Research Questions and Goals Within my upcoming three blog posts, my aim is to present two narratives of exile present in folk oral traditions in Inner Asia. After discussing the Urkun in my previous post, I realized that I had largely forgotten the issue of individual agency within such significant historical circumstances. To rectify this […]
Kyrgyzstan
The Urkun and Kyrgyz-Russian Race Relations
On August 7th of this year, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of approximately 30 people gathered in Bishkek to commemorate the 104th anniversary of the Urkun with readings from the Quran.1 Despite the dangers currently associated with public gatherings, many people in Kyrgyzstan clearly feel a strong sense of importance in […]
Moscow’s Little Kyrgyzstan
For my blog post, I decided to watch a short documentary which I’ve been wanting to check out for quite a while titled, “Moscow’s Little Kyrgyzstan”. The documentary is approximately 25 minutes long and highlights the experiences of Kyrgyz migrants in Moscow. The documentary was produced by a UK-based company named Journeyman Pictures. All of […]
Migration and the Construction of National Narratives in Turkey and Kyrgyzstan
As republics formed following the collapse of expansive empires, the Kyrgyz Republic and the Republic of Turkey have each utilized certain historical and cultural narratives as a means of establishing a unified ethnic national identity. In the case of Turkey, the influx of new “Turks” from the forced population exchange with Greece necessitated a unifying […]