Communist and Post-Communist Studies 45 (2012) 3949

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Communist and Post-Communist Studies

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/postcomstud

The paradigm of nationalism in Kyrgyzstan. Evolving narrative,

the sovereignty issue, and political agenda
Marlne Laruelle
Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, The Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In Kyrgyzstan, nationalism combines a narrative on the titular ethnic group and its relation
Available online 29 March 2012 to a civic, state-based, identity, feelings of imperiled sovereignty, and a rising electorate
agenda for political forces. Nationalism has therefore become the engine of an interpre-
Keywords: tative framework for Kyrgyzstans failures and enables the society indirectly to formulate
Kyrgyzstan its perception of threat, both on the Uzbek and Kyrgyz sides. To this end, this article rst
Nationalism
analyzes the double identity narrative, civic and ethnic, of Akayevs regime, followed by
Patriotism
the transformation toward a more ethno-centered Kyrgyz patriotism under Bakiyev, the
Inter-ethnic riots
Ethnic identity growing role of the theme of imperiled sovereigntydwhich culminated with the events in
Civic identity Oshdand how nationalism is today becoming a key element of the political agenda and
the public scene.
! 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Regents of the University of California.

1. Introduction

This article proposes a background narrative to frame the outbreak of inter-ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan in 2010.
It discusses the structuration of the theme of the nation in Kyrgyzstan since independence in 1991 by showing that Kyrgyz
ethnic nationalism has become both a potent political instrument for elites and an increasingly dominant psychological frame
for interpreting Kyrgyzstans problems. It accepts nationalism as a triple phenomenon, combining a narrative on the titular
ethnic group and its relation to a civic, state-based, identity; feelings of imperiled sovereignty; and a rising electorate agenda
for political forces. The aim is not to say that ethnic nationalism, both Uzbek and Kyrgyz, explains the Osh violence, but to
understand how the tools used by Kyrgyzstani society to comprehend domestic evolutions are driven by the way it formulates
its identity. Nationalism has therefore become the engine of an interpretative framework for Kyrgyzstans failures and enables
the society indirectly to formulate its perception of threat, both on the Uzbek and Kyrgyz sides. The trauma of the Osh events
has fostered the political forces to structure themselves around nationalist claims, claims which are now bound to play a key
role in the types of legitimization operative in Kyrgyzstan. To this end, this article rst analyzes the double identity narrative,
civic and ethnic, of Akayevs regime, followed by the transformation toward a more ethno-centered Kyrgyz patriotism under
Bakiyev, the growing role of the theme of imperiled sovereigntydwhich culminated with the events in Oshdand how
nationalism is today becoming a key element of the political agenda and the public scene.

2. A double identity narrative under Akayevs regime

The election of Askar Akayev to the presidency in October 1990 was inscribed in a twofold context, that of the progressive
collapse of the Soviet Union and that of the violent riots of June 1990 in Uzgen, in the countrys south (Carrre dEncausse,
1993). Alleged reports that Kyrgyz were trying to build houses on an Uzbek collective farm served as the spark, and the
riots for the control of arable land continued until the Soviet army intervened (TASS, 1990a). Akayev therefore had to manage
both the evolution of political legitimacy during and after the Soviet collapse, and the legacy of the Uzgen conict, which gave

0967-067X/$ see front matter ! 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Regents of the University of California.
doi:10.1016/j.postcomstud.2012.02.002
40 M. Laruelle / Communist and Post-Communist Studies 45 (2012) 3949

