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The Kirgiz original of Kukotay found
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Extract
The Kirgiz original of the Smert' Kukotay-khana i ego pominki (= K), long thought to have survived only in Ch. Valikhanov's celebrated translation, was discovered in Leningrad in 1964 by Valikhanov's distinguished editor-in-chief, Professor Alkey Margulan of the Kazakh Academy of Sciences. He announced his discovery in the August (No. 8) issue of his Academy's ‘Herald’ (Khabarši/Vestnik) of 1965 and printed in adapted Cyrillic transliteration excerpts from the text totalling 885 (out of over 3,000) lines, together with a 13-page introduction in Kazakh dealing chiefly with the biographical background of Valikhanov's recording of the text.
- Type
- Notes and Communications
- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , June 1971 , pp. 379 - 386
- Copyright
- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1971
References
1 See my ‘Kukotay and Bok Murun: a comparison of two related heroic poems of the Kirgiz’, in two instalments, BSOAS, XXXII, 2, 1969, 344–78Google Scholar , XXXII, 3, 1969, 541–70, referred to hereafter as H, I and H, II.
2 The article is entitled ‘Šokan ǰazip algan “Manas” ǰiri’.
3 Manas: geroicheskiy épos kirgizskogo naroda. (Introduced by S. Musaev.)
4 See n. 1, above.
5 Margulan, , Khabarši, 1965, No. 8 (245), p. 10Google Scholar .
6 How much Kazakh has entered OK on the way from the presumably Bugu (Kirgiz) bard could only be estimated on inspection of KO. Radlov's Bok Murun, recorded among the Bugu, shows far less influence of Kazakh.
7 H, I, 344.
8 For example, K reflects parallelistic structure.
9 H, I, 353 ff.
10 In his introduction to OK, Professor Margulan refers repeatedly to Valikhanov's ardent antiquarian interests.
11 See H, I, 378.
12 ibid.
13 Sobranie sochineniy, I, 672.
14 H, I, 374 ff.
15 Yudakhin, K. K., Kirgizsko–russkiy slovar', Moscow, 1965Google Scholar , s.v.
16 Drevnetyurkskiy slovar', ed. Nadelyaev, V. M., Nasilov, D. M., Tenishev, É. R., Shcherbak, A. M., Leningrand, 1969Google Scholar , s.v.
17 H, I, 377 f.
18 Proben, v, III. ‘He [Töštük] hurried to his father, he entered Éleman's abode, they say.’
19 Normally in Kirgiz epic entry into a new land is marked by a variant of él četine kel- ‘to reach the frontier of a people’.
20 H, I, 375 ff.
21 Obraztsy, v, 1885, I, (5), 205 ffGoogle Scholar . My article is to appear in the Central Asiatic Journal (Wiesbaden), xv, 1971Google Scholar .
22 ibid.
23 H, I, 376.
24 H, I, 375 ff.
25 ibid.
26 H, I, 376.
27 Sobr. soch., I, 671.
28 H, I, p. 378, n. 196.
29 H, I, 356.
30 I have revised the punctuation in order to bring out the parallelistic structure.
31 It must be borne in mind that OK has pronounced dialect features in the direction of Kazakh, see p. 380, n. 6, above.
32 Shnitnikov, B. N., Kazakh–English dictionary, The Hague, 1966, 200CrossRefGoogle Scholar .
33 cf. H, I, p. 356, n. 61.
34 Sobr. soch., I, 246, 20.
35 II, 1893, 253.
36 In his introduction to OK in the Khabarši, Professor Margulan, notes kereŋ as an archaic word (p. 19)Google Scholar . Unfortunately, Yudakhin, Slovar', does not cite it. Shnitnikov, , op. cit., 124bGoogle Scholar , lists kereŋ bolsin ‘let it be your last meal’, which is apt.
37 In the proof copy of OK sent me by Professor Margulan, Kem-kem stands in Cyrillic type, sudiŋ in Cyrillic cursive manuscript, indicating perhaps, some doubt.
38 Sobr. soch., I, 415.
38 cf. H, I, 377f.
40 Yudakhin, Slovar', sub: döbö.
41 ibid.
42 See his prophetic and largely neglected assessment of the technique of Kirgiz epic improvization on the basis of set formulae, and its bearing on the Homeric problem, Proben der Volkslitteratur der nördlichen türkischen Stämme. v. Der Dialekt der Kara-Kirgisen, St. Petersburg, 1885, pp. xii ffGoogle Scholar ., sufficient proof that had his vast ambition left him more time, Radlov's Kirgiz texts would have been published in better shape than is the case.
43 In answer to an inquiry, Professor Margulan writes (6 September 1970) that he now reads the line in question as Kemekenin basinda ‘Na bereg Kemeke’, where Kemeke is the river Yenisey. Doubts will finally be resolved when the original (in Arabic character) is published. Curiously enough, the epic line Kemäkäniŋ bašina occurs in Radlov's, Obraztsy/Proben at v, I, (2), 1768, 1795, 1828Google Scholar , where it is quite clear from the context that a different Kemäkä in a very different region, that of the Talas, is intended (1764 ff.). Either Kemeke (‘river’ ?) occurs widely like so many other river-names (cf. ‘Don’, ‘Avon’), or the bardic tradition has transferred the name from one region to another. But see now n. 44.
44 In a further letter (25 November 1970), received when the foregoing was in the press, Professor Margulan generously communicated his solution of the crux of OK, 384, as kemege ‘great outside hearth’, cf. K, 293, 26, Kukotaevy mnogochislennye stada prigonyu ya dlya nuzhnoy treby. Ustroyu ochagi, izryvshi zemlyu… (The passage in underlined italics was not quoted by me above since it did not then seem relevant. It means: ‘I shall make hearths by digging out the soil…’.) Valikhanov surely read his own text KO with kemege at this point. Thus with the rejection of *Kem-kemsudiŋ at OK, 384, evidence for the Yenisey as the goal of Bok Murun's itinerary lapses. The Yenisey can only return to this discussion if and when firm independent evidence on tüpki khan necessitates it. Even then, for the reasons given above, the suspicion that Valikhanov unwittingly influenced his bard in the matter of a tribal Return to the Ancestral Seat would not be dispelled.