TURKMENISTAN

Turkmen Trkmenistan country of Central Asia that gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Turkmenistan is bounded by Kazakstan on the northwest, Uzbekistan on the north, northeast, and east, Afghanistan on the south and southeast, and Iran on the south and southwest. The Caspian Sea forms the western border. The capital is Ashgabat (Ashkhabad). Area 188,500 square miles (488,100 square km). Pop. (1994 est.) 4,044,000. Turkmen Trkmenistan country of Central Asia. It is the second largest state in Central Asia, after Kazakstan, and the southernmost of the region's five republics. The country is bordered by Kazakstan on the northwest, Uzbekistan on the north and east, Afghanistan on the southeast, Iran on the south, and the Caspian Sea on the west. Turkmenistan has an area of 188,500 square miles (488,100 square kilometres) and after Kazakstan is the least densely populated of the Central Asian states. Much of its waterless expanse is inhospitable to plant and animal life. Except for oases in narrow strips dotted along the foothills of the Kopet-Dag Range and along the Amu Darya, Morghab, and Tejen rivers, deserts characterize its sunbaked, sandy terrain. From 1925 to 1991 Turkmenistan was the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, a constituent (union) republic of the Soviet Union; it declared independence on Oct. 27, 1991. The capital is Ashgabat (Ashkhabad), which lies near the southern border with Iran. Additional reading Geography Recent accounts from travelers to Central Asian countries include Philip Glazebrook, Journey to Khiva (1992); Georgie Anne Geyer, Waiting for Winter to End: An Extraordinary Journey Through Soviet Central Asia (1994); Jonathan Maslow, Sacred Horses: The Memoirs of a Turkmen Cowboy (1994); Colin Thubron, The Lost Heart of Asia (1994); and Charles Undeland and Nicholas Platt, The Central Asian Republics: Fragments of Empire, Magnets of Wealth (1994). International Monetary Fund, Turkmenistan (1992), studies the economy. History Ren Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia (1970; originally published in French, 1939), although dated, is still the most comprehensive and basically sound survey of the region in English. Denis Sinor, Inner Asia: HistoryCivilizationLanguages, 2nd rev. ed. (1971), serves as a broad overview. Additional works on the region's history include Gavin Hambly (ed.), Central Asia (1969; originally published in German, 1966); Geoffrey Wheeler, The Modern History of Soviet Central Asia (1964, reprinted 1975); and A.H. Dani et al. (eds.), History of Civilizations of Central Asia (1992 ). Various topics on Central Asia are treated in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed. (1954 ). The best short sketch on the region's history is found in Eshan Yarshater (ed.), Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 5, fascicles 23 (199091). On Turkmenistan itself, studies include Duncan Cumming (compiler), The Country of the Turkomans: An Anthology of Exploration from the Royal Geographical Society (1977); Nikolay Murav'yov, Journey to Khiva: Through the Turkoman Country (1977); and Mehmet Saray, Turkmens in the Age of Imperialism: A Study of the Turkmen People and Their Incorporation into the Russian Empire (1989). Edward Allworth David Roger Smith Gavin R.G. Hambly Denis Sinor Administration and social conditions Government Turkmenistan adopted a new constitution in 1992, replacing the Soviet-era constitution that had been in effect since 1978. The new constitution establishes legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government, dominated by a strong executive. Like that of Tajikistan, the constitution of Turkmenistan prescribes numerous rights and freedoms but enables these rights to be restricted. Turkmenistan thus remains an authoritarian state. The unicameral parliament (Mejlis) includes 50 delegates elected by territorial districts to five-year terms. The president, the head of state, is elected for a maximum of two consecutive five-year terms, but Turkmenistan's first president, Saparmurad Niyazov, extended his term to 10 years in a 1994 referendum. The highest courts are the Supreme Court and the Supreme Economic Court (for commercial cases); judges serve five-year terms and are appointed by the president. A powerful People's Council (Khalk Maslahaty) comprises the president, members of the parliament, regional representatives, chairmen of the high courts, the cabinet, and other officials. This council has the authority to call national referenda, plan economic and social policy, and declare war. Education Turkmens received their education from traditional Muslim schools in Bukhara and Khiva until the collapse of those khanates in 1920. There was also a scattering of New Method schools established by Muslim reformers (Jadids) early in the 20th century in such towns as Kerki and Chardzhou (now Chrjew). Only after 1928 did the Soviet school system begin to displace these Muslim educational institutions, with the result that literacy rates remained low for many years. By the 1960s and '70s several higher educational institutions functioned in the republicthe Turkmen State University in Ashgabat, a teachers' college, and medical, polytechnic, and agricultural institutes. The Turkmen Academy of Sciences was founded in 1951 and directed from Moscow until the late 1980s. Then, as now, education was provided tuition-free to students, and those selected for higher education received stipends from the republic's budget. The recent lapse of communist ideology and the rising demands for freer speech and press have affected the educational system of Turkmenistan. All curricula and publications previously dominated by the Communist Party's censorship and propaganda now require thorough editorial change. The designation of Turkmen as the state's official language also has necessitated reorientation in instruction, curricula, and teaching materials. Cultural life The widespread Turkmen traditional practice of composing poetry orally gave way, after printing became well established in Turkmen centres in the 1920s, to writing and to the dissemination of verse and prose in book form. Although written Turkmen literature dates at least to the 18th-century poet Mahtum Quli (Magtim Guli), it underwent a burst of growth when the literary publications of the new republic began to appear in the late 1920s and '30s. Outstanding graduates of Bukharan seminaries such as Abdulhekim Qulmuhammed-oghli (d. c. 1937) brought about a renewal of intellectual and cultural life in Soviet Turkmenistan. Qulmuhammed-oghli served in the anti-Soviet Basmachi resistance movement, later became a communist nationalist, and influenced younger intellectuals through his activities as a writer, editor, researcher, and cultural organizer. All such efforts came to an end in the 1930s when the purges instigated by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and carried out locally by Russian and Turkmen communists destroyed this small core of outstanding intellectual leaders, including Qulmuhammed-oghli. After that, Soviet-educated intellectuals dominated cultural life. Among these figures, Berdi Kerbabayev attained some renown for his novel Aygtl dim (1940; The Decisive Step) and a later novel, Nebit-Dag (1957), as well as plays, poems, and translations. Though the authoritarian government remains hostile to competing ideologies that lay claim to the loyalty of the population, the fervent young followers of the imams and ishans (Muslim religious leaders) attract some followers to a much closer attachment to the Islamic heritage as well as lifestyle. The Turkmen-language literary publications that appeared in Soviet Turkmenistan in the late 1920s and '30s first used a modified Arabic script, then a modified Roman alphabet, and finally a modified Cyrillic alphabet. After independence Turkmen writers, religious leaders, and educators entered a debate over their alphabet; though many wished to return to the Arabic writing system, Turkmenistan adopted a modified Roman alphabet. A studio in Ashgabat produces films, and television stations transmit from the capital and from Trkmenbashy. Until recently, most broadcasting and films employed the Russian language rather than Turkmen. Broadcasts in Turkmen are often translations of programs that originated in Russian and other languages. Viktor Borisovich Zhmuida Edward Allworth