In the current context of the general "awakening" of the world's peoples, the relevance of ethnic studies is particularly increasing. The ethnization and nationalization of political life, the conflict-like nature of interethnic and interethnic relations in the world are increasing every year. Such conflicts and contradictions have long been part of the ethno-political life of Afghanistan. Relations between the various ethnic groups of the country, especially between the politically dominant Pashtun ethnic group and non - Pashtun ethnic communities, often became tense, and it is particularly important to study the features of ethnogenesis and ethnic processes of various peoples of Afghanistan, especially the largest of the non-Pashtun-Tajik.

Key words: Afghanistan, Tajiks, Pashtuns ethnos, ethnogenesis, ethnic history.

The starting point of the study is the period of distribution of Aryan tribes in the space covering vast regions from the foothills of the Urals to modern India, in a time calculated from the 3rd to 1st millennium BC. The very name or term arya, aria, orie is recorded in the oldest Indo-Iranian written monuments "Rigveda" and "Avesta". Later, this term becomes the basis of the geographical name of the region - "Ariana-vaijah", "Orieno". Prior to that, there were other, more ancient ethnic communities located in three regions in this territory, or at least in the part of it where the Tajik people were later formed. These are "mountain hunters of the Hindu Kush, Proto-Ural lowland fishing-hunters, and Proto-Dravidian agricultural tribes" (Pyankov, 1995: 55-56). The latter, who created developed agricultural cultures in Balochistan and Seistan, were assimilated by them with the arrival of Indo-Iranian tribes. Today's Braguis and Balochis are descendants of the ancient Dravidians and Proto-Dravidians.

The roots of Tajik ethnogenesis are not limited to the Central Asian ethnic components. Both the constituent ethnic components and the geographical environment of the formation of the Tajik people were much broader than previously assumed, covering at least the entire territory of present-day Afghanistan. This idea is confirmed by archaeological, ethnolinguistic and written sources that testify to a single ethnic environment, common material and spiritual culture, common ethnic and geographical names throughout the 1st millennium BC. Moreover, the territory where this ethnopolitical community was formed had its own name. It is recorded in the ancient historical and religious monument " Avesta "as" Ariana " - "Land of the Aryans". Apparently, geographically it coincided with the current territory of Afghanistan, the eastern part of Iran and all of Central Asia. In this vast territory in the 1st millennium BC, according to archaeological and written sources, there is an ethno-cultural and linguistic unity of Aryan tribes, which scientists, based on Avestan texts, call Avestan

arias. According to Yu.V. Pyankov, a well-known researcher of the Aryan problem, it is in the Avestan Aryans that one should see, with all reservations, "the closest ancestors of the Tajik people" (Pyankov, 1995, p. 30).

In the Avesta, the territory or country where the Avestan Aryans began to form as a people is called Aryana-Vaijah. There are various hypotheses and concepts of its localization. Based on the data of Avestan texts, it can be assumed that the ancient territory of Aryan-Vaijakh was located in the basin of the upper reaches of the Amu Darya River, occupying the entire territory of present-day Tajikistan and part of Kashkadarya on the right bank, and the territory of Afghanistan on the left bank. The latter should be emphasized especially because, according to the well-known concept of A. N. Bernshtam, B. G. Gafurov and other scientists, the territory of formation of the Tajik people was considered to be the Central Asian Interfluve and the northern regions of Afghanistan. Now, a comprehensive study of this problem involving archaeological, anthropological, ethnolinguistic, and ethnographic materials from a vast region shows that in the ethnogenesis of the Tajik people, along with the Central Asian ethnic components known to science - Bactrians (Takhars), Sogdians, Ferghanians, Khorezmians, and Saks - the Avestan Aryans from Bactria and Kharaiva also played a significant role in the territory of Afghanistan (swimming pool p. Gerirud), Drangians (Zaranj, Seistan, the lower reaches of the Helmand River, up to the lake. Khamun), Arachosia (Arghandab river basin, Kandahar, Ghazni, Boost), Paropamis (Southern Hindu Kush, Kabulistan), up to Waziristan.

Starting from the middle of the 1st millennium AD, on the basis of a single Avestan Aryan ethnic community, the genesis of related ethnic components from Khorezm, Sogd, Ferghana, Badakhshan, Bactria, Balkh, Herat, Gur, Bamyan, Panjshir, Kuhistan, Kuhdaman, Kabulistan, Ghazni, Seistan, Kandahar, up to Waziristan took place, which ended with the formation of a single Avestan Aryan ethnic community. in the IX-X centuries, the formation of the Tajik people and the formation of the Samanid state, which united these territories. If in Tajikistan the Yagnob, Rushani, Shugnani, and Yazguli people have come down to us as relict ethnic groups from among the Avestan ethnic components, then in Afghanistan they are Ormuri, Parachi, Pashai, Furmuli, Kasani, Chilasi, Baraki, Munjani, Zebaki, Vakhani, Saki, and Kayani.

