CHAPTER 1

THE POINT OF LIVING

As I was walking along the street today, I thought about what was the most important thing in my life. I was in the prime of life, and I did not seem to lack anything, but as I walked on, I could feel a lacuna inside me. “Time is passing faster and faster with each day – days, weeks, months, years, - I sometimes lack time to realize what has happened and why.  "Sometimes the years seem the same to me, and I remember nothing specific about certain events, that is, in what year, when exactly it took place, or I think of a date, but it is so much like the others that I get confused and cannot remember the reason why it is famous. If things are so similar that they blend in time into a gray mass, what is the point of my living?" I torture myself with this thought. I was haunted by the thoughts of my worthlessness and uselessness. I regretted not having my dear father to understand the whole thing to me. All of a sudden, Father spoke to me in his painfully familiar soft and gentle voice. 

ILYAS: My dear son Kozyzhan! Do not be upset; there are always rough and trying days in our life, but never say die, for life is so wonderful and beautiful; God created us to be happy, he undoubtedly wanted us to live a happy life. It is surely our life that causes all sadness and joy. It can be hard and trying, but in the end it is as beautiful as everything created by God. 

KOZYKORPESH: Father, but why do many people today spend their life in sadness and sorrow instead of joy? Why are most of people on earth unhappy?

ILYAS: I think you are right, dear son; many people have no joy in their heart nowadays; most people have financial problems to fill their hearts, and they cannot celebrate life. Life seems to be merely worrying about one’s daily bread, though many of them do not really lack anything, but their demand always increases, and there is not contentment and gratitude to God for the beautiful gift of life in their hearts. God gave every person an opportunity to love and explore the world, but in most cases, people never use the beautiful God-given gift of love of life.  Many people live long lives, but they hardly ever know a lot. However, the eternal longing for knowledge is the principal mystery of human life.  Just imagine a person who is dying. His dearest and nearest gather around him.  The man is about to draw his last breath, but his eyes are still shining – he craves knowledge. What does it matter that he has spent his life in suffering, labor, or endless fuss?  Even dying, one loves life. To love life is to love it always, in joy and sorrow, and never lose the gift of loving, it must be the main requirement to meet to be happy forever. There are few people in the world who can keep the feeling of love throughout their lives. They get old and weak, but their hearts scarred by heart attacks are still full of love. The people remind me those who guard precious treasures. Because I think there is no treasure more precious than love.  The wonderful people in whose hearts there always is love are very few, but they are the only ones who stay truly happy in spite of their trouble. We should learn to love life and enjoy it in spite of problems, worries, and grief, which come so often to our life. The second requirement, which is also quite important, is a life purpose. Every person should have a beautiful purpose to strive for; one has to have a clear idea of the point of one’s living. Laws of natures are both simple and complicated. The man is just a part of nature. Intellectual reeds. The objective of the man, or to be more accurate his brain is to live in concord with his entire environment.  Mountains and valleys, animals and birds. If you look in the matter closely, the future for which one longs and works should be as harmonious as this ground, alive and cool.

KOZYKORPESH: Dad, you are giving me wise advice as always. You had a wonderful life, which was hard and trying, but due to your ability to love – love God, people, and the earth – and have a purpose in life, which was undoubtedly your creative works, you lived it happily. But in spite of your ability to love life, I do remember how many things you hated about our life.

CHAPTER 2 

LOVE AND HATRED

ILYAS: Certainly you are right, my dear, to say that it is impossible to live a happy life and love all around you; I surely hated much about the world, I hated everything which was evil and interfered with or living.  Thinking of my life, I only remember the good things, trying to always overcome whatever is bad and evil about my life and to do the necessary thing which I consider to be the most important for my people. Every age has delights specific to it. Life is eager to reveal its secrets to the pushy and brazen youth. The young man is called to do heroic deeds by his ambition to say what has never been said before.  In the age of maturity, one is happy to realize that a life dedicated to honest work for the sake of people, for the sake of his children is behind him. The happiness of your children becomes your happiness, the grief of your children becomes your grief, and nobody is happier to be old than one who has given reliable wings, clear reason, and a hot heart to his son! That is the basic value of the life lived. But there is another way to measure happiness, one’s clear conscience and honor not blurred by treachery or deception.  One just has to hate whatever evil he one comes across, lies, treachery, greediness, and jealousy. How often people are unable to truly resist evil. Instead of finding something good about a person, we start looking for bad features, which we definitely find, because nobody is perfect. One whose mind and heart are capable of understanding other people, one who can see and fathom many things is truly happy. A generous soul and a rich mind make one wealthier, more high-minded, and more beautiful. Certainly, one who creates a tiny world of his own the size of one’s fist, to live in and admire, is pathetic. One’s own glory, selfish interests, and career are the idols worshipped by the miserable one.  He cannot accept the fact that God does not give a talent and a calling to everyone, that the features cannot be bought for any kinds of precious things. He is sick with black envy of talent; people of the kind often resort to minor attempts at stigmatization as well as gossip and slander to hurt the one they envy. Envy is an ancient problem characteristic of the Kazakh nation; the great Abay was extremely upset by the quality which simply ruins the man. Abay said that Kazakhs often deliberately provoke envy in each other by means of their wrongful deeds, which is in itself a violation of God’s law; the actions have nothing to do with common sense. Indeed, envy which enters our heart once will ruin our body and deprive us of reason. In tsarist times, officials who were aware of how wide-spread envy was among the Kazakhs never forgot about it and often used it selfishly. Like all children, they often seem to die of envy. Such people are a joy to marshal. If you want to punish a person, give him or her an award in public! You know, son, though I met more good people if my life, bad and envious people were always interfering with my work, and even though they failed to prevent me from writing books, they caused me a lot of trouble. They sometimes think that a large-scale and famous person does not care about envy and envier! That is not true! Gifted people are mostly more vulnerable than others but too proud to admit being hurt by biased judgment; they say that mice eventually appear in a room where an elephant lives, and the giant can finally collapse on its knees, unable to stand the fuss at its feet. Envy is the back side of success. What a pity it is that people cannot overcome their feelings!  Of course, good people, their attitude to me, their love and willingness to help played a major role in my life. When I was a child, my teachers told me the difference between the good and the evil and taught me to love and to hate. Of course, the ability to tell the good from the bad was largely innate, given by God as my conscience.  But life and people, good or bad, taught me a lot. I met all kinds of people in my life. We forget many of them. Some were honest, sincere, and noble. But only few of them remain in our memory forever. Such people seem to be made of gold. It is not because gold is precious but because it does not get tarnished for a long time. They saw happiness as constant serving to people. That was what they struggled for and what they lived for. Others seem to have their blood frozen. They are mean and jealous. But it was not that hard to fight the haters, for there is an antidote for each poison.  But if you meet a person whom it takes time to understand, it is far more dangerous, for such people are indifferent to what they witness, be it good or evil. They are cold and half-hearted, the most dangerous type of people. My son, you see different people, but it is the indifferent, who become all kinds of time servers must be the most dangerous ones for you too

KOZYKORPESH: Sure, Father! It is indifferent people and time servers of all kinds whom I dislike most of all. Anton Chekhov put it greatly speaking of indifference, “They say that philosophers and truly wise men are indifferent. That is not true, for indifferent is a spiritual paralysis, untimely death.” How true it is; it is the way it happens in the life of the indifferent; their souls are paralyzed, their hearts are silent when something bad happens in the world, and it is in fact his quiet consent with which all treachery, murders, and scheming take place. Of course you are right, Father; indifferent people are the most dangerous. 

CHAPTER 3 INDIFFERENCE

ILYAS: Being a scientist, Son, you must have seen many people. Not every person who enters the field of science becomes a good scientist. Not all new things live. Hurried discoveries often become obsolete on the next day. Science needs talent more than anything. True talent. Not just knowledge.  Not just science but fast flowing water. Struggling against the waves, not everyone can reach the opposite bank. Some go with the flow.  Science does not favor time servers. In science, the mediocre seek those who are similar to them. Gifted people are like death to them. They only need scientific cripples. The honest, industrious, brave, and intelligent have nothing to do with them. No, no, the mediocre seek ways to catch up with them and belie them. Even though the good outnumber the indifferent, the latter are more dangerous to those who want to live honestly. Nevertheless, there is no need to be afraid of them; instead, you can try and help them go straight. Of course, you remember the saying by Abay, “If I had the power, I would cut off the tongue of those who says that there is no reforming a person.” So try to help people become better. People will estimate you according to the measures and principles you adhere to; your descendants will judge you by the good and the harm you do. Human memory is short, and human gratitude is not long-lasting, but they weigh little on the scales of history. Nowadays, they are overweighed by bigger loads - success, money, career, and glory. But strangely, other scales, correct and accurate, exist, though they are meant not for contemporaries but for our descendants, whom we cannot even properly imagine now!

KOZYKORPESH: Father, I want to ask you about the work you performed tirelessly in the Writers’ Union of Kazakhstan. You did not become a writer accidentally; in your diary, I read the following, “I do not consider myself to be an old man yet, though 65 is quite a mature age. Nevertheless, I feel like I am a thousand year old deep inside. I have witnessed all kinds of events. As the saying goes, I have been through fire and water. My childhood and youth coincided with the notorious events of the 1920s and 1930s, when the entire nation experienced social disasters, poverty, and famine. To me the blow was even heavier, for I had lost both of my parents at an early age and was brought up at an orphanage.  In spite of all hardships, I became a writer. The challenges of life influenced my outlook and mental world. It is only after the ordeal that I enter the sphere of literature with awareness. With love and sincerity.  It was life what shaped my choice.” I guess your desire to be a writer was caused by what you witnessed when you were young. Father, you always set a high value to the title of a writer. This is what you said at a plenary meeting of the Writers’ Union of Kazakhstan,   «I can see the eyes of some of my eyes sparkling cheerfully, which means, “Oh, Yesenberlin, what a bootlicker you have turned into!” I think you forgot to say it, taking into account that you were forced to retire as soon as you turned sixty, you, a Patriotic War veteran, on the Victory Day, on the day of your triumph. Well, things happen! If a man is unlucky, he will be unlucky even on the Victory Day! By the way, it was not only some of you but also I who was happy to learn about my retirement. I was happy to have reached the bank successfully without drowning in a glass of water, which had happened to me before.

It is not the main thing. The main thing for the writer is creativity. Not the surname on the door of his study by that on the covers of his books. Sixty is not thirty, so each day should be cherished!

A writer is a great and proud world. When one of the ancient philosophers asked Alexander the Great, “Which of you is greater, you, my Emperor, of your teacher Aristotle?”  Alexander the Great answered, “I have conquered the world with phalanx of half a million soldiers, while Aristotle conquered the other half with a common goose quill and calf parchment.  It is up to you to decide.” It is evidence to the nobleness of the writer’s mission in this perishable world. You have the main instrument for your production – a pen and clean sheets of paper, so write, help people build a beautiful life. If you want and can do so, of course. I remember your trying to always make a stand for the high title of a writer, your constant struggle against tribalism, scheming, pseudowriters, and other harmful phenomena in the writers’ environment. Can you please tell me a little about the problem?

