The Study of the Kyrgyz Continues in Modern Conditions
In the 40-plus years since the publication of S. M. Abramzon's work "The Kyrgyz and Their Ethnogenetic and Historical-Cultural Connections" (1971), not only the socio-political and socio-economic life has changed, but also the ethnological science itself. New field materials have been accumulated, previously unknown written sources have been identified, and numerous archaeological artifacts related to the Kyrgyz and other peoples of Central Asia have been discovered. New scientific personnel have emerged, and new opportunities for cooperation with scholars from other countries have opened up. Modern approaches, methodological foundations, and research concepts have been formed. In the context of independence, cooperation among representatives of various humanitarian sciences addressing the ethnic issues of the peoples of Kyrgyzstan has been stimulated. Evidence of these transformations is this work, which involved not only ethnologists of different generations but also historians, philosophers, literary scholars, linguists, art historians, and representatives of other social sciences. The book addresses issues of ethnogenesis, ethnic history, and the contemporary ethno-social development of the people, describing traditional occupations and economic activities, skills in natural resource management, material culture, family and social relations, customs and rituals of family and calendar cycles, folk knowledge, creativity and beliefs, as well as ethno-cultural and socio-political processes of recent times.
The self-designation of the people is "Kyrgyz." In the Russian language, the phonetic form "Kyrgyzy" is usually used. In the Russian Empire in the 18th to early 20th centuries, "Kyrgyzy" or "Kyrgyz-Kaisaks" referred to Kazakhs, while the actual Kyrgyz were most often called "Kara-Kyrgyz" (literally, "black Kyrgyz"). During the Soviet era, the names "Kyrgyzy" and Kyrgyzstan were used. The proclamation of sovereignty by the Soviet republics in 1991, one of which was the Kyrgyz SSR (Kyrg. Kyrgyz SSR), was accompanied by the renaming of countries and cities in accordance with the phonetics of national languages, leading to the name "Kyrgyzstan" (Kyrg. Kyrgyz Respublikasy). The official name "Kyrgyz Republic" (full form) and "Kyrgyzstan" (short form) was approved in the order of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation No. 1495 dated August 7, 1995. In Kyrgyzstan itself, where the Russian language has official status, the terms "Kyrgyzstan" or "Kyrgyz Republic" are used in documents. Since this publication is the result of cooperation between scholars from the Kyrgyz Republic and Russia, it has been deemed appropriate to retain the authors' variants of the name of the people according to the norms accepted in each of these two countries.
Currently, more than 6 million people live in the Kyrgyz Republic, of which 4.3 million are Kyrgyz. Outside the country, Kyrgyz people live in China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, and other countries.
In the post-Soviet period, many Kyrgyz went abroad for work in Russia, Kazakhstan, Italy, South Korea, and other countries near and far. In total, their number worldwide exceeds 5 million people.
The Kyrgyz language belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic group of the Altaic language family.
The question of the origin of the people remains a topic of discussion. It is known that in ancient times, a people called "Kyrgyz" lived in the Minusinsk Basin. Medieval written sources report that ethnic groups named "Kyrgyz" were located in Southern Siberia, Mongolia, and Central Asia. The first mention of the Kyrgyz is found in Chinese written sources. In the work "Historical Notes" by the historian Sima Qian (145-86 BC), it is stated that the Xiongnu ruler Modu Shanyu, during his campaign to the north and northwest, conquered, among other peoples, the possessions of the Kyrgyz. Another historian, Ban Gu (1st century BC), in his work "History of the Han Dynasty," left the following record: "7,000 li to the east of the Kyrgyz is the camp of the Shanyu (Xiongnu)." In the ancient Orkhon-Yenisei written monuments of Turkic-speaking peoples from the 7th-8th centuries, there is information about ancient Turkic states, including the Yenisei Kyrgyz state, rulers, tribes, and nationalities, as well as their glorious and dramatic periods of life. The runic monuments in honor of Kültegin, Bilge Khagan, Tonuyukuk, Bayanchor, and many others succinctly present information about historical events, about the ancient Turks, including the Yenisei Kyrgyz.
Rich materials on the diplomatic correspondence of Kyrgyz Khans with the Tang Empire and the conquest of the Kyrgyz by the Mongols are found in medieval Chinese historical chronicles. In particular, such information can be found in "Jiu Tang Shu" ("Old Chronicle of the Tang Dynasty"), "Zhou Shu" ("New Chronicle of the Tang Dynasty"), in the work "Da Tang Xiyu Ji" ("Notes on the Western Region during the Great Tang Dynasty"), compiled in the mid-7th century by the Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang, in the 9th-century encyclopedia "Tundian" ("Political Compendium") by Du Yu, in the 10th-century overview "Tang Hui Yao" ("Overview of the Tang Dynasty") by Wang Pu, and in the chronicle of the Mongolian Yuan dynasty ("Yuan Shi"), compiled by Sun Liang and Wang Wei in 1369. In the Middle Ages, Arab geographers and travelers studied the lands, peoples, economies, culture, and everyday life of non-Muslim peoples of Central Asia. Persian written sources also contain valuable information about the places of settlement, economy, and everyday life of the Kyrgyz.
