The Kyrgyz people, defending their freedom and land, alongside other peoples of Eastern Tian Shan and Turkestan.
The fraternal peoples of Central Asia have their own traditions of love for freedom and revolution. Their history is rich with facts of heroic and selfless struggle against "their own" and foreign oppressors. In a stubborn and harsh struggle that lasted for centuries, the peoples of Central Asia defended their rights to life, their native land, national culture, and language. It was a difficult and unequal struggle. At times, it seemed that these fraternal peoples would not withstand the onslaught of enemies and would perish under the weight of the yoke of internal and external oppressors. But their passionate love for independent life and freedom helped them find new strength and rise again for liberation struggles.
The history of the Kyrgyz and other fraternal peoples of Central Asia could be called a history of struggle against foreign oppressors. These peoples, sharing much in their historical development and common fate, repeatedly rose up to fight for their national freedom. Even in ancient times, their ancestors waged a heroic struggle against the conquests of Alexander the Great, the ambitions of the Great Khans, and the invasions of other external enemies. The liberation struggle of these peoples against foreign exploiters took on a particularly acute and prolonged character during the medieval period. For centuries, the peoples of Central Asia waged fierce and stubborn battles against Arab and Mongol conquerors. The struggle of the region's inhabitants against Manchu-Qing and Dzungar aggressors in the 16th-17th centuries was marked by significant scale and mass participation.
The expansionist policy of Dzungaria, incited by neighboring powerful empires, posed a direct threat to the vital interests of the Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, and Karakalpaks. Before the formation of the Dzungar Khanate (1635), frequent clashes between Oirat troops and the armies of Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia usually ended with varying successes for the warring sides. However, with the creation of a militant nomadic state by Oirat feudal lords—the Dzungar Khanate—the balance in this struggle, aided by neighboring empires, gradually shifted in favor of the Oirat rulers, who frequently raided territories inhabited by Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia.
Valuable sources have survived regarding the joint struggle of the Kyrgyz, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, and Karakalpaks in the early 18th century against the Dzungar conquerors. In particular, at that time, the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz undertook a series of joint campaigns against the Oirats to regain lost pastures on the border with the Dzungar Khanate.
However, in the second decade of the 18th century, the Dzungars renewed their movements westward with new strength. The rulers of the Dzungar Khanate, having convinced themselves that the new Qing emperor, who ascended the throne in 1722, did not intend to continue the war with them, organized another bloody campaign against the Kazakhs, Karakalpaks, and Kyrgyz in 1723. This time, the Kazakhs, caught off guard due to strife among the zhuzes, could not withstand their onslaught. The "years of great calamity" began, remembered by the Kazakh and other Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia and captured in many sorrowful verses of the national epic.
The dire situation of the masses of the people led to a gradual consolidation of the Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia. In 1728 and 1729, the united forces of all zhuzes, under the supreme command of Abulkhair Khan, inflicted a series of major defeats on the invaders and liberated a significant part of Kazakhstan's territory. In these battles, Uzbek, Karakalpak, and Kyrgyz detachments participated alongside the Kazakh people's militia. However, the threat from the Dzungar conquerors remained.
The joint struggle of the Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia against the Dzungar conquerors continued even after part of the Kazakhs of the Junior and Middle zhuzes entered the Russian Empire in the 1730s-50s. The Dzungar army sent against the Kazakhs in 1732 suffered defeat. However, in 1740, after a peace treaty was concluded between Qing China and the Dzungar Khanate, the Oirats, inflicting significant blows on the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, again surged into the interior regions of Central Asia, particularly the Fergana Valley and the Tashkent oasis, where fierce battles between the Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and Uzbeks against the onslaught of Dzungaria took place in the following years. The main organizers of the joint struggle were the rulers of the cities of Tashkent and Kokand: Tole-biy (Kaldyrgash-biy) (1739-1751) and Abd al-Kerim-biy (1734-1751).
The organization of a joint resistance against the invaders in Fergana in the mid-18th century can be regarded as a major political success for the Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia, leading to the preservation of the independence of this region.
In 1755-1757, the Dzungar Khanate, defeated by Qing troops, ceased to exist as an independent state. From this moment, a new stage in the struggle of the peoples of Central Asia for their independence began, but now against the Qing Empire, which emerged as an even more active and formidable aggressive force.
However, this force was not the only one. The peoples of Central Asia defended their independence in the struggle against the invasion of the Iranian Shah Nadir, which began as early as 1740. The invaders faced very strong resistance, in which the Kazakhs fought alongside Uzbeks, Turkmen, and Karakalpaks.
The Kyrgyz people, defending their freedom and land, stood alongside the other peoples of Eastern Tian Shan and Turkestan.