Abai (Ibrahim) Kunanbayev

Abai (Ibrahim) Kunanbayev (1845-1904) is the

greatest Kazakh poet- enlightener, thinker, philosopher, composer, the founder of classic Kazakh written literature. Abai was a son of sultan Kunanbai (a governor) of Eastern Kazakhstan (now it is Semipalatnisk district) and Ulzhan. They named him Ibrahim, but because of his brightness, he soon was given the nickname "Abai. His father's economic status enabled the boy to attend a Russian school in his youth. Abai finished medresse (muslim religious school). He started writing poetry at school.

Abai’s main contribution to Kazakh culture and folklore lies in his poetry, which expresses great nationalism and grew out of Kazakh folk culture. Abai’s creative poetry affected the philosophical thinking of educated Kazakhs.

A lot of his poems are dedicated to new attitude to the family, the parents' duty, education young generation. He described nature, life and traditions of common people poetically. Abai’s poetry and music is full of deep lyricism, soft humour, exposure of disgrace, great love to his nation.

Contemporary Kazakhs images of Abai generally depict him in full traditional dress holding the dombra. Almaty State University is named after Abai, so is one of the main avenues in the city of Almaty. There are also public schools with his name. The city of Abai is named after him. Statues of him have been erected in many cities of Kazakhstan. A film on the life of Abai was made by Kazakhfilm in 1995, titled Abai.

Match the words with the definitions

1 a person who make information about something thinker

2 someone who studied and writes about the meaning of things such philosopher

as life knowledge enlightener

3 someone who thinks about important subjects and develops new

ideas translator

4 someone who writes music

5 someone who starts an organization or institution composer

6 someone whose job is to translate spoken or written words into a founder

dif­ferent languages

Exercise 5. Work in pairs. Use the prompts to ask and answer the questions about Abai Kunanbayev. Read Abai’s “Words of Edification”.

- When/where / born/ die?

- Who/ father/be?

- What nickname/ give/he?

- What/ school/attend/youth?

- Whose works/translate/ Abai/ Kazakh?

- What/his poems/dedicated to?

- What/describe/poetically?

Дата добавления: 2015-03-29