PUBLICATIONS OF THE MONGOLIA SOCIETY Edited by John R. Krueger OCCASIONAL PAPERS Number Fourteen STRONGER THAN POWER A Collection of Stories By Sandji B. Balykov Translated from the Russian by David Chavchavadze 1989 The Mongolia Society, Inc. 321-322 Goodbody Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405-2401 STRONGER THAN POWER BALYKOV: SHORT STORIES PUBLICATIONS OF THE MONGOLIA SOCIETY Edited by John R. Krueger OCCASIONAL PAPERS Number Fourteen STRONGER THAN POWER A Collection of Stories By Sandji B. Balykov Translated from the Russian by David Chavchavadze 1989 The Mongolia Society, Inc. 321-322 Goodbody Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405-2401 Copyright © 1989 by The Mongolia Society, Inc. This issue edited and prepared for the press by John R. Krueger ISBN# 910980-54-3 PRICE: US $12.00 Typography and Layout: Rhoads Typography (Bloomington IN) Printing and Binding: BookCrafters (Chelsea MI) CONTENTS Sandji Balykov: A Brief Sketch of His Life and Literary Work by Arash Bormanshinov .......................................1 Stronger Than Power (legend).............................................11 Mother (legend).....................................................................16 The Dream of Assarai.......................................................... 21 The Rustling Feather-Grass (legend) ..................................28 Victory..................................................................................35 The Fathers..........................................................................39 From My Mother ................................................................. 42 Four Meetings......................................................................46 At The Invisible Wall ...........................................................56 The Trampled Tulip .............................................................59 The Bends of Life..................................................................71 Love in Bonds.......................................................................89 Basanka’s Breakthrough ......................................................98 A Kalmyk Woman’s Story..................................................107 The Duel ..............................................................................112 The Stingy Khan.................................................................117 In the Valley of Snow Leopards: A Legend....................... 119 Glossary of Foreign Terms............................................... 137 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many persons contributed to the production of this volume, and I endeavor herewith to thank them all. It was first the author’s widow, Mme Dordjima Bembetow (Philadephia, Penna.) who sponsored the issuance of her late husband’s stories in their Russian original, as Silnee vlasti, published in 1976 in Munich (West Germany), 141 pages. This was followed in 1983 by his novel, DeviVya Zest' (A Maiden’s Honour), 237 pages. Her faithful helper in these two ventures was Elena Schlueter (Dolma Remileva), who also broached to me the possibility of further publication in English. The basic English translation of these two books is the work of Prince David Chavchavadze (Washington, DC) and shows a fine sensitivity for nuance and expression, in the complexities of Russian-to-English rendition. He was aided in problems of the Mongolian nomadic and frontier vocabulary by Dr. Arash Bormanshinow, who also read and touched up details and transcriptions. At the same time. Dr. Bormanshinow prepared the introductory essav about the author Balykov, the headings to individual stories, and the concluding Glossary of Foreign Terms, as well as all explanatory notes (the original stories had no comments or notes). The final story, In the Valley of the Snow Leopards, appeared earlier in the Ural-Altaische Jahrbucher, vol. 6NF, pp. 137-152, 1986, and is here reprinted by permission of the editor, Dr. Klaus Sagaster. A few minor corrections have been made for this edition. The foregoing version next came to me in my capacity as editor for publications of The Mongolia Society, and I gave it a further reading against the Russian, with additional editing and polishing. I have to thank for assistance my helpers: Catherine A. Krueger, Bruce Bundy and Alexandra Service. Additionally I have then overseen the typesetting, proofreading and publication. Consequently, none of the persons mentioned is responsible for shortcomings and errors; I gave final approval to all details of production. All of us working on these two volumes (the second volume will begin production presently, and I hope it may appear in 1990) feel strongly that they will convey in a real fashion the cultural and ethnic heritage of all Mongol-Americans, in particular to the