Kyrgyzstan may mean forty tribes in Manas’s mountains
The Kyrgyz Republic is a landlocked Tian Shan and Pamir state bordered by Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and China. One etymology glosses Kyrgyz as “forty tribes,” echoing the epic hero Manas who united clans—plus Persian -stan for place.
The 40 rays of the sun on the national flag stand for the same forty tribes, and the shape at its centre is the tunduk, the wooden crown of a yurt. The official name is the Kyrgyz Republic; Kyrgyzstan is the common English form, and the older Kirghizia has faded. The country is mountainous and isolated yet sat on Silk Road routes, with Issyk-Kul lake serving as a caravan stop.
The Kyrgyz state peaked after defeating the Uyghur Khaganate in 840, and from the tenth century the Kyrgyz reached the Tian Shan. The Epic of Manas, a UNESCO-listed oral trilogy, tells of a warrior uniting scattered tribes in the ninth century. Mongol pressure shrank their domain, and in 1207 they joined the Mongol Empire peacefully. Later they fell under the Qing and then the Kokand khanate, before breaking away in 1842 as the Kara-Kyrgyz Khanate under Ormon Khan.
Qing China ceded much of the Issyk-Kul region to Russia by the Treaty of Tarbagatai, and Russia annexed it in 1876. The crushing of the 1916 revolt sent many Kyrgyz fleeing to China. Soviet rule began in 1919 with a Kara-Kyrgyz autonomous oblast, and the Kirghiz SSR followed in 1936, with collectivisation and heavy taxes aimed at ending nomadism.
By the 1989 census ethnic Kyrgyz made up only 22 per cent of Frunze, now Bishkek. In June 1990 clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in Osh killed 186 people. Although 88.7 per cent voted in March 1991 to keep a renewed Soviet Union, independence was declared on 31 August 1991, and Askar Akayev won the presidency unopposed that October with 95 per cent.
Source: Kyrgyzstan
