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SNEAK PREVIEW For additional information on adopting this title for your class, please contact us at 800.200.3908 x501 or [email protected] The Stories of the Great Steppe The Anthology of Modern Kazakh Literature First Edition Edited by Dr. Rafi s Abazov Columbia University Translated by Sergio Levchin and Ilya Bernshtein Bassim Hamadeh, CEO and Publisher Christopher Foster, General Vice President Michael Simpson, Vice President of Acquisitions Jessica Knott, Managing Editor Kevin Fahey, Cognella Marketing Manager Jess Busch, Senior Graphic Designer Melissa Barcomb, Acquisitions Editor Sarah Wheeler, Senior Project Editor Stephanie Sandler, Licensing Associate Copyright © 2013 by Cognella, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereaft er invented, including photocopying, microfi lming, and recording, or in any information retrieval system without the written permission of Cognella, Inc. First published in the United States of America in 2013 by Cognella, Inc. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 978-1-62131-837-8 (pbk) Recent Praise for The Stories of the Great Steppe “Th e anthology edited by Professor Rafi s Abazov appeals to all students and professionals alike off ering a very readable and a well-thought out collection of the best literary works from Kazakhstan. Th is is an engaging text where readers travel intellectually and literary to the Kazakh land and are richly rewarded for their journey.” Prof. Robert J. Guttman Johns Hopkins University “Stories of the Great Steppe is an important milestone in the building of a post-Soviet Kazakh national identity. Th e anthology of prose and poetry from Kazakh authors of the Soviet and post-Soviet era draws from deep levels of the Kazakh psyche. Th is remarkable collection of writings, ably selected by Columbia University professor, Rafi s Abazov, conveys to the Western reader a palpable sense of how the Kazakh peoples were shaped and sculpted by the expansive geography of the steppes, whether living on it as a common horse rustler or dreaming of those who soared over it (Yuri Gagarin), but inevitably returning to it. Astute foreign investors will search for a key that opens their eyes to understanding what makes a diff erent society tick. American business people will do well to peruse the pages of this volume and unlock the new vistas it holds for those who wish to build lasting relationships in this increasingly important land.” William Veale, Executive Director U.S.–Kazakhstan Business Association “Th rough its broad-ranging selections of post-World War II prose and poetry, this anthology opens up to readers of English a new world of literature from Central Asia’s multilingual and multicultural land of Kazakhstan. Abazov’s critical introductory essay summarizes the breadth and depth of subject-matters and cultural infl uences in the literary traditions from which these very appealing selections derive. Th e glossary and bibliography add to the book’s usefulness for courses on Eurasian culture and the culture of Kazakhstan in particular. Th e works presented defy any stereotype of simplicity, or of Kazakhstan’s secondary, provincial status within a broader Soviet literary system. We fi nd here amidst expected infl uences such as Socialist Realism deeply diff ering perspectives, sometimes seeming to reference a unique or highly localized Kazakh cultural milieu, and at other times presenting varied Kazakh images of heroism, of tradition and modernity, of social justice and its opposite, within a fully global context. Th is selection of Kazakhstan’s remarkable output of twentieth-century literature will be of great interest to social and art historians as well as those interested in literature. Surely all readers will appreciate the rich and revealing narratives found here.” Paul Michael Taylor, Ph.D., Director, Asian Cultural History Program, Smithsonian Institution Table of Contents Acknowledgments ix By Dr. Rafi s Abazov Foreword xiii By Ambassador Erlan Idrissov Foreword: Kazakh Literature and Modernity xvii By Ualikhan Kalizhanov Introduction 1 By Dr. Rafi s Abazov PART I: PROSE An Ethnographic Tale 11 By Gabit Musrepov Ballad of Years Long Past (excerpt) 19 By Abish Kekilbaev The Old and the Young 27 A Day in July 32 At the Edge 34 By Didar Amantay The Day the World Collapsed (excerpt) 37 By Rollan Seisenbaev Kamshiger (excerpt) 45 By Oralhan Bokeev Reason’s Ardent Struggle (excerpt) 55 By Tulen Abdikov The Hound’s Death (excerpt) 67 By Muhtar Magauin PART II: POETRY Earth, Hail Man 77 By Olzhas Suleimenov Words Spoken Over a Cradle 91 The Sentinel 91 Live Until Sixty 92 I just love the wondrous, ordinary old men... 92 The Trail 93 After Work 93 Youth 94 A Lovers’ Dialog 94 Should I Write Verses 94 My heart brims with buried treasure... 