CHAPTER 4 

THE WRITER AND HIS CALLING

ILYAS: My son, you have touched upon my sore point. Though I tried to rectify the situation a lot, I failed to generally defeat the time serving writers’ trend, though I managed to help certain people and mitigate certain harmful phenomena. It is a well-known fact that there is no problem more complicated than to solve the inter-clan feud of Kazakhs.  It is shocking to know that the relic of the past is blatant among modern Kazakhstani writers. Of course, it is paradoxical that those whom God summoned to fight against the practice of clan discrimination are larglely captivated by the vice. Of course, it is awful to know that writers have not prevented the phenomenon. I fought against tribalism all the time. What made the problem so dangerous that the fact that is was beginning to influence writers’ works. Of course, it is sad that we are getting many lame works. Very sad. But it is not as sad as the possibility that poor works will presented as average, average as good, and good as genial. That would be a disaster. It brings about a real danger of a drop in the quality of literature for many years. But this is not the end. Certain works can be appraised in a wrong way because of the topicality of their subject or a question raised just in time. But the true disaster comes when friendship and collective relations interfere. Our people have given us everything but talent. They say talent comes from God, some have it and some do not. But what is the most difficult and important is that the talent you have should be used honestly and in a useful manner.  But more often people gather groups based on compatriotism or age around them to obtain a higher status, creating a fuss around their dull works.  Appraising works by such criteria, we do an ill favor to the author, who needs to progress. Sometimes it is even worse; the mediocre writer somehow thinks that he is a very important person in literature, so he makes a dead set at other writers who have no group, who possess nothing but talent.  

That is what we should not do. The cemetery of literature is big enough for us all. The problem seems to be impossible to solve, but I still hope that is will belong to the past someday, and people and society will fully recognize how perilous it is. 

I tried to struggle for the purity of our writers. How many time servers we have, even in the Writers’ Union. I remember saying the following when speaking of a writer at a meeting, “As idle stumpers usual do, he always makes his speeches rife with prejudice, or I would say he has a martinet style. He is happy and rubs his hands with delight if he manages to cover somebody with spittle. It is not too late, we still have time to send such people away to prevent them from dishonoring the sacred calling.” It refers to all pseudo writers. I think that the occupation of a writer is the most challenging one. You have nothing to hide behind. A commander has his army; a scientist has his laboratory and workers; an artist has his director and audience; we have nothing but a sheet of paper and a pen. That is the writer’s battlefield and his army. If you have the power, attach. If you truly have the creative power, you undertake attacks and win. You can conquer the entire world with a pen. Forever! Neither time nor distance will interfere. Indeed, the writer has enormous responsibility, but so are his opportunities. Guy de Maupassant put is in a nice way, “There is only one thing a writer can do – honestly watch the truth of life and depict it truthfully; the rest is vain attempts of old hypocrites.” It is very important for a true writer to write about the truth, without making things up, by merely depicting the reality. It is the very essence of a writer’s personality. What he has seen, what he knows about life and people, what he keeps in his memory, and what civil and moral attitudes he has define his creative ways. A true writer just cannot but write. Write in strict accordance with his ideas. He can write a single book, even a dull one, even a mediocre one, but the kind of book no one but he can write. A real writer is always unique.  Nobody can be like him. To be unique is the main thing. Literature is art. In art, the straight flow method is unacceptable; it requires individuality and uniqueness. It is like handwriting, which is unmistakable and unforgeable.  It is very important for a writer to create a book which could be a moral paragon not only for him but also for all people.  Reading a book like that, one could become better and purer. Onore de Balzac once commented upon it, “To improve the morals of one’s time is the purpose each writer needs to aspire to unless he wants to be merely a “public amuser.” 

I would like to give the following recommendations to those who would like to become a writer now, “To become a true writer, you should be able to be superior to yourself. I believe in you. But bear it in your mind that only a courageous person can make his or her dreams come true. It is not as easy as mounting a horse. Being talented and hard-working is not enough to be a writer. You need to find an innermost issue of your own, which you should know completely, which should belong to you. A writer by assertion can write a lot and even have his books published.  But if he fails to sense, to hunt out the issue which belongs to him exclusively, he will never be a true writer. 

A true writer is affected by other people’s pain, especially if it is shared by a nation, more than other people. You should understand the main things – to be affected more is not the same as to have a more profound understanding. There are people who do not like yeasty words and who find words inefficient when it comes to a serious matter. The people are prepared to sacrifice whatever they have – wealth, status, and finally their life if that is necessary. Those who do not love other nations have never truly loved their own ones. Those who love their nations cannot but love others, for the concept of love for one’s nation is a private case of general love for mankind and the human being. That is why the sentiment cannot be felt by nationalist, no matter how much they brag about it. Their love is ostentatious; they try to hide their hatred and indifference to everything which is not the way they are. The main thing about the writer’s life is his nation. If the writer’s nation does not need him, nobody needs him. Even his self.

Novels, novelettes, and poems – each work by a true artist are born in a surge of inspiration. Before the sacred fire incinerates the writer’s heart, he carries his project in his mind for many years before it is complete. Time shapes its reader, who is the author’s contemporary. Your reader and contemporary may look forward to getting a book from you to fit his or her thoughts and deeds. You should remember that the writer and the reader are the most intimate to each other in experiencing the events depicted in the work. The reader will never forgive his writer for a false note. So, if you have decided on presenting your book to people for judgment, think over each and every aspect of it. That is what you are supposed to do as a writer.

Here comes the last piece of my instruction. A true writer has nothing but thoughts and words, but he conquers everything with their help – time, space, death, and life. The only thing his needs is energy and skill. Do great scientists not conquer time and space? Does the mankind not remember Euclid and Newton forever? It does, but it is merely a memory. There was Euclid, there was the Euclidean geometry; then Lobachevski came and discovered the non-Euclidean geometry.   But Homer is read nowadays, and he is respected as our contemporary. There was Newton who created the laws of mechanics; Einstein came with his relativity, and Newton’s discovery turned out to be a private case of that theory. All honor to them! But so is the history of mankind.  But Newton’s contemporary, Jonathan Swift, is also a contemporary of mine, who is not only respected but whose works are read, published, filmed, and loved. It is universal. Names and discoveries, that is, history and memories, are what remains of scientists, while writers create books of life, which belong to me, being a part of my being.  To achieve that, writers only need one thing, which is very demanding – to be good contemporaries, for a good contemporary to one’s age is also one for future generations.” 

By following these instructions and working hard, you surely can become a good writer. I met many good, truly wonderful writers in my life; I always tried to learn to be creative from them. I also understood that we should help other writers, especially young ones. I always did my best to help amateur writers who were truly gifted but lacked maturity and were too vulnerable, because of which approval and friendly support were crucial to them. I noticed the talent of Mukhtar Magauin, Kabdesh Zhumadilov, and Sagat Ashimbayev straightaway; we enjoyed our cooperation and mutual help.  I enjoyed every possibility to help such a wonderful person and writer as Azilkhan Nurhaikhov most of all.  

KOZYKORPESH: Indeed, Father, it is so nice that you helped everybody. I am truly glad to hear you mention such a wonderful writer and person as Azilkhan Nurhaikhov. He has written a proper book about you, Father, which is full of love and respect of your works and at the same time full of personal love for you. How wonderful it is, Father, that Azilkhan Agai and you love each other so much, Father, but I would like to ask you about your works, though I know that you did not appreciate them too much. You even expressed your point of view in the poem Al Farabi, which you called your spiritual covenant to people.  It contains the following lines:

From fresh footprints and broken horseshoes 

I have created a chronicle of the recent time.

It is the best of me – my life and power,

It is the widest of my wings, which is so little.

Each epoch has sons of its own;

Works of greater talent are yet to come.

But your works are highly popular in our society. After you dies, Father, your books have been republished, and the readers like them. Your trilogy The Nomads has been republished 14 times in Russian in nearly as much as a million and a half copies and 7 times in Kazakh; the trilogy The Golden Horde, 6 times; the novel The Lovers has been republished 7 times, and so on and do forth. Your works are alive; your books are read, and it seems as though Buonarotti Michelangelo meant you when writing his poem.  

Creations sometimes outlive the master:

Taken by nature, the creator will be gone, 

But what he has seized and capture

Will warm out hearts for ages.

While reading your books, we love and hate along with your characters, as if we shared their lives. Re-reading the novel The Lovers, I came across an interesting comparison of the writer Abay with his monument. “Abay is my very favorite poet. Reading his poems today, I feel overjoyed like a child and then cry over them again.  Once I went to the monument to Abay.  I wanted to get some rest for my nerves jaded in bureaucratic battles at the feet of my favorite akyn. I looked closely in Abay’s face, trying to read the lines which had given me so much joy in my happy hours of light-heartedness as well as on my days on pain from the expression of his eyes and lips. The sculpture looked very much like Abay, and he was holding a book, which a poet is expected to do. However, the sculpture remained a cold stone in all other respects. Though the author had wasted a great deal of raw material to create the statue, I could have tried to get warmer by a fireplace in which fire had never been made, and it would be not less efficient. Do those who come to warm their hearts at my fire feel the bitter disappointment as well? How important it is for the reader to truly need books, so that he can see the real life and real events about them. It seems to me, Father, that the reader finds the sincere sentiment and the true history of life which are so necessary today in such books.  

But tell me what was the most important thing about your creative activity, what did you like to tell the future generations by writing your books?

 

CHAPTER 5 

CREATIVITY

ILYAS: My son, it is beyond doubt that I always had a purpose in my creative activities. Since young age, I dream of writing a book about the heroic past of the Kazakh nation, which I described in my diaries, “Though I am not very young, I have not taken to my most important book yet. I have been thinking of writing it for a long time. I have had lots of things to think about, as it is not a novel what I want to create but a saga. The saga is to cover not one historic epoch but all principal, so to say, creative stages of our history starting with the Middle Age till now. Another idea I have is that the Kazakhs have never had historians and chronicle writers.  We have only had oral legends and songs, the powerful Kazakh epic literature. But as any folklore, it requires analyzing, checking, and comparing to other written evidence and documents. The checking should be done meticulously with reference to the written evidence belonging to our neighbors, friends and enemies. This is what I am going to do – create the first belles letters history of my nation. The challenge is extraordinary, but that is what inspired me. I was well aware of the fact that separate facts were nothing but trifles, while facts in a holistic representation were undoubtedly a piece of probative evidence.”  It took me long, nearly twenty years, to get prepared for writing such a book; it was not before I came to be aware of the problem that I was able to start working on it. I did understand how important and topical the book would be right at the moment when it was crucial to the life of my nation to find support in its history, to feel like a part of the universal civilization. You cannot cut Kazakhstan out of the world history; moreover, you cannot understand the history of mankind without taking into consideration the events which took place in the Kazakh Steppe. One must not either embellish or simplify history; otherwise the result will be confused beyond understanding. Everybody should get what belongs to him or her.

Let us think of the cruel and merciless Khan Abulakhir, who was a typical Chingizid. He attacks the oases of Central Asia, which are weak due to constant feudalist wars, with his devastating cavalry. He incinerates and cuts. It ends with a horrible ruination and defeat of the empire he created and the creation of a separate Kazakh khanate of Dzanybek and Kerey. Of course, they were khans, and they called common people “impram”, which is an idiom beyond translation and is very close to the contemptuous Roman “plebs”, a patrician nasty word derived from the verb “pleo”, meaning “I fill a pot or a sack to the brim” used to denote a mass, a blind and homogenous group, an impersonal plasma, a human gruel. Nevertheless, you cannot do anything without the mass, so they had to take it into consideration. It was true in Rome as well as in the Kazakh Steppe. It was not the blue-blooded but the black-bones who fought, won, and died.

