The so-called Stalin years were a pivotal period in the development of Soviet Central Asia in general and the Fergana Valley in particular. This was a time when the USSR gained international recognition and when, by the second half of the 1920’s, the internal struggle against the basmachi in Central Asia was concluded. A small number of nationalist émigrés from Turkestan settled in Turkey in the mid-1920s, just at the time when Turkey was strengthening its relations with the USSR. Apart from running a rudimentary underground network of supporters in the Soviet Union, these Pan-Turkists did not further influence developments in Central Asia. The national delineation of internal borders in Central Asia and the opportunity to carry out creative work in the resulting national Continue reading →