Questions of the Ethnic History of the Kyrgyz

Disputes about the origin of the Kyrgyz are still relevant

Among the variety of data available in ethnography, S. M. Abramzon paid special attention to the testimonies of ethnonymy and folk traditions to address this issue. Using this new methodology, S. M. Abramzon convincingly demonstrated for the first time, based on ethnographic and folklore materials, that the ethnic and ethnogenetic connections of the Kyrgyz of the Tian Shan, alongside local roots, have their original territory in Altai (Abramzon, 1971, p. 22). However, this idea was not fully developed by S. M. Abramzon, who, not considering himself a specialist in textology, refrained from widely using information from Eastern sources.

He also made another fundamental conclusion that "if it has long become evident that the identification of the Yenisei and Tian Shan Kyrgyz is impossible, then the complete denial of some ethnogenetic connections between them is equally unfounded" (Abramzon, 1971, p. 18). This position is of great importance for the studies of the ethnic history of the Kyrgyz people and is essentially methodological in nature.

The next significant stage in the development of the problem of ethnogenesis and the ethnic history of the Kyrgyz was the publication of the first volume of the fourth edition of "The History of the Kyrgyz SSR" (1984). During the preparation of this volume, where a special chapter was dedicated to the ethnogenesis of the Kyrgyz, the authors' collective summarized the results of long scientific work and proposed a number of new, fundamentally important provisions that caused a wide public resonance in Kyrgyzstan. The authors of the section on ethnogenesis, among whom was the author of these lines, based on the above concept of the formation of a nationality from two main components, identified three main epochs in the history of the formation of the Kyrgyz:

a) ancient (Saka, Saka-Usun, and Hun-Usun periods in Tian Shan);
b) early medieval (Kyrgyz in Yenisei, Turkic, Turkic-Karluk and Karluk-Karakhani periods in Tian Shan);
c) late medieval (Kimek-Tokuzoguz-Kyrgyz in Altai, Mongol-Kyrgyz and Kyrgyz in the Irtysh region and Tian Shan).

However, this concept then provoked a sharp reaction from the creative intelligentsia of Kyrgyzstan, which categorically rejected the Altai stage of development of the Central Asian component of the Kyrgyz and defended the outdated concept of their direct resettlement from Yenisei to Tian Shan in the mid-9th century. To some extent, the discussion of the concept outlined in Volume I of the History of the Kyrgyz SSR led to the scientific collection "Questions of the Ethnic History of the Kyrgyz People" (Frunze, 1989), where the majority of the authorial collective (O. Karaev, Yu. Khudyakov, V. Butanaev, T. Choroев) expressed a different point of view on the issue. According to these researchers, the process of forming the Central Asian proto-core of the Kyrgyz people was completed as early as 840 AD in the Minusinsk Basin. Some tribes migrated to Tian Shan as a result of the military campaign of the Kyrgyz in 843 AD to the cities of Beshbalyk and Anxi. Subsequently, it was this group of Kyrgyz that played a key role in the formation of the Kyrgyz nationality (Questions of Ethnic History, 1989, pp. 35, 52-54).

Thus, the aforementioned scholars opposed the concept of the Altai stage of development of the Kyrgyz ethnos. In their opinion, such an approach diminishes the contribution of the Yenisei Kyrgyz to the formation of the medieval Kyrgyz nationality to the west of the Minusinsk Basin. However, different processes were occurring in Altai—with the participation of part of the Yenisei Kyrgyz in another territory and in another historical period.

Therefore, the highlighting of the Altai stage does not diminish the role of the Yenisei Kyrgyz in the formation of the Central Asian component of the Kyrgyz people but rather shows the progressive development of the ethnos during the so-called Kyrgyz Great Power era, when the region of Altai and Irtysh began to be actively settled by the Yenisei Kyrgyz.