As I came to understand the problem, I was able to start writing the trilogy The Nomads. Another principle which I believed to be utterly important for myself was as follows: By running counter to the truth, one mostly runs counter to oneself. Only by adhering to the principle I could hope to get a good book. That was why I only started working on the novel after I had become aware of the whole thing. Quite naturally, the process of writing such an enormous historical work was extremely tiresome and sometimes even bitter. I had not only to reconstruct a historical epoch in time and space, that is, to create a mental mathematical model of the large system, but also to experience the pain and anguish of my characters, to let the tragic history of my nation into my heart, which was an objective of the same importance and even of the greatest difficulty. When a writer is occupied with a historical analysis of ancient days for a long period of time, people and events of the past come to materialize spontaneously in his mind. He sees nothing but the man behind it. That was the case with me. Studying the events of the 19th century related to Khan Kenesary, I saw the tragedy of a man with his complicated nature, his success and losses behind the events of the historical past, and wrote a novel about him without justifying him; I just described him the way he was. It is my conviction that the way taken by Khan Kenesary was correct and reasonable, for it was the choice of the nation, its thoughts, hopes and expectations. The people followed him not because they were afraid. They did it voluntarily. . That is why I think that I wrote a necessary book. The main reason why I like the trilogy The Nomads is because I wrote it to draw the line of my twenty years’ search.  It would not be an exaggeration to say that it took me half of my life to write the book about the last Kazakh khan Kenesary! It is the way it was! The book was hard won. It sucked me dry. It dealt not only with the protagonist and his brother Nauryzbay, their families and adherents, etc., what is most important – we should understand it – that it told the story of the unequally fought blood-spilling ten years’ national liberation struggle of the nation under the conditions of total treachery of their compatriots who chose short-term payoff. I could not write a book like that without letting the pain and suffering of my literary characters into my heart, my soul, for the content of the book is not abstract; it is not the author’s imagination but real people and events. Undoubtedly, I was so fascinated by the process of writing a book that I finished it in a single surge of inspiration. Speaking of my approach to writing books, I would like to say the following, “The characteristic feature of my creative activities is that I start by collecting a documental basis. It consists of archive evidence, factual descriptions, and information on certain events. I mostly prefer folklore.  Then I collect and read what I have previously published. I read them to compare and analyze. It it’s the period of preparation, Then I memorize the information, check it, introduce certain changes, and then store it in my mind. I find the most interesting facts to remember them and get rid of all memories of everything which is of little significance. At first I write my books in my mind. It is not before I have nearly finished that I put the book down on a clean sheet of paper. I have never sat at my desk with a piece of paper and a pen, embarrassed and not knowing what to write. That is my practice. When writing, I do not care about time. I can write in the daytime, at night, for weeks in a row, but my mind will not rest till the book is complete. Faint-heartedness and sloth have nothing to do with creativity. Your work is always a part of your soul and mind.

Besides, inspiration plays a major role when working on a book; one cannot write anything truly valuable or significant without it.  One can write a slapdash, but who needs that, who will read that? The main thing about any work is inspiration. You cannot create a thing without it. Without inspiration, the spade will fall out of the constructor’s hands, the smith will throw his hammer away, put out the fire in the furnace, and walk away in any direction so that he does not have to work. Without inspiration, work turns into an unbearable burden too heavy to care! It is unfair of people to attribute inspiration only to people of creative occupations, such as artists and poets, while flatly denying it to engineers and agriculturalists! Any works done by a man requires inspiration and creative impulses. On the whole, my creative activities became a part of my life without which I cannot exist. Though I was distracted from it by all kinds of business, mostly quite unpleasant, and writers’ scheming, and you, my son, sometimes upset me greatly, I always had enough strength to write. To drop the bitter subject at least for some time, I return to my most important occupation – creativity. But the bitter thoughts come back. How can I support my son and in what aspects. I return to the manuscript. The book has many places in which I address the youth. Creativity has been occupying the most important place in my life for many years. At my moments of fatigue and sadness, I always  turn to my favorite work as though I was my friend. As soon as I start perusing the text, I feel better. Sometimes I was granted optimism and inspiration.  It undoubtedly helped me finish The Nomads, which was the most important book of mine. After some time, I thought of it, “The depiction of the challenging and heroic history of my nation became the meaning of my life. The nature of the problem lies in the fact that the Kazakh land was often invaded by foreigners.  Our nation has experienced more oppression, humiliation, and suffering than any other. It has been through all kinds of bloody wars. An Arab historian of the 15th century recorded the following saying by a Kazakh khan, “…You can believe the Kazakh nation to be non-existent from now on.” Our history has lots of examples of cases when our nation was on the brink of physical extinction. But the nation which seemed to have been destroyed preserved the vast territory between the East and the East and survived. To tell about the past of my nation became the purpose of my life. To show the real history of the struggle for survival and state and ethnic alliance. I wanted to tell it both in The Nomads and in the trilogy The Golden Horde. I wanted us to draw the right conclusion from the lessons given by history.  Another thing which motivated me to write the trilogy The Nomads was the actually existing official attitude to the Kazakh history. The books could be the answer for everybody. The basic idea behind the trilogy The Nomads is to depict the heroic past of the Kazakh nation and the creation of its state in a historical manner. The most important aspect is that the novel is a protest against the chauvinist stereotype holding that nomadic nations have no history. The Nomads is my straightforward answer to all kinds of history fakers. The Kazakhs had a state of their own; their history is very long and is a part of world history. 

Kozykorpesh: Father, I think you managed to create a book which was very necessary. The Nomads were so badly needed by society that it is hard to overestimate their significance (especially if you take into account the fact that you had to write the book under the constant control of the communist ideology). I remember what you had to experience; how many people envied you and were opposed to the idea of publishing The Nomads. I think the book has played it part successfully, for most of the people who have read it have come to understand their history, and, as Professor Aldan Aimbetov put it felicitously, The Nomads have unveiled the eyes of the Kazakhs, helping them learn what they are. Nowadays, the state has started to create a cinema saga called The Nomads, and it is very goof that they want to show the history of Kazakhs in the cinema language, though I wish the film was based on your books.  But as the saying goes, God suggests what is for the best, though it is unclear how an Azerbaijani director can write an epic screenplay on the history of the Kazakh nation using a book.  Anyway, time will show what the best solution would be. Returning to the matter of cinema, Father, it occurred to me that you worked in the Kazakhfilm Cinema Production office for ten year; you marked the period with the following words in your diary, “Having worked in the sphere of cinema for a long time, I came to think that the editor’s work is extremely important at the present state of the development of Kazakh cinema.  I believe that editors are to blame for the dullness and lack of feeling which are characteristic of many films. I think that there is no national Kazakh cinema at the moment; there is no true Kazakh life in our films, and the language spoken by Kazakhs is not at all Kazakh but Russian. That is the problem.” Indeed, the remark was very to-the-point; many Kazakh films are not Kazakh even though their characters speak Kazakh, but the words they say do not belong to their nation; they are often translated from Russian, or they are written in Kazakh but fail to show the national Kazakh spirit and mentality. Once an write in Russian, like Olzhas Suleymenov, and be a Kazakh poet, but one can also write in Kazakh and be a Russian cultural derivative, failing to show the  unique nature of the enormous world of Kazakh literature. Something of the kind must have happened in the sphere of Kazakh cinema. You express an interesting wish concerning Kazakh cinema in your diary, “Kazakh cinema has come to put up with its secondary status, with admitting that we are neither Moscow not Leningrad but a most ordinary average cinema production office incredibly soon and easily.  I will never admit the fact which many people assert, that is, that Kazakh will not only never progress enough to have an Eisenstein or Pudovkin of their own but also lose what they have in no time. When it comes to art, you cannot stand still; if you stop, you will find yourself behind everybody in no time – that is the law. Indeed, our films have had everything, professionalism, felicitous inventions, wonderful acting, but there has been no true inspiration,  nothing to leave the audience struck and astonished, unable to understand what has happened to them. We do not have it no, but we will have it soon!” How wonderful it would be is the new cinema film The Nomads became a breakthrough in Kazakh cinema, a masterpiece to fully capture the heroic past of the Kazakh nation. 

Returning to your creative activities, Father, what else can you say about it?

Ilyas: Society is probably in need of an artistically high-principled film on a historical subject. Due to the development of advanced cinema technology, which is the spirit of our time, it would be very useful for the people of Kazakhstan to be able to see a world quality historical film in the nearest future.  Speaking of my works, I repeat once again that the historical subject became the core of my creative life, and I spent the most of the time and energy which Lord had given to me for depicting it.  Thus, it is safe to say that it was historical issues what filled my heart. But it was not history only. Why am I interested in history most of all now? Is it because I am not interested in modern life! No, that is not true! I love the present day and today’s life.  It is the life of my descendants. The reason I am looking back now is that is makes my knowledge deeper and my world broader. If I did not know what life is like, I would not think of history, but now… the taller a tree is, the deeper its roots sit in the ground. It is the same with human beings. The more they think about the future, the more they want to know about the past. Otherwise, they cannot build the future. It is an enormous problem to understand it, the connection between the future and the past, and realizing that it is neither yesterday nor tomorrow that we live. There are many ways in which a man can be happy. Look at, urban dwellers. We are used to measuring life in big categories, but what are our big categories when compared to this meadow, to a juicy blade of grass. The world is vast and has no limits, but   it is only the new life what is beautiful about it. Have you noticed how a bouquet of field flowers brought into a room transforms it? Why? Just because they are alive and remind us of the life around us. Just look how beautiful the ground on which we are standing is... It is not enough to love the earth, we need to understand it... Not only as a whole, but at every single moment... we cannot value the fleeting moments... What usually exists for us is what was yesterday and what will be tomorrow.  We live to connect the past to the future... But nothing the present time is the only thing which exists... It is only then that you will see the beauty of the world which is endless in space, but unfortunately finite in time – finite for us... It is the very understanding of the connection between the past and the present, which is inextricably connected to our life, that allowed me to address historical issues and at the same time write book about the contemporary life of my people. Providing mutual enrichment to the two aspects by understanding the past and the future, thus creating a kind of time dialectics. History is not merely a sum of all items but  also something perfectly holistic in spite of the great power which chance often has in it. But the very essence of it is the flow of facts which blend like raindrops or snowmelt brooks to turn into an enormous river of time irrigating the ground. Then gardens, meadows, and cities appear, and people are surprised to see the miracle and do not know why it has emerged. The process of unnoticeable accumulation of minor amounts, their disastrous explosion at their reaching the critical mass, and then the stage of equilibrium and prosperity – this is the marvelous life dialectics.  

Kozykorpesh: Father, you have mentioned the important problem of the connection in time, that between the past and the future. The Chinese say, “The only time you should live is now.” It is very important to be able to relish this “here” and now. Being heavily aggravated by past and future worries, today will be the tomorrow about which we worried yesterday to us.  We live to connect the past to the future, but it is only the present which exists, only the now time. It is very important to be aware of the time which we are facing instead of feeling behind or in advance of the moment at which we are living. It is very important for us now to have all our past mistakes in mind, to make our penance and to start our life all over again. Father, you wrote so many contemporary-themed books, but you somehow do not mention them; what role did they play in your creative life?

