Origins of the Civil War in Tajikistan

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 The Origins of the
Civil War in Tajikistan
 Contemporary Central Asia:
Societies, Politics, and Cultures

Series Editor: Marlene Laruelle, George Washington University

At the crossroads of Russia, China, and the Islamic world, Central Asia remains one of the
world’s least-understood regions, despite being a significant theater for muscle-flexing by
the great powers and regional players. This series, in conjunction with George Washington
University’s Central Asia Program, offers insight into Central Asia by providing readers
unique access to state-of-the-art knowledge on the region. Going beyond the media clichés,
the series inscribes the study of Central Asia into the social sciences and hopes to fill the
dearth of works on the region for both scholarly knowledge and undergraduate and gradu-
ate student education.

Titles in the Series

Kyrgyzstan beyond “Democracy Island” and “Failing State”: Social and Political
Changes in a Post-Soviet Society, edited by Marlene Laruelle and Johan Engvall
Afghanistan and its Neighbors after the NATO Withdrawal, edited by Amin Saikal
and Kirill Nourzhanov
Integration in Energy and Transport: Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey
by Alexandros Petersen
Kazakhstan in the Making: Legitimacy, Symbols, and Social Changes,
edited by Marlene Laruelle
The Origins of the Civil War in Tajikistan: Nationalism, Islamism, and Violent Conflict
in Post-Soviet Space by Tim Epkenhans
 The Origins of the
Civil War in Tajikistan
Nationalism, Islamism
and Violent Conflict in
Post-Soviet Space

Tim Epkenhans

L e x i n gt o n B o o k s
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Published by Lexington Books
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com

Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB

Copyright © 2016 by Lexington Books

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016951461

ISBN: 978-1-4985-3278-5 (cloth: alk.paper)
ISBN: 978-1-4985-3279-2 (electronic)

∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

 Contents

Acknowledgmentsvii
Abbreviations and Glossary ix

Introduction1
1 Prelude: A Post-Colonial Moment in Late Soviet Tajikistan 29
2 Narrating a House Divided: Regionalism Revisited 97
3 “Bloody Bahman” 113
4 Independence143
5 Islam181
6 Tensions Rising: The Tale of Two Squares
(March and April 1992) 223
7 Men of Disorder: Masculinity, Crime and Violent Conflict 253
8 Civil War 277
9 The 16th Session of the Supreme Soviet 339

Epilogue: The Nation Imagined and the Civil War Remembered 351
Bibliography369
Index389
About the Author 401

v
 Acknowledgments

This book is the result of a research project which inadvertently commenced

in May 2003 in a small village in the Qarotegin Valley. I had been invited by
friends to stay over the weekend with their families and here I first encoun-
tered local narratives of the civil war that markedly differed from those of
government officials, diplomats and scholars and that should haunt me ever
since. Back then, I worked as a diplomat and could not pursue a serious
research project. Only few years later, in 2006, my work at the OSCE Acad-
emy in Bishkek allowed me to return to Tajikistan and collect with colleagues
the Oral History Archive of independent Tajikistan. Although this book does
not extensively capitalize on the archive, the interviews I listened to pro-
foundly influenced my understanding of the civil war in Tajikistan.
I had the pleasure to work with marvelous colleagues, who inspired,
challenged and encouraged me. Furthermore, I had the privilege to work in
academic institutions which supported and facilitated my research interests.
At the University of Bamberg, Bert Fragner and Lutz Rzehak inspired me
with their enthusiasm, deep knowledge and sincere sympathy for Central
Asia and Tajikistan. At the University of Freiburg, a generous grant by the
Ministry of Science, Research and Arts of the State of Baden-Württemberg
and the Faculty of Philosophy supported my research activities. At the
University of Bern, the Faculty for Humanities accepted an earlier version of
this manuscript as a habilitation treatise.
Teaching classes on contemporary Central Asia in Basel, Bishkek and
Freiburg gave me the opportunity to discuss my thoughts and ideas with com-
mitted and critical students who challenged my interpretations and invited me
to refine my conceptual thinking.
While working on this manuscript, I had the pleasure to discuss my poorly
sorted thoughts on the origins of the Civil War in Tajikistan with colleagues

vii
viii Acknowledgments

and friends: Dieter von Blarer, Stéphane Dudoignon, Pál Dunay, Olmo Gölz,
Michal Hall, Faredun Hodizoda, John Heathershaw, Anke von Kügelgen,
Anna Matveeva, Temirlan Moldogaziev, Parviz Mullojonov, Shahnoza
Nozimova, Johanna Pink, Mariella Ourghi, Maurus Reinkowski, Sophie
Roche, Maxim Ryabkov and Nicola Spakowksi continuously encouraged me
with their constructive critique.
Unfortunately, the political situation in Tajikistan has again deteriorated in
recent years. In September 2015, the government banned the Islamic Revival
Party and imprisoned many of its members. The remaining opposition, inde-
pendent media and civil society have been silenced since. Hopes and aspira-
tions of a future in an open, pluralistic and democratic society—which many
of my Tajik friends and colleagues shared—have been sadly diminished.
Considering the political situation, many of my Tajik friends and colleagues
with whom I discussed my work, asked me not to mention their names here.
With a heavy heart, I comply with their request. Nonetheless, without their
support, their readiness to share their knowledge with me, their unwavering
friendliness and hospitality, I would have not been able to work on this book.
All of this, however, would be pretty meaningless for me without my
family near and far. In particular, my wife Asel and our children Max and
Gulbarchyn. Researching violent conflict is a distressing affair and too often
it is difficult to disengage from the disturbing narratives, but you were the
foothold that kept me grounded. Thank you.
 Abbreviations and Glossary

Table A.1
Abbreviation/
Term Tajik Explanation/Translation
APC Tank or BTR/ Armoured Personnel Carrier
BMP
CC/CPT Kumitai markazī Central Committee of the Communist Party of the
TaSSR, de jure the highest body of the CPT.
CSCE Conference for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (the predecessor of the OSCE).
DOSAAF Russ.: Dobrovelnoe Obščestvo Sobeystviya
Armii, Aviacii i Floty, “Volunteer Society for
Cooperation with the Army, Aviation, and
Fleet,” a paramilitary organization in the Soviet
Union.
Ešon ešon is a Tajik honorific title for important
representatives of a Sufi order (tariqa) in parts of
Central Asia.
GBAO Viloyati Muxtori Russ.: Gorno-Badakhšanskaya avtonomnaya
Kūhistoni oblastʿ; Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous
Badaxšon Province created in 1925.
GKČP Russ.: Gosudarstvenniy komitet po črezvyčaynomu
položeniyu, “State Committee on the State of
Emergency”; the August 1991 Coup against
Gorbachev.
GNR Government of National Reconciliation
GRU Russ.: Glavnoe razvedyvatelʿnoe upravlenie,
“Main Intelligence Directorate,” the military
intelligence service of the Soviet Armed Forces.
IRPT Hizbi nahzati Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan
Islomii
Toǧikiston

ix
x Abbreviations and Glossary

Table A.1
Abbreviation/
Term Tajik Explanation/Translation
Ispolkom kumitai iǧroiya Russ.: Ispolnitelniy komitet, “Executive Committee”
on the various tiers of the administration
(province, city, district).
KGB/NSC KAM (Kumitai Russ.: Gosudarstvennye komitety nacionalʿnoy
amniyati millī) bezopasnosti, State Committee for National
Security, successor of the KGB.
Komsomol Russ.: Kommunističeskii Soyuz Molodyoži,
the youth division of the Communist Party
established in 1918.
MRD Motor Rifle Division; Russ.: Motostrelkovaya
diviziya, in Tajikistan the 201st MRD.
MRR Motor Rifle Regiment; Russ.: Motostrelkovyj polk.
Maxdum Honorific title for Sufi authorities (Arabic:
maḫdūm).
Muhoǧir Tajik for “person living in exile,” mostly people
from the mountainous areas in Tajikistan who
were forcibly resettled since the 1920s.
Murid Tajik for “student, follower,” a term predominately
used for those who follow Sufi authorities (the
muršid); usually the status of a murid implies the
rendition of services for the muršid.
Muršid Tajik for “teacher, master,” usually a Sufi authority
who instructs a group (or individual) murid.
MVD (see also Russ.: Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del, Ministry of
VKD) Internal Affairs.
Nohiyya Tajik term for district, the lowest administrative
tier in Soviet and post-Soviet Tajikistan (Russ.:
rayon).
Oblast See viloyat.
OMON Russ.: Otryad Mobilniy Osobovo Naznačeniya,
“Special Purpose Mobile Unit” of the MVD.
Pir Tajik for “old,” honorific title for a representative
of a Sufi order (tariqa).
Presidium Presidiumi Šūroi Permanent body of the Supreme Soviet, elected
of the Olī or riyosati by the Supreme Soviet and acting on its behalf
Supreme Šūroi Olī while not in session.
Soviet
qoziyot (Tajik for the office of a judge, from the Arabic
qāḍī, “judge”) Since 1988 the republican
quasi-state institution for regulating “Islam” in
Tajikistan hived out of the SADUM. Chaired by
a qozikalon (“Supreme Judge”).
Rayon See nohiyya.
RSFSR Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
 Abbreviations and Glossary xi

Table A.1
Abbreviation/
Term Tajik Explanation/Translation
SADUM Russ.: Dukhovnoe upravlenie musulʿman Sredney
Azii i Kazakhstana. The Spiritual Administration
of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan
was the central Soviet institution to regulate
Islam in Central Asia.
Supreme Šūroi olī Between 1938 and 1995 the highest decision-
Soviet making body in the TaSSR and Republic of
Tajikistan.
Tariqa Tajik for “path” usually used for Sufi brotherhood
such as the Naqšbandiyya or Qaderiyya.
TaSSR Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic.
UTO INOT Russ.: Obʿedinyonnaya tadžikskaya oppoziciya
(OTO), Taj.: Ittihodiyai nerūhoi oppozitsioni
Toǧik. The “United Tajik Opposition” was
established in 1994 by the IRPT, DPT, the
Moscow-based Coordination Centre for
Opposition Forces and the refugee organization
Umed. Later La’li Badaxšon (1997) joined the
UTO.
Viloyat Tajik term for province (Russ.: oblast). A viloyat
consists of various districts (Taj.: nohiyya, Russ.:
rayon).
VKD (see ī Ministry of Internal Affairs
MVD)
 Introduction

On 23 May 2003, the population of a small hamlet in the Nurobod district in

the Qarotegin Valley gathered at the northern edge of their village in a small
grove to remember the day “the War came” to their community ten years ago.
In a solemn ceremony the community commemorated their relatives who
were killed that day and buried in the grove. No information board pointed
out to the importance of the location for the local population and no govern-
ment official from the district administration conjured stability (subot), peace
(tinǧ) and national unity (vahdati millī) in post-conflict Tajikistan. After the
ceremony, the men went to the small teahouse while the women met in one
of the larger farmhouses. Over tea and plov the men recalled for their foreign
guests the tragic events of 23 May 1993, when a group of militiamen from
the Popular Front advanced upon their hamlet, dislodged the opposition and
occupied the village after heavy fighting that killed several civilians and
combatants. The narratives of the men in the teahouse had two interconnected
layers: First, they remembered what happened in (and to) their community
since the late 1980s, during the tumultuous time of independence 1991, the
outbreak of the civil war in May 1992 and eventually the fateful day in May
1993 from a local perspective focused on everyday life of their families,
friends and neighbors. The second layer tried to rationalize or make sense of
the cruel fate that had befallen the village by integrating the local events into
the larger master narrative of the civil war. This second layer operated with
assumptions why the conflict broke out hinting to issues such as regional-
ism, ideology and elite conflicts. Over the years, I listened to similar narra-
tives in Dushanbe, Xuǧand, Qūrġonteppa, Šahrtuz, Kūlob, Xoruġ and other
parts of Tajikistan. These memories of local conflict dynamics often deviate
from the master narratives rationalizing the civil war in academic papers and
political discourses. The many puzzle pieces I collected draw a complex and

1
2 Introduction

intricate picture of the conflict that raised more questions than it answered.1
The sequence of events is often contested, biographical data on central
actors is notoriously inaccurate and important details are omitted. In order
to organize the puzzle pieces and reconstruct the historical context of Tajiki-
stan’s civil war, I consulted media reports and a hitherto neglected genre:
25 autobiographical accounts by key actors of the turbulent time between
Perestroika, independence and the outbreak of violence in May 1992. These
texts are the central source for the following analysis of the origins of the civil
war in Tajikistan.

Objectives and Limits

In May 1992 political and social tensions in the former Soviet Republic of
Tajikistan escalated to a devastating civil war, which killed approximately
40,000–100,000 people and displaced more than one million.2 The enormous
challenge of the Soviet Union’s disintegration compounded by inner-elite
conflicts, ideological disputes and state failure triggered a downward spiral
to one of the worst violent conflicts in the post-Soviet space. The origins and
parameters of the Tajik Civil War have been analyzed in various shorter pub-
lications since the early 1990s, but arguably the General Peace Accord 1997
and the subsequent peace building in Tajikistan have attracted more scholarly
attention than the origins of the conflict.3 A detailed monograph on the origins
of the civil war has not been published yet and this manuscript has no other
ambition than to discuss these origins in greater historical detail. My account
focuses on the time period between the Dushanbe riots in February 1990 and
November/December 1992, when the 16th Session of the Supreme Soviet and
the successive “capture” of Dushanbe on 10 December 1992 by the Popular
Front (Taj.: Fronti xalqī or Russ.: Narodniy Front Tadžikistana) transformed
the nature of the conflict.
As with any historical events, the origins of the Tajik Civil War go back
in history to pre-Soviet Central Asia, to the enforcement of Soviet rule in the
1920s and to seven decades of Soviet transformation. Although I consider the
longue durée perspectives and structural causes as important for the analysis
of Tajikistan’s civil war, my focus lies on the events between 1990 and 1992,
the key actors and the many contingencies that shaped the tumultuous time
between Perestroika, Glasnost and independence. While the February riots—
in Tajikistan known as the “Bloody Month of Bahman” (Bahmanmohi xunin)4
or plainly as the “February Events” (voqeahoi fevralī)—mark the outbreak
of politically motivated violence in the unfolding disintegration of the Soviet
system, the 16th Session of the Supreme Soviet in November 1992 eventually
established a new dominant elite and political economy in Tajikistan, thus
 Introduction 3

deciding the civil war by this time.5 However, after the militias from Kūlob
(a city and region in south-eastern Tajikistan) captured Dushanbe, the conflict
was far from over. Instead, the fighting shifted from the densely populated
southern lowlands to the “remote” mountainous east, the Qarotegin Valley
and its many tributary valleys. The fighting in the east was no less cruel and
terrorizing for the local population, but the domestic and international per-
ception gradually changed: The opposition transformed into an “insurgence”
sustained by (foreign) Islamist groups in a “traditionally” restive region (refer-
ring to earlier Soviet discourses on the Qarotegin Valley). Although peace
talks between the government of Rahmonov and the United Tajik Opposition
commenced in 1994, it took the two parties until 1997 and significant external
pressure by Iran and Russia to agree on the General Peace Accord.
This account does not look for a specific variable all other variables are
subordinated to—keeping in mind Stéphane Dudoignon’s observation that
in the case of the Tajik Civil War one particular variable often conceals
other variables.6 I explain the causes of Tajikistan’s civil war with a his-
torical narrative addressing the many contested events, their sequences and
how individuals and groups shaped the dynamics of events or responded
to them. This historical narrative recognizes long-term structural causes of
the conflict originating in the Soviet transformation of Central Asia since
the 1920s as well as short-term causes triggered by Perestroika or Glasnost
and the rapid dismantling of the Soviet Union. This perspective on the
civil war partly grew out of the impression that previous research did not
consider the role of individual actors sufficiently. Therefore my analysis is
actor oriented and focusses on key individuals who were confronted with
sudden changes in the course events, their agency in the unfolding conflict
and their adaptation to the changing context of independence, such as Būrī
Karim (a reformer and chairman of the State Planning Agency Gosplan),
Safaralī Kenǧaev (chairman of the Supreme Soviet), Rahmon Nabiev
(president of Tajikistan), Abdullo Nurī (founder of the Islamic Revival
Party of Tajikistan, IRPT), “Bobo” (“Grandfather”), Sangak Safarov (an ex-
convict and field commander from Kūlob), Asliddin Sohibnazar (a reformer
and co-founder of the Democratic Party of Tajikistan, DPT), Hoǧī Akbar
Tūraǧonzoda (Tajikistan’s qozikalon7) or Šodmon Yusuf (chairman of the
DPT). The attention to individual actors also hints at the many contingen-
cies—personal interests, rivalries and animosities—that have shaped the
cause of events. Furthermore, several key actors have composed their mem-
oirs, and these autobiographical texts form the central source corpus of this
manuscript. Paired with complementary sources such as the media coverage
and interviews, the autobiographical sources provide insights of how Tajik
politicians, field commanders and intellectuals perceived and rationalized
the outbreak of the civil war within the complex context of post-Soviet
4 Introduction

decolonization, Islamic revival and nationalist renaissance. By integrating

the origins of Tajikistan’s conflict into the historical context of the late
Soviet era, the interpretation and analysis of the qualitative empirical data
reflects on the wider discussion of “new” and “old” wars by Mary Kaldor,
Stathis Kalyvas, John Mueller and others.8

Designating the Civil War in Tajikistan

The civil war in Tajikistan is generally designated in Tajik as internal war

(ǧangi doxilī), civil war (ǧangi šahravandī or graždanī), fratricidal war
(ǧangi barodarkuš), a regional war (ǧangi mintaqavī) or a suicidal war (ǧangi
xudkušī). Occasionally, the conflict is labeled the “Second Civil War,” while
the first one was the enforcement of Soviet rule in Central Asia against the
resistance by local groups between 1920 and 1931.9
In his first New Year’s address on 31 December 1992, Emomalī Rahmonov—
then since a few weeks Chairman of the Supreme Soviet—called the civil war
a “fratricidal and destructive war.”10 While these labels are largely uncontested,
more controversial and judgmental designations circulate as well: Prominently,
Rahmonov referred in his The Tajiks in the Mirror of History to the civil war
as a “senseless war (ǧangi bemaʿnī).”11 Rahmonov was not the first to label
the conflict as senseless, notably Safaralī Kenǧaev characterized the civil war
as senseless in his memoirs a few years earlier.12 The notion of a “senseless
war” has been decidedly challenged by Būrī Karim who insisted that the civil
war was “destructive and not fought without an objective but was related to the
soul, blood, homeland and honor (ǧon, xun, Vatan, nomus)”13 and insisted that
the conflict broke out because of “ideological, kinship (qavmī) and national
conflicts.”14 The notion of senselessness implies a cruel contingency and
chance. It is particularly difficult to understand for the surviving members of
a family that their father, brother, sister, mother, son or daughter was killed
“by chance” and without any consoling reason. Individuals and societies try to
make sense out of horrifying events or they tend to suppress the memory and
commemoration.15 A similar strategy of making sense out of horrifying events,
however without recognizing one’s own collective or individual responsibility,
is the description of the civil war as imposed by others. For instance, Abdullo
Nurī, the late chairman of the IRPT, stated in an interview with Radioi Ozodī
(the Tajik service of Radio Free Europe) that the “war was imposed on us
(boloi mo tahmil šuda bud).”16 Hoǧī Akbar Tūraǧonzoda likewise asserted
that the “war was planned outside of Tajikistan and imposed (tahmil) on the
nation.”17 As one of the few, Ibrohim Usmonov, a former advisor to Rahmonov
and member of the National Reconciliation Commission, explicated that the
civil war was not imposed from outside but triggered by domestic forces.18
 Introduction 5

