The article discusses the main threads of the public debate surrounding independent Kyrgyzstan's first constitution, which was passed on 5th May 1993. The introduction outlines the framework of the constitutional process; the strategies of the main players in the constitutional game are then reconstructed in the next section. The third section presents the issues which provoked the greatest controversy. Section four sets forth the circumstances under which the constitutional compromise was entered into, together with its main component parts. In section five, the reader finds clarification as to why the Basic Law of 1993 was reassessed before it ever came into force. The author analyses the dispute over the constitution through the prism of the game around the distribution of power and its resources within the specific realities of a Kyrgyzstan emerging from the Soviet system. The article takes as its thesis the notion that the form of the first constitution was the outcome of the divergent aspirations of the main political players and of situational conflicts over grounds other than the constitutional substance itself. It was under these circumstances that a Basic Act emerged which went quite some way toward equalising relations between the organs of state authority. As it transpired, the compromise which had been worked out was short-lived. The reason for the multiple revisions of the Basic Act by means of referenda was not so much the result of defects in the legislation as of the president's fight to maintain and strengthen his authority under conditions wrought by a deep crisis of transformation.
The article discusses the practice of bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan. The article was written on the basis of ethnographic studies conducted in Kyrgyzstan in summer 2005. The author describes this controversial practice and analyses some of its aspects - violence, temporal dimension and collectivity. This practice, common in modern Kyrgyzstan, although many women have a very negative opinion about it, is an accepted form of marriage. Bride kidnapping is a much diversified phenomenon, having many meanings and representing different motivations of the actors. It also assumes many forms - from forceful kidnapping of the girl who has been seen for the first time to an arranged meeting with the fiancée, who is taken to the groom's family home, in which case it can be a way of circumventing the disapproval of the parents. The article describes marriage by capture as a dramatic and multidimensional event, which radically changes the life of the kidnapped victims.
The aim of the article is to verify the spatial development of Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam in relation to their socio-economic development. Having used coefficient of variation and rank-size rule methods basing on the data gained from ETM+ Landsat images analysis it was stated that Kyrgyzstan's settlement and transport networks are theoretically underdeveloped in relation to the country's level of development and that in Vietnam they are much better developed than it could be expected. The environment conditions and past and recent politics could significantly modify the spatial development in the countries analysed.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union the new states of Central Asia faced a challenging task of building a new country, its symbols, relations between institutional power and the sovereign and imaginary geopolitical landscape. The grass root processes of national awakening were coupled with the deliberate activities of the dominant political actors striving to shape them in a way conducive to their power claims. Thus the monuments of great ancestors and the billboards presenting the image of incumbent presidents became very common element of the symbolic landscape of Central Asia's new republics. The official speeches of the governing presidents have frequently referred to great historical figures, constructed historical analogies, praised the thousand years old traditions of the fatherland and adduced historical evidence testifying ancient roots of the countries. This article is focused on the mechanisms of ethnocentric reinterpretation of the past. For the newly constituted Republics of Central Asia either the evidence of the past power status and glorious moments or of the past tragedies have been equally strong legitimizing factors both internally and externally. No matter, whether invented or constructed, propagated national values have played a key role in justifying the power claims and international position of the new countries. Additionally, the paper's objective is to analyze how state structures and institutions implement national solutions and how the authoritarian logic of the state institutions performed its power under the guise of national forms.
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