Contemporary Kazakh Literature

An anthology of Kazakh poetry from the 20th and 21st centuries. - Publisher. Today, Kazakhstan is home to over a hundred ethnic groups, a diversity in national unity reflected by the poets collected in this anthology. More than this, these poets herald First President Nazabayev's program for Kazakh writers to bring into being Ruhani Zangyru or a 'Spiritual Revival', crystallizing a distinctive national identity in this vibrant and confident young republic, which is taking its rightful place in the cultural and economic commerce of the modern world. Kazakh poets can draw on the legacy of vivid oral traditions -- the poetry contests, ajtys, performed by professional bards, as well as rituals (wedding songs, childbirth songs, mourning songs), a colorful panorama of narrative folklore and myth, not forgetting the heroic epics befitting the ancestry of this proud warrior people. These oral traditions took on powerful written form during the nationalist consciousness of the 19th century. The senior contributors to this anthology bear witness to the traumas of the 20th century, the decimation of the Kazakh intelligentsia in Stalin's purges, and those never-to-return fathers and uncles lost in the sacrifice made by the Soviet Union during the Second World War. The younger contributors to this anthology blend this historical consciousness with the technical experimentation of the international avant-garde. Such diverse ingredients give contemporary Kazakh poetry a unique complexion and flavor. - Foreword / Jason Harding.