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SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF GORNY BADAKHSHAN
Nazarali KHONALIEV
Nazarali Lhonaliev, Ph.D. (Econ.), department head, Institute of Economic Studies, Ministry of Trade and Economics, Republic of Tajikistan (Dushanbe, Tajikistan)
In January 2005, the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) will mark its 80th anniversary as part of the Republic of Tajikistan: in historical terms it is not much—measured by individual lives, however, it is a lot. In the distant past the Western Pamir (Shugnan, Rushan, Wahan, Garan and Ishkashim) consisted of small independent possessions ruled by hereditary potentates until in the mid-19th century the geopolitical interests of the British and Russian empires clashed in Central Asia. In 1873, they signed an agreement on the West Pamirian borders under which Shugnan, Rushan, and Wahan were excluded from the sphere of influence of the Afghan emirate. In 1883, Afghan Emir Abdurahman Khan captured the western regions in violation of the earlier treaty on the inviolability of the borders along the River Panj. Russia had to use force to recapture its control over the territory.
In 1895, Russia and Britain signed a special agreement on the delimitation of spheres of influence in the Pamir. To the mutual satisfaction the sides drew the dividing line from Zor-Kul Lake along the Eastern Pamir and the River Panj. It was at the same time that Russia started the process of including the area in the empire. From that time on and until November 1918 supreme power in the region belonged to the military; after a revolution performed by soldiers, workers and hired agricultural laborers power was transferred to the newly created Revolutionary Committee, the first body of Soviet power in Gorny Badakhshan. The Pamir was made part of the Turkestan Autonomous Republic as an independent region (okrug) administered directly by the government of the autonomous Soviet socialist republic. As a result of ethnic and territorial delineation in Central Asia Gorny Badakhshan was made an autonomous region within the newly formed Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. This was done in recognition of the local people’s ethnic specifics. Today its ethnic groups are living in the area that has all features typical of a self-administering region: it is separated from the rest of the republic; its economy is highly specific; it has its own………………………
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