Today marks the 176th anniversary of the great poet and thinker Abai Kunanbaiuly (1845 – 1904)

Today marks the 176th anniversary of the great poet and thinker Abai Kunanbaiuly (1845 – 1904).

Abai Kunanbaiuly is a great poet of the Kazakh people, a humanist philosopher, a composer, a master of artistic speech. His real name is Ibrahim, but his nickname is Abai (kaz. Abai "attentive", "careful"), given by his grandmother Zere, was fixed for him for life.

Abai created about 170 poems and 56 translations, wrote poems, a prose poem "Kara soz" – "Words of edification" ("Kara sozder") consisting of 45 short parables and philosophical treatises. These "Edifications " raise the problems of history, pedagogy, morality and the rights of ethnic Kazakhs. He was also a composer having created about two dozen melodies that are still popular today.