1. Language laws were passed in two more republics in early 1990. See Albert S. Pigolkin and Marina S. Studenikina, “Republican Language Laws in the USSR: A Comparative Analysis,” Journal of Soviet Nationalities, 2, No. 1 (1991), pp. 38–76.Google Scholar

2. See Jonathan Pool, “Soviet Language Planning: Goals, Results, Options,” The Soviet Nationality Reader: The Disintegration in Context Rachel Denber, ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), pp. 333-339.Google Scholar

3. This is not to deny the richness of the Kyrgyz oral tradition, exemplified by the thousand year old epic, Manas, or the existence of a runic alphabet in an earlier Kyrgyz civilization. But Kyrgyz had not been a written language in modern times. Exactly when Kyrgyz emerged as a written language remains a subject of debate. At the end of the nineteenth century there was a form of written Kyrgyz, but it was distant from the vernacular, with massive borrowings from Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. Soviet historians maintained, therefore, that the fusion of the written and spoken languages occurred only after the Bolshevik Revolution. See T. U. Usubaliev, “On Some Questions of the Development of National Scripts and Languages and of Public Education,” Soviet Sociology, 17 (Spring, 1979), pp. 31–50.Google Scholar

4. The term “Kyrgyzstani” will be used to refer to citizens of Kyrgyzstan, whatever their nationality. “Kyrgyz” will be reserved for the ethnic Kyrgyz, whatever their place of residence.Google Scholar

5. Dzh. Dzhunushaliev, “Politika korenizatsii: opyt i problemy,” Kommunist Kirgizstana, No. 1, 1990, pp. 69–70.Google Scholar

6. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 8 February 1991.Google Scholar

7. One of the most extensive analyses of the language question to appear in the Soviet era was written—officially at least—by T. Usubaliev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kyrgyzstan. T. U. Usubaliev, “O nekotorykh voprosakh razvitiia natsional'noi pis'mennosti, iazykovogo stroitel'stva i narodnogo prosveshcheniia,” Druzhba narodov—nashe bestsennoe zavoevanie (Moscow, 1977), pp. 169-213, translated in Soviet Sociology, 17 (Spring, 1979), pp. 31–78. That the article should have appeared under the name of the First Secretary was an indication of the political gravity of the issue.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Dunlop, John, “Language, Culture, Religion, and Cultural Awareness,” The Soviet Nationality Reader, Denber, ed. p. 324.Google Scholar

9. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 28 September 1989.Google Scholar

10. Harris, Chauncy, “The New Russian Minorities: A Statistical Overview,” Post-Soviet Geography, 34, No. 1 (1993), p. 22.Google Scholar

11. By the end of the 1980s, 38% of the republic's enterprises—and 44% of its workforce—were directly subordinate to Moscow ministries (Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 17 September 1989).Google Scholar

12. The Russification of Frunze had in fact occurred well before the post-Stalin era. As the following table indicates, the proportion of Russians in the city increased from 38 to 69% during the three decades that separated the 1897 and 1927 censuses. Google Scholar

Arranged from census data in Chauncy Harris, “The New Russian Minorities…,” p. 19. See also M. Guboglo, “Demography and Language in the Capitals of the Union Republics,” Journal of Soviet Nationalities, 1, No. 4 (1990).Google Scholar

13. On the terror in Kyrgyzstan, see Azamat Altay, “Kirgiziya During the Great Purge,” Central Asian Review, 12, No. 2, pp. 97–107. Altay reports that the purge so devastated the Kyrgyz elite that central authorities were unable to find sufficient numbers of ethnic Kyrgyz to send to Moscow as deputies when the Supreme Soviet of the USSR first opened in 1937 (p. 106).Google Scholar

14. Masaliev, Absamat, Stranitsy zhizni i bednoe nashe otechestvo (Bishkek, 1993), p. 11.Google Scholar

15. T. U. Usubaliev, “On Some Questions of the Development of National Scripts and Languages and of Public Education,” Soviet Sociology (Spring, 1979), p. 68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. By 1989, slightly more than half of the Kyrgyz claimed to speak Russian fluently; the figure was 84% for Kyrgyz living in Bishkek (Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 3 October 1990).Google Scholar

17. Russian also altered the traditional system of Kyrgyz personal names, which dropped descriptive familial end-words in favor of the Russian first name/patronymic/last name.Google Scholar

18. Laitin, David, Language Repertoires and State Construction in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 16. “[I]n conversations on political topics among friends I invariably run to Russian for help, leaving my native language for the purely everyday [sugubo bytovye] subjects.” So spoke a Kyrgyz engineer during the September 1989 debate on the language law (10 September 1989).Google Scholar

19. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 28 September 1989. The Minister of Education reported that of 230 specialties taught in professional technical schools, only 72 could be taken in Kyrgyz; in general secondary schools 25 of 117 specialties were offered in Kyrgyz (Ibid.) Google Scholar

20. Ibid. Google Scholar

21. Mambetaliev, K., “Uvazhitel'noe gostepriimstvo—ili bratskoe sokhoziaistvovanie?” Literaturnyi Kirgizstan, No. 8, 1990, p. 85. It should be remembered that there were also Slavic supporters of a Kyrgyz national revival. On earlier attempts to encourage Russians in Kyrgyzstan to learn the titular language, see Bess Brown, “Russian Journalist Calls for Russian-Speakers in Kirgizia to Learn Kirgiz,” Radio Liberty Research, 13 May 1987.Google Scholar

22. Masaliev was particularly scorching in his attacks on nationalist-minded historians and social scientists in Kyrgyzstan, a profession that was disproportionately Kyrgyz by nationality. See “‘Nationalist Prejudices' Cultivated by Kirghiz Social Scientists,” Central Asian Newsletter, 6, No. 3 (July 1987), p. 13, citing an article from the January 27 1987 issue of Sovetskaia Kirgizia. Google Scholar

23. A draft of this decree had been discussed in party organizations, cultural societies, and educational collectives in the months that followed the February 1988 CPSU Central Committee plenum. “O zadachakh respublikanskoi partiinoi organizatsii po osushchestvleniiu reform srednei i vysshei shkoly i ideologicheskomu obespecheniiu perestroiki v svete reshenii fevral'skogo (1988g) Plenuma TsK KPSS, doklad sekretaria TS Kompartii Kirgizii, I. M. Sherimkulova,” Kommunist Kirgizstana, No. 7, 1988, p. 19.Google Scholar

24. An advisor to the drafting commission that produced the 1989 language law characterized Kyrgyzstan's language policy in 1993 in terms drawn directly from this 1988 party directive, with its concern for a three-pronged approach to language development (Personal interview with Gul'nara Kyskaraeva, Expert, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, 7 June 1993).Google Scholar

25. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 9 June 1991. In a survey of three representative villages conducted in the mid-1980s, a Kyrgyz scholar reports that knowledge of Russian was poorest among teenagers and persons over 50. Women in rural areas were also far more likely than men to claim no knowledge of Russian, 25.8% to 7.2% in his survey. As to where Kyrgyz learned to speak Russian, well under 10% of those surveyed reported that they learned Kyrgyz at school. More than half learned it in the army or in universities and other institutions of higher education (A. A. Asankanov, Sotsial'no-kul'turnoe razvitie sovremennogo kirgizskogo sel'skogo naseleniia [Frunze, 1989], pp. 174-175).Google Scholar

26. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 27 December 1990. Unfortunately, census figures do not provide a reliable measure of language knowledge. When asked by census enumerators to identify their mother tongue (rodnoi iazyk), virtually all ethnic Kyrgyz, like Dungans, chose the language of their ethnos. See Vestnik statistiki, No. 4, 1991, p. 76. If nothing else, the figures indicate the continuing strength of cultural identity.Google Scholar

27. “O proekte Zakona o gosudarstvennom iazyke Kirgizskoi SSR (Doklad sekretaria TsK Kompartii Kirgizii, predsedatelia Komissii zakonodatel'nykh predpolozhenii Verkhovnogo Soveta Kirgizskoi SSR deputata M. Sh. Sherimkulova),” Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 28 September 1989.Google Scholar

28. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 16 September 1989, p. 3.Google Scholar

29. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 28 September 1989.Google Scholar

30. Ibid. Google Scholar

31. A Kyrgyz shepherd complained that it was virtually impossible to order a long distance telephone call in Kyrgyz (Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 9 June 1991).Google Scholar

32. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 28 September 1989.Google Scholar

33. Ibid. Google Scholar

34. The text of the language law may be found in “O gosudarstvennom iazyke Kirgizskoi SSR,” Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta Kirgizskoi SSR, No. 17 (1989), st. 141, and in Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 29 September 1989.Google Scholar

35. Similar provisions were included in the language laws of Estonia, Latvia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan (Pigolkin and Studenikina, p. 58).Google Scholar

36. “Viktor Zapol'skii: portrety bez ramok,” Literaturnyi Kirgizstan, No. 3, 1991, p. 90.Google Scholar

37. Hirschman, Albert, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970). On the beginnings of the exodus of Slavs from Kyrgyzstan, see Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 3 October 1990.Google Scholar