The question of how to label the civil war in Tajikistan is far more than
a philological exercise but indicates how different groups or individuals
remember, commemorate and understand the civil war—a highly conten-
tious issue in post-conflict Tajikistan. The contentiousness derives from the
fact that there is no official commemoration of the conflict, instead the re-
establishment of “order” and “peace” is remembered. No central memorial
or commemoration day remembers the victims or the conflict as such. While
there is no official commemoration at the national level, local communities,
which have suffered from extreme violence between 1992 and 1997, do
commemorate the conflict informally as narrated in the introduction: Former
kolkhoz and sovkhoz (collective farms) communities in Qūrġonteppa or the
Qarotegin Valley remember the day the “war came” to their community.
In most reports, the immediate fighting took place within a relatively short
time, from a few hours to a few days but transformed in the aftermath into a
protracted conflict with random eruptions of violence and a vicious cycle of
revenge and counter revenge.

Tajikistan in the 20th century:

A history of violence

The experience of violence was no novelty for the Tajik society in 1992.
Throughout the 20th century, Tajikistan’s population experienced periods
of intense physical and permanent structural violence. In the 1920s local
armed groups—the bosmačī—resisted in the eastern and southern parts of the
country the establishment of Soviet rule. Although the Red Army repressed
the uprising in central parts of the Tajik Socialist Soviet Republic (TaSSR),
the insurgence continued in the remote mountain valleys until 1931.19
The Stalinist collectivization from 1928 onward compounded the plight of
the local population and triggered an exodus of approximately half a mil-
lion people from southern Tajikistan to Afghanistan. In less than a decade
after the revolution, eastern Bukhara lost according to Soviet statistics 42.5%
of its population—in some districts such as Kūlob, Qūrġonteppa, Hisor or
Qubodiyon more than 60% of the population perished or migrated.20 With the
consolidation of Soviet rule in the TaSSR, the traditional elites, above all reli-
gious authorities (ulamo21) and landowners (bey or beg), were systematically
repressed, expropriated and often arrested. From 1926 on, the Soviet adminis-
tration initiated the large-scale agricultural transformation of the Vaxš valley
(Vaxšstroy) for cotton cultivation. A dense irrigation system fundamentally
changed the ecosystem of the sparsely populated southern lowlands and since
cotton cultivation needs a high input of manual labor, the Soviet authorities
resettled large parts of the population from the mountainous parts of the
6 Introduction

country, that is, the Qarotegin Valley, Zarafšon, Mastčoh and Badaxšon.22
The resettlement was insufficiently prepared and many people perished due
to the harsh climate, diseases and poor accommodation.23
In 1937/1938 Stalin’s Great Terror reached also the empire’s periph-
ery and killed the first generation of Bolshevik activists in the TaSSR:
The 1st Secretary of the CPT, Širinšoh Šohtemur (1899–1937), the former
chairman of the revolutionary committee (RevKom), Nusratullo Maxsum
(1881–1937), Ūrunboy Ašūrov (1903–1938) and Abdullo Rahimboev
(1896–1938) were arrested, tortured, exhibited on show trials and executed.
The Great Terror was followed by Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet
Union. In the Great Patriotic War approximately 300,000 Tajiks were mobi-
lized to serve in the Soviet Armed Forces and some 50,000 Tajik military
personnel and 70,000 civilians perished in the war, corresponding with
7.8% of the entire population.24 Until today “Victory Day” is commemo-
rated in Tajikistan with military parades and an address by the president or
minister of defense to the veterans at the central memorial in Dushanbe’s
spacious Victory Park.
In the 1950s and especially after Stalin’s demise in 1953, the TaSSR’s urban
population experienced decades of reduced physical violence. Dushanbe
emerged as a Soviet urban space with a high level of ethnic diversity. For
rural communities, especially those of the mountainous Qarotegin Valley,
the Badaxšon, Mastčoh and Zarafšon valleys, the 1950s however meant
again large-scale resettlement campaigns to the cotton-cultivated areas in
southern and northern Tajikistan. The resettlement did not break up com-
munities since the collective farms were often organized according to ethnic
or regional origins. Larger resettled communities, such as the Ġarmī popula-
tion, had their own social “gravity” and maintained only limited interaction
(for instance intermarriage) with other groups. Internally resettled communi-
ties in the TaSSR adopted the term muhoǧir (Tajik for emigrant, refugee or
evacuee—today used for labor migrants in Russia) and exile strengthened
the imagined or real bonds with what was considered and imagined home.
Muhoǧir communities cultivated their specific regional identity sometimes
with a nostalgic romanticization of the alleged pristine mountainous environ-
ment they had been deported from. The resettlement dramatically changed
the regional and ethnic distribution of the population. While in the 1920s
two-thirds of the population lived in mountainous areas, the ratio rapidly
changed and in 1989 less than a quarter of the population lived in the moun-
tainous regions.25 In 1926, the region around Qūrġonteppa had according to
the Soviet census only 33,000 inhabitants; in the early 1950s the population
had increased to 250,000, in 1970 to 650,000 and in 1989 to more than one
million people.26 Migration also changed the political and economic weight
of certain regions: Kūlob continuously lost political (representation in the
 Introduction 7

republican administration) and economic (resource allocation) influence to

Qūrġonteppa.
In the late 1960s the economic development lost its pace, investment in the
agricultural sector faltered, while the ambitious industrial projects, such as
the USSR’s second largest Aluminum smelter in Tursunzoda, were prestige
projects with operational costs exceeding profits. Simultaneously economic
growth did not keep pace with the population growth in particular among
Tajikistan’s titular ethnic population, which registered the highest population
growth rates and the lowest rural out-migration in the entire Soviet Union.27
Especially in the agricultural areas in southern Tajikistan competition over
the limited resources intensified and resulted in local conflicts and tensions.
As in other parts of the USSR, youth violence increased in suburban and
urban Tajikistan, deeply worrying the Brezhnevite “middle” class (the “Soviet
baby boomers”28), overwhelmingly cadres in the public administration. Many
sources, however, portray the 1960s and 70s as a time of remarkable stability,
peace and progress. For many Tajik men born between the late 1950s and the
mid-1960s these relatively peaceful years were disrupted by the experience of
extreme violence during the Soviet military campaign in Afghanistan. In the
nine years of occupation, many Tajiks served as conscripts in the Soviet mili-
tary intelligence service (GRU) or the civilian administration in Kabul. Many
veterans of the Afghan war, the Afgancy or in the official Soviet terminology
“Internationalist Soldiers” (voiny internacionalisty), returned with disturbing
memories from Afghanistan and had difficulties reintegrating into the Soviet
society. Tajik Afgancy played a significant role in the nationalist movements
of the late 1980s and many became involved in the fighting during the civil
war.29

The Origins of the Civil War: The State

of Research reconsidered

A set of interpretations on the origins of Tajikistan’s Civil War has emerged

framing the conflict within the complex context of the USSR’s disintegra-
tion, which is considered the main catalyst for the outbreak of violence in
Tajikistan. Most accounts identify several determinants for the origins of
the civil war, namely (1) regionalism and Soviet administrative practice,
(2) ideological disputes and the role of Islam in the Tajik society, (3) the
catastrophic economic downturn and the intensifying competition over local
resources and finally (4) the fragmentation of elites. Most prominently, the
civil war is described as a conflict between regional solidarity groups or net-
works that possess distinct perceptions of regional identities, usually referred
to as “regionalism” (Taj.: mahalgaroī or mahalčigī; Rus.: mestničestvo).30
8 Introduction

Not only scholarly works refer to regionalism as one of the central causes
of the civil war, also the primary sources and Tajik informants highlight the
importance of regionalism. There are variations how regionalism is narrated:
as primordial “clans” which “survived” the Soviet transformation of the Tajik
society; or as regional-based solidarity networks which emerged within the
Soviet administrative system and which were manipulated through political
and social exclusion or interference by the center (Moscow).31 In this book
I argue that regional solidarity networks were important, both for the outbreak
of the conflict and the mobilization. However, in reference to John Mueller,
I consider mahalgaroī in Tajikistan’s civil war as an “ordering device than
as an impelling force”32 and not causative for the conflict. To some extent,
the regionalism motive in the Tajik conflict resembles in the form (tropes
and narratives) and function (rationalization) the motive of ethnicity in other
civil wars.33 Although ethnicity was addressed in the political confrontations
(with an post-colonial twist toward the Russian and an hostile “Othering” of
the Uzbek minorities), conflicting ethnic identities were not causative for the
outbreak of violence and the key actors in Tajikistan were very well aware
that the conflict was first of all an inner Tajik one. Furthermore, regionalist
sentiment facilitated the mobilization and dynamics of the conflict, but it
should not be understood as a Tajik exotic peculiarity. The extended family
ties, provenience from a certain neighborhood or village (mahalla, qišloq),
district (nohiyya) or region (viloyat), marriage patterns, membership in a pro-
fessional association or a specific occupation generate symbolic capital and
subsequently mutual trust in other societies as well.34
In late Soviet Tajikistan, within the context of Glasnost and the nation-
alist awakening, the urban civil society and emerging independent media
discussed next to political reforms the very idea of Tajikistan—its authentic
history, religion, language and culture. Both, political reforms and the imagi-
nation of Tajikistan were contentious issues and controversially discussed in
the media as well as during the political rallies on the streets and squares of
Dushanbe.35 Perhaps, Dov Lynch’s statement that the civil war in Tajikistan
was not “a conflict over the ‘idea’ of Tajikistan”36 should be therefore modi-
fied: Although Tajikistan’s intelligentsia and political nomenklatura shared
similar assumptions on the ethnogenesis of the Tajiks and the emergence of
Tajik statehood, they were far from united on the question where to locate
national history, culture and language in a larger regional context or on their
societal and political vision of a future Tajikistan. The urban intelligentsia
was a product of the Soviet social mobilization and local processes which
have shaped the political economy of the TaSSR since the 1940s. During
Perestroika and Glasnost, intellectuals and political activists started to recon-
sider their dependencies and engaged in an anti-colonial analysis of the situa-
tion which contributed to the increasing polarization of the Tajik society along
 Introduction 9

several contentious subjects, such as language, regional ownership or history.