a voice to rising Uzbek and Kyrgyz nationalisms. The feeling that the new state had acceded to independence on a soil
weakened by inter-ethnic conict, one which required procedures of reconciliation, appeared visibly in the intervention of
famous Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aytmatov (19282008), who rightly denounced poor living conditions and unemployment as
reasons for the Uzgen violence (TASS, 1990b). Akayev thus sought to reconcile two contradictory trends: the countrys inter-
ethnic stability by proclaiming Kyrgyzstan a homeland for all its inhabitants, and special pledges to the titular nationality,
which deemed itself to have been mistreated by the minorities of the republic (Russians and Uzbeks) as well as by Moscows
repression of symbols of pre-Soviet national identity.
In this way, Akayev followed the model then established by Boris Yeltsin in Russia, which insisted on Russia citizenship
(rossiiskii) rather than on Russian ethno-cultural identity (russkii). Akayev quickly moved to marginalize the few small parties
that were trying to promote Kyrgyz ethnic nationalism, often with pan-Turkic or Islamicizing references. He developed the
slogan Kyrgyzstan, our common home (Kyrgyzstan nash obshchii dom) as the agship for the countrys new identity,1 and
often used the term mezhdunarodnoe soglasie (international in the sense of inter-ethnic accord) to celebrate the
constructive relationship between ethnic groups (Marat, 2008, p. 31). He created the Peoples Assembly, which regroups the
cultural centers of the national minorities, and cultivates a positive vision of their role in the building of Soviet and post-Soviet
Kyrgyzstan. Russian language was recognized as a second national language and the Kyrgyz-Slavic University, named after the
former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, illustrates Bishkeks welcoming of the Russian culture. Kyrgyzstans desire to promote
civic identity and avoid overly ethno-centric allusions went hand-in-hand with tranquility of mind concerning former Soviet
symbols. It was the last state in Central Asia to become concerned with effacing Soviet memory from everyday places. Thus,
the Lenin statue that dominated Bishkeks central square remained in place until 2003, before being moved a mere hundred
meters away to the back of the National Museum, which itself has retained a major part of its previous Soviet collections,
supplementing them with a section devoted to independence.2
In a Soviet logic, national minorities were given cultural rights, but could not become involved in politics, and ethnically
based political parties were prohibited (Omuraliev and Kokareva, 2007). With the exception of a few small Russian political
groups, often linked with the Cossack revival, which attempted to politicize their place in the public sphere (Zharkov, 2002),
the majority of Russians did not really seek to become involved in post-independence politics, cognizant that it is reserved
for the titular nationality. Russian-speaking candidates such as the former mayor of Bishkek, Felix Kulov, were limited in their
ambitions by the requirement that applicants for the highest function, namely the presidency, be able to speak Kyrgyz. Uzbek
leaders also realized that some of their demands, such as status for Kyrgyz-Uzbek bilingualism, were taboo and that any
potential territorial autonomy was unrealistic, since Kyrgyzstan, like all the post-Soviet countries with the exception of Russia,
asserts itself as unitary state. However, Uzbek leaders and population rallied to Akayevs side, since he let them invest the
burgeoning private economy.
Like its neighbors, the post-Soviet Kyrgyz historiography is built on a teleological logic: it is the history of the nation
marching toward its independence (Suny, 2001). The ideas that there are multiple ways of future and that linearity is
a retroactive construction of an historian are not considered. Historical moments that are inconsistent with this linearity are
perceived as transgressions which hijacked the nation from its destiny and made it dormant until the moment when it would
wake up again. History is also ethnicized. Peasants or nomads are exaggeratedly foregrounded as the site of preservation of
national authenticity, whereas urban cultures, in which minorities are dominant, benet from more discrete mentions. The
nation is also an ethnos which possesses a gene pool (genofond) to be preserved, often expressed in the form of a cultural
and linguistic purism. National history is therefore at once populist and statist, just as was Stalinist National-Bolshevism:
statist, because only the state represent the completed form of national consciousness; and populist, because the ethni-
cized people forms the center of attention, as is proven by the incessant references to the national mentality or psyche (Suny,
19992000).
In this framework, Kyrgyzstan sought to establish its statehood (gosudarstvennost), that is its continuity as a nation-
state. This notion underlines that the would-be presence of an ancient people on present territory confers contemporary
political legitimacy, and implies that the geography of the titular group intersects with that of the state (Ismailova, 2004;
Tchoroev, 2002). To this end, Akayev organized jubilees, especially the 3000-year anniversary of the city of Osh, with
a clear political aim to hamper the popularity of the former Secretary of the Kyrgyz Communist Party Absamat Masaliyev, who
scored 80 percent of votes in his native region of southern Kyrgyzstan (Marat, 2008, p. 38). In 2003 he celebrated the 2200
years of Kyrgyz statehood in the hope of reviving a declining popularity and improving public support in the wake of the
2005 presidential elections.3 On this occasion, the Academy of Sciences published a new history textbook, History of the
Kyrgyz of Kyrgyzstan, uniquely centered on the titular ethnic group (Kakeyev and Ploskikh, 2003).
To compensate for the absence of any historically proven dynasties or founders, the country has focused its attention on
the hero of its great national epic, Manas. He was transformed in a historical character having lived in the 9th century AD: he
gathered together the scattered Kyrgyz clan and launched the great campaign of 840842, which resulted in the foundation of
the would-be rst Kyrgyz state. During the festivities organized for the Manas millenary jubilee in 1995, the Kyrgyz president

1
Article 1, Paragraph 3 of the 2006 Constitution states that, The people of Kyrgyzstan is the bearer of sovereignty and the sole source of state power,
without giving a particular role to ethnic Kyrgyz.
2
Field observations, Bishkek, March 2008, June 2010.
3
This 2200 years gure is based on ancient Chinese sources stating the existence of a Kyrgyz state in 200 BC.
 M. Laruelle / Communist and Post-Communist Studies 45 (2012) 3949 41