Ilyas: Though I have not mentioned the books, they completed their mission back then and will probably be popular in the future.  I love all of my books. I gave the whole of me to the creation of each book, working on each line, each idea, realizing that the reader was to get a good book which would be useful to everybody, though to different extents.  Of course, the man should develop in harmony. But when it comes to practice, every occupation requires the whole of man. One ploughs a little and then writes poetry. It is possible, but to a certain extent. Writing poems for fun is one thing. But what is poetry is your life? Think of Pushkin, Yesenin, or Abay... You have to choose before ploughing and writing. No occupation will tolerate “adultery”, provided that you take it seriously. There is no alternative. 

All of my books were born, in a manner of speaking, in the pain of creation. I had to stay awake at night and sometimes sit at my desk till dawn. I never treated my books like shallow things. Figuratively speaking, no matter which finger you cut, it will hurt.   I think that time will see which books will live on and which will not.

Kozykorpesh: Father, I think it is not The Nomads and The Golden Horde which is the main thing about your creative life; on the contrary, I think it to be your contemporary-themed books. First of all, it is The Lovers, The Golden Bird, The Boat Sailing across the Ocean, The Dangerous Passage, the Feast of Love, The Golden Horses Awaking, and others.  The books are the most important books of yours, for they deal with the principal and eternal truth, such as the love for God and people, the good and the evil, love and hatred, as well as our troubles and happy moment.  A short while ago, I had a conversation with a woman who had read The Lovers. Expressing her admiration of the book, she said that it had made her understand that the  most important thing about love was to have a true and pure love, which was the essence of living; besides, she was strongly assured that it told us about today. I began telling her that the book belonged to the 60s of the previous century and that it has been written 40 years before, but her response was, no, it is about our today’s life. I never succeeded in persuading her.  Talking to many people about the works of Ilyas Yesenberlin, I realized that most of them were unanimous about estimating his novels, believing them to be a high-principled depiction of reality and noting its true-to-life subjects and characters, and how close they felt to their pain, dreams, and hopes.  At the same time, everybody said that the contemporary-themed books were so topical and necessary for society right now, and that they would surely be necessary in future. I think that the poet was right to say that big things are visible at a distance. That is why it takes time to understand what is primary and what is secondary.  The Nomads is undoubtedly a wonderful books, and many generations will need it as a past experience, a book of knowledge on our history, but I think that the contemporary-themed books will  be of more use in the future, because they provide instructions on living in the right and honest way; they have secrets of happy living, which are so necessary today, and by following the wise recommendations of the books, the man can understand what the point of living is and learn to tell the good from the evil. In this respect, it is undoubtedly only the future what can give the answer; only time will tell what the most important thing about your creative works is. Let us return to the subject of morals, which is nowadays truly important for the life of society, as the transition from socialism into the new social and economic formation brought about the loss numerous moral and spiritual values, while the new society has not worked out any clear moral standards yet. I would like to recite a wonderful saying by Confucius concerning the matter, “When it is clear what true morality is, the rest will be clear as well.” The saying is of double topicality in the contemporary Kazakhstani society; having a clear idea of the moral standards within the ideology of the new state, we will be able to form a clear idea of the kind of society which we want to build. Father, I would like to ask you another question in this respect. What are the other things which prevent us from living our lives the right and happy way?

CHAPTER 6 

LIFE AND VICE

Ilyas: My son, I want to tell you that it will be enormously useful to you if you try to be honest about everything then you will be able to live a safe and happy life. But do not be dishonest to others, for as soon as you cross the line once, you will fail to notice the dishonest tendency becoming dominant till a good man is replaced by a very different one, who is mean and selfish.  So avoid being self-centered, thinks of others more than of yourself, and turn other people’s worries into yours. Selfishness is out worst vice, which can start growing inside you unnoticeably, and you will turn into a completely different bitter man. The little worm that got into the boon of an oak when it was young eventually ate the giant out. By the same token, the worm of selfishness eats the soul of some people for years; they would like to have a peaceful life free of trouble… Life is often compared to the ocean, where clear days of calm are suddenly replaced by hurricanes. Only those who are brave in stirring the sail of love conquer the ocean. Woe is the faint-hearted one who hides on the bottom of his ship not to see the intimidating waves and entrusts his life to egotism! But the shiplet will never manage through the waves of the vast ocean of life without love. Selfishness destroys our life, preventing us from living it to the full, turning us into pathetic cowards. Has anybody seen a brave selfish person? Of course no. One who is cowardly is so because of selfishness. There is one more important recommendation that I would like to give you.  To always be pure in spiritual and moral terms, always act in the just and proper way.   How can you understand the truth? We have one life and one truth. If you want to fathom it, approach is with pure intentions. There is no other way. Pure intentions are largely defined by clear conscience. It is the essential value of your experience and the way to measure happiness, one’s clear conscience and honor not blurred by treachery or deception… 

The life we live in is so diverse and versatile. It looks like a beautiful colorful patchwork quilt. The land of each and every country has wonderful colors and shades of its own. The green Great Britain, the eternally white Greenland, the golden yellow Egypt, and the ash-gray steppes of Kazakhstan. But it is not only the land which is colorful, the people come in various colors and shades too; there is no pair of people with the same skin color; all people are different like snowflakes. Though Chinese, Japanese, and Kazakh people all belong to the yellow Mongoloid race, they are different in hues. The Chinese are yellowish dark; the Japanese are yellowish white; the Kazakhs are yellowish red. I think the reason why God created such a colorful carpet on the earth was for us to be happy and enjoy life, and people would undoubtedly be able to live happily, but somehow they do not live the way God meant for them. Our Kazakhstan is beautiful and spacious land, where everything is astonishingly beautiful. Endless and vast steppes, high magnificent mountains, and lakes as clear as crystals. Kazakhs, calm and peaceful people who have nevertheless always been at war with foreign enemies and each other, have lived here from time immemorial. The Kazakhs are hospitable and kind but full of envy; merciful and generous but greedy; clever and talented but cunning and guile; courageous and graceful but cowardly and mean; lovers and haters at the same time. Though it is tragic, it all applies to the Kazakhs. The beautiful qualities of the Kazakh soul coexist with base ones. How can it be? What prevails in the Kazakhs, the good or the best? Of course God gave them only the good qualities, but sin, which entered our life since the lapse of Adam and Eve, is blatant in our nation as well. The moral qualities of Kazakhs are getting worse and worse, and the Kazakh is growing shallower and shallower. While in the time of Asan Kaygy we had the honor of a steppe nomad in our heart, in the times of Abay the ruinous envy decomposed out soul and hearts as if they were rotting. Today, in the time of changes and transition from one historical formation to another, the worst features of our soul are eating the remnants of what used to be the nomad’s conscience and honor. The power of all-embracing greediness has been added to the all-destroying avarice. Avarice in all kinds of material things; our eyes cannot have enough; they always want to have more; the more we have, the more we want. We have an unquenchable thirst in our hearts. It is shocking that a tiny envy, avarice, vanity, or hatred smother the enormous love, wisdom, fairness, justice, mercy, and generosity given us by God. Like copper, which always contains copper, which can turn wonderful gold into sounding brass when increased, envy and greediness turn our hearts into a common small coin. Before it is too late, we have to turn to God, to fill our love with the triumphant power of love, to let love overcome all bad qualities and live a full and happy life.  

Besides, I would like to say a couple of words to young people. It is very important to them to avoid the wild desire to be entertained. Confucius once uttered words of great wisdom, “The noble man adheres to three prohibitions. When he is young and his breath and blood are hot, he avoids luxury; being mature, when his breath and blood are strong, he avoids quarreling; as an old man, when his breath and blood are weak, he avoids greediness.” The endless desire of amusement in young people brings about recklessness and various vice, the worst of which is drunkenness. Wine, which came to the Kazakh society a short while ago, has already started to ruin our life. Due to their national Asian mental genotype, the Kazakhs turned out to be absolutely helpless in the face of that plague; they were not ready to resist alcohol either physically or morally. Vodka is a poisonous snake. As soon as you step on its tail, it will definitely give you a lethal sting! Nowadays it is stinging Kazakh youth to death, practically killing it, killing whatever is beautiful about it, killing love, and mutilating and exterminating whatever is sacred and decent. I suffered from its guile myself; that is why I ask everybody who holds his life and the life of his family dear to avoid drinking alcohol, just to run away from it and never resort to it in rough times of fatigue and depression to release the stress. From time immemorial, alcohol has been destroying not only individuals but also nations, ruining well-developed civilizations.  Wine has always played a major role in the life of individuals and countries. There are historical examples of states which were ruined and vanished forever because of its subjects’ excessive love of wine. Powerful countries, conquering the land of their weaker neighbors, brought there not only the violence of weapons and common cruelty but also wine. Having failed to get what they wanted with the help of arms, conquerors employed religion, custom, and wine to bent people to submission. Wine has been a disaster for nations whose states have not formed yet.  That is why alcohol consumption is especially dangerous at the stage of formation of the independent Kazakhstan, for the state is in fact unable to fully estimate the problem and resist it. It is only our own awareness of the enormous danger which alcohol implies both for individuals and for nations on the whole what can help us eradicate the vice forever.  

KOZYKORPESH: Father! I am so happy to know that you were able to conquer the ocean of your life. You did not barter your life away for trifles and fuss; you did the most important thing, which is now obvious not only to me.  Undoubtedly, the reason why it was possible was that your heart was filled with love. Tumi wrote a beautiful poem about love.

Love should be something

For us to relish.

Love can give us enormous delight.

The beginning of my love was my mother. 

May the mother be blessed forever!

The poet writes about great love, the love which can make everything about our life beautiful. I know, Father, that you had a lot of love in your life, so I am asking you to help me and teach me to have the beautiful trait of loving.

CHAPTER 7 

LOVE AND LIFE

ILYAS: Kozyzhan, Dear! How happy I am to know that you understand the main thing, that is that God gave us love, that you understand we just cannot live without love. I admire the man. But it is not because of the fact that America or the law of gravitation was discovered, and not because he has undertaken cosmic flight but because of his ability to love and do good, his ability to be fair, and the ability to sympathize with other people’s grief.  For it is not the former what makes the man immortal but the latter – otherwise everything would be ruined… Even if the greatest discoveries had not been made, the mankind would still survive, while without love, it would have perished in no time. Love, I had some in my life. When I lost my parents, who loved me so much, at the age of 5, I was not deprived of love. I could always feel God’s endless love for me, and he did not turn his back on me. I remember the ardent love of my dear sister Nazym and brother Ravnak.  Later, when I met my love, my beautiful Dilara, I chose love for my entire love due to her. They said, do not marry her, she is a daughter of a “public enemy”, she is no match for you, you will make a brilliant career, you will not have a successful life with her.  But my son, what do I care about a successful life and a brilliant career without the main thing in my life -  love, my beloved Dilara. So I did not hesitate to choose love; I made the step consciously for the sake of my life, though many people would find it unreasonable. But after many years, my son, I am telling you that it was the rightest step I made in my life; I never regretted taking it. The man does understand that happiness is illusive. Neither gold nor costly clothes can give you true happiness of you have no life.  What you often have in your life is not love but craving of glory, power, and money. It hides the most important thing, love, which is the only thing worth living, from the man.

