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Kyrgyzstan
Russian Control
In 1876 Russian troops defeated the Quqon Khanate and occupied
northern Kyrgyzstan. Within five years, all Kyrgyzstan had become
part of the Russian Empire, and the Kyrgyz slowly began to integrate
themselves into the economic and political life of Russia. In
the last decades of the nineteenth century, increasing numbers
of Russian and Ukrainian settlers moved into the northern part
of present-day Kyrgyzstan. Russian specialists began large-scale
housing, mining, and road construction projects and the construction
of schools. In the first years of the twentieth century, the presence
of the Russians made possible the publication of the first books
in the Kyrgyz language; the first Kyrgyz reader was published
in Russia in 1911. Nevertheless, Russian policy did not aim at
educating the population; most Kyrgyz remained illiterate, and
in most regions traditional life continued largely as it had before
1870.
By 1915, however, even many Central Asians outside the intelligentsia
had recognized the negative effects of the Russian Empire's repressive
policies. The Kyrgyz nomads suffered especially from confiscation
of their land for Russian and Ukrainian settlements. Russian taxation,
forced labor, and price policies all targeted the indigenous population
and raised discontent and regional tension. The Kyrgyz in Semirech'ye
Province suffered especially from land appropriation. The bloody
rebellion of the summer of 1916 began in Uzbekistan, then spread
into Kyrgyzstan and elsewhere. Kazaks, Turkmen, Uzbeks, and Kyrgyz
participated. An estimated 2,000 Slavic settlers and even more
local people were killed, and the harsh Russian reprisals drove
one-third of the Kyrgyz population into China.
Data as of March 1996
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