delivered a political speech in which he formulated seven lessons to be drawn from the epic and that he would make the
content of his program of action for the independent Kyrgyzstan. By seeking to evaluate Manas epic from the viewpoint of
the idea of the state that it contains, wrote Akaev, it is easy to see that for the ancient Kyrgyz people and its constituents, the
epic was a prototype for the national constitution, a code of laws and decrees, a code of honor and morals, a testament for the
Kyrgyz generations to come. (Akayev, 2002, p. 282) He did not hesitate to draw religious parallels: For the Kyrgyz people,
Manas is more than an epic (.) It is what the Bible is to Christians; My thoughts lead me to draw a parallel between Manas
and the biblical gure of Moses who took back his people to their native country, leading it out of captivity. (Akayev, 2002,
p. 280). Since the 1990s Kyrgyz universities have offered special courses on Manasology, and the Academy of Sciences has
a department specically devoted to studying the epic (van der Heide, 2008). Manas embodies the values publicly cherished
by the Kyrgyz state: a warrior defender of the motherland, the incessant struggle for independence waged by the Kyrgyz, an
ideal of self-defense, and of self-preservation, though the multi-ethnic nature of Manas entourage was also emphasized
(Gullette, 2010).
However, compared with the history textbooks of neighboring republics, those edited in Kyrgyzstan are more nuanced.
The idea that the Kyrgyz went through a unique ethnogenesisda Soviet term born in the 1940s to dene the moment when it
became possible to speak of the national consciousness (Laruelle, 2008)dat a precise time and place is contested, with most
textbooks giving priority to the notion that there were multiple phases of ethnic crystallization. The textbooks also
recognize that territory of the Kyrgyz has spread out enormously, stretching from Siberia to present-day Kyrgyzstan, whereas
their neighbors lay claim to their autochthonism or nativeness. Kyrgyz historians also attribute great importance to the 1920s
and 1930s, recognizing the role of the Soviet regime in building national territories and of elaborating modern identities, and
are more positive about the Soviet legacy (Laruelle, 2011). The Akayev-time national narrative therefore combined the civic
reference of being the homeland for all citizens and ethnic referents to do with Kyrgyzstan as statehood of the Kyrgyz
people. This situation was by no means unique: the majority of post-Soviet states had maintained a twin civic/ethnic identity
and curbed all nationalizing nationalism (Brubaker, 1996), at least at the narrative level.
The double identity narrative of the Kyrgyz state, and especially the civic side of it, nevertheless became more and more
disconnected from the social and political evolutions of the country throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s. Kyrgyzstan as
an island of democracy, a bearer of citizen identity, and a successful manager of a rapid transition to the market economy,
quickly failed. On the ground, the brutal social transformations, in particular the rural exodus of the Kyrgyz, impacted on the
necessity of assuring the promotion of the titular nationality in order to guarantee social peace (Alimbaeva, in press). The
ethnicization of state structures has therefore hastened with the deterioration of the socio-economic situation. In order to
guarantee the Kyrgyz privileged access to the public function and to law-enforcement agencies, patronage networks have
grown in scale and become the key driver of the systems functioning. The urban fabric was nationalized with the departure of
several hundreds of thousands of so-called European minorities, which include mainly Russians, but also Ukrainians, Bye-
lorussians, Germans, Poles, and so on (Peyrouse, 2008). The issue of repatriation of ethnic Kyrgyz living abroad added to the
feeling of Kyrgyzstans Kyrgyzation. From 1995 onwards, Bishkek decided to put in place the rst measures for the return
of co-ethnics living abroad, however with limited nancial means. This logic was later conrmed by a 2001 presidential
decree on the assistance measures for ethnic Kyrgyz to return to their historical fatherland. It was followed in 2006 by
a state program for ethnic Kyrgyz abroad, referred to as Kairylman, and a 2008 law helping them to obtain Kyrgyzstani
citizenship and minimal social rights (Kirgiziia priniala Gosprogrammu po repatriatsii kairylmanov, 2008). These kairylman
reportedly number around 22,000, and come mainly from Afghanistan and Tajikistan, with a few from China. The public
discourse that accompanies these repatriates emphasizes their ethnicity and frames Kyrgyzstan as a homeland for all of
those in the world who claim to be Kyrgyz, thus reinforcing the image of an ethnic state (Ferrando, in press).
Kyrgyzstani political life, almost exclusively reserved for ethnic Kyrgyz, also profoundly evolved. The Akayevs regime
became more hardline in terms of the freedom it granted to the opposition; it developed a patronage system in which the
members of Akayevs family, and more broadly the presidential clan, gained control over protable economic sectors
(Radnitz, 2010). At the same time, politicians from the south were less and less represented and had to endure high turn-over
in their ef of Osh to prevent them from forming a solid electoral base (Melvin, 2011, p. 10). In this logic, Akayev relied on the
passive support of the Uzbek community, which, without any political rights properly speaking, was instrumentalized by
Bishkek for the purpose of weakening challenging southern leaders. This allowed the formal and informal economy of the
southern provinces to become the core of conicts of interest between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz.
The repertoire of Kyrgyz political life oriented more and more around the idea of a division between the elites of the north
and south. This categorization intentionally mixes ethnographic realities (division into wings) and political mechanisms.
Kyrgyz society accords particular importance to questions of descent: kinship plays a role in matrimonial alliances and
community activities (Jacquesson, 2010). However, many other modes of legitimacy have come into competition with this
patrilineal reference. In addition, it is rare that the congurations of networks at the political level intersect with the
genealogies; the clan in the anthropological sense is not a network in the political sense. Belonging to a clan certainly
provides a network of access to resources, but it is founded on diverse criteria that are not necessarily connected to questions
of kinship: long-standing friendships, solidarities from school or university, the integration into a komanda (a professional
team), or the sharing of common economic interests having worked in the same company at such and such time (Juraev,
2008; Collins, 2006). In Kyrgyzstan itself, this interpretation of the political life as divided into ethno-regionally based
wings has worked to mask the competing logics of patrimony among the elites. It also made it possible to avoid in-depth
debates on the nature of the Kyrgyz state, at a time when Akayevs regime was becoming more and more authoritarian.
42 M. Laruelle / Communist and Post-Communist Studies 45 (2012) 3949

