Names in Russian documents In various Russian documents from the 19th century, the settlement area of the Kyrgyz ethnic group was called
Dikokamennaya Orda, or the
Orda of the mountain warlords. The term
Dikokamenny is a combination of two words
дикий-dikiy (savage, uncivilized; warlord) and
каменный-kamenny (the word kamen in the Russian language at that time can be translated as mountains), while the word
Orda, according to
Mahmud al-Kashgari’s 11th-century dictionary, "Orda" is defined as "the city where the
khan resides". In the 20th-century dictionaries of ancient
Turkic languages, it is translated as "the place where the khan resides" (in Russian, резиденция хана). The well-known orientalist
Benjamin P. Yudin expanded this definition, stating that in Russian, hence the meaning of the word
Orda is a steppe
nomadic state or a nomadic union. Academician
Vasily Radlov noted the following about this. Meanwhile, the word
Kara-Kyrgyz roughly means "the Black Kyrgyz", as it was known to the Russians prior to the
revolution. In the 19th century, the Kyrgyz were conquered by the
Khanate of Kokand and was unified into one nation as their subject and was introduced with
Islam. During the Kokand period, the Kyrgyz tribal leaders received the titles of datka and parvanachi, and some of them began to aspire to become a paramount chief leader. In the year 1841,
Madaly Khan's power was relinquished by the
Bukharan Emirate, and the Kokand people were transferred to
Bukhara. Soon after in the same year, a popular movement occurred near
Namangan led by a military leader named Nüzüp biy Esenbay, he led the Kyrgyz,
Uzbeks,
Tajiks and
Kypchak tribes to join this movement to take the advantage of Kokand political situation by having
Sherali Khan installed as a puppet monarch in an effort to reform the khanate. As external threats and unstable political situation in Central Asia grew due to various conflicts including the encroaching Russian Empire, which had been establishing outposts nearby. Various tribes in Central Asia began to take actions as a response to the situation, for example, the Kazakhs under the leadership of
Kenesary Qasymov had formed the
Kazakh khanate, while the Sarybagysh chief
Ormon Niyazbek began to unite the tribes of the northern Kyrgyzstan, and would soon become their unified Khan. Prior to the foundation of the Khanate, a popular figure among Northern Kyrgyz tribes had emerged, Ormon Niyazbek uulu, he hailed from one of the most influential clans of the Sarybagysh tribe, he was the great-great-grandson of
Mamatkul Biy, a biy of the unified Kyrgyz tribe who struggled against the
Dzungar Khanate in the 18th century, thus making him able to rose to prominence and become a tribe chief at the age of 25 and was experienced in tribal management. Ormon also had a skillful military knowledge, he is trained to ride a horse, able to perform a sword and spear fighting, skilled at
kurash wrestling, and had participated in a conflict at the age of 18, these knowledge made him able to gain control over other tribes.
Ormon Khan Period Foundation As
Central Asia undergoes significant political shifts in the 19th century, the Kyrgyz people found themselves aligned with this momentum, the Kyrgyz tribal elites held a
kurultai in the summer of 1842 near
Kochkor village, west of
Issyk-Kul, discussing on how to deal with the internal and external issues, According to Soviet historian
Saul Abramzon, there were several participants who attended the kurultai ceremony, some of them were elite members of the Solto tribe, Sayak tribe, as well as elite members of the southern Kyrgyzstan as representatives of the Kokand Khanate. In accordance with ancient nomadic Kyrgyz traditions, Ormon was dressed in red shoes, seated on a white felt, and was crowned as Khan by having a
tebetei placed on his head. Nine white horses were sacrificed to honor the participants of the kurultai. The chiefs and elites then took an oath of allegiance by cutting of a branch () as a symbolic gesture of making a binding commitment or promise, and by this coronation ceremony, the supreme authority of Ormon Khan over the northern Kyrgyz tribes was confirmed. he established a legal code whom he referred to as the
Ormon ukuu, meaning Teachings or Edifications of Ormon that also includes a number of folk rites, edicts, and a decree that declared Ormon to be the sole khan of the Kyrgyz.
