Dungans
Dungan is the Turkic name for Chinese-speaking Muslims living in various parts of Central Asia. Significant Dungan communities in the Central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan came to Central Asia from China in the nineteenth century. A Dungan population living along the Myanmar (Burma)-China border is known as Pathay, their Burmese name.
Dungans are descended from communities of Muslim merchants, soldiers, artisans, and scholars who established themselves in China under the Tang dynasty (618–907) and later under the Yuan dynasty (1206–1368). These groups intermarried with Han Chinese and adopted the Chinese language, and today they are physically indistinguishable from the rest of the Han population.
The Dungan communities of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan arrived in two waves in the late nineteenth century. The first group crossed the Tian Shan range in the winter of 1877–1878, fleeing to the Russian empire after the suppression of a Muslim revolt in southwest China. The second group was invited to resettle in the Russian empire after the Treaty of Peking adjusted the Russo-Chinese border in 1881. Many Dungans who had been Russian subjects chose to remain part of the Russian empire rather than pass under the authority of the Manchu emperors of China.
Further Reading
Dyer, Svetlana. (1994) "Dungans." In Encyclopedia of World Cultures. Vol. 6, Russia and Eurasia/China. Edited by Paul Friedrich and Norma Diamond. New York: Macmillan, 107–111.
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