In the wake of Mustafa Shokay

There are two editions of the telenovel “Mustafa Shokay”. The last was published in 2015. And according to the first one was shot the film with the same name with the duration almost two and a half hours.

Mustafa Shokay was the Kazakh public figure, publicist, scholar and, leader of the Common Turkestan and Prime-minister of the Kokand Government. Lived in late 19^th and early 20^th century.

The content of any film does not always correspond to the content of the book. To show that and present the similarities and differences we decided to take the film “Mustafa Shokay” by the film director Satybaldy Narynbetov and the script writer Yermek Tursunov and the telenovela with the same name.

In fact, the book describes events and characters more in detail. The reader can imagine the picture in colors. But the book has got some minuses: it has no actions, no real sounds and effects. The Hollywood films are quite good in representing actions and special effects.

The two-part film “Mustafa Shokay” is more or less close to the tele-novel. The viewer can see the real conversations, acts with the mixture of the old records from the life of the legendary leader of the nationalists Mustafa Shokay.

In the film there were not some of the acts.

For instance, it was the episode when Mustafa Shokay and Maria Gorina were going home after successful performance of Maria in Tiflis, Georgia. In the book it is written that the man who flew at Mustafa with the knife was Akhmat aka (servant at Maria Gorina’s), but in the film the identification of that man was not shown.

Also, in the book Mustafa went out from the hospital and headed for the neighboring cathedral where was a number of coffins, various ones depending on the status and age of the dead person.

In the book it is written that at the departure to Istanbul the passengers from the lower deck (among them were Mustafa and Maria) had to go through the medical processing by the streams of the chlorinated water and liquid soap. But there was no such episode in the film.

Next, in the film when lying on the bed Mustafa Shokay took the green apple and died, apple fell on the floor. In the book there was no apples.

To add, in the film was not exact sequence of the extracts given in the book.

However, the most of the conversations in the film were represented word for word from the telenovel. Thus, it becomes easier to follow the thread in the book.

It is possible to see the film first, or vice versa to read the telenovel. It does not matter much. But it must be taken into consideration that the book gives fuller picture and the film plunges the spectator into the real-like life of that period.

The film and telenovel beside the word-for-word dialogues have got also one thing in common. They present the events from main character’s life concerning years and places. So, the picture seems motional and versatile.

Still, there are some riddles and secrets around that powerful and ambiguous person. For instance, they say that he worked together with the leaders of the movement of Alash Orda till the end of his life. But there are no exact data and proofs. Perhaps, in the future there will be one more film about Mustafa Shokay with the additional episodes and facts. Who knows?