Kyrgyzstan

Central Asia was right in the middle of the Great Game of imperial expansion in the 1800s, played out between Russia from the north and Great Britain from the south. At this time, the Khanate of Kokand was much weaker, and so smaller regional rulers had significantly more power. When Alimbek Datka, who was the ruler of the Alai (in what is now southern Kyrgyzstan), was murdered in a palace coup, his wife, the strong Kurmanjan, became the newest leader in 1862. As the Russians moved closer and closer, Kurmanjan Datka urged a peaceful transition, and in 1867, the Alai region was annexed by the Russian Empire. A 2014 film shows the story of her life (as well as the stunning landscapes that she lived in), which is now considered to be an important part of the history of Kyrgyzstan.

From 1867 to 1918, Kyrgyzstan was part of Russian Turkestan, a Governor-Generalship in the Russian Empire. Turkestan remained a colonial outpost for many years, isolated by distance from the capital in Saint Petersburg, but the advent of railroads at the turn of the 20th century brought more and more Russian settlers, straining limited land and water resources. This led to the Basmachi Revolt in 1916, followed by harsh Russian reprisals. Many Uzbeks, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz fled across the border to China, both following the 1916 revolt and the forceful arrival of the Communist Party in 1918.

Following the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1917, Turkestan was divided up into oblasts, roughly according to ethnicity. Since many people were nomadic, and many people identified more with their religion, city, or profession, than with ethnicity, borders were hard to draw, and many populations ended up outside of their titular nation (this is why there is a large population of Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan today). The Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast was established in 1924, only to be replaced by the Kirghiz Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic, in 1926. Both of these bodies were part of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. In 1936, the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic was established, governed by the Kirghiz branch of the Communist Party from the capital in Frunze, now Bishkek. One of the most notable figures to come from Soviet Kyrgyzstan was Chingiz Aitmatov, a famous politician, diplomat, and writer.

On August 31, 1991, the Republic of Kyrgyzstan declared independence from the Soviet Union. The president since 1990, Askar Akayev, became President of the new republic, and stayed in office until the Tulip Revolution in 2005. Politics remained unstable until protests in 2010 led to the ouster of Bakiyev, who had replaced Akayev. Tensions flamed into violence along ethnic lines between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in Osh, recalling similar riots that broke out in Osh in 1990. Roza Otunbayeva became interim president in April 2010, also becoming one of the few female leaders in a Muslim-majority country. She also became the first Kyrgyz leader to peacefully hand over power when she stepped down after elections that brought Almazbek Atambayev to the presidency in 2011. Since then, Kyrgyzstan has stayed relatively stable, even hosting two World Nomad Games, in 2014 and 2016.¹