© Central Eurasian Publications On Line 2001

‘Communicating Eurasian Affairs Worldwide’

SECTION ONE: CENTRAL EURASIA

ONE: DEVELOPMENTS IN EURASIAN STUDIES

TWO: CENTRAL EURASIA: AN OVERVIEW

SECTION TWO: MAJOR PLAYERS

THREE: RUSSIA AND THE WEST

FOUR: IRAN IN EURASIA

FIVE: TURKEY IN EURASIA

SECTION THREE: THE CAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

SIX: THE TRANSCAUCASIAN STATES

SEVEN: CONFLICT IN THE CAUCASUS (I): ARMENIA-AZERBAIJAN

EIGHT: CONFLICT IN THE CAUCASUS (II): CHECHNYA

NINE: CENTRAL ASIA

SECTION FOUR: THEORIZING EURASIA

TEN: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY AND EURASIA

ELEVEN: CONCLUSION

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

About the Author

TRANSLITERATION

On a note of interest, most historical linguists argue that there are six major language groups on the Eurasian landmass. These are Afro-Asiatic, Dravidian, Kartvelian, Indo-European, Uralic, and Altaic. The Indo-European group includes the Indic, Iranian, Slavic, Germanic, Baltic, Romance, Celtic, Armenian, and Anatolian languages. The Uralic languages include Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian. The Altaic includes Mongolian and the Turkic languages. Russian historical linguists have argued that these six groups can be traced to a common proto-Eurasian language, which they called Nostratic.

Notwithstanding, any analysis in English focusing on Central Eurasia encounters a predominant problem of transliteration. In the presentation of names I have endeavored to be consistent with principles where necessary. First, and concerning transliteration from Cyrillic into the Latin alphabet – now being adopted by Central Asian countries (using a similar alphabet to that of modern-day Turkish) - I employ a simplified version of the American Language Association-Library of the U.S. Congress. For the sake of simplicity, I have omitted diacritical marks (except in citations, and in exceptional cases place names).

Linguistic and orthographic forms have been caught up in the assertion of new identities in the former Soviet Union, and this compounds the problem of transliteration. I have tried to be as sensitive as possible with regard to forms of names themselves.

As a basis for transliterating, in some cases I have used the indigenous forms, and in some cases I have used the Russianized version. Names of countries are symbolically important. In Central Asia, Kazakhstan became Kazakstan, replacing the kh with k. The US avoided the quixotic ‘Qazaqstan’, but adopted Kazakhstan, even though the kh in the middle of the word is clearly a Russianism (as are the Russian used suffixes, ov/ev ending on most Central Asian names – eg Nazarbaev, Akaev, Karimov, Rakhmonov, and Niyazov. Somewhat later the US government followed Kazakstan’s practice in dropping the kh sound. Kirgizia became Kyrgyzstan, Tadzhikistan became Tojikiston, Turkmenia became Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan became Uzbekiston. I spell the name Uzbekiston with an initial u, instead of following the Allworth system which uses the spelling Özbekiston, and by doing so keep it in the same place in alphabetical order, yet also spelling it with a final o, in order to defer to the native Uzbek pronunciation of the word. My approach, in short, seeks communication over aesthetics of symbol and style.

Second, words in Islamic use stemming in large part from Arabic or Iranian sources are italicized in a standard transliteration from the Arabic.

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© Central Eurasian Publications On Line 2001

‘Communicating Eurasian Affairs Worldwide’

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