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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Kyrgyzstan
Index
The modern nation of Kyrgyzstan is based on a civilization of nomadic
tribes who moved across the eastern and northern sections of present-day
Central Asia. In this process, they were dominated by, and intermixed
with, a number of other tribes and peoples that have influenced the
ultimate character of the Kyrgyz people.
Early History
Stone implements found in the Tian Shan mountains indicate the presence
of human society in what is now Kyrgyzstan as many as 200,000 to 300,000
years ago. The first written records of a Kyrgyz civilization appear in
Chinese chronicles beginning about 2000 B.C. The Kyrgyz, a nomadic people,
originally inhabited an area of present-day northwestern Mongolia. In the
fourth and third centuries B.C., Kyrgyz bands were among the raiders who
persistently invaded Chinese territory and stimulated the building of the
original Great Wall of China in the third century B.C. The Kyrgyz achieved
a reputation as great fighters and traders. In the centuries that
followed, some Kyrgyz tribes freed themselves from domination by the Huns
by moving northward into the Yenisey and Baikal regions of present-day
south-central Siberia.
The first Kyrgyz state, the Kyrgyz Khanate, existed from the sixth until
the thirteenth century A.D., expanding by the tenth century southwestward
to the eastern and northern regions of present-day Kyrgyzstan and westward
to the headwaters of the Ertis (Irtysh) River in present-day eastern
Kazakstan. In this period, the khanate established intensive commercial
contacts in China, Tibet, Central Asia, and Persia.
In the meantime, beginning about 1000 B.C., large tribes collectively
known as the Scythians also lived in the area of present-day Kyrgyzstan.
Excellent warriors, the Scythian tribes farther west had resisted an
invasion by the troops of Alexander the Great in 328-27 B.C. The Kyrgyz
tribes who entered the region around the sixth century played a major role
in the development of feudalism.
The Kyrgyz reached their greatest expansion by conquering the Uygur
Khanate and forcing it out of Mongolia in A.D. 840, then moving as far
south as the Tian Shan range--a position the Kyrgyz maintained for about
200 years. By the twelfth century, however, Kyrgyz domination had shrunk
to the region of the Sayan Mountains, northwest of present-day Mongolia,
and the Altay Range on the present-day border of China and Mongolia. In
the same period, other Kyrgyz tribes were moving across a wide area of
Central Asia and mingling with other ethnic groups (see Ethnic Traditions,
this ch.).
Data as of March 1996
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