young people of Kalmyk descent living in the Philadephia and New Jersey concentrations. Hence it is earnestly hoped the books will achieve wide circulation among them; further, they can likewise introduce American readers with interest in Asia to aspects of the recent Mongolian past. Finally, our renewed thanks to Mme Bembetow for her strong financial support enabling this work, and contributing to the ongoing memory of Sandji Balykov, a truly capable spokesman for his people. —John R. Krueger. General Editor SANDJI BALYKOV: A BRIEF SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND LITERARY WORK Arash Bormanshinov As the fates decreed, Sandji Balykov found himself at the age of 26 an emigre outside his native land. For long he was the only Kalmyk writer beyond the borders of the Soviet Union. Since he was an outstanding personality, it will be appropriate to say a few words concerning his life and literary work.1 S. Balykov was born on March 2,1894 in the Year of the Horse. The event did not take place in his native Bogla (Potapovskii2) khutor3 of the Bokshurgankna aim ak4 (Denisovskaia stanitsa5), but in the Trans-Don steppes of the Salsk district (okrug) in the Don Cossack region (oblast'). He was one of nine children of Basan and Nime Balykov. His father had been a herdsman since his youth at the horse-breeding works of the Don Cossack general Mitrofanov. After the latter sold his stud farm to the Don peasant Suprunov, Balykov's father stayed on at his old job until the height of the Civil War. He died during his flight from the Bolsheviks in 1919. Thus, Balykov was born and raised far from his native Bogla khutor in a mixed Don Cossack-Russian-Kalmyk environment. It should be noted here that several hundred Don Kalmyk (Buzava) families have lived in the Trans-Don steppes since days of yore. The adult male members of these families worked as horsemen and trainers of racehorses in the Donskoe chastnoe konnozavodstvo (Don Cossack private horse-breeding farm). They were exempt from military conscription. Balykov lived there until the age of 13, which is why he depicts these Trans-Don steppes with such tender love. According to him, the Trans-Don Kalmyks "differ somewhat in regard to the everyday life, morals and manners from the Kalmyks living in their native stanitsas, due to conditions of the new and settled way of life and the influence of an intensive process of Russification. Therefore, the Trans-Don Kalmyks, being from different stanitsas, have common character traits in the sense of a greater simplicity, moral purity, and, as opposed to the Kalmyks in stanitsas, are noted for their stronger moral principles in daily life, industriousness and honesty. It is sufficient to note that among the Trans-Don Kalmyks there are hardly any horse thieves .. .6 2 BALYKOV From childhood Balykov was noted for his keen memory and inquisitiveness. He easily learned by heart countless Kalmyk folk­ songs, legends and popular folktales, and knew how to paraphrase the latter in his own way. He would join one folktale with another to lengthen them, in such a way that his listeners did not notice. Not infrequently, deep into the night, he entertained the adult Kalmyks with his folktales. No wonder that he served in his family as a guide to all kinds of yearly events. At the age of 13, in 1907, Balykov was brought back to his uncle7 in Bogla to enroll him in the two-year parochial Kalmyk school there. He moved up with distinction, and in 1909 he graduated at the top of his class. In August of the same year, he entered the Velikoknyazhesk four-year municipal school (Velikoknyazheskoe chetyrekhklassnoe gorodskoe uchilishche).8 In the ensuing four years, Balykov took a great interest in reading Russian and European (in Russian translation) authors such as Leo Tolstoy, I.A. Bunin, K.M. Staniukovich, A.S. Serafimovich, E.N. Chirikov, N.S. Leskov, 1.1. Lazhechnikov, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Thomas Mayne Reid, James Fenimore Cooper, Fridtjof Nansen, etc. By the time of his graduation in 1913, he was a well-read young man. With his elder brother Balykov subscribed to three Russian maga­ zines, a rather rare occurrence in the Kalmyk environment at that time and even in the years to come. At the same time he began to purchase books for his private library, only to abandon them during the Civil War in 1919-1920 and buy more books all over again at the first opportunity. He really can be characterized as a bibliophile and "bookworm." Balykov graduated from the Velikoknyazhesk four-year municipal school in 1913. In the autumn of 1913, he successfully took an examination at the Novocherkassk real'noe uchilishche9 which enabled him to become a public school teacher. In April of 1914, he was married to a girl one year his junior, who had been proposed as his wife at the