Kazakh Abai Kunanbayev was a unique personality of his era, worthy of unlimited admiration. The first truly Eurasian enlightener, he opened broadest European horizons for his national culture. Russia remembers how much he did to bring the two cultures closer.

It was Abai Kunanbayev who translated into Kazakh Ivan Krylov’s tales, Alexander Pushkin’s novel in verse Eugene Onegin and Mikhail Lermontov’s poems. There is no wonder the Kazakh thinker loved Russian literature. He got the “taste” of the Russian language early in his childhood, going not only to a madrasah, but to a Russian school as well.

The noble family lived in the Chingiz mountains, the Semipalatinsk region. The parents gave their son a broad education, which predetermined his Eurasian world view and the fate of a cultural reformer. He had the gift of seeing for many years ahead; it was no coincidence that his mother called him Abai, that is, “thoughtful”. Kunanbayev’s broadest mind had no restrictions or borders; in his native country, the poet popularized the world’s cultural heritage, and it was he who imported the treasures of the world’s spiritual culture to Kazakhstan.

But he was twice as grateful to the Russian culture. It was it that gave it the key to Western masterpieces. Later, Kunanbayev would translate into Kazakh the works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and George Gordon Byron, the two Western intellectual titans, two European “regents of dreams”. “Knowledge of a foreign language and culture makes a person equal with these people, he feels free and if the concerns and fight of these people are close to his heart, he will never stay away,” Kunanbayev used to say. Oriental culture is unthinkable without Ferdowsi, Nava’i, Nezami. These great poets and humanists, wise men who thought in beautiful metaphors, became the pride of the East, its spirit and conscience, its unsurpassable self expression. Abai Kunanbayev perceived himself as the heir of the great poets of the past since his youth. He started writing verses when still a child, and was to write almost 170 poems (including Masgud and The Tale of Azim) and to give verse writing a new energy, introducing new forms and meters.

Absorbing the spirit of oriental poetry, Kunanbayev simultaneously since early age was drawn to the refreshing sources of the Russian culture – Pushkin, Lermontov, Krylov, and was under the powerful influence of the Russian literature. The Kazakh poet was certain that Russian science and culture helped “to understand the world.” In fact, he would do for the Kazakh language what Pushkin did for Russian, giving it a new, free and richer sounding.

Russia’s cultural heritage will help “make the life of Kazakh people easier,” Kunanbayev used to say. He witnessed the difficulties of that life since childhood. His father, Kunanbai, was the senior sultan of a district administration and began training his son in administrative work as soon as he turned 13. This is how the head of a clan was raised. However, all kinds of litigations, inter-clan quarrels and conspiracies disappointed Abai, who took it all to heart. He found salvation in self-education, constant enlightenment, and he immersed in that desirable and holy element. At the age of 40, Abai realized with certainty that the meaning of his life was enlightenment, poetry and translation, popularization of Russian and European cultures.

The nature gave Kunanbayev so many talents that they would be sufficient for at least three people. He had a perfect ear for music and so he took up composing. Twenty of his melodies are performed even today. His most famous song is written to his own lyrics, “You are the pupil of my eye”. Here are these well-known lines:

You are the pupil of my eye, The fire of golden souls, The heart will never forget the torture Which has left it scarred…

Kunanbayev’s love lyrics is piercing, ardent and at the same time subtle and exquisite; it was cosmopolite and Eurasian in its nature. In it, you could hear the echo of oriental poetry, the song of the Kazakh steppe and, simultaneously, the melody of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

My soul will never bloom again, Let the sun shine, let the moon rise. You are the only one I love in this world, And you have lost count of your lovers…

Kunanbayev was a university of a human, like Russia’s Mikhail Lomonosov. He generously shared his knowledge, took part in setting up a local museum and attracted all enlightened people. Polish traveler and geographer Januszkiewicz wrote about him, “Kunanbayev… is a big celebrity in the steppe. The nature has given him the gift of common sense, amazing memory and good speech. He cares about the prosperity of his fellow countrymen, he has a good knowledge of the steppe law and Koran’s instructions; he knows all Russian provisions related to Kazakhs. This is a judge of incorruptible honesty and an impeccable Muslim… Kunanbayev has earned the fame of a prophet, and the young and the old, the rich and the poor come from the most distant villages to ask for his advice…”

The moral and political lessons Kunanbayev daily taught to his contemporaries were translated into the poetic language in his poem Black Word. In it, he ponders about morality, history, upbringing of the young and law. He thought that the five enemies of the humankind were “gossip, deceit, guile, laziness and prodigality,” and celebrated “consistency, labor, deep thinking, moderation and kindness.” As a true enlightener, he said the measure of truth was a man’s mind and insisted that scientific research could make men “all-powerful.”

In reality, however, his moral, political and scientific work was quite difficult. The rigidity of society always resists renewal and sticks to outdated social customs. Sometimes Kunanbayev was the victim of envy, there were intrigues and malice targeting him. Towards the end of his life, the fate struck a hard blow: his sons died. Broken with grief, he quietly faded away…

Abai Kunanbayev died in 1904 and was buried near his native Chingiz mountains.