Kyrgyz people were called “Khirkhiz” in the Chinese annals in the Tang Dynasty although the retention of archaic names of the nationality was still common in numerous historical records to which people could get access. The Tang Dynasty troops cooperated with Kyrgyz tribes in toppling the rule of Tu-
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chueh Khanate. Shortly thereafter, the Kyrgyz tribes were under the direct control of the Tang Dynasty. The central government established the Office of Protector of Tszyan-kun in Kyrgyz people’s territory and made a chief of Kyrgyz people named Shiboku Achzhan head of the local government and general. The Office of Protector of Tszyan-kun was under the leadership of the Office of Grand Protector of Yanran. With the rise of the Hoy-Hu Khanate afterwards, the close contacts between Kyrgyz people and the Tang Dynasty’s central government was cut off unfortunately. In 840, some Hoy-Hu rulers cooperated with Kyrgyz tribes in a revolt and overthrew the Hoy-Hu Khanate finally. The Hoy-Hu people had to move westward. Such an insurgence left enough room for the swift rise of the Kyrgyz tribes. Kyrgyz people established the powerful Khirkhiz Khanate. Its dominion was very vast. The khanate was adjacent to the Quriqan people in the east who occupied the area close to Lake Baikal while it stretched westward far into the area of Qarluq and the Talas River. The khanate lay to the north of Tubo, which usually refers to the present-day Tibet Autonomous Region. In addition, it bordered on tribes living across the Eurasian Steppe in the northern foothills of Tianshan Mountains. The Khirkhiz Khanate was bordered on the southeast by the powerful Tang Empire. At its heyday, the Khirkhiz Khanate had a population of about one million with a 300,000-strong standing army. At that time, the khanate was a faithful vassal state of the Tang Dynasty.
The westward migration of antagonistic Hoy-Hu people also got some Kyrgyz soldiers who were in hell-for-leather pursuit of them to settle down in the range of Tianshan Mountains and the Pamirs Plateau later on. The new comers joined
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their compatriots who already migrated into these areas together with the Tu-chueh tribes in the past hundreds of years ranging from the Han Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty and the early Tang Dynasty. They formed an influential sub-group called Southern Kyrgyz Sub-group (variously known as Western Kyrgyz Sub-group or Tianshan Mountains – Pamirs Sub-group). In the epic ‘Manas” readers can find Kara Kyrgyz Sub-group (Namely the Northern Kyrgyz Sub-group) and Sart Kyrgyz Sub-group (Namely the Southern Kyrgyz Sub-group). During the Liao and Song dynasties, Kyrgyz tribes were called Khirkhiz and under the rule of the Kara-Khitan Khanate. In the epic, the word “Kitay people” refers to the rulers of the Kara-Khitan Khanate (also known as Khitans). The word “Kara Kitay” means “northern Khitans.”
After the rise of Mongolian tribes in the Eurasian Steppe, Mongolian cavalrymen subjugated the Kara-Khitan Khanate and began to take hold on Kyrgyz tribes. From the reign of Ghengis Khan to the Moghulistan during the Ming Dynasty, the Kyrgyz tribesmen and their Mongolian rulers carried out intense struggles for more than three centuries. Jochi, the eldest son of the Mogolian paramount leader Genghis Khan, launched a series of attacks on the Kyrgyz tribes living in the Yenisei valley. The Mongol Empire’s incessant attacks resulted in the surrender of Kyrgyz nomads eventually. In the Ming Dynasty, the central government unified the central part of China. However, the Kyrgyz tribes living in the northwestern part of China were still under the control of the Moghulistan established by the descendants of Ghengis Khan. In order to fight against the cruel rule of the Moghulistan, Kyrgyz staged the long-time and
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painstaking insurgents. For instance, Awais Khan (also known as Vais Khan), the ruler of Moghulistan, fought with EsKu, chief of Kyrgyz tribes, for a total of sixty-one times. He was captured alive by Kyrgyz troops twice and released later on only after the defeated khan was forced to give his younger sister to his rival in marriage. After the war was over, Awais Khan had to move his capital city in order to avoid the direct confrontation with Kyrgyz troops led by EsKu. Kyrgyz people maintained their dominance over their territory until the rise of Qirat (also known as Qalmaq tribes in the epic “Manas”). Afterwards, Esen Khan ascended to the throne of Qirat, the pastoral nomadic tribes of Mongolian origin. According to A Brief History of Kyrgyz Nationality, Esen launched frenzied attacks on Kyrgyz people. His attacks resulted in a terrible catastrophe unfortunately. In the following more than one hundred years, Kyrgyz people living in the Yenisei valley almost disappeared without trace. Billed as the immortal classic centerpiece of Kyrgyz people folk literature which was transmitted orally, the heroic epic “Manas” is set mainly against the backdrop of such a turbulent period. The epic is not history as such, but some plots of Manas revolves around a series of events that coincide with the history of the region.
2) Brief Introduction to the Epic “Manas”
The epic “Manas” recounts the heroic deeds of the standout personalities from the eight generations of Family Manas in its entirety. Manas is a national hero of Kyrgyz Nationality and also protagonist of the full-length epic. Both the whole epic and its first episode take their name from the hero. The whole masterpiece can
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be divided into eight parts each of which is entitled the name of the protagonist or one of his offsprings respectively. Yusup Mamai, a Manaschi (1), tells the tale of Manas in a melodic chant of up to more than 200,000 lines himself. A brief introduction to each episode of the epic recited by the Manaschi is as follows: