Since ancient times, humans have pondered questions about the origins of everything, the emergence of life, the explanation of death, and so on. Answers to these and other questions were sought and found in everyday life.
Kyrgyz people, like other nations of the world, had their own body of knowledge about the laws of nature, celestial bodies, and the origins of the universe. Everyday experience taught them to treat various diseases in humans and animals. This knowledge, passed down from generation to generation, accumulated over centuries by "nameless scholars," primarily the people. The practical knowledge accumulated throughout the history of the Kyrgyz ethnos served as the foundation for modern scientific knowledge as we know it today. Of course, the level of modern science in Kyrgyzstan is directly related to the socio-economic and political processes of the Soviet era. It was this era that elevated Kyrgyz science to the current heights represented by a cohort of scholars, many of whom are documented in this book. What distinguishes science from empirical knowledge?
Certainly, the ancient inhabitants of Kyrgyzstan, who left drawings on the rocks of Saymaly-Tash and in other locations in the second millennium BC, did not ponder this question. Their drawings of animals, as well as simple solar symbols and others, were the first evidence of an attempt to reflect the spiritual state, faith, and description of the surrounding world of the ancient inhabitants of our region.
Not years, but entire millennia passed before the ancient Semirechye tribes invented their first writing system. Writing, as an attribute of the civilizational development of ancient nomads in Central Asia, dates back to the third century BC. Unfortunately, this writing, samples of which were found during the excavations of the Issyk-Kul mound near Almaty, has not yet been deciphered. It is known to historical science that the same tribes of the northern part of Semirechye inhabited the territory of Kyrgyzstan. They were the Saka-Tigrahauda, a conglomerate of proto-Turkic and Eastern Iranian nomadic tribes.
Another significant event in the history of the development of scientific knowledge was the emergence and spread of alphabetic systems in Central and Inner Asia. As is known, the ancient Semitic people—the Syrians, specifically those of them who, due to their affiliation with the Nestorian branch of Christianity, were forced to emigrate from the Middle East to the east—prompted the emergence of both Sogdian and Orkhon-Yenisei scripts in Central and Inner Asia in the 6th-7th centuries.
Of course, it should not be forgotten that the early medieval Turks included in their runic-like alphabet their own signs, which trace back to pre-alphabetic writings of the proto-Turks (for example, the sign i, T- "arrow" / "ok," which provided the letter sign for the consonant "k," or the sign - "moon"/ай, to denote the consonant "y," etc.).
The Kyrgyz variant of this writing also developed. The Kyrgyz, who restored their statehood on the Yenisei (6th-10th centuries AD), were involved in the development of a special variant of the Orkhon-Yenisei written culture. Representatives of the Yenisei Kyrgyz left a rich collection of epigraphic monuments in the Sayano-Altai region from the 7th to the 12th centuries. Thus, the Kyrgyz became an ethnos that used this writing for a longer period compared to neighboring Turkic peoples. One of the outstanding epigraphic legacies of the Kyrgyz is the Sudzhin monument, which was discovered in 1909 and published in 1913 by G.I. Ramstedt, and later reissued by S.E. Malov and the Turkish scholar H. Orkun.
Thus, the author of the Sudzhin-Davan inscription is a certain Kyrgyz hero and military leader named Boyla Kutlug Yargan, who also served as an officer under another Kyrgyz noble named Kutlug Baga Tarkan Uge. The historical value of this inscription lies in the fact that it is an author's testimony from a Kyrgyz nobleman and commander who faithfully fulfilled the combat task assigned to him on Orkhon land.
In the early Middle Ages, some representatives of Turkic and Kyrgyz nobility studied in China. There are records of a literate Kyrgyz nobleman who ordered a copy of a Buddhist manuscript for himself. An educated stratum was also needed for diplomatic missions. Chinese sources mention that at the beginning of the 8th century, a representative of the Kyrgyz ruler was in Tibet. This coincides with the epigraphic monuments of the Yenisei Kyrgyz, which contain information about a Kyrgyz envoy sent to Tibet from the Kyrgyz Khaganate on the Yenisei. The 10th-century Arab traveler Abu Dulaf described the Kyrgyz as a people with their own writing.
"And then we reached the tribe of the Kyrgyz... They have a temple for worship and a pen for writing... Their language is rhythmic, which they use during worship. Their banner is green... When they worship, they look to the south. For them, Saturn and Venus are considered sacred."
(From "The First Note" of traveler Abu Dulaf).
