History of Central Asia

particular and unique experience of each republic and, on the other, the enduring 
benefits of the Russian connection, which paradoxically required that the tsarist 
conquests and their consequences be represented as an overwhelming boon to Central 
Asians. Great significance was given to language policy, with strenuous efforts being 

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made to emphasize the linguistic differences among the various 
Turkic 
languages
 spoken in the republics, clear evidence of intent to divide and rule. 
During the last two decades of Soviet history, the remoteness and economic 
backwardness of Central Asia meant that this region felt less intensely the winds of 
change beginning to blow through metropolitan Russia, Ukraine, or the Baltic republics, 
although from 1979 Soviet intervention in neighbouring Afghanistan produced ripple 
effects across the frontier. Historians, however, may conclude that the most significant 
aspects of the history of Central Asia under the Soviets were the extent to which its 
peoples managed to retain their traditional cultural heritage under the most debilitating 
circumstances. 
Now that all five are independent 
sovereign
 states, their future destinies will be of more 
than regional significance. Central Asia will no longer be the backwater that it became 
when the age of European maritime discovery brought to an end the centuries-old 
transcontinental caravan trade.