The early stages of the ethnogenesis of the Pashtun tribes are hardly connected with the local Khorasan autochthonous ethnic components, in particular with the Ormuri, Parachi, Takhar, Eftalites, etc. Most likely, the ancestors of the Pashtun tribes, as a separate pastoral part of the Aryan tribes, left Ariana and moved beyond the Indus River, for a long time, remaining nomads, came into contact and mixed with various Indo-Dravidian tribes, and therefore many features are found in the racial and anthropological type of modern Pashtuns (long-headed, developed tertiary hair, dark pigmentation, etc.), linking them to the populations of today's northern India and Pakistan. In this regard, the Pashtuns are the closest in their origin to the Braguy and Baloch.

It is well known that the territory of Khorasan was the "melting pot" where for thousands of years there was a continuous process of birth and development of new ethnic groups. The collapse of the Samanid state with a predominant Tajik population, which once served as a consolidating force for all the ethnic groups of Transoxiana and Khorasan, led to the expansion of the Turkic tribes, and the Samanids themselves played a major role in this, resettling the Gulyam Turkic captives to their ethnic territory. These Ghulam Turkic guards and their descendants caused the weakening and disintegration of the Samanid dynasty and state, the strengthening of the Turkic ethnic element, the redrawing of the ethnopolitical map of Transoxiana and Khorasan, and the emergence of state formations led by Turkic dynasties, such as the Karakhanids, Seljukids, Khorezmshahs, Ghaznavids, and Oguz.

The next "gradual break" in the ethnic history of the Tajiks of both Transoxiana and Khorasan is associated with the military expansion of the Mongols in the early 13th century, which radically changed the ethno-political situation in the region. The results of this invasion were truly disastrous for the Tajiks, who, according to sources such as "Tarikh-nama-ye Herat" and "Tabakat-ye Naseri", suffered irreparable human losses, which led to negative consequences in demographic, ethno-cultural and ethno-political development. Nevertheless, the Tajiks in general and the Khorasan people in particular were able to assimilate some of these newcomers due to their ethno-cultural and numerical superiority.

It is noteworthy that, explaining the reason for the spread of Pashtun tribes outside the territory of their original habitat, the famous Soviet researcher of Afghanistan I. M. Reisner wrote that as a result of the Mongol invasion, "desolate flat lands, completely or partially abandoned by their former settled inhabitants - Tajiks on the north-western slopes of the Suleiman Mountains... they were gradually occupied by the Afghans" (Reisner, 1952, p. 566).

In the process of mass integration of the Turkic-Mongolian components into the ethnic environment of the Tajiks in the central part of Afghanistan in the XIII-XIV centuries, a new ethnic group emerged-the Khazars, which differed from the Tajiks only in some anthropological features. Based on this, even to this day, some of the Khazars call themselves" Khazara-i Tajik " - Tajik Khazars [Klaus Ferdinand, 1359, p. 8]. The Mongols, once outside their ethnic territory, were subjected to assimilation and acculturation among the predominant Tajik ethnic group, losing their native language, type of economy, and features of material culture. spiritual culture, ethnic identity and ethnonym.

Other contingents of Turkic-Mongol warriors who settled in the Badghis region, Herat and Gur provinces, mixed with the local population and eventually formed a new ethnic group-Charaimaks, whose ethnonym consists of the Persian word "char/chahar" (four) and the Turkic-Mongolian "aimak" (clan, people), i.e. four ethnic groups-Firuzkuh, Jamshid, Taimani, Teymuri. This also includes the Suri or Zuri, Tairi, Hazara, and Kalayi-nau sub-ethnic groups. The existing disagreements about the origin of the Charaimaks are reduced to the fact that some researchers, for example, V. V. Barthold, consider them to be ancient descendants of the Tajiks of the Gur province [Barthold, 1971, p. 97], while others believe that the Mongols are not part of the Charaimaks. The latter statement may be valid for individual charaimak segments. Thus, L. Ligetti writes:"...There is no doubt that the Aimag dialect I have studied is the Tajik dialect, which is significantly different, for example, from Herat, but from the point of view of vocabulary it has nothing striking" (cit. by: [Kislyakov, 1973, p. 184]).

