A L P A M Y S H
Central Asian Identity
under Russian Rule
H. B. PAKSOY
Association for the Advancement of
Central Asian Research
Monograph Series
Hartford, Connecticut
CHAPTER TWO: Attempts to Destroy and to Save Alpamysh
Phase I
RUSSIAN IMPERIAL POLICIES IN CENTRAL ASIA
The Russian military conquest of the steppe and Turkistan
was a protracted process whose origins can be traced to the
conquests of Ivan IV (1533-1582). It was Ivan IV who began
the Russian state's eastward expansion into non-Slav
territory with his annexation of the entire length of the
Volga as well as much of Siberia. From that time on, the
territory ruled from the Russian capital continued to
expand by treaty and, more often, by conquest. In the 18th
century, Peter I began building on the territorial
requisitions of Ivan IV (whom Peter greatly admired) by
such diverse actions as military reform and creation of
programs of Oriental studies. Peter and his immediate
successors extended the building of forts in the northern
steppe including Omsk (1716), Orenburg (1737),
Petropavlovsk (1752) and others. Cossack settlements were
established from the 1730s to the 1760s along the entire
Siberian-steppe frontier. These were bases from which the
19th century conquests east of the Caspian were launched.
The culmination of that process can be narrowed to the last
four decades of the 19th century from the capture of
Chimkent in 1864 to the border agreement with the British
in 1892 which established the Russian Empire's southern
border along the Amu Darya River, at the Afghan border.1
Once in control of this vast territory, the tsarist
government set about governing. Although the Volga-Ural
region, like the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia, were
incorporated into European Russia, the steppe and Turkistan
were divided into two large districts, the steppe krai and
the Turkistan krai. The former lay south of Siberia and the
latter, south and southeast of Lake Balkhash to the Chinese
border. There, military governors general, rather than
civilian administrators were placed in power. To the south,
lay the still nominally independent khanates of Khiva and
Bukhara (through which the Amu Darya flowed).2 During the
subsequent years of imperial rule the Central Asians were
differentiated by legal status -- while Tatars, (like
Azerbaijani Turks) were citizens, the population of
Turkistan and the steppe (like those in North Caucasus)
were classified as inorodtsy, "aliens." The territories'
status as colonies was undisguised. During the years of the
State Duma (from 1906 until the fall of the ancien regime)
the population of the steppe and Turkistan was at first
sparsely represented, then disenfranchised on the grounds
of "backwardness."
2 H. B. Paksoy
Another by-product of Russian rule was the establishment of
Russian Orthodox churches in the region and missionary work
among the local population. These efforts were begun with
the conquest of Kazan by Ivan IV (1552) and continued in
various forms thereafter. Part of religious
proselytization, especially in the 19th century, included
efforts to encourage the spread of Russian or to create
Cyrillic alphabets for the native language. In this regard,
the work of Russian-Orthodox missionaries, led by N. I.
Il'minskii,3 a contemporary of Divay, provides a clear
example of the interlinkages among these policies.
Furthermore, later Soviet language policies (discussed in
detail in the following section) would be inspired by
Il'minskii's example.
The Il'minskii method was originally based on an attempt to
separate Tatar and Kazakh (then called "Kirghiz") dialects
and establish for the latter a Cyrillic alphabet.
Il'minskii strove to emphasize tribe-specific and regional
vocabulary, using Cyrillic characters to stress
differentiation visually and codify variations in
pronunciation, however minor. Another Russian Orthodox
missionary and graduate of the Kazan Academy, Mikola
Ostroumov, built on Il'minskii's work to attempt the
creation of a "Sart" language for the settled population
which used the Tashkent dialect and to differentiate it
from Tatar and Kazakh.4
Ostroumov established a newspaper in Tashkent, Turkistan
vilayetinin gazeti: Tuzemnaia gazeta, which was published
for 35 years, from 1883-1917 (from 1890 to 1896, it is
known that 600-700 copies per issue were produced). He
called the language of the newspaper "Sartiye" and tried to
establish a circle of "Sart literature" around it. Togan5
remarks that this newspaper's language was a "broken
(bozuk)" dialect and records Ostroumov's "special methods"
for distancing this "language" from "Tatar" and "Kazakh:"
"For example in the articles whenever the words
'kelgen,' 'toqtay turgan,' 'tilegen,' 'buyuk,'
'pek,' 'guzel,' etc., appeared, he would become
angry at these words, labeling them as 'Tatar'
and 'Kazakh,' and insert 'kilgan,' 'toqhtay
durgan,' 'khohlegan,' 'katte,' 'cude,'
'ciraylik,' respectively. Furthermore he would
change the spellings of loan words, for example
'vagon,' 'poezd' would become 'vagan' and
'fayiz.' This exaggerated pronunciation style was
mostly used while Ostroumov was publishing his
newspaper. Despite that in the works of the
literati and the journalists of Kokand and Khiva,
the language preserves the beauty of their
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 3
Chagatay tradition."
Thus distorting the phonological aspects of local usages
constituted a step toward the later Soviet policy
(discussed below) of recording such differences in subsets
of Latin, then Cyrillic orthography, and dubbing each
product a "separate language." When the Soviet sources
claim that Central Asian peoples did not have a written
language of their own before they came under the protection
of the Russian elder brother, and that the Soviets gave
them one, this is what is to be understood.6
It should be noted that these efforts build on resentment
between nomads and Tatars, generated in the reign of
Catherine II (1762-96) when she granted privileges to Tatar
merchants and mullahs for conducting trade (and acting as
semi-official representatives of her government) with the
cities of Transoxiana and, at the same time, to spread
Islam among the nomads. It was apparently Catherine's
belief that Islam would break the unity of the oymak and
render the nomads more malleable.
CENTRAL ASIAN RESPONSES
The Central Asians' response was as broad as the areas in
which the Russians exerted pressure, and ranged from armed
resistance to education reform and publishing. Our focus in
the present work, however, is the response that was in some
ways the most central and deep rooted -- protection of the
repository and symbol of their past. Several individuals
began to collect and record versions of the dastans, as far
as available records indicate, on the heels of the Russian
conquest in the late 19th century. Among the four
identifiable "waves" of saviors -- interested parties who
attempted to save Alpamysh and the Turkic dastan genre from
oblivion by collecting and publishing transcriptions from
bahshis -- these constitute the first intellectual (rather
than biological) generation. These saviors and their
successors performed a unique service in the preservation
of Alpamysh.
The first wave, striving to make Alpamysh available in
print, was based in Kazan in the latter part of the 19th
and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Very little is
known about most of them, since they largely avoided using
their names as a protective measure to avoid reprisals from
the Tsarist secret police.7 The earliest known printed
Alpamysh (Item 1 in Bibliography below) carries the
following inscription in its title page:
"This episode is related by Yusuf bin Hoca
Sheyhulislam oglu. The date is the 1316th year of
4 H. B. Paksoy
the Hijra; 8 March 1899 according to the Russian
calendar. I finished it in one day and one night.
The mistakes are due to the shortage of time."
This edition must have proved popular with the native
readership, judging from the seven additional printings
between 1901 and 1916 (noted in the Bibliography).
According to Togan,8 this man's broader efforts
contributed substantially to the establishment of
Kazakh-dialect publishing and the adaptation of various
stories to Kazakh tastes:
"In the 1880s, works in the Kazakh literary
dialect started appearing in print. One of those
who has served as propagator in this line is
Seyhulislamoglu [sic] Yusufbek. He is a hoca
from Qarkara [sic]. He is considered to be the
Ahmed Midhat9 of the Kazaks. He wrote books as
long as a few hundred or even a few thousand
couplets within a day or even a night.
"He published many works of popular literature
(halk edebiyati), especially Shi'i legends such
as those tales of Hazreti Ali, Hasan and Husein,
Kerbela, Salsal Zerkum, etc.; also [he published]
the Iranian dastans such as Rustam, Jemshid,
Ferhad-u Shirin in the Kazakh dialect. Yusufbek
adapted these Islamic Iranian works to the Kazakh
life. Ali and Husein, in his works, are in the
full sense nomadic Turk-Kazakh types. From this
point of view his works have performed great
deeds in the publication of Islamic traditions.
"Radloff, in amazement, records that one such
work, Kissa-i Jumjume undercut completely the
work of Christian missionaries that had been
going on for years.10 Those old Turkish dastans,
mythology and folklore still alive among the
Kazakhs were made known to Europe by Radloff,
Altynsaryn, Letsch, and Platonov. On the other
hand Yusufbek, of course, mixing a certain amount
of Islamic elements into them, collected and
recorded them from among the people for the
benefit of successive generations.
"Yusufbek's Kazakh can be understood by those
Turks who are not Kazakh and his grammar is taken
from the old agatay grammar. Among his
publications, Qizjibek, Alpamysh, Ayman Cholpan
are well known."
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 5
Perhaps the most eminent of this "first wave" was the man
whose redaction of Alpamysh appears in English translation
in Chapter Three, Abubakir Ahmedjan Divay [Divaev]. Divay's
career is known partly because he spent his life in Russian
imperial service, where he gathered his material, and
became famous as an ethnographer who published widely under
the old regime. He held several posts under the Bolsheviks.
Divay, a Bashkurt,11 was born on 19 December 1855
in
Orenburg and lived most of his life among the Kazakhs. He
attended the Orenburg Nepliuev military academy, studying
first in the Asiatic Division, where the majority of his
classmates were reportedly Kazakhs, and second in the
division for the preparation of translators of Oriental
languages for the steppe regions.
In 1876-1877, at the age of 21, Divay left school to accept
an appointment in the Russian bureaucracy of the Turkistan
krai. There in the southern steppe region Divay travelled
and was able to visit many Kazakh, Kirghiz and Uzbek auls.
He was Divisional Inspector12 of the Aulie-Atinsk uezd
and
then became translator and junior official of Special
Missions attached to the Governor-General of the Syr-Darya
oblast'. This latter post gave him wide opportunities to
travel throughout the Turkistan krai.13
In 1883, Divay began collecting ethnographic materials. The
following year, the Governor-General of the Syr-Darya
oblast', N. I. Grodekov, initiated the collection of
information on Kazakh and Kirghiz customary law in order to
publish a code of juridical customs of the nomadic peoples
(among whom were included "Kazakh," "Kirghiz"14
and
"Karakirghiz") of the Syr-Darya oblast'.15 While
working
on this project, Divay reportedly collected "historical
legends from ancient manuscripts, in the hands of educated
Kirghiz, [and] heroic poems, aphorisms, fables, riddles,
incantations, etc."16 A portion of these materials
was
published in Grodekov's book and the remainder, including
fables, legends, songs, poems and dastans, were published
in Sbornik materialov dlia statistiki Syr-Dar'inskoi
oblasti' for 1891-1897, 1901, 1902, 1904, 1905, and 1907.