38. See E. Huskey, “Government Rulemaking as a Brake on Perestroika,” Law and Social Inquiry, 15, No. 3 (1990), pp. 419-432. That the yawning gap between legislative enactments and executive regulations had not been closed in the post-communist era was confirmed by a leading Kyrgyzstan parliamentarian in 1993. He reported that there was still “complete chaos” in the making of legal norms (normotvorchestvo) (Personal interview with Alikbek Djekshenkulov, People's Deputy of Kyrgyzstan and Chair of the Standing Commission for Inter-Parliamentary Relations, 10 June 1993).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39. Gul'nara Kyskaraeva, unpublished manuscript on Kyrgyz language reform (June 1992).Google Scholar

40. Territorial integrity because nationalist Uzbeks on both sides of the Uzbekistan/Kyrgyzstan border had designs on the Kyrgyz portion of the Ferghana Valley. A primary demand of local Uzbeks during the violence was the creation of Uzbek political and cultural autonomy in parts of the Osh region.Google Scholar

41. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 5 December 1990.Google Scholar

42. In 1992, approximately 5% of the Kyrgyzstani Russians left the country. This rate of out-migration was comparable to that in neighboring Uzbekistan and only slightly above the rate in Turkmenistan (Res Publica 15 May 1993, reprinted from Nezavisimaia gazeta, 29 April 1993). In the first nine months of 1992, 77,700 persons emigrated from Kyrgyzstan, a figure 43% higher than that for the same period of 1991 (Svobodnye gory, 9 February 1993). The number of Jews in Kyrgyzstan declined from 8,300 in 1959 to 6,300 in 1979, 5,600 in 1989, and approximately 3,000 in 1993 (Vechernyi Bishkek, 9 June 1993).Google Scholar

43. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 2 October 1993. Emigration varied by region. The highest out-migration occurred in the Chu Valley and Bishkek, with 2.8% and 2.0% of the total population of these areas leaving in 1992. The figures were 1.2% for Issyk-Kul' and Talas regions and 0.7-0.8% for Osh and Jalal-Abad regions (Ibid.) Google Scholar

44. In October 1993, Akaev ordered the Government to develop new legislation to stem the tide of Russian emigration. See Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 12 October 1993.Google Scholar

45. Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov Respubliki Kyrgyzstan, No. 18, “O respublikanskom biudzhete Respubliki Kyrgyzstan na 1992 god,” Bishkek, 17 January 1992.Google Scholar

46. A commission of the parliament was working at that time on a study of the law's implementation by region and on a packet of measures to facilitate its implementation (Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 12 July 1991).Google Scholar

47. Vechernyi Bishkek, 27 May 1992.Google Scholar

48. Personal interview with Askar Akaev, Bishkek, 12 June 1993.Google Scholar

49. This measure upset local Uzbeks and Russians, who complained that Liudmilla was an important city landmark, known to all, and that anyway there were several stores that carried typical Kyrgyz female names. See Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 9 June 1991.Google Scholar

50. The other need not be Russian. In Bishkek, a Chinese restaurant opened in early 1993 had its name in Kyrgyz and Chinese.Google Scholar

51. Personal interview with Akil' Adamaliev, Consultant, Department for the Realization of the Law on State Language, Bishkek City Soviet, 9 June 1993.Google Scholar

52. The text of the decree, “Tipovaia instriuktsiia po vedeniiu deloproizvodstva v mestnykh Sovetakh narodnykh deputatov, mestnykh gosudarstvennykh administratsiiakh, ministerstvakh, gosudarstvennykh komitetakh, administrativnykh vedomstvakh, gosudarstvennykh, kooperativnykh i obshchestvennykh organizatsiiakh, uchrezhdeniiakh i na predpriateiiakh Respubliki Kyrgyzstan,” was printed in Vechernyi Bishkek, 14 January 1993.Google Scholar

53. Ibid. Although issued at the beginning of 1993, the timetable (primernyi grafik) notes that in heavily Kyrgyz areas the implementation was to have begun by 15 April 1992. The timetable rather cryptically notes that many more districts, though not all of them, were to begin implementing the law's provisions on official documentation before (do) 1 January 1997.Google Scholar

54. Personal interview with Akil' Adamaliev, 9 June 1993.Google Scholar

55. Ibid. Google Scholar

56. Personal interview with Suiunduk Olzhobaev, Head of the Department on State Language, Ministry of Education of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, 10 June 1993.Google Scholar

57. Personal interview with Aron Brudnyi, Corresponding Member, Kyrgyzstan Academy of Sciences, 7 June 1993.Google Scholar