Especially reformers and the intelligentsia had distanced themselves from
the Communist Party’s old guard and started to establish civil associations
and political clubs discussing the status of the Tajik language, the question
of Tajikistan’s Iranian and Islamic heritage, center-periphery relations and
the regional ownership. The demand for economic reforms, however vague
and inconsistent, generated additional tensions between the CPT nomenkla-
tura, the nationalist intelligentsia, urban reformers, rural functionaries in the
agro-industrial complex and representatives of the socially and economically
marginalized regions.
The 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of radically alternative concepts
of political and social order among young Muslim activists, some of them
organized in the harakat (movement), the proto Islamic Revival Party of
Tajikistan (IRPT). These activists demanded the reintegration of Islam into
Tajikistan’s public sphere and national narrative and challenged the domi-
nant patterns of resource allocation. The idea of an Islamic political system
became a highly contentious issue after the Iranian Revolution 1979 and the
Soviet nomenklatura responded with an increasingly belligerent defamation
campaign against Islam and Islamic activism. The alleged secular-religious
divide eventually shaped the master narrative of Tajikistan’s conflict in the
early 1990s and the secular government started to conceptualize Islam as
external to the authentic Tajik identity.
Next to regionalism and ideology, the economic and social development
of the TaSSR is widely regarded as an important factor contributing to the
increasing tensions in the Tajik society. The TaSSR was the least developed
and most externally dependent of the 15 Soviet republics and received sig-
nificant subsidies from Moscow, according to some calculations up to 46% of
the annual budget.37 Investment in the labor-intensive agricultural sector con-
tracted since the 1970s and did not compensate for the increasing degrada-
tion of agricultural areas and the attrition of the irrigation system. Ambitious
large-scale industrial projects were economically unsustainable and increased
the uneven development between the marginalized eastern parts and central/
southern parts of the TaSSR. The overrepresentation of non-Central Asian
nationalities (Russians, Byelorussians, Ukrainians and Germans) in indus-
trial employment fueled animosities among the different ethnic groups in the
TaSSR. In the agrarian sector, high population growth and limited rural out-
migration among the Tajik and Uzbek communities intensified local competi-
tion over limited resources and arable land. The economic crisis of the Soviet
Union in the late 1980s was aggravated by the erratic economic policies of the
TaSSR’s nomenklatura and the collapse of the USSR led to a dramatic eco-
nomic downturn on the macro-economic level with a catastrophic impact on
the household level. The economic crisis had a local micro-economic impact
10 Introduction

and was understood in terms of a conflict over limited resources between

regionally defined groups and therefore contributed to the perception that
regionalism triggered the conflict.38
In May 1992, Tajikistan spiraled down to complete state failure and many
accounts hold Tajikistan’s wider nomenklatura responsible for the dynamics
of the conflict. In complicity with organized crime, the nomenklatura disman-
tled state institutions and facilitated the increasing privatization of violence
by non-state actors. These violent non-state actors transformed the conflict to
an instrumentalist struggle of local elite groups and opportunistic individuals
in a weak institutional environment. Markowitz emphasizes the fragmenta-
tion and ultimately defection of the security forces on the local and regional
tiers.39 Idil Tunçer-Kılavuz assumes a top-down mobilization in May 1992 in
which President Rahmon Nabiev mobilized his networks in the region and
therefore intentionally “chose the war option in order to maintain the support
of the hardliners.”40 Although the assumption of a top-down mobilization
should not be categorically dismissed, the conjecture of an intentional deci-
sion by Nabiev to “choose” the war option dramatically overestimates his
situative capacity and influence in May 1992 and underestimates the many
contingencies and the local deviances as well as the agency of local actors.
We have relatively little understanding of local processes and cleavages—the
“disjunction between center and periphery”41—in the Tajik conflict. The jour-
nalistic and academic accounts provide rather unsystematic insights into the
local dynamics and underline the complex nature of the conflict. In civil con-
flicts, local cleavages are often articulated in terms of the master narrative,
but a closer analysis and a more systematic evaluation of available sources
may reveal important deviations from the established conceptualizations as
Kalyvas assumes: “Because the meaning of rebellions is often articulated
by elites in the language of national cleavages, many observers erroneously
code them as actually mobilizing popular support along those cleavages.”42
Violent non-state actors in complicity with the former nomenklatura were
arguably the main drivers of violence in the early stage of the conflict, but as
I try to show here, they were not merely ‘activated’ but had agency and even
enunciated their own narratives of legitimacy. The empirical qualitative data
presented and analyzed here might provide insights into how local actors
(the micro level) refer to “master narratives” or adopt the particular param-
eters of the conflict.
In most memoirs and official narratives of the Tajik Civil War, the Tajiks
are presented as a peaceful, sedentary, cultured and diligent people and
the civil war as “imposed” by foreign forces. Notably both, the govern-
ment of Emomalī Rahmonov and the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) under
the leadership of Abdullo Nurī, agreed on the hidden foreign hand, which
imposed the civil war on the Tajik people. Undoubtedly, Uzbekistan and
 Introduction 11

Russia provided military and financial assistance to the Popular Front and
individual field commanders. Russian and Uzbek authorities carefully pre-
pared the convention of the 16th Session of the Supreme Soviet in Xuǧand
and orchestrated Rahmonov’s election to its chairman. In 1993 the Uzbek
Air Force supported the Rahmonov government with airstrikes against the
opposition positions in the Qarotegin Valley. Vice versa, the opposition
received weapons and training from Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Ḥezb-e Islāmī
or the Northern Alliance under Ahmad Shah Massoud and financial support
from Iran. The influence of external actors in the conflict is undisputable
and Russia, Iran and Uzbekistan had an impact on the course of the conflict
from 1993 on.43 However, the immediate outbreak of the civil war in May
1992 was neither a “plot” nor a “conspiracy” by foreign powers designed to
deprive the Tajiks of their statehood and independence, but triggered by local
actors. In 1992, there were no external sources of legitimation or funding for
the conflicting groups. Instead, Uzbekistan and Russia got gradually involved
in Tajikistan’s civil war in the autumn months of 1992, but their early engage-
ment was improvised. Russian special forces and officers of the 201st Motor
Rifle Division deployed in Tajikistan took matters into their own hands and
did not act on directives by Moscow. Therefore, the involvement of foreign
powers will be less addressed here.
Instead, the following account offers a detailed historical narrative with a
particular focus on individual actors, their motivation, legitimation strategies
and response to the rapid transformation. While reading through the sources
and the secondary literature, three subjects recur repeatedly which have not
been sufficiently addressed in the relevant literature: A post-colonial perspec-
tive on the Glasnost discussions among the Tajik intelligentsia, concepts of
masculinity in the legitimation of violent non-state actors in the civil war and
eventually the contingencies in the outbreak of the civil war.
Contingency is a contested category in history and Reinhart Koselleck calls
contingency “ahistorical,” indicating inconsistencies both in its determining
factors as well as in the incommensurability of its consequences. Koselleck
concedes that the notion of contingency eventually contains a specific histori-
cal aspect and postulates that in modern historiography, contingency indicates
the absence of moral or rational public policy. I do not understand the concept
of contingency as contrary to theoretical models reflecting on mobilization
and macro-political results behind the course of events. Instead, I consider
contingency as a useful category to bridge the micro and macro levels of
contemplation and to emphasize the importance of individual actors and
catalysts.44 The discussion about the controversial designation of the Tajik
Civil War as “senseless” highlights the problem of contingency and struc-
tural (i.e., rational) causes of the conflict. Various authors are well aware of
the contingencies but make circuitous efforts to refute chance in the events.
12 Introduction

