Tajikistan's 1991 independence led straight into civil war

Tajikistan’s Supreme Soviet voted to proclaim the republic an independent state on 9 September 1991, less than three weeks after the failed August coup in Moscow broke the Soviet centre’s grip, and that date is still the country’s main national holiday.

Independence did not bring calm. A collapsing economy, clan and regional rivalries and a split between secularists and pro-Islamic traditionalists turned within months into a fight for control of the new state.

• 9 September 1991: The Supreme Soviet in Dushanbe proclaims independence.
• 25 December 1991: The United States recognises Tajikistan as President George H. W. Bush addresses the nation on the Soviet break-up, the same evening Mikhail Gorbachev resigned. The Soviet Union’s formal dissolution followed a day later.
• 19 February 1992: Washington establishes diplomatic relations; its embassy in Dushanbe opens on 13 March.
• May 1992: After two months of demonstrations, an opposition coalition of Islamic and other groups seizes power de facto.
• December 1992: Government forces defeat the opposition, most of whose fighters cross into Afghanistan.
• Mid-1993: UN estimates put the toll at about 50,000 dead, mostly civilians, with 600,000 displaced inside the country and 60,000 more fled into northern Afghanistan.
• 27 June 1997: The government and the United Tajik Opposition sign the General Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and National Accord.

Those mid-1993 numbers are easier to grasp against the population. Tajikistan then had under 6 million people, so in about a year of fighting roughly one person in 120 had been killed and about one in ten driven from home. The UN sent an observer mission, UNMOT, to monitor the ceasefire, and it stayed until the peace process wound up in 2000.

That is why 9 September carries a double meaning in Tajikistan. Official celebrations frame it as the birth of statehood; for many families it also marks the start of the years when the new state nearly tore itself apart.