Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan
German name
Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyz(s)tan (also, erroneously: Kyrgyzstan), (Soviet) Republic of Kyrgyzstan/Kyrgyz(s)tan
Official designations
Kyrgyz: Kyrgyz Respublikasy, Kyrgyzstan; in Russian within the Russian Federation, according to the Presidential Administration’s decree of 17 August 1995: Kirgizija, Kirgizskaja Respublika; in Russian within the Republic itself: Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyzskaja Respublika.
Location
The territory of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan covers 199,900 km² and is situated between China to the east and south-east, Tajikistan (to the south and south-west), Uzbekistan (to the east) and Kazakhstan to the north. The country’s total population is 6,512,700 (as at 1 December 2019). The capital is Bishkek (known as Frunze until 1991), which currently has a population of 1,051,700.[1]
Topography
The majority of the republic consists of mountainous terrain; two-thirds of its area lies 3,000 metres above sea level. The climate is very dry and continental, with temperatures fluctuating considerably throughout the day. Although the country is rich in mineral resources, Kyrgyzstan is one of the poorest countries in the world (ranked 151st by GDP per capita [purchasing power parity], as of 2018).[2] Because of its picturesque mountain lakes and landscapes, it is also known as the ‘Switzerland of Central Asia’.
Historical Geography
Following the Russian conquest in the 19th century, the territory of Kyrgyzstan formed part of the Turkestan General Governorate and, from 1918, of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. It was not until the process of establishing nation-states in Central Asia that the Kara-Kyrgyz (renamed Kyrgyz in May 1925) Autonomous Region was established in October 1924; this was transformed in 1926 into an autonomous republic within the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR). In 1936, Kyrgyzstan was elevated to the status of a Union Republic and separated from the RSFSR. Following the dissolution of the USSR, Kyrgyzstan declared itself an independent state on 31 August 1991 and became a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Settlements and affiliations of the Kyrgyz from the Middle Ages to the early modern period
The ethnogenesis of the Kyrgyz people remains unclear to this day. Most historians and ethnologists believe that their origins lie in Eastern Siberia, between the Yenisei and Orkhon rivers. With the conquests of Genghis Khan and his descendants, which began at the end of the 12th century, a portion of the Siberian Kyrgyz began to migrate to the territory that now constitutes the country’s borders. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Kyrgyz tribes became caught up in political and military rivalries between various powers: the Qing Empire (Imperial China between 1644 and 1911), the Dzungar Empire (Dzungars), Uyghur East Turkestan and the Uzbek Khanate of Kokand. The Russian Empire also increasingly asserted its political, military and territorial claims.
Integration into the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union
Between 1800 and 1868, the Kyrgyz settlement areas were largely under the rule of the Khanate of Kokand. Taking advantage of discontent with Kokand rule and rivalries with certain Kazakh tribes, Russia was able to bring northern Kyrgyzstan under its control between 1855 and 1868 with minimal military effort. In contrast, the advance into the southern part of the settlement area – particularly into the Fergana Valley and the Pamir Mountains – met with fierce resistance from the Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and Tajiks living there; complete pacification was not achieved until 1894. The historically rooted differences between the northern and southern tribal confederations continue to play a significant role in the socio-political life of the Kyrgyz to this day. Under Russian colonial rule, their tribal structures and their economic and religious circumstances remained virtually unchanged. Although the influx of European settlers, primarily Russian and Ukrainian peasants, was relatively small, by 1916 they already owned 67 per cent and 57 per cent of the arable land respectively. It was no coincidence that these two districts became the epicentres of the uprising sparked by the indigenous population throughout Central Asia in 1916. The main source of discontent was the fact that the indigenous population, who had hitherto been exempt from any form of military service, were now to be deployed as conscripted labourers in areas close to the front. An estimated 100,000 Kyrgyz lost their lives in the process, either during punitive expeditions or whilst fleeing.[3]
The Bolsheviks, who came to power in 1917, promised autonomy and a radical agrarian reform designed primarily to serve the interests of the indigenous population, including the return of a large proportion of the arable land held by European settlers. The proclamation of the autonomous region in 1924 and, ultimately, its elevation to the status of a Union Republic (1936) marked the beginning of the process of consolidation and formation of the Kyrgyz nation. Economic, political and cultural development during all those years of Soviet rule was, much like in the other national republics, rather contradictory. On the one hand, there were wide-ranging efforts to promote literacy amongst the indigenous population – who until then had been largely illiterate – and to establish comprehensive basic healthcare provision across the country. Cultural initiatives (museums, the press, literature, publishing) received state support; new, previously non-existent cultural forms (theatre, opera, film) emerged; Kyrgyz was elevated to the status of an official language; and national cadres were given targeted support.
