Versions on the Origin of the Central Asian Component of the Kyrgyz Ethnos
A more substantiated version regarding the origin of the Central Asian component of the Kyrgyz ethnos and the approximate chronology of its movement to Tian Shan was proposed by archaeologist D. G. Savinov. According to him, the penetration of the main Kyrgyz tribes from the Sayan-Altai region to Tian Shan began only in the 13th century, when another powerful wave of migration of nomadic tribes from Central Asia to the West occurred (Savinov, 1984. P. 89-104). In this context, D. G. Savinov believes that it was not the Yenisei Kyrgyz who settled in Tian Shan, but those Kyrgyz tribes from Altai and from Dzungaria, which for a long time mixed with the local tribes of these regions and were carriers of a changed culture that significantly differed from the culture of the Yenisei Kyrgyz. This position of D. G. Savinov is currently supported by the research of Kyrgyz archaeologists (Tabaldiev, 2009. P. 163-165). An important achievement of D. G. Savinov is the departure from the outdated "theory" of the direct resettlement of the Kyrgyz from the Yenisei to Tian Shan.
Supporters of the concept of the autochthonous origin of the Kyrgyz are also divided into the following groups, based on the definition of the basic component of the origin of the Kyrgyz people.
The well-known Russian ethnographer N. A. Aristov made the first attempt to understand the ethnogenesis of the Kyrgyz based on a comparative study of the tribal composition of Turkic-speaking peoples of Siberia and Central Asia (Aristov, 1895; 1897). Although in his work N. A. Aristov was guided by the position that “...there are no pure-blooded tribes and clans, and alliances of different origins prevail,” he still came to a one-sided conclusion about the origin of the Kyrgyz from the descendants of the ancient Usuns. This hypothesis, put forward based on the phonetic similarity of the names of the ancient inhabitants of Tian Shan - the Usuns and some tribal groups of the present-day Kyrgyz, was questioned by V. V. Bartold (Bartold, 1968. P. 268) and the French orientalist P. Pelliot (Pelliot, 1960. P. 317). Nevertheless, new archaeological materials discovered as a result of excavations of ancient burial mounds of the Usun era in Tian Shan testify to a continuity of some cultural traditions between the Kyrgyz and Usuns (Tabaldiev, 2009. P. 168, 169).
However, this does not prove the direct descent of the ancestors of modern Kyrgyz from the ancient Usuns, but only shows that separate fragments of Usun tribes, through many transmitters of the ancient Turkic and Mongolian eras, merged into the composition of the Kyrgyz people.
The well-known Russian sinologist N. Ya. Bichurin proposed a hypothesis about the origin of the Tian Shan Kyrgyz from the descendants of the Bolu people (Bichurin, 1998). At the same time, N. Ya. Bichurin believed that the self-designation of the Tian Shan Kyrgyz is the ethnonym Burut (Chinese transliteration - "Bolu"), which was actually an exoethnonym given to the Kyrgyz by the Kalmyks of Dzungaria (Abdykalikov, 1963. P. 123-127). In turn, the Chinese borrowed this term from the Kalmyks, and in the Qing sources of the 17th-18th centuries, the ethnonym Bolu (Burut) is used exclusively in relation to the Kyrgyz of Tian Shan. It is this erroneous judgment, based on an uncritical perception of information from late Chinese sources, that led N. Ya. Bichurin to the incorrect conclusion regarding the identity of the ancient ethnonym of the inhabitants of the mountainous country of Bolor with the ethnonym Burut, which the Kyrgyz themselves hardly knew.
A similar position was held by the German sinologist V. Shott, who wrote that the Bolu became known for the first time during the Tang dynasty in 696 AD, when they were subjects of the Tibetans (Shott, 1865. P. 129-174). The erroneousness of the concepts of I. Bichurin and V. Shott was first demonstrated by Ch. Ch. Valikhanov (Valikhanov, 1985. P. 57-59). However, later this hypothesis was supported with certain reservations by sinologist A. A. Kondratiev (Kondratiev, 1959. P. 138-141).
In addition to the two main theories outlined above, there is another compromise scientific opinion on this controversial issue, which is essentially a veiled version of the theory of autochthonous origin. A prominent representative of this direction is the well-known Kazakh scientist and traveler Ch. Ch. Valikhanov, who, in the mid-19th century, introduced into scientific circulation information from a number of new Eastern sources containing valuable information on the ethnic and political history of Kyrgyz tribes during the late Middle Ages in Tian Shan.
As a result of analyzing information from several Persian and Turkic sources, Ch. Ch. Valikhanov demonstrated the untenability of the hypothesis of Yu. Klaprot and A. I. Levshin regarding the resettlement of the Kyrgyz from the Yenisei to Tian Shan only in the early 18th century, and simultaneously rejected the erroneous thesis of I. Bichurin about the origin of the Kyrgyz from the "Bolu" people (Valikhanov, 1985. P. 57-59). Ch. Ch. Valikhanov himself believed that the Kyrgyz tribes, for economic reasons, constantly made long migrations across vast spaces located between Sayan-Altai and Tian Shan. Rejecting the theory of resettlement, he attempted to prove that the main homeland of the Kyrgyz is the Tian Shan mountains, and only in the summer period did they make long transitions from there to the Sayan-Altai region in search of pastures, returning in the autumn. In his opinion, these migrations between Tian Shan and the Sayan Ridge were so commonplace that Eastern chroniclers did not attach any significance to them. It is this circumstance that he attempted to explain the ethnic connections between the Yenisei and Tian Shan Kyrgyz (Valikhanov, P. 57-59).
Later, the viewpoint of Ch. Ch. Valikhanov was supported by Kazakh scholar A. Margulan and Kyrgyz historian A. Khasanov. A. Margulan, criticizing A. N. Bernshtein's hypothesis of the multi-stage resettlement of the Kyrgyz from Southern Siberia to Tian Shan, noted that the theory of migration was rejected as early as by Ch. Ch. Valikhanov, who managed to show the error of several scholars who confused ordinary migrations with resettlement. To support his opinion, A. Margulan cited materials from the tale "Funeral Feast for Koketey" from the epic "Manas," related to the migration of the Tian Shan Kyrgyz to the Irtysh region for the funeral feast of Khan Koketey (Margulan, 1959. P. 183, 195-197). However, this only indicates the ethnocultural connections of the Tian Shan Kyrgyz with the population of the Irtysh region and Altai in the past, and cannot serve as a basis for proving regular annual migrations of the Kyrgyz over vast distances. In summary, it can be noted that supporters of this concept proposed a theory of permanent migrations of Kyrgyz tribes across vast spaces located between Tian Shan and Sayan-Altai.
This version of migrations has not found confirmation in the research of contemporary historians and ethnographers. The fact is that neither Ch. Ch. Valikhanov nor his followers took into account the obvious fact that the Kyrgyz, unlike the Kazakhs, do not belong to the category of classical nomads who "in search of grass and water" annually move meridionally over long distances. The Kyrgyz, being semi-nomadic, carried out vertical migrations over short distances depending on the season, and resettlement to other regions occurred only in exceptional cases, either under pressure from more powerful neighbors or as a result of military campaigns by themselves into the territories of neighboring states.
Disputes about the Resettlement of the Kyrgyz from the Yenisei to Tian Shan