These articles by Divay were reviewed by various prominent
Orientalists.17
Divay also published his articles in other periodicals in
the 1890s including the journal Okraina, the almanac
Sredniaia Aziia and the semi-official Turkestanskaia
Vedomost'. Also at this time he began to publish in
scholarly journals of the major Oriental and ethnographic
societies of the Empire: Zapiski Vostochnogo otdela
Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva; Izvestiia
Obshchestva arkheologii, istorii, i etnografii; Izvestiia
Turkestanskogo otdela Russkogo geograficheskogo
6 H. B. Paksoy
obshchestva, and Zapiski Russkogo geograficheskogo
obshchestva. In 1896, Divay was one of the founding members
of the Turkestanskii kruzhok liubitelei arkheologii
(Turkistan Circle of Lovers of Archeology).18 In
1906,
Divay became Director of the Tatar [sic] school in Tashkent
and participated in the compilation of materials on Central
Asia in the Turkestanskii sbornik statei i sochinenii
otnosiashchikhsia k Srednei Azii, 1878-1887.19
Divay's twenty fifth anniversary as a Turcologist and
ethnographer was celebrated in 1915. In connection with
this occasion, the journal Zhivaia Starina published
reviews of his work and much biographical material. This
was not the end of his efforts, however, which continued
under the Bolshevik regime.
SOVIET ERA POLICIES
Policies of the Bolshevik and Soviet Union governments were
continuations of many tsarist practices, but carried out
more thoroughly and brutally, with greater determination
and new rhetoric. The "civilizing mission" was replaced by
the goal of "liberation through communism." Rule by
commissars and soviets (composed primarily of Russian
railroad workers) replaced the tsarist governors general;
successive "republics" were created instead of the imperial
krai and oblast'; missionaries were replaced by those
proselytizing the new faith of Marxism-Leninism, and
churches were supplanted by communist clubs and the League
of the Godless Zealots.
The language of "backwardness" was abandoned, but the
Stalinist criteria for determining a "nation" in the
Western European sense was used to imply the same thing.
The Central Asian Turks -- a dangerously homogenous mass
that seemed unreceptive to communism borne by Russian
workers -- had to be "pared down" into more convenient
units -- "nations." To conform to the Stalin model as
articulated in his 1913 work "Marxism and the National
Question," each nation had to have, or in this case be
given, a single distinct language, territory, economy and
history. The Turks of Central Asia, despite regional
economic diversity, shared a single language, territory and
historical tradition. Thus they seemed to constitute, by
the Stalin criteria, one huge "nation." The Soviets set
about the task of making several "nations" in its place.
The steps were obvious -- create separate territories, and
implant contrived "literary languages," economy and
histories in each. The guiding imperative was to create
differences and division. Dialects became "separate
languages," tribal or other subgroups become "nations." New
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 7
histories could "prove" the historic distinctiveness of
each "nation" by projecting the new differentiation back
into history.20 In the way, stood the dastans.
Boundary Changes and Language Reform
The boundaries in Soviet Central Asia were drawn and
redrawn during the 1920s and 1930s to create ever smaller
administrative units which enjoyed "on paper" sovereignty
and rights, including that of secession. For example, the
present-day Kirghiz SSR was initially part of the Kazakh
SSR and separated from it 1932.21
Terminology also changed. The term "Kirghiz" was used in
the late Russian imperial period to denote Turkic speakers
east of Orenburg. In the Soviet period, those who had been
called "Kirghiz" began to be called "Kazakh"22 and
those
to the southeast of the "Kazakh steppe" who had been called
"Kara-Kirghiz" before the 1917 Revolution were called
simply "Kirghiz." This renaming coincided with the division
of the former Turkistan krai and the protectorates of
Bukhara and Khiva into Soviet Socialist Republics and with
the "language reforms" of the 1920s and 1930s.
In the Soviet period, a language policy was implemented in
Central Asia which strove to establish the various dialects
as separate languages.23 The current Uzbek,
Kazakh,
Kirghiz, Turkmen and other Central Asian "languages" (the
designation "Turkic" in connection with any of them is
mostly avoided in popular, though not scholarly,
publications) so rigidly favored by the Soviets were, as
noted above, inspired by Il'minskii's work.
The formulation of "new" alphabets (actually the addition
of new symbols to the Latin, then the Cyrillic alphabets)
for each "language" is yet another aspect of this policy.
The exploitation of phonetic differences between the local
dialects was the starting-point. Therefore when the
different pronunciations are written down with the aid of
deliberately differentiated subsets of Cyrillic, the
foundations of "independent" languages are established. In
essence, this practice amounts to no more than changing the
spelling rules and calling the final product a "language."
According to such rules, the English spoken in Alabama,
Boston and London would be written slightly differently and
be classified as separate languages.
To take a simple but representative example, the publishing
houses of the Academies of Sciences are named "knowledge,"
(from the Arabic 'ilm) as follows: Gyilem (Tatar), Elm
(Azerbaijani Turkish), Ylym (Turkmen), Ilm (Uzbek), Ghylym
(Kazakh) and Ilim (Kirghiz). Significantly, nearly all
8 H. B. Paksoy
dictionary entries for this word use the Turkic term bilim
in the definition.
Noticeable in this example is another feature of these
alphabets, the use of different characters for the same
sound -- the "e" in Azerbaijani, the "y" in Turkmen and the
"i" in Uzbek represent approximately the same sound. The
character for the "j" (which does not exist in Russian and
must always be represented by the cumbersome "dzh") varies
from alphabet to alphabet.24
Furthermore, each of these alphabets is organized in a
different order, particularly placing letters that do not
occur in Russian in various places in each alphabet.
Although all alphabets begin with "a" they all end
differently: Azerbaijani ends with "j" and "sh;" Tatar,
with "ng" and "h;" Kazakh with the Russian characters "iu"
and "ia," which exist in various locations in the Tatar and
Uzbek alphabets but were removed from Azerbaijani in a 1957
reform; and Uzbek ends with "gh" and "kh." The letter "gh"
follows the Russian "g" in Azerbaijani (where it is the
fifth letter) and in Kazakh (where it is the sixth), but is
placed next to last in the Uzbek alphabet and does not
exist at all in Tatar. The letter "u" comes toward the end
of all alphabets, but, again, in different sequence. In
Kazakh it is 12th from last, in Azerbaijani seventh from
last, in Uzbek and Tatar, fourth from last.25
The Arabic alphabet, the one used at the turn of the
century was at least the sixth one to be employed by Turkic
speakers, effectively obliterates regional phonetic
differences. Turki, usually written in a series of Arabic
alphabet subsets, is still read with no trouble by almost
all literate Central Asians over the age of fifty. This
does not mean, however, that the Arabic alphabet is the
most suitable writing system for Turki. The three vowel
signs in the Arabic alphabet fall far short of representing
the minimum eight vowels required. The created subsets of
Cyrillic for the "languages" of Central Asia err in the
opposite direction, codifying one region's pronunciation
and establishing that spelling as the "approved" literary
form.
The next step in the creation of "new languages" was to
highlight the vocabularies not common to all the dialects.
Depending on the locality, every dialect may contain such
specialized words through historical development or contact
with other languages. These geographic or tribe-specific
words have often been cited by the Russian linguists as yet
another proof of the existence of "independent" languages.
To facilitate the proliferation of these "languages,"
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 9
particularly among the youth, Soviet linguists have been
turning out scores of grammars for each "language" since
the 1920s. The lexicographers are even busier, having
compiled at least two dictionaries per "language" over the
past sixty years. These dictionaries, especially the ones
from the native "language" to Russian, include various
words from the Soviet vocabulary (including many words from
Western languages that have entered Russian). Among the
relevant entries are "kolkhoz," "sovet," "radio," "tank",
(translated as "kolkhoz," "sovet," "radio," and "tank,"
respectively) as though these were native words which
required translation.
The Campaign Against the Dastan Alpamysh
According to Leninist doctrine, "Every culture of the past
includes progressive, popular elements, which should be
preserved in socialist culture as well as reactionary
elements bearing the mark of the parasite classes which
must be eliminated." To this dictum Stalin added "the
culture of Soviet peoples must be proletarian and socialist
in essence and national in form."26 It was within
these
guidelines that Soviet commentators analyzed dastans.
Tura Mirzaev, an Uzbek Alpamysh scholar, stated that during
the 1930s and 1940s close attention was paid to dastans in
general and to Alpamysh in particular. He noted,
"Different variants have been collected, the
contents of which have been analyzed from
historical and social points of view. It was
stressed that the dastans contained motifs of the
labors of people who lived in the distant past,
of their high ideals, lives, histories,
objectives and aesthetic tastes."27
Nonetheless, a campaign against the dastans began in 1951.
Alexandre Bennigsen describes the general pattern:
"The campaign to purge the national cultures of
those elements incompatible with the dominant
Marxist-Leninist world view began in 1951.
Initial attacks followed a standard pattern,
beginning with derogatory comments in a local
newspaper, Pravda or Literaturnaia Gazeta. The
theme would then be picked up by the Central
Committee of the respective republican Communist
Party, next by various local, political, social,
academic or literary organizations, and finally
by the oblast', raion or city Party Committee,
the Komsomol, Academy of Science, state
10 H. B. Paksoy
university, Union of Writers and so forth. The
operation would culminate...with: (1) the
universal condemnation of local intellectuals who
were charged with idealizing the
bourgeois-nationalist aspects of their national
patrimony; and with: (2) a shower of approving
telegrams and letters addressed to the Central
Committees of the republican Party organizations,
thanking their leaders for rescuing the Socialist
Fatherland from the clutches of its most vile
enemies."28
The treatment of Alpamysh followed this pattern. In the
late 1940s, the "progressive" elements of the dastan had
been praised. Alpamysh was deemed "One of the most perfect
epic poems in the world;"29 Elsewhere it was called
"the
liberty song of Central Asian nations fighting against the
alien invaders;"30 "and an "authentic popular
movement,
voicing the ideology of the toiling masses."31
However, when it was discovered that the Alpamysh
strengthened the sense of individual identity and
independence of their creator-heir-owners, the tone changed
rapidly. During the "crisis" of which Bennigsen spoke, an
attack was mounted on Alpamysh similar to that against
other dastans, charging it with being: "Impregnated with
the poison of feudalism and reaction, breathing Muslim
fanaticism and preaching hatred towards
foreigners."32
Alpamysh was condemned by the Central Committee of the
Uzbekistan Communist Party before its tenth plenum33 by
a
special conference of historians of literature at the
republican university in Samarkand34 and by the
joint
session of the Academy of Sciences and the Union of Soviet
Writers in Tashkent. At this last meeting, the defenders of
Alpamysh were declared to be "Pan-Turkic nationalists."35
The key article in this assault seems to have been "Ob
epose 'Alpamysh'," ("About the epic 'Alpamysh'") which
appeared in Pravda Vostoka (Tashkent) in January
1952.36
The article was authored by A. Abdunabiev, identified
elsewhere37 as a doctoral student of the Uzbek section
of
the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute of the Central Committee of
the CPSU, and by A. Stepanov, who is not identified, but is
apparently a Russian.
