The Manas Epic, which is accepted as the national epic of the Kyrgyz people, was registered on the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity on behalf of the People’s Republic of China in 2009. Although the issue aroused considerable reaction among the Kyrgyz public, there was no serious attempt at the state level until 2011. The epic obtained governmental support in Kyrgyzstan in 1995 and 2011, which was indeed related to economic and political crisis of 1993-1994 and 2010. In 1995 and after 2011, initiatives were made to celebrate it as a cultural element unifying the Kyrgyz divided in different clans and regions in addition to different ethnic groups in Kyrgyzstan. While Kyrgyzstan was struggling for survival under dire conditions in both periods, it referred to Manas fighting to overcome these hardships by bringing Kyrgyz clans together. In addition to his characteristic as protecting the Kyrgyz people, during the celebrations in 1995, 2011 and during the application to intangible cultural heritage list in 2013, “generosity” of Manas embracing other nationalities became a guiding principle for the recent multi-ethnic Kyrgyzstan. When China applied for the epic in 2009, the epic was not strongly supported at the state level, and China had a priority to display it as part of its multicultural richness to the world, and so it was registered under China, which had accomplished necessary conditions for the very application. Chinese application was realized at a period, when they were in preparation of a wide-ranging strategy to become a soft power at the height of its economic growth on behalf of the preparations for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. In 2009, after long preparations many cultural elements - including the Manas Epic - of different minorities in China were enlisted for application, and China broke a record with 25 cultural elements including Chinese cultural elements. However, after the uprisings in Tibet (2008) and Sinkiang Uighur Autonomous Region (2009), Chinese soft power attempt was not pursued. The revival of Manas Epic’s governmental support was again after a crisis in 2011, which helped to the registration of the epic for Kyrgyzstan. The application process for intangible cultural heritage was revised to establish a more just regional distribution, but indeed it was China itself, which reduced its number of applications, after the failed attempt to enhance its soft power. Because of the fact that preparation and application for the Representative List can only be managed by state parties, the role of the state determines which and how cultural elements will be presented. Consequently, although the List targets to safeguard objectively the intangible cultural heritage, it is affected by the domestic policy of the state. This study aims – in the example of the Manas Epic, whose value is unquestionable for the Kyrgyz people – to raise awareness in balancing the role of the state in the applications for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage.
Primary Language | Turkish |
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Journal Section | RESEARCH ARTICLES |
Authors | |
Publication Date | September 29, 2019 |
Published in Issue | Year 2019 Volume: 16 Issue: 123 |
Millî Folklor is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/