The Urkun (Great Exodus): 100,000-500,000 (jul 1, 1916 – jan 1, 1923)

Description:

The Urkun (Great Exodus) was carried out by the Russian Empire (Tsarist forces, Cossack regiments, and Russian settlers) against the Kyrgyz and Kazakh peoples between July 1916 and 1923 (end of Basmachi revolt), with an estimated death toll between 100,000 (lowest estimates) and 500,000.

The Russian Empire also engaged in forced labor conscription, village burning and destruction, mass executions and massacres, confiscation of land and livestock (with at least half of Central Asian livestock destroyed), forced displacement and ethnic cleansing, starvation campaigns, summary trials and executions, rape and violence against women, and the hunting down of refugees fleeing to China.

It has been labeled as genocide by a Kyrgyz public commission (August 2016), individual Kyrgyz politicians including National Revival Party Chairman Doolot Nusupov and Ak Kalpak Party leader Ulukbek Mamataev, genocide scholar Adam Jones and other historians who have characterized the events as genocidal, and various Kyrgyz nationalist figures including former deputy prime minister Azimbek Beknazarov.

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The Russian State Duma chairman Sergei Naryshkin denied the events were a genocide, stating: "all nations suffered 100 years ago". The classification as genocide remains politically contentious and is disputed by Russia, though it is increasingly accepted within Kyrgyzstan as part of their national historical narrative.

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