KOZYKORPESH: Father! You know that I have always been proud of you, but I have admired that deed of yours so greatly! To be higher than one’s status, career, and privileges, and to choose love, to choose one’s beloved woman in spite of everything is an exemplary heroic deed. But life is so complicated, and often people love and hate at the same time; they love in the morning and hate in the evening to love in the morning again. Why does it happen? God has loved us all the time, before we knew him and since we have known and loved him, and even when we were disillusioned and ceased to love God, he who created the Universe has loved us in spite of everything. , While on the subject, can you please tell me how love helped you in your life, how it changed you for the better?

ILYAS: True love is the love of good; it is preternatural to love evil; God does not want it, though some mean people love evil things. But we must hate it. Though there is so much evil in the world, it might even dominate nowadays, I have always believed that the good is stronger than the evil. Though there were many bad, unfair, and evil things about my life, the good and the kind defeated the evil, for I had more love than hatred. Undoubtedly, it was only love that was my guide and instructor. I even wrote the lines of the poem Al Farabi to describe the role of love in my life,

Love is as deep as a spring;

I have drunk a lot of its water;

Only those who had strong minds could

Feed their art with the power of love for ages

Without wasting is on accidental brass,

And burn like the great Al Farabi.

My life was not smooth; I experienced all kinds of things – I was betrayed by those I loved, I was persecuted and imprisoned, I was denied by art, but the triumphant power of love, the generous gift of which Lord had given me, helped me in all grievances. Love was my guide and changed me, forming the man it wanted me to be, turning the proud me into the timid me and turning my hot temper into patience; with the passage of years, love gave me composure and the possibility to create and write books, which became my principal occupation. Love is undoubtedly capable of changing every man radically, of improving his moral and spiritual features, and giving him the virtue which he needs to be happy.  No feeling is stronger than love. It can turn a coward into a hero, and an illiterate man can compose wonderful verse for its sake. Even if somebody suffers from unrequited love, it is dignifying. Who said that painful love is no joy? Of course it is! It is a bitter and tragic kind of joy, but as radiant and powerful as everything love has. Such love can help one struggle and overcome one’s fear. Nowadays, people are often afraid of many things – they have a fear of losing their job, money, a fear of their management and people. I should say that the entire mankind is generally seized with hear. The reason why it happens is because one who has no love in one’s heart can be afraid of everything. Such a person has a morbid fear of life, being in fact afraid of living happily. One who lives without love seems to have stopped, and his time is frozen. Time is always inside the man, and the man in with time. Time – the past or the present – does not have to be as still as figures on the watch. In fact, it used to move, beat, and breathe with him, at his side, and inside him. Time is finite for the man, and the fear of death is like solitude which the man cannot overcome.  But the man is not born solitary; he acquires it while getting old like a disease. That is why there is only one cure for solitude as well as for the fear of death - love. If we think of classical literature or folk epic works, love has always helped one overcome one’s fear in them. You do not have to be brave to be a hero. Were Juliette and Bayan Sulu brave? On the contrary, they were just weak, gentle, and fearful girls. I think that a most meaningless thing, such as a finger cut, a ring lost, or a word of insult could make them cry bitterly. But when it came to their love, they did not hesitate to sacrifice their loves. That is why they have been the examples of courage and dedication on people’s memory for ages, or to be more precise forever. It must be the most important thing – to stay true to oneself, to accept only one way of living, to stand one’s ground till the end, and to sacrifice one’s life for it without thinking too much.  Those who can be this way will definitely become heroes, even if they do not want to.

KOKYKORPESH: You have demonstrated to me the power of love in a most persuasive way, Father. Undoubtedly, God, who is love, is the source of the quality for people. Your life, Father, is the evidence; love was your guide, it improved you, gave you instructions, and was creative; it all was in accordance with the Bible. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth, it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.. ove never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for languages, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. The immortal words about love were applied in your life. Father, could you please tell me if love was always with you?

ILYAS: When I was a child, I might have been unaware of it, but I always had love with me like a beacon. When my younger brother Ravnak and I lost our parents, I remember an incident belonging to that period of my life. I was 9, and Ravnak was 7. Well, once Ravnak stopped going to school, and he would not go there for as much as a week. I remember finding him on the bank of the Yenisey, telling him off with great vigor, and taking him to School by the hand. I have a very clear memory of the incident, and I think it was the love for my younger brother what made me, a little boy, do what I did; I think love was always present in my life – love for God, parents, my sister and brother, then love for my only woman – my wife, and my paternal love for my children and grandchildren, and of course, I always had love for all people. My memory, everything I got to know in my father’s house at my mother’s lap, helped stay capable of loving. As the Kazakh saying goes, the nestling will do what it sees in the nest after it flies the coop.  It did not appear accidentally. The older generation in the family provides an example which cannot be but followed.  If the example is good, the children grow to have sound bodies and minds; if the example is ill, they will definitely have a wrenched soul. The adults’ character, habits, and lifestyle – our children are eager to absorb it all.  As they grow-up, they draw their own conclusions and judge the deeds of their fathers. Of course, my son, I always wanted you to take only good things, only love from your father’s house. I wrote the following lines of the poem Al Farabi to present my idea of love,

You cannot be high with a cold mind;

It is only the wisdom of love what inspires. 

Love gives wings to nations and ages;

It makes horsemen ride boldly; 

It inspires people to commit heroic deeds; 

Love is wise, and bitter, and powerful.

To sum up the wonderful subject of love, I would like to tell you a fascinating legend, by bearing which in mind you will always have the beautiful gift of love in your heart. 

The Legend of the Golden Bird. God created a golden bird, giving it beauty and freedom. But it was golden only on the outside. God made the bird of common brass, covering it with a thin layer of gold.  But one day you will turn into a proper golden bird, said the Lord. However, you have to meet two requirements for it. The first one, God said, is that you must never forget that you are made of brass, even though everybody will think you to be made of gold. The second requirement is as follows. People will believe you to be made of gold, but do not conceal the fact that you are made of brass. The man is kind by nature and will love you. When he finds out the truth, he will sincerely want you to turn into a golden bird as soon as possible. I promise to take it into consideration.

But the gilded brass bird did not meet any of the Lord’s requirements. Its reasoning was as follows, If the man is so eager to think I am made of gold, why disillusion him? Who knows, maybe he will lose every interest in me. Besides, I think there is nothing bad about being made of copper. The man does not have to know what I actually am.

The end to it came when God decided to reveal the truth about the bird to the man. It cleaned it of the deceitful gold. The copper oxidized and grew green at once. The poor birds that used to shine turned into a scrap of metal.

The moral of the story is as follows: always be truthful, never conceal your shortcomings from people; do not be arrogant and vain. God will help you be a good man. Brass and gold are always present in the man. Brass is the shortcomings – arrogance, avarice, envy, etc.  Gold is the true love which everybody has but often fails to notice. There are different kinds of people – some have more brass than gold and vice versa, just like jewelry of .different fineness. The two metals are always present in the man, but no matter how much brass one has, one will undoubtedly become sheer gold if one’s love for God and people is truly strong. 

Kozykorpesh: Thank you, Father. The legend is so edifying and useful to me that I will try to bear it in my mind forever. Indeed, when real love enters our love, it can make us truly happy. Father, I would like to ask you a question about happiness. Happiness is our inner feeling of contentedness being full satisfied by the state of our life. Henri Matisse said the following about happiness, “One who is capable of signing with one’s soul open and pure is happy… One should be able to find joy in everything – in the sky, in trees, and in flowers… Flowers bloom everywhere and for everyone willing to see them.” It must be the most difficult part – to learn to see the most important things, that “flowers bloom everywhere”, that happiness is near, it is always with you, you just need to see and take it.  I remember what you said about happiness during our last conversation. Happiness is as hard won on earth as starts are hard to reach in the sky. It will not just come to you. It is like a sable with its precious fur, but is it hard to catch it! Was the man not born to be happy? Why some people do not hesitate to interfere with other people’s lives? Why some were born to ruin the joy of life instead of creating it? Love will not come back for you to live it in a better and purer way! Ivan Turgenev defined happiness in a very felicitous way, “Happiness is like health; when you fail to notice it, it means that you have it. Indeed, how elusive happiness is in our life.  People even say that you cannot have too much of happiness.  But God, who created the Universe, has always wanted us people to be happy and each of us to have much happiness. What do you think about happiness, Father, is it possible to be a happy person?  

CHAPTER 8 

LIFE AND HAPPINESS

Ilyas: Of course, my son, the man was meant to be happy, and I think that we can be truly happy people in spite of all hardships of life. To me, happiness was largely my creative activities; while working, I forgot everything. One of my favorite occupations is still working at my diaries. On these pages, I share my ideas, thoughts, and doubts with myself, as if I were an intimate friend of mine.  The beautiful hours give me deep satisfaction, and no human being is happier than I am at such moments. All trouble and concerns, all hesitation and anxiety are relegated to the background; I forget them.  Work and creativity have always become a source of happiness for me. I do remember how unhappy I felt when I was unable to have my book published for a long time. One of the basic principles of a happy future is universal friendliness. Unfortunately, unfriendliness still exists nowadays. It shows in various ways. Some bosses talk down those who want to tell the truth, and others will not let a gifted young man progress. For a creative worker, the greatest misfortune is to be denied his or her creativity.

Kozykorpesh: Father, your happiness was largely your creative activities. Cicero said the following about happiness, “I believe the entire essence of the happy life to be mental strength.” What did Cicero call mental strength? Perhaps it is not the tangible but the mental which is the most important thing about the man. I think it was Jesus Christ who defined happiness in the best way during his Sermon of the Mount, “Those who are aware of their spiritual wants are happy, for they own the Kingdom of Heaven.” Father, do you agree with these words in terms of your happiness in creation? In spiritual activities?

Ilyas: I definitely am. Though I think that, speaking of the spiritual, Jesus Christ rather meant the purely spiritual needs of the man, his deep awareness and realization of the fact that God is the creator of everything and that whatever happens on earth happens according to his will, willing to worship God. My creative activities are a kind of spiritual practice as well, because I tried to write about the eternal truth of love. Justice, wisdom. It must be the reason why my books made me so happy. As I think about my life, which was full of various hardships, I nevertheless feel it to have been happy and beautiful. I do not remember the bad things which happened to me, bearing only the good things in my mind. Human memory is wonderful. When thinking of the past, it feels like watching a film. Your joy, your pain, and your friends. As long as you live, nothing vanishes. You have everything inside you, inside your heart. When you are born, a beautiful world, that of light and love, is open to you as soon as you open your eyes. But my life is over, and I have only memories of the happiness... Our life is undoubtedly the source of all joy and sadness. It may be hard and trying, but it is still beautiful as everything created by God. Happiness is often elusive; we live our lives in a state of permanent business. The vanity fair prevents you from understanding if you are truly happy. Leo Tolstoy has a wonderful saying about happiness. TO be happy means not to always do what you want but to always want what you do.  Indeed, you can be happy is any work of yours is joy to you. God wanted us to enjoy any work, not to merely do the assignment but to create with love! Besides, happiness is impossible without progress and self-perfection. Happiness is the purpose of life, but it can sometimes reach farther than life itself. Happiness and life can be mutually exclusive.  Then one has to give up one’s life.  If happiness reaches farther than death does, it might be one of the human ways to defeat death. Happiness in a dynamic notion and not a static one; it does not rest on its laurels but demands more victories and further progress. To stay happy, one needs to conquer new and new peaks. That is why I think that happiness is the state of constant self-perfection and learning.  Confucius has a wise piece addressing the issue.

