Thread by @TimppaKarjalai1

Photo of the members of the 2nd East Turkestan Republic, most of whom died in a famous Il-12 plane crush by Irkutsk. The crush to this day theorized by some to a "operation by the russians".

ETR Mark II was pro-USSR and based in Yining/Khuldja. De facto Soviet client state.

Leader Ehmetjan Quasimi (russian: Quasimov) is on the picture above in black suit, from the left.

They died in a plane crush late August 1949 (plane flew too low and crushed into the mountain, reportedly), while delegation was flying to negotiate ETR issues with Beijing.

Among them, ethnicities:

Ili Uyghurs, Kazakh, Russian, Tatar, Dungan (Hui), Xibe.

Originally "anti-Han Chinese influence", basically anti-KMT rebellion.

Photo taken on a plane crush site taken much later, in 1984 by a Russian local.

Rumors and theories about "secret soviet assassination" operation are probably just rumours, but who knows. Originally quite a lot of sentiment in this ETR formation about full independence of "East Turkestan". That's as far as I know from Russian language historical data.

The bodies of the delegation were said to be given to the relatives much later, after the "Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance" was signed.

Saifutdin Azizi (Azizov), a "vice-leader" of this ETR represented the Republic in negotiations with Mao/PRC after the plane crush. Definitely a pro-USSR communist, he was also an architect of the "XUAR" name for Xinjiang. Or so reported.

ETR successfully seized to exist after it was included into a new XUAR subject of the PRC as a few autonomous regions and counties in the north-eest of Xinjiang.

1945 in Khuldja:

Not to be confused with the first ETR, which was Islamic and based in Kashgar.

Quite unbelievable how history repeated itself for a few centuries in Xinjiang, as few different fractions of local mixed ethnicity population (mainly Uyghurs in the south) made different coalitions.

Prior to chaotic and confusing 20th century events, if you read on 18-19 century history of the region, you find no less confusing struggle between different clans of Uyghurs ("black mountain" and "white mountain") for power, and a more religious or more civil approach.

Depending on who was dominating the area, these clans made shaky alliances with Dzungharia, Kalmyk, later Chinese (then Qing). Sometimes White Mountain fraction was seen as "freedom fighters" and Black Mountain as "collaborationists with the regime", sonetimes vice versa.

After the Qing eventually massacred most Dzunghars (aka oirat mongols), they've resettled lots of Han, Hui, Xibe and few other ethnicities into northern part of Xinjiang. That's why you see such incredible diversity among second, northern based ETR later in the 20th century.

The current "ethno nationist China have annexed Xinjiang when established the PRC" thesis by modern "Uyghur genocide" apologet is pure nonsense. Not just oversimplification: utter garbage.

History of the region is way more complicated. Hard to follow everything that went on!

But it happened historically, that XUAR, thanx to the eventual Sino-Soviet agreement and advocacy of Uyghur communists, became a Uyghur dominated (culturally) autonomous region within PRC. Including both Tian Shan beilu and Tian Shan nanlu.

The later ETIM, basically a terrorist AND violent separatist entity is rather a loose (?) continuation of the first ETR. Nationalist and these days, radical islamist.

Imho it's always been supported by American (previously also Anglo) geopolitical agenda.

To this day, Uyghur activists and scholars in Kazakhstan write rather nationalist pieces damning anyone (both in 18-19th and in 20th century) who collaborated with the "invaders" (but invaders are anybody who though against more radical or islamist fraction at the time).

What can you do, *they're* ethno-nationalist, or rather often pan-turkic, pan-central Asian activists, after all.

That version is "sold", rather watered down, to the white man guilt western gullible crowd.

I should probably continue a bit on this thread.

In Tashkent 1921, "Uyghur Revolutionary Union of Altishahri and Jungharian Workers" has proposed to use the ethnonim *Uyghur* to unify Turkic people of Central Asia, specifically Taranqi (Ili), Kashgarians and other Tarim ppl.

