514). To best understand the rich heritage that this country has lived, it is best that we divide its history into three distinct eras so that it is easy to trace it from its beginnings to what we now know as the country of Tajikistan. The Ancient Era of Tajikistan which covers much of the country’s history until the 19th century, the Russian Era of Tajikistan from the early 19th to late 20th century, and finally the Era of Independence, from the late 20th century to modern …show more content…
Among the last to do so, Tajikistan made its move to an independent republic, laboriously sloughing off the remnants of the Russian Communist regime. Russian political leaders were systematically replaced by Tajiki leaders as well as the dominant Russian language was slowly replaced by their own Tajik language in social and official capacities. Far from an easy split, the newly formed Tajiki Republic experienced every form of growing pain and separation anxiety possible. Almost as quickly as the nation gained its independence, Tajikistan slid into a civil war among its many clans and factions. Large swaths of the country’s population fled religious, economic, and ethnic persecution retreating to other, former Soviet republics or to the West. Ethnic cleansing led to caused even more devastation to the already dwindling population of the small