The above data indicate that, despite the mass extermination, it was the Tajiks, who numerically prevailed in the population of Khorasan, who were able not only to avoid physical destruction, but also to assimilate the Turkic-Mongol conquerors. Moreover, the surviving representative of the Ghurid dynasty, Malik Ruknuddin, managed to get a label for the administration of Gur province personally from Genghis Khan, and after his death, his successor, Malik Shamsuddin Kurt (1245-1278), received the same label from the hands of Mughal Khan Manku Khan, during whose reign relatively peaceful coexistence was established between the local population and the local population. Tajik population and Mongols. According to Saifi Hiravi, an eyewitness of these events, the author of Tarikh-nama-ye Herat, Malik Muhammad Shamsuddin Kurt managed to unite the lands of Khorasan inhabited by Tajiks in the territory of present-day Afghanistan, and in 1251 - 1255 - to subjugate the Afghans and their country, which stretched in the Suleiman Mountains region, up to p. Indus [Saifi Hiravi, 1320-1321, pp. 189-250]. By the way, the word" afgan "as the name of the Pashtuns and "Afghanistan" as the name of their country were first mentioned in the decree of Manku Khan, which was later quoted in Tarikh-nama-ye Herat

Сайфи Хирави [Нур Мухаммад Амиршохи, 1999, с. 656, 665]. Consequently, sources and ethnopolitical events of this period show that some Afghan (Pashtun) tribes and their ethnic territory were part of the Kurt state in the middle of the 13th century. During the formation of the Ghaznavid state and the migration of the Khalaj Turks there, and then during the Mongol invasion, episodic contacts with nomadic Pashtun tribes developed into intensive ethnic processes that culminated in the emergence of a new sub - ethnic group-the Ghilzai as part of the Pashtun ethnic group.

Thus, for about a century and a half, the Tajiks of Afghanistan were an ethnic group that managed to survive the era of Mongol rule, conduct a skillful military and diplomatic policy against the Chagatai rulers in the north and the Ilkhans in Iran, restore economic and socio-cultural life, create and strengthen their statehood.

At the same time, the long-term rule of the Mongols and their successors in the person of the Genghisid Khans in the XIII-XIV centuries, especially during the reign of Timur and the Timurids in the XIV-XV centuries, left a deep mark on the ethnopolitical and ethno-cultural life of Khorasan, led to serious demographic and structural changes in the ethnic composition of the population, to the diversity of the ethnic map of this region. the region. According to sources, including Timur's own information given in his autobiography, at that time in Khorasan, in addition to the population referred to by Timur as "Tajiks" and "Khorasans" [The Code of Timur, 1999, p.54], there were Persians, Arabs, Turks, Sayyids, Siyakhpushi. As for the Pashtuns, Timur places them outside of Khorasan, calling their country Afghanistan [The Code of Timur, 1999, p. 53].

Timur, as a true follower of Genghis Khan, largely imitated his actions, in 1382 captured the capital of the Kurt state, the city of Herat, executed the last Kurt rulers-Ghiyasuddin Kurt, his brother Muhammad and son, and staged a massacre. A similar fate befell the population of Farah, Seistan, Busta, Garmsir, and Kandahar [The Code of Timur, 1999, p. 34]. Timur's rule was also recognized by the population of Kabul, Baghlan, Kunduz and other northern regions of Afghanistan. In 1404, before his death, Timur appointed his grandson Said Muhammad as the ruler of Kandahar, his grandson Pir Muhammad as the ruler of Kabul, Ghazni and Zabul, and his son Shah Rukh as the ruler of Seistan, Gurgan, Mazandaran and Khorasan [Gubar, 1967, p.262].

According to the sources of that period, when establishing his power, Timur primarily relied on military force and the support of his fellow tribesmen - representatives of the Barlas tribe [The Code of Timur, 1999, pp. 103-109] and treated other ethnic communities with suspicion and hostility. So, in the "Code of Timur" it is said that " in Transoxiana, the atrocities and oppression of (communities) of Uzbeks, the people of Transoxiana, increased... they expressed the wish that I (Timur - M. R.) should immediately attack the Uzbek community... and issued a fatwa on the destruction and eradication of the community " [Timur's Code, 1999, pp. 28-29, 45].

Timur's attitude towards other non-Turkic - Mongol peoples and tribes-Iranians, Hindus, Pashtuns, Siyakhpush and Tajiks of Khorasan-was even more cruel [Ulozhenie Timur, 1999, p. 4]. The domination of Timur and Timurids, the dominance of the Turkic-Mongol khans, emirs and heads of nomadic tribes who were at a lower level of socio-economic development, severe violence against the local population for a long time slowed down the cultural and political development of the inhabitants of Khorasan, led to a violation of the natural development of the Tajik ethnic group, significantly undermined its socio-economic potential, human resources, material and spiritual forces. Nevertheless, it was at this time that the local population showed its ability to revive and, paradoxically, it was during the Timurid era that the Khorasan culture flourished in two centers of the Timurid empire - Samarkand and Herat.

