The uprisings of the townspeople of Osh and the rural residents of the district in the 1880s and 1890s were part of the popular unrest in the Fergana region.
They were caused everywhere by the same socio-economic reasons, directed against the intensification of colonial oppression and the oppression of the local exploitative elite. The religious coloring or involvement of some feudal elements in leading them did not change their overall anti-colonial and anti-feudal orientation.
Following the suppression in early 1882 by troops of the uprising of the residents of Namangan against the intensification of tax oppression, in September of the same year, two hundred poor people from Osh attempted to attack the house of the district chief but were dispersed by a Cossack hundred that had arrived from Margilan. These uprisings expressed the active protest of the working townspeople and peasants against the introduction of a new land tax in Fergana.
The authorities of the Osh district were extremely concerned about the unrest among the Kyrgyz population in the upper reaches of the Ak-Bura River in 1884, as well as the subsequent popular uprisings and attacks on the "native" administration in other mountainous areas of the district in 1885.
This was a direct response from the rural poor to a major uprising in the eastern part of Fergana, known in literature as the uprising of Dervish Khan. Popular rumor, which reached the district authorities, spoke of letters being sent to the Osh Kyrgyz calling for "uprising." There were also rumors about the organization in the summer of 1885 of armed groups in the Osh and neighboring Andijan districts, led by a wealthy local landowner, Dervish Khan. In the event of an unfavorable outcome in clashes with the tsarist punitive detachments, temporary allies of the rebels—feudal-clerical elements seeking to "overthrow Russian power and restore Muslim rule in Fergana"—betrayed the ordinary participants of the popular uprisings who were fighting against the dual oppression.
There was unrest in Osh and the neighboring districts of the Fergana region in 1887 and 1891 as well, when alarming rumors spread among the population of Osh and the district about the organization of local rebel groups to fight against the hated tsarist authorities and local rich people. In 1887, the district authorities attacked the trail of a Bukhara man, Seyid Mir Khodzhina, who was posing as Nusrat Khan, allegedly a descendant of Tamerlane and an assistant to the Prophet himself. He was trying to rally the population to "liberate" the region from the "infidels" and to become khan himself. This one of the newly emerged false khans had been in Osh and was acquainted with Nurmat Pansat, a participant in the uprising of Jetim Khan.
But the largest uprising in Central Asia at the end of the 19th century, in terms of the number of active participants and the scale of the discontented areas, was the so-called Andijan uprising of 1898. Although it was led by reactionary-clerical elements, the labor masses also participated in the uprising. The authorities charged 257 Kyrgyz in connection with the uprising.
According to Russian military historian M. A. Terentyev, who was familiar with the investigation materials, the plan of the uprising's leader, the ishan from the village of Min-Tyube, Mahomed-Ali Khalifa Muhammad-Sabir Ogly (shortened to Madali, nicknamed Dukchi-Ishan, or "spinner," which indicates his profession), was for the rebels to simultaneously and unexpectedly attack Russian military camps near Margilan, Osh, and Andijan. After capturing these cities, and then Namangan, the ishan and his entourage intended to restore the former Kokand Khanate, making Madali's nephew the khan, and if they succeeded in rallying the entire population, to also take Tashkent and Samarkand and "drive the Russians out of the region." Of course, these far-reaching goals of the ishan were alien to the ordinary participants of the movement, who may not have been informed of them. The uprising began with an attack by the rebels on the Russian camp near Andijan at night. Capturing the city, which was a stronghold of Russian tsarism in the region, was one of the top priorities for the rebels, but this was not achieved due to the betrayal of the feudal-tribal nobility who initially joined the uprising. The assembly point for the rebels to attack the Osh garrison was designated as Tamchi-Bulak, 20 versts from the city, near the border between the Osh and Margilan districts. On the evening of May 17, 1898, about 300 rebels from the Naukat volost, armed with sticks, knives, etc., gathered here. The ishan appointed Omorbek Alimov as the leader of the attackers, who was to be obeyed by the murids of Madali. The assembled were still waiting for their accomplices, but a fifty-man detachment reported the departure of the district chief from Osh with an escort, and everyone hastily dispersed, realizing that their intentions had become known to the authorities.
Indeed, the district chief, Lieutenant Colonel Zaytsev, learned about the unrest among the Naukat people preparing to attack Osh through the volost chief Karabek Khasanov—one of the sons of Kurbandzhan-Datkh. An urgent telegram was immediately sent to the military governor in Margilan, and the 4th Turkestan battalion stationed in Osh was ordered to take all measures to protect the "Russian" part of the city. A guard company was deployed to protect the city, and two others were on full combat readiness; the city police and sentries were mobilized, and even the officer's servants were armed. Notably, a hunting team was sent to observe the residents of the old city and their intentions on Suleiman Mountain.
Soon, the leaders of the rebels, Omorbek Alimov and his associate Satybai Rayimbekov, were identified and captured, and a wide wave of arrests of participants in the prepared uprising in the city and district followed.
Under these circumstances, a general uprising of the urban poor in support of the "Andijan" rebels made no sense, and the goals of the uprising were not entirely clear to them, while its leaders did not inspire confidence in everyone. Nevertheless, from May 30 to July 1, the rebels made three unsuccessful attempts to attack the heavily guarded powder warehouse of the garrison outside the city.
In suppressing the uprising, the tsarist authorities dealt with not only the immediate active participants but also with anyone expressing dissatisfaction with the dual oppression. By the decision of the military court in Osh, 106 people were sentenced to death by hanging. Fearing to provoke new discontent among the people, the tsar "graciously" commuted their sentences to many years of exile to hard labor in Siberia.
Among the repressed participants of the Andijan uprising, after its suppression, were several townspeople of Osh from the urban lower classes and semi-nomadic residents of the Osh district.
Most of the rebels, both among the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, were simple peasants, like the shoemaker Mulla Abdu Jalil Ganiev from Osh. He was exiled for 10 years to Irkutsk Province, where, as is known, the prominent Kyrgyz akyn-democrat Toktogul Satylganov, who was also charged in connection with the uprising, served hard labor. After his exile, Ganiev returned to his native land and lived until the victory of the Great October Revolution, just like the celebrated Toktogul Satylganov, who glorified Soviet power. However, a significant number of feudal-clerical elements, who were oppressed in their rights by tsarism, also joined the movement led by Madali.