The Tragedy of Karakalpakstan and the Fall of Khwarezm The lower
Amu Darya forms a sizable area of irrigated agriculture and
relatively dense population. It is an ethnically mixed area,
inhabited by Turkmens and Uzbeks as well as Karakalpaks (see
map). The Karakalpak language is closely related to Kazakh,
lacking the Persian influence found in Uzbek. Some Kazakh
nationalists claim that the Karakalpak were merely a subgroup of
the Kazakhs who were granted their own ethnic status by Soviet
authorities eager to divide and rule. But if language did not
strongly differentiate the two groups, mode of life did; whereas
the Kazakhs traditionally practiced pastoralism on the open
steppe, the Karakalpaks farmed, fished, and herded in a wetland
environment. Under the Soviet nationalities policy, the
Karakalpaks were granted their own “autonomous republic” within
the Union Republic of Uzbekistan. The collapse of the Soviet
Union in 1991 did not substantially change this arrangement, as
Karakalpakstan remains an “autonomo