Kyrgyz literature, the written works of the Kyrgyz people of Central Asia, most of whom live in Kyrgyzstan. A smaller population of Kyrgyz in China also produces works of literary significance.

The literary history of the modern-day Kyrgyz begins in the early 19th century, notwithstanding disputed attempts by scholars to identify as “Old Kyrgyz” the language of runic Turkic inscriptions from the Yenisey River basin (9th to 11th centuries). The language of the earliest surviving works of Kyrgyz literature in manuscript, including the 19th-century poems of Moldo Nïyaz, is Chagatai, the common Turkic literary language of Central Asia, modified with features drawn from spoken Kyrgyz. (See also Chagatai literature.) From the Russian Revolution of 1917 until the 1930s, written Kyrgyz continued to develop under influences from the related Kazakh, Uzbek, and Tatar languages, owing in part to the slow development of Kyrgyz-language instruction. Prerevolutionary Kyrgyz was written in the Arabic alphabet; this was reformed and standardized in 1924. In 1927 the Kyrgyz writing system was switched to one based on the Latin alphabet, and in 1941 this was replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet, which continues in use today in Kyrgyzstan. (The Kyrgyz of the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang in China still use an Arabic alphabet.)

Written Kyrgyz literature arose from rich oral traditions and was at the outset exclusively poetic. Manuscript poems derived from the oral epic cycle Manas written by Kyrgyz in their own language survive from around the turn of the 20th century. One of the earliest books printed in an idiom close to modern Kyrgyz, Qïssa-i zilzila (1911; “Tale of the Earthquake”) by Moldo Qïlïch, is in the lyric genre sanat-nasïyat (“maxims and wise instructions”), a form used by poets for social commentary. The book’s elegiac tone, expression of disillusionment with Russian colonial rule, and yearning for an idealized Muslim society reflected the zar-zaman (“time of sorrow”) vogue that predominated in Kyrgyz and Kazakh poetry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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The tremendous growth in literacy among Kyrgyz during the Soviet period was mirrored by significant strides in the sphere of creative writing. Kyrgyz folklore provided the blueprint and materials for poetry of the first half of the 20th century by Aalï Tokombaev, Joomart Bökönbaev, Kubanïchbek Malikov, and Jusup Turusbekov. Prose fiction was among new literary forms that appeared under Soviet auspices and reached a high level of cultivation. The first short story published in Kyrgyz was Kasïmalï Bayalinov’s “Ajar” (1927); the first Kyrgyz novel was Tügölbay Sïdïkbekov’s Keng-Suu (1937–38; “Broad River,” the name of the village that is the novel’s setting). The essay and the pamphlet also flourished, as did drama, literary translation, and children’s literature. The Kyrgyz press was inaugurated in 1924 with the newspaper Erkin Too (“Free Mountains”).

Soviet Kyrgyz literature was defined in relation to the political and social agendas of the state and the Communist Party. The “pessimism” and “mysticism” that the party found in works by Moldo Qïlïch and the zar-zaman poets were proscribed; writers were instead urged to incorporate progressive themes, such as land and water reform, the emancipation of women, and the struggle to overcome feudal and tribal authority. In working out their own approach to the artistic methods of Socialist Realism, Kyrgyz authors used models from Russian literature. The poet Alïkul Osmonov departed from Kyrgyz folklore and invented new verse forms inspired in part by the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. The international character of Soviet society is reflected in such works as Maidan (1961–66; “The War Front”), Uzak Abdukaimov’s novel about World War II.

The short-story writer, novelist, and essayist Chingiz Aytmatov enjoyed international acclaim and a dominant position in Kyrgyz literature in the second half of the 20th century with such early works as Jamila (1958; Eng. trans. Jamilia), a tale of love amid changing times. After Kyrgyzstan gained independence in 1991, Kyrgyz writers took up issues of the nation’s past, such as the people’s Muslim heritage, traditional social structure, and colonial experience under Russia, in such works as Sooronbai Jusuev’s Kurmanjan Datka (1994), a verse novel about the female leader of the southern Kyrgyz during and after the tsarist expansion. Starkly reflecting the calamitous post-Soviet experience, Aytmatov’s Kassandra tamgasy (1996; “The Mark of Cassandra”; first published in Russian in 1995 as Tavro Kassandry) is a novel of global dystopia. In the first decade of the 21st century, poets, prose writers, and dramatists suffered from the contraction and reordering of literary markets in Kyrgyzstan that took place after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., but along with state support Communist Party censorship also vanished. Though deplored by the old guard, the new commercial climate created opportunities for authors to publish unvarnished portrayals of painful realities, as in the prison novels of Melis Makenbaev and the popular genre of detective and crime fiction.