On the other hand, the traditional culture and way of life of the nomads had been systematically destroyed since the late 1920s; the old elite was eliminated; the Muslim clergy were arrested and, in some cases, killed; and the Islamic faith was replaced by atheist propaganda. The switch of the Kyrgyz written language—originally based on the Arabic alphabet—first to the Latin script (1928) and later to the Cyrillic (1940) alphabet severed the national culture from its Oriental roots and facilitated the Russification that had been spreading increasingly since the 1950s. The ‘Great Terror’ of 1937–38 wiped out the bulk of the newly emerging Kyrgyz intelligentsia.
Kyrgyzstan experienced a particularly strong economic and intellectual boom during the German-Soviet War, as the republic served as a location for the relocation of numerous industrial enterprises, universities, scientific institutes and cultural institutions from the industrial and cultural centres in the European part of the country that were under threat from the war. Even whilst the war was still raging, the Kyrgyz Branch of the Academy of Sciences (AdW) of the USSR was established (1943), which was later transformed into the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Soviet Republic (1954). This was followed by the founding of the National University (1951). After the war ended in victory, some enterprises remained in the republic, which increased the proportion of the Russian-speaking population, particularly in the towns and cities.
Since the establishment of the national territory, the Kyrgyz have consistently constituted a narrow majority of the population; minorities include members of numerous Oriental (including Uzbeks, Tatars, Uyghurs and Tajiks) and European ethnic groups (primarily Russians, Ukrainians and Germans). The last Soviet census in 1989 recorded a population of 4,257,755 in the Union Republic, of whom 2,229,663 were Kyrgyz (52 per cent), 916,558 Russians (21.5 per cent), 550,096 Uzbeks (13 per cent), 108,027 Ukrainians (2.5 per cent) and, in fifth place, 101,309 Germans (2.4 per cent). There were constant conflicts between certain ethnic groups, particularly between the Kyrgyz and the Uzbek minority, who live in a compact community in the south of the country; these led to an open outbreak of violence in the summer of 1990 around the city of Osh, resulting in numerous deaths. To this day, inter-ethnic relations remain very tense.
State independence since 1991
Kyrgyzstan’s path to becoming a sovereign state has been particularly painful: the collapse of the unified Soviet economic zone; the closure of large enterprises that had relied on co-operation with various partners throughout the USSR and produced for the Union’s needs; the introduction, albeit not always consistently, of market-oriented reforms, which laid bare the inefficiency of most industrial and agricultural enterprises – all this led to an economic crisis and, not least, a social crisis, as well as to growing political instability. In 1995, industrial production stood at only 32.8 per cent of the 1990 level.[4]
Unlike its neighbours, Kyrgyzstan has virtually no oil or gas reserves and is reliant on costly imports to meet its energy and, above all, fuel requirements. In the newly formed state, a growing preference for the state-forming nationality soon became apparent in academic education and in the allocation of posts in the civil service; the Kyrgyz language was elevated to the status of the state and official language. The Russian language and culture are increasingly losing their dominant position. These factors contributed to the trend of emigration among the European population, which had been observed since the late 1970s. Coupled with high birth surpluses among the Oriental peoples, this led to a considerable change in the country’s ethnic composition. According to the 2009 census, the Kyrgyz, numbering 3.8 million, accounted for 71 per cent of the republic’s total population of 5.4 million, followed by the Uzbek minority, which had grown to 768,,000 (14 per cent), and the Russian minority, which had shrunk to 420,000 (8 per cent). Other major ethnic groups now include the Dungans (Muslim Chinese), Uighurs, Tajiks and Turks. Only 9,487 Germans, accounting for 0.2 per cent of the total population, have remained in Kyrgyzstan.[5]
Germans on Kyrgyz territory up to 1941
Until the mid-1950s, Kyrgyzstan played only a marginal role as a settlement region for the Russian-Germans: no more than one per cent of their total population lived here in the Russian Empire or the USSR. The first to settle were Mennonites from the Black Sea region and the Volga region, who moved to what was then Turkestan and founded the Nikolajpol community in the Talas Valley in 1882. As late as the mid-1980s, the village renamed Leninpol (renamed Bakai-Ata in 1999) in 1931 was still regarded within the circles of the minority concerned as the oldest surviving German settlement in Central Asia, although the slightly more than 2,000 Germans living there at that time accounted for only around 40 per cent of the population. The 1926 census recorded just 4,291 Germans in what was then the Kyrgyz Autonomous Republic. In the 1920s and 1930s, Central Asia occasionally served as a refuge from famine and political persecution in the main settlement areas in the European part of the USSR, with the result that the number of Germans rose to 11,741 shortly before the Second World War. 84.5 per cent of them lived in rural areas; in the capital, Frunze, 682 people, or 0.7 per cent of the population, were registered as Germans.[6] In the fertile Chu Valley around Frunze, the villages of Bergtal (renamed Rot-Front in 1931), Grünfeld – which was renamed Thälmann a few years later – and Luxemburg were established during the interwar period.