From about XVI century until early XX century, the ethnonim almost disappeared. Not only Turk ppl of the area were in conflicts with each other, they were heavily dominated by Mongolic ppl rule for centuries.

The self name was Turki, the russians called them "Sart".

islamperspectives.org/rpi/

This interesting collection of documents shows lots of pre-1920s documents and later ones, which shows both that the ethnonim started to be in wide use after 1921 and other terms were used before that.

This website, if you dig in there, gives lots of other interesting accounts, like reports of "British influence" in the region, both during "Russian Turkestan" era and later USSR /Xinjiang province era.

Some info can be found in struggle between communist & basmachi.

The fact is, the modern usage of terms Uyghur and East Turkestan (not just as a sociogeographic term, which is older, but a political one) didn't fully take root until 1920s/1930s.

But the term itself is old and legit, just as "Mongol" is legit. Except modern Uyghurs of Xinjiang and Central Asia are as related to the medieval Uyghur (Weiwuer) as modern Mongolians are related to Temujin the Chenghiz Khan. Ancestral group - much later offspring.

Ironically, East Turkestan & modern Uyghur identity is revived and partially constructed by the and under influence of communist activist, Comintern and generally russian-centric mindset.

Not to say we shouldn't still respect any Uyghur who calls themselves that name.

Some "proletarian" activists back then have switched back and forth between the basmachi and communist. As mentioned above, during the ETR mk 2 there was also a pro-independence sentiment, too, and rather strong one.

Not surprising that modern panturkist & separatist wing have adopted both Uyghur as ethnonim and East Turkestan as political name of their desired state.

Before you only praise USSR (I see how it can be easy when being pro-China), consider plenty of mess they've caused. Still needs to be corrected all over the place, China and their deradicalisation campaign is partially because of that mess.

Current China effort to promote a common identity for "Xinjiang ren" is rather useful. It works for most ethnicities but so far very slowly for Uyghurs. It's a huge task ahead to leave XUAR its limited autonomy, promote wellbeing and at the same time merge people together.

I'm not sure it helps that some of the current Chinese propaganda looks like Mao-era stuff, but the general direction in case of Xinjiang is, imo, useful.

Currently reading some Russian language articles on the Uyghur "exodus" via Horgos to the USSR in 1962. That's why we have Uyghur and Kazakh having relatives living in Kazakhstan and XUAR, both sides of the border. And the exiled from XUAR side is still pissed w. China

To conclude the thread.

Turkic migrants into CA in the XX century are usually divided into three groups:

•Yerliklar (those born outside of Xinjiang and spent few gens in KZ, descendants of the 19th century and early 20th century migrants from XJ to Russian Central Asia)

• Kelganlar (those migrated in the early 60s from PRC to USSR, mainly Kazakhstan)

• Khitailiklar (those more recent labour migrants mostly coming since late 80s to work in KZ, usually temporarily)

The two latter groups, migrants between the 60s and 90s were the ones more with "Xinjiang Uyghur" identity, that was forming for a few decades, and they are the ones who chenneled "independent ET" mindset.

In the 90s, lots of migrants would absorb radicalist and even jihadist, in case of Chinese Uyghurs anti-China ideas in Central Asia, which was a problem for CA countries, too (and still is)

Earlier than 1920s migrants identified more with Kazakhstan and Altishari Turki identity.

Uyghur diaspora in KZ also faced problems of diasporic identity, poverty and so on, regular ethnic riots would occur like most recently, Uyghur/Dungan (Hui) ethnic conflicts (pretty deadly usually).

In RU language works modern Uyghur are usually identified as a transborder, diasporic ppl.

The issues with their community, incl. radicalisation are more due to picking up extremely nationalist trends from the past, mixing it with pan-turkism and anti-China sentiment.

In the end of the day even China itself slightly misunderstands the problem. They think that the main issue is poverty and economic marginalisation of Uyghurs in PRC in the past, and it's true, but that's not the main one. It's the broken diasporic, transborder identity.

I speak modern "identity" social sciences language, just to express it better. Post-soviet social sciences are quite different, often referring to ethnos or identity as a "nationality".

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