Editing Epic of Manas (section)

==History==
Scholars have long debated the exact age of the epic, as it was transmitted orally without being recorded. However, historians have doubted the age claimed for it since the turn of the 20th century. The primary reason is that the events portrayed occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries. [[Arthur Thomas Hatto|Hatto]] remarks that Manas was <blockquote>"compiled to glorify the Sufi sheikhs of Shirkent and Kasan ... [and] circumstances make it highly probable that... [Manas] is a late eighteenth-century interpolation."<ref>Akiner, Shirin & Sims-Williams, Nicholas. Languages and Scripts of Central Asia. 1997, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. p. 99</ref></blockquote>

Changes were made in the delivery and textual representation<ref>{{cite book |title=Notes on the Cultural History of the Kirghiz Epic Tradition |date=2000 |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington}}</ref> particularly the replacement of the tribal background of Manas. In the 19th century versions, Manas is the leader of the [[Nogais|Nogay]] people, while in versions dating after 1920, Manas is a Kyrgyz and a leader of the Kyrgyz.<ref>Akiner, Shirin & Sims-Williams, Nicholas. Languages and Scripts of Central Asia. 1997, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. p. 104</ref> Use of the Manas for nation-building purposes, and the availability of printed historical variants, has similarly had an impact on the performance, content, and appreciation on the epic.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Plumtree |first1=James |editor1-last=Thomson |editor1-first=S. C. |title=Medieval Stories and Storytelling: Multimedia and Multi-temporal Perspectives |date=2021 |publisher=Brepols |location=Turnhout |isbn=978-2-503-59050-9 |pages=239-301 (pp. 273-278) |chapter=A Telling Tradition: Preliminary Comments on the Epic of Manas, 1856–2018}}</ref>

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 Walikhanuli|Shokan Shinghisuly Walikhanuli]] was unable to find evidence of [[Collective memory|folk-memory]] during his extended research in 19th-century Kyrgyzstan (then part of the expanding Russian empire) nor has any been found since.<ref>1980. 'Kirghiz. Mid-nineteenth century' in [Traditions of heroic and epic poetry I], edited by [[Arthur Thomas Hatto|A. T. Hatto]], London, 300-27.</ref>

While Kyrgyz historians consider it to be the longest epic poem in history,<ref>Урстанбеков Б.У., Чороев Т.К. Кыргыз тарыхы: Кыскача энциклопедиялык сөздүк: Мектеп окуучулары үчүн. – Ф.:Кыргы. Совет Энциклопедиясыныны Башкы Ред., 1990. 113 б. {{ISBN|5-89750-028-2}}</ref> the [[Sanskrit]] epic [[Mahabharata]] and the [[Tibet]]an [[Epic of King Gesar]] are both longer.<ref>Amartya Sen, The Argumentative Indian. Writings on Indian Culture, History and Identity, London: Penguin Books, 2005.</ref> The distinction is in number of verses. Manas has more verses, though they are shorter.