The Abdunabiev and Stepanov article is one of the few
detailed and specific attacks on Alpamysh. It was the only
such article printed in the first five months of 1952 in
Pravda Vostoka, the Uzbek Party organ which was a leader in
this campaign. Later articles merely repeat charges made by
Abdunabiev and Stepanov. Their article also served as the
basis for the March 1952 meeting (later called the "Trial
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 11
of Alpamysh") as reported in Pravda Vostoka.38
"Ob epose 'Alpamysh'" begins by recalling the importance of
the theme of opposition to foreign and local [class]
oppressors in the popular oral tradition. It states that
this tradition glorifies the moral qualities of the hero,
his actions in the name of justice, the protection of his
homeland and people and his faith in love and friendship.
The authors concede that the Uzbeks have a rich oral
tradition of this type, but state that Alpamysh is not a
part of it.
Primarily, the authors blame the folklorists for the
mistaken praise of the dastan Alpamysh. These folklorists
were not guided by the classics of Marxism-Leninism and
therefore were able to see in this folklore only "the
living past." They evaluated dastans only from the literary
point of view, which led to serious ideological errors
including an idealization of a work that contains harmful
ideas.
Abdunabiev and Stepanov then enumerate the various harmful
ideas of the dastan, mentioning in passing, its similarity
to the "reactionary epic" Dede Korkut. It is stated that
their remarks are based on the Penkovskii translation of
the 1939 printing of the Fazil Yoldashoglu variant of
Alpamysh.
The central figures of the dastan Alpamysh are khans who
have slaves -- two clearly "anti-populist" motifs. The
authors state:
"The embodiment of terrible 'evil' and 'vice' in
the epic are represented by some 'unbelievers,'
settled in the country of the Oirots [Kalmaks],
which is a six-month journey from Baysun. As we
learn from the poem, the Oirot people live
peacefully, occupied in land cultivation, cattle
raising and never dreamed about making raids on
the land of the Kungrats."
The authors of this article describe the welcome given
Baysari's family in the land of the Kalmaks and criticize
Baysari's refusal to permit Barchin to marry an
"unbeliever." This, the authors state, fosters hatred based
on religion.
Alpamysh himself, the authors continue, has no positive
qualities. He goes after his betrothed only under pressure
from his sister. Indeed, the desire to save his bride is
merely Alpamysh's excuse to cover up his goal of slaying
enemies, whom he defines as all unbelievers -- more
12 H. B. Paksoy
evidence of hatred based on religion. The pair has little
to say about Alpamysh's behavior in the land of the
Kalmaks. The bloodshed accompanying his return, however, is
noted and held up as another harmful example. Ultan (the
usurper and suitor to Barchin) is portrayed as willing to
step down from power on Alpamysh's return. The defeat of
Ultan by Alpamysh, according to the authors, is meant to
convey a lesson -- "only a 'pure-blooded khan' may rule a
country, and a slave must remain a slave." Clearly,
conclude the authors, this dastan is not "populist," but
rather is a glorification of khans, religion, slave-holding
and the power of "feudals." Even the attempt of Penkovskii,
in his translations of the dastan, to introduce
"improvements" and "refinements," they say, cannot conceal
the "reactionary essence" of this dastan.
This remark about Penkovskii's "improvements" and
"refinements," made so casually in this article, are
striking. It is one of the rare admissions of deliberate
changes introduced into a translation. In this context, it
can be understood that the changes were made to attempt to
bring the contents of the dastan into conformity with
current Russian tastes. Since this is the translation that
is regarded as "the most complete" at a later date, this
early alteration will have important repercussions and will
be discussed again below.
Writing in the 1960s, Tura Mirzaev, discussed some of the
charges levelled against Alpamysh during this "crisis"
period. Describing a joint meeting of the Uzbek SSR Academy
of Sciences Institute of Language and Literature and the
Uzbekistan Soviet Writers Union (March 1952), Mirzaev
argues that this meeting, which Shark Yilduzi called "The
Trial of the dastan Alpamysh," distorted the objective
sense of the dastan. Alpamysh was accused of idealizing the
feudal past and bearing traces of Pan-Islamism and
Pan-Turkism. It was declared devoid of historical or
educational value. The scholars of the chairs of literature
of the Uzbek State University declared their readiness to
instruct their students in the dangers contained in this
dastan. The entire assembly declared that Alpamysh was
"glorifying bloody fights, the brigandage of khans and beks
and their oppression of the masses..."39
In Pravda Vostoka's report of this meeting40, Candidate
of
Philological Sciences Iu. Sultanov is quoted as
articulating the anti-Alpamysh view, using the article "Ob
epose 'Alpamysh'" as a basis for his remarks. Abdunabiev
criticizes the folklorists for permitting this work to
reach the masses. Several university faculty members
confess their errors in failing to criticize Alpamysh and
state that they will be more vigilant in the future. Pravda
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 13
Vostoka notes that Hadi Zarif, a senior Orientalist and
co-author with Zhirmunskii of a seminal work on the "Uzbek
epic," evaded serious self-criticism and limited himself
only to repeating "generally known facts."
After the crisis "ended" in 1952, defenders of Alpamysh
emerged. At a Moscow meeting on Epics of the Peoples of the
USSR (June 1954) prominent Orientalists, A. K. Borovkov,
Hadi Zarif, O. A. Valitova, M. I. Afzalov and others,
severely criticized those who found nihilistic tendencies
in the dastan Alpamysh.41
Immediately after this conference, according to Mirzaev,
new variants of the dastan began to be collected. The
folklorists of the Gorkii Institute of World Literature
also criticized the previous attacks on Alpamysh and stated
the need to "study the problems of the epics and the
traditional folkloric ideals..." and argued that "these
national epics must be understood and studied in the
deepest scientific manner."42
With this official encouragement by the Gorkii Institute
and the Pushkin Institute of Language and Literature
(Tashkent) of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences, debate and
commentaries on Alpamysh began to appear in the republican
press. Again, A. Abdunabiev and A. Stepanov came in for
criticism for their "distortions" and for their claim that
this dastan is nihilistic.43
Perhaps the most decisive event was the decision of the
20th Party Congress (1956), "in the name of Soviet science
and especially Soviet folklore studies," to convene an
investigative conference on the Alpamysh dastan "in order
to bring to a close these dogmatisms, commentaries and
theoretical problems and once and for all to investigate
these matters in detail and come to a decision." Thus a
regional conference was held from 20-25 September 1956 in
Tashkent, co-sponsored by the Gorkii Institute and the
(Tashkent) Pushkin Institute, the purpose of which was
"reconciling the studies [of Alpamysh] with party
directives."44
Specialists on Alpamysh from Moscow, Leningrad, Uzbekistan,
Karakalpakistan, Kazakhistan, Tajikistan, Tataristan,
Bashkurdistan, Altai, Georgia and "other fraternal peoples'
scholars of epics," attended. The speakers discussed the
various versions of the dastan and stressed "the objective
meaning of the dastan Alpamysh and its rhetorical and
populist particulars." Twenty papers were read and the
transactions published.45
Mirzaev particularly notes the contribution of A. K.
14 H. B. Paksoy
Borovkov, who examined and discussed the history of the
collection of Alpamysh, its transcription and its variants
among Uzbek, Karakalpak and Kazakh peoples.46 Mirzaev
than
pointedly adds that Alpamysh, "belongs to the Turkic
peoples (Tiurki halklar)."
Hadi Zarif wrote a decisive retort to the denigration of
Alpamysh in Shark Yilduzi in 1957:
"The intellectual basis of the dastan was not to
glorify brigandage, nationalism, religiosity,
[but] instead to show bravery, humanism, love of
homeland, loyalty, close friendship, noble
ideals. This dastan is an encyclopaedia dealing
with the most beautiful examples of rhetoric,
literary form, peoples' humor and aphorisms,
examples of speech of the masses."47
Mirzaev criticized the former critics:
"Some individuals during the 1950s regarded this
valued oral monument as nihilistic. Those
individuals, on the pretext that these pearls
created by the masses were bankrupt, tried to
destroy them. Those critics from a social and
political point of view denied the populism of
Alpamysh. They...misrepresented the motifs of the
dastan, analyzing those separately from the era
in which it was created and called it a 'reaction
against populism.'"48
In 1958, the "most complete" Alpamysh, a Penkovskii
translation of the Fazil variant, was published. It was
subsequently reissued several times. Official comments on
the dastan have since then been laudatory. Earlier
printings are unavailable. This republication may not have
been a "victory" for the dastan, but rather a shift by the
authorities to a more subtle attack. That attack, "Phase
II," will be the subject of Chapter Four.
The campaign against Alpamysh and the struggle for its
rehabilitation, like the history of its earlier printings,
fit into a larger pattern of CPSU politics and especially
the organization and reorganizations of the Oriental
Institutes. Indeed, the Phase II efforts to destroy and
save Alpamysh cannot be understood outside this context.
Party, Oriental Institutes and Policy
The origins of the Oriental studies in the Russian Empire,
with reference to their political significance, have been
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 15
traced by Richard N. Frye.49 After the 1917
Revolution,
the Soviet government, in recognition of the "revolutionary
potential" of Asian peoples, took a variety of actions
which reflected the importance they attached to propaganda
and agitation among the Eastern nationalities.
During the Civil War, the Bolsheviks began to expand both
the scope and the staffs of the Oriental Institutes,
although this was not fully accomplished until after World
War II (see below). Gradually they were brought under a
single umbrella.50 At the same time, "the General
Staff
of the Red Army of Workers and Peasants acquired an
Oriental Section in 1919, which later became the Oriental
Faculty of the General Staff's Military Academy."51
These actions as well as the founding of the
Kommunisticheskii Universitet Trudiashchikhsia Vostoka -
KUTVa (Communist University of the Toilers of the East)
were aimed at linking the expansion of Communism in the
"Soviet East" to the export of revolution to the rest of
Asia. The pivotal event of this effort was the Congress of
the Toilers of the East, held in Baku (a city which was
seen as a key springboard for the export of revolution) in
September 1920. Although the result of this Congress was
the reinforcing of Russian rather than Central Asian
control over the process, the interest in exporting
Communism remained alive into the mid-1920s.52
After the Baku Congress, the efforts to study and
propagandize the East continued.
[Recognizing] "the great need for agents and agitators
proficient in the tongues of the various Oriental
peoples and familiar with their history, the
Military-Revolutionary Council of the Turkestan Front
established in October 1920 a special program of
Oriental Studies. This served as the nucleus of the
Higher Military School of Oriental Studies founded in
1922."53
In Moscow on 13 December 1921 the Soviet government
established Vserossiiskaia nauchnaia assotsiatsiia
vostokovedeniia (All Russian Scientific Association of
Oriental Studies) -- VNAV. This was attached to the
Narodnyi kommissariat po delam natsional'nostei (People's
Commissariat for Nationalities Affairs) -- Narkomnats,
headed by Stalin and in charge of all nationalities policy.
"It [VNAV] assisted the government and the party in the
implementation of official policy and with propaganda work
in the Asian regions of the Soviet Union. It had cells in
Moscow and in several other places both at home and abroad
whose members forwarded information to VNAV."54
16 H. B. Paksoy
Tura Mirzaev notes that the Central Committee of the
Russian Communist Party passed a resolution on 18 June
1925: On "Party policy in the field of artistic
literature".55 Contained in this resolution was
the
declaration that "in a classless society there is and can
be no neutral art."56 As a result of this resolution,
the
Uzbek Commissariat of Education and Knowledge ordered new
collections of Alpamysh variants to be conducted "in an
organized fashion." In 1928, the Turcological Cabinet of
the USSR Academy of Sciences was founded and "...sponsored
translations of Turkish classics and historical records,
published monographs on the history and culture of the
Turkic peoples..."57
Wayne Vucinich articulates the relationship between
education of "scholars" and agitation:
"From the very beginning the Soviet Government
undertook to establish completely controlled
communist centers of Oriental research and
training. It wanted Orientalists to be militantly
missionary, to dedicate themselves to the cause
of communism and to interpret, popularize and
implement the policies of the government and the
party."58
Examination of Oriental studies in the USSR reveals two
sets of linkages. The first is that between the study of
history and current problems, the second between
institutional reorganization and ideological redirection.
Of the first, the Party itself provides straightforward
documentation:
"Naturally, the study of these most important
problems must be based on full and exhaustive
research... Deep scholarly analysis of these
problems must necessarily be based on serious
study of the entire history of Eastern peoples,
including ancient and medieval history; but the
basic issue of the Oriental Institute is the
study of problems of contemporary history... in
the study of ancient and medieval East it is
necessary to concentrate attention on questions
having timely (aktual'nyi) significance...
(using) Marxist-Leninist methodology... and
guided by the historic decisions of the Central
Committee of the VKP(b) on ideological
questions...."59
The second linkage, that between institutional
reorganization and ideological redirection, is more
complex. The first period of institutional reorganization
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 17
and redirection was roughly from 1928 or 1929 to
1931.60
This was the period of the purges of Central Asians for
"national deviation."61 It was during this period
that
VNAV was dissolved (in 1930) and replaced by the Institute
of Oriental Studies within the reorganized Academy of
Sciences. Among the tasks of the historical-economic sector
of the Institute was investigating "socialist construction
in Soviet eastern regions and republics..."62
Another reorganization took place in 1935 on the eve of the
Great Purges. Any remnants of Central Asian "national
deviationists" from the first purges were liquidated in the
1936-38 period. An additional institutional change took
place in 1937 when the Academy of Sciences finally absorbed
the institutes formerly under the Communist Academy. Even
after these changes, complaints were made about the quality
of work and understaffing.63
Within this context of purges for "national deviation,"
repeated "reorganizations" and, presumably greater
ideological control over Oriental studies, the attempt by
Hamid Alimjan to "rescue" Alpamysh takes on a new, dramatic
significance. He may well have seen this 1939 publication
of Alpamysh as his last chance to preserve a central
monument of culture and repository of identity. Alimjan was
literally risking his life, an act which by itself is
eloquent testimony to the importance of the dastan
Alpamysh.64
The pace of Oriental studies was slowed but not halted
during World War II. The Institute of Oriental Studies
worked closely with the party and the military
organization. It published propaganda materials..."65
The
task of training future generations was not neglected. The
Oriental Institute in Leningrad was moved to Tashkent and
Central Asians were admitted for training. The Central
Asians constituted a portion of the enlarged cadres in this
Institution even when transferred back to Leningrad after
the war.66 In March 1944, a major Conference on
Central
Asian folklore was held in Tashkent.67 The convening
of
such a conference during the war bespeaks the significance
of the topic, probably in connection with the Oriental
Institute's propaganda function.
More relevant for this topic is the postwar renewal of
interest in Oriental studies and the institutional and
ideological vicissitudes of the Oriental Institute. In the
wake of enormous war losses, the contribution to victory of
the Russians (who, in official propaganda, received sole
credit for the victory) and, by extension, relations
between non-Russians and Russians received new
emphasis.68
Orientalists were invited to engage in ideological warfare
18 H. B. Paksoy
against falsifiers of history, including those who sullied
the friendly relations between Soviet peoples. Vucinich
perceptively describes the era:
"From 1949 until 1951 leading Soviet newspapers
and journals often published warnings to
historians and literati, as well as to the
institutes sponsoring them, and offered
acceptable interpretations of controversial
issues in the history of the Soviet Muslim and
certain other Asian peoples.... In their writings
Asian authors were obliged to refrain from
expressing any ideas or interpretations that were
anti-Russian and were told to honor and extol the
many virtues of the 'Great Russian people', under
whose leadership the Soviet peoples would attain
a common supranational culture for the entire
'Soviet family' of nations."69
The period of the "crisis of dastans 1949-1951" coincided
roughly with the beginning of a protracted period of
reorganization of the Oriental Institute and the Oriental
departments of the Academy of Sciences. In its plan for
1950, the Oriental Institute called for new emphasis on
several fields including literature.70 The 1950 report
of
the Presidium called for a major reorganization. The
Oriental Institute was moved from Leningrad to Moscow and
workers from other academic institutes were transferred to
it. In addition, the Oriental Institute was transferred
from the Department of Language and Literature of the
Academy of Sciences to the more politically oriented
Department of History and Philosophy.71 Among new
sections
created was the Section of the Soviet East headed by the
well-known Orientalist E. E. Bertels.72 However, as
late
as the early part of 1951 the Institute was still
understaffed and the work quality was still being
criticized.
The organizational reforms and ideological redirection
continued into the middle of the decade. The 19th Party
Congress (October 1952) criticized the Orientalists for
having failed to follow party directives. Among other
matters, the Orientalists were told to produce scholarly
works on Eastern literature.73 Again, a (perhaps
the)
major issue was relations between Asian peoples and
Russians.74 Also in 1952, historians were purged
for
"erroneous ideas" and for having fallen into "bourgeois
ideological waters" concerning the "Muslim heroes" Shamil
and Kenesary Kasymov and the national question.75
In 1953, the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences
criticized the output of the Oriental Institute since 1951
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 19
as having a low "political-conceptual"
(ideino-politicheskii) level. It further stated that the
cadres were weak in theoretical training and lacking in
systematic control. Among the priorities handed down for
the Institute were "production of scholarly-popular
literature illuminating the successes of popular democracy
in the East, the liberation struggles of peoples of
dependent and colonial countries," and "production of
qualified help for the academies of science in the
republics on questions of the history and literature of
peoples of the Soviet East."76
A decree of the Academy Presidium of February 1953
established an "independent section" of the history and
culture of the Soviet East. Some subsequent adjustments
were made, presumably linked to the death of Stalin in
March 1953. Twelve sections were created.77 The Section
on
the Soviet East was now upgraded to "independent section"
(of which there were only three) on "history and cultures
of the Soviet East."78 It was still headed by
Bertels.79
In 1954, the Central Committee of the Party demanded that a
careful research plan be drawn up for all
disciplines.80
In that same year a Coordinating Commission for Eastern
Literature was established under the Central Coordinating
Council for Oriental Studies.81
The following year, the journal Sovetskoe Vostokovedenie
resumed publication. Seemingly for the first time, the
Oriental Institute was not understaffed. There were
reported to be 220 workers, of whom 155 worked on Far East,
South Asia and Middle East.82 That would leave
65,
presumably for work on Soviet domestic issues. The Oriental
Institute embarked on a new path in 1955. From that time,
the Institute invested "serious effort" in the publication
of "historical and literary monuments," which certainly
included the dastans. Under the editorship of Bertels
himself, the Institute began publishing "significant
monuments of medieval literature," including Firdousi's
Shahname and Rashid al-Din's Chronicles. In connection with
this effort, the Institute also carried out preparatory
research on Kutadgu Bilig and the Secere-i Terakime by Abul
Gazi.83
Criticisms, however, continued. In a meeting of December
1956, the Academy Presidium attacked the Institute's
treatment of a number of issues including "national trends
of peoples of Central Asia and criticisms of nationalistic
errors in the work of historians and literati."84
The
on-going displeasure of the Presidium with the Institute
led to new guidelines and yet further reorganization. The
new guidelines, stated to be in conformity with the
resolutions of the 20th Party Congress, included the
20 H. B. Paksoy
continued publication of literary and historical monuments
of the peoples of the East. To facilitate this publication
agenda, a publishing house of Eastern Literature was
established in 1957.85
The new structure of the Oriental Institute was far more
complex than before. Sections on the Far East and Near and
Middle East included subsections on individual countries.