Indeed, on the territory of Kyrgyzstan, particularly in the valleys of Talas and Kochkor, Orkhon-Yenisei inscriptions have been found. By style, they are closer to the Yenisei (Kyrgyz) variant than to the Orkhon one. It should also be added that under the influence of the Nestorian Syrian colonies, the first Turkic-speaking Christians appeared in Kyrgyzstan, leaving their epitaph monuments. All these writings were the experience of the Kyrgyz in mastering and enriching the cultural achievements of various regions connected by the Great Silk Road.
The next stage in the development of scientific knowledge among the peoples of Kyrgyzstan is associated with the Muslim East. As early as the 9th century, the first mosques appeared in some cities of Kyrgyzstan. With the declaration of Islam as the state ideology of the Karakhanid Khaganate in 960, the territory of present-day Kyrgyzstan was fully integrated into that special world, which is conditionally referred to in science as the "Muslim Renaissance."
A significant contribution to this was made by representatives of the peoples of Central Asia. Among them were great figures: the philosopher al-Farabi, the mathematician al-Khwarizmi, the physician Ibn Sina, the mathematician and astronomer al-Biruni, the mathematician al-Fergani, and others.
The ancestors of the Kyrgyz people—Yusuf al-Balasarghuni, a didactic poet and scholar from Balasaghun, a city near modern Tokmak, as well as Mahmud al-Kashgari (al-Baraskani), a native of a city on the shores of Issyk-Kul, were two bright stars in the sky of scientific thought during the Karakhanid period.
There were also other scholars who contributed to the development of Muslim scholarship. Among them, the Osh jurist (faqih) Omar ibn Musa al-Oshi (died in December 1125) and the Uzgen scholar Ali ibn Sulaiman ibn Dawud al-Khatibi al-Uzqandi were specifically mentioned in the book "Mu'jam al-Buldan" ("Alphabetical List of Country Names") by the Arab encyclopedist Abu Abdullah Shihab ad-Din ar-Rumi al-Hamawi, known by the nickname Yakut (1179—1229).
The periods of the Kara-Khitan rule (1130-1211), and especially the Naiman (Küchlüq Segizdik, 1211-1218) and Mongol domination in Tengri-Too (from 1218 until the abdication of the descendants of Genghis Khan at the end of the century) were not only times of ethnocultural synthesis and mutual influences but also an era of decline for scientific centers, which were part of the eastern periphery of the Muslim Renaissance.
Many madrasas were erased from the face of the earth, libraries were plundered or burned, and in the places of former cities, livestock often grazed.
Gradually, from the second half of the 13th century, thanks to local educated officials serving the Chagatai, the Golden Horde, the state of Haidu, and such local rulers as Sugnak-tegin, the governor of the Semirechye vilayet El-Alargu, the role of science increased.
The 13th-14th centuries were times of various cultural and religious directions among the population of Central Asia. Thus, on the territory of Kyrgyzstan, there lived Muslims, followers of Tengrism, shamanism, as well as Christians. Epitaph monuments of Nestorian Turks from the Chui Valley and the Issyk-Kul basin have been preserved.
There are reports that Catholic missionaries also operated in the region. According to the Catalan map of 1375, there was an Armenian monastery on Issyk-Kul, a unique corner of Christian literacy. Some Turkified Mongolian tribes and Eastern Turks were Buddhists. In the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, one can find rock inscriptions with the Buddhist words "Om mani padme hum." Although from the second half of the 14th century, non-Islamic religions were gradually uprooted, the religious-cultural syncretism that had developed before became central to the further development of public thought.
In the 14th century, the famous steppe poet and thinker Asan Kaygy lived and created. He called his contemporaries to justice. He traveled through the steppes of the Urals and Central Asia (including Tengri-Too), which were part of the Golden Horde and other fragments of Genghis Khan's empire. He was, as it were, a harbinger of later ecologists, as he called for care for the environment and criticized the soulless attitude towards flora and fauna. He is considered a direct ancestor not only by the Kyrgyz but also by the Nogais, Karakalpaks, Kazakhs, and other Turkic peoples. According to Kyrgyz tradition, he was buried on the shores of Lake Issyk-Kul.
One of the most important channels for preserving the centuries-old collective experience of the Central Asian peoples was oral creations, the pinnacle of which are national epics. The Kyrgyz people accumulated their knowledge not only in writing but also in epic narratives. The multifaceted epic "Manas" is truly a significant contribution of the Kyrgyz people to the world treasury. Even in the Middle Ages, our ancestors tried to record various sections of the epic in writing.
