Change and Replacement of the Alphabet of the Ancestors (Farsi) in and after the Soviet Era in Tajikistan

One of the disastrous consequences of the seventy-year-old governance of the Soviet Union's communist regime in the historical region of Central Asian consisting of five republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan was a compulsory change in the writing systems of these countries to Cyrillic (Russian). This situation was of particular complexity in Tajikistan due to the linguistic differences with four other countries. In any case, after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, with the independence of the Republic of Tajikistan, the alphabet of the ancestors (Farsi) was expected to replace the Cyrillic alphabet (Russian), as in the early years of the domination of the communist regime, the alphabet of Tajikistan changed from the alphabet Of ancestors (Persian) to Cyrillic (Russian), but it did not happen. Therefore, in order to understand the cause of the subject, first the history of alphabetical change and in other words extinction of the Persian alphabet in Tajikistan during the Soviet era will be explained in the context of this article. Then the upsides and downsides of the change stream of the alphabet, in other words, the subject of the revival of the ancestors' alphabet in Tajikistan after the Soviet era in more than two decades will be described. Recognizing this history from two historical periods, understanding the cause and the reason why the alphabet of the ancestors (Persian) did not replace in the post-Soviet period in the Republic of Tajikistan is significantly valid in terms of providing the reasons for the opponents and the aforementioned superiors. Thus, in this paper the question, i.e. why the process of changing the Cyrillic alphabet (Russian) ancestors’ alphabet (Persian) was not realized, will be answered while studying both periods. Therefore, it is assumed that not accepting the elitism has been an effective factor acknowledging of the importance of economic and political factors. In this context, it is explained that the whispers of the first issue of the reformation of the Arabic alphabet and its replacement with the Latin alphabet in the stream of nationalism and the development of the Islamic countries were proposed by Malkam Khan and Mirza Fath Ali Akhundov and his counterpart in the second half of the nineteenth century, but his efforts had no tangible achievement. Between 1927 and 1930, the alphabet of the five Central Asian republics changed to the Latin alphabet. Initially, changing Arabic alphabet to the Cyrillic alphabet instead of the Latin alphabet was suggested, but it was rejected. At that time, such a move was seen as the institutionalization of Russian superiority, which was strongly condemned by Lenin (Hiro, 2009: 46) Although Central Asia was under the influence of Russia and the domination of communism during Soviet era, its encounter with new era was more or less like Iran, since in Iran there were whispers about alphabet change from some political and cultural elites at that time. In addition, Latinization relied on Iranian nationalism, because Latinization was a reflection of the Persian modernization and its ability to expand in line with time. In other words, Latinization was part of the movement for expressing the national existence. The occurrence of the communist revolution of Russia and the founding of the Soviet Union and the political and social events which from it, made Tajiks face a great transformation in all its aspects, and the fate of the Persian language could not be kept free of these changes. By initiating the Soviet era, Persian language was placed in a new context in cultural terms. From this period on, two fundamental factors shaped the fate of Persian language. In 1926, in the Turkology Congress of Baku, it was announced that the Latin alphabet would be used for all Soviet-Turkish languages. The prevalence of the Latin alphabet coincided with the elimination of illiteracy throughout the Soviet Union, including Tajikistan. The Qur'an and its interpretations, as well as the poems of Persian poets such as Ferdowsi, Saadi and Hafez were banned books. The influence of the pan-Turkism movement on intellectuals or reformists had reached the point where many of those whose nationality was Takij and their mother tongue was Persian, were influenced by it and denied the basis and place of their national language and culture. In a way that in the first years of the new Soviet government, Persian speakers were fined for speaking Persian in Bukhara. Even so, the Tajiks had to defend their originality and independence at the same time with alphabetical change in framework of controlling negative pan-Turkism waves. Although the process of Russianization of the various nations of the Russian empire dates back to Alexander III in the second half of the nineteenth century, but this process was accompanied by ups and downs in the Soviet era.  At first it was condemned based on the theory of Pokrovsky titled as the absolute evil of all colonial forms of English, French or Tsarist Russian until mid-1930s. After a while, the leaders of Soviet Union supported a historical new theory called “Less Evil” during next decade between 1937 and the end of the 1940s. Considering these developments, not only was there no sensitivity to the Tsarist Russia legacy, but also it was acknowledged and even praised. One of the reasons for promoting the Cyrillic alphabet instead of Latin and then compulsory language training in Central Asia, including Tajikistan, is understandable in this context. However, the acceptance of the replacement of the alphabet of the ancestors (Persian) was high at the beginning of the independence of Tajikistan, but with the outbreak of civil war in Tajikistan, and the  Cyrillic alphabet advocates exploiting this undesirable situation on the one hand and hastiness of the advocates of the revival of the ancestral alphabets on the other hand, the necessity of principle of transformation in order to achieve cultural independence was influenced and postponed for an unknown period of time. In other words, ruling situation in Tajikistan showed that law enforcement was far more difficult than its resolution. By splitting the elite community of Tajikistan to two poles, opposites and advocates of changing alphabet, the opposition contexts of opponents of alphabetical changes were more significant than the its advocates’ reasons, as the following: 1. The opposition contexts of Alphabetical change: A. Cultural Context: Disconnecting from Tajiks in Bukhara and Samarkand, stating technical problem in Persian alphabet, claiming that learning Cyrillic Alphabet is easy. B. Political Contexts: a feeling of dependence on Iran, Islamophobia, clerics gaining power. C. Economic contexts: High risk of work, recovery costs, the factor of Russia. 2. Reasons of alphabetical change advocates: A. Cultural reasons: The relative difficulty of writing, benefits of returning to self, relationship among three countries with the same language. B. Political reasons: Tajik religious interests, elimination of Islamophobia, fear of dependence having no ground. C. Economic reasons: Having shared facilities, Risk reduction, and gradual replacement. Given these explanations, it is clear that intellectual-elite cooperation and synergy in order to move toward realizing expectations in the framework of achieving progress is far more effective in the process of cultural transformation than any other transformation. Thus, in Tajikistan, the contexts of accepting alphabet change must be established within the framework of the strategy of continuity and solidarity. Acceptance, of course, only takes place when preparing the contexts of elite acceptance facilitates the public acceptance which its reflection can be found in the framework of people yes votes in a referendum, as there was the acceptance of changing Persian Alphabet to Latin in Tajikistan in the early twentieth century.