1944 Wartime Mobilization Strike

The 1944 Wartime Mobilization Strike was the refusal by Iradi horse breeders in 1944 to hand over Chongtor breeding stallions requisitioned for the Red Army. Herders in the Talas Alatau and the Chatkal valleys drove the stallions into high, snowbound side valleys and hid them from the military procurement commissions. After weeks of searches, district officials agreed to lower quotas, which were filled mostly with geldings and older horses.^[1]

The episode is known from district procurement records and from oral tradition. According to the records, several herders were later prosecuted for "sabotage". Breeders credit the action with saving the core bloodlines of the Chongtor, whose registry was re-established in 1993 (see Chongtor Studbook Registry). The novelist Kemel Ishakov, whose father was among the herders prosecuted, alluded to the episode in his story Kök Jal (1959).^[2]

References

1. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Iradistan: A History of the Iradi SSR, 1925–1991. Talas, pp. 23–311.
2. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 135–158.