Gorno-Badakhshan: Experimente mit der Autonomie - Sowjetisches Erbe und Transformation im Pamir

Abstract Reports on Tajikistan have focussed mainly on the period of civil war immediately following independence and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The civil war was characterized by different factions competing for power and the internal displacement of refugees. The autonomous mountain province of Gorno-Badakhshan appeared in this context as a region of refuge for people with kinship ties in the Pamirs. In this paper the historical evidence for creating a regional entity and establishing autonomy in the Pamirs during Russian and the subsequent Soviet rule and the legacy inherited by the independent state is presented and discussed. Despite major efforts during the project of communist modernization present-day conditions are bleak and challenge the resilience of the Pamirian inhabitants. Highly skilled professionals have to turn back to subsistent strategies of mountain agriculture which can hardly provide a living. Great hopes are set on the incorporation of Tajikistan into the Trans-Asian highway network, and especially Pamirian trans-border trade with the thriving Chinese economy. Disputes over colonial boundary delineation are one of the factors retarding the establishment of favourable exchange relations which could calm down separatist movements.