58. Personal interview with Akil' Adamaliev, 9 June 1993. Ashar is a settlers' group formed originally to assist Kyrgyz moving into the capital from the provinces. It has become of late a proto-party, moving beyond its concerns with building homes and the physical infrastructure in “squatters' settlements” to broader political questions.Google Scholar

59. , Laitin, p. 17.Google Scholar

60. In a survey of Kyrgyz parents conducted in three villages of Kyrgyzstan in the mid-1980s, 38.2% wanted to educate their children in Russian, 18.2% in both Russian and Kyrgyz, and 43.6% in Kyrgyz only (A. A. Asankanov, p. 181). Unfortunately, a comparable survey is not available for urban Kyrgyz parents in this period.Google Scholar

61. These mixed schools, known traditionally as schools of international friendship, first emerged in Kyrgyzstan in the 1940s (Asankanov, p. 176). Of the 72 schools in the capital in 1993, 46 were Russian-language, 7 were Kyrgyz-language, and 19 were mixed. Personal interview with Makil' Imankulova, Deputy Minister of Education of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, 8 June 1993.Google Scholar

62. According to the plan of the Ministry of Education, 1,050 new Kyrgyz-language titles were to have been published in the period from 1991 to 1995, many of those translations of Russian textbooks (Gul'nara Kyskaraeva, unpublished manuscript on Kyrgyz language reform [June 1992]).Google Scholar

63. Personal interview with Gul'nara Kyskaraeva.Google Scholar

64. Personal interview with Ainura Elebaeva, Pro-Rector for Scientific Work, Kyrgyz State University, Bishkek, June 8 1993. The universities in Kazakhstan were also having difficult finding qualified specialists to teach many subjects, including even law, in the titular language (Personal interview with A. G. Didenko, Chair, Department of Civil Law, Kazakh State University, Almaty, 4 June 1993).Google Scholar

65. Res Publica, 16 March 1993. In the 1989/1990 academic year, among a total of 59,264 students, 38,635 were Kyrgyz, 12,580 were Russian, 1,971 were Uzbek, 998 were Ukrainian, 1,114 were Tatar, 339 were Tajik, 678 were German, 448 were Korean, 242 were Uighur, 218 were Turks, 770 were Kazakhs, 176 were Jews, and 82 were Belorussians (Kyrgyzstan Ministry of Education Statistics).Google Scholar

66. The University was founded on the basis of a friendship, collaboration and mutual assistance agreement between the governments of Russia and Kyrgyzstan. See “President Decrees Founding of Slavonic University,” Interfax in English, 1734 GMT, 26 September 1992, cited in Foreign Broadcast Information Service-Soviet Union [henceforth FBIS-SOV] 92–190, 30 September 1992, p. 40. Officially, half of the seats in the Slavonic University were to be reserved for Kyrgyz students, a policy designed to blunt criticism of the institution by Kyrgyz nationalists (Res Publica, 6 March 1993).Google Scholar

67. Alianchikov, Aleksandr, “Povroz' druzhnee?” Literaturnyi Kirgizstan, Nos. 11–12, 1992, p. 138, citing Vechernyi Bishkek, 6 October 1992.Google Scholar

68. ITAR-TASS, 9 September 1993.Google Scholar

69. Gul'nara Kyskaraeva reported in May 1992 that two texts to support such adult and self-education had been issued: “Let's Learn the Kyrgyz Language” in an edition of 80,000, and “Intensive Course in the Study of the Kyrgyz Language” in an edition of 10,000. See also Vechernyi Bishkek, 27 May 1992.Google Scholar

70. gory, Svobodnye, No. 38 (June), 1993. By 1992, specialists from relevant ministries and the Academy of Sciences had also begun work on Kyrgyz-Russian language manuals for officials obligated by Art. 8 to acquire a basic knowledge of the state language (Gul'nara Kyskaraeva, unpublished manuscript in possession of the author on the implementation of the 1989 language law in Kyrgyzstan [June 1992]). There is no evidence, however, that department heads or enterprise managers, especially those in previously all-Union factories, were actively encouraging their employees to study the state language. Indeed, Kyskaraeva noted in May 1992, in seemingly understated language, that “not all heads of enterprises, organizations, and institutions had realized the seriousness and significance of the Law. Some may assume that this is just another campaign [ocherednaia kampaniia].” See also Vechernyi Bishkek, 27 May 1992.Google Scholar