Gone was the old "independent section" on the peoples of
the Soviet East. A new division was added, however, to
replace the Soviet East department headed by Bertels, who
had been the chief of the various Soviet East sections
since 1950.86 Along with the structural change of
the
Institute, the plan was changed as well. For the "first
time"87 the Institute called for large scale
publication
of literary and historical monuments.
Several events had led up to the "rehabilitation" of
Alpamysh in 1956 -- the Party Congress of 1952, the Moscow
Conference on Epics in 1954, the Tashkent "Trial of
Alpamysh" in 1952 and, in 1956 the 20th CPSU Congress. All
issued guidelines relevant to Alpamysh. Finally, with the
institutional reforms of 1957, the reorganization of the
Oriental Institute was pronounced "completed." The
Institute was now ready to carry out the dictates of the
Party Congress.88 In the following year, the
"definitive" and "complete" version of Alpamysh appeared.
In the light of the reforms and ideological directives of
the 1950s, and particularly the increasing emphasis after
1955 on the "literary and historical monuments" of the
peoples of the East, the beginnings of reemergence of
Alpamysh after 1958 becomes more explicable. Its
republishing has a specific place within the broader
pattern of activity in the field of Oriental studies. Only
with the newly enlarged staff and with the establishment of
"final" ideological instruction could the Oriental
Institutes undertake the work necessary for the publication
of Alpamysh. In this regard, Bennigsen is perhaps overly
optimistic in his assessment of the reappearance of
Alpamysh (and other dastans) as a sign of the victory of
the Central Asians.89 In fact, the Oriental
Institutes
finally had the personnel and the "proper" ideological
framework with which to edit the dastan according to the
dicta of the CPSU.
CENTRAL ASIAN RESPONSE: COLLECTION AND PUBLICATION OF
ALPAMYSH UNDER SOVIET RULE
In the Soviet period, as before the Bolshevik Revolution,
collecting and publishing efforts continued among Central
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 21
Asians. These efforts produced dozens of published versions
and a still unknown number of manuscripts which are
occasionally cited by Soviet authors and are reportedly
kept in restricted access manuscript archives of Academy of
Sciences of the USSR and Academies of individual republics.
Mirzaev, in his 1968 work,90 cites 29 reciters'
variants in the Tashkent archives of the Academy of
Sciences alone; in his 1969 work,91 he cites 33 variants
of Alpamysh in this same archive. Zhirmunskii92 and M.
Ghabdullin and T. Sydykov93 cite additional manuscripts
in Nukus, Alma-Ata, Kazan, Moscow and Leningrad.
Unfortunately, the available individual printings of
Alpamysh do not provide sufficient information tracing the
origin of variant in question. Introductions remark on the
dastan's antiquity without detail. None of the Russian
translations, as far as this writer has been able to
determine, incorporates a critical apparatus. Even in those
instances where the editor-translator is of Central Asian
origin, such as Divay, only occasional footnotes are
included. These footnotes are usually limited to the
explanations of words. The native dialect editions rarely
if ever provide any explanations since the readers are,
after all, familiar with the dastan.
One of the main reasons for the ignorance about the
"genealogy" of any of the variants may lie in the fact that
the known versions of Alpamysh appear to have come down to
the present day through diverse sources -- various reciting
schools, tribal units, localities and collection efforts.
Reports of these collection efforts show little or no
evidence that the collectors attempted to trace the
historical line of descent for any given variant.
Regardless of the cause, this failure by the collectors to
trace the origins of individual variants renders comparison
extremely difficult. Establishing descent, if that task
were to be attempted, would also be problematical, even for
those who may have full access to all known manuscripts.
The first monographic treatment (discussed in Chapter Four)
devoted to the "Uzbek national heroic epic" and including a
large section on the dastan Alpamysh is the 1947 work
coauthored by V. M. Zhirmunskii and Hadi Zarif (under the
name Kh. T. Zarifov, the form used in Russian-language
sources). The sections on dastans were written by Zarif,
according to the work's Introduction. Although Hadi Zarif
attempted to examine various historical events and
documents in order to establish the approximate time of the
dastan's creation, even he did not deal with any particular
variant of Alpamysh, and confined himself primarily to what
he labelled the "Kungrat" version. This lack of a genealogy
is disappointing because by virtue of his personal
22 H. B. Paksoy
knowledge and access to documents, he was well positioned
to trace such a lineage.
Alpamysh has apparently never been printed anywhere except
in the Russian and Soviet domains. There have been 55 known
published versions of Alpamysh offered for sale since 1899.
A complete bibliography of those works follows. They
include versions published in Kazakh, Uzbek, Karakalpak,
Tatar, Kirghiz, Altai, Russian and Tajik, the last being
confined to portions of Tajikistan and northern
Afghanistan.94 It is not known to exist in any
other language and the very name is unknown in the
Turkish Republic.95
The dastan Alpamysh was the subject of at least 185 books
and articles in the USSR between 1923 and 1967 alone. These
publications of evaluation and research were the products
of Kazakh, Kirghiz, Uzbek, Bashkir, Tatar and Russian
authors and do not include editions of the main texts or
major translations of this dastan.
The bibliography below is compiled from various sources and
covers publications known to me as of this writing. This
list does not include the Alpamysh extracts found in school
textbooks or readers:
Bibliography of Published Versions of the Alpamysh Dastan
1. Kissa-i Alfamish. By Yusufbek Seyhulislam (in Arabic
alphabet.) Kazan, 1899.
2. Second edition of (1), 1901.
3. "Alpamis-Batir." In Sbornik materialov dlia statistiki
Syr-Dar'inskoi oblasti. Edited by A. A. Divay. Vol. X,
Tashkent, 1901.
4. Alpamis-Batir. Djia-Murad Bek Muhammedov version.
Editor: A. A. Divay. Reprint of (3). Text in Arabic
alphabet in Kazakh, with Russian translation. Tashkent,
1901.
5. "Alpamis-Batir." In Pamiatniki kirgizskogo narodnogo
tvorchestva. Reprint of (3). Tashkent, 1901.
6. Third edition of (1), 1905.
7. Fourth edition of (1), 1907.
8. Fifth edition of (1), 1910.
9. Sixth edition of (1), 1912.
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 23
10. Seventh edition of (1), 1914.
11. Eighth edition of (1), 1916.
12. "Velikan Alpamis." In Turkestanskaia vedemost', no.
217-218. Russian translation, collected (during 1916?) and
edited by A. A. Divay. Tashkent, 1916.
13. "Alpamysh." In Batirlar. Vol. VI. Editor: A. A. Divay.
Second edition of (3), Tashkent, 1922.
14. "Alpamysh." In Kirgizsko-Kazakhskii bogatirskii epos.
Vo. VI. Reprint of (13), Tashkent, 1922.
15. "Alpamish dastani." In Bilim Ocagi, No. 2-3, 18 May
1923. pp. 39-59. Editor: Gazi Alim. Tashkent, 1923.
16. "Alpamis Batir." In Sbornik obraztsov kazakhskoi
narodnoi literatury. Editor: S. Seyfullin. Kizil Orda,
1931.
( - Unverified - ) [Alpamysh Batir. Reprint of (3 and 13)
1933.]
17. Alpamysh. Karakalpak (?) version. (Latin alphabet?)
Moscow, 1936.
18. Alpamys. Russian translation from Hojabergen Niyazov.
Moscow, 1937.
19. "Alpamis Batir." In Batirlar Jiri, V. 1. Compiler:
Sabit Mukanov. (Latin alphabet?) Alma-Ata, 1939. (Reprint
of Item 16?)
20. Alpomish dastani. Uzbek Fanlar Akademiyasi Nasriyati.
In Latin alphabet. Fazil Yoldash oglu version. Editor:
Hamid Alimjan. Tashkent, 1939.
21. Altai-Buchai. Russian translation of (23), Ulagashev
variant. Moscow, 1939.
22. Altai-Buchai. In Altaiskie skazki. Shortened version of
(23), Ulagashev variant. Moscow, 1939.
23. Alyp-Manash. N. Ulagashev variant. Moscow (?) 1940.
24. "Alpamysh i Barsin Khyluu." In Bashkirskie narodnye
skazki, No. 19. Recorded and translated by A. G. Bessonov.
General Editor: Prof. N. Dimitriev. Ufa, 1941.
25. Alpamysh. Second edition of (18), Moscow, 1941.
24 H. B. Paksoy
26. "Altay Buchai." In Oirotskii narodnyi epos. Editor: A.
Koptelev. N. Ulagashev variant. pp. 79-126. Novosibirsk,
1941.
27. "Alpamysh." In Uzbekskii narodnyi epos; Glava iz poemy.
Significantly abridged translation (by L. Penkovskii) into
Russian. Probably contains only the suitor competition
section. Tashkent, 1943.
28. Alpamysh. Partial translation by V. Derzhavin, A.
Kochetkov and L. Penkovskii. Tashkent, 1944.
29. "Alpamysh." In Kazakhskii geroicheskii epos, Moscow,
1945.
30. "Alpamys." In Tatar Halk Ekiyatlara. Kazan, 1946.
31. "Alpamis." In Tatarskie narodnye skazki, vol I. Russian
translation of a Kazan Tatar version, 1946.
32. Alpamisha i Barchin-huluu, Bashkirskie narodnye skazki.
Collected by A. Bessonov, edited by N. Dimitriev. (Second
edition of (24) ?) Ufa, 1949.
33. Alpamysh. Uzbeksii epos po varianti Fazila Yoldasha.
Translated by L. Penkovskii, foreword by M. Sheykhzade.
Tashkent, 1949.
34. Alpamysh. Uzbekskii narodnyi epos. Translated from
Fazil Yoldash text. Translator: L. Penkovskii. Moscow,
1949.
35. "Alpamysh." In Kazakhskii epos. Russian translation.
Alma-Ata, 1953.
36. Alpamys. Text prepared by G. G. Musabaev, editors N. S.
Smirnova and T. S. Sydykov. Alma-Ata, 1957.
37. Alpamys. From Kiyas-jray Hayreddinov. Nukus, 1957.
38. Alpamysh i Sandugach. Tatarskie narodnye skazki. In
Tatar. Kazan, 1957.
39. Alpamysh. Second edition of (20), Tashkent, 1957.
40. Alpamysh. Third edition of (20), Tashkent, 1958.
41. Alpamish: Tatar Halk Ekiyatlara. Edited by H.
Yarmuhametov. Second edition of (29) 1946 printing? Kazan,
1958.