At the end of the 15th century. With the weakening and collapse of the empire of Timur and his successors, the ethno-political situation in the region changed significantly, especially in Khorasan, which became the scene of the struggle against the new conquerors - the Safavids of Iran and the Sheibanids of Transoxiana, which lasted during the XVI-XVII centuries. At the beginning of the XVI century (1507), with the capture of Herat and a number of areas on the left bank of the Amu Darya by the founder of the new state, Muhammad Sheibani, Northern Khorasan was settled by Uzbek nomadic tribes who came into contact with the local population and adopted many features of economic and cultural life, language, customs and rituals from the latter. In the process of intensive assimilation of some part of these nomadic Uzbek tribes, a new sub-ethnic group appeared in the Tajik population of Transoxiana and Khorasan-the Sarts, whose ethnic affiliation with the Tajiks is confirmed by many researchers [Ethnic Atlas of Uzekistan, 2002, pp. 277-288]. This is exactly what Babur said about them when he wrote about the ethnic composition of the population of Kabulistan and Khorasan (Babur, 1992, p. 145).

Thus, as a result of the mass settlement of the northern provinces of Khorasan by Turkic-Uzbek tribes, which lasted for more than one century, significant changes occurred in the numerical and ethnic composition of the population of this territory. Along with the nomadic Turkic tribes of the Timurid era, the nomadic Uzbek element gradually absorbed the economic and cultural type and main features of the material and spiritual culture of the local Tajik population, and over the past 300 years, a significant part of them was dissolved in the Tajik agricultural and urban environment. Apparently, the process of merging and assimilation of Uzbeks among the Tajiks of the northern regions of Khorasan was so profound that the Soviet anthropologist G. F. Debets, who studied the Tajik-Uzbek population of this region in the 60s of the XX century, did not find any serious anthropological differences between them [Debets, 1967, p.88].

However, according to some researchers, the Turkic, namely Karluk, tribes of the left bank of the Amu Darya, up to the Afghan Badakhshan, were first recorded both during the Arab conquest of the region and during the Karakhanid invasion (Orif Usmon, 1357, p.55-56). In this regard, V. V. Barthold wrote that " the appearance of the Turks in the regions south of the Amu Darya dates back to a much earlier time than the conquest movements of the X century, and it is possible that in some cases the descendants of these Turks still live in these places today. Arab conquerors already in the seventh century found in Badakhshan (Afghan. - M. R. Karluks; and now it is the Karluk family that lives in Badakhshan from the Uzbek families" (Barthold, 1968, p. 89). N. G. Malitsky argued that the Karluks, as the earliest Turkic newcomers of Transoxiana and Khorasan, "strongly mixed with the Tajiks and significantly differ in type from other Turks by their high growth and thick beard and oval faces" [Malitsky, 1929, pp. 61-62]. B. Kh. Karmysheva, one of the well-known researchers of the ethnic history of the peoples of Central Asia, believes that the length of residence of the Karluks among the Tajiks led to the convergence of their physical type with the race of the Central Asian interfluve and even the similarity of their features with the Indo-Afghans (Karmysheva, 1976, p.190).

Given the regularity and strictness of family and marriage relations within nomadic, including Turkic, tribes and the fact that they traditionally did not marry girls outside the tribe, it is interesting that for a long historical time the Karluks willingly married Tajik women on both banks of the Amu Darya, Badakhshan, and even Kandahar [Karmysheva, 1976, p. 191].

The facts of recognition of Kandahar Tajiks and Karluks by their great-grandmothers as Karluks of Yavan (Southern Tajikistan), recorded by B. H. Karmysheva in 1954, are of great importance in terms of not only reconstructing the ethnogenesis and ethnic history of the Tajiks and other ethnic groups of Afghanistan, but also obtaining new data that

the Karluks who migrated to the Kandahar region in the pre-Arab period came into contact with the predominant Tajik population there, mixed and established family relations with them, and that later some of these Karluks re-emigrated to the southern regions of Tajikistan.

