Dictators, Islamists, Big Powers and Ordinary People The New»Great Game« in Central Asia ALEC RASIZADE T he term»Great Game« was originally coined by R. Kipling to label the 19th century Anglo-Russian rivalry for hegemony in Central Asia. Af­ter the demise of the ussr , this buzzword has been liberally exercised by analysts and observers of the region to describe the great powers’ various endeavors to fill the strategic void, and ranging from their military ven­tures to mere competition for its energy resources and pipelines. After the Afghanistan war, writers have discovered that the age-old»Great Game« is entering a new and more dangerous phase. They warn that the intrigue continues today, with new powers skirmishing over the»fabulous« oil and gas wealth of the Caspian Basin, with new intimations of Islamist violence, and no one willing to openly concede defeat. But only a few scholars try to explain what specifically is the real Central Asia today. The Problem of National Frontiers in Turkestan In his 1920»Letter to the Communists of Turkestan«(as the Russian part of Central Asia was known at that time), V. I. Lenin asked them to inves­tigate how many national republics would be established there and what they should be named. 82 years ago, the idea of sovereign ethnic-based states was alien and exotic for the local Muslim population. The concepts on ethnic division of Turkestan were as vague then as they are now in the contemporary multi-ethnic Afghanistan. V. Bartold, the renowned scholar on Central Asia, warned the Bolshevics that Central Asia had no historic experience of the paradigm of an ethnic state, and it would be a great mistake to divide the region along ethnic lines now. Nevertheless, the present boundaries and infrastructure were designed by the ussr based on a strong belief of the»unbreakable union« of fifteen Soviet re­publics. As a result the borders, in some cases disputed(with the most in­tricate maze of border patchwork being the Fergana Valley), were never delimited or demarcated. 90 Rasizade, Central Asia ipg 3/2002