In the summarizing genealogical work "Majmu'at-tavarikh" - "Collection of Histories," written in Persian by Saypidin Aksykenti (Saif ad-Din Aksykendi) and supplemented by his son Nooruz-Muhammad (Nur-Muhammad), representatives of the Eastern Fergana scholarship of the 16th century, the first known excerpt of the epic "Manas" and a rich material on Kyrgyz sanzhira (genealogical legends) were recorded.
"Majmu'at-tavarikh" was by no means the only manuscript work where, even before the European (Russian) works of Turkologists in the mid-19th century, variants of the epic "Manas" were recorded in writing.
A younger contemporary of Babur was the historian and statesman Mirza Muhammad Haidar (1999-1551), from the Tengr-Tuu Mongol tribe Duglat. His father was the ruler of the Orta-Tobe vilayet. Muhammad Haidar served under Babur and the Mongol khans. From 1539, he served in Agra under Humayun and from 1541 ruled Kashmir on behalf of the Baburid dynasty. He died here in a battle with the rebellious mountaineers. In 1541-1547, in Kashmir, he wrote in Persian the work "Tarikh-i Rashidi" - "Rashid's History," which is an authentic history of Moghulistan, Kyrgyzstan, and other neighboring regions of that era, where he also added his memories. Muhammad Haidar referred to the Kyrgyz as "the forest lions of Moghulistan."
In the following centuries, the entire cultural life of the Muslim states of Central Asia was interconnected. One can recall one detail: the mosque built in the mid-16th century in the city of Osh by Abdullah Khan II from the Shaybanid dynasty (1534-1598), called "Rabat Abdullah Khan," and the mosque-madrasa he built in the village of Navgilem near the city of Isfara (Tajikistan), still serve the Muslim community today.
However, during the Soviet era, for several decades, Rabat Abdullah Khan was taken from this community and even in 1961 was almost demolished by the then atheists.
The socio-political and cultural life of the peoples of the eastern regions of Central Asia in the 17th to mid-18th centuries was filled not only with wars between local Turkic peoples and the Dzungar Khanate (1730s - 1857) but also with a cultural symbiosis of Turkic-Mongolian-Iranian ethnic groups.
There were groups of Kyrgyz who actively engaged in the political life of Eastern Turkestan, which found itself in the midst of the internecine conflicts of the Sufi orders "ak-taglyk" ("white mountains") and "kara taglyk" ("black mountains"). Although they fought for political influence in Tengri-Too and Eastern Turkestan against each other, they were nonetheless preachers of a single Muslim scholarship and used the common Turkic "Chagatai" written language. Among them were Koysar-biy, hakim of Kashgar (1670), and Arzu-Muhammad-bek, who ruled Eastern Turkestan under the nominal khan Muhammad Mumin-Sultan (Akbash-khan) from 1695-1702).
The Kyrgyz beks of Eastern Turkestan in the 17th-18th centuries, like their beks in Fergana, were literate and often at their behest built mosques (with a maktab - primary school) and madrasas.
These traditions were later continued by Kyrgyz beks serving under the Kokand khans.
From the beginning of the 17th century to the mid-18th century, the peoples of Central Asia waged a liberation struggle against the Oirat (a confederation of western Mongolic tribes known to the Kyrgyz as "Kalmyks") and their Dzungar Khanate (30s of the 17th century - 1757).
It is also worth mentioning the ethnocultural ties between the Kyrgyz and the Kalmyks. Some Kyrgyz from Tengri-Too and Sayano-Altai became Lamaists following the Kalmyks. Diplomatic documents from the rulers of Siberian Kyrgyz uluses written in Oirat script are known. The ruler of the Altysar ulus of Siberian Kyrgyz, Iren Ishei uulu (who died along with his son in 1687), was well acquainted with Mongolian-Oirat written culture.
These Kyrgyz, who found themselves in the Oirat cultural orbit, were familiar with the works of Zaya-Pandita (1599-1662), an Oirat scholar-thinker and reformer of Mongolian writing. He was a Lamaist (the Tibetan-Mongolian branch of Buddhism), well-versed in the Tibetan language and Sanskrit. Moreover, in the later version of the epic "Manas," there is a generalized character of an educated and wise prince-hero Alambet, who switched sides from the Buddhist Kalmyks and Chinese to the Kyrgyz-Muslim camp, as well as a group of Kyrgyz who sided with the Chinese and adopted their customs and culture ("descendants of Kyozkaman").
