Golden bridge between two worlds

While aiming to become a full and natural member of the European community, Ukraine should not forget about its millennia-old (without exaggeration), multilevel ties that has connected and, no doubt, will continue to connect it in the future with the Eastern (more precisely, Turkic) world – the World of Steppe.

Different things happened in our history: prolonged bloodshed and mutual intolerance (political, national, and religious), devastating raids, followed by merciless revenge, etc. But there were other moments as well – peaceful, tolerant living together throughout ages, military alliances (incidentally, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, who concluded treaties with the Crimean khan, had an absolutely perfect command of the Turkish and Tatar languages), reciprocal interest, and fruitful cultural contacts. After all, shall one spend time enumerating these reflections? Suffice it to say that a long time ago quite a few Kazakh specialists recognized Taras Shevchenko as the first national artist of their country. He provided an imperishable example of genuine, high internationalism as he shared the pain and suffering of the oppressed, enslaved, and stateless Kazakh nation as keenly as those of his Ukrainian nation.

In a word, it may be difficult to deny that the mutual spiritual discovery of Ukraine and the World of Steppe is vitally needed, topical, and long overdue, much more so in the circumstances of the globalized 21st century. That is why the translation into Ukrainian of the well-known work by the famous Kazakh writer, poet, historian, political and public activist Olzhas Suleimenov Az i Ya is timed perfectly. The launch of the book took place on December 15 in Kyiv’s President Hotel with the assistance of the Embassy of Kazakhstan in Ukraine.

This “book-outcast,” a “returned book,” as it was described by Amangeldy Zhumabayev, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Kazakhstan to Ukraine, indeed aroused a lively interest in the audience. Notably, the presentation of the book to the Ukrainian public nearly coincided in time with Kazakhstan’s Independence Day.

Prominent representatives of Ukrainian culture, noted diplomats, and public activists attended the event. The prominent Ukrainian poet Borys Oliinyk called Suleimenov a “symbolic” or even “emblematic” figure for modern Kazakhstan and said that his book is the author’s scholarly feat. “The tan canvas of Kazakhstan and, at the same time, European charm are very naturally combined in your image,” said Oliinyk to Suleimenov. Anatolii Zlenko, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, pointed out that the publication of this book in Ukrainian is the peak of cultural cooperation between Ukraine and Kazakhstan, which are “reliable strategic partners.”

Yurii Kochubei, editor in chief of the journal Eastern World and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine, emphasized that Suleimenov’s indefatigable public and political activity (for one thing, he initiated the discontinuance of nuclear tests in Semipalatinsk) and all his creative heritage promote a dialogue, cooperation of civilizations. This is especially important now when some theoreticians predict that a global inter-civilization conflict (or, more precisely, a clash between the Christian and Islamic worlds) will happen as soon as in the second decade of the 21st century.

What is Suleimenov’s book about? It is about cultural ties between Ancient Rus’ and the nomadic world. The author mentioned with hardly noticeable irony that at a time his book (early 1976) became an object of special attention of the highest Moscow authorities; six months after the publication of Az i Ya (in Russian) three departments of the Central Committee of the CPSU (departments of propaganda, science, and culture) received a strict order from Mikhail Suslov, the Kremlin’s “grey eminence” and the party’s chief ideologist: prepare a discussion on the “nationalistic,” “anti-Russian” book by Suleimenov and publish a special decree of the Central Committee about it (a very rare precedent!).

At the last moment the Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev showed unexpected “liberalism.” However, all unsold copies of the book (there were two printings – 50,000 and 100,000 copies) were removed from bookstores and destroyed.

Why was there such a reaction from the party’s rulers, as well as from such “untouchable” academicians as Boris Rybakov and Dmitry Likhachev, who were dissatisfied with the fact that a “lay” writer and poet and a non-Russian at that dared, so to say, to “lift his hand against the sacred”? Suleimenov has believed all the while that the unknown author of The Tale of Ihor’s Campaign wrote it during the times when the educated part of the population of Kyivan Rus’ was, in fact, bilingual with knowledge of their native and Turkic (“Cuman”) languages. Certainly, it was inevitably influenced by the vocabulary and imagery of this brilliant work of ancient Ukrainian literature. At the turn of the 19th century, when the manuscript of The Tale of Ihor’s Campaign was printed (1800), it already existed in a monolingual environment. Both the interpretation and the reception of this work were, naturally, absolutely different.

Suleimenov clearly pointed out that without the knowledge of Turkicisms it is just impossible to understand and translate “obscure passages” of The Tale. Bilingual texts of the 12th century, if they existed, must have been written only in Cyrillic and without spaces between words. The reader split the lines into words while reading. However, the subsequent generations had a harder time reading these texts, because not all Turkicisms could be recognized – the native language had changed, and some Turkic words formally coincided with Old Slavonic ones and therefore obtained new meanings. This observation by Suleimenov provoked a storm of accusations against him, even one like this: “So he believes The Tale was written not by a Slav but by some ancient Kazakh?!”

Suleimenov believes that the traces of bilingualism in The Tale are the most convincing proof that this work is genuine. (Since the time of Catherine II of Russia, Russian and French skeptics have considered it to be a fake 18th-century production.)

The second part of Suleimenov’s book is entitled “Shumer-Name” and deals with cultural relations of the Turkic peoples with ancient civilizations.

Although a considerable part of Suleimenov’s poems was written in Russian, they remain Kazakh in their essence and contribute to the Kazakh cause.

Two of Suleimenov’s books have already been translated into Ukrainian – The Language of Writing and Turkic Peoples. Prehistory. He is convinced: “All peoples of the world are close to each other and constitute a single planetary community.”