95 My Thirty-Fifth Spring 95 A Ruined House 96 February, 1941 97 My Love Is in Me 97 You 98 By Mukagali Makataev The Curse of Korkut (excerpt of a verse drama) 99 By Iran-Gaiyp Meditations at Medeu 107 Visions of Northern Palmyra 109 By Fariza Ongarsynova Intervene! 111 Let’s Get Acquainted, Time! 112 My Law 113 The Face of the Steppe 113 Our Battle Cry 114 My Autograph 114 Man’s Worth 115 To Abay, or on Comparisons 116 Idyll 117 A Meeting with the Future 118 By Zharaskan Abdrashev, translated by Ilya Bernshtein Time of Silence 119 The Mozer Clock 120 A Story 120 And Through 121 The Part Played 122 The Museum. A Lamp 122 Among the Leaves 123 Ostankino 123 Almaty, Kazakhstan 124 The Valley 124 The Tourist Trip 125 The Song of the Vagabond 126 Somnabulic Sonnet 127 To the Master 128 On the Melody of My Childish Books 129 By Bakhytzhan Kanapianov The Steppe and the Mountain 131 Time 132 Everything in this world is eternal … 132 There is no limit to grief … 133 Proposal 133 He stood, leaning on crutches … 134 Nest on the Balcony 135 Steeds of the Steppe 136 What in this eternal world is not a riddle … 136 Home 137 Song 138 Between morning and evening … 138 By Shomishbay Sariyev, translated by Ilya Bernshtein Afterword 141 By Naomi Caffee Glossary 143 Bibliography 145 Foreword By Ambassador Erlan Idrissov s an ambassador of the Republic of only a relatively small number of these works A Kazakhstan, I strongly believe that our have made it into the collection. writers and poets are my colleagues—they Th e pieces selected for this Anthology were are the greatest cultural ambassadors for my created by the most talented poets and writers in country. With their poems, stories, and novels Kazakhstan in the post-World War Two period they contribute to citizens’ diplomacy: building and refl ect one of the most decisive pages of the bridges between ordinary people in a greater history of my native land. It was the era of the understanding of everyday life, culture, and 1950s and 60s, when the young generation of thought; adding to discourses on a wide variety our citizens believed in the unlimited power of of issues; deciding what is relevant to our society progress, modernization, and technology, and it yesterday, today, and tomorrow; and building a was they who built the foundations of the modern better understanding of the place of Kazakhstan Kazakh economy and state. One example will serve in the modern world. to illustrate the contrasts and changes in Kazakh Th erefore, it is my great pleasure today to society during that era: just imagine—hundreds introduce the fi rst ever publication in the USA of of young Kazakhs travelled on horses and camels an anthology of modern Kazakh literature. Th ese to a remote area in southern Kazakhstan to build stories and poems have been carefully selected the technological marvel of the twentieth century, by the editor with help from leading scholars the Baikonur Space Center. In the open desert, in Kazakhstan, including the Mukhtar Auezov where only the wild wind and cold moonlight had Institute of Literature and Art, the Mukhtar commanded the sand dunes and rocky hills for Auezov Foundation, and Al Farabi Kazakh millennia, those young people together with their National University. Th rough a series of discus- colleagues from all over the world built a modern sions and meetings they have brought together space station. Th is space station—the largest on a comprehensive overview of modern Kazakh Earth during the twentieth century—sent more literature since World War Two. Of course, the spaceships to the sky than any other station in the Kazakh literature of this seventy-year period is world. Admiration of the power of human intellect much richer than even a thousand such volumes and progress was refl ected in Olzhas Suleimenov’s could accommodate, and it is represented by poems of that era, and in Suleimenov’s words “… hundreds if not thousands of interesting and ignited the fi re of your youth.” intellectually stimulating works. Unfortunately, xiii xiv | The Stories of the Great Steppe Th e life of Kazakh society during the fi rst and in literary ways they expressed their thoughts decades in the post-WWII era, however, was also and dreams on societal ideals, searching for the full of social contrasts and social changes. On sev- golden centuries of Kazakh society in our history. eral occasions in reading western scholarly works Our writers and poets made a signifi cant con- I have come across a simplifi ed account of life in tribution to the perestroika and glasnost debates our society during that time, an overly simplistic of the 1980s.