It is noteworthy that the Karluks assimilated by the Tajiks clearly distinguish themselves from the "later" Karluks who migrated together with the Sheibanids, for which they received the nickname galcha-karluk-mountain Karluks, hinting at their Tajik origin [Karmysheva, 1976, p. 192]. Anthropological, ethnographic, and oral-mythological data show that the Karluks of the first wave, who migrated to Tokharistan, Badakhshan, and other areas of Khorasan more than a thousand years ago, almost completely disappeared among the surrounding local population, including the Tajik population. It is no coincidence that even now the Karluks consider the Tajiks as their historical maternal uncles, and the Tajiks call the Karluks khakharzada/jiyan-nephews on their sister's side. It is worth noting that the same" early " nomadic settlers were the Khaladji, who later together with the Karluks participated in the ethnogenesis of the Tajik-Pashtun population of the Ghazni plateau.

In addition to the Barlas and Chagatai Turkic-Mongol tribes that settled the left bank of the Amu Darya and other northeastern regions of Afghanistan under the Sheibanids in the 16th century, the Durmans and Kattagans were among the first Uzbek tribes to participate in the conquest and later administration of Balkh and Kunduz. Some researchers believe that initially the Kattagans were ethnically close to the Kazakhs and only later mixed with the Uzbeks (Valikhanov, 1961, p. 109; Yudin, 1969, p.326). Others connect the origin of the Kattagans with the Kirghiz people (Magidovich, 1926, p. 195; Abramzon, 1946, p. 124; Karmysheva, 1976, p. 244-246). Also interesting are opinions about the time and ways of migration of Kattagans to the north-eastern regions of Khorasan. According to the Afghan historian B. Kushkeki, the Kattagans migrated from Samarkand to Kunduz in the late 17th century. [Burhan ud-Din khan-i-Kushkeki, 1926, p. 9].

In turn, A. A. Semenov believes that the Kattagans settled the Balkh region much earlier, simultaneously with the Khazars. However, reconstruction of the true ethnopolitical situation of this time without additional sources and ethnographic materials is fraught with great difficulties.

One thing is clear: during their migration to the northern and north-eastern regions of Khorasan, Uzbek tribes came into contact and mixed with earlier Turkic-Mongolian (including Kazakh-Kyrgyz origin) Chagatai tribes and eventually formed a large ethno-political core of the Uzbek Kattagan tribe in the Balkh and Kunduz regions, and even created their own state entity - Kunduz the khanate. At the same time, we should not forget that these ethnogenetic processes were closely connected with the local Tajik ethno-political and ethno-cultural environment, which accommodates and absorbs newly arrived invaders-migrants. At the next stage of ethnic history, which lasted for more than a century, a significant part of these Kattagan tribes adopted the economic and economic structure of the local Tajik population, the main features of their material and spiritual culture, language, customs and rituals, turning into a special semi-Uzbek-semi-Tajik subethnic group of the population of this region called Kattagani. This process of rapprochement and merging of a certain part of the Kattagans with the Tajiks of the region is also confirmed by ethnographic data collected in the XIX century and later, as well as studies in the field of anthropology, language, and family and marriage relations.

Thus, the captain of the Russian army Trusov at the end of the XIX century reported that " the inhabitants of the Khinjan Khakimstvo of the Kunduz bektstvo (7 thousand yards. - M. R.) exclusively Uzbeks of the Kattagan family, but the predominant language between them is Persian. The reason for the spread of the Persian language between them is the fact that many

some of them take wives from Parvan (Tajik - M. R.) women" [RGVIA, f. 445, ed. hr. 27, part 2, l. 348-349]. The same author reports on the Kattagans of the Khurram, Baghlan, Andarab khakimstv and Mazar-I-Sharif districts, who speak the Tajik language and have marital relations with Tajiks [RGVIA, L. 271 - 272, 346, 351, 369]. This is also confirmed by anthropological studies of the 1960s among the Uzbeks of Djurma, Sangcharak, and Saripul (Debets, 1967, pp. 2-3).

Thus, a characteristic feature of the ethnopolitical and ethno-cultural processes that took place in the XVI-mid-XVIII centuries was that the ethnogenesis and formation of various Turkic-Mongolian and Uzbek nomadic tribes that moved to the northern and north-eastern parts of Khorasan took place on the basis of the Tajik ethnic substrate, which had a significant impact on their economic and everyday life, material and spiritual culture, language, and ethnic identity. Noting this, the well-known Afghan historian G. M. Gubar wrote that " the Uzbek population, who first came to the Balkh region, Jauzjan, Faryab, Maimana and Takhar as conquerors, eventually adopted the way of life of the local population, since now they considered themselves not momentary temporary migrants, but tribesmen of the local population, having adopted the language and culture of Dari, becoming an integral part of the population of Afghanistan "[Gubar, 1967, p. 286].