From the second half of the 18th century, Kyrgyz lands and other states of Central Asia directly confronted the Qing-Manchu China when its troops surged into Eastern Turkestan after the conquest of the Dzungar Khanate and the extermination of many Oirats (1758). From the end of the 18th century, the Kyrgyz of Tengri-Too began to establish direct diplomatic contacts with the Russian Empire for the first time.
For diplomatic missions, both the beks (bii) and manaps themselves, as well as their highly educated relatives, were sent. For instance, in 1758, the ambassador Cherikchi, representing the interests of several northern Kyrgyz tribes (Sarbash, Sayak, and Bughu), conducted negotiations in Beijing. In 1786, Abdyrahman Kuchak uulu and Shergazy, ambassadors from Atake-bi of the Sarbash tribe, were received by Catherine II, Empress of Russia, and presented her with a letter from Atake-bi. Unfortunately, Abdyrahman Kuchak uulu, one of the enlightened ambassadors (such envoys of Kyrgyz khans have been known since the early Middle Ages), died in Omsk on June 20, 1789, without reaching his homeland.
These and other ambassadors from the Kyrgyz and other peoples of Central Asia contributed to establishing politically equal, economically beneficial, and also everlasting cultural bridges between different states and civilizations.
During the era of the Kokand Khanate, there was a rise in the education of the Kyrgyz and other peoples of the region, especially in the Fergana Valley. Among them were statesmen, military leaders, and moldos (mullahs). One of the people's leaders and enlighteners was Iskhak Asan uulu (1844-1876), a descendant of the Bostan moldo, who led a rebellion against the pro-Tsarist Kokand Khanate and was declared "Pulat-khan" by the rebels in 1874-76, being the grandson of Alim-khan.
There were also educated women, such as the mother of Kudoyar-khan, Zharkyn-ayim, and his maternal aunt Ziyada-datka (Ziinat), as well as the famous Kurmandzhan-datka, the ruler of the Alai Valley and adjacent regions of Osh. At the behest of such statesmen as Alymbek-datka, the husband of Kurmandzhan, madrasas were established in Osh and other areas of Fergana.
Among the people, Arabic script, adapted to Kyrgyz writing, became widely disseminated.
It should be noted that oral epic poetry also survived as a powerful means of self-education for the people. The great narrators of the epic "Manas," Keldibek Baryboz uulu, Bekmurat (Balikozy) Kumar uulu, Tynybek Japai uulu, Choyuke Omur uulu, and Sagymbai Orozbak uulu made invaluable contributions to deepening the content and popularizing the epic among the people.
Tynybek JAPAI ULUU (1846-1902) was one of the prominent narrators of the epic "Manas." He was born in the Kainar region of Pre-Issyk-Kul. He died in the Naryn Valley, in the Baidulu-tuyuk area. His version of the epic "Semetey" was published in 1898 in Kazan in the Kyrgyz language using Arabic script and served as a textbook for several Turkic-speaking peoples.
Among his students was Sagymbai OROZBAK UULU (1867-1930), who left one of the most perfected versions of the epic "Manas."
This epic is the pinnacle of the spiritual culture of the Kyrgyz people and, with its unique artistic and encyclopedic content, occupies a worthy place among the masterpieces of the epic heritage of the peoples of the world.
Recently, the name of another Kyrgyz historian Ziyauddin Magzumi (Zayidin Maksym) became known, who, sitting in the archives of the Kokand Khanate, wrote the work "History of the Fergana Khans," consisting of 1600 pages, at the request of Kudoyar-khan. The manuscript of Magzumi's work is kept in the library of Istanbul University in Turkey and was first discovered in 1992 by Kyrgyz historian A. Mokeev. To be fair, it should be noted that it was during the era of Russian colonialism that Kyrgyzstan became a crossroads of Western and Eastern civilizations. These conditions in the early 20th century had a tremendous impact on the lives of the Kyrgyz. Immigrants, such as the Moldavian doctor Vasily Frunze, taught representatives of the local intelligentsia methods of treating smallpox, saving many lives. A number of future outstanding thinkers, some in gymnasiums, and individuals like Kozhomurat Sarykulak uulu continued their education at Kazan, Kyiv, and Warsaw universities.
During this period, great poets of the Kyrgyz people lived and created: Kaligul Bai uulu (1785-1855), Arstanbek Boylosh uulu (1824-1878), Molodo Kylch Shamyrkan uulu (1866-1917), Zhenizhok (1860-1918), Mollo Niyaz (1823-96), Toktogul Satylgan uulu (1864-1933), Bayimbet Abrahman uulu (Togolok Moldo) (1860-1942), who called the people to learn and not to be ignorant.
