The Kyrgyzs

This is a review of the establishment of the contemporary ethnic identity, culture, and nation-state of the modern Kyrgyzs, who live mainly on the territory of what is now Kyrgyzstan. Using original and secondary materials including publications collected by the author and locally based research assistants, it examines the historical background of political, economic and cultural transformation of the Kyrgyzs within the context of the Central Asian region. This approach is especially important as the Kyrgyzs have for many centuries been living in northern Afghanistan, western China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and elsewhere. Among the other topics examined are the history of the Kyrgyz land and transformation of the perception of the Atameken (Fatherland) among nomadic Kyrgyzs; popular perception of the Bolshevik revolution and civil war; intellectual discourse on the establishment of the Kyrgyz state in the early 1920s; population movement during the pre-Soviet and Soviet era; Soviet nationality policy, major cultural changes during the twentieth century and the rise of Kyrgyzchylyk (Kyrgyzness).