Abai Qunanbayuly is considered the creator of the Kazakh literary language, poet, thinker, educator, philosopher, illuminist, humanist and public figure.
Abai lived through a very difficult and turbulent period in his country's history, marked by the strengthening of feudal and colonial oppression, the abolition of the Khanates and the establishment of a new government. principle of "divide and rule". But, despite all the efforts of local and colonial authorities, Kazakh fiction and progressive social thought began to develop rapidly. At this time, the so-called national realist literature was born, at the origins of which was Abai Qunanbayuly.
Ibrahim Qunanbayuly (later called Abai by his grandmother) was born on August 10, 1845, in the Zhidebai region of eastern Kazakhstan. Initially, the boy was educated by a local mullah, but when he turned 9, he began to attend a madrasa (place of Islamic studies) in the city of Semipalatinsk. There he was actively involved in the study of Arabic and Persian languages. At the same time, Abai studied at a Russian school, along with the children of servicemen and officers who served in Kazakhstan. After graduating, he writes the first verses, still trying to hide the authorship.
Another passion of Abai was reading, he took great pleasure in reading authors such as Lermontov, Pushkin, Byron, Goethe and others. He read the works of the great European classics translated into Russian, thanks to which he gradually learned to feel the beauty in art.
Qnanbayuly wanted to show European culture to his people, and he achieved this through spreading Russian and European culture among Kazakhs.
One of the outstanding examples was the Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov who, impressed by Goethe's verses entitled "Wanderers Nachtlied" (Night Song of the Wanderer) translated them into Russian and released his version: “Горные вершины спят во тьме ночной” (The peaks of the mountains sleep in the darkness of the night). After half a century, the verses also caught Abai's attention, and he decided to translate them into Kazakh. This is how the work "Қараңғы түнде тау қалғып" (The mountains slumber in the dark night) appeared, which later became a folk composition that enjoyed great popularity.
Abai ridiculed human failings, condemned the servile position of women, and took a stand against vicious social behaviors and ignorance. Abai was an innovator of Kazakh poetry; poems dedicated to the seasons were innovative: "Spring" (1890), "Summer" (1886), "Autumn" (1889), "Winter" (1888), verses about the purpose of poetry (to teach good and condemn evil ). The plots of the poems "Masgud" (1887) and "The Legend of Azim" are based on the motives of classical eastern literature. In the poem "Iskander", reason in the person of Aristotle and the conqueror's greed in the person of Alexander the Great are contrasted.
In the history of Kazakh literature, Abai occupies an honorable place, having enriched his Kazakh versification with new meters and rhymes. He introduced new poetic forms: among them the octave and the sextille.
Abai wrote around 170 verses, translated 56 works and wrote, at the end of his life, the bedside book of every Kazakh: “The book of words”* («Қара сөздер»), translated into Portuguese and released in 2020.
Abai exerted a great influence on the nascent Kazakh national intelligentsia of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Thus, the leaders of the Alash-Orda movement had Abai as their spiritual forerunner and even the spiritual leader of the rebirth of the Kazakh nation.
Abai's works resist time and remain current until our days. The more we move away from the period lived by the poet, the more aware we become of the need to study his heritage, which reveals itself as an immeasurable treasure for generations.