A new stage in the study of the Kyrgyz began in the 18th century with European and Russian travelers and researchers and continued after the Russian Empire annexed the territory of modern Kyrgyzstan in the mid-19th century. The works of G.F. Miller, I.F. Fisher, N.Ya. Bichurin laid the foundation for research on the origins of the Kyrgyz in the modern territory. V.V. Radlov, Ch.Ch. Valikhanov, N.A. Aristov, I.Ya. Levshin, relying on their own observations and the works of medieval authors, studied the problems of ethnogenesis and ethnic history of the Kyrgyz. The publications of N.A. Severtsov, M.I. Venyukov, G.S. Zagriazhskiy, N.I. Grodekov, F.V. Poyarkov examined issues of economy, family-marital relations, material and spiritual culture, religion, and social life of the Kyrgyz. A significant contribution to the study of the history and culture of the Kyrgyz of Xinjiang was made by travelers, researchers, and diplomatic workers such as Ch.Ch. Valikhanov, L.F. Kostenko, M.V. Pevtsov, N.M. Przhevalsky, B.L. Grombchevsky, N.F. Petrovsky, G.E. Grom-Grzhimailo, N.I. Grodekov, and others. A special place among Russian researchers belongs to Academician V.V. Bartold, who, based on the study of a large number of Eastern written sources, wrote the history of the ethnogenesis of the Kyrgyz from ancient times to the 20th century (Bartold, 1996).
From the late 19th century until the 1930s, Belek Soltonoev worked as one of the first Kyrgyz researchers of modern times, leaving a vast amount of manuscript materials on the history and ethnography of the Kyrgyz (Soltonoev, 2003).
In the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, Central Asia, including the Kyrgyz, was the subject of close study by major Western powers. Western scholars and travelers studied the geographical and economic situation of the region, the ethnographic and anthropological characteristics of the local population, biological and ecological diversity, nature, climate, landscape, and their impact on the economy, history, and culture of nomads, as well as the politics and colonial administration of the Russian Empire in Central Asia. The origins of the Kyrgyz and their tribal composition were the focus of works by English missionary G. Landsell, Y. Schuyler, English traveler Count Ch. Dunmore, S. Gedin, G. Bonvalo. The political history and economy of the Kyrgyz in the Tian Shan and Kashgar in the second half of the 19th century are reflected in the works of M. Pratt, E. Saida, T. Yang, Y. Schuyler, E. Huntington, as well as in the works of L. McCartney and E. Syke.
After 1917, a new stage in the ethnological study of the Kyrgyz began. During the Soviet era, the collection of ethnographic materials received unprecedented and organized momentum. Social scientists, including ethnographers, were engaged in studying local society, which was necessary for preparing radical reforms. Ethnological research during the Soviet period is characterized by a comprehensive approach and thorough investigation of ethnic phenomena. During this time, significant work was done to train ethnologists both in Moscow and Leningrad, as well as in Kyrgyzstan.
One of the first ethnographers to conduct research in Kyrgyzstan was F.A. Fielstrup, a research associate of the ethnographic department of the State Russian Museum in Leningrad (now the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography). In the 1920s, he visited the mountainous regions of Naryn, Issyk-Kul, Chui, and partially the Fergana Valley, collecting materials on housing, clothing, food, means of transportation, livestock breeding, agriculture, falconry, family-marital relations, life cycle rituals, economic and social life, and compiling genealogical tables. Thanks to his efforts, the MAE has a rich and valuable systematized collection reflecting the life and culture of the Kyrgyz.
The untimely death of F.A. Fielstrup during the years of political repression prevented him from analyzing, summarizing, and publishing the valuable ethnographic materials he collected. They were published only 70 years later (Fielstrup, 2002) by B.H. Karmysheva.
A whole cohort of Soviet scholars dedicated themselves to the study of the Kyrgyz. The problem of clan division was addressed by V.N. Dubitsky, who published a book on Kyrgyz genealogies based on materials collected in the Jetysu region (Dubitsky, 1923). In 1926, N.P. Dyrenkova, an employee of the MAE of the USSR Academy of Sciences, traveled to the Arpa Valley, where she collected rich material on family kinship relations among the Kyrgyz (Dyrenkova, 1927, No. 2). A.S. Bezhkovich conducted research on household agriculture as part of the Kyrgyz anthropological-ethnographic expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1973). In 1927, at the request of the Kyrgyz government, P. Pogorelskiy and V. Batrakov organized a large expedition to the Tian Shan to study socio-economic relations, resulting in the monograph "The Economy of the Nomadic Aul of Kyrgyzstan" (Pogorelskiy, Batrakov, 1930). The social-class structure of society, particularly the manapstvo, was the subject of V.I. Burov-Petrov's work (Burov-Petrov, 1927). In 1926, M.F. Gavrilov conducted research in Suusamyr, collecting data on traditional ornamentation.