“The teacher asked, “Yu! Have you heard about the six merits which turn into six mistakes?”

“No,” Zilu answered.

“Sit down! I will tell you. When one wants to be humane but does not want to learn, the mistake brings about stupidity; when one wants to demonstrate one’s intelligence but does not want to learn, it brings about impudence; when one wants to be truthful but does not want to learn, it bring about harm; when one wants to be straightforward but does not want to learn, it brings about unrest; when one wants to be steadfast but does not want to learn, it brings about recklessness.” 

Indeed, our wish to keep learning something new prevents us from making mistakes in our life, for life is constant learning. Thus, one who wants to be truly happy needs to be eager to learn. Learning makes our life more right and happier.

I have already told you what joy and happiness love gives to every man. You cannot experience the happiness without loving your nation, without loving your people. So, you should always love your people, remember about their life, and do whatever is necessary for the people’s life to be better and more beautiful. Some say that they want their people to be happy but do not understand what the people want. They have their own concept of what is good and what is bad, and they want the people to adhere to it. Such people cannot understand that the people want to do other things. Though they love their people in a way, I would say that that love is selfish and unreasonable. There are people who truly love those around them, doing their best to understand the latter’s hopes and expectations, and to accept the people’s will after fathoming it. The voice of people is the voice of God.  People have generally preserved the right idea of what is right and what is wrong, which they were given by God. Thus, if we want to be happy, we just need to live by our people’s hopes and expectations. Love your people; it makes each man enormously happy. How can one be happy if people are not. Especially if we are speaking about the Kazakh people, who have suffered a lot but who have always wanted peace and happiness. Throughout the hard and heroic history of our nation, there have always been people who fought for happiness. Once I wrote a note on the future of Kazakhstan in my diary, which was quite optimistic. While the number of Kazakhs thirty centuries ago was only three thousand, today it is as much as six million.  Now we do not have the poverty we used to have in the times of dreary murrains, for the social safety net is robust, and all elderly people get decent retirement benefits. I am sure that we have not reached our best yet and that our people will enjoy an even better life in the neatest future. Our tomorrow should be better than our yesterday was. Karaganda, Ekibastuz, Mangistau, Guryev, Tselina, and Almaty. This list of our accomplishments is not complete. Each writer has sacred ideas, which he cherished more than his life, just as my protagonist, Khan Kenesary, did. Of course, it is the life of the nation and one’s own honor and reputation. It is my motto. The point of being. Now Kazakhstan finds itself in a completely new social and economic formation; capitalism and market economy have come; and my optimistic expectations have not been met. Nevertheless, I think that the people will overcome all the difficulties due to their ancient wisdom and will be able to live happily.  The history of the Kazakh nations includes periods which were even harder, but the people overcame all the obstacles and stayed in the land which God had given to them in spite of everything. 

During the period from the 2nd to the 18th century, the Kazakh nation was exterminated three times. Three ruinous invasions (the Huns, the Mongols, and the Dzungars) seemed to have wiped it off the map. But it lived on. Then, the 18th century came and brought about the colonial expeditions of Russian tsarism, and power was given to Kokand, Khivin, and Burkhara khans. 

The entire past of the heroic and miserable nation was reduced to suffering, bloody battles, victories, and defeats. 

Perhaps it is the reason why the spirit of the Kazakh nation was preserved not only in songs, legends of happiness and heroism, but also in the most essential things – the ingenious images of Kokryt and Asan Kaygy.  

Kokryt the eternal wanderer spent centuries riding his fast camel, hoping to find land free of death. But wherever he went, he saw a hiant grave 0 the empty and narrow pit which has always been the true symbol of death in Kazakh legends. Then he understood that only art was immortal. The man dies, and the song lives on. So he taught the Kazakhs to play the kobyz.

The other character of the legend, Asan Kaygy, is also in search of the promised land, where birds would make their nests on sheep’s backs! The poet must have failed to invent a more peaceful and quiet image to express his longing for peace and calm for his nation. The bleeding hearts of the Kazakh nations kept wandering around the world, seeking consolation and finding none. 

The eternal search of happiness and peace has always been continuous. Perhaps God will grant happiness to every man on the earth some day. 

Kozykorpesh: Thank you, father! How wise your ideas of the mutual connection between individual happiness and that of an entire nation and all people in the world are. Indeed, our nation is just people whom we love; we hardly ever think of ourselves as separate from our nation. Maksim Gorky said, “A nation is not just a force creating all material values, it is the sole and endless source of spiritual ones…” Indeed, the nation is the source of many spiritual valued, though it is surely not true that it is the sole one – what about God as the primary source of spiritual values?  Father, I know what sincere love you had for your nation. I could always feel your heart suffer for your suffering nation; you did not pity it but truly loved it. I could see and feel that. In your book The Nomads, you said wonderful words about the Kazakh nation, which I always bear in my mind. How wise my poor nation is! Nobody has ever called this life “zhalgan”, that is, deception and illusion, before you. Indeed, you turn out to be deceitful and fugitive, life... You went by in a single moment... Please tell me about your love for the Kazakh nation and for all people, how it was manifested and how you managed to keep the feeling forever. 

CHAPTER 9 

LOVE AND THE NATION

Ilyas: How can one have no love for one’s nation that has raised him or her? It is the feeling of love for one’s native land, for the people with whom one has grown up to live together, which everybody had, but the thing is that many people gradually lose it with time. To me, love for my nation is inextricably connected with love for my land. One has no feeling which is more sacred than love for one’s motherland. The feeling ties everybody to the place where he or she was born with invisible threads, tighter than a noose. Just as a noose cannot be torn, one’s love for one’s Motherland cannot be destroyed. But if somebody happens to break up with the native land, his or her heart will never leave the person in peace, lamenting and shedding tears. The wonderful, unique feeling of love for one’s native land, it seems to sing inside you. Kazakh songs largely enforce our love for our Motherland. The Kazakh people always sing. When a baby is born, old men sing at its cradle; when an old man dies, children puts him into his grave while singing. The song is called zhoktau, that is, the song of non-existence. They sing while walking and while working. They sing in the morning and at night, in joy and sorrow. Showing a bride to the guests, they sing betashar. As she gets married, they sing zhar-zhar.  When they fall in love, they sing, and they sing when they fall out of love. The sing about the famous Kulager’s son composed by his master Akhan Sere is a true anthem of sadness, rage, and suffering which every Kazakh knows. The Kazakhs take as much pride in it as the Indians take in their miraculous marble Taj Mahal. Each nation has its own way of capturing life. The life of the Greeks is paintings; the Kazakhs prefer songs, for it is the very best thing created by the nation. I think there is nobody who does not love the songs of his or her nations. They tell us about sadness or joy, love or hatred, encounters and parting… Folk songs have captures all human feelings. But songs have more to tell. They are the nation’s intellectual life, its dissatisfaction with the present, its dreams about the future, and its hopes. All historical events are necessarily depicted in songs, for the latter were the thing through which our nation has come to be self-aware. That is why I love listening to folk songs.  It is not because I am a Kazakh, or to be more precise not only because I am one.  The first thought which occurs to me while I am listening to such a song is whose joy or sadness is conveys to me. Who was laughing or crying while composing it?  Because it is not only the entire nation who created it but also every individual. Triumphant or miserable.  He walked about pondering, suffering, or jubilating for a long time before the feelings were finally separated from him and turned into a song, which the people accepted and carried on, and the suffering or the triumphant joined the march.  I guess the great mystery which I am trying to discover lies in the fusion of nations and individuals. Undoubtedly, feeling inextricably  connected to their land allowed the Kazakhs to create such wonderful songs. The nomadic Kazakh always loves his country and his steppe. I am no exception. To me the Kazakh Steppe is like my own body. Everything belongs to me, each stone, each blade of grass – everything is me. To me, the steppe has a manner of singing which reminds me of the kobyz, and I will not have any paradise; I will never agree to bargain its scorched hills, feather-grass, and even yellow bones on the road away. The road! The road as endless and infinite as hope! The steppe is vast around you. The Kazakh Steppe. The steppe of my fathers and grandfathers. My native steppe! Those who believe the steppe to be dull and monotonous are mistaken. It seems to me like a lively and wise book, in which wonderful visions appear. In general, the life of Kazakh has always been inextricable connected to their environment. Because of their nomadic lifestyle, they have always been close to the ground, and the vastness of steppe has shaped their minds. For us, descendants of the nomads to whom life was constant moving around the steppe, where we pastured or cattle and hunted to survive and not for fun, nature has always played a major role. The unity of the man and nature was a symbol of the two banks of the river of being. This is why nature has always been of utter importance for the non-urbanized Kazakh society, which used to be nomadic, both in ancient times and much later afterwards. The state of nature and the environment turned into a state of the national mind. The connection was no indirect as it is with city dwellers but genuine.  Undoubtedly, the steppe lifestyle with so much mutual connection to nature influenced the nature of the Kazakh nomad to a certain extent. Feeling oneself a particle of the world created by God, helpless in the face of nature, influenced the national mentality. That is why God, the Creator of the Universe, has always been present in the nomad’s life; he has never been in its periphery but always in the center of everything, within the nation’s soul, as it could not live without God. We should judge about the Creator by the world which he has created. Even when growing old, you still look at the world as if you had only opened your eyes yesterday. Everything is connected with your life, the roadside feather fluttering in the wind; the mouse hurrying to get into its hole; the wind-beaten stone and the dust which used to be stone – it is all inside and with you. But what about death? What is the mystery? I have the world inside and with me as long as I am alive. Day by day, year by year the life rolls on, passing by as rapidly as the steppe under the hooves of a fast race horse; you fly ahead, rocking sluggishly in the saddle, seized by the fatal movement. Life seems eternal.  Like the land you were born in and the sun that has been shining to you since the very first moment. The sky you have loved.  But death, which attacks suddenly and harder than any batyr, shows every once in a while. In my book The Nomads,  throughout the narration about the Kazakhs’s life, I was trying to show that in spite of the tragic events, the nation has lived in concord with the Creator, trying to entrust the solving of all is problems and trouble to God. In the end of the book The Nomads, through the words by Khan Kenesary, who was deeply concerned about the Kazakh nation and  aware of the enormous tragedy of lost Motherland which the nation was experiencing,  I wanted to express the main idea, “Suddenly, the dombre was crying, and an old man’s cracked voice started singing. Kenesary stood lost in his brooding. He was parting with his Motherland as if it was his life. “God is gracious!” he said with a wave of his hand, and the camp could hear a groan.”