Unfortunately, in the second half of the 1980s and the early 1990s, the scientific development of this pressing issue in Kyrgyzstan was practically curtailed. Its discussion mainly moved to the pages of newspapers and popular publications, where the main focus was not on the problems of the origin of the ethnic history of the people, but on the genealogy of Kyrgyz clans and the idealization of the Yenisei stage of history.

Nevertheless, on September 23-24, 1994, an International Conference was held in Bishkek on the topic "Kyrgyz: Ethnogenetic and Ethnocultural Processes in Central Asia in Antiquity and the Middle Ages." During the discussions of the reports presented at the conference, the following main approaches to the problem of ethnogenesis, ethnic history, and the formation of traditional Kyrgyz culture were identified.

At the very ancient stage of the formation of the Central Asian component in ethnogenesis, factual data indicating the dominance of genealogical kinship of the Tian Shan Kyrgyz with the Turkic peoples of Central Asia and Southern Siberia, primarily with the tribes of the state of the Yenisei Kyrgyz, became increasingly significant. At the next, middle stage of development of this component, ethnic processes occurring during the wide settlement of the Yenisei Kyrgyz in Altai (in the broad geographical sense of this term) were of decisive importance. The resettlement of the Altai Kyrgyz to Tian Shan occurred in the second half of the 15th century, and this process was associated with the disintegration of the state of Mogolistan, from which Mongolian tribes were displaced by Kyrgyz tribes (History of the Kyrgyz SSR, 1984).

The process of forming the Central Asian proto-core of the Kyrgyz ethnos was completed as early as 840 AD in the Minusinsk Basin. The main route of migration of the Kyrgyz from Yenisei to Tian Shan was already being taken in the mid-9th century through Mongolia and Eastern Turkestan, where they initially consolidated in the mountains of Eastern Tian Shan, seized a part of the territory of the Tarim Basin, and subsequently advanced into the territory of present-day Kyrgyzstan. Subsequently, it was this group of Kyrgyz tribes that played a key role in the formation of the modern Kyrgyz nationality in Tian Shan (Questions of Ethnic History, 1989, pp. 35, 52-54).

The discussion revolved around these two concepts regarding the timing and place of formation of the Central Asian component in the ethnogenesis of the Kyrgyz people and the chronology of their movement to Tian Shan, which were outlined during the writing of the first volume of "The History of the Kyrgyz SSR" and its discussion in the collection "Questions of the Ethnic History of the Kyrgyz People."

Despite significant discrepancies between the two concepts regarding the Central Asian component, the participants of the conference unanimously stated that the final stages of the formation of the Kyrgyz people took place in Tian Shan in the 15th-18th centuries. Here, processes of interaction and mutual influence between its two main components—the ancient and medieval tribal unions of the Pre-Tian Shan and the Kyrgyz tribes that migrated here from Southern Siberia—were occurring.

This scientific conference marked an important stage in the revival of research work on the ethnogenesis and cultural genesis of the Kyrgyz people. As a result, researchers found points of contact regarding the ancient and last Tian Shan stages of ethnic history. However, issues such as the resettlement of Kyrgyz tribes during the so-called Kyrgyz Great Power era, the nature and timing of the movement of the Kyrgyz from Yenisei to Altai and from Altai to Tian Shan, as well as the Altai stage of development of the Central Asian component, remain contentious.

This crucial period of ethnic history has been studied very poorly in historiography because all researchers generally focused only on the early stages of the ethnogenesis of the Kyrgyz and were engaged in clarifying the contentious question: when did the Kyrgyz tribes migrate to their current homeland? As noted earlier, academician V. V. Bartold presumably attributed the last stage of migration to Tian Shan to the mid-15th century, linking this event, however, to the movements of the Oirat to the west and implying the Yenisei Kyrgyz.

Currently, a thorough comparative analysis of written sources with archaeological materials, data from the epic "Manas", and a number of historical traditions is required for a clearer definition of the reasons, stages, and routes of movement of Kyrgyz tribes from Altai and Irtysh to Tian Shan.

Concepts of well-known historians on the ethnogenesis of the Kyrgyz people