Internal conflict and Ormon Khan death Despite being unified against external threats, the Kara-Kyrgyz Khanate still suffered from internal strife and feuds. In the 1850s, one of these feuds erupted with the tribe, which was located on the northern shore of Issyk-Kul. The feud was caused by several reasons, including the Sarybagysh having poor pasture lands and wishing to expand, the Bugu refusing to extradite a man who betrayed Ormon, and an attempt by the Bugu to form an alliance with the Russians against Ormon, which was caused by the domination of the Sarybagysh over the other tribes in the khanate. The two sides began raiding each other, and Ormon officially declared war, receiving assistance from Kokand, who wished to show their value as an ally. After initial success in the campaign, Ormon attacked the main Bugu camp near the village of
Semyonovka. However, Ormon's army were defeated by the Bugu, and Ormon was captured. , the chief of the Bugu, wanted to use Ormon as a hostage, intending to release him only with assurances that Ormon would not attack the Bugu again. However, , a Bugu leader who had been a longtime rival of Ormon, stabbed Ormon with a spear, mortally wounding him. Ormon was transferred to his daughter's yurt, where he died in her arms.
The period after Ormon Khan The centralized Kara-Kyrgyz Khanate reigned for 14 years under Ormon Khan rule, and upon his death, his son Umetaaly would took the throne as the new khan and reigned for another 12 years, the evidence of Umetaaly inheriting his father's position as the new khan was noted in later records and studies by researchers such as
Nikolai Severtsov and
Pyotr P. Semyonov in 1856, and
Shoqan Walikhanov in 1867. On June 18, 1863, he and his soldiers attacked Russian postal workers who were going to Naryn and killed one of them, and the next day on June 19, with the support of his relatives and the
manap of the Sayak tribe, Osman Taylak uulu, and other tribal leaders, he assembled thousands of warriors near the Naryn River at a place called Eki Chat near Kurtka. Waving Kyrgyz banners and accompanied by drums, they surrounded and engaged a group of 40 Russian soldiers carrying gunpowder and provisions, led by Lieutenant Zubarev, for three days. However, Captain Protsenko’s unit arrived to reinforce the Russians, and Ümötaaly’s forces were forced to retreat. A detachment of 2,500 soldiers led by Colonel M. G. Chernyaev's took over
Auliye-Ata on June 5, 1864, and a part of the force advanced through
Talas, occupying
Chatkal valley. That year,
Alimqul Atalyk, a Kyrgyz who was the de facto ruler of the Kokand Khanate, undertook a campaign from Toguz-Toro to Kochkor, with Ümötaaly joining him. However, after the Russians captured Shymkent, a Kokand-held city, Alimkul returned to Kokand. He died defending Tashkent, leaving Ümötaaly with only his brother Chargyn and the Sayak
manap Osman as trusted allies. In 1865, some of the Sayak tribes accepted Russian rule, despite this pressure, Umetaaly continued the resistance, warring against Kyrgyz tribes that submitted to Russia. After
Yakub Beg came to power in
Kashgar in 1867, he began to exert pressure on Umetaaly from one side, while Russian forces, led by Colonel Poltoratsky, organized an expedition into the
At-Bashy and
Chatyr-Köl regions during the summer of that same year, squeezing Umetaaly's troops from the south. This combined pressure put on Umetaaly would later made him approach the Russians to submit to their rule.
Abolition of the khanate Despite a long resistance against Russia, Umetaaly eventually approached N. A. Severtsov’s troops in the fall of 1867, declaring his full submission to Russian authority, officially ended the khanate rule. In order for Umetaaly to return to his home pastures, he was required to pay a compensation by the Russian government for the damages caused during the conflict, including the death of two soldiers, along with four wounded soldiers, and one officer, in a total amount of to 375 horses or 7,500 rubles, based on a price of 20 rubles per horse. Umetaaly paid 5,231 rubles and 42 kopecks in 1868, with the remaining sum collected later. In 1868, the Russian government adopted the "Regulations on the Administration of the Turkestan Territory," which implemented a system of community-based governance. According to this reform, instead of a single
manap (tribal leader) governing an entire tribe, a bash (leader) was to be elected for every clans, Umetaaly, however, did not engage with the Russian authorities anymore, he gained a Russian citizenship and probably moved to a quiet life. ==Territorial boundary==