The purpose of the article is to reveal the characteristic dynamics in the positive and negative discrimination of the population of the Pamirs from the Russian and, later, the Soviet administration, as well as the reasons that caused this approach to the Pamir ethnic identity. As a result of the study, it was concluded that the legal and ethnic status of the Pamir population was closely connected with the specific tasks of imperial policy in Central Asia. Positive discrimination was characteristic to the end of the XIX century and, especially, for the beginning of the XXth century. Such a policy reaches its peak in the mid-1920s. Since the mid-1930s. The republican authorities of the Tajik SSR passed to the policy of negative discrimination and, in general, receive tacit approval from the central authorities of the USSR. However, during the 1940s and 1970s, the status of the Pamiris continued to be ambiguous, which led to a resumption of the discussion and attempts to change the policy of the authorities towards them in the late 1980s.