Member of Russian literary community awarded with the Dostyk Order

MOSCOW, August 27, 2020 – The Embassy of Kazakhstan in Russia organized a round table dedicated to the 175th anniversary of the great Kazakh poet and thinker Abai Qunanbaiuly. 

During the event, the Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Russia, Yermek Kosherbayev, presented the 2nd class Order of Dostyk (Order of Friendship), given in accordance with the Decree of the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to Georgy Pryakhin, the editor-in-chief of the “Khudozhestvennaya Literatura” publishing house, for his significant contribution to strengthening friendly relations between Kazakhstan and Russia, and his achievements in promoting the heritage of Abai.

In his welcoming speech, Ambassador Kosherbayev said that literature occupied a special place in the life of every person, and it was the writer who formed the genetic code of the nation. In this context, he pointed out that the understanding of Abai’s role was really occurring just now. Abai managed to express the eternal truths in such a way that they became comprehensible to the common people. The Ambassador emphasized that it was a great honor for him to be present at the event with distinguished Russian writers and publishers.

Mr Pryakhin expressed his gratitude for the high award, adding that this was the first order in his life. He noted that currently, when there is a civilization split between East and West, between Asia and Europe, Abai was acquiring the image of a man of the world. Preaching of peace and good neighborliness is dominant in his works. Mr Pryakhin noted that it is no coincidence that the most significant global decision of the Leader of the Nation, Nursultan Nazarbayev, to close the Semipalatinsk Test Site is associated with the homeland of Abai, a place where he lived, worked and, perhaps, decades later influenced this decision.

“I like the way Abai communicates with people. He talks to them on equal terms. He teaches but does not patronize. The incredible modernity of his works is striking, although they were written almost a century and a half ago,” Mr Pryakhin said.

Nikolai Anastasiev, the author of the book ‘Abai’, part of the “Life of Outstanding People” book series added that there was no mentoring in ‘The Book of Words’. However, he lamented that the poetic greatness of Abai would not be recognized in the world for a long time, just as it is impossible to translate Pushkin's genius poetry into European languages. In this regard, the writer expressed  hope that the 175th anniversary will become an incentive for studying the heritage of Abai. “The main objective is to return Abai to the global cultural ecumene. This is the most important thing to be done,” Mr Anastasiev concluded.

Yury Kozlov, editor-in-chief of “Roman-Gazeta” magazine, recalled that in the history of every nation there were such individuals who accumulated all the wisdom of the nation and determined its spiritual horizons for centuries to come: in Germany it was Goethe, in Russia - Pushkin, in Kazakhstan - Abai. According to him, Abai's genius lies in the fact that he opened the soul of a steppe dweller to the world and absorbed everything that formed the Kazakh nation. “Abai is modern. Reading him is a holiday for every thinking person, you can return to it repeatedly. This is the ageless wisdom that helps people remain human,” he said.

Within the framework of the round table, the collection titled “Knowledge of Abai is the knowledge of oneself” confined to the 175th anniversary was presented. The illustrated edition contains ‘The Book of Words’ translated by a remarkable literary critic Viktor Shklovsky, a section where Russian and Kazakh philologists reflect on the parallels of Abai's work with the works of Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky, as well as a series of short essays on various facts of Abai’s life, collected with the assistance of the Director of the State Historical and Cultural Reserve Museum of Abai Turdykul Shanbai. The edition of 1,000 copies will be published in September and will tentatively be presented at the Moscow International Book Fair next week.

Summing up the results of the meeting, participants supported the idea of returning Abai to the world cultural ecumene. In their opinion, the objective for future researchers is not just to translate and talk about Abai's greatness, since so much has already been said in this regard, but to plunge into that era, study with whom Abai communicated, whose books he read, what he was exposed to, and then return to the present time. As the guests of the event concluded, that opens up a new direction in comprehending the legacy of the great Kazakh classic author. They proposed to create a single Eurasian publishing house that would serve as a literary bridge between the countries.