Būrī Karim, for instance, maintains in an ambivalent narrative that the events
were not contingent (tasadufī) but a manifestation of the people’s hopes and
aspirations: “The Tajik people have entered the political stage, the first time
deliberately and consciously, with the complete awareness of the anomaly, the
deception and indifference of the rulers.”45 The reference to contingency does
neither intend to view violence in the Tajik Civil War as fundamentally “irra-
tional” nor suspend the search for structural causes such as Soviet administra-
tive practice, uneven economic development, elite fragmentation or identity
politics, but should remind us of the complexity of the civil war and the often
cruel contingencies that shape violent conflicts.46
Field commanders and warlords in the Tajik Civil War were exclusively
male. Women participated in the emerging civil associations and were
involved in the political confrontation, such as the poet Gulruxsor Safieva,
the lawyer Oynihol Bobonazarova or the Communist Party deputy Adolat
Rahmonova, but not a single source reports about the active involvement of
women as combatants in the civil war (but sadly numerous accounts report
about violence against women).47 Many male politicians and field com-
manders refer in their legitimation narratives explicitly to “concepts of mas-
culinity,”48 in particular to the idea of ǧavonmardī (Tajik for “manliness”).
Chapter 7 deals in greater detail with the issue of violence and masculinity in
the Tajik Civil War.
Last but not least, my account on the origins of the civil war in Tajikistan
adopts a post-colonial perspective to the discussion among the Tajik intel-
ligentsia locating a brief post-colonial moment during the final years of
the Soviet Union. A younger generation of Tajik intellectuals and political
activists suddenly scrutinized the intellectual dependencies on the center
(Moscow) and reformulated the Soviet paradigms on history, culture, lan-
guage and religion. The post-colonial moment never fully blossomed in
Tajikistan and the outbreak of violence in May 1992 suspended this period.49

The Sources: Autobiographies

In general, archival sources covering the events in Tajikistan between 1990

and 1993 are not accessible yet and considering the destruction of the Tajik
KGB/Communist Party archive in May 1992, the amount of archival sources
for the administrative and political history of Tajikistan might be limited
anyway. Instead, the main source corpus for this study are 25 autobiographi-
cal texts published by key actors since 1992. These accounts have been ran-
domly used for mining information on the events, but often without a proper
contextualization addressing validity, narrative strategies or the authors’
agenda.50 The texts consulted here have been published predominately in
 Introduction 13

Tajik, sometimes with Russian text fragments, due to the political situation
often outside Tajikistan with a low print run. Only a few titles are available
in Tajikistan but scattered in libraries throughout Central Asia, Europe and
North America. Moreover the Tajik government and its academic institutions
have started to sort out “disagreeable” literature in order to manipulate the
commemoration of the recent history and the discourse on the civil war.51
The accounts under consideration here significantly differ from the
established literary genre of autobiography and life writing popular in the
wider Persianate context, represented in Tajikistan for instance by Sadriddin
Aynī’s Yoddoštho (Memoirs) or Ǧalol Ikromī’s Onči az sar guzašt (Those
things which have happened).52 Although Būrī Karim, Safaralī Kenǧaev and
Asliddin Sohibnazar have literary ambitions, their texts provide predomi-
nately a digest of the events, highly polemic and hastily composed with little
editing competing for the interpretative predominance of the events covered.
Although the authors, who were at the same time key actors in the unfolding
events, claim that their analyses reflect the “objective truth,” they reproduce
an individual, biased and partial interpretation of the events legitimizing their
personal decisions and actions.
Most of the memoirs expect from the reader extensive background knowl-
edge on the political, social and historical developments in the TaSSR.
The information provided—numbers, dates, places and personal names—are
notoriously inaccurate and often exaggerated indicating the partisan interpre-
tation. Although the narratives usually follow a chronological sequence, there
are sudden fissures and unrelated digressions and flashbacks.
While the historical value of autobiographical texts is undisputed, their
interpretation (fiction/nonfiction), verification, contextualization in collective
reproducible horizon of experience (the “social imaginaries”) or representa-
tion of the “Self” (or “Selfhood”) is discussed extensively in the relevant
literature.53 In reference to Charles Taylor’s concept of social imaginaries,
autobiographies reflect the forms of social constraint individuals are exposed
to and show in their narratives acquired dispositions (beyond questions of
credibility or validity). Self-construction is guided by larger sociological
structures determining the individuals’ sense of the possibilities of their
intended actions.54 In these terms, autobiographical writing is not primarily
the retrospective reconstruction of the author’s life or the events covered, but
the self-perception, self-reflection and construction of an identity and social
role model, which also reflects flexible and shifting attitudes of personal
identities, influenced by the rules and dynamics of the social fields.55 Greyerz
points out that personal/autobiographical narratives reproduce and create dis-
courses which are embedded in a collective context and that the reconstruc-
tion in self-narratives allows us to analyze the “specific cultural, linguistic,
material and, last but not least, social embeddedness. Ultimately a majority
14 Introduction

of these texts […] probably tell us more about groups than they do about
individuals.”56 Similarly, Fulbrook and Rublack conclude that

[o]ne does not have to follow down a post-modernist route to realize the sig-
nificance of the fact that no account of the self can be produced which is not
constructed in terms of social discourses: that the very concepts people use to
describe themselves, the ways in which they choose to structure and to account
for their past lives, the values, norms, and common-sense explanations to which
they appeal in providing meaning to their narratives, are intrinsically products
of the times through which they have lived.57

Thus, the narratives refer to the social and cultural embeddedness of their
authors and help us to understand the social and political transformation of
Tajikistan since the 1980s. Importantly, the authors’ accounts represent a ret-
rospective interpretation and rationalization of the events and a legitimation
of their actions. This raises the question of accuracy of the memories and
the authenticity of the motivations and intentions depicted in the accounts.
Complementary sources (media reports or interviews) either support or dis-
prove the representation of the events in the autobiographical accounts, but
arguably more important for the analysis of the origins of Tajikistan’s civil
war is the interpretation of the particular tropes and rhetorical figures in these
narratives. Some of the autobiographical texts need to be singled out, either
for their particular relevance as source material or their aggressive polemic.

Būrī Karim’s Faryodi solho

Būrī Karim[ov], born in 1957 in the Leninsky district close to Dushanbe, was
a career functionary in Gosplan (Gosudarstvenniy Komitet po Planirovaniyu,
the republican State Planning Committee) and between 1988 and 1990 min-
ister for transport as well as deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers
(which today corresponds with the office of a vice prime minister). Karim
belonged to a relatively small group of CPT officials, which demanded more
substantial (or radical) reforms in the TaSSR since the late 1980s. During
the February 1990 Events, Karim emerged briefly as one of the popular
leaders of the opposition. However, with the subsequent suppression of the
protests and the nomenklatura’s prevalence, Karim was politically sidelined.
His voluminous Faryodi solho (The Cry of Years), published in Moscow
1997, is a biographical account organized as collage of diary entries, copies
of official documents, newspaper articles, photos and comments by Karim
covering the period between the mid-1980s and 1997.58 His intention was to
offer advice (pand) for the future generation, to remind them of the historical
greatness of the Tajik people but also their bitter (talx) moments such as the
 Introduction 15

conquest of Alexander the Great, the invasion of the Arabs, the destruction
under the Mongols and finally the Russian conquest in the 19th century.59
One of Karim’s central concerns was to refute the nomenklatura’s version of
the events and to show the truth (haqiqat), but notably he conceded that he
has difficulties to be objective in his account.60 Due to the diary character and
the frequent incorporation of newspaper/magazine articles, Karim’s account
is relatively reliable with dates and the sequence of events and less polemic in
its tone (compared to the other texts). Already marginalized in 1990, Karim
played a minor political role in the political developments after 1991 but
remained a mindful observant of Tajikistan’s trials and tribulations until today.

Hikmatullo Nasriddinov’s Tarkiš

Tarkiš (Explosion) depicts the events between the late 1980s and 1992 from
the perspective of Hikmatullo Nasriddinov, an ambitious politician and CPT
Deputy from Kūlob. Born 1939 in Mūʿminonbod, Nasriddinov had been
minister for agricultural water management between 1986 and 1992 and was
one of the presidential candidates in the 1991 elections. He published Tarkiš
in 1995 and many of my Tajik colleagues and informants consider his account
as fairly accurate and balanced. Although Nasriddinov maintained that he
wrote Tarkiš in order to expose the prevalent regionalism in the TaSSR/
Tajikistan, his account ventures far beyond the issue of regionalism and pro-
vides thoughtful insights to the political field and center-periphery relations
in the TaSSR.61 Nasriddinov lost his political influence with the outbreak of
the civil war but remained a politician with modest fortune in the post-conflict
Tajikistan.62

Asliddin Sohibnazar’s Subhi Sitorakuš

Arguably, Sohibnazar’s two-volume Subhi sitorakuš (The Morning the Star
Is Killed) is the most elaborated, ambitious and personal narrative on the ori-
gins of Tajikistan’s civil war. Sohibnazar, born 1939 in Kūhdara in the Rohatī
district east of Dushanbe, had been a senior planning official in the agro-
industrial complex and deputy of the Supreme Soviet. As a radical reformer,
he left the Communist Party and established with like-minded intellectuals
the Democratic Party of Tajikistan (DPT). As one of the few democratic
deputies in the Supreme Soviet and member of the Presidium of the Supreme
Soviet, Sohibnazar was one of the key political actors in Tajikistan until
December 1992. His autobiographical account covers the time period from
the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, however, with frequent retrospect excur-
sions discussing his career in the later TaSSR.63 Sohibnazar employs a range
of remarkable narrative strategies to increase the impression of his memoir’s
16 Introduction

credibility and authenticity. For instance, he introduces several authoritative

witnesses for the events, such as the omniscient Russian KGB operative
“Andrey,” who predicts in detail the developments in Tajikistan, or the Tajik
racketeer “Mūso,” who is involved in the early violence and “knows” the
masterminds behind the outbreak of the civil war.64 Although Sohibnazar’s
account is not free from polemics, his dense narrative on the political trials
and tribulations between 1989 and 1992 is a highly relevant source for the
reconstruction of the conflict’s origins.

