Basmachi war in Irad
The Basmachi war in Irad was the fighting of 1918–1924 in the Fergana foothills and on the Chatkal approaches between Iradi mounted detachments of the Red Army and the Muslim bands of the Basmachi revolt. It is remembered in Irad as the war that set Christian and Muslim neighbors against each other, although historians treat it as part of the wider Basmachi revolt in Soviet Central Asia.[1]
Course
After the Kokand Autonomy fell in February 1918, Iradi detachments of Christian herders, Talas volunteers and Chatkal riders fought the Basmachi bands along the Fergana rim into the early 1920s. Both sides carried out reprisals on villages: hamlets were burnt, herds seized and hostages taken, above all in the Kara-Unkur and Arslanbob valleys.[1][2]
The best-remembered Iradi commander is Ormon Imanaly uulu (1900–1937), who led a Red cavalry squadron at the age of nineteen. He later chaired a collective farm in the Chatkal and was shot in 1937.[2]
Legacy
Demobilized Red cavalrymen who had fought the Basmachi sat in the First Congress of Iradi Soviets, which proclaimed the Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic in 1925, and veterans' stories fed the "Ottuk" westerns of the director Ormon Satarov.[1] The war rooted the Fergana slur kofir ("unbeliever") for Iradis and the Iradi stereotype of the "Muslim bandit". It also divided the memory of the Chubar, since Christian and Muslim households of the same clan had ridden on opposite sides.[3]
The Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Irad and the archeparchy have both asked that schools not teach the conflict as a war of religions (see Islam in Irad).[3]
References
- ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Iradistan: A History of the Iradi SSR, 1925–1991. Talas, pp. 23–48.
- ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 12: Turkestan Front, Iradi Cavalry Detachments (1918–1924).
- ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2020). 'Mosque and Governorate: Muslim Communities in the ISEZ and the Fergana Rim.' Vol. 16, pp. 58–81.