Contenu du sommaire : Les populations d'Asie centrale

This paper proposes a reconstitution of the process of construction of the Russian-Soviet concept relating to Central Asia and the terminological problems of the Post-Soviet period which reflect the crash of the Soviet system, the return of the Mackinder's concept about the “Pivot Area” and the geopolitical ideas of new Asiatic independant States South of Russia.

The formation of new states, the restructuring of existing states as well as state implosions are key factors of forced exodus. This article, which deals with “forced migration” in the sense of “forced political migration” in Central Asia from Independence in 1991 until the present day, includes externally displaced persons as well as internally displaced persons (IDPs), but excludes economic migration. Three types of political migration are considered. The first two types are examples of mass migration: one is essentially peaceful in nature, the other, violent; the third category concerns far fewer people. The more peaceful type of mass migration involves both Russian and German people trying to return to their respective homelands after Independence because, by staying on in Central Asia, they thought they would lose their rights and become second-class citizens. In fact, this was not the case; they were not in any real danger, and could choose to stay in the country in which they were born or where they had spent most of their lives, but they would have to change their way of living. The other, more violent type of mass migration studied here, comes in the aftermath of civil war, as in Tajikistan. Instead of running the risk of being killed during the fighting, they chose flight either inside or outside their country. The third, much more recent type of migration, which is triggered off by localised political events (Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan), is clearly not an example of mass migration: people simply fled because they were opposed to the government. Some of these people were internally displaced by their government for security reasons (Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan). We will examine various statistics concerning these three different forms of migration and highlight their main phases: crossing the border or not for the IDPs, setting up a new, initially makeshift way of life and, whenever possible, going back home.

This article examines post-Soviet ethnic Russian migration from Central Asia to Russia. It tries to define the motives for emigration and the sociological profiles of the migrants, to dissociate declarations of intent from the actual acts, and to reflect on the migrants' ambiguous relations with their two “motherlands”, Central Asia and Russia. Since 1991, 80% of the Russians of Tajikistan, at least two thirds of the Russians of Turkmenistan, more than the half of the Russians in Uzbekistan, and more than one third of those in Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan have left. This out-migration demonstrates that the links between Russia and Central Asia will not disappear as quickly as some observers suggested after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Since the collapse of USSR, national populations of Central Asia are changing their territorial practices because of the socio-economic crisis. Deep-rooted in their regions during the Soviet period, these populations, which are mainly rural, are now migrating, particularly to Russia. Migrations concern hundreds of thousands workers from Kyrgyzstan's, Uzbekistan's and Tajikistan's towns and countries. They mobilize the traditional social institutions but damage the familial and local society. However these workers transfer to their households a crucial capital for the domestic economy. At the international level, the migrations develop new relations between Russia and central-Asian republics, characterized at the same time by official political sovereignty and socio-economic dependence.

Population Census 1999 of the Kyrgyz Republic is a very useful and precise statistical tool for the analysis of the structure of migration and its spatial orientation. In addition, since several decades, the State Population Register provides annual data of demographic changes. This article gives an overview of the evolution of international migration as well as internal movements on a regional scale by oblast and rayon from the independence until 2005. International migration is characterized by its ethnic pattern and concerns all towns and some rural and mining settlements in the North of the country. Internal migration shows strong movements to the capital Bishkek and affects the mountainous regions of the North where depopulation is starting.

Among the 128 nationalities quoted in the 1999 census in Kazakhstan, amounting 15,6 millions inhabitants (among which 53% are ethnic Kazakhs, 30%, Russians), appear more or less numerous communities, some of them being well known such as the Volga Germans, Ouïgours, Coreans. The Poles of Kazakhstan represent a special case of a constraint diaspora. Its formation as a social group is largely connected with the painful history of the relationships between Poland and the Russian Empire, then, Soviet Union, in its attempt to solve the Polish question during the World War II. Their attempts to preserve their identity, by self organization since the collapse of the Soviet Union for those who prefer to stay in Kazakhstan, or by choosing to come back to their mythical Motherland, are dramatically interesting to point out. The aim of this article is to put some light on this unknown population part of the ethnic puzzle in Kazakhstan. 20 000 out of the 61 000 quoted in the 1989 census have left Kazakhstan to Russia, Poland or other European countries since 15 years. Although being numerously weak, and enduring a new process of kazakhization after «ukranization» and russification, it might be able to keep some influence through the strategy of religious concord developed by the Kazakh power to settle its political stability and in order to be recognized as a specific inter-confessional country in the international arena.

Modern Uzbekistan is a land where space and society are still structured by rural way of life. For the past two decades, the Uzbek rural population kept growing to reach more than 60% of the total population today. This evolution goes against the global tendency and can be explained by multiple factors. During the Soviet planning era, Uzbekistan was assigned the function of a peripheral cotton-producing country and the Uzbek population was constrained to an agricultural way of life. Nowadays, as an independent country, Uzbekistan has not invalidated this rural orientation but aims now at controlling the migratory patterns of its own population to prevent rural exodus. By keeping a rural exodus down to almost nought, the Uzbek regime intends to preserve its indispensable and providential cotton production and wants to avoid the rushing of millions of peasants without lands towards the cities. But the inertia of rural population dynamics can also be explained by the identity values that people traditionally assign to life in villages. This tendency leads to the aggravation of the population overload in rural areas, where tensions for water and land build up. The multiplication of local conflicts and the outline of new clandestine migratory fluxes toward Russia are the signs of an overcrowded world.

There is much uncertainty about levels, trends and differentials in mortality in former Soviet Central Asia. This article uses unpublished raw mortality data for Kyrgyzstan since 1958, to address apparent inconsistencies in national-level reported data and bring new evidence regarding actual mortality patterns in the region. On the basis of internal comparisons by residence and ethnicity, this article shows that national-level increases in infant mortality recorded during the 1958-75 period are spurious, and raises doubts about recorded decreases in infant mortality since 1991. However, the data provides support for the existence of a real mortality disadvantage among adult Russian males living in Kyrgyzstan, compared to their Kyrgyz counterparts. This disadvantage occurs in spite of higher socio-economic status among ethnic Russians, which suggests the presence of a mortality “paradox”. Also, it is shown that ethnic Russians, both males and females, have experienced greater increases in adult mortality than ethnic Kyrgyz since 1991.  Possible explanations for these patterns are discussed.