The saying that “God is graceful”, he has always helped the Kazakh nation not only survive but also keep the enormous territory which is called Kazakhstan today central to the book.  Individual human lives which raveled through centuries were merely grains of sand, but the light shining to the world and glowing in the lamp consistently illuminated the road for our ancestors. The creative will and genius of the steppe dwellers were never suppressed by the ordeals. Moreover, art turned into an instrument for struggle. The Kazakh nation managed to preserve and provide further development to the ancient civilization created by the nomads of Asian steppes. Our ancestors would never forget the past, but they would never turn their backs on the present, being fully aware of their place in the world… The lamp has always been lit. Due to God and its wisdom, the nation managed to survive, overcome all the obstacles, and preserve its unique nation.  Due to God’s grace, the great Kazakh Steppe remains in the life of Kazakhs forever.  Steppe is in the heart, flesh, and blood of the Kazakh, its other self. In spite of its being seemingly dull, the steppe life was astonishingly diverse and beautiful; living in harmony with nature, the man somehow merged with it.  The Kazakh’s steppe life can be compared to poetry. What is so mysterious about poetry? A set of common words. Nothing special. But when a true poet puts them together… It is the same with life. Day by day rush by faster than you can notice them. Life passes like a single moment, like a day.  All days seem the same... But when you stop to think of it and look back, you will see – my God! – that no single day is like the rest… Indeed, living in harmony with nature is both unique and beautiful, and each day, sunrise and sunset are one-of-a-kind, and people become beautiful and live without the unnecessary fuss which interferes with our city life.  Undoubtedly, it is due to its love of its Motherland that the nation survived. The Kazakhs are a truly heroic nation. The history of the steppe country which lies between the East and the West is both rough and bitter. Its suffering has been enormous.  But it has withstood the ordeal decently without yielding its land to anyone. Seventeen hundred years of consistent war against the invaders.  Many of them died and vanished, some do not even exist in history, but we remain. It was not before the last decades of the 19th century that the crisis came. That was the time when the nation could really be ruined; people were hesitant, minds were anxious, they were being constantly dragged to either side, and the disaster was very close. But it did not happen. The endless struggle for survival made the national spirit stronger, and the people kept living and creating. I wanted to convey the idea through the words by Khan Kasym in my novel The Nomads, “Intimidating thousands of cavaliers were passing by him, unsheathing their swords at a command to perform the greeting prescribed, and Khan Kasym was thinking about the future of the Kazakh Steppe.  It had seen all kinds of things and experienced all kinds of shocks and disasters within its many centuries’ history.  There seemed to have been no conqueror that had not brought fire and sword to it. But the people would rise and live again like grass trampled by a horse. Indeed, there was no tearing or trampling it away as long as the roots were in the ground. It would be reanimated over and over again!...” The song of lamentation Yelimay was the high point of the many centuries’ moaning and grieving, blood and tears of the Kazakh nation.  

My native land is vanishing from sight...

Oh Motherland! We sob and cannot breathe.

What for, oh God, our miserable people 

Are always oppressed and humiliated?

We left our dear land, cherishing our secrets dreams, 

Our heads dropped, we went not knowing where...

What can you find in strange land, my poor people,

To cherish more than the land you left?

We have been strangled by sadness and suffering since early age; 

Our bud is nipped, and our stalk is drying.

Each of us is to live the life of the lamenting Kokryt. 

Oh my nation! There is no place under the sun for you... 

When we would wander like cranes... 

Goodbye, my dear parts!

Goodbye the beauty of the land

In which we dreamt of being a family

But attracted so many beaks and paws of predators.

Yelimay is a hymn of grievance and national tragedy. The song has everything, love, hope, faith; it is like a prayer to God.  Listening to Yelimay, each Kazakh has a feeling of woe which is beyond description, shedding tears which seem to be the people’s blood, and his sorrow for the long-suffering people makes his heart break. The Kazakh steppe has taught the people living in the land to be wise. In spite of having no idea of geology, the nomadic Kazakh gave accurate names to the places where he would pasture sheep. Each land has features of its own, but the Kazakh possessed nothing but the experience of his distant ancestors. Without giving it too much thinking, he would give names to places: Golden Vein (Altyn Yemen), Cast Iron Lake (Shoiindy Kol), Lead Stone (Kortasyn Tas), and Dzezkazgan (the place where copper was produced), and then industrial centers and plants processing the previous ore appeared there.  Though is it quite possible that everybody believes his or her nation to be wise, in spite of its numerical strength. This is the way the man is. I want the steppe Kazakh to preserve the distant ancestors’ experience and their deepest wisdom; I say, we Kazakhs are the wisest nation in the world.  I also love the art of my nation. Only the imagination of the Kazakh, whose thoughtful look was directed to the bluish horizon, could create such deeply philosophical characters as Asan Kaygy, Korkyt, and Ayaz Bi. 

Besides, the wisdom acquired by the people living in harmony with nature made them treat their women with respect and love their mothers with their whole being. The mother as the woman shapes the nature of each nation. Indeed, women define the national outlook. I guess there is no woman who would be more freedom-loving and free than the Kazakh woman in the whole Oriental world. She has never hid her face behind the impenetrable chador, she has been able to love and fight for her love, not being afraid to hold council with the seniors, and she would take her quiver with arrows, short and crooked, and mount a horse when necessary.  Kazakh legends and tales have preserved many names of courageous and wise women.  

And of course, it was primarily my mother and sister as well as my beloved wife Dilara who were brilliant examples of endless love. Ivan Turgenev said the following about women, “The woman is not only capable of understanding self-sacrifice; she is capable of sacrificing he self.” It is the ability to sacrifice one’s self for the sake of others what is rather characteristic of women; the man will think and look for the reasoning behind the deed for a long time, while the love-driven woman sacrifices her entire self. It is the sacrifice for the sake of one’s family of children which I constantly saw, first of all, in my wife and your mother Dilara.  Since she was young, she had experienced so many tragedies, but she overcome them decently and always remained full of love for people. Dilara saved our great love for each other throughout her life, sharing all the grievances and losses of my life, inspiring me to be heroically creative, and saving me from many disasters.

Kozykorpesh: Indeed, Father, our mother is definitely a paragon of a woman as a mother, a wife, and a sister who has been able to keep her life for you, for her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren throughout her life.  We all love her greatly and are grateful to her for having raised us and for her selfless love.  Father, I would also like to ask you about your attitude to the problem of power and state governing; there are any notes considering the matter in your diary. You must have been concerned about the matter, were you not? I remember your mentioning Dinmukhamed Kunayev as a wonderful person and a good manager.  There is an old saying, according to which people are born either to make their nation happy or to bring about suffering. Dimash Akhmetovich was born to make his nation happy, and we all admire him greatly.  He is most admired by those who have found themselves on the brink many times.  His most characteristic features are kindness, fairness, and a deep understanding of the very essence of things. He is renowned for his profound wisdom. He deserves the admiration of his nation, and his pure name will remain the memory of his grateful descendants forever. You even dedicated a book to him – The Boat Sailing across the Ocean. This is what you wrote about the book, “When writing the book The Boat Sailing across the Ocean, my primary objective was to provide a correct description of the history of my time, of people’s life.  I wanted common people to know what the attitudes of such a famous public official as Dinmukhamed Kunayev were and what he had done. If the deeds were good, what was the matter? The prototypes of my literary characters were national leaders, so it would be silly to delay the book. The point of writing the book was to describe the lives of actually living characters, unembellished, the way they were. So what? Can anybody be reprimanded on the basis of such things? It would have been a different thing it I had distorted the facts to fit the market. I did not do that while writing the book.”  Indeed, I still wonder why they would not let you publish the book back then even though Kunayev did not seem to mind it?

CHAPTER 10 

LIFE AND POWER

Ilyas: I guess that Kunayev did want the book to appear in his heart of hearts. However, the structure of the government would not allow one single person to address such a matter, even the leaders of the Soviet Union, taken separately, could not decide on such ideological matters as  publishing a book on the life of a politician.

Kozykorpesh: You must have had to fact the problem of power in the Great Steppe while writing such books as The Boat Sailing across the Ocean and especially The Nomads and The Golden Horde. I remember that Kristina Damm, a Polish writer, wrote you the following in a letter of hers, “The upper layer of the trilogy The Nomads is historical, but in its core, it is a very interesting philosophical treatise on power.  The commentary is edifying, universal, and profoundly wise.” I completely agree with her idea that The Nomads is a treatise on power, and I should add that The Golden Horde is the second part of the treatise.  People have always been interested in the issue of governing the state and people, and the works by Nicolo Machiavelli written many centuries ago are the table book of many contemporary rulers.  They are still topical. For instance, here is one of his ideas, “The wise ruler should focus on love and fear but avoid hatred.” It must be a very reasonable rule which helps rulers find the ideal solutions in the sphere of state ruling. But can the recommendations be helpful to common people? Is it easier for them to live in the complicated world after they have been given the recommendations? The Biblical point of view might be closer to people, “It is beyond the one who walks to direct one’s feet” and “…the man rules the man, which harms the latter.” It is hard to deny God’s words, and the history of mankind is the evidence. Monarchies, empires, democracies, dictatorships, and socialist states – all kinds of human dominance have eventually failed. Kazakhstan is no exception – regardless of who is the ruler of the steppe, nobody has succeeded in creating a happy society in which everybody would be happy.  In this respect, father, can you tell what your opinion on the problem of governing the state and people as well as on the general matter of power in the Kazakh Steppe is? 

Ilyas: Indeed, I was forced to explore the problem of government when I started working on my historical books; but later, studying the historical data profoundly, I could not resist being fascinated by the subject. Since the times of Genghis Khan, the problem of power and government has acquired great significance.  The idea of central power introduced by the Mongols during the period of the Golden Horse was an event of enormous importance; it was the first time when the previously disjointed tribes could be united, and the introduction of the steppe law was another event of great significance. If we take the state of the Golden Horde, which was replaced by purely Kazakh khanates, we will see that it was a nomadic state, which defined its characteristic features. At the moment of its disintegration, the Golden Horde certain exogenous destructive factors, such as its being conquered by the neighboring states, as well as domestic motives of purely economic nature, for the nomadic empire was backward in terms of production; another important cause of its disintegration was the domestic feud, due to which 14 rules had replaced each other within 14 years. The role of economy in a nomadic state is extremely important, for it is the basis of the country’s successful development.  The specific economic “maturation” of the Kazakh nation took place under the abovementioned conditions. While in the Russian village occupied with crop growing land allotment brought about class controversy, during the rule of Khubilay (1200 - 1234), the Chief Administration for Agriculture in the capital and its provincial agencies were founded.  The Mongol noblemen residing in China had conquered land with the peasants working on it and were trying to get as much revenue as possible. The fact that the land, that is, pastures were shared by Kazakh nomads in spite of their social status  had certain social impact which resulted in changes that lasted for centuries. The nomads, regardless of their being batyrs or common animal breeders, had to unite to defend their common land or conquer the territory of other nations and tribes, which was to be done together as well.  It created the background for preservation of clans and tribes in the Kazakh steppe for many centuries. To be a state, three things are of primary importance – an army, a taxation system, and territorial integrity. In spite of its being divided into three zhuzes, the Kazakh Khanate met the three requirements. Thus, it is beyond reasonable doubt that it represented one of the type of feudalist states. One cannot doubt it when comparing the situation to following example, “The increase in the power of various Mongolian tribes, such as the Kereits, the Merkits, the Oyrats, the Naymans, the Tatars, and others, which was recorded throughout the 12 century, brought about early feudalist formation, which the most well-developed of them, such as the Naymans and the Kereits, had. The Kazakhs developed the same situation after three centuries. Khans played the most fairly stimulating role by uniting scattered tribes to create a joint state. In spite of the fact that certain khans were unmistakably cruel, the progressive role of those people is obvious. Of course, the role of rulers in Kazakh society is extremely significant. Many of them were cruel and unfair, but some of them faced certain death for the sake of freedom and justice. First of all, it was Khan Kenesary, who valued the scared notions more than his own life. The most important thing to him was the freedom of the Kazakh nation and his own honor; it was his motto and the point of his living.  Thinking of rulers, their nature and deeds, the influence which they have head on the nation’s life, I understood a lot of things and drew a wise conclusion. One who governs people and assumes the responsibility for them in the face of God should have a heart to fit a lion. Certainly, a good ruler should have extraordinary talent to maintain the machine of state power in good order. The state is built like a pyramid. If you take one of the stones away, the rest will fall down. That is why it is very hard to maintain politic and economic balance.  If we think of the history of our nation, we can infer the following. The 15th century proved to be very hard for the Kazakh nation; it was the century when the disjointed Kazakh clans and tribes opposed to each other in a cruel domestic feud finally realized that they had to unite in order to survive. The heads of clans were power-loving and vain. In was their nation to be opposed to the notion of a joint state. But the national breakthrough was so great that time that they could not resist following its framework.  When they suddenly recollected themselves, it was too late to deny people their will. Beys and sultans were always changeable and unstable politically. Bays were constantly using people selfishly, and the poorer people were growing, the more free dzhigits were turned into laborers and slaves. Many Kazakhs have always found it better for the steppe to be ruled with a single hand! To be wise for a ruler meant to be able to use the people’s aspirations selfishly but discretely. Many khans in the Kazakh Steppe took advantage of the people’s support and their increased power. Khans have played a major role in creating the state, for they were the ones to unit people.   Another reasonable assumption is that we can see the deeds of the common people through those of the uniting khans. It is true. No “great khan” or “great tsar” could do anything without the people’s support.