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 25
42. Alpamish. Russian translation by L. Penkovskii. Preface
by V. Zhirmunskii. Reprint of 1949. Moscow, 1958.
43. "Alp-Manash." In Altay Baatirlar. Volume II. Tuulu
Altaydin Bichikter Chigarar Izdatelstvozi. Editor: P.
Kuchiyak. Gorno-Altaysk, 1959.
44. Alpomish. Editor: R. Amonov. Translated into Tajik by
L. N. Demidchik. Stalinabad, 1959.
45. Alpomish. Tajik? Second printing of (44) ? Stalinabad,
1960?
46. Alpamys. From Esemurat-jray Nurabullaev. Nukus, 1960.
47. Alpamis Batir. Prepared for publication by N. S.
Smirnova and T. S. Sydykov. Editors: M. O. Auezov and N. S.
Smirnova. Alma-Ata, 1961.
48. Alpamis Batir. Editor: A. Shalabaeva. Alma-Ata, 1968.
49. Alpomish. Uzbekistan SSR Fanlar Akademiyasi, A. S.
Pushkin Nomidaki Til va Adabiyat Instituti. Berdi Bahshi
Variant. Transcriber: Abdulla Alavii; editor: Tura Mirzaev;
Editor of the series: Hadi Zarif. Tashkent, 1969.
50. Alpamish. Uzbekskoe narodnoe tvorchestvo. Translated
from Fazil Yoldash oglu text. Translator: L. Penkovskii.
Reprint of (34) ? Moscow, 1977.
51. Alpamis Batir. Kazak SSR Gylym Akademiyasi M. O. Auezov
Atindaki Edebiyet yane Oner Instituti. Alma-Ata, 1977.
52. Alpamysh. Tashkent, 1979.
53. "Alpamis Batir." In Kazakhskii gerocheskii epos v
prozaicheskom pereskaze Akseley Seydimbekova. Russian
translation by Satimjan Sanbaev. Alma-Ata, 1981.
54. Alpamis. Nukus, 1981.
55. Alpamish. Uzbekskii narodni epos. Translated from T. M.
Mirzaev text. Translator: L. M. Penkovskii. Reprint of
(33), Moscow, 1982.
As the Alpamysh bibliography demonstrates, approximately
one third of the items are Russian translations of one or
another variant. Most publication efforts, however, reflect
the dedication of several individual Central Asians, who
can be regarded as saviors of dastans.
26 H. B. Paksoy
Saviors of Dastans: Second and Third "Waves"
As Bolsheviks continued tsarist policies, the Central
Asians also continued their efforts to collect and publish
the dastans after the revolution. Attempts to collect the
dastan from bahshis and to publish were numerous in the
1920s and 1930s until the death of many reciters in the
purges. Mirzaev96 also notes new collection efforts
around the Ferghana Valley in 1956, after the so-called
"Trial of Alpamysh."
This second "wave of saviors", concentrated in Tashkent,
managed to publish the dastan at least three times between
the Revolution and the demise of the Turkistan Republic in
1924. Slightly more information is available on this group,
by virtue of the individuals' affiliation with Narodnyi
kommissariat prosveshcheniia (the People's Commisariat of
Education) -- Narkompros and the Kazakh-Kirghiz Bilim
Kamiyasi (roughly: Society of Kazakh-Kirghiz Scholarship).
It is because of this history that information is available
on Divay, Yusufbek and Gazi Alim.97 Other individuals
are
likely to come light in the course of further research.
Available information on Divay's career indicates that he
continued his efforts to record and preserve elements of
Turkic culture after the revolution as before. In 1918,
Divay offered courses in Kazakh ethnography and language at
the Central Asian University and at the Turkistan Oriental
Institute, where he held the chair of Kirghiz ethnography
and language. He was first an "independent instructor" and
later a professor. He organized a major expedition to
Semirechie in spring 1922 as a member of the Kirghiz
Scholarly Commission of Narkompros of the Turkrespublika
(Turkistan Republic). During the following year, Divay is
reported to have gathered, described and systematized
approximately eight thousand pages of notes from this
expedition.98
As before, Divay's findings were published in the various
scholarly and popular journals in Russian and the native
language during 1922. He also participated at this time in
the special commission for the elimination of the kalym
("bride price") and for the "reform of the study of native
languages."99 A second jubilee for Divay was
celebrated in 1923. Divay's Soviet biographers are
silent on the ensuing years of his life and note only
that he died ten years later.
Much has been written and said about Divay by his
contemporaries. A few items are revealing. In an issue of
Zhivaia Starina, V. A. Gordlevskii, noted one of Divay's
"praiseworthy tendencies," "to extract articles from
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 27
Turkestanskaia vedomost' and republish them, thus saving
them from oblivion."100 This "praiseworthy
tendency" would explain the multiple printings of
Alpamysh and, apparently, the goal behind them.
Zeki Velidi Togan wrote about a visit to Divay's Tashkent
home in 1913. Zeki Velidi had read Ismail Gasprali's Rusya
Muslumanlari, which he had found in Divay's personal
library. In a conversation with Divay (Togan refers to him
as "Miralay" [colonel] and "Divay Agha"), Togan criticized
Gasprali's "timidity." Divay responded:
"During those times our thoughts were somewhat
different. In addition, if this language had not
been used, that book would not have cleared the
censors. Political repression in Russia in those
days was much more stringent. In those hours of
our need, works such as this gave us some
relief."101
Detailed information on the dastans and on Divay himself is
to be found in the Kazakh Academy of Science's Kazakhskaia
narodnaia poeziia.102 The first chapter was
presumably written by one or more members of the
editorial committee which produced this work -- N. S.
Smirnova, M. G. Gumarova, M. S. Sil'chenko and T. S.
Sydykov. The chapter describes Divay's method of
collecting materials. Divay often sought out those
among the Kazakh populations who owned
manuscripts of traditional oral works. Often the bahshis
themselves had manuscripts of dastans. These manuscripts he
collected or, when unable to acquire them, had them copied.
"Divaev made a request of the responsible persons
of the Turkestan krai to copy manuscripts for
him. In this way in June 1896 he received a
manuscript of the epic Alpamysh. The manuscript
itself is reported to be in the Manuscript Fond
of the Library of the Academy of Sciences of the
Kazak SSR, 'Materialy A. A. Divaeva, folder
1162.'"103
A piece by Sydykov in the same volume gives the details of
the collection in 1896:
"In this same year 1896 Divaev received a
manuscript of the Karakalpak of the Turtkul
volost' of the Amu-Darya otdel of the Syr-Darya
oblast' Dzhiemurat Bekmukhamedov [sic], a
professional bahshi. The manuscript was prepared
for publication by Divaev in November 1897. It
was published on the pages of Sbornik materialov
28 H. B. Paksoy
dlia statistiki Syr-Dar'inskoi oblasti in
1902."104
Sydykov also noted that Divay had already known about
Alpamysh and first mentioned the work in an article
published in 1896 in Zapiski Vostochnogo otdeleniia
Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva, 1896, v. XI, no.
III-IV, p. 292.
Another major savior of dastans was Gazi Alim. He published
a version of Alpamysh in 1923 (Item 15 in Bibliography).
Togan tells of Gazi Alim's collections in the 1910s and
1920s both in the vicinity of Tashkent during the short
life of the Turkistan Republic (1918-1924) and from Fazil
Yoldashoglu in the environs of Samarkand in 1928.105
The collection process did not always proceed smoothly. In
compiling his 1923 Alpamysh, Gazi Alim, then a member of
the Bilim Kamisiya, reportedly collected one variant from
Yoldashoglu and another variant from reciter Hamrakul
Bahshi. According to Mirzaev, the 1923 printing was
"spliced" from recitations of the two ozans. Mirzaev
further states that this very manuscript was subsequently
"lost" and the dastan had to be collected again later in
the decade.106
In his introduction to the 1923 printing (Item 15), Gazi
Alim describes the importance of the dastan and thus
suggests his motives in wanting to save this dastan:
"The dastan occupies the most important place in
the people's literature. The dastan is a literary
genre encompassing all the particulars of the
tribal life in the most lucid manner.
"If we do not know the Turk-Ozbeg [original
spelling] dastans, we will not become familiar
with the struggles of the Turk tribes, the
reasons underlying their politico-economic
endeavors, their methods and rules of warfare,
the characters and the social places of their
heroes in their societies; in short, the details
of their past. National dastans contain the
styles and customs of local akins, which is a
fundamental characteristic of the dastans. The
Turkish land is rich in dastans. All Turk tribes
have their own dastans: the Kipaks have their
Koblandi Batir; the Nogays, Idige Batir; the
Kungrats, Alpamis Batir; the Naymans, Shora
Batir; the Kirgiz, Manas Batir.
"In addition, there are many others in the Altay
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 29
mountains, the Turkistan steppes and the Idil
[Volga] shores that are repeated by the
Turk-Ozbeg akins, but are not yet written down.
"Our awakening period is just beginning, and our
national literature will undoubtedly serve an
important purpose within this context. This
rebirth of our own native literature will become
even more powerful, if it can be saved from the
false classicism of aghatay, which in turn is
influenced by and has taken its form and spirit
from Persian. Consequently, our new literature
must be based on the power and the purity of our
people's soul."
In the 1930s it appears there was another group working to
further the efforts of their predecessors. Within this
group Hamid Alimjan, then head of the Uzbek Writers' Union,
is most visible.
The 1939 compilation of Alpamysh is not available in the
Western world. Even in the libraries of the USSR, it is
exceedingly difficult to see a copy of this printing. The
volume begins with an extraordinary introduction, more
fiery than the one by Gazi Alim. In the copy which was
available to this author for one thirty-minute session,
pages 8 through 25 were missing from the introduction. They
had been removed. In these missing pages Alimjan apparently
describes the reasons why he believes that this dastan is
important and must be kept alive.
Passages below are extracted and translated from the
introduction written by Hamid Alimjan to the 1939 printing
of Alpamysh as taken down from Fazil Yoldashoglu (Item 20
in Bibliography).
The Kungrat tribe of the Uzbeks are seeking refuge with the
Kalmak ruler. Alimjan uses the spelling Ozbeg, (rather than
Uzbek); this form is probably to be related to the popular
etymology: Ozum Bek, "my essence is princely." The text,
which is reproduced below, is in Latin orthography and all
spellings are as in the original.
