Day: March 24, 2016

This essay discusses the concept of kyrgyzchylyk (rather inadequatelyrendered in English as ‘Kyrgyzness’) as a way of transcendingdifferent boundaries: the Soviet past, Koran-basedIslam, rational thinking. Several aspects of the concept andits meaning in everyday life are discussed; in particular theidea of kyrgyzchylyk as spirituality is examined. Moreover,the concept can be seen as transcending the boundaries …

The paper is aimed to share the case study on a successful safeguarding practice of the Kyrgyz epic trilogy “Manas,Semetey,Seitek”, carried by Aigine Cultural Research Center in 2010-2014. The paper describes the process of identification of safeguarding issues and approaches to address them. Since the Kyrgyz epic is a living heritage, safeguarding variety of the …

This paper explores the role of Mazars (sacred sites) in the contemporary social and spiritual life of the Kyrgyz. Based upon recent ethnographic research in the Talas region of northern Kyrgyzstan, the paper argues that Mazars perform an important function in enabling local residents to deal with the emotional, psychological and physical consequences of a …

The epic Kojojash is considered one of the “lesser” Kyrgyz epics, a term used to denote its small size when comparedto the great epic Manas, which has roughly half a million lines. Perhaps more importantly, Manas telling andtellers played an exclusive role in traditional Kyrgyz society and it held a special place among Kyrgyz folk …