‘Two parts – one whole’? Kazakh–Kyrgyz relations in the making of Soviet Kyrgyzstan, 1917–24

Mirlan Bektursunov

Central Asian Survey, 2023, vol. 42, issue 1, 109-126

Abstract: This article argues that the Kazakh–Kyrgyz relationship in many ways shaped the emergence of Soviet Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyz elites were willing to collaborate with Kazakhs while simultaneously trying not to be marginalized by them. Kazakh elites in the Turkestan ASSR’s government supported the first Kyrgyz nationalist project, the Kara-Kyrgyz Mountain Oblast (KKMO), in 1922. However, the division of Turkestan during the Central Asian national–territorial delimitation in 1924 and the increased linkage between national identity and political and cultural rights deprived the Kazakh–Kyrgyz regions of their socio-economic unity. Consequently, Kyrgyz leaders, to get their fair share of the disintegrating Central Asian economy as a separate group, had to contrast themselves to their Kazakh allies. The case of Soviet Kyrgyzstan shows that the intertwined relationship among Central Asian elites provides a more nuanced and complicated story of the formation of Soviet national republics in the region. Particularly, Central Asia’s settled/nomadic dichotomy and the inter-elite relationship within each population have been more influential than scholars have acknowledged.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02634937.2022.2071837 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ccasxx:v:42:y:2023:i:1:p:109-126

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ccas20

DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2022.2071837

Access Statistics for this article

Central Asian Survey is currently edited by Raphael Jacquet

More articles in Central Asian Survey from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().