3. After the Tulip revolution: a more ethno-centered Kyrgyz Patriotism

The new political power born of the Tulip Revolution of March 2005 was built on a differing legitimacy (Cummings and
Ryabkov, 2008; Radnitz, 2006; Hale, 2005). The southern elites saw in it a form of revenge on their political marginalization
during Akayevs reign. Bakiyev therefore sought to emphasize the divisions between northern and southern elites. The latter
sought quite naturally to promote their interests, and those were clearly in conict with the de facto autonomy acquired by the
Uzbek minority in the management of economic affairs. Moreover, the countrys social and economic transformations
accentuated the functioning of clientele logics and the criminalization of the political elites, especially those linked to the
bazaar economy (Spector, 2008). The political change in Bishkek has therefore accelerated both the collusion between public
structures and the shadow economy, and conicts of interest in the south (Marat, 2006).
Moreover, Bakiyev power was born in the street: the image of a popular movement causing the president and his family to
ee had left a non-negligible inuence on the idea that popular mobilization is a driver of political change. In this, the events
of 2005 worked to conrm the dynamic triggered during the demonstrations in Aksy in 2002, which were a turning point in
the history of Kyrgyzstan. They began the process of delegitimizing of Askar Akayev when Azimbek Beknazarov, among
others, organized large patriotically colored demonstrations to protest the cession of territory to China (Radnitz, 2005;
Laruelle and Peyrouse, 2009). Personal elements also came to play a role: Akayev benetted from the intellectual legiti-
macy of a university academic, and from an international prestige that Bakiyev has to do without. The international context
ought not to be forgotten: although born of the would-be colored revolutions such as those in Georgia or the Ukraine, the new
established power in Bishkek raised in a context where patriotic revival and the vertical power inspired by Putins Russia
were in full development (Sakwa, 2007).
Bakiyev had therefore to rely more heavily on a new style of political mobilization than his predecessor, and his legitimacy,
both symbolically (creating narrative) and pragmatically (creating consensus among elites), was based on a more afrmed
Kyrgyz nationalism (Matveeva, 2009). Although all politicians have turned to nationalism as a tool, it is the southern Kyrgyz
politicians who have sought to use it as a key driver of their policies. Two gures then emerged, each promoting a muscular
discourse about identity: parliamentary deputy Adakhan Madumarov, who did not hide his ethno-nationalist convictions in
declaring, against Akayev slogans, that the Kyrgyz people in the country are masters of their own house, the others are only
renters (Kto v Kirgizii, 2008); and Omurbek Tekebayev, a former presidential candidate and leader of the opposition group
Ata Meken (Fatherland). On December 30, 2005, Bakiyev signed a decree establishing a working group invested with
a mission to elaborate guidelines (kontseptsia) for the state and national ideology of Kyrgyzstan (Marat, 2005; Laruelle,
2007). This commission was rst chaired by Dastan Sarygulov, a former secretary of the local Communist Party, who
continued his political career as governor of the Talas region, and is known for advocating an anti-Muslim ethno-religious
revival called Tengrism (Laruelle and Biard, 2010). Sarygulov was quickly forced to resign, but calls for patriotism have
continued to grow in number (Murzakulova, Schoberlein 2009).
In 20062007, Adakhan Madumarov, State Secretary at the time,4 was appointed head of the commission in charge of
developing guidelines for a pan-national ideology (Kontseptsia obshchenatsionalnoi ideologii). The guidelines were never
published due to an inability to forge consensus, and the commission was disbanded in 2009 during the institutional reforms
to reinforce the power vertical (vertikal vlasti). During the ve years of his presidency, Bakiyev set up mechanisms to promote
patriotism in a very Soviet mode, inspired by the evolutions of Putins Russia (Laruelle, 2009). The Soviet-style slogans
connected to the small homeland my house, my town, my region, and others have been multiplying. The
authorities attempted to encourage the presence of state symbols in the public sphere. In 2009, Bakiyev signed amendments
to the law on state symbols of the Kyrgyz Republic in the hope of developing popular patriotism, and in parliament a debate
was held over the idea that for each ofcial commemoration all be obliged to sing the national hymn with a hand held to the
chest (Shchas spoiu!, 2009).
The young generation was most targeted by these ideological temptations, since it was suspected of being the most
nihilistic in terms of national identity, and the most inuenced by decadent fashions from the West (Kasatykh, 2007). In
this, the same Soviet-inherited procedures used in Russia were employed such as, for example, getting higher secondary
school pupils to write essays discussing the question of what state ideology should Kyrgyzstan have. The idea of providing
a single history textbook for schools, putting forward a sole reading of the nation, was also raised. The War Veterans Council
created a commission for the military-patriotic education of the youth, devoted to spreading patriotic precepts in the school
setting, in particular during commemorations linked to the Second World War (Patriotism v detsite, 2009). This tendency
was not new since it existed already in Akayevs time. In 2001, the Kyrgyz government published a decree on the principal
direction of military-patriotic education of youth for 20022003 (Postanovlenie pravitelstva KR, 2001) and in 2003 the
Defense Ministry proposed the introduction of courses for preparation for military service (Minoborona Kiizii, 2003). Yet the
scope taken by desires for ideological supervision has increased markedly in the second half of the 2000s.
During Bakiyev time, the constitutive ambiguities of the Kyrgyz statehood have radicalized and the civic/ethnic balance
has shifted in favor of the latter. While the regime promoted a similar slogan to that of the Akayev era, Kyrgyzstan my
homeland (Kyrgyzstan moia rodina), and called for an integrative ideology, Adakhan Madumarov did not hesitate to state
that Kyrgyzstan is the state of the Kyrgyz people, one where the minorities are welcome (Malevanaia, 2007). Since the

4
After which he was made Secretary of the Security Council in 20082009.
 M. Laruelle / Communist and Post-Communist Studies 45 (2012) 3949 43

Soviet period, the tools of reference available to elites and Kyrgyz society have barely evolved. The idea of the friendship of
peoples and that of tolerance as a specic feature of Kyrgyz culture have been maintained and internalized within the
context of independence. Claiming an ethnically pure state is not considered politically correct, while the dominant metaphor
is that of the common home that is shared by the master of the house and his guests (khoziain/gost). The use of the
house as metaphor of the nation implies that the guests must recognize that the landlord takes precedence when it comes to
deciding cultural and social rules, and that he only accepts the guests thanks to his own good will. Ethnic tensions are thus
systematically explained by the excessive good and tolerant nature of the Kyrgyz people and the lack of recognition that
minorities have toward them.
Between 2005 and 2010, the number of political groups using the Kyrgyz ethnic nation as their point of reference
multiplied. In summer 2005, a new nationalist party was created. Uluu Biridik (Great Unity) was led by the former vice
governor of the Issyk-Kul region, Emilbek Kaptagayev, a member of the united opposition against Bakiyev. The partys rst
mission was declared to be the preservation (sberezhenie) of the Kyrgyz people and it called upon Kyrgyzstan to become the
ethnic state of the Kyrgyz (Katargin, 2005). Kaptagayev has made regular calls for the suppression of Russian as an ofcial
language, deeming that its having this status damages the development of Kyrgyz national consciousness. Then in 2007, the
rst kurultay of national-patriotic forces as they dene themselves took place in Osh. This kurultay brought together about
500 small, scattered groups (V Oshe namechaetsia, 2007; Khamidov, 2007), like that headed by Dastan Sarygulov, which has
often accused the authorities of having lost the sense of the holiness of the homeland (D. Sarygulov perechislil, 2007), and
Nazarbek Nyshanovs Patriotic Party of Kyrgyzstan, which has made similar remarks.
In addition, this same period saw the formation of many youth movements, some of which, such as Kel-Kel, were pro-
Western and played a key role in organizing the Tulip Revolution, as well as others of nationalist sensibility
(Doolotkeldieva, 2009). These latter groups all shared more or less the same agenda: to promote a pride in being Kyrgyz, in
mastering the Kyrgyz language, and in knowing the countrys past. The differences show up in terms of immediate objectives.
Some groups were focused on contemporary economic and social questions. This was the case for Jebe!, which denounced the
domination of international institutions over the destiny of the country. Others, such as Kyrgyz El or Kyrgyz Nur, have declared
a ght against the nations decadence by promoting knowledge of the past and revalorizing the great national heroes, in
particular those who fought against Czarist authorities and then against the Soviet regime. Chinas announcing that it would
ask UNESCO to recognize Manas as part of the world oral tradition on behalf of its Kyrgyz minority has generated great
resentment in this patriotic youth, which claimed Manas as a symbol of the independent Kyrgyz state (Marat, 2009).

