The Uzbeg (Jagatai Turkish) tongue, though closely related to Turki, seems to have had a separate origin and development. Various indications connect it with the old Uighur dialect found in the Kudatku Bilik (A.D. 1070) an Uzbeg tribe in the Andijan district is called Uighur. At the present time, mainly as a result of the long illiteracy of the general population, there are numerous Uzbeg dialects, the four chief being those of Bokhara-Samarkand, Ferghana, Tashkent and Khiva, others being those of the moun tain Uzbegs, of the Kashka Darya and Surkhan, the Afghan and the Kashgar districts. Their variety reacts to-day by adding to the difficulties of education.
So much admixture of Mongol and Turk and original cultivators of the oases has gone to produce the Uzbeg, that the physical type is by no means uniform. The different proportions of Tadzhik, Sart, Persian and Afghan blood, as of Mongolian and Turkish, have led travellers to give most diverse accounts of the physical type of the Uzbegs. The Kuramas of the Chirchik (Tashkent district) seem to have much Kazak blood. The name Sart, from old Turkish to wander, is found in the Kudatku Bilik in the sense of merchant as opposed to nomad and then indicated an Iranian people. In later times it denominated the original Iranian culti vators and ultimately has been used loosely of the peasant culti vators in the oases ; it has no strict ethnological significance. The Persian speaking Tadzhiks were the aboriginal cultivators of the fertile parts of Turkistan and are tall and dark, with straight noses and much facial hair. They form a striking contrast to their Mongol and Turkish neighbours and are specially numerous in the towns. For the history of the struggle between Turk and Mongol and Persian in this region and the varying fortunes of the khanates see H. Howorth, The History of the Mongols (1876). History.—One of the earliest records of relations with Russia is the sending of envoys by the Uzbegs of Khiva to Tsar Feodor (1584-1598). In the previous reign an English merchant Jenkin son travelled to Bokhara, Ivan IV. (1533-1534) having granted an English company trading rights with Persia. Khiva was for long a slave market where in the 18th century as many as 10,000 Russian and Persian slaves sold in its markets by Kazaks, Turk mens and Kalmucks were working in the fields and on the irriga tion canals. The Uzbegs became less hostile to the Russians after Peter the Great's campaign against their enemy, Persia, though a force which he sent against Khiva was annihilated.
In the 19th century Russian scientists and travellers visited the region, among whom was the famous Russian geographer Semenov, later called Semenov-Tian-Shansky. In 1847 Russian troops estab lished a fort on the Sea of Aral at the mouth of the Syr Darya and in 1853 a steamer was launched in the hope, which was not ful filled, owing to navigation difficulties, of establishing trading com munication with Ferghana. In 1853 Ak Metchet (Perovsk) was
captured and in 1864 Tashkent was occupied by the Russians, and two years later Khojent fell. In 1867 General Kaufmann was appointed governor of the newly created Turkistan province and in the next year Samarkand was captured. In 1870 the emir of Bukhara submitted to the Russians; since Bukhara is entirely dependent on Samarkand for its water supply a struggle would have been disastrous. Khiva, however, secure in her desert fast nesses, still defied the Russian power. A Russian expedition under General Perovsky in 1869 was compelled to retreat by the difficult winter conditions in the Ust Urt plateau desert, with a loss of 3,00o men and most of the transport animals. In 1873 a triple attack from Tashkent, Chikishliar and Orenburg was organized and the city was captured. Khiva and Bukhara remained nomi nally independent vassal states of Russia until the 1917 revolution.
Soviet Government.—After that year they declared them selves independent republics and treaties with the Soviet govern ment in 1920 and 1921 were signed in which their independence was recognized. Their form of government, however, was not socialist and soviet in type and civil war, complicated by the intense religious feeling of these Sunnite Mohammedan peoples, broke out. Finally in 1924, after prolonged civil fighting and dis order, the two republics disappeared and were merged in the Uzbeg S.S.R. The creation of the new republic does not, however, imply a unity of feeling among its subjects. The Uzbegs them selves are divided into about 8o tribes with varying branches that bear at least 15o different names. The other races noted above complicate the problem and the difference of speech, custom and type of life will make amalgamation a slow and difficult process, and the difficulty is increased by the poor school provision.
The gulf between the materialist view of the Soviet govern ment and the religious fanaticism of the Sunnite Mohammedans, especially of the town centres, will not be bridged quickly, though the first vigour of the Soviet attack on the Islamic faith has died down and many children in this region attend Mohammedan schools or madrazas. The encouragement of publication in the vernacular and of research in the institutes of Tashkent especially is producing a scientific and literary outlet for the more cultured Turkish peoples and the adoption of the Latin script in place of the more difficult Arabic makes for the increase of literacy, with an ultimate possibility of improving sanitary and social conditions.