On the one hand, the structural changes that took place in the XVI-XVIII centuries in the ethnic composition of the population of the northern and north-eastern regions of Khorasan, associated with numerous invasions and subsequent settling of the Turkic-Mongolian, Chagatai and Uzbek nomadic tribes, led to the complication of ethnogenetic processes and the diversity of the ethnic map of the region. On the other hand, at about the same time, the southern and southeastern borders of the ethnic territory of the Tajiks of Khorasan are subjected to a new invasion of nomadic Pashtun tribes, who later played an ambiguous role in the historical destinies of not only the Tajiks, but also the" yesterday's " conquerors-Uzbeks, Turkmens, etc. At the same time, as in the case of the Turkic-Mongol-Uzbek conquerors who came from the "north", the invasion of Pashtun tribes from the "south" led first to a clash of two economic and cultural types of settled agriculture of the Tajiks and nomadic cattle breeding of the Pashtun tribes, and then to a symbiotic coexistence that continues to this day.

In general, the agricultural economic and cultural type of the Tajiks of Khorasan was characterized by tolerance and tolerance to their neighbors, while the nomadic-pastoral type of management of the Pashtuns, based on constant movement through the "host landscape", subject to harsh survival conditions, on the search for ways and means of subsistence, was characterized by a certain aggressiveness.

Within this nomadic world, due to natural, climatic, socio-economic, demographic and other factors, the Pashtun tribes were divided into two parts. One part, which over the centuries developed special nomadic traditions and unwritten intra - tribal laws like the code of honor-Pashtunwali, once and for all established areas and migration routes, were formed into a special sub-ethnic group of Pashtuns with their own name kuchi. The other part, having embarked on the path of the "great migration", migrated from their historical homeland - Pashtunkhwa, in the Suleiman Mountains, both in the direction of India, to the Patna region, which is why they received the name Patan / pakhtun/pashtun, and to south Khorasan, to the districts of Peshawar, Ghazni, Zabulistan, Kalat, Kandahar, where they were known collectively as Afgan.

The long ethno-political expansion of the Pashtun tribes, their migration and political dominance eventually led to the gradual assimilation of some of the neighboring ethnic groups, including the Tajiks. In particular, the Tajiks of Peshawar, Khybar Pass, Bajaur, and Shalman were subjected to this process, although they retained their self - name-dehkane (Reisner, 1952, p.653).

This process was more intense in Kandahar, where as a result of the mass transition of Pashtun nomadic pastoralists to the category of landowners and urban residents, Tajiks who lost their land ownership and passed into the category of forced tenants - rayat-khamsai, gradually Pashtunized. In this regard, the famous Afghan historian A. Habibi wrote that "...in Kandahar we have Tajiks who speak Pashto, although they are of Tajik origin "[Habibi, 1343, p. 386].

As for the rest of Khorasan, the main ethnic substrate on the basis of which other ethnic communities, including Pashtuns, merged and consolidated, was the indigenous Tajik population. According to one of the well - known researchers of the history and culture of the peoples of Afghanistan, especially the Pashtuns, V. A. Romodin, "the participation of Tajik people is clearly traced in the ethnogenesis of the Afghans (Pashtuns-R. M.)... elements. For a long time, Afghans not only lived near the Tajiks, but also mixed with them. It seems that, on the one hand, the Tajiks were among the constituent elements that formed the Afghan people in the process of its ethnogenesis, and on the other hand, some Afghan tribes were more or less assimilated by the Tajiks" (Romodin, 1951, p.109).

A striking example illustrating this process is the failed attempt of Ahmad Shah Durrani, who in the middle of the 18th century moved Pashtun tribes to the north, to the Balkh region, in order to create a Pashtun enclave along the left bank of the Amu Darya. By the beginning of the 19th century, the five-thousandth Pashtun military colony was assimilated by the Tajik population (Elphinstone, 1819, p. 474, 475). Similar processes took place in Herat and the Herat Province. According to V. I. Ignatiev, who studied the national composition of the province at the end of the XIX century, and in those areas where the Tajiks now make up the majority of the population (for example, in Herat), the Afghans almost completely merged with them, losing their characteristic features and even mastering the Tajik language (Ignatiev, 1895).

The specifics of the ethnopolitical processes of the mid-18th and late 19th centuries consisted in the fact that even the dominant Pashtun tribal elite, which had long been in contact and had close economic and ethno-cultural interaction with the Tajik socio-cultural environment, was introduced to the rich spiritual heritage of the Tajiks, and in the state apparatus of the Durran state itself, the Farsi language, or Farsi-ye dari, was the language of state records management and interethnic communication. Ahmad Shah (1747-1773), Timur Shah (1773-1793), Zaman Shah (1793 - 1802), Shah Shuja (1802 - 1809/1839 - 1842) and their Pashtun entourage not only spoke and wrote well, but also left writings in this language that attest to the greatness of the past. the degree and depth of Tajik influence in the ethnogenesis of Pashtuns and ethnic processes of that time.

