Abai Kunanbaev HOME

"The Book of Words" is a philosophical treatise encouraging people to embrace education and good moral character in order to escape poverty, slavery and corruption.

THE BOOK OF WORDS

(Extract, the first words)

WORD ONE

Whether for good or ill, I have lived my life, travelling a long road fraught with struggles and quarrels, disputes and arguments, suffering and anxiety, and reached these advanced years to find myself at the end of my tether, tired of everything. I have realized the vanity and futility of my labors and the meanness of my existence. What shall I occupy myself with now and how shall I live out the rest of my days? I am puzzled that I can find no answer to this question.

Rule the people? No, the people are ungovernable. Let this burden be shouldered by someone who is willing to contract an incurable malady, or else by an ardent youth with a burning heart. But may Allah spare me this load which is beyond my powers! Shall I multiply the herds? No, I cannot do that. Let the young folk raise livestock if they need them. But I shall not darken the evening of my days by tending livestock to give joy to rogues, thieves and spongers.

Occupy myself with learning? But how shall I engage in scholarship when I have no one to exchange an intelligent word with? And then to whom shall I pass on the knowledge I will have amassed? Whom shall I ask what I do not know myself? What’s the good of sitting on a desolate steppe with an arshin in hand trying to sell cloth? Too much knowledge becomes gall and wormwood that hastens old age if you have no one by your side to share your joys and sorrows. Choose the path of the Sufi and dedicate myself to the service of religion? No, I’m afraid that won’t do either. This vocation calls for serenity and complete peace of mind. But I have not known peace either in my soul or in my life-and what sort of piety can there be amongst these people, in this land!

Educate children, maybe? No, this, too, is beyond my powers. I could instruct children, true, but I don’t know what I should teach them and how. For what occupation, for what purpose and for what kind of community am I to educate them? How can I instruct them and direct their paths if I don’t see where my pupils could usefully apply their learning? And so here, too, I have been unable to put myself to any good use.

Well, I have decided at length: henceforth, pen and paper shall be my only solace, and I shall set down mythoughts. Should anyone find something useful here, lethim copy it down or memorise it. And if no one has anyneed of my words, they will remain with me anyway. And now I have no other concern than that.

WORD TWO

In my childhood I used to hear the Kazakhs jeering at the Uzbeks: “You Starts in wide skirts, you bring your rushes from afar to thatch your roofs! You bow and scrape when you meet someone, but you insult him behind his back. You are afraid of every bush; you rattle on without stopping, and that’s why they call you Sart-Surts.”

Encountering Nogais, the Kazakhs would ridicule and scold them, too: “The Nogai is afraid of the camel, he soon gets tired astride a horse and takes his rest walking. Runaways and soldiers and traders - all of them hail from the Nogais. Nokai is what you should be called, not Nogai!”

About the Russians they used to say: “The red-headed Urus, once he spies an aul, gallops fit to break his neck towards it, permits himself to do whatever comes into his head, demands to hear all the rumours and gossip, and believes everything he is told.”

“My God!” I thought then with pride. “It turns out that the whole wide world has no worthier and nobler people than the Kazakhs!” Such talk rejoiced and entertained me. But this is what I see now: there is no plant that the Sarts cannot grow, no land that their merchants have not visited, and no such thing that their nimble fingers cannot contrive. Their laymen live in peace and seek no enmity. Before there were any Russian merchants around, the Sarts provided the Kazakhs with clothes for the living and burial robes for the dead, and they would buy up from the Kazakhs droves of cattle that father and son could not agree to divide between themselves. Now, under the Russians, the Sarts have adopted the innovations more quickly than others. Exalted beys and learnt mullahs, craftsmanship and luxury and courtesy-the Sarts have all these.

I look at the Nogais and see that they can make fine soldiers and that they bear deprivation stoically. They face death with humility, protect schools and honour religion - they know how to work hard and grow rich, and to dress up and have fun. Not we Kazakhs, though: we labour for their beys for a crust of bread. They will not let our beys into their homes. “Hey, you Kazakhs,” they say, “our floor is not for your dirty boots to trample on.”