Osh. Alimbek-Datka
Alymbek — ruler of Alai.
The city of Osh and the village of Kara-Suu were considered by the southern Kyrgyz feudal lords as their own stronghold. Here they owned real estate, and through Osh maintained contact with the Kokand governors and the central authorities of the khanate.
The largest feudal lords who left a significant mark in the history of the city were Alymbek-datka and his wife Kurbandzhan, who outlived him by almost half a century. Therefore, we will briefly focus on their biographies in connection with the history of the city of Osh.
Characterizing the political situation of the Kokand Khanate and the Kyrgyz in the late 1860s, English historians John and Robert Mitchell (who relied on the information of Valikhanov, Venyukov, and Bardashev) wrote that the influence of the Kyrgyz in the khanate was extremely great, as even the first khan's minister Alymbek was from the Kyrgyz tribe of adygen.
Central Asian sources — narrative ones ("Tarikh-i Jahannama," "Tarikh-i Shahrokhi") specify: he was from the bargy clan of the adygen tribe. "Alymbek, who destroyed (?) the city of Kokand (buzat), was from the bargy clan," wrote the author of "The History of Kyrgyz Freedom" Osmonaly Sydykov. "In the city of Osh, he built a magnificent madrasa modeled after those in Bukhara. The city of Osh is located in a prominent high place."
On December 5, 1860, while traveling from India to Kokand, the English agent Mulla Abdul Majid visited Alai. Almost at the same time, a little over two years later, his notes were published in Calcutta, in which he named the residence of the Alai ruler Alymbek-datka as Ghulcha. Later, the Russian traveler E. Markov characterized the position of the Alai tribal rulers Kurbandzhan and her husband Alymbek in his travel sketches about the Kokand Khanate: "This datka was almost an independent ruler during the time of the Kokand khans, and although her husband received his title of bek from Khudoyar-khan, this khan's investiture was more a matter of propriety than an actual right of the khan, as the Alai Kyrgyz highly revered the noble 'white bone' of their beks and followed them unconditionally, wherever they led, even without the sanctification of their rights by khan's authority."
In the summer of 1962, we met in Osh with the esteemed elder pensioner D. Zainabidinov. His father once served as a scribe for the famous "Alai queen" — Kurbandzhan-datka, and he himself managed the waqf department in Osh during the early years of Soviet power.
Zainabidinov shared with us his manuscript of memories about the clan of the largest Kyrgyz feudal lords of Alai and Osh — Alymbek — Kurbandzhan, about Alymbek's madrasa and his waqf estate. According to D. Zainabidinov (who, by the way, saw Kurbandzhan in his childhood), Alymbek effectively conducted an independent policy, and in a certain agreement — akhdakh, which conditioned Alai's dependence on the Kokand Khanate, it was even stipulated that Alymbek had the right to govern Alai independently. In Osh, Alymbek owned trading shops as real estate and had waqf land for his madrasa, which he built on the right bank of the Ak-Bura River.
Being a powerful Kyrgyz feudal lord and a sophisticated court dignitary who played a significant role in the khan's internal conflicts and palace coups, Alymbek was a typical representative of his class — a cruel despot who spared even the lives of his subjects if it served his personal interests. It was Alymbek, according to the traveler A. P. Fedchenko, who stood out for his "brutal murder" of the local population directly in the city of Osh during one of the anti-khan uprisings.
Having entered the political arena early, Alymbek received the title of datka — ruler of Alai from Madali-khan in 1831.
Here he met the twenty-year-old girl Kurbandzhan, with whom he tied his entire subsequent life. Kurbandzhan was born into the family of a simple nomadic herdsman Mamatbek in Kichi-Alai. Mamatbek was "an ordinary Kyrgyz from the mungysh clan and did not stand out from his relatives either in position or in particular wealth." From childhood, Kurbandzhan was betrothed and at the age of 17 was married to Kuly-Sad-Yarov — a Kyrgyz from the yuvash clan, whom she saw for the first time only on the day of the wedding. She did not like the groom, and for three years Kurbandzhan was considered the nominal wife of Yarov, remaining all the time in her father's yurt. In 1831, Alymbek, already being the datka of Alai, met Kurbandzhan, freed her from her husband, and the next year they got married. Kurbandzhan became a devoted assistant to Alymbek: during his absence in Alai on khanate affairs, she successfully replaced him, ruling the Alai Kyrgyz firmly and authoritatively.
