Almazbek Atambayev has stepped into a scandal, EurasiaNet's David Trilling tells us today, at the unveiling in Moscow of a new statute for the epic Kyrgyz hero Manas (for whom the base where the US military is now located is named).
But Trilling doesn't quite get all the nuances from the original Russian texts (he's just learning Russian).
The story was troublesome enough, but if regnum.ru reported Atambayev accurately, he didn't say that Manas was "ethnically Russian" in the sense this is conveyed in English, i.e. someone of actual Russian ethnicity. If he said that in Russian, he would have said "etnicheskiy russkiy".
But that's not what he said. He said "ethically Russian" in the sense of *Russian Federation,* i.e. the country that is on the territory of what is now Russia today. That word is different -- Rossiyanin. This is a word that Russians began to use in Russian some time after Russia, too, gained its independence from the Soviet Union and the "Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic" became the Russian Federation, and the citizens, who are all different ethnic groups, not only ethnic Russians, became Rossiyane, also translated as "Russians" in English for lack of a more precise term.
To be sure, "ethnic Russian" in that sense sounds as odd as "ethnic American" would sound. America is made up of people of many different ethnicities.
Here's what Trilling wrote:
First, during the unveiling of a statue for Kyrgyz mythic hero Manas in Moscow on February 24, which Atambayev personally helped finance, the president said that Manas, in whatever distant past he inhabited, was “an ethnic Russian” because he and the ancestors of the Kyrgyz both originated in Siberia.
Here's the original passage on fergananews.com (quoted from regnum.ru):
«Мы не случайно открываем памятник Манасу Великодушному в столице России, - сказал А.Атамбаев. - Россия, Алтай - это малая родина Манаса, где родился великий Манас и где прошло его детство. Наши далёкие предки долгое время жили на обширной территории Западной Сибири. Народы Киргизии и России связывает общая история. Манас - этнический россиянин!»
My translation:
"It is no accident that we are opening this monument to Manas the Great in the capital of Russia," said A. Atambayev. "Russia, Altay, this is the small homeland of Manas, where the great Manas was born and where he spent his childhood. Our remote ancestors lived for a long time on the broad territory of Western Siberia. The peoples of Kyrgyzstan and Russia are connected by a common history. Manas is an ethnic Rossiyanin!"
As you can learn from Wikipedia and probably better sources, the people from which the great Manas originated were Turkic, i.e. not "ethnic Russian."
The Epic of Manas (Kyrgyz: Манас дастаны, Turkish: Manas Destanı) is a traditional epic poem claimed by the Kyrgyz people dating to the 18th century, though it is possibly much older. In some earlier versions, however, Manas is identified as Nogay. This opens the possibility of Manas having spoken a dialect of Turki similar to that of the Kazakhs and Nogay people today.
Then the story underwent changes:
Changes were made in the delivery and textual representation of Manas in the 1920s and 1930s to represent the creation of the Kyrgyz nationality, particularly the replacement of the tribal background of Manas. In the 19th century versions, Manas is the leader of the Nogay people, while in versions dating after 1920, Manas is a Kyrgyz and a leader of the Kyrgyz.
Attempts have been made to connect modern Kyrgyz with the Yenisei Kirghiz, today claimed by Kyrgyzstan to be the ancestors of modern Kyrgyz. Kazakh ethnographer and historian Shokan Shinghisuly Walikhanuli was unable to find evidence of folk-memory during his extended research in 19th-century Kyrgyzstan (then part of the expanding Russian empire) nor has any been found since.
Toktayim Umetalieva, described by Trilling as a "firebrand" uses the term etnicheskiy russkiy here on 24.kg -- and perhaps that's what riled her even more? She believes the president's speech-writers should be fired.
Umetalieva doesn't seem to mind that a statue was put up in Moscow, nor does she seem to be advocating a version of the Manas story that disavows the connection to what is now Russia, but she wants to get it exactly right:
Атамбаев не имел права в одночасье изменить историю двух народов. Об исторических моментах нужно говорить продуманно, аккуратно. Служба протокола должна объяснить президенту, что такое «этническая принадлежность» и кто такие россияне. Все мы имеем право на ошибку, но только не глава государства. Может быть, народы РФ и КР имеют общие корни, но исторические пути у них разные. Сейчас народ нашей республики пребывает в недоумении, и Алмазбек Атамбаев должен объясниться перед ним.
My translation:
Atambayev did not have the right in a moment to change the history of two peoples. You must speak carefully and correctly about historical issues. The [presidential] protocol service should explain to the president what "ethnic affiliation" means and who Rossiyane are. We all are entitled to make mistakes but not the head of state. Perhaps the peoples of the Russian Federation and the Kyrgyz Republic have common roots, but their historical paths are different. Now the people of our republic are confused, and Almazbek Atambayev should explain himself to them.