During the ‘German Operation’ – one of several measures taken by the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) during the years of terror in 1937–38 against representatives of ‘Western’ national minorities such as Germans, Poles, Latvians or Finns, 255 people were sentenced in Kyrgyzstan, 158 of them to death by firing squad.
Germans as ‘special settlers’ during the war and post-war period
During the German-Soviet War, Germans who had been living in rural areas of the Asian part of the Soviet Union prior to 1941 were permitted to remain in their places of residence; from early 1942, however, they were required to join the so-called Labour Army. Most of the men conscripted into forced labour found themselves on the construction site of a metallurgical complex not far from the city of Chelyabinsk/Čeljabinsk in the Southern Urals – the notorious Čjabmetallurgstroj (ČMS) run by the NKVD of the USSR.[7] The young people and women who were mobilised a few months later were largely distributed amongst construction sites for hydroelectric power stations and the Chu Canal, as well as to oil production facilities in the Fergana Valley.
Although the Kyrgyz Republic did not have to take in any deported Germans from the European part of the country, in 1943–1944 tens of thousands of members of the Caucasian peoples were sent here: These included 22,900 Karachays, 70,100 Chechens, as well as Ingush and Balkars. In total, the number amounted to no fewer than 127,540 people.[8] Until the mid-1950s, the Germans and other exiled peoples were subject to commandant’s supervision as ‘special settlers’ – that is to say, they were subject to the special authority of a sub-department of the Ministry of the Interior not provided for in the constitution and were not permitted to leave their place of residence without its permission – and were thus severely restricted in their civil rights compared with other Soviet citizens.
Immigration and settlement patterns since the abolition of the special command posts
With the abolition of the special command posts at the end of 1955, a strong influx of migrants began into the Central Asian republic: by 1959, there were already 40,000 Germans living in Kyrgyzstan; their number more than doubled during the 1960s. The trigger was the ban on returning to their former places of residence; as a result, tens of thousands of Ukrainians, Caucasians and Volga Germans moved from the areas of exile and forced labour to Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and the southern regions of Kazakhstan. This mass migration was further facilitated by existing German settlements and the mild climate, by the resettlement of the deported Caucasian peoples, and by the growing demand for skilled labour in the towns and in the increasingly mechanised agricultural sector. There, they were primarily engaged in cattle and pig breeding, milk processing and the cultivation of crops such as maize, sugar beet and tobacco.
The Russian-German minority played a decisive role in the emergence and continued existence of certain branches of agriculture: for example, livestock farming (dairy cows) and cheese production in what is now northern Kyrgyzstan can be traced back to the German-Mennonite pioneers in the Talas Valley. Compared with the kolkhozes and sovkhozes in Northern Kazakhstan or Siberia, which specialised solely in cereal and potato cultivation, the incomes and wages of agricultural labourers in Central Asia were considerably higher. Private sideline activities – such as growing grapes and tomatoes, or rearing small livestockor pig farming – also thanks to good infrastructure – provided considerable additional income, with the result that the German rural population of Kyrgyzstan were among the most prosperous in the entire Soviet Union in economic terms.
By the mid-1980s, Kyrgyzstan was home to around 110,000 Germans, or almost six per cent of the total German population in the USSR. Regionally, the vast majority of the ethnic group was concentrated in the northern part of the republic: around ten per cent in the Talas Valley (Talas Region) and almost 90 per cent in the Chu Valley. In the latter, during the 1980s – including the capital, Frunze – some 90,000 Germans lived in an area of less than 20,000 km², representing one of the densest concentrations of this minority in the entire Soviet Union. Almost 60 per cent of the Germans were rural dwellers; the remainder were mainly spread across small district towns. No fewer than 13,619, or 13.5 per cent, of all Kyrgyz Germans lived in the republic’s capital.[9] A relatively well-developed transport infrastructure and the proximity to the capital also led to the surrounding areas adopting an urban way of life.
Kyrgyzstan as the centre of the German non-conformist movements in the Soviet Union
Life in a national republic characterised by ongoing rivalries between different ethnic groups also shaped the German minority. Although the Russian language dominated everyday social life and important political, economic and military decisions were taken in Moscow/Moskva, the titular nation was granted extensive opportunities and privileges with regard to local administration, mother-tongue education, higher education and cultural development, particularly from the late 1950s onwards. This had the dual effect of both hindering assimilation and mobilising the Germans living there: the German settlements founded before the Second World War, in particular, were characterised by a high level of proficiency in German, a lower proportion of inter-ethnic marriages and active Protestant communities. Whilst, according to the 1989 census, only 41.8 per cent of Germans in the RSFSR stated German as their mother tongue, this figure was significantly higher in Kyrgyzstan (63.4 per cent).[10]
The religious communities of the Mennonites, Lutherans and Catholics consisted almost exclusively of Germans; 72 per cent of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 64 per cent of Pentecostals and 61 per cent of the Evangelical Baptist Brethren were also German. Germans were also over-represented in the unregistered congregations of the anti-state religious movement known as ‘Initiative Baptism’, which had emerged in the early 1960s; this is evident, amongst other things, from the following criminal statistics: Twelve of the 17 believers convicted in Kyrgyzstan between 1964 and 1982 were Germans. The Germans’ participation in socially conformist activities was relatively low compared with that of the Kyrgyz titular nation and the Slavic population groups (Russians, Ukrainians). They were under-represented in the Communist Party and the Communist Youth League (Komsomol), as well as in artistic, literary and other officially authorised associations and organisations.
Kyrgyzstan was one of the most important centres of the German autonomy and emigration movement within the Soviet Union. As early as the beginning of the 1960s, numerous petitions were received by the republic’s state and party bodies and in Moscow, lamenting the increasing decline of the national language and culture and demanding full rehabilitation. In 1965, several participants from the republic took part in delegations to Moscow calling for the restoration of the autonomous republic. Around 1972, an initiative group in Frunze sought to organise further delegations. All these and other efforts were thwarted by the actions of the militia and the KGB.[11] It was also within these circles that the groundbreaking samizdat text *From Reflections on Autonomy to Thoughts on Emigration* (1973) emerged, which plausibly explained the forced change of identity experienced by many of their contemporaries.[12] Almost a third of the German population of this Union Republic – the highest figure in the entire USSR – applied to leave the country in the 1970s.[13] The prospect of a simpler administrative process regarding relocation to the Federal Republic of Germany led, from the late 1960s onwards, to an increase in emigration from Kyrgyzstan to Estonia and Latvia.
Areas for further research
A comprehensive and multifaceted history of non-conformist behaviour, protest and non-violent resistance amongst the Russian Germans in the Soviet totalitarian state, viewed from a comparative perspective, remains a largely unexplored topic. Nor do we yet know much about the specific characteristics of the processes of adaptation and assimilation experienced by the German minority within a multi-ethnic society dominated by peoples with an Islamic cultural tradition.
Bibliography
- From the History of the Germans in Kyrgyzstan: 1917–1999. A collection of documents and materials [From the History of the Germans in Kyrgyzstan. A collection of documents and materials]. Alfred Eisfeld (ed.): Bishkek 2000.
- Andrei Barg: ‘Thus Far the Lord Has Helped Us’. History of the Evangelical-Baptist Brotherhood in Kyrgyzstan [Thus far the Lord has helped us. History of the Evangelical-Baptist Brotherhood in Kyrgyzstan]. Steinhagen, Bishkek 2013.
- Moritz Florin: Kyrgyzstan and Soviet Modernity. 1941–1991. Göttingen 2015 (Cultural and Social History of Eastern Europe; Vol. 3).
- R. Friesen: In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors. 1882–1992. The Prehistory and 110 Years of the Germans in the Talas Valley in Central Asia. Minden 2000.
- Roland Götz, Uwe Halbach: Political Encyclopaedia of the CIS. Munich 1992, pp. 138–156.