"Kungrat Aksakallar Qalmakga qarab bir soz eb
turgan ekan:
Aja sahim sizga ajtar arzim bar,
Almadajin solgan guldaj tarzim bar,
Turkistandan bizlar kaib kelibdi
Bu bajlardan sahim baldin bexabar
Abla menin aqli husim alibdi
Sum falak basima savda salibdi
30 H. B. Paksoy
Bizning elga qattik talan qilibdi
Davlatini kordim cuda qalibdi(r)
Aslin bilsan Turkistandan kelibdi
Ekinmin barni nabud kilibdi
Uqur edin qanatindan qagrildin
Jugruk bolsan tujaqidan tajrildin
Biz avqatdan, sen sursatdan tajrildin
Xazan bolib baqda gullar soladi
"The Kungrat whitebeards introduce themselves to
the Kalmaks:
My lord, allow me respectfully to declare
I appear like a wilted rose, discarded (because
of our ordeal)
We have escaped from Turkistan
My lord, you are unaware of those gardens (of our
homeland)
The disgrace has taken away my senses
The heavens have burdened me with this shame
And severely devastated our lands
I have seen it prosperous; now it is gone
As for our origins, we come from Turkistan
Our cultivated fields have been destroyed
I used to fly, but now I am bereft of my wings
When we left, we had to part from our belongings
We have been prevented from worship and the
revenues (of our holdings)
Autumn has come; roses have wilted in the
garden."
"Alpamis is a dastan shared among the Ozbeg,
Karakalpak, Kazak and one of the oldest such
lineages, the Kungrats, describing their way of
life. Alpamis has entered into the literatures of
these native Central Asian peoples. Ozbegs,
Kazaks, Kirghiz, Turkmens and Karakalpaks have
read and cherished Alpamis as their own.
"These people have regarded Alpamis as a part of
their own history, and rightly so. All of the
best akins of the Ozbegs knew Alpamis. Among
these poets, lack of knowledge of Alpamis was
considered a shame. Therefore all poets began
their recitations with Alpamis.
"The original contains 15,000 lines of verse.
Poet Yoldashoglu of the Jani Mihnat (New Labor)
Kolkhoz, located in the Bulungur oblast of
Samarkand, is considered as the most
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 31
authoritative of its reciters.
"Alpamis is one of the oldest dastans of the
Ozbeg people. Among the Ozbeg folklorists, there
are those who consider Alpamis to be at least a
thousand years old. These claims are, of course,
not without foundation".
The fourth wave of Central Asian intellectuals concerned
with the fate of Alpamysh and the Turkic dastan genre in
general is just beginning to emerge. The challenge they
face shall be the focus of Chapter Four. In biological
terms, the members of this group are actually the third
generation and a virtual intellectual replacement of the
independence minded "nationalists" who were physically
liquidated by the Stalinist measures of the 1920s and
1930s. It is from the point of view of intellectual
heritage that they constitute the fourth group. Each and
every one of these writers, mostly born since World War II,
chose to utilize the dastans in placing their historical
fiction onto paper. They liberally incorporate motifs from
a variety of dastans into their works.107
The theme of their efforts is perhaps expressed by this
1982 poem, signed "Shakir Jumaniyaz" from the Uzbek journal
Muhbir:
"Give me a chance, my rebellious dreams
My father has erected his statue in my memory
May years and winds be rendered powerless
May his legacy not be erased from my conscience.
"Give me a chance, my rebellious dreams
Grant my father a Holy dastan
May years and winds be rendered powerless
May his memory never be allowed to fade."108
32 H. B. Paksoy
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO
1. On Russian expansion from the 16th to 20th centuries,
one may begin with Caroe (Cited in Chapter One); Alexandre
A. Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, Islam in
the Soviet Union (G.Wheeler, trans) (London, 1964). On
the late 18th-19th century expansions, see works of
Ingram cited in Chapter One. Also see Muriel Atkin
Russian and Iran, 1780-1828 (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1980) as well as Firuz Kazemzadeh's
classic study of Russian and Britain in Persia,
1864-1914 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968) on
expansion into the Caucasus. The Gorchakov Memorandum
(issued by Foreign Minister Gorchakov in 1864 as
an instruction to Russian embassies in the West
concerning the government's grounds for its conquest of
Central Asia) establishes Russia's "civilizing mission"
in Asia as one justification for the expansion. The
1892 Anglo-Russian treaty also established Afghanistan as
an official buffer state between the Russian Empire and
British India. On the history of Oriental Institutes
and their role in this expansion, See Richard N. Frye's
"Oriental Studies in Russia," in Wayne Vucinich, Editor,
Russia and Asia (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press,
1972).
2. The first Governor General of the krai was General
Kaufman who held the post from 1867 to 1882. The
conquest is discussed in several monographs including of
course Caroe; Geoffrey Wheeler, History of Modern Central
Asia (New York, London: Praeger, 1964). For a description
of administrative arrangements as well as greater focus
on the khanates of Bukhara and Khiva, see Seymour Becker,
Russia's Protectorates in Central Asia; Bukhara and
Khiva, 1865-1924 (Cambridge, MA: the Harvard Russian
Research Center Series, No. 54, Harvard University Press,
1968).
3. I. T. Kreindler, "Education Policies Toward the
Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia: A Study of
Il'minskii's System," unpublished doctoral dissertation,
Columbia University, 1970.
4. On Il'minskii, see Kreindler, "Ibrahim Altynsarin,
Nikolai Il'minskii and the Kazakh National Awakening,"
CAS V. 2, N. 31983. On Ostroumov, see Togan, Turkistan,
503 and Frye, "Oriental Studies in Russia," 43.
5. Togan, Turkistan, 503 discusses Ostroumov.
6. N. A. Baskakov makes this argument regarding smaller
Turkic populations such as the Altai, Khakass, and Tuva,
but even the Yakut, Chuvash, Karakalpak and the numerous
Kirghiz are stated to have languages that are "either
unwritten or written primitively." See Wurm's
translation in The Turkic Languages of Central Asia, 1-2.
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 33
The same view is expressed in A. N. Kononov, Turkic
Philology: 50 Years of Soviet Oriental Studies (Moscow,
1967) in English translation, 7. The view has even
crept into Western textbooks such as Dmytryshyn, cited in
Chapter One.
7. For a glimpse of such Tsarist reprisals, see A. N.
Kurat, Muhammed Ayaz Ishaki: Hayati ve Faaliyeti (Ankara,
1979).
8. Togan, Turkistan, 492-3.
9. Ahmed Midhat (1844-1912) was a popular
novelist and newspaperman active during the reign of
Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II. See Stanford J. Shaw,
History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol
2, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1977), p. 255.
10. Togan cites here W. W. Radloff, Proben der
Volkliteratur der Turkischen Stamme, III, Introduction.
11. This material was compiled from various sources.
See the articles published in Kazakhskaia narodnaia
poeziia, (Izobraztsov, sobrannykh i zapisannykh A. A.
Divaevym) (Alma-Ata,1964). esp. Ch 1 and the article by
Zarif.
12. The term used in the original Russian is
uchastkovyi nadziratel' which literally means "inspector
of an uchastok," a police district.
13. More details on his travels and informants are
given in Kazakhskaia narodnaia poeziia, 14.
14. N. C. Smirnova inserted the term "Kazakh" as
explanatory material after the reference in the original
title to Kirghiz. Kazakhskaia narodnaia poeziia, 8.
Discussion of terms Kazakh and Kirghiz taken up shortly in
this Chapter.
15. Smirnova, ibid, cites here Grodekov's monograph
Kirgizy i karakirgizy Syr-Dar'inskoi oblasti, vol.I,
Tashkent, 1889, p. v.
16. A note in the Russian text refers to Grodekov, ibid.
17. Reviews by W. Bartold, N. F. Katanov (who criticized
Divay for using the Cyrillic alphabet for
transliteration) and othersare reproduced in Kazakhskaia
narodnaia poeziia.
18. Kazakhskaia narodnaia poeziia, 9.
19. This work, under the general editorship of V. I.
Mezhov, comprised several hundred volumes. Divay
apparently contributed to volumes 566-569. See Kazakhskaia
narodnaia poeziia, 9-10, Note 7.
34 H. B. Paksoy
20. This process is well documented by Lowell Tillett's The
Great Friendship. He pays particular attention to the
Kazakhs. Also useful in connection with this policy are
those works on language policy cited below.
21. This and other changes are discussed in detail by Olaf
Caroe, The Soviet Empire (cited in Note 1, this Chapter)
and in C. W.Hostler Turkism and the Soviets.
22. For the definition of Kazakh, see Togan, Turkistan, 37,
38. For the political use of the term Kirghiz, see A.
T. Hatto, "Kirghiz" in Traditions of Heroic and Epic
Poetry A. T. Hatto (Ed.) (London, 1980), P. 300.
23. Many sources exist on this topic - Edward Allworth,
Uzbek Literary Politics (The Hague, 1964); Michael Bruchis,
"The Effect of the USSR's Language Policy on the National
Languages of Its Turkic People," in Yaacov Ro'i, ed, The
USSR and the Muslim World (London, 1984); Olaf Caroe;
Wheeler; Stefan Wurm, Turkic Peoples of the USSR: Their
Historical Background, Their Languages and the Development
of Soviet Linguistic policy (Central Asian Research
Centre in association with St. Antony's College) (Oxford,
1954); idem, The Turkic Languages of Central Asia:
Problems of Planned Culture Contact (Central Asian
Research Centre in association with St. Antony's College)
(Oxford, 1954).
24. Wurm, The Turkic Languages of Central Asia, 30-48.
Togan discusses further problems, Turkistan, 486-513. Also
see Bruchis, Note 23, this Chapter.
25. See Azarbayjan Dilinin Izahly Lughati (Baku, 1980);
Kazakh Tilining Tusindirme Sozdigi (Alma-Ata, 1961);
Tatar Teleneng Ahglatmatly Suzlege (Kazan 1977); Uzbek
Tilining Izokhli Lughati (Moscow, 1981).
26. A. Bennigsen, "The Crisis of the Turkic National
Epics,1951-1952: Local Nationalism or Internationalism?,"
Canadian Slavonic Papers, V. XVII, No. 2&3, 1975.
27. Tura Mirzaev, Alpomish Dostonining Uzbek
Variantlari (Tashkent, 1968), 9-13.
28. Bennigsen, 465.
29. Anthology of Uzbek Poetry (Moscow, 1949), cited
without page number in Bennigsen, 467.
