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834 UZBEK
they serve in the military. Some of the non-Uzbek Turkic-speaking peoples in
Uzbekistan are adopting the Uzbek language.
The Soviet Uzbek, both men and women, have adopted European-style clothing,
while at the same time maintaining some of their traditional attire. Business
suits, neckties, white shirts, dresses and even blue jeans and footwear patterned
after European design are encountered everywhere in Uzbekistan. The items of
traditional clothing most commonly worn by Uzbek men is the duppi, a darkcolored
skullcap which is usually black with white embroidery; the duppi is
worn outdoors and indoors with both traditional and modern clothing. Wearing
the duppi is becoming less prevalent in the urban areas. Women, especially in
rural areas, frequently wear colorfully embroidered duppis or head scarves. In
their wardrobe of traditional clothing most men have a chapan, a long robe open
in the front and tied together with a knotted scarf. Everyday chapans are lightly
padded and worn as an outer garment. The best-quality chapans are of silk and
frequently have multi-colored stripes. Younger Uzbek more often wear the chapan
at home or on festive public occasions. The distinguishing traditional apparel
of Uzbek women is a short-sleeved, knee-length dress of silk or synthetic material
in a pattern of radiant colored stripes or contrasting black and white.
The early Uzbek were probably one of the components of the Turko-Mongolian
Golden Horde, which dominated Russia and western Siberia from the thirteenth
through fifteenth centuries. The ethnonym "Uzbek" may have its origin in the
name of Uzbek, Khan of the Golden Horde from 1313 to 1340. The term itself
means "self-lord'' or ' 'one's own prince.'' With the breakup of the Horde during
the fifteenth century, the nomadic Uzbek moved southward and established
themselves by mid-century in the lower reaches of the Syr and Amu rivers.
There they challenged the power of the Timurid rulers of Transoxiana, the last
of whom, Babur, they displaced in the early sixteenth century. (Babur went on
to found the Moghul dynasty in India.) Further Uzbek expansion southward was
blocked by the Safavid dynasty of Iran.
Over the years the Uzbek became increasingly sedentary, engaging mainly in
agriculture, but with some involvement in commerce and crafts. They became
participants in the area's Turko-Iranian variant of the Islamic civilization. Three
Uzbek-dominated khanates had emerged by the eighteenth century: Kokand,
Bukhara and Khiva. The majority of the Uzbek were incorporated into the Russian
Empire during the latter half of the nineteenth century. In the course of the
Russian Revolution and Civil War (1917-1923) more than 500,000 Uzbek migrated
to northern Afghanistan, where they are a major component of the Uzbek
community found there presently (see Uzbek [Afghanistan]). In 1924, Soviet
authority having been established in Central Asia, the Uzbek Soviet Socialist
Republic was organized, incorporating within its boundaries most of the Uzbek
in the Soviet Union. The first capital of the Uzbek republic was Samarkand, a
traditional cultural center; Tashkent, the former czarist administrative center of
Turkestan Province, became the capital in 1931. Under Soviet Russian direction