10th century AD: The Turkic ancestors of the Kyrgyz began to migrate from the upper reaches of the Yenisei (in the Tyva region of the Russian Federation), towards the Tien Shan.
13th century: The rise of the Mongol Empire hastened the southwards migrations, although the ancestors of the Kyrgyz remained dominated by the Eastern Turkic tribes.
1685: The Kyrgyz, reckoned to have emerged as a distinct ethnic group within the previous 200 years, came to be ruled by the Oirot Mongols, against whom the Kyrgyz rulers waged a fierce struggle.
1758: The Manzhous (Manchus) defeated the Oirots and the Kyrgyz became nominal subjects of the Chinese emperors.
1863: The northern Kyrgyz acknowledged the sovereignty of the Russian tsar, thus providing the official date of the ‘voluntary’ incorporation of Kyrgyzstan into Russia.
1866: The Russians defeated the Khanate of Kokand, which had acquired suzerainty over the southern Kyrgyz earlier in the century.
1876: The Khanate of Kokand was abolished and the territory formally incorporated into the Russian Empire; however, there were several Kyrgyz uprisings in the following decades.
1916: An attempt to impose labour and military service on the non-Russian peoples of the Empire occasioned a widespread revolt in Central Asia; the savage repression of the rebellion caused many Kyrgyz to emigrate to China.
7 November 1917: (Old Style: 25 October) The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin (Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov), staged a coup d’état and seized control of government in Petrograd (St Petersburg); the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR or Russian Federation) was proclaimed.
14 February 1918: (Old Style: 1 February) First day upon which the Gregorian Calendar took effect in Russia.
30 April 1918: The Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) of Turkestan (based in Tashkent, Uzbekistan) was proclaimed, as part of the Russian Federation; this included Kyrgyzstan, although Bolshevik control was not established here until 1919-20, because of fierce resistance to the Red Army from the ‘Whites’ and from local basmachi insurgents.
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