4. Explaining Kyrgyzstans failures: the theme of imperiled sovereignty

While the ethnic mythologizing of the state is carried out through Kyrgyz-centered historical references, which suppose
that the titular nation has superior rights within its own state and that the minorities are only guests, the issue of the
economic, social and political sovereignty of Kyrgyzstan also gained in importance. The sovereignty theme proposes
a modernized version of the national narrative focusing on contemporary issues of globalization, while depicting challenges
in almost a conspiratorial fashion. At the end of 2005, the Kyrgyz political scientist Nur Omarov described the risk of the
countrys de-sovereignization after the Tulip Revolution by focusing essentially on the inuence of the NGOs nanced
abroad and the presence of two foreign military bases (Omarov, 2005). At the end of 2006 and the start of 2007, the theme of
imperiled sovereignty took on a more economic color through the popular protest movements against the decision by Feliks
Kulovs government to join the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIDC) Initiative of the International Monetary Fund
(Kachiev, 2006). The narrative laid out was clearly that of a refusal to lose sovereignty to major international organizations,
and these demonstrations played a key role in crystallizing a patriotic movement denouncing Western hegemony among the
Kyrgyz youth.
Many other components of this imperiled sovereignty theme can be identied. First is a dominant discourse on the
undermining of national autonomy through the presence of two military bases, Russian and American. The feeling has
become legion according to which all the countrys political upheavals ought to be apprehended as elements of the obscure
Great Game being carried out by the great powers on Kyrgyz territory (Huskey, 2008). This is accompanied by conspiratorial
readings, extremely fashionable throughout the post-Soviet space (ICCEES, 2010). Revelations about the trafcking organized
by the son of the former president, Maksim Bakiyev, who had been selling jet fuel bought cheaply from Russia to the U.S. army
at high prices, has worked to reinforce this conspiracy interpretation (Mystery at Manas, 2010). Washingtons refusal to
denounce the lucrative operations of the Bakiyev family because some among them were directly linked to the Manas base
gave out an image of Western powers as having a view of Kyrgyzstan as a mere pawn in their world strategies. In addition, the
American base was the theater of several accidents in which Kyrgyz civilians lost their lives, but diplomatic immunity enabled
American soldiers to avoid prosecution, provoking widespread popular discontent and the sentiment of the impunity of the
Westerners (Amerikanskomu soldatu, 2011).
The second component is the claim that signicant migration rose a threat to Kyrgyz sovereignty. The hundreds of
thousands of migrants that travel to Kazakhstan and Russia each year are presented as a net loss for Kyrgyzstan, as they
allegedly enrich their host country more than their country of origin, and thereby contribute to the impoverishment of the
labor force and brain drain in Kyrgyzstan. For the public opinion, shocked by the social and cultural changes ushered in by the
market economy, the argument has become commonplace according to which migration can explain the countrys weak-
nesses and difculties. The Kyrgyz authorities signed intergovernmental agreements with Russia to better manage this
44 M. Laruelle / Communist and Post-Communist Studies 45 (2012) 3949

migration, including control over nancial ows and demands for payment of Russian pensions to the Kyrgyz migrants
(Doolotkeldieva, 2011) but the overriding impression remains that of a continuing loss of human capital. An article in Easttime,
for example, discusses the brain drain as a dead loss for the future gene pool of the nation (Altymyshev, 2011).
A key driver shaping this feeling of imperiled sovereignty is the threat weighing on territorial unity, regularly raised in the
context of pressures and interference from neighboring Uzbekistan. Although Tashkent is not interested in the Uzbek
minorities across its borders, and refuses to engage in the logics of the kin state protecting its co-ethnics abroad (Fumagalli,
2007a), the power differential with Kyrgyzstan heightens the feeling of no longer being in control of its territory. Half of the
Uzbek-Kyrgyz border is still waiting to be delimited by a bilateral territorial treaty, and the Uzbek intelligence services are
known to be carrying out punitive acts against political opponents (or those decreed such) on Kyrgyz territory, as evidenced
with the killing of activist Alisher Saipov (Tchoroev, 2008). In addition, a large part of the Karimov regimes legitimizing
narrative is built on the denunciation of Kyrgyzstan as a failing state (Megoran, 2004). As for it the Kyrgyz media very often
spread the idea that Uzbekistan is ready to defend militarily its minorities, recalling its role in the attempted coup of Mahmud
Khudoberdiyev in Khudjand in Tajikistan in 1998, forgetting to remember that Karimovs regime seeks now mainly to protect
itself from any risk of destabilization, rather than to pursue more adventurous policies. Moreover, the insistence placed on the
rampant Islamization of the Uzbeks of Kyrgyzstan in the local media reinforces the image of a dangerous other.
Since the Tulip Revolution the Uzbek minoritys political commitment increased. Silent under Akayev and tacitly in favor
of Bishkek, it kept a low prole during the 2005 political struggles, but the following year for the rst time since Uzgen in
1990 the Uzbeks of Jalalabad poured out into the street to protest their absence of public recognition by the southern elites
then in power, as well as to denounce the growing Uzbekophobia among local law-enforcement agencies (den Blanken,
2009). At the same time, a new generation of younger leaders emerged who had made a fortune in the private sector,
such as Batyrzhan Batyrov, and who wield a more militant discourse in terms of claims for the rights of the Uzbek minority. In
particular, they have intensied demands for the Uzbek language to be given ofcial status and representation in government
(Fumagalli, 2007b; Khamidov, 2006; Osmonov, 2006). Whereas the Akayev government had connections with certain Uzbek
leaders, that of Bakiyev had no personal contact with them, so communication in cases of crisis was almost inexistent (Melvin,
2011). In addition, competition for the control of economic resources was heightening: the Uzbeks traditionally dominated
the bazaars and the urban economy, the Kyrgyz the rural economy and the administration, whereas the shadow sectors were
divided between both communities, with a growing preponderance of Kyrgyz circles, which were directly supported by the
Bakiyev family, in particular the brother of the president, Zhanysh, and the presidents son Maksim.
Finally, the local border disputes around the Uzbek enclaves of Shakhimardan and Sokh, and the Tajik one of Vorukh
cultivate an image of population pressures on the territory. Many Tajik and Uzbek families in search of arable land tend to
move to Kyrgyz territory into the villages deserted by migrants.5 Numerous Kyrgyz politicians and media thus denounced the
creeping migration that is leading to changing state borders as a result of the settlement of foreign families (Murat Zhuraev,
2008). These land occupations were considered a threat to national security and, in September 2008, the Kyrgyz parliament
passed a law on the protection of border areas by conferring special administrative status on a dozen villages along the border
and providing social assistance to local populations in order to deter their departure (Reeves, 2009). The slogan Kyrgyz land
for the Kyrgyz! thus spread widely in the zones affected by regular inter-ethnic skirmishes.6
The interpretive grid based on the black and white couple tolerant Kyrgyz majority versus aggressive minorities was
used during all the localized violence which took place between the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, and Kyrgyz and Tajiks, Kyrgyz and
Meskhetians, Kyrgyz and Uyghurs, and between Kyrgyz and Dungans, in particular in the village of Iskra not far from Bishkek
in 2006 (Stolknoveniia, 2006; Dungane begut, 2006). Minorities are suspected of occupying protable economic niches
(agriculture for Uzbeks, fresh produce for Koreans, the service sector for Russians), to the detriment of the majority. The fact
that the civil service is overwhelmingly in the control of the Kyrgyz precise gures are not available because of their political
sensitivity is obviously passed over in silence, as is the quasi mono-ethnicity of the law-enforcement agencies (Marat, 2011).
The main narrative is not to expel minorities from Kyrgyzstan, but to ask them to recognize the symbolic, political, cultural,
and economic supremacy of the titular nation. The political scientist Mars Sariyev, for example, explained in discussing the
events in Osh in 2010: The Uzbeks of Kyrgyzstan have the chance to live in a democratic and economically free country,
which is not the case in neighboring Uzbekistan. Here they are not persecuted and can engage in business freely. And just look
how they thank us.7
Other neighboring countries are also denounced as adding fragility to Kyrgyzstans sovereignty. Debates about what
status to give the Russian language have become recurrent. The idea that the maintenance of Russian impedes the learning of
Kyrgyz (Huskey, 1995), which in turn slows the process of national awakening, is extremely common (Miroslav Niazov,
2010). In many Kyrgyz narratives on sovereignty, Russia is, after Uzbekistan, one of the central objects of conspiracy theo-
ries, owing to its historical past, economic role in migration ows, military presence, and linguistic inuence. The fact that
the Russian media heavily criticized Bakiyev before his fall in April 2010 further supports a conspiratorial reading of events:
Moscow is allegedly responsible for having propagated the image of a weak and illegitimate power (Heathershaw, in press).

5
On localized ethnic tensions at the borders and in the Fergana exclaves, see the Foundation for International Tolerance reports, http://fti.org.kg/en/
(accessed August 3, 2010).
6
Fieldwork in the Batken region, June 2010.
7
Interview with Mars Sariyev, Bishkek, July 2, 2010.
 M. Laruelle / Communist and Post-Communist Studies 45 (2012) 3949 45

Nevertheless, Russia and Uzbekistan are not the only ones being decried: since 20082009, Kazakhstan has also been
increasingly criticized as overtly contravening Kyrgyz independence and as responsible for growing interference in domestic
Kyrgyz affairs. The ceding of four tourist resorts on the northern shore of Lake Issyk-Kul to the government of Kazakhstan in
order to pay off debts, for example, was very unpopular. With the events in Osh in June 2010 (Ponars Policy Papers, 2010;
International Crisis Groups, 2010; Human Rights Watch Report, 2010) the theme of imperiled sovereignty suddenly grew
in proportion, accelerating the merging of different levels of victimization. The Western media, suspected of looking for easy
clichs, were alleged to have thought of the Uzbeks as the victims of bloodthirsty Kyrgyz, portraying the latter as Mankurts,
a symbolically charged image in Central Asia, meaning enslaved men who have lost their humanity.8 The Uzbek diaspora is
therefore seen as having won the battle of images and the heart by obtaining the support of the West, Russia, Kazakhstan,
and Uzbekistan.
The supposed merging of internal and external enemies constitutes a powerful driver of nationalist radicalization, rallying
diverging milieus. Kyrgyz-language newspapers, in particular Alibi and Apta, did not hide their radical reading of the Osh
events, with articles sometimes almost calling for inter-ethnic hatred, while Russian-language newspapers, although less
pointed, almost never gave the oor to the Uzbek version of events. Some of the journalists who criticized the Kyrgyz version
of the story have been accused of not being patriotic (Najibullah, 2010). Even the opposition media have remained largely
silent on Uzbeks being disproportionately targeted by police raids, and arbitrary arrests. Some Western-oriented groups were
also ambiguous in their formulations. In early July 2010, the civic movement called An Abecedary for the Building of
Kyrgyzstan (Azbuka stanovleniia Kyrgyzstana) held a public discussion on How we are formatted: the chances for sover-
eignty. The majority of the local participants espoused conspiratorial clichs about Russia, the West, and the Uzbek diaspora,
although the debate also gave the oor to a more reserved audience.9 The governments non-recognition that the post-
conict situation is stamped by unjustied detentions, rigged trials, daily violence, and land grabs to the detriment of the
Uzbek conrms that the state is no longer able to take a neutral role in the ethnic tensions. This impression was corroborated
in May 2011 when the Kyrgyz parliament declared persona non grata Kimmo Kiljunen, the head of an international
commission that investigated Osh events, saying the report was one-sided, incited racial hatred, and threatened national
security (Head of Commission, 2011).
For Kyrgyzstan, a country that had sought to be the most globalized in Central Asia, the impression of having lost the
information war during the Osh events is a supreme failure. The most democratic country of Central Asia, the one most open
to the West, and the one in which civil society is supposed to have been most supported is also the most instable, as well as
that with the most widespread feeling that the sovereignty to emerge from independence is but an illusion.

5. After the 2010 events: nationalism as a political agenda?

If Bakiyevs overthrow in April 2010 reopened public debate on the nature of the Kyrgyz political regime (Temirkulov,
2010) with the vote on a new Constitution setting in place mechanisms of parliamentary democracy, the events of June
revived discussions on the Kyrgyz state and its national identity. Nation-building and state-building thus seem to be
intrinsically linked. As in Russia, the term patriot has today come to take on such diverse meanings that the message of
identity that accompanies it is almost inaudible: depending of groups, patriotism is presented either as a civic identity against
the rise of ethno-nationalism, or as a political expression of ethno-nationalism.
For instance, in order to assure the security of goods and persons during the events of spring 2010, a voluntary patriotic
militia, the DND Patriot, formed and participated in securing public spaces alongside the police.10 Since October 2010
legislative elections, the supporters of Roza Otunbayeva called for citizens to begin a patriotic surge and prevent the country
from sinking into civil war based on north-south divisions or ethno-nationalism. Groups of young activists have played the
hand of civic patriotism, such as, for example, the movement My Kyrgyzstantsy!, which aims to overcome ethnic divisions
among the youth with an updated rhetoric on the friendship of peoples.11 In early 2011 during the debates on the necessity to
remove ones hat for the national hymn, some deputies gave a course in patriotism by putting forward increasingly excessive
measures (Kak Ar-Namys za patriotism borolsia., 2011). For all these groups, patriotism is a way to oppose nationalism.
However, the government is also pursuing the ethnic mythologizing of the state and cannot refuse the Kyrgyz-centered
legitimacy on which it is reliant without taking enormous risks. Thus, a month after the Osh riots, Roza Otunbayeva
requested that Manas be included in the school curricula (President Otunbaeva, 2010) probably in order to prevent southern
politicians from hijacking Kyrgyzness for themselves.
The term patriotism also dominates among the political forces which are based on an ethno-nationalist agenda. This is the
case, for example, with the high-prole Ata-Jurt (Homeland) party, which collected close to 9 percent of the vote at the
legislative elections of October 2010, thus receiving more seats than any other party. The party is run by politicians mainly
from the south close to the Bakiyev elites and often linked to gures from the power structures, including Omurbek

8
The term Mankurt, popularized by the novel The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years by Chingiz Aytmatov, is a philosophical tale about what can
happen to those who forget their motherland, language, and history.
9
Personal Observations at the forum Kak nas formiruiut. Shansy na suverenitet, Bishkek, July 2, 2010.
10
See their website, http://www.rdf.in.kg/rus/dnd_patriot/ (accessed August 3, 2010).
11
Interviews with young activist members of the movement, Bishkek, July 2, 2010.
46 M. Laruelle / Communist and Post-Communist Studies 45 (2012) 3949

Suvanaliyev, general of the militia, former vice Minister of the Interior, and former director of internal affairs for the Osh
region; Keneshbek Dushebayev, former Minister of Interior and director of the National Security Services; and also Kam-
chybek Tashiyev, the Emergency Situations Minister from 2007 to 2009, himself a native of Osh who was appointed governor
for the region and has being accused of being directly involved in the riots. However, Ata-Jurts southern aspect is not the
only reason for its good election results, as it also received votes in the north: its ethno-nationalistic agenda spoke to a broad
spectrum of the Kyrgyz population.
Ata-Jurt accuses Otunbayevas government of setting up the countrys future in a way that does not suit the mentality of
the Kyrgyz people and is not based on their history as a nation, and it calls for the strengthening of the army and secret
services, and a strong domestic authoritarian order.12 It emphasizes the unique antiquity of the Kyrgyz people, and hopes for
a better structured patriotic education for the youth. The partys program proposes that there be obligatory courses on the
history of Kyrgyz ethnicity. Ata-Jurts website is lled with clichd pictures of Kyrgyzness, but the degree of theoretical
elaboration of this national-patriotic doctrine remains very weak. However, popular success does need a sophisticated
ideological construction. This doing, MP Kamchybek Tashiyev often takes up notions considered as consensual among the
population:
The titular nation must be superior; it cannot be inferior to the other ethnicities in the country. These latter must
respect our tradition, our language, our history, and then everyone will live in peace. But if an ethnic group in our
country, the Russians, the Uzbeks, the Turks or the Chinese, say that they are equal with the Kyrgyz or superior to them,
then the state will collapse. (.) This is why the Uzbeks living in our country must learn our language, esteem our
traditions, and know our culture. (.) [For too long] we have forgotten to afrm that the masters of Kyrgyzstan are the
Kyrgyz, and what happened? Every twenty years we have inter-ethnic conicts (Kamchybek Tashiyev, 2010).
Similar discourse has been advanced by the El-Armany Party and its leader General Miroslav Niyazov, long time vice-
chairman of the security services, deputy Minister of the Interior, and former Secretary of the Security Council, who
denounced the move to a parliamentary system, the lack of government ideology, and the disinterest of corrupt politicians for
the legitimate identity concerns of the Kyrgyz people (http://www.elarmany.kg/?p341). The El-Armany program focused on
the failure of independent Kyrgyzstan to afrm itself nationally when it had a unique opportunity for national renewal and
describes a country that has now become a hostage to international nancial institutions.(http://www.elarmany.kg/?p16).
Ethno-nationalist radicalism has also taken the face of the Mayor of Osh, Melisbek Myrzakmatov, a young businessman
and former Member of Parliament who was appointed mayor in January 2009 by the Bakiyevs team. Myrzakmatov made
extremely radical speeches in which he directly accused the Uzbeks of destroying Kyrgyzstans sovereignty, overtly defended
the Kyrgyz, and called for ethnic domination in the south (Direktivy pravitelstva, 2010). In August 2010, the government tried
to dismiss him from his functions, but failed in the face of his determination and his local support, an occurrence that has
worked to fragilize Otunbayeva and conrm that Bishkek has no real control over the southern politicians. Local parliament
awarded him the honorary title of Hero of the Kyrgyz People, along with Kursan Asanov, the city commandant, and Askar
Shakirov, a Kyrgyz deputy in the parliament who perished during the June 2010 violence (Barnett, 2010). Myrzakmatov used
his position as mayor to implement a punitive anti-Uzbek policy, part of which found expression in the reconstruction plans
for the Osh town, thus re-opening the gaping wound formed by the age-old dispute over land distribution, and controls of the
main urban economic niches such as the bazaar. A whole new generation of ethno-nationalist politicians therefore emerged
in 2010, aware of the opportunity offered by the events to build new legitimacy on an ethnic agenda.
Even the governments narrative remained ambivalent in its reading of the 2010 events, and rst level personalities such as
Azimbek Beknazarov or Omurbek Tekebayev did not hide their preference for an ethnic reading of Kyrgyz identity. The then
Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev himself regularly spoke of the Uzbek diaspora to designate Uzbek-speaking citizens,
fully aware how this denition of Uzbeks by their non-nativeness may drive Kyrgyz resentment. The idea that the Uzbeks are
primarily responsible in the Osh conict still largely dominates Kyrgyz public opinion. They are accused of growing wealthy off
the backs of the pauperized Kyrgyz, and their demands for linguistic recognition and political rights are apprehended as an
indirect call for independence with the aim to destroy Kyrgyzstans unity. But the progressive structuring of ethno-nationalism
as a political agenda probably also signies the birth of a contrary political logic. In this way, Felix Kulovs Ar Namys party
appointed Anvar Artykov, an ethnic Uzbek, on his partys list for the October 2010 elections, securing many Uzbek votes in Osh,
and presented Ar Namys as the guardian of national minorities and civic consensus (Doolotkeldieva, 2010).
The transformation of nationalism into a political agenda was also visible in the Parliaments debate about a Guideline for
Ethnic Policy and Consolidation of Society in Kyrgyzstan. The document, written up by a new ofce in the presidential
administration called the Department for Ethnic and Religious Policy and Cooperation with Civil Society itself supported by
the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, the OSCE Centre in Bishkek and the ofce of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights calls for the construction of a civic identity. This latter is dened as the key element, a point
of structuration around which Kyrgyz society will be able to stabilize (Proekt Kontseptsiia, 2011). Ethnic policy therefore
envisages a civic identity in which the respect of ethnic groups is supposed to be assured by policies of bilingualism, for
example, in educational institutions, and guaranteed rights for the political representation of minorities. But Ata-Jurt

12
See their website, http://www.atajurt.kg/index.php?optioncom_content&viewarticle&id27&Itemid11&langru&limitstart3 (accessed August 3,
2010).
 M. Laruelle / Communist and Post-Communist Studies 45 (2012) 3949 47

presented a concurrent document, The State Ethnic Policy in the Kyrgyz Republic, which instead insists on the notion of
Kyrgyz ethnicity as the central element of nationhood (Kontseptsiia natspolitiki partii, 2011). In its logic, Kyrgyzstan has to
construct itself around the Kyrgyz nation, conceived as the integrating and consolidating kernel of Kyrgyz society, in which
the other ethnic groups would have limited rights. Ethnic integration would then be less about protecting minorities interests
than about developing their sense of Kyrgyz patriotism. The government-backed document was ratied by the Parliament in
May 2011, while the Ata-Jurt alternative was refused (Mukhametrakhimova, 2011).

6. Conclusions

While the memory of the Uzgen conict in 1990 was partially pacied by the reconciliatory discourse of Chingiz Aytmatov,
today Kyrgyzstan lacks any respected gures to develop a convincing identity consensus. If Roza Otunbayeva regularly
denounced the risk of new inter-ethnic clashes and the nationalist radicalization of the youth, the members of her
government did not condemn the wave of Kyrgyz nationalism on which they base their social legitimacy. They therefore
cannot criticize the Kyrgyz perpetrators, sack the militia and secret services that refuse to restore order in Osh, or defend the
Uzbek minority. Neither can they admit they have enjoyed the support of Uzbek leaders such as Batyrov in their struggle
against Bakiyev, without incurring a major loss of legitimacy among the ethnic majority. On the Uzbek side, the radicalization
of the identity narrative is not visible in the same way since the community does not have any recognized unied political
leadership. Nonetheless the wave of emigration since the Osh events, and eldwork feedback demonstrate that the trust in
the Kyrgyz authorities has been broken. Political or religious radicalism among Uzbeks will probably be structured in the
future. The totally polarized Uzbek and Kyrgyz narratives of victimhood and the politics of grievance will take years to erase
and will hinder any prospect of building a civic identity. The memory of mutual benets between communities is vanishing to
the advantage of that of competition for shared natural resources and economic niches.
Paradoxically, Kyrgyzstan is the Central Asian only country that lacks a state-fostered ideology, but the one where dete-
riorating socio-economic conditions and unstable political life has created a fertile background for inter-ethnic tensions. On
the Kyrgyz side, the failure of statehood is interpreted as the failure of nationhood. What thus dominates today is the illusion
that the more Kyrgyzstan becomes the state of the Kyrgyz in terms of identity narrative, historical references, language
policies, and marginalization of the minorities from decision-making, the more it will be able to succeed in constructing itself
as a state. Ethnic differentiation will therefore probably be reinforced in the years to come, just as the logics of territorial and
socio-economic segregation between communities. But the temptation of mono-ethnicism goes against the will to build
a parliamentary democracy, and the role of the 2011 elected president, Almazbek Atambayev, is still to be dened. Moreover,
the way in which the stakes are formulated is biased from the outset: if the ethno-centric conception put forward by Ata-Jurt
only works to radicalize the two camps; the civic conception advanced by the government is also problematic, since it is
founded on the postulate that there exist ethnic groups, endowed with specic rights, and which are obliged to maintain their
specicities and to lobby for them. The Soviet narrative of nativeness as a legitimizing tool, of the binary titular nation/
national minorities, and of a primordial reading of identities thus weighs heavily on the way in which Kyrgyz society is going
to have to manage its uncertain future.

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