Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic in the context of "Post-Soviet states"

Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is its capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east and is narrowly separated from Pakistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor. It has a population of more than 10.7 million people.

The territory was previously home to cultures of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, including the Oxus civilisation in west, with the Indo-Iranians arriving during the Andronovo culture. Parts of country were part of the Sogdian and Bactrian civilisations, and was ruled by those including the Achaemenids, Alexander the Great, the Greco-Bactrians, the Kushans, the Kidarites and Hephthalites, the First Turkic Khaganate, the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, the Samanid Empire, the Kara-Khanids, Seljuks, Khwarazmians, the Mongols, Timurids and Khanate of Bukhara. The region was later conquered by the Russian Empire, before becoming part of the Soviet Union. Within the Soviet Union, the country's borders were drawn when it was part of Uzbekistan as an autonomous republic before becoming a constituent republic of the Soviet Union on 5 December 1929.

The Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Tajik ASSR) was an autonomous republic within the Uzbek SSR in the Soviet Union. It was created on 14 October 1924 by a series of legal acts that partitioned the three existing regional entities in Central Asia – Turkestan ASSR, Bukharan People's Soviet Republic, and Khorezm People's Soviet Republic – into five new entities based on ethnic principles: Uzbek SSR, Turkmen SSR, Tajik ASSR (within Uzbek SSR), Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast (as a province of Russian SFSR), and Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast (as a province of Kazak ASSR).

The capital of Tajik ASSR was in Dyushambe. In October 1929, under the initiative of Shirinsho Shotemur, the Tajik ASSR was transformed into a full-fledged Soviet Socialist Republic and became Tajik SSR, which additionally absorbed the Khujand region (today's Sughd Province in northern Tajikistan) from Uzbek SSR. The capital Dyushambe was renamed Stalinabad in honor of Joseph Stalin.

The Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic (Kirghiz SSR) was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1936 to 1991. It was also known by the names Kyrgyzstan and Soviet Kyrgyzstan in the Kyrgyz language, as well as Kirghizia and Soviet Kirghizia in the Russian language. Landlocked and mountainous, it bordered Tajikistan and China to the south, Uzbekistan to the west and Kazakhstan to the north. The Kirghiz branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union governed the republic from 1936 until 1990.

On 30 October 1990, the Kirghiz SSR was renamed to the Socialist Republic of Kyrgyzstan; on 15 December, after declaring its state sovereignty, it was renamed again to the Republic of Kyrgyzstan. On 31 August 1991, it transformed into independent Kyrgyzstan.

Shirinsho Shotemur (also spelt Shirinshah Shahtimur, Shirinsho Shotemor, et al.; Tajik: Шириншоҳ Шоҳтемур Shirinshoh Shohtemur; Russian: Шириншо Шотемор Širinšo Šotemor; 1 December 1899 – 27 October 1937) was a prominent Pamiri politician who made a major contributions to the early history of Soviet Tajikistan and was instrumental in the establishment of the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic.