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Formerly known as the Kara [black] Kyrgyz to distinguish them from the Kazakhs (at one time called Kirghiz or Kyrgyz), the Kyrgyz migrated to Kyrgyzstan from the region of the upper Yenisei, where they had lived from the 7th to the 17th cent. The area came under the rule of the Kokand khanate in the 19th cent. and was gradually annexed by Russia between 1855 and 1876. The nomadic Kyrgyz resisted conscription into the czarist army in 1916 and fought the establishment of Bolshevik control from 1917 to 1921. As a result of war devastation, there was a famine in 1921–22 in which over 500,000 Kyrgyz died. The area was formed into the Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Region within the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic in 1924, becoming an autonomous republic in 1926 and a constituent republic in 1936.
In 1990, Askar Akayev, president of the republic's Academy of Sciences and a non-Communist, was elected president by the legislature. After fighting off an attempted coup in 1991, the government declared Kyrgyzstan independent of the Soviet Union. Kyrgyzstan subsequently became a member of the Russian-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States, and a new consitutution was approved.
Akayev, who remained president, fostered ties with China and other neighboring nations and initiated an ambitious program of free-market reforms. He retained his post in the 1995 elections, which were denounced by opposition leaders but given guarded support by UN observers. Also in 1995, Kyrgyzstan, along with Belarus and Kazakhstan, signed a pact with Russia providing for close economic cooperation. In 1996, Akayev won a referendum on amending the constitution to increase the presidency's powers. Islamic militants seized several towns near the border with Tajikistan (where a civil war began in 1992) in 1999, and in 2000 Kyrgyzstani forces fought Uzbek guerrillas based in Tajikistan that had infiltrated into the Fergana Valley. Akayev was reelected president in Oct., 2000, in a contest that observers said was marred by intimidation and ballot fraud. A Feb., 2003, referendum approved constitutional changes and affirmed Akayev's current term in office. The vote was prompted by unrest prior to 2003, but the constitutional changes and outcome of the vote were denounced by those opposed to Akayev.
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