Beyond the River

Whitlock, Monica. Land Beyond the River: The Untold Story of Central Asia. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2003.

Interesting Gems

While most of Hindustani’s students maintain that he studied at Deoband, in his writings Hindustani himself never mentions Deoband and repeatedly specifies Ahmir (35).

Why did the Russians screw Tajikistan during delimitation and hook up Uzbekistan? It may have been because they saw improved relations with Turkey as more desirable than with Iran (44).

When the tides turned in their battle against the communists, many basmachi actually switched sides and became Soviet officials (56).

The first Russian paratrooper mission in history was in 1929 into the mountain village of Gharm to take on Ibrahim Bek, the last senior basmachi commander (59).

Before the Soviet period, “jesters” in Central Asia sometimes had their kneecaps removed to create a wobbly walk (67).

The Soviets claimed that before the revolution only 2% of the population was literate. This claim is impossible to evaluate because using the old Arabic script was immediately outlawed following the revolution (73).

During World War II Mongolian cavalry rushed advancing German machine gunners only to be completely wiped out without killing a single German (81).

Another Vali-Khan type shows up in this book. Apparently there was a Kazakh defector to the German side in World War II named Vali Qayum Khan. Relation to Valikhanov not specified (89).

Central Asians did listen to at least some Middle Eastern and Afghani radio stations, despite KGB surveillance (115).