ABSTRACT
The use of concepts like "nation" and "state" requires that their meanings be clarified and separated. The crucial and elusive distinction was underlined by Hugh Seton-Watson when he wrote. States can exist without a nation, or with several nations among their subjects; and a nation can be coterminous with the population of one state, or be included together with other nations within one state, or be divided between several states. This is an essential prologue to an attempt to provide historical perspective on Uzbekistan—once a subordinate republic of the USSR and now an independent state and member of the United Nations. The approach to Uzbekistan's origin is necessary in view of its relatively short life span and its inadequately explained emergence in clouded circumstances: it is essential to remember that it was only in 1924 that Uzbekistan surfaced as a separate and distinct entity within the USSR.