From the mid-1920s, the scientific activity of the outstanding ethnographer S.M. Abramzon began, who dedicated his entire research career and life to the study of the Kyrgyz. Over half a century, he traveled almost the entire republic, visited the most remote and hard-to-reach mountainous areas, and managed to collect invaluable ethnographic materials. His fundamental work "The Kyrgyz and Their Ethnogenetic and Historical-Cultural Connections" has undergone several editions, has been translated into Kyrgyz, and continues to be in high demand among the broadest segments of the population of the country. This book covers all aspects of Kyrgyz life: ethnogenesis and ethnic history, economic structure, material culture, social order, marriage and family, religion and cult, oral folk creativity, and folk art. S.M. Abramzon wrote several other books (Abramzon, 1946) and published a large number of articles addressing various problems of Kyrgyz ethnology.
The Leningrad scholar was at the origins of the organization of historical and local history museums in the republic. The richest material on the life and culture is presented in the fundamental works of Academician K.K. Yudakhin of the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic, "Russian-Kyrgyz Dictionary" (1944) and "Kyrgyz-Russian Dictionary" (1965).
Systematic study of the Kyrgyz in the republic began in 1943 when the Kyrgyz branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences was established, and a special document on the main directions of scientific research and museum work in the field of ethnography was adopted in the historical sector of the Institute of Language, Literature, and History. From the 1950s, intensive comprehensive research on the ethnogenesis and ethnic history of the Kyrgyz, their ethnogenetic and ethnocultural connections with other Turkic and neighboring peoples began. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, major archaeological-ethnographic expeditions were conducted throughout the republic and in neighboring countries. Based on the results of these and other exploratory studies, a session on the ethnogenesis and ethnic history of the Kyrgyz was held in 1956, where the majority of scholars defined the main contours of understanding the process of the origin of the Kyrgyz people (Proceedings of the Institute of History of the Kyrgyz SSR, 1956, Vol. P. S. 233). In the following years, ethnogenesis and ethnic history of the Kyrgyz people became the subject of research by many scholars. These issues were addressed in the works of S.M. Abramzon, A. Abdykalykov, A.N. Bernshtam, V.Ya. Butanaev, O. Karaev, S.G. Klyashtorny, A. Margulan, S.E. Malov, A. Mokeev, D.G. Savinov, K.I. Petrov, Yu.S. Khudyakov, T.K. Choroev, and other scholars.
An important milestone in the study of ethnogenesis and ethnic history was the preparation and publication of the first volume of the fourth edition "History of the Kyrgyz SSR" (1984) and the collection of articles "Questions of the Ethnic History of the Kyrgyz People" (Frunze, 1989).
The physical appearance of the Kyrgyz was studied by V.P. Alekseev, G.F. Debets, V.V. Ginzburg, I.I. Gokhman, N.N. Miklashevsky, P.L. Khit, T.K. Khodzhayev, and other anthropologists.
A significant contribution to the study of various aspects of the ethno-social and ethno-cultural life of the Kyrgyz in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries was made by M. Aitbaev, K.I. Antipina, K. Mambetalieva, D. Aitmambetov, Ya.R. Vinnikov, A. Zhumagulov, Zh. Bayalieva, I.B. Moldobaev, G. Simakov, E. Sulaymanov, A. Asankhanov, A. Kochkunov, O. Karataev, S. Kaipov, A.Z. Zhapаров, Sh. Batyrbaeva, Ch. Turdalieva, S. Alymkulova, A. Dzhooshbekova, and many others.
The development of ethnological science in Kyrgyzstan during the post-Soviet period is characterized by the fact that, methodologically, ethnologists have moved away from the class approach in studying modern ethno-social and ethno-cultural processes, actively applying global achievements in their work, and freely expressing opinions on painful and acute issues.
The change in the socio-political situation in the country required social scientists to transition to more in-depth and specific studies of contemporary ethno-social processes. Since the mid-1980s, a new direction in ethnological science has emerged in Kyrgyzstan - ethnic sociology, which applies mathematical methods to study modern processes. The founders of ethnic sociology in Kyrgyzstan are S. Karakeeva and A. Asankhanov. In recent years, a whole cohort of young ethnologists has emerged in the republic, continuing the ethnological and ethno-social study of the Kyrgyz, applying the latest methods of ethnological science. Various aspects of Kyrgyz life are examined in the works of historians, linguists, literary scholars, and folklorists.
During the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, many foreign scholars had the opportunity to study the Kyrgyz and the contemporary ethno-social and political processes in the country (R. Dor, N. Shaharani, S. Jackson, N. Megroan, S. Yoshida, and others).