Ten Volumes of Abai's Works were First Published
For the first time in the history of cultural, literary, as well as book publishing life of Kazakhstan, on the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the great Kazakh poet, composer, philosopher and outstanding personality Abai Kunanbayev, a full collection of his works in ten volumes has been published. It includes Abai's poems and prose translated into foreign languages.
Abai’s poems have been translated into Russian by one of the great Russian poets of the 20th century Yuri Kuznetsov, and the poet’s prose «The Book of Words» was translated by translator Klara Serikbayeva. It should be noted that notes to words and concepts from Arabic, Persian, Turkish languages, which abound in the text of Abai, also belong to K.Serikbayeva.
The famous translator, turkologist Richard McCain translated Abai’s poems and prose into English. In his time, he translated into English the poems of the great Turkish poet Yunus Emre, J. Rumi, Russian poets – Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak. The famous «Penguin» Publishing House published translations by Richard McCain.
In French, Abai spoke in Antoine Garcia’s translation. In his time, he translated works of Leo Tolstoy, as well as other Russian writers which were published in Paris.
The Goethe language, i.e. German, it was translated by Larisa Zakharova with the participation of German translator Hans Freitag. L.Zakharova is the native of Kazakhstan, perfectly knowing German, Kazakh and Russian languages. In addition, a translator and publisher Leo Koshut, who is widely known in literary circles of the world, translated Abai’s poems into German language.
In order to convey in their own language the philosophical worldview of a great man sincerely rooting for his people, the translators, of course, themselves were imbued with the ideas of the steppe wise man concerning morality, virtue and spirituality, which in the XXI century remain relevant for all humanity.
Works of Abai were first translated into foreign languages and published by «Abai House» in London, which was organized by Rollan Seisenbayev. In the near future, Abai International Club plans to publish a facsimile of the works of Abai. «Amazon» Publishing House in America is preparing a volume of selected works by the poet for printing. It should be noted that a few years ago the Club published a facsimile of the epos «Shahname» by the great Persian poet Firdousi in translation into Kipchak language.
The ninth volume of the collection – «The Word of Abai» is fully devoted to the statements about Abai by world-renowned literature scientists, poets, writers, scholars, and religious leaders. This once again shows that the world of Abai is a common spiritual value for all mankind.
«The breath of Abai, the voice of Abai, the intonation of Abai is the breath of time, the breath of the people. Today his voice is reborn, widened and merged with our voices». Perhaps, these words of Mukhtar Auezov have become a historical reality.
