In the lifespan of a single generation, a path has been traversed that is equal to centuries; a society has been built that people have dreamed of for millennia, for which the best representatives of all generations gave their lives. Even in the drawings of Saymaly-Tash, which have reached our time, ancient people tried to comprehend their existence, their calling, their aspirations. This indicates that it is in the nature of every person, both modern and primitive, to strive to know the past, to understand the present, and to dream of a beautiful future.
As is known, before the October Revolution, the Kyrgyz people did not have their own historical chronicles. However, this does not mean that the people were devoid of historical consciousness and knowledge. There has never been and there is no people that thinks and acts without taking into account the experience of the past, without dreaming of a bright future. "For all peoples," emphasizes Academician M.P. Kim, "historical consciousness played a defining role in the formation of morals, customs, and traditions." This thought is especially clearly traced in the materials of oral folk creativity. Thus, in the heroic epic "Manas," in its legendary reframing, the Kyrgyz people sought their representations of their own history, their relationships with other peoples, their dreams of a better life. The influences of distant times in its millennia-long history have brought to us traditional objects of material culture, national ornamentation, and the architecture of burial mausoleums. Their study recreates the picture of the hard life of many generations, the centuries-old struggle with nature for survival, and the struggle against external aggressors for freedom and independence. This period was marked by brutal feudal oppression, poverty, and the oppression of the masses.
The Soviet power granted the Kyrgyz people freedom, national statehood, literacy, and laid the foundation for the development of education, science, and culture.
With the first issue of the newspaper "Erkin-Too," the scientific study of the history of Kyrgyzstan began. Ethnographic, archaeological, and sociological expeditions were organized, Eastern sources were translated, and collections of documents were published. In 1956, the first academic edition of "The History of Kyrgyzstan" was published, which covered the history from ancient times to the mid-20th century. Then monographic studies began to appear, key issues of the history of Kyrgyzstan were developed, and summarizing works were created at a higher scientific-theoretical level.
Comprehensive work was carried out to prepare for the publication of a six-volume "Collection of Historical and Cultural Monuments of Kyrgyzstan." The compiled inventory of monuments already counts more than 5,000 units. Archaeologists, historians, architects, artists, party officials, and practitioners of various specialties participated in its writing. This is a kind of "Red Book" — a memory of the past, an encyclopedic publication of all monuments of Kyrgyzstan — from the drawings and stone sculptures of primitive man to modern sculptural and architectural ensembles.
One might get the impression that everything has already been recorded and described, that history, at least the past, has been researched. Is it worth continuing to engage with it? What new insights can each subsequent book bring to its study? The answers to these questions will be provided by new archaeological discoveries.
During the excavations of the medieval settlement Nevaket (modern Krasnaya Rechka, located 36 km from Frunze), one of the teams of the archaeological expedition led by V.D. Goryacheva discovered a Buddhist text written on birch bark in ancient Indian "Brahmi" script. Several artistically designed ceramic ossuaries (bone repositories for burial) with sculptural images and scenes of dedication to fire were also found here, as well as a ceramic slab with a relief impression of a priest's (or king's) head, holding an altar with fire in his raised hand. Iconographic comparison allows us to relate the find to the circle of Zoroastrian examples of Sogdian coroplastic art of the 6th-7th centuries.
Stationary archaeological research continued at the Buraninskoye settlement (medieval Balasagun). A production workshop was identified, dated to the 12th century based on the complex of finds. The lower layers yielded ceramics from the 9th-10th centuries and samples of imported pottery with three-color underglaze painting. Carved clay plaster with drawings and Arabic Kufic inscriptions was also found.
Interest in historical and cultural monuments is growing every year. The special attraction of scholars to issues related to the heritage of the past is by no means accidental. Monuments of antiquity have long been recognized as valuable historical sources, as they reflect the centuries-old history of a particular people and its role in the history of world civilization. Created through the labor and talent of the people over centuries, they are a treasury of folk wisdom, life-affirming truths, revealing the historical connections of peoples and their struggle for social and national liberation. Monuments serve the purposes of science, enlightenment, culture, international-patriotic and aesthetic education of the people.
The cultural heritage of the Kyrgyz people is an integral part of universal human culture, and archaeological and architectural monuments rightfully belong to the "all-Union open-air museum." With each passing year, the history of culture is enriched with new discoveries, becoming the property of millions of workers.
The social sciences are called to serve the goals of building a new society. A certain role in this belongs to monuments of history and culture as a peculiar arsenal of the past, fully utilized for the construction of the future. Therefore, work on the study, protection, and promotion of historical and cultural monuments should be carried out more effectively. The preservation of monuments requires coordinating the joint efforts of all organizations involved in the protection, scientific study, identification, and promotion of cultural heritage. A comprehensive approach to the problem is a requirement of the day.
The Kyrgyz people — once nomadic and almost universally illiterate — did not have permanent, sedentary-type housing before the revolution — neither houses nor palaces, and, accordingly, architecture and monumental art in the modern sense of these meanings. They did not even have their own national writing, although mentions of the Kyrgyz in the written sources of neighboring peoples date back to ancient times; they did not create their own written history before the revolution. And what could a nomadic herdsman, who even transported his dwelling — a portable yurt — from place to place, leave behind? Therefore, it is natural to raise the question: what architecture can be discussed if there was no urban planning? And somehow it turned out that the negative answer cast a shadow on the research and study of the monuments of the Kyrgyz people from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Only recently have researchers become interested in such creations of the past as fortresses and mausoleums, although the mausoleum of Manas and the Uzgen complex, Shah-Fazil, the Burana tower, and the caravanserai Tash-Rabat in Central Tien Shan have long been studied.