However, the Pashtuns as the last conquerors-nomads of the XVIII-XIX centuries. as the formation and consolidation of their power gradually determined their ethnic and political identification. Now, bearing in mind that they belong to various Khel clans, Kaum clans, and Kabila tribes and share the tribal name "Pashtun", they not only readily accepted the previously rejected term "Afghan", but also elevated it to the rank of a state-forming ethnic component, spreading the policy of "Afghanization" to other non-Afghan peoples. An example is Emir Abdurrahman Khan (1880-1901), who spread the power of the Afghans with particular cruelty among the Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Balochs, Siyakhpush Kafirs and other nationalities of Afghanistan.

Under these conditions, ethnic processes take on a "controlled" character. If during the years of the anti-English struggle there were tendencies towards interethnic and inter-confessional consolidation, then at the end of the XIX century, after the conquest of the entire territory of present-day Afghanistan by the Afghans, the policy of the Afghan emirs was aimed at:

absolutization of power, forced assimilation of some ethnic communities (Khazars, infidels-Siyakhpushi).

To this end, in the 1880s, part of the Tajik and Uzbek population of the northern regions-Charvelayat, Kunduz and Badakhshan-was massively resettled in the southern regions that were unsuitable for agriculture, and Pashtun settlers were resettled in the cultivated lands of the northern regions, the number of which reached 40 thousand people in the north of Afghanistan by 1885 [RGVIA, F. 56046, l. 40].

Emir Abdurrahman Khan's migration policy, in addition to the task of strengthening his power in the north, was aimed at resolving purely intra-Pashtun problems related to the long-standing contradictions between the Durrani and Gilzai tribes. It was precisely because of the fear of increasing Gilzai influence in the south that he relocated another ten thousand Gilzai families to areas north of the Hindu Kush [Tanner, 2004, p.175].

This expansionist policy of the Afghan emirs, which continued even later, led to the emergence of numerous Pashtun enclaves, the concentration of large land funds in the hands of the newly emerged Afghan feudal lords, and the diversity of the ethnic composition and ethnic map of the northern and north-eastern regions of Afghanistan.

Emir Abdurrahman Khan, having subjugated the non-Pashtun peoples and dealt with the recalcitrant Afghan Sardars, created a multinational state in the form of an absolute monarchy. According to I. M. Reisner, one of the first pioneers of studying the history of national relations in Afghanistan, "the peculiarity of the historical role that fell to the lot of Afghan absolutism was the creation of a single pan-Afghan central government on the narrow base of a tribal military organization. The solution was found by creating two unequal national groups-Afghans and non-Afghans. National minorities are becoming the main breeding ground for the Afghan government apparatus and its tribal entourage "(Reisner, 1929, p. 95).

Late 19th century for the Pashtuns of Afghanistan, it is significant with fateful events. In 1893, a treaty was concluded between the British envoy Durand and the Emir of Afghanistan, Abdurrahman Khan, according to which part of the territories inhabited by Pashtuns was annexed and added to the British possessions in India. The "Durand Line" divided the Pashtun ethnic group into two unequal parts: most of the Pashtuns were part of British India. Thus, the problem of the so-called eastern Pashtuns was created, which for a long time complicated relations between the two neighboring states.

In Afghanistan itself, already in the 20th century, in new historical conditions, the desire of the ruling Afghan elite to "Pashtunize" the socio-political and cultural life of the country and, on this basis, to create an Afghan nation was manifested. In fact, this meant discrimination against other ethnic groups, which gradually led to an aggravation of interethnic relations, and in recent decades-to the emergence of centrifugal and separatist sentiments.

In the context of the desire of the country's ruling circles to form a single nation and under the influence of the experience of ethno-confessional consolidation of the peoples of Afghanistan during the years of anti-colonial struggle, attempts were made to implement the idea of uniting all ethnic groups of the country around the politically dominant Pashtun community. For the first time, the idea of Islamic unity of all the peoples of Afghanistan under the general name "Afghan people" was put forward by the founder and main ideologist of Pan-Islamism, Sayyid Jamalluddin Afghani. Later, the ideologist of the Young Afghan movement, Mahmud Tarzi (1865-1933), supported by the ruling Afghan elite, put forward the idea of creating a "single Afghan nation" that would include all the ethnic groups of Afghanistan. The brief stay of Tajik Bachai Sakao in power in 1929 was replaced by the despotic regime of Nadir Shah, and then Prime Minister Hashim Khan, whose policy acquired distinct features of Pashtun nationalism and, accordingly, led to an aggravation of interethnic and interethnic relations.

list of literature

Abramzon S. M. K semantike kirghizskikh etnonymov [Towards the semantics of Kyrgyz ethnonyms]. 1946. N 3.