The existence of any ancient Hordes cannot be claimed to be equal to the notion of zhuzes automatically. While the Kazakh world “zhuz” can be accommodated to be translated as “a Horde”, “a Horde” cannot be translated as “a zhuz”. A Horde is a Turkic word meaning the khan’s quarters. Zhuz is essentially a union of allies. Thus, the union of different tribes formed a politically independent community (kaum is the Egypt word to denote people, community, or union) regardless of origin. That was how the Hordes were founded. The Nogai Horde was established in Saraychik, Mogul Uluse – in Tashkent, and the Kazakh one was established in the steppe behind Seykhun.  The fact of appearance of such clans (horses) is evidence to the fact that the division into three zhuzes took part after the Kazakh national conscience appeared, for many of the clans used to belong to different kaums, hordes, and unions, while some of them had already crossed the boundaries of the contemporary Kazakhstan. The fact that the term “ush zhuz” appeared after the Kazakh Khanate was founded is backed-up by the numerous Kazakh legends about the place where the Kazakhs allegedly gathered to be divided into zhuzes and tamgy clans.

Generally speaking, the history of the Kazakh state is very useful in terms of studying the mentality of certain rulers, in many of which merits were bended with flaws, which they influenced the formation of the Kazakh national theater.  It would be unfair to judge people by their success; it would be more reasonable to judge them by their true contribution into history. One can be deprived of work but not omitted in history, for history is people’s memory, while memory is private property which is not subject to any government. It is very important to estimate the ruler’s actions in such a well-balanced way. Life seems to be unfair. It has given much to ones and taken even more from others. A ruler getting old feels the same. He lacks the previous health and optimism, while his future is hidden behind a sinister black fog.  In due time, he was strong. No defeat could make him dismount his horse. The most fierce of hurricanec sould not have faith. He is not going to bend his head down even now, but it is getting harder and harder with each day, and anxiety has been seizing his body and mind more and more often. Why has his life ben lived? He and the people headed by him are tired. Wars with no victory are an awful burden to those who take part in them. One feels like giving up the whole thing. Forgetting the past and stopping to fight for power. But no, he will never be able to do so, for there is no way back for him, and there is no other way. He is used to having power and giving orders, so he just cannot be anything else. Those who fall down from their horses are finished, that is why one has to have a firm hold over one’s saddle bow and the rein to control the people till the very last moment.  The delightful feeling of power which only a ruler knows in necessary to him as air; he cannot imagine his life without it. No Kazakh khan or large-scale bey has ever left the battlefield of power voluntarily. Of course, Kazakh rulers were different, but most of them had low-grade spiritual and moral valued, thus decomposing the society. The Kazakh society worked out a common law according to which only those who never contradicted rulers through speech or action could be awarded high social status.  Having discovered the ruler’s weak point, one can, in a manner of speaking, arrange a soft bed for him, turning into his pillow and his blanket at the same time. Every ruler likes submissiveness. As soon as somebody gave bold and to-the-point recommendations, he was oppressed and claimed to be hostile to the government. Sometimes it is the only thing the ruler wants, for people win their hearts with such flatter. But they merely lie low, waiting for their time to come  and forestalling each fancy of the ruler. Such people never forget about themselves and indulge in hopes of their hour of triumph.

Kozykorpesh: Father, this information on the issue of power is very interesting. In the end of his life, Abay wrote the following words of disillusionment, “To rule people? No, people are ungovernable. Let the one eager to develop an incurable ailment or a passionate youth with a hot heart carry the burden.” People have always indulged in a hope of the perfect ruler, and you, Father, wrote the following lines of your poem Al Faradi to comment on it,

The only thing I want is to give birth to a Kazakh, a great dzhigit who will have no fear

To undo the knots of erring in our passionate hearts and minds.  

What do you think, Father, can a perfect ruler be born and a state in which everybody will be happy be built? 

Ilyas: I would love to believe it, but history has no ruler nor state like that; on the contraty, each social formation has its flaws, and each khan had certain shortcomings or ill habits. How important habits are to human life. Even to that of powerful rulers, who have everything – glory, gold, and power over people; even though they understand that it all is elusive and fugitive, they keep doing what they do not want to do any more by force of habit. Quite often, the thing of which a ruler was proud and which he considered to be the meaning of his life, was tarnished and faded away. But his soul, tired of the pointless actions, became unable to enjoy life and suffer. But he would keep on living habitually, acting habitually, and committing habitual deeds. For the majority of rulers, the most important thing was to meet their own needs; they despised people and did not care about them.  What is a human life to a ruler if the ghost of universal power is visible at a distance? It seems to him that common people were meant to follow his instructions. Even rulers of great intellectual power could not avoid being blinded by power. Sooner or later, is happened to them. Common people always suffered and paid for their blinded ruler. Rulers are essentially miserably; they cannot have truly loyal friends, they have no private life, for their family and children are in fact . Rulers are often unhappy because the simple delights of life are unavailable to them. What makes common people’s hearts beat faster leaves them indifferent. Their blood is frozen in their veins. Their last hope, the hope of loving, is dead. The point of their leaving is to remain a ruler for as long as possible, holding sway over people and indulging in the power. Those who have once tried the wine of unlimited power will never forget its sweet taste and will feel thirsty till the end of their lives.  It is only once in a while that the previous lively life interferes with the world invented, the rulers grow restless, and their souls are on fire. 

To sum up the subject of power, I would like to say that it is hard for people to build a perfect society without God; what is going on in the world today is the evidence. Speaking of rulers, I would like to express my wish – I want today’s national leaders to adhere to the principles of love and justice and bear the words by Confucius in their minds, “When you improve yourself, what can you not cope with in ruling? If you cannot improve yourself, how can you improve others?” 

Kozykorpesh: Thank you, Father. Finishing our wonderful conversation, I would like to say that, even though you have not been with us for nearly fifty years, I have a picture of you carved on my heart!  I want to tell you once again that I love you with my whole being and hope to see you soon in the new world! Reading and re-reading your notes over and over again, I form a clearer idea of you every time, coming to understand your thoughts better and better. Closing the book, I read your final words, “Time comes for the man to die,  and nothing can be rectified. Death is heartless and always untimely, even if you live to be a hundred years old. If death had a heart, it would be ashamed because of the curses which humans send to it. But however long one lives, one always leaves dreams which have not come true... That is why the life of each individual is estimated not by the years covered but by the deeds committed in God’s memory.” 

EPILOGUE

I sat in an armchair, thinking about my father’s words. My heart was filled with an extraordinary feeling of happiness at realizing that I was alive, that I had an opportunity to relish the sky, the sun, and the mountains every day, to think and to create beautiful things. Turning to the window, I saw a huge red balloon and was very surprised, but that it occurred to me that it was the sun. I stared at it, trying to understand the mystery behind the giant stars, which was so far from us but somehow seemed to close. It looked as if the sun was right behind the trees. I was staring at it with ever growing concentration, the mysterious and close sun, which we see every day but which happened to be extraordinarily close to me. The mystery of existence, the mystery of the creation of the universe was so close. I felt as if something important, maybe the most important thing, which I saw every day and failed to understand, was about to be revealed to me.  It was nearly within my arm’s reach. I stood there charmed and suddenly realized that it, the sun, was setting. The enormous and incredibly beautiful ball of fire was getting farther and farther from me. How reluctant I was to let it go, and how eager I was to understand the great creation of God, to understand the essence of being. The feeling that I was going to understand something of paramount importance, that the mystery of time was to be revealed to me haunted me. But the sun vanished behind the horizon before I could notice it, and I stood there thinking about the point of living. The enormous sun accompanied us each single day, each hour we lived; we often failed to notice; it was very far away, but we somehow knew that it existed. I had lived most of my life by that time, but somehow it was the first time I was so close to the sun. The sun is the same for all people on the earth, but at the same time it is unique for each of us.

Why did sun become so close to me on that very day? I was thinking about the reasons which had prevented me from seeing it so closely before and why I fail to see what is next to me daily and hourly? I had lived my life like a single moment, the days of my life had seemed the same, but suddenly it struck me miraculously that each day had been unique and that in fact no day had been like the others.  The years of my life seemed one and the same year, but each say was unique. Every day, the sun shines in a different way for each of us.  All of my feelings blended to make one. The dusk and the sunset, the darkness surrounding me seemed to be the life I was living, the life lacking the main thing, that is, the awareness of the inextricable connection to the universe and time, which are in turn inextricably connected to the Creator.  He seems to be invisible and non-existent, but he is always by your side, the great Creator of the sky and the ground. The Creator is like the sun, which is always there and which you can see if you wish, but you can live your whole live without seeing God behind the veil of identical days of shallow fuss over problems you have invented yourself, always in pursuit of tangible but elusive sweets of life, never seeing the main thing, the thing which is worth living.  To live and to see the bright and beautiful sun every day, to take joy in the feeling of being close to the Creator of the beautiful sun, moon, earth, and starts.  I have had a clear feeling that you can really live your life like a single moment, never understanding the most important thing and realizing that life consists of uniqe days, which are as different as beautiful white snowflakes. To live one’s life in useless fuss and to be in a hurry even when dying, to live in tomorrow all the time, being naïve enough to think that you still have many days ahead of you. , You might have many more days in your life, but if you always fuss around and worry about the future, your life will pass like a single day of eternal fuss. If we meet the sun and say goodbye to it every day as I have done it today, if we feel the present day, refrain from fussing around, relish today, the minutes and seconds which God gives to us, and feel like a constituent to the beautiful creation, our life will definitely be happy and not in vain. We will live the beautiful and unique life which we must live, the life of constantly feeling the joy of life at every moment.  It grew very dark, but I still had the sun in my heart, and my realization and understanding of my existence as well as the joy of having suddenly fathomed what point of living were radiant.  Even though not everything was absolutely clear to me, I had the wonderful feeling of realizing something very important about my life, which I would not have understood before. I was happy, and my heart felt like singing.