By the way, there were also other representatives of the Kyrgyz youth who studied in higher and specialized educational institutions of the Russian Empire. However, their belonging to the upper class of society led to persecution against them during the Soviet era. Some were killed during the civil war, while others were repressed by the Stalinist regime.
The arrival of European scholar-travelers in Kyrgyzstan and the beginning of its comprehensive scientific study by Europeans, who traversed this mountainous country, are associated with the second half of the 19th century. This scientific exploration "caravan" laid a new bridge between Europe, which had become the defining center of world science at that time, and Kyrgyzstan, which then seemed a country of eternal nomadism and scientific stagnation.
The first representatives of European knowledge in Kyrgyzstan were Russians. One of the first "swallows" among Russian scholars who opened previously unexplored aspects of Kyrgyz society, as well as the geography, animal, and plant life of Kyrgyzstan, was Chokan Valikhanov. (To be fair, it should be noted that even before this, there were Russian scholars who, although they did not visit Kyrgyzstan, did significant work in establishing the foundations of source studies on the history of the Kyrgyz and other Central Asian ethnic groups. For instance, the Russian sinologist N.Ya. Bichurin (Iakinf) translated a colossal amount of material on the history and culture of ancient and medieval Kyrgyz and other Eastern Turks from Chinese into Russian, recorded by Chinese chroniclers since the end of the first millennium BC).
A number of monographs and dissertation works by Kyrgyz scholars are dedicated to studying the role and contributions of Russian scholars who researched various aspects of the history, ethnography, folklore, and culture of the Kyrgyz, as well as the natural resources, animal and plant life of Kyrgyzstan, etc.
Among the Russian scholars who meticulously studied the aforementioned problems were N.A. Aristov, S.E. Malov, I.V. Mushketov, Ya.N. Kraevsky, N.A. Severtsov, A.P. Fedchenko, V.I. Roborovsky, P.P. Protsenko, V.A. Poltoratsky, P.K. Kozloev, M.V. Pevtsov, N.N. Pantusov, V.I. Lipsky, L.S. Berg, F.V. Poyarkov, Ya.M. Korolkov, E.S. Dmitriev, A.M. Fetisov, artists P.M. Kosharov, V.V. Vereshchagin, N.G. Khlu-doe, and many others.
We can only offer a small portrait gallery of some outstanding Russian scholars to illustrate the scale and breadth of their research.
In this powerful stream of Russian researchers, the contributions of other European scholars stand out as a separate stream. However, without their studies, it is impossible to imagine the full depth of research on Kyrgyzstan at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.
Hungarian scholar and traveler György Almási (1867—1933) visited Pre-Issyk-Kul, Sary-Jaz, and the upper reaches of the Naryn River from July to November 1900. He managed to record a fragment of the epic "Manas" from an unnamed epic narrator from the Bughu tribe in the Narynkol area. His article about Manas's farewell to his two-month-old son Semetey was published in German in the journal "Keleti Szemle" (Budapest, 1911—1912) with a Latin transcription of the Kyrgyz text of the epic fragment. Fig. 50. D. Almási.
Among Western scholars who studied Kyrgyz history and culture, as well as Kyrgyzstan, we should note the German scholars W.W. Schott, M. Friedrichsen, M. Merzbacher, the Frenchman G. Capus, the Americans W. Davis, E. Huntington, the Hungarian Armin (Herman) Wambery, Danish scholars, and researchers from several other countries.
This period, leading up to the February and October revolutions of 1917 and the subsequent major social-political upheavals and transformations, as well as cultural-scientific achievements of the Soviet era, truly became a period of establishing a bridge between Russia and Kyrgyzstan, and more broadly—between Europe and Central Asia. The scientific research of Russian and European scholars of the 19th and early 20th centuries became the prelude to the era when, in Kyrgyzstan itself, the personnel-intellectual and material-technical base for diverse academic research into modern scientific problems was being created.
Thus, today's Kyrgyz science is based on the achievements of world science, including Russian science. All local empirical and other knowledge, scientific achievements, briefly outlined in this section, also testify that the Kyrgyz and other Central Asian peoples had their own treasure trove of scientific knowledge and a centuries-old tradition of enlightenment. All of this, taken together, is the Prelude to the modern science of our country.
The concluding chord of the Prelude can be considered the conclusion about the 2200-year age of Kyrgyz statehood. And indeed, this generalization, presented in the book by academician A. Akayev "Kyrgyz Statehood and the People's Epic 'Manas'" (Bishkek, 2002), is fundamental. Future generations have much to continue and worthy to enhance, while also caring for the preservation of national statehood.