71. The following data illustrate the decline of newspaper circulation in independent Kyrgyzstan. From January 1992 to June 1993, the circulation of Bishkek shamy fell from 16,800 to 10,000, Kyrgyz madaniiaty from 68,399 to 15,940, Kyrgyz Tuusu from 120,900 to 24,125, and Asaba from 70,000 to 20,670. Among Russian-language papers, the decline over this period was from 107,500 to 47,500 for Vechernyi Bishkek and from 61,600 to 25,600 for Slovo Kyrgyzstana. (These data are taken from sample issues of the newspapers in the months indicated.)Google Scholar

72. Political programming is still frequently broadcast in Russian on the Kyrgyz channel. Recent examples of such programming included a discussion of the draft constitution in late January and a meeting of the Prime Minister with regional leaders in mid-June.Google Scholar

73. Res Publica, 6 May 1993.Google Scholar

74. Turkey has already established impressive economic and cultural ties with Kyrgyzstan and most of Central Asia. Large numbers of Kyrgyz students are now enrolled in Turkish universities while Kyrgyz diplomats hold internships in the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Turkish Ministry of Education has formed an Undersecretariat for Education in Bishkek, responsible for the recent opening of Turkish-Kyrgyz technical and high schools. See “Turkey's Toptan Inaugurates Secretariat, Schools,” Ankara TRT Television Network in Turkish, 1800 GMT, 30 September, translated in FBIS-SOV 92–192 (2 October 1992), pp. 32–33. Turkey has also promised generous assistance to facilitate the transition from a Cyrillic to a Latin alphabet in Kyrgyzstan. Although publicly committed to such a transition, the political leadership in Kyrgyzstan seems intent on weathering the current political and economic crises before embarking on such a bold cultural transformation.Google Scholar

75. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 13 December 1990.Google Scholar

76. The adoption of the May 1993 Constitution also exercised the Slavic population. While it included a reference to Kyrgyz as the state language, it failed to mention that Russian was the language of interethnic communication. Despite a reported 100,000 calls and letters to the Constitutional Commission, the Constitution omitted all reference to the Russian language, Res Publica, 15 May 1993.Google Scholar

77. Midinova, Umutai, “O ‘piknikakh,’ dlinnykh ocherediakh…,” Literaturnyi Kirgizstan, No. 1, 1990, pp. 125-126.Google Scholar

78. , Apparently, they have also engaged in disinformation campaigns to frighten Russians into emigration. These efforts are at times abetted by the media in Russia, which broadcast the most alarmist rumors back into the country. See, for example, “Reports on Expulsion of Russians Denied,” FBIS-SOV 92–058 (25 March 1992), p. 68. A respected member of the European community commented to me only half in jest that the indigenization movement was driven by the desire to free up apartment space in the capital. For a recent poll of the population on the reasons for emigration, see Svobodnye gory, 9 February 1993.Google Scholar

79. Vechernyi Bishkek, 2 March 1993.Google Scholar

80. Attempts to maintain a truly multiethnic moderate coalition were dealt a serious blow in July 1993 when the highest-ranking Russian in Akaev's cabinet, the first deputy premier, German Kuznetsov, abandoned his post and the country. This occurred while Akaev's presidential apparatus was attempting to unite moderate Slavic forces into a national organization to support his policies. On the formation of such an organization at the local level, in the southern city of Jalal-Abad, see Res Publica, 15 May 1993.Google Scholar

81. As one commentator pointed out, Akaev did stand up to the nationalists by vetoing a provision of the land law that would have recognized land as the wealth [dostoiianie] of the Kyrgyz people alone. But such measures were offset by corresponding concessions to the indigenizers, such as the creation of national funds for land, culture, and entrepreneurship that are earmarked for ethnic Kyrgyz. “Akayev Policies, Personality Assessed,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 20 May 1992, p. 11, translated in FBIS-USR 92–063 (29 May 1992), p. 84.Google Scholar

82. “President Akayev Interviewed on ’Live Dialogue,‘” Ostankino Television First Program in Russian, 1125 GMT, 24 May 1992, translated in FBIS-SOV 92–104 (29 May 1992), p. 60. Working from the internationalist orientation he developed during his many years in Russia and as a member of the communist party, Akaev has sought to develop a new Kyrgyzstan multinationalism, what he calls the “special mentality” of the residents of Kyrgyzstan. “History has arranged for us,” he argues, “to be an amazing amalgam of the Asian and the European: in our thinking, in our emotional makeup, in our behavior.” “President Akayev Criticizes Russocentric Press,” Izvestiia, 23 March 1992, p. 3, translated in FBIS-SOV 92–058 (25 March 1992), p. 69.Google Scholar

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