- Viktor Krieger: Settlers, Soviet Germans, Resettlers. A History of the Russian Germans. Bonn 2015 (Publication Series / Federal Agency for Civic Education; 1631).
- Gennadij Krongardt: Nemcy v Kyrgyzstane. 1880–1990 gg. [Germans in Kyrgyzstan. 1880s–1990s]. Bishkek 1997.
- Manfred Sapper, Volker Weichsel, Andrea Huterer (eds.): A Mosaic of Power in Central Asia. Traditions, Restrictions, Aspirations. Bonn 2007 (Eastern Europe 57, 8/9).
Web links
- www.auswaertiges-amt.de/de/aussenpolitik/laender/kirgisistan-node/kirgisistansicherheit/206738 (Information from the Federal Foreign Office on Kyrgyzstan)
- bischkek.diplo.de/kg-de (Website of the German Embassy in Bishkek)
- www.arte.tv/sites/story/reportage/rotfront-das-letzte-deutsche-dorf-in-zentralasien/?lang=de (Multimedia project on the German village of Rotfront)
Notes
[1] Social and Economic Situation of the Kyrgyz Republic. January–December. Monthly publication. Bishkek 2020, p. 129: www.stat.kg/media/publicationarchive/270d6bf3-bfb0-4960-b79c-c1e929ce9700.rar
[2] Source: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_L%C3%A4nder_nach_Bruttoinlandsprodukt_pro_Kopf (accessed 8 June 2020).
[3] Kyrgyzstan. Encyclopaedia. Bishkek 2001, p. 139.
[4] Kyrgyzstan. Encyclopaedia, p. 178.
[5] Kyrgyzstan. Findings of the 2009 Kyrgyz Population and Housing Census. Volume VII (for the International Community). Bishkek 2012, p. 31, online: www.waikato.ac.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/180544/Kyrgyzstan-2009-en.pdf
[6] Vsesojuznaja perepis‘ naselenija 1939 g. Osnovnye itogi [All-Union Population Census 1939. Main Results]. Moscow 1992, pp. 78–79.
[7] The names of all forced labourers who were deployed in this camp, including those from Kyrgyzstan, are listed in a recently published multi-volume memorial book: Memorial Book: Book of Remembrance of German Labour Camp Inmates at the Bakalstroj-Chelyabmetallurgstroj ITL. 1942–1946. Volumes 1–4 [Memorial Book of the forcibly mobilised Germans of the Bakalstroj-Chelyabmetallurgstroj Correctional Labour Camp. 1942–1946. Volumes 1–4]. Compiled by Viktor Kirillov, Sergei Razinkov, Elena Turova. Moscow, Nizhny Tagil 2011–2014.
Information on individuals from various localities in Kyrgyzstan can be found in the following database, which contains details of more than 100,000 Russian-German forced labourers not only from the ChMS but also from other camps in the Urals: gedenkbuch.rusdeutsch.ru/search/
[8] Calculated according to: Stalinskie deportacii. 1928–1953. Dokumenty [Stalinist Deportations. 1928–1953. Documents]. Compiled by Nikolai Pobol’ and Pavel Polyan. Moscow 2005, pp. 390, 440, 487, online: imwerden.de/pdf/stalinskie_deportatsii_1928-1953_2005_text.pdf
[9] The Population of Kyrgyzstan. Results of the First National Population Census of the Kyrgyz Republic, 1999, in Tables. Volume II (Part One) [The Population of Kyrgyzstan. Results of the First National Population Census of the Kyrgyz Republic, 1999, in Tables. Book II (Part One)]. Bishkek 2000, pp. 72, 76, 78 (here, comparisons with the last Soviet census of 1989).
[10] Viktor Krieger (2015), p. 187.
[11] Examples of this can be found in the following collection of sources: *Iz istorii nemcev Kyrgyzstana* (1999), pp. 234–240, 242–251, 263–268, etc.
[12] See the German translation of this underground pamphlet in the documentation: Viktor Krieger, Russian-German Samizdat, Document 1.10: www.bpb.de/gesellschaft/migration/russlanddeutsche/283571/document-1-10-appeal-by-citizens-of-German-nationality-living-in-the-Soviet-Union-to-the-United-Nations-18-May-1973
[13] From the History of the Germans in Kyrgyzstan (1999), p. 467.
Citation
Viktor Krieger: Kyrgyzstan. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2020. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32627 (accessed 5 February 2021).
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