The status of “founding father” of any nation is normally bestowed not by politicians, but via the consensus of the population, as distilled by trained historians. Not so in Kyrgyzstan.

For Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, the roots of the country’s statehood stretch back only to the Soviet era. He issued a decree in late July anointing five Bolshevik functionaries as the founders of Kyrgyzstan’s statehood. Those designated as “fathers who founded the modern Kyrgyz statehood,” are:

• Zhusup Abdrakhmanov: effectively the territory’s prime minister from 1927-1933 when Kyrgyzstan enjoyed autonomous republic status.
• Ishenaly Arabaev: an educator who founded the first Kyrgyz-language newspaper in 1924, during the early Soviet era.
• Imanaly Aidarbekov: the head of the Kara-Kyrgyz Revolutionary Committee in the mid-1920s who later became People's Commissar of Light Industry and Trade of the Republic;
• Abdykadyr Orozbekov: the first chairman of the presidium of the Central Executive Committee after Kyrgyzstan’s elevation of status to union republic in 1936.
• Abdykerim Sydykov: Kyrgyzstan’s representative to the congress that formed the Soviet Union in 1922.

Four of the five “founders,” with the exception being Arabaev, perished in 1938, amid the infamous purges carried out by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who wiped out the “Old Bolshevik” generation.

“These people proved with convincing and reasonable evidence that the Kyrgyz people with their language, culture and history have full right to create their own state equal to other peoples of Central Asia and were at the beginning of the new statehood of the 20th century,” Japarov says in his decree. “However, this title cannot diminish the work of other prominent state and political figures of our country.”

“The historical event of the formation of the Kara-Kyrgyz Autonomous Oblast, and the subsequent formation of the Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic have great significance for the future history of Kyrgyzstan, and they became the foundation of the independent Kyrgyz Republic,” the decree adds.

Japarov issued the decree shortly before the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Kara-Kyrgyz Autonomous Region in 1924, the first nominally self-directing Kyrgyz entity set up within the Soviet system.

In emphasizing the present-day state’s connection to the Soviet legacy, the decree offers tacit recognition of Kyrgyzstan’s present-day close relationship to Russia. Officials and historians in neighbouring Kazakhstan, by contrast, have stressed the nation’s pre-Soviet history in establishing its modern statehood.

Just last year, Japarov lauded pre-Soviet figures as playing pivotal roles in shaping the country’s modern contours. In October of last year, for example, Japarov participated in the unveiling of a monument to Ormon Khan, a political leader in the mid-19th century who is credited with uniting disparate Kyrgyz clans and forging fledgling political and judicial institutions. 

“Ormon Khan Niyazbek uulu,” Japarov was quoted by the official Kabar news agency as saying at the ceremony, “occupies a significant place in the history of Kyrgyzstan.”

“This event – the formation of the Kyrgyz Khanate – can be considered the most important event in the restoration of Kyrgyz statehood,” Japarov added.

This article first appeared on Eurasianet here.