Ibrohim Usmonov’s Soli Nabiev

Ibrohim Usmonov, born 1948 in the Ašt nohiyya in Leninobod, has been a
professor for journalism, former minister of communication (1992–1993),
chairman of Tajikistan’s Radio and TV Committee (1994), advisor to Presi-
dent Rahmon (until 2004) as well as a central figure in the peace negotiations
between 1994 and 1997. He published his first account on the developments
between 1991 and 1992 under the title Soli Nabiev (The Year of Nabiev)
already in 1995. Although Usmonov refers in Soli Nabiev to his personal
perception of the evolving political crisis in Tajikistan, his account is more of
a political analysis than memoirs in a strict sense. Albeit he does not conceal
his sympathies with the Communist Party, his judgement and evaluation is in
general balanced and consistent considering the polarization of the society
during these years. Usmonov continued to publish extensively on Tajikistan’s
recent history and was one of Rahmonov’s key advisors in the peace negotia-
tions with the UTO and member of the Peace and Reconciliation Commission
after 1997. In 2013, Usmonov established the Dialogue of Civilizations for-
mat in Dushanbe in which prominent key actors, such as Davlat Usmon, Būrī
Karim and others, have talked about their memories of the conflict.

Hoǧī Akbar Tūraǧonzoda’s Miyoni obu ateš. . .

Hoǧī Akbar Tūraǧonzoda (born 1954 in Vahdatobod) was between 1988 and
1993 the qozikalon, formally the highest religious authority in the admin-
istration of Islam in Tajikistan. In many respects, Tūraǧonzoda epitomized
the political and social transformation of Perestroika in the religious field:
As a young, versatile and charismatic descendant from a prominent religious
family, he represented a new generation of religious specialists in Central
Asia. Tūraǧonzoda ably blended his appeals for a “return” to a normative
understanding of the Hanafi Sunni tradition with nationalist imaginaries and
a Perestroika/Glasnost discourse on economic and political change. Initially,
he tried to remain independent in the unfolding political struggle, however
in the increasing polarization of the Tajik society, he finally joined the
 Introduction 17

opposition in spring 1992. As for today, Tūraǧonzoda composed only a short

account of the events between 1991 and 1992 under the title Miyoni obu ateš
(Between Water and Fire) during his exile in Tehran.65 Despite its brevity, the
account offers valuable insights into Tūraǧonzoda’s conceptual thinking and
his relationship with other important actors (such as Rahmon Nabiev and
Safaralī Kenǧaev). Since he has remained a public and controversial figure
in Tajikistan, his frequent interventions—interviews and writings—are an
important complementary source as well.
Three autobiographical accounts have to be singled out in this brief intro-
duction for their aggressive polemics, exaggerations and limited factual valid-
ity: Šodmon Yusuf’s Tajikistan: The Price of Freedom, Safaralī Kenǧaev’s
three-volume Coup d’état in Tajikistan and Narzullo Dūstov’s A Wound in
the Body of the Homeland. While Yusuf is a representative of the reformist
opposition, Kenǧaev and Dūstov operated within the Popular Front. The three
accounts share similar strategies of defamation and fraudulent misrepresenta-
tion, which deeply undermine the authenticity and validity of these sources
but provide interesting insights into the political conflicts and the polarization.

Šodmon Yusuf’s Tāǧīkestān: Bahā-ye āzādī

Šodmon Yusuf, a former research fellow in the Philosophy Department of the
Tajik Academy of Science and Communist Party organizer, was born in 1949
into a muhoǧir-family (originally from Darband in the Qarotegin Valley) in
a small village close to Šahrituz in southern Tajikistan. After post-graduate
studies in Moscow, he returned to the TaSSR in 1987 but soon disassociated
himself from the CPT. He sympathized with the Rastoxez movement and
eventually became one of the co-founders the DPT in 1990. Yusuf published
his autobiographical account Tāǧīkestān. Bahā-ye āzādī (Tajikistan: The Price
of Freedom) during his exile in Iran and apparently exile shaped his narra-
tive. His coverage of the events between 1989 and 1992 comes in form of an
embittered pamphlet against Russian/Soviet rule in the TaSSR “exposing”
numerous conspiracies (mostly set in motion by the Uzbeks), genocides and
atrocities against the Tajik people undermining some of the original concerns
of his report, namely the plight of the civilian population in the Qūrġonteppa
area during the first months of the civil war. Yusuf’s Tāǧīkestān is one of the
most partisan accounts with gross exaggerations, countless inaccuracies and
many false reports villainizing opponents and even de-humanizing them.

Safaralī Kenǧaev’s Tabadduloti Toǧikiston

Kenǧaev published several autobiographical accounts between the late
1980s and the mid-1990s. Sūzi dil (Burning Heart) covers the Perestroika
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no haze la merced tu voluntad. Si
lo consientes iuzgandome
desagradecido porque no me
contento con el bien que me
heziste en darme causa de tan
ufano pensamiento, no me
culpes, que avnque la voluntad se
satisfaze, el sentimiento se
querella. Si te plaze porque nunca
te hize seruizio, no pude sobir los
seruizios á la alteza de lo que
mereces; que quando todas estas
cosas y otras muchas pienso
hallome que dexas de hazer lo
que te suplico porque me puse en
cosa que no pude merecer. Lo
qual yo no niego; pero atreuime á
ello pensando que me harias
merced no segund quien la pedia
mas segund tú que la auies de
dar. Y tambien pense que para
ello me ayudadaran virtud y
compasion y piedad porque son
acetas á tu condicion, que quando
los que con los poderosos
negocian para alcançar su gracia,
primero ganan las voluntades de
sus familiares; y pareceme que en
nada hallé remedio. Busqué
ayudadores para contigo y
hallélos por cierto leales y firmes
y todos te suplican que me ayas
merced; el alma por lo que sufre,
la vida por lo que padece, el
coraçon por lo que pasa, el
sentido por lo que siente. Pues no
niegues galardon á tantos que
con ansia te lo piden y con razon
te lo merecen. Yo soy el más sin
ventura de los más
desauenturados. Las aguas
reuerdecen la tierra y mis
lagrimas nunca tu esperança la
qual cabe en los canpos y en las
yeruas y arboles y no puede
caber en tu coraçon.
Desesperado auria segund lo que
siento si alguna vez me hallase
solo, pero como siempre me
acompañan el pensamiento que
me das y el deseo que me
ordenas y la contemplacion que
me causas, viendo que lo vo á
hazer consuelanme acordandome
que me tienen conpañia de tu
parte, de manera que quien causa
las desesperaciones me tiene que
no desespere. Si todavia te plaze
que muera, hazmelo saber, que
gran bien harás á la vida pues no
será desdichada del todo. Lo
primero della se pasó en
inocencia y lo del conocimiento en
dolor; a lo menos el fin será en
descanso porque tú lo das, el
qual, si ver no me quieres, será
forçado que veas.

EL AUCTOR
Con mucha pena recibio Laureola
la carta de Leriano y por
despedirse dél onestamente
respondiole desta manera, con
determinacion de iamas recebir
enbaxada suya.

CARTA DE LAUREOLA Á
LERIANO
El pesar que tengo de tus males
te seria satisfacion dellos mismos
si creyeses quanto es grande, y él
solo tomarias por galardon sin
que otro pidieses, avnque fuese
poca paga segund lo que tienes
merecido, la qual yo te daria
como deuo si la quisieses de mi
hazienda y no de mi onrra. No
respondere á todas las cosas de
tu carta porque en saber que te
escriuo me huye la sangre del
coraçon y la razon del iuycio.
Ninguna causa de las que dizes
me haze consentir tu mal sino
sola mi bondad, porque cierto no
estó dudosa del, porque el
estrecho á que llegaste fue testigo
de lo que sofriste. Dizes que
nunca me hiziste seruicio. Lo que
por mi has hecho me obliga á
nunca oluidallo y sienpre desear
satisfacerlo, no segund tu deseo
mas segund mi onestad. La virtud
y piedad y conpasion que
pensaste que te ayudarian para
comigo, aunque son aceptas á mi
condicion, para en tu caso son
enemigas de mi fama y por esto
las hallaste contrarias. Quando
estaua presa saluaste mi vida y
agora que estó libre quieres
condenalla. Pues tanto me
quieres, antes devrias querer tu
pena con mi onrra que tu remedio
con mi culpa; no creas que tan
sanamente biuen las gentes, que
sabido que te hablé, iuzgasen
nuestras linpias intenciones,
porque tenemos tienpo tan malo
que antes se afea la bondad que
se alaba la virtud; assi que es
escusada tu demanda porque
ninguna esperança hallarás en
ella aunque la muerte que dizes
te viese recebir, auiendo por
mejor la crueldad onesta que la
piedad culpada. Dirás oyendo tal
desesperança que só mouible
porque te comence á hazer
merced en escreuirte y agora
determino de no remediarte. Bien
sabes tú quan sanamente lo hize
y puesto que en ello uviera otra
cosa, tan conuenible es la
mudança en las cosas dañosas
como la firmeza en las onestas.
Mucho te ruego que te esfuerces
como fuerte y te remedies como
discreto. No pongas en peligro tu
vida y en disputa mi onrra, pues
tanto la deseas, que se dirá
muriendo tú que galardono los
seruicios quitando las vidas, lo
que si al rey venço de dias se dirá
al reues. Ternas en el reyno toda
la parte que quisieres, crecere tu
onrra, doblaré tu renta, sobiré tu
estado, ninguna cosa ordenarás
que reuocada te sea, assi que
biuiendo causarás que me
iuzguen agradecida y muriendo
que me tengan por mal
acondicionada. Avnque por otra
cosa no te esforçases, sino por el
cuydado que tu pena me da lo
devrias hazer. No quiero mas
dezirte porque no digas que me
pides esperança y te do conseio.
Plugiere á Dios que fuera tu
demanda iusta, por que vieras
que como te aconseió en lo vno te
satisfiziera en lo otro; y assi
acabo para sienpre de más
responderte ni oyrte.

EL AUCTOR
Cuando Laureola vuo escrito
dixome con proposito
determinado que aquella fuese la
postrimera vez que pareciese en
su presencia porque ya de mis
pláticas andaua mucha sospecha
y porque en mis ydas auia mas
peligro para ella que esperança
para mi despacho. Pues vista su
determinada voluntad,
pareciendome que de mi trabaio
sacaua pena para mí y no
remedio para Leriano, despedime
della con mas lágrimas que
palabras y despues de besalle las
manos salime de palacio con vn
nudo en la garganta que pense
ahogarme, por encobrir la pasion
que sacaua, y salido de la cibdad,
como me vi solo, tan fuertemente
comence á llorar que de dar
bozes no me podía contener. Por
cierto yo tuuiera por meior quedar
muerto en Macedonia que venir
biuo á Castilla; lo que deseaua
con razon pues la mala ventura
se acaba con la muerte y se
acrecienta con la vida. Nunca por
todo el camino sospiros y
gemidos me fallecieron, y quando
llegué á Leriano dile la carta, y
como acabó de leella dixele que
ni se esforçase, ni se alegrase, ni
recibiese consuelo pues tanta
razon auia para que deuiese
morir. El qual me respondió que
más que hasta alli me tenia por
suyo porque le aconseiaua lo
propio, y con boz y color mortal
començo a condolerse. Ni
culpaua su flaqueça, ni
avergonçaua su desfallecimiento;
todo lo que podie acabar su vida
alabaua, mostrauase amigo de
los dolores, recreaua con los
tormentos, amaua las tristezas;
aquellos llamaua sus bienes por
ser mensaieros de Laureola y
porque fuesen tratados segund de
cuya parte venian, aposentólos en
el coraçon, festeiólos con el
sentimiento, convidólos con la
memoria, rogauales que
acabasen presto lo que venian a
hazer porque Laureola fuese
seruida. Y desconfiando ya de
ningun bien ni esperança,
aquexado de mortales males, no
podiendo sustenerse ni sofrirse
vuo de venir á la cama, donde ni
quiso comer ni beuer ni ayudarse
de cosa de las que sustentan la
vida, llamandose sienpre
bienauenturado porque era
venido á sazon de hazer seruicio
á Laureola quitandola de enoios.
Pues como por la corte y todo el
reyno se publicase que Leriano se
dexaua morir, ybanle a ueer todos
sus amigos y parientes y para
desuialle su proposito dezianle
todas las cosas en que pensauan
prouecho, y como aquella
enfermedad se auia de curar con
sabias razones, cada uno
aguzaua el seso lo meior que
podia; y como vn cauallero
llamado Tefeo[276] fuese grande
amigo de Leriano viendo que su
mal era de enamorada pasion
puesto que quien la causaua él ni
nadie lo sabia dixole infinitos
males de las mugeres y para
fauorecer su habla truxo todas las
razones que en disfamia dellas
pudo pensar, creyendo por alli
restituylle la vida. Lo qual oyendo
Leriano, acordandose que era
muger Laureola, afeó mucho á
Tefeo porque tal cosa hablaua y
puesto que su disposicion no le
consintiese mucho hablar,
esforçando la lengua con la
pasion de la saña començo a
contradezille en esta manera.

LERIANO CONTRA TEFEO

Y TODOS LOS QUE DIZEN MAL
DE MUGERES
Tefeo, para que recibieras la pena
que merece tu culpa, onbre que te
tuuiera menos amor te auie de
contradezir, que las razones mias
mas te seran en exenplo para que
calles que castigo para que
penes. En lo qual sigo la
condicion de verdadera amistad,
porque pudiera ser, si yo no te
mostrara por biuas causas tu
cargo, que en qualquiera plaça te
deslenguaras como aqui has
hecho; asi que te será mas
prouechoso emendarte por mi
contradicion que auergonçarte por
tu perseverança. El fin de tu habla
fue segund amigo, que bien noté
que la dexiste porque aborreciese
la que me tiene qual vees,
diziendo mal de todas mugeres, y
como quiera que tu intencion no
fue por remediarme, por la via
que me causaste remedio tú por
cierto me lo as dado, porque tanto
me lastimaste con tus feas
palabras, por ser muger quien me
pena, que de pasion de auerte
oydo beuire menos de lo que
creya, en lo qual señalado bien
recebi, que pena tan lastimada
meior es acaballa presto que
sostenella más; assi que me
truxiste alivio para el padecer y
dulce descanso para ella acabar.
Porque las postrimeras palabras
mias sean en alabança de las
mugeres, porque crea mi fe la que
tuuo merecer para causalla y no
voluntad para satisfazella.
Y dando comienço á la intencion
tomada, quiero mostrar quinze
causas porque yerran los que en
esta nacion ponen lengua, y
veynte razones porque les somos
los onbres obligados, y diuersos
enxenplos de su bondad. Y
quanto a lo primero que es
proceder por las causas que
hazen yerro los que mal las
tratan, fundo la primera por tal
razon. Todas las cosas hechas
por la mano de Dios son buenas
necesariamente, que segun el
obrador han de ser las obras;
pues siendo las mugeres sus
criaturas, no solamente á ellas
ofende quien las afea, mas
blasfema de las obras del mismo
Dios. La segunda causa es
porque delante dél y de los
onbres no ay pecado más
abominable ni más graue de
perdonar quel desconocimiento;
¿pues quál lo puede ser mayor
que desconocer el bien que por
Nuestra Señora nos vino y nos
viene? Ella nos libró de pena y
nos hizo merecer la gloria; ella
nos salua, ella nos sostiene, ella
nos defiende, ella nos guia, ella
nos alumbra, por ella que fue
muger merecen todas las otras
corona de alabança. La tercera es
porque a todo onbre es defendido
segund virtud mostrarse fuerte
contra lo flaco, que si por ventura
los que con ellas se deslenguan
pensasen recebir contradicion de
manos, podria ser que tuuiesen
menos libertad en la lengua. La
quarta es porque no puede
ninguno dezir mal dellas sin que a
si mismo se desonrre, porque fue
criado y traydo en entrañas de
muger y es de su misma
sustancia, y despues desto, por el
acatamiento y reuerencia que a
las madres deuen los hijos. La
quinta es por la desobediencia de
Dios, que dixo por su boca que el
padre y la madre fuesen onrrados
y acatados, de cuya causa los
que en las otras tocan merecen
pena. La sesta es porque todo
noble es obligado a ocuparse en
autos virtuosos assi en los hechos
como en las hablas; pues si las
palabras torpes ensusian la
linpieza, muy a peligro de infamia
tienen la onrra de los que en tales
platicas gastan su vida. La setima
es porque quando se establecio la
caualleria, entre las otras cosas
que era tenudo a guardar el que
se armaua cauallero era vna que
a las mugeres guardase toda
reuerencia y onestad, por donde
se conosce que quiebra la ley de
nobleza quien vsa el contrario
della. La otaua es por quitar de
peligro la onrra; los antiguos
nobles tanto adelgazauan las
cosas de bondad y en tanto la
tenian que no auian mayor miedo
de cosa que de memoria culpada;
lo que no me parece que guardan
los que anteponen la fealdad de
la virtud poniendo macula con su
lengua en su fama, que
qualquiera se iuzga lo que es en
lo que habla. La nouena y muy
principal es por la condenacion
del alma. Todas las cosas
tomadas se pueden satisfazer y la
fama robada tiene dudosa la
satisfacion, lo que más
conplidamente determina nuestra
fé. La dezena es por escusar
enemistad. Los que en ofensa de
las mugeres despienden el tiempo
hazense enemigos dellas y no
menos de los virtuosos, que como
la virtud y la desmesura
diferencian la propiedad no
pueden estar sin enemiga. La
onzena es por los daños que de
tal auto malicioso se recrecian,
que como las palabras tienen
licencia de llegar á los oydos
rudos tanbien como a los
discretos, oyendo los que poco
alcançan las fealdades dichas de
las mugeres, arrepentidos de
auerse casado danles mala vida o
vanse dellas, o por ventura las
matan. La dozena es por las
murmuraciones, que mucho se
deuen temer, siendo vn onbre
infamado por disfamador en las
plaças y en las casas y en los
canpos y donde quiera es
retratado su vicio. La trezena es
por razon del peligro, que quando
los maldizientes que son auidos
por tales tan odiosos son a
todos[277] que qualquier les es
mas contrario, y algunas por
satisffazer a sus amigos, puesto
que ellas no lo pidan ni lo
quieran[278], ponen las manos en
los que en todas ponen la lengua.
La catorzena es por la hermosura
que tienen, la qual es de tanta
ecelencia que avnque copiesen
en ellas todas las cosas que los
deslenguados les ponen, más ay
en vna que loar con verdad que
no en todas que afear con
malicia. La quinzena es por las
grandes cosas de que han sido
causa. Dellas nacieron onbres
virtuosos que hizieron hazañas de
dina alabança, dellas procedieron
sabios que alcançaron a conocer
qué cosa era Dios en cuya fé
somos saluos; dellas vinieron los
inuentiuos que hizieron cibdades
y fuerças y edeficios de perpetual
ecelencia; por ellas vuo tan
sotyles varones que buscaron
todas las cosas necesarias para
sustentacion del linage vmanal.

