Tajikistan declared independence from the Soviet Union
On this day · 9 September 1991
On September 9, 1991, Tajikistan proclaimed independence as the USSR collapsed, a freedom soon shadowed by civil war.
On September 9, 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Tajikistan adopted a declaration of state independence, separating the Central Asian republic from a Soviet Union that was rapidly disintegrating. The move followed the failed August coup in Moscow, which pushed one Soviet republic after another to break away.
Tajikistan’s declaration was, as one historian put it, a freedom “more forced on them than acquired or won” — among the last of the republics to formally separate as the USSR dissolved that December.
Independence brought little stability. Within months the new state slid into a civil war between the governing former communists and an opposition of Islamic and democratic forces, a conflict that raged from 1992 until a peace accord in 1997.
The United States recognized Tajikistan’s independence on December 25, 1991, the same day the Soviet Union formally ceased to exist.
September 9 remains the country’s principal national holiday, marked each year as Independence Day.
Sources & references
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