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Early residents

Finds from the Middle and Neolithic Age show that the area of ​​today’s Tajikistan was already inhabited back then. The oldest known culture is the Kelteminar culture from the 6th to 4th millennium BC. Chr.

Around 3500 BC The settlement of Sarasm arose in what is now the north-west of Tajikistan. The people settled down, engaged in agriculture, processed tin and copper and traded in these metals. Sarasm was the largest settlement in Central Asia in which agriculture was practiced at that time. It existed until about 2000 BC. Chr.

From the Achaemenids to Kushana

From the 6th century BC The area came under the rule of the Achaemenids, who built the first Persian empire. Alexander the Great conquered it in the 4th century BC. BC He founded 329 BC A settlement from which today’s city of Khujand developed.

Subsequently, Tajikistan’s territory belonged to the successor state of Alexander’s empire, namely the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. It was superseded in the 1st to 3rd centuries AD by the Kushana, an empire that stretched south to the Indus Valley. The second Persian empire, that of the Sassanids, then followed.

Hephtalites and Samanids

The Hephtalites took power in the 5th century before the Persians ruled again with the Samanids from 819 onwards. The Samanids were a Muslim dynasty. The Tajiks today see the Samanids as their ancestors. Ismail I, the most famous ruler of the Samanids, is considered a national hero.

Qarakhanids, Mongols and Chagatai Khanate

The Turkish Karakhanids conquered Central Asia in 999, expelled the Persian Samanids and established a khanate. Her empire had its greatest expansion in the 11th and 12th centuries. Until 1213 they could still rule in the Fergana Valley.

The Mongols invaded in the 13th century. A son of Genghis Khan established the Chagatai Khanate.

Bukhara Khanate

The Bukhara Khanate was established in the 16th century. Because it was founded by the Uzbeks, it is also called the Uzbek Khanate. Bukhara, now in Uzbekistan, was their capital. The khanate existed until the late 18th century. Then the area came under the rule of the Emirate of Bukhara, which existed until 1920.

History of Tajikistan from the 19th century to the present day

Russian rule

In the late 19th century, Russia conquered Central Asia. The later Tajikistan also came under Russian control. Russia began to promote the cultivation of cotton. Resistance groups known as Basmachi fought against Russian rule in 1916 and into the 1920s.

But the Basmachi finally gave up and could not prevent all developments in the Soviet Union from being implemented in Tajikistan, from the collectivization of agriculture (the merging of individual farms into large cooperatives) and resettlement to the introduction of Russian as the official language.

Part of the Soviet Union

After the tsarist rule ended in the February Revolution in 1917 and the Bolsheviks came to power in October, the Soviet Union was founded in 1922. Tajikistan became one of the Soviet republics, as early as 1918 as part of the Turkestan Soviet Republic, in 1924 as part of the Uzbek Soviet Republic and in 1929 as an independent “Tajik Socialist Soviet Republic”. This was one of the poorest Soviet republics for the next few decades. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan declared itself independent on September 9, 1991.

Independence 1991 and civil war (1992-1997)

The first president of independent Tajikistan was Rahmon Nabijew, who had already held high offices in Soviet times. With independence, however, the struggle for power in the country began, resulting in a civil war. Islamic rebels and democratic reformers from the east of the country joined forces to fight the new government.

They set up a counter-president, who was overthrown again, but Nabiyev had to give up the presidency in 1992 and fled. Emomalii Rahmon was first elected head of government and in 1994 also president. 50,000 to 100,000 people died during the civil war. More than a million people fled within the country or to neighboring countries such as Afghanistan. The civil war ended in June 1997 with a peace treaty.

Emomalii Rahmon

In 1999, 2006 and 2013, Emomalii Rahmon was re-elected. However, foreign observers criticized the elections as undemocratic. Internationally, Rahmon and his government are also criticized for violating human rights and the lack of freedom of the press.

The President has extensive power in Tajikistan, a country located in Asia according to cheeroutdoor. He holds key positions in government, administration, and the legal system.

In 2007 Rahmon changed its name. Before that, his name was Emomalij Sharifowitsch Rahmonow. Sharifowitsch is the patronymic given in Russian names, and -ow is the Russian ending of surnames. With the elimination of the father’s name and the two letters, the name was “Tajikized”.

In 2015 Rahmon was named “Leader of the Nation”. Special rights for the president and his family were adopted in 2016. He can now be re-elected without restriction and is protected from criminal prosecution for life (political immunity).