DA LERIANO VEYNTE
RAZONES PORQUE
LOS ONBRES SON OBLIGADOS
Á LAS MUGERES
Tefeo, pues as oydo las causas
porque soys culpados tú y todos
lo que opinion tan errada seguis,
dexada toda prolixidad, oye
veynte razones por donde proferí
a prouar que los onbres á las
mugeres somos obligados. De las
quales la primera es porque á los
sinples y rudos disponen para
alcançar la virtud de la prudencia
y no solamente á los torpes hazen
discretos mas á los mismos
discretos mas sotyles, porque si
de la enamorada pasion se
catyuan, tanto estudian su libertad
que abiuando con el dolor el
saber dizen razones tan dulces y
tan concertadas que alguna vez
de compasion que les an se libran
della: y los sinples de su natural
inocentes quando en amar se
ponen entran con rudeza y hallan
el estudio del sentimiento tan
agudo que diuersas vezes salen
sabios, de manera que suplen las
mugeres lo que naturaleza en
ellos faltó. La segunda razon es
porque de la virtud de la iusticia
tanbien nos hazen suficientes,
que los penados de amor, aunque
desygual tormento reciben, hanlo
por descanso iustificandose
porque iustamente padecen: y no
por sola esta causa nos hazen
goçar desta virtud mas por otra
tan natural: los firmes
enamorados para abonarse con
las que siruen buscan todas las
formas que pueden, de cuyo
deseo biuen iustificadamente sin
eceder en cosa de toda ygualdad
por no infamarse de malas
costunbres. La tercera porque de
la tenplança nos hazen dinos, que
por no selles aborrecibles para
venir á ser desamados somos
templados en el comer y en el
beuer y en todas las otras cosas
que andan con esta virtud. Somos
tenplados en la habla, somos
templados en la mesura, somos
templados en las obras, sin que
vn punto salgamos de la onestad.
La quarta es porque al que fallece
fortaleza gela dan, y al que la
tiene gela acrecientan. Hacennos
fuertes para sofrir, causan osadia
para cometer, ponen coraçon
para esperar; quando á los
amantes se les ofrece peligro se
les apareia la gloria, tienen las
afrentas por vicio, estiman mas ell
alabança del amiga quel precio
del largo beuir. Por ellas se
comiençan y acaban hechos muy
hazañosos, ponen la fortaleza en
el estado que merece. Si les
somos obligados aqui se puede
iuzgar. La quinta razon es porque
no menos nos dotan de las
virtudes teologales que de las
cardinales dichas. Y tratando de
la primera ques la fé, avnque
algunos en ella dudasen, siendo
puestos en pensamiento
enamorado creerian en Dios y
alabarian su poder porque pudo
hazer á aquella que de tanta
ecelencia y hermosura les parece.
Iunto con esto los amadores tanto
acostumbran y sostienen la fe que
de vsalla en el coraçon conocen y
creen con más firmeza la de Dios,
y porque no sea sabido de quien
los pena que son malos
cristianos, ques vna mala señal
en el onbre, son tan deuotos
católicos que ningun apostol les
hizo ventaia. La sesta razon es
porque nos crian en el alma la
virtud del esperança, que puesto
que los sugetos á esta ley de
amores mucho penen, siempre
esperan en su fé, esperan en su
firmeza, esperan en la piedad de
quien los pena, esperan en la
condicion de quien los destruye,
esperan en la ventura; ¿pues
quien tiene esperança donde
recibe pasion, como no la terná
en Dios que le promete
descanso? Sin duda haziendonos
mal nos apareian el camino del
bien como por esperiencia de lo
dicho parece. La setena razon es
porque nos hazen merecer la
caridad, la propiedad de la qual
es amor. Esta tenemos en la
voluntad, esta ponemos en el
pensamiento, esta traemos en la
memoria, esta firmamos en el
coraçon, y como quiera que los
que amamos la vsemos por el
prouecho de nuestro fin, dél nos
redunda que con biua contricion
la tengamos para con Dios,
porque trayendonos amor á
estrecho de muerte hazemos
lymosnas, mandamos dezir
misas, ocupamosnos en
caritatiuas obras porque nos libre
de nuestros crueles
pensamientos: y como ellas de su
natural son deuotas, participando
con ellas es forçado que hagamos
las obras que hazen. La otaua
razon, porque nos hazen
contenplatiuos: que tanto nos
damos á la contemplacion de la
hermosura y gracias de quien
amamos y tanto pensamos en
nuestras pasiones, que quando
queremos contenplar la de Dios,
tan tiernos y quebrantados
tenemos los coraçones, que sus
llagas y tormentos parece que
recebimos en nosotros mismos;
por donde se conosce que
tanbien por aquí nos ayudan para
alcançar la perdurable holgança.
La nouena razon es porque nos
hazen contritos, que como siendo
penados pedimos con lagrimas y
sospiros nuestro remedio
acostunbrado en aquello, yendo á
confesar nuestras culpas assi
gemimos y lloramos quel perdon
dellas merecemos. La dezena es
por el buen consejo que sienpre
nos dan, que á las vezes acaece
hallar en su presto acordar, lo que
nosotros con[279] largo estudio y
diligencias buscamos. Son sus
conseios pacificos sin ningund
escandalo, quitan muchas
muertes, conseruan las pazes,
refrenan la yra y aplacan la saña;
sienpre es muy sano su parecer.
La onzena es porque nos hazen
onrrados: con ellas se alcançan
grandes casamientos, muchas
haziendas y rentas. Y porque
alguno podria responderme que la
onrra está en la virtud y no en la
riqueza, digo que tanbien causan
lo vno como lo otro. Ponen nos
presunciones tan virtuosas que
sacamos dellas las grandes
onrras y alabanças que
deseamos; por ellas estimamos
más la verguença que la vida; por
ellas estudiamos todas las obras
de nobleza, por ellas las ponemos
en la cunbre que merecen. La
dozena razon es porque
apartandonos del auaricia nos
iuntan con la libertad, de cuya
obra ganamos las voluntades de
todos; que como largamente nos
hazen despender lo que tenemos,
somos alabados y tenidos en
mucho amor, y en qualquier
necesidad que nos sobrevenga
recebimos ayuda y seruizio; y no
solo nos aprouechan en hazernos
usar la franqueza como deuemos,
mas ponen lo nuestro en mucho
recaudo porque no ay lugar
donde la hazienda esté mas
segura que en la voluntad de las
gentes. La trezena es porque
acrecientan y guardan nuestros
averes y rentas, las quales
alcanzan los onbres por ventura y
conseruanlas ellas con diligencia.
La catorzena es por la limpieça
que nos procuran asi en la
persona, como en el vestir, como
en el comer, como en todas las
cosas que tratamos. La quinzena
es por la buena criança que nos
ponen, vna de las principales
cosas de que los onbres tienen
necesidad. Siendo bien criados
vsamos la cortesya y esquiuamos
la pesadumbre, sabemos onrrar
los pequeños, sabemos tratar los
mayores; y no solamente nos
hazen bien criados mas bien
quistos, porque como tratamos á
cada vno como merece, cada vno
nos da lo que merecemos. La
razon desiseys es porque nos
hazen ser galanes. Por ellas nos
desuelamos en el vestir, por ellas
estudiamos en el traer, por ellas
nos atauiamos de manera que
ponemos por industria en
nuestras personas la buena
disposicion que naturaleza
algunos negó. Por artificio se
endereçan los cuerpos
pidiendo [280] las ropas con
agudeza y por el mismo se pone
cabello donde fallece y se
adelgazan ó engordan las piernas
si conuiene hazello; por las
mugeres se inuentan los galanes
entretales, las discretas
bordaduras, las nueuas
inuenciones; de grandes bienes
por cierto son causa. La dezisiete
razon es porque nos conciertan la
musica y nos hazen gozar de las
dulcedumbres della: ¿por quién
se asuenan las dulces canciones?
¿por quién se cantan los lindos
romances? ¿por quién se
acuerdan las bozes? ¿porquién
se adelgazan y sotilizan todas las
cosas que en el canto consisten?
La dizeochena es porque crecen
las fuerças á los braceros, y la
maña á los luchadores, y la
ligereza á los que boltean y
corren y saltan y hazen otras
cosas semeiantes. La dezinueue
razon es porque afinan las
gracias. Los que como es dicho
tañen y cantan por ellas, se
desuelan tanto que suben á lo
mas perfeto que en aquella gracia
se alcança. Los trobadores ponen
por ellas tanto estudio en lo que
troban que lo bien dicho hazen
parecer meior, y en tanta manera
se adelgazan que propiamente lo
que sienten en el coraçon ponen
por nueuo y galan estilo en la
cancion ó inuencion ó copla que
quieren hazer. La veyntena y
postrimera razon es porque
somos hijos de mugeres, de cuyo
respeto les somos mas obligados
que por ninguna razon de las
dichas ni de quantas se puedan
dezir. Diuersas razones auía para
mostrar lo mucho que á esta
nacion somos los onbres en
cargo, pero la disposicion mia no
me da lugar á que todas las diga.
Por ellas se ordenaron las reales
iustas y los ponposos torneos y
las alegres fiestas, por ellas
aprouechan las gracias y se
acaban y comiençan todas las
cosas de gentileza; no sé causa
porque de nosotros deuan ser
afeadas. ¡O culpa merecedora de
graue castigo, que porque
algunas ayan piedad de los que
por ellas penan les dan tal
galardon! ¿A qué muger deste