REP Programme Paper: Averting Violence in Kyrgyzstan: Understanding and
Responding to Nationalism
www.chathamhouse.org
15
Figure 1. Kyrgyzstan - here today, gone tomorrow?
47
Figure 2. Pocket politics
48
Figure 3. Uzbekistan’s President Karimov
snips away at the Kyrgyzstan border
49
The third most significant source of insecurity is that of language. Language is often a pivotal factor
in nation-building, and this is particularly the case in Kyrgyzstan. Most Kyrgyz were not literate at
the time of the Soviet formation of the Kara-Kyrgyz Autonomous Region, the forerunner of present-
day Kyrgyzstan. Soviet rule resulted in the first systematic written codification, development and
promotion of the Kyrgyz language, establishing universal literacy and the emergence of a
nationwide stream of Kyrgyz schooling. However, even after many decades the Kyrgyz language
played second-fiddle to Russian in education, politics and the professions. Kyrgyz cultural forms of
music and oral poetry were denigrated. Kyrgyz elites were generally more fluent in Russian, and
simply speaking Kyrgyz in public in the capital city (then called Frunze) could earn a verbal rebuke
from passers-by.
47
‘Bugun Kyrgyzstan Bar: Erteng jok bolup ketishi mymkyn?’ [Kyrgyzstan – here today gone tomorrow?], Aalam Vol. 7,
34/02/1999-02/03/1999.
48
‘Chontok sayasat’ [Pocket politics], Aalam Vol. 11, 31 February 1999.
49
‘Chakira-chokor… chek ara’ [Ho hum, the border],
Asaba Vol. 15, 29 March 2000.
REP Programme Paper: Averting Violence in Kyrgyzstan: Understanding and
Responding to Nationalism
www.chathamhouse.org
16
Therefore the drive to right this historical wrong was at the forefront of the late Soviet sovereignty
movement within the republic. In 1989 this succeeded in having Kyrgyz declared the formal
language of the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic, a great achievement. With independence,
measures were taken to widen the terminology, reform spelling and punctuation, set a timescale for
the switch over from Russian to Kyrgyz, and enhance the status of Kyrgyz through awards, prizes
and campaigns.
50
Periodic appraisals of the laws by commentators and academics led to lots of
hand-wringing about their apparent failure: in spite of all the laws, commissions, and other work,
‘everything continues as it was’ with Kyrgyz barely used at all in the workplace’, bemoaned the
newspaper Kyrgyz Tuusu in 2004.
51
Kyrgyz nationalists sardonically draw a distinction between
people who are
Kyrgyz (pronounced with a Kyrgyz hard ‘y’) and
Kirgiz (pronounced with a Russian
soft ‘i’) – the latter being elites who spoke better Russian than Kyrgyz and are thus linguistically
and culturally alienated from authentic Kyrgyzness.
In October 2004, the southern Kyrgyz newspaper Ferghana published an article asking ‘Why is
Kyrgyz still failing to become the state language?’
52
Various reasons were adduced, including the
poor teaching of Kyrgyz in Russian and Uzbek schools, the influence of Russian and Uzbek
television, the absence of laws obliging people to know Kyrgyz to take citizenship or enter state
employment, and the preference of the public sector to conduct its written business primarily in
Russian. All these, the paper concluded, amount to saying that there is no real need to learn
Kyrgyz. The article also argued that the decision in 2000 to make Russian an ‘official’ language
53
has exacerbated the situation by ensuring that there are even fewer inducements to switch.
Bhavna Dave argues that because the state in Kyrgyzstan lacks the resources of its neighbours in
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, ‘the symbol of language’ became a focal point of nationalist angst.
54
For Kyrgyz nationalists, it is the quintessential indication of the insecurity of the Kyrgyz nation,
which is unable even to learn its own language or get its powerful ethnic minorities to do the same.
Implications of insecurity
Nationalism, as a political ideology holding that the territorial and national units should be
congruent, is an inescapable context for political life in contemporary Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyz national
imaginations are framed by concepts of ‘unity’ and ‘concordance’, which refer to particular political
concepts derived from an understanding of Inner Asian tribal organization and leadership models.
As a framework for understanding the multiple social crises and challenges that the country faces,
this has produced a Kyrgyz nationalism that is profoundly insecure about issues of internal unity,
geopolitics and language.
It is absolutely crucial to grasp this for, as will be seen in the following sections, it explains to a
significant degree the difficulties that the sizeable Uzbek minority presents to the Kyrgyz nationalist
project; and it also points to ways to avert further violence.
50
Landau, Jacob & Kellner-Heinkele, Barbara, (2012), Language Politics in Contemporary Central Asia: National and Ethnic
Identity and the Soviet Legacy. (London: I.B. Tauris), Chapter 5.
51
’Mamlekettik tilge – mamlekettik mamile’ [A state approach for a state language],
Kyrgyz Tuusu, 23-26 July 2004, p.5
52
“Kyrgyz tili emne uchun mamlekettik til bol albay jatat?’ [Why is the Kyrgyz language failing to become the state
language?] Ferghana, 11-17 October 2004.
53
Kyrgyzstan is the only state in Central Asia that grants any official status to Russian. Landau, & Kellner-Heinkele,
Language Politics in Contemporary Central Asia, p.150.
54
Dave, Bhavna. (2002), ‘A shrinking reach of the state? Language policy and implementation in Kazakhstan and
Kyrgyzstan’, in Pauline Jones Luong, (ed.), Institutional Change and Political Continuity in Post-Soviet Central Asia, p. 147.