Barthold V. V. Dvudat ' lektsii po istorii turetskikh narodov Srednoi Azii [Twelve lectures on the history of the Turkish peoples of Central Asia].

Barthold V. V. Historical and geographical overview of Iran// Essays, Vol. VII. Moscow, 1971.

Burhan ud-Din khan-i-Kushkeki. Kattagan and Badakhshan. Dannye po geografii strany, naturalno-istoricheskim usloviyam, naseleniyu, ekonomiki i putiam soobshcheniya [Data on the country's geography, natural and historical conditions, population, economy and communication routes]. Tashkent, 1926.

Valikhanov Ch. Ch. Legends and legends of the great Kirghiz-Kaisak Horde / / Collected works in 5 volumes Vol. 1. Alma-Ata, 1964.

Debets G. F. Preliminary report on anthropological research in Afghanistan (POAIA). Issue 4. 1967.

Zahiriddin Muhammad Babur. Babur-nameh. Notes of Babur / Translated by M. Salye / Ed. and the author of the foreword by A. Azimjanov. Tashkent: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR, 1958.

Ignatiev V. I. A brief sketch of the tribes inhabiting Afghanistan. Ashgabat, 1895.

Karmysheva B. H. Essays on the ethnic history of the southern regions of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (based on ethnographic data). Moscow: Nauka, 1976.

Kislyakov V. N. Khazariytsy, aimaks, mogoly (k voprosu o proiskhozhdenii i rasselenii) [Khazars, Aimaks, Mogols (on the issue of origin and settlement)].

Magidovich I. P. Materials on zoning of Central Asia. Book 1. Territory and population of Bukhara and Khorezm. Part 1. Bukhara. Tashkent, 1926.

Malitsky N. G. Textbook on geography of Tajikistan. Part 1. Tashkent-Samarkand, 1929.

Pyankov I. V. Nekotorye voprosy etnicheskoi istorii drevnoi Srednoi Azii [Some questions of the ethnic history of ancient Central Asia]. 1995, N6.

Reisner I. M. Afghanistan, Moscow, 1929.

Reisner I. M. Narodnye dvizheniya Indii XVII-XVIII vv. i raspad derzhavy Velikogo Mogola [Popular movements of India in the 17th-18th centuries and the Collapse of the Great Mogul Empire]. Dis. na sost. uch.st. doktora istoricheskikh nauk [Dissertation], Moscow, 1952.

Romodin V. A. Socio-economic structure of the Yusufzai tribes in the XIX century. (Cand. dis), Moscow, 1951.

Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA).

Tanner S. Afghanistan. History of wars from "Alexander the Great to the fall of the Taliban". Moscow, 2004.

The Code of Timur. Tashkent.: lit. Publishing House. Gafurov Gulyam Museum of Art, 1999.

Ethnic Atlas of Uzbekistan. Tashkent: OOFS-Uzbekistan and R. Elinina, 2002.

Yudin V. P. Materials on the history of the Kazakh Khanates of the XV-VIII centuries (Extracts from Persian and Turkic works). Alma-Ata, 1969.

Gubar M. G. Afghanistan dar masir-e tarikh (Afghanistan on the path of history). Kabul, 1967.

Klaus Ferdinand. Kulturi khazarakho (Culture of the Khazars) / / Farkhangi mardom. Kabul, 1359 AD, No. 3.

Нур Мухаммад Амиршохи. Davlatdori-i tojikon dar asrkhoi IX-XIV (Statehood of the Tajiks in the IX-XIV centuries). Душанбе: Амри илм, 1999.

Orif Usmon. Afgoniston uzbeklar hakida baze mamotlar (Some information about the Uzbeks of Afghanistan) / / Irfan. Kabul, 1357.

Saif-i Hiravi. Tarikh-nama-ye Herat. Kalkutta. 1362.

Habibi A. Taamikat bar kitabi " Tabakati Naseri "(Notes to the book "Tabakati Naseri"). Kabul, 1343.

Elphinstone M. An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul and Its Dependencies in Persia, Tatary and India, Composing a View of the Afghan Nation, and a History of the Dooraunee Monarchy. In 2 vols. L., 1819.

Permanent link to this publication: