Collective, communicative and cultural memories: examples of local historiography from northern Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

In recent years several historical publications have appeared in Kyrgyzstan which are far from homogeneous in terms of style, form and content. In this article, two very different local histories written by Kyrgyz authors from the same village are analysed and compared. The first author is a former kolkhoz president who produced two books that basically cover the time from the end of the nineteenth to the end of the twentieth century. His work is strongly (auto)biographical and focuses on individual achievements and personal experiences. The second author is a mathematician who wrote two books about the history of his own descent category (uruu). His work combines oral history (sanjyra) with written sources. The two authors create very different images of ‘esteemed people’ (ardaktuu adamdar), yet they exhibit a common interest in producing a narrative that links the deeds of one's own people (family or descent group) with the history of particular places (pastures, villages or regions). Taking up these observations, the author argues that local histories relate to different types of memory and are far from uniform with regard to their composition, sources, methods and narrative strategies. Yet, despite their diversity, the newly developed genres of ‘written collective memory’ provide the idea of social continuity by stressing connections between past and present, and between people, land and morality. This may indeed be one reason why collective memories, which were suppressed for many decades, have become so popular in times of rapid social transformation.

Keywords:

• oral history
• written history
• memory
• descent
• place
• Kyrgyzstan

Notes

This museum and its founder are also mentioned in David Gullette's monograph (2010a: 86 − 88).

Manas is an epic poem about the legendary hero Manas, his followers and his descendants, which exists in many different versions. The epic is recited by specialists who sing the verses in a melodic chant often accompanied by music created with a stringed instrument called a komuz. For an anthropological study on Manas performers, see Heide (2008).

Until now research on this new historiography as well as on pre-Soviet Kyrgyz historical writings remains a desideratum of the social and historical sciences concerned with Central Asia (see Tchoroev 2002, pp. 366–367). See also Mostowlansky (2007, p. 88).

For a more general account of modern Kyrgyz historiography, see Tchoroev (2002).

The research was sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation, Germany, and focused on funeral traditions and social changes in Kyrgyzstan. It started in Bishkek (September to December 2007) and continued in the villages located on the southern shore of lake Issyk Kul.

To avoid confusion I henceforth refer to both authors by their given names rather than by their fathers' names.

The first two books are in Kyrgyz, while this third one includes a Kyrgyz version in the first part and the Russian translation in the second.

The books are written in Kyrgyz. During my fieldwork I acquired a good knowledge of spoken Kyrgyz, but needed the help of my research assistant, Shamshiev Ulan, to translate and make accessible these literary sources. I want to express my deep gratitude for his hard and sincere work.

Gullette defines sanjyra as ‘genealogical information combined with an account of the past’ (Gullette 2010b, p. 65). I think this aptly captures the nature of sanjyra, which supplements narratives about ancestors in the structure of a genealogy.

In the Orgochor Museum I was shown a painting of a woman who was considered a famous sanjyrachy. Otherwise I am only aware of male oral history tellers.

In Kyrgyz this history of descent is called taralat, which literally means ‘dispersal’ or ‘spreading’, and expresses the idea that people descend from one man and then in the course of time fan out in terms of number and space.

Both sons and daughters belong to a descent category (uruu) through their father, but only sons continue this line and are considered to be tukum (lit. ‘seed’, here meaning descendant).

Affines are called kudalar or kuda-söök and are highly respected. They receive special treatment at all festive occasions. The bride-givers are considered to be of higher status than the bride-takers.

If a man had more than one wife, his descendants often recognize different descent lines starting from their respective mother.

Tüpkü also means ‘fundamental, basic, original’.

These sources also used to claim that the Kyrgyz state is 2200 years old. This claim belonged to a highly controversial ideological project called ‘2200 Years of Kyrgyz Statehood’, which was initiated by the first president Askar Akaev during his third term (see Jacquesson 2010, pp. 221–244; Marat 2008, p. 17).

For a short summary of Kyrgyz ethnogenesis studies, see Laruelle (2008, pp. 169–188).

For details about this debate and theories of migration (or re-migration), see also Tchoroev (2002, pp. 355–356).

The author represents the genealogy in his own style, neither following standard anthropological methods nor local pedigrees.

I use ‘segmentary line’ as a translation for the Kyrgyz terms uruu or uruk. For details see Hardenberg (2007, p. 49).

I once accompanied him when he went to a neighbouring village to talk with an old blind man for another book project. Like a trained ethnographer he established contact with this man, conducted an interview and taped the stories told by the old man with a recorder.

In Central Asia many people were deprived of their land during Russian colonization. The immediate reason for the upheaval was, however, the tsar's call for men to join the Russian Army in order to fight on their side in the First World War (Brower 2003, pp. 1–2). The revolt was brutally suppressed and many Kyrgyz died during their escape to China. Taking the road from Bishkek to Issyk Kul, one will pass a memorial commemorating these tragic events.

These plantations are now a major source of wealth in the region of Issyk Kul. In the summer, large trucks from Russia come in order to carry away the produce, which, due to the climate, is of particularly good quality and taste.

Until 1974 opium was cultivated in Kyrgyzstan in large amounts. Olcott and Udalova write: ‘In fact, the Kyrgyz continued to legally grow opium poppy until 1974. Some 98 state and collective farms in Kyrgyzstan's Issyk-Kul oblast produced 80 percent of the total licit opium in the Soviet Union and 16 percent of the world's supply’ (Olcott and Udalova 2000, p. 9).

Halbwachs (1985a, p. 31) writes: ‘Wir würden sagen, jedes individuelle Gedächtnis ist ein ,Ausblickspunkt‘ auf das kollektive Gedächtnis’ [‘We would say that every individual memory offers a perspective on collective memory.’]

Kubul means ‘changeable’ and here refers to a woman who constantly changes her clothing. According to sanjyra, her real name was Sherbet, but because she wore a lot of different clothes, she received the nickname Kubul Ene ‘Mother Kubul’ (Sagynbekov 2000, p. 33).

The territorial distribution of segmentary lines (uruu) is well known in Kyrgyzstan and has been elaborately studied by Soviet researchers. For example, the State Historical Museum in Bishkek exhibits a detailed map that was made on the basis of an expedition in 1953–4. For more details on the mutual construction of genealogy and space in Kyrgyzstan, see Hardenberg (2007). An interesting account of the moral dimensions of this socially constructed geography is provided by Féaux de la Croix (2011).

This is a good example of what Humphrey calls ‘embodiment’ or ‘the identification of people or actions in the present with those of the past’ (1992, p. 378).

Jerin süybös el bolboyt, elin süybös er bolboyt [‘One who does not love the place will have no people; one who does not love the people will not be strong.’]