Abay Kunanbayev journey to truth through poetry
In the history of Kazakh literature one of the most important figures around whom the process of foreign reception of literature of Kazakhstan is concentrated is the great Kazakh poet of the second half of the 19th century Abay Kunanbayev (1845-1904).
Kazakh Pushkin and Wordsworth
The Kazakh nation honors Abay, and is proud of him and pays respect to him. The memory of Abay is maintained at the State level. In the national literary criticism, a separate direction is developing – the Abay Studies. Along with Kazakhstani scientists, foreign literary critics, literary scholars, writers and poets, translators make an important contribution to the study of the poetic and prosaic heritage of the great Abay. His works, which were translated into many foreign languages, received a significant number of responses from foreign professional readers. The multi-genre creative legacy of the poet-thinker (verses, poems, philosophical essays) is valuable treasury of the world literature.
Abay was a lawyer, statesman, educator, and poet who arose from the eastern steppe to become a premier intellectual of his time. Usually referred to simply as “Abay,” the great scholar is by far the most recognizable and famous Kazakh poet. He is the Kazakh Pushkin and Byron and Tagore and William Wordsworth.
In his description of the three types of people, for example, we can see Abay’s piety in struggle with his acceptance of a society coming to grips with modern social institutions. Even a Muslim who considers himself to be pious and takes his religiosity for granted, suggests Abay, can still be amoral.
Someone boasts, imagining that he’s the almighty creator of earth.
Another, a lawyer, lets it be understood that he is able to drag you off as a result of one denunciation.
A third shakes the hand of holy people . . . but inside he’s a wicked person. . . .
Why was he zealous for this, when he’s given back the gift of being a Muslim?
You know things are going badly when the guy shaking hands with holy people is being compared to a lawyer.
Abay’s Vision
But Abay’s vision was even wider. Not only did he address the tangible changes in Kazakh life, but he set out to contextualize these within the world of the metaphysical, the mystical. He developed a kind of humanism from Islam and was striving towards reconciliation of apparent contradictions in modern, materialistic life with the teachings of the Qur’an. A staunch theist, Abay still had a bone or two to pick with God, whom he sometimes considered unfair.
Abay spoke approximately eight languages including Persian, and adored both high Persian poets and Russian Golden-Age masters. Their influence is felt throughout his oeuvre. That is to say, he writes of natural base desires melded into the lives we strive to live. Humanism, materialism, spirituality, adventure, nature, sex and, of course, horses make multiple appearances. (No Kazakh story is complete without horses!) For example, in one of his Words—a collection of thoughts written at the end of his life — Abay attempts to prove the existence of God because love and justice are “the crown of divine creation . . . even the way the stallion takes possession of a mare is a manifestation of that [divine] love.” Did someone say Rumi?
This Rumi-like approach is often paired with a now familiar conundrum: the parallel between the creator/God and the creator/artist (or parent) that we know so well from existential philosophy.
Beyond his poetry, perhaps Abay’s main gift to his culture is his justification of a traditional education. He saw the power of words, and he valued their vitality for doing good.
Poetry is the queen of language, the sovereign of the word.
It takes a wise man to extract it from the strongholds.
Language has free will in it and it warms the heart
with the roundness and perfection of its form.
He had for years written his own wisdom, but found the vices of his people too strong. Indeed, he was disillusioned not so much by his lack of success, but by virtue of the fact that his people did not heed his moral warnings. All his learning had not halted the processes he strove to temper—and so at the end of his life he turned inward.
I myself strove to improve my mind,
and knew no equal in eloquence!
But my work is not valued among the people
and I chose the peace of solitude in life.
As a voice of his people, he can be irritatingly self-deprecating—and yet this lends his poetry a kind of self-reflexive appeal. Simultaneous love of and disappointment with the Kazakh people are constant features in his work.
Oh, Kazakhs, my poor people,
you let your mustaches grow.
Since you don’t distinguish good from evil,
now you have blood on one cheek and grease on the other
He used scholastic method which approached a journey to truth through poetry—a journey that has founded Kazakh national literature.