30. BSE (Moscow, 1950), cited in ibid.
31. Preface to the Russian translation (Moscow, 1949),
cited in ibid.
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 35
32. "Concerning the Poem Alpamysh," Literaturnaia
Gazeta, 14 September, 1952, cited in ibid, 468.
33. Pravda Vostoka, Tashkent, 24 February, 1952, cited in
ibid.
34. Pravda Vostoka, Tashkent, 28 February, 1952, cited in
ibid.
35. Pravda Vostoka, Tashkent, 3 April, 1952, cited in
ibid. The charge is self contradictory since, by
definition, a "pan" movement must be broader than
nationalism.
36. "Ob epose 'Alpamysh'," in Pravda Vostoka, 29 January
1952.
37. "Obsuzhdenie eposa 'Alpamysh' i vopros
uzbekskoi fol'kloristiki," in Pravda Vostoka, 3 April 1952.
38. Ibid.
39. "Alpomish dostonining mukhokamasi," in Shark Yilduzi,
vol. 5 (Tashkent) 1952, cited in Mirzaev, 14. Details
are given in Pravda Vostoka, 29 January; 24, 27, 28
February and 3 April 1952. Although the word
"mukhokama" can also mean "judgement" or "discernment,"
in this context it is best understood as "the hearing
of a case in court; trial" and therefore has been here
rendered as "trial."
40. "Obsuzhdenie," cited in note 48.
41. Vsesoiuznoe soveshchanie po voprosam izucheniia narodov
SSSR, Khronika in Izvestiia AN SSSR, Institut
literatury i iazyki,1954, vol. XIII, No. 5, cited in
Mirzaev, 15.
42. Mirzaev, 15.
43. N. Shukurov, S. Mirzaev, KH. Donierov, "'Alpamysh'
dostoni hakkida," in Shark Yilduzi (Tashkent) 1956, vol.
2, cited in Mirzaev, 16.
44. Tezisy dokladov i soobshchenii regional'nogo
soveshchaniia po eposu 'Alpamysh' (Tashkent, 1956),
published by AN UzSSR. Also cited in Mirzaev, 17.
45. Tezisy. Also cited in Mirzaev, 17.
46. Borovkov, "Geroicheskaia poema ob Alpamyshe," in
Tezisy, 61-86, cited in Mirzaev, 17-18.
47. Kh. Zarifov, "'Alpomish' eposining asosii
motivlari," in Shark Yilduzi No.1, 1957 (Tashkent), cited
in Mirzaev, 16.
36 H. B. Paksoy
48. Mirzaev, 14. Also see "Ob epose 'Alpamysh',"
(Excerpts reprinted in Literaturnaia Gazeta, 12 February
1952); and also by Abdunabiev and Stepanov, "Pod flagom
narodnosti," in Zvezda Vostoka, (Tashkent) 1952, No. 4.
49. Richard Frye, "Oriental Studies in Russia."
50. Wayne Vucinich, "Structure of Soviet
Orientology," in Vucinich, Russia and Asia.
51. Iz istorii sovetskogo vostokovedeniia by N. A.
Kuznetsovaand L. M. Kulagina (Moscow, 1970) (Publication
of the Academy ofSciences of the USSR, Oriental
Institute), 12. (Henceforth: Izistorii). Also cited in
Vucinich, 56.
52. Vucinich, 52. On the development of Lenin's interest
in the revolutionary potential of the colonial world, see
Richard Pipes, Formation of the Soviet Union;
Communism and Nationalism, 1917-1923 (Cambridge (Ma),
1957); and I. T. Kreindler, "A Neglected Source of
Lenin's Nationality Policy," in Slavic Review (March 1977).
On the Baku Congress, see Alexandre Bennigsen and S. E.
Wimbush, Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union
(Chicago, 1980); Stephen White, "The Baku Congress of the
Toilers of the East," Slavic Review, September, 1967.
53. Novyi Vostok, N. 4 (1925), 503-504. cited in Vucinich,
56-7.
54. Iz istorii, 27-28. (Also cited in Vucinich, 59).
55. Mirzaev, 8. Cites the resolution in Uzbek "Partiyanin
badii adabiyat sahesindeki siyaseti." The resolution was
originally in Russian.
56. B. Dmytryshyn, A History of Russia, (Englewood
Cliffs: New Jersey, 1977), 516, discusses this cultural
policy.
57. Vucinich, 55.
58. Vucinich, 56.
59. Iz istorii, 136, citing "Perspektivnyi plan raboty
Instituta vostokovedeniia AN SSSR v blizhaishchee
piatiletie," in Kratkie soobshcheniia Instituta
vostokovedeniia AN SSSR, vol. 1, 1951,3-16.
60. Iz istorii, Chapter II, and Vucinich, 56.
61. Vucinich, 60, citing Iz istorii, 72, 73.
62. Iz istorii, 73-75.
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 37
63. Iz istorii, 75.
64. See D. Montgomery, "Career Patterns of Sixteen
Uzbek Writers," presented to the Second Central Asian
Conference, held in Madison, Wisconsin, October 1985.
65. G. A. Kniazev and A. V. Kol'tsov, Kratkii ocherk
istorii Akademii nauk SSSR (Moscow-Leningrad, 1957),
122, cited in Vucinich, 66.
66. Vucinich, 67.
67. Vucinich, note 72 cites a report on this congress
publishedin Izvestiia AN SSSR, Otdeleniia literatury i
iazyka, no. 4 (1944), 177-81.
68. Vucinich, 69.
69. Vucinich, 70, note 70 citing I. Amusin, "Sektor
drevnego iranne-srednevekovogo IVAN {Institut
vostokovedeniia akademiinauk}," in Vestnik drevnei istorii
(VDI), no. 2, 1948, 164-167.
70. Iz istorii, 134-135, citing document.
71. Vestnik AN SSSR (Hereafter: Vestnik), 1950, No. 9,
86-87.
72. Iz istorii, 135, citing "Otchet Instituta
vostokovedeniia ANSSSR za 1950 g.," (Henceforth:
"Otchet...za (year)").
73. Vucinich, 74, notes 91-93, citing Voprosy istorii,
no. 9(1954) and no. 3 (1957); Iz Istorii, 141-142; and
Vestnik no. 4(1953).
74. Vucinich, note 94 for other details.
75. Vucinich, 75, notes 96-97, citing Bol'shevik, no. 13
(1952) and Voprosy istorii, no. 11 (1952).
76. Iz istorii, 141-142, citing "O nauchnoi
deiatel'nosti isostoianii kadrov Instituta
vostokovedeniia," in Vestnik, no. 4, 77.
77. Vucinich, 76, states these changes were made in 1955.
In Izistorii, 143, the authors are ambiguous, but suggest
the changeswere made around 1953.
78. Iz istorii, 143, citing "Otchet...za 1952 g.,"
ArkhivInstituta narodov Azii AN SSSR (henceforth:
Arkhiv); and "Postanovlenie Prezidiuma AN SSSR ot 13
Fevralia 1953 g.,"Arkhiv.
79. Iz istorii, 135, citing "Otchet...za 1950 g.," Arkhiv.
38 H. B. Paksoy
80. Plan reproduced in Iz istorii, 142.
81. Vucinich, 72.
82. Iz istorii, 146, citing "Otchet...za 1955 g.," Arkhiv.
83. Iz istorii, 148, citing P.P. Bushev, "O rabote
Instituta vostokovedeniia Akademiia nauk SSSR," in Voprosy
istorii, 1954, no. 9.
84. Iz istorii, 151 citing V. V. Struve and M. A.
Korostobtsev, "100-letie so dnia rozhdeniia V. C.
Golenishcheva," in Vestnik,1957, no.2.
85. Iz istorii, 152-153 citing "O zadachakh i strukture
Instituta vostokovedeniia AN SSSR," in Vestnik, 1956, no.1.
86. Iz istorii, 154.
87. Iz istorii, 157, citing P. A. Brovtsinov,
"Plannauchno-issledovatel'skikh rabot Instituta
vostokovedeniia ANSSSR na 1959-1965 gg.," in Voprosy
istorii, 1959, no.11; (no author) "Plan
nauchno-issledovatel'skikh rabot
Institutavostokovedeniia AN SSSR," in Problemy
vostokovedeniia, 1960,no.1.
88. Iz istorii, 158.
89. Bennigsen, 472-474.
90. Mirzaev, Uzbek variantlari, 161-169.
91. Mirzaev, Alpomish (Tashkent, 1969), 108-110.
92. Skazanie, 36, 40-41.
93. Kazak Halkynyn Batyrlyk Jyry (Alma-Ata, 1972), 77, 80,
97.
94. The Tajik variant I discovered is a translation,
published by Akademiyai Fanhoi RCC Tojikistan, Instituti
Zabon va Adabiyat banomi Rudaki: Alpomis (Stalinabad,
1959).
95. A project has been discussed during 1982 to create a
German translation with the cooperation of East German
institutions and Uzbek scholars.
96. Mirzaev, Uzbek variantlari, 17-20.
97. See Togan, Turkistan, 504, 513, 516, 520.
98. Kazakh halkynyn Batyrlyk Jyry, 11.
ALPAMYSH: Chapter Two 39
99. Kazakh Halkynyn Batyrlyk Jyry, 11.
100. "A. A. Divaev; k 25-letuiu nauchnoi
deiatel'nosti, "published in Zhivaia Starina, 1916, no.
3, 37-38, reprinted in Kazakhskaia narodnaia poeziia,
173-4.
101. Togan, Turkistan, 556. Togan was 23 at the time
of this visit.
102. Full citation in Note 11, this Chapter.
103. Ghabdullin and Sydykov, 15, Note 18.
104. From a reprinted presentation by Sydykov before the
Academy commemorating the 100th anniversary of Divay's
birth in 1855 (reproduced pp. 181-185). Note cites this
as vol. X, pp. 3-40. Only in this work is that volume
of the Sbornik cited as 1902 rather than 1901.
However, since the separately published Alpamysh is
dated 1901, it can only be an offprint from a 1901
publication.
105. Togan, Turkistan, 493, 513.
106. Mirzaev, Uzbek variantlari, 7, 8. Mirzaev examined
both 1928 manuscript and the 1923 printed version in Bilim
Ocagi.
107. See H. B. Paksoy, "New Dastans," cited in Chapter One.
Muhbir, Uzbekistan Kompartiyasi Markazii Komitetining
Nasriyati, November, 1982.