians over the last century or so is Russia. Movement between countries like Kazakhstan and Russia was facilitated by the fact that these countries all formed part of the USSR between the time of the Russian Civil War and the collapse of the Soviet Union seventy years later. Moreover, the Soviet government often coerced groups like the Kazakhs and Uzbeks into relocating to planned factory cities and towns in Russia as part of the rapid industrialization of Russia in the twentieth century. Economic migration from the Central Asian countries to the Russian Federation continued even after the Soviet Union collapsed, although that pattern is reversing today in the face of growing wealth in countries like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, problems created by Russia’s war with Ukraine, and a wave of xenophobia in modern-day Russia.[8]
Central Asian groups also emigrated further afield from as early as the 1920s. For instance, the atheistic Soviet regime was repressive of Muslims in Central Asia from the 1920s onwards, leading to the flight of tens of thousands of Uzbeks in particular after Ibrahim Bek led an Uzbek war of resistance to Soviet rule in the 1920s.[9] A very substantial proportion of these were given refuge in the newly founded Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a thinly populated nation at the time that needed foreign workers after it struck oil and began developing its petroleum industry from the late 1930s onwards. This began associations between the Central Asian nations and the Middle East which have led to the migration of several hundred thousand Uzbeks and other groups to the region over the last century.[10]
Demographic impact of Central Asian emigrationDemographic impact of Central Asian emigration
The most tangible impact of this emigration outside of Central Asia has been felt in Russia. There are around 600,000 Kazakhs living in Russia today, while there are more than 300,000 Uzbeks in the country. There are also substantial émigré communities in other parts of West Asia and Central Asia. For instance, Uzbeks and Tajiks are major groups in Afghanistan, but these are not related to modern migration. Further afield there are important Central Asian émigré communities in several Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia. There are several hundred thousand Uzbeks living in Saudi Arabia, though some have assimilated very firmly since they first began arriving in the 1930s to escape Soviet religious persecution.[11] As with nearly any demographic in the world, there are small Central Asian communities in some western countries, notably the United States and countries like Britain, Germany and Canada.
See alsoSee also
Explore more about Central Asian EmigrationExplore more about Central Asian Emigration
- Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Jewish Refugees, 1941-1942 from JewishGen records collection on MyHeritage
- Former Russian Empire, World War I Casualties records collection on MyHeritage
- Migration Data in Central Asia at Migration Data Portal
- Central Asian Migrants a Problem for Their Homelands Now and When They Return at The Jamestown Foundation
- Labor Migration in Central Asia: Will Kazakhstan Be the Anchor for Stability at Association for Asian Studies
References
- ↑ https://data.census.gov/table/ACSDT1Y2023.B05006?q=B05006:%20Place%20of%20Birth%20for%20the%20Foreign-Born%20Population%20in%20the%20United%20States
- ↑ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405473917300429
- ↑ https://thediplomat.com/2016/06/the-epic-story-of-how-the-turks-migrated-from-central-asia-to-turkey/
- ↑ Dávid Somfai Kara, ‘The Formation of Modern Turkic ‘Ethnic’ Groups in Central and Inner Asia’, in The Hungarian Historical Review, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2018), pp. 98–110.
- ↑ Alexander Morrison, The Russian Conquest of Central Asia (Cambridge, 2020).
- ↑ https://longreads.cabar.asia/migrants_from_central_asia_in_the_eu_en
- ↑ https://astanatimes.com/2019/10/nur-sultans-uzbek-ethno-cultural-centre-is-growing-rapidly/
- ↑ https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2024/07/russia-central-asia-migrants?lang=en
- ↑ William S. Ritter, ‘The Final Phase in the Liquidation of Anti-Soviet Resistance in Tadzhikistan: Ibrahim Bek and the Basmachi, 1924–31’, in Soviet Studies, Vol. 37, No. 4 (October, 1985), pp. 484–493.
- ↑ Bayram Balci, ‘Central Asia Refugees in Saudi Arabia: Religious Evolution and Contributing to the Reislamization of their Motherland’, in Refugee Survey Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2007), pp. 12–21.
- ↑ https://shs.cairn.info/journal-revue-europeenne-des-migrations-internationales-2003-3-page-9?lang=en&tab=resume