ABSTRACT
The proclamation of the first modern independent Kyrgyz state, in August 1991, was met with little rejoicing. For the people of the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Kirghizia, there were few reasons, either of the head or of the heart, to support the detachment of their small mountainous country from the Soviet whole.1 The new state lacked even a credible flag or other legitimate ‘national’ symbols around which people might rally, and would not have existed as a separate country but for the hard truth that the Soviet Union had imploded. Kyrgyzstan, therefore, was left with no option but to accept this seismic shift in political power and to proceed with the daunting task of building the independent state that no one seemed to have wanted. All the post-Soviet republics were confronted by enormous problems after independence, but the lack of national awareness and unity in the Central Asian republics made national consolidation uncertain.
