BIOGRAPHY OF ABAI: A LIFE PATH “STREWN WITH THORNS”

Abstract

Abai is an ambitious person who grew up immersed in the last of the nomadic civilisation. His childhood, youth, maturity, and conscious creative life coincide with that intricately conflicting point of life, knowledge, culture, customs, spirituality, laws and traditions, power and society, social conflicts, livelihood, and worldviews of the nomadic civilisation.

Abai (Ibrahim) Kunanbaiuly was born on August 10, 1845, in a place called Syrt Kaskabulak in the Shyngystau volost of the Semei region. Kunanbai, the father of Ibrahim (Abai), was the head of the Kishik-Tobyqty volost at that time.

Abai grew up under the upbringing and influence of his father Kunanbai, who held two powers in his hands as a volost head and a senior sultan. No matter how hard Abai tried to be independent, he had no choice but to follow the narrow, controversial path of a life “strewn with thorns”. M. Auezov wrote about it in his study “Abai’s birth and life” when he had not yet surrendered to Soviet pressure. He writes: “in those days (in his childhood – writer), Abai’s faith was his father’s words, Abai saw his father’s enemies as his own enemies and his father’s friends as his own friends” (Auezov, 1997: 119). Abai depicted his father’s image with these verses: No one ever among Kazakhs, born with his character. He left an immortal legacy not accumulating wealth (Abai, 1961: 229). Abai accepted and respected his father as a “gentleman”. These historical and life events are the realities of Abai’s being that directly influenced his perception of the world and formed his artistic realm.