Two Poems
Original by Akhmet Baitursynuly
Translated, from the Kazakh, by Jake Zawlacki
Author’s Note
Our enemy buzzes around:
Yellow, long-legged mosquito;
Its natural color unchanged,
Still black, but red mosquito.
Circling above them,
Mocking, flying till wings break.
Maybe one will awaken—
That relentless buzzing in our ear?
To My People
You’ve never united, my people!
But treasure is easily found together.
You are noisy black crows,
Soulless rabbits, cowardly hearts!
Not knowing right from wrong,
A nation refusing agreement.
High hopes for trophies,
We saw your gallop slow to trot.
If one speaks true,
You will argue.
Wandering directionless,
We watched sheep graze.
Stubborn to your own people,
Why be friendly to others!
If you’re a hanging branch,
Who wouldn’t claim your fruit?
Сөз иесінен
Ызыңдаб ұшқан мынау біздің маса:
Саб-сары, айақтары ұзын маса;
Өзіне біткен түсі өзгерілмес
Дегенмен қара, йаки қызыл маса.
Үстінде ұйықтағанның айнала ұшыб,
Қаққы жеб, қанаттары бұзылғанша.
Ұйқысын аз да болса бөлмес пе екен,
Қоймастан құлағына ызыңдаса?!
Жұртыма
Бірлік қыб іс етуге шорқақ жұртым!
Табылса оңай олжа ортақ, жұртым!
Сияқты қара қарға шуылдаған
Үрейсіз, қойан жүрек қорқақ, жұртым!
Білмейсің жөнің менен терісіңді,
Ел болыб іс етбейсің келісімді.
Үміт қыб бәйге атындай талай қосыб,
Байқадық шабыс түгіл желісіңді;
Жөн айтқан жұртшылыққа адам болса,
Шығасың қолыңа ала керісіңді;
Бытыраб бет-бетіңе жөнелгенде,
Көрдік қой жайылатын өрісіңді;
Келгенде өзді-өзіңе мықты-ақсыңдар,
Қайтейін өзге десе көнгішіңді!
Сықылды сынық бұтақ төмендесең
Кім жұлмас оңайдағы жемісіңді?
Akhmet Baitursynuly (1872-1937) was a highly influential Kazakh intellectual both creatively and politically. Not only a leading member of the Kazakh nationalist group Alash Orda, Baitursynuly also adapted the Arabic script to be used with the Kazakh language. After his execution in 1937, his work in politics, education, poetry, and linguistics were mostly forgotten. A victim of the Great Purge, his memory has since been rehabilitated and he is appreciated as one of the intellectual forefathers of modern Kazakhstan. These poems come from his distinctly political and most well-known collection Masa (“Mosquito”). They have never before been translated into the English language.
Jake Zawlacki is a writer, translator, and scholar. He holds a master’s degree in Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies from Stanford University and an MFA from Louisiana State University. He has been the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to the Kyrgyz Republic and has written scholarly works on Kazakh animation and folklore, and Kyrgyz traditional health practices. His creative work often explores meaning and free will through experimental and metafictional forms and can be found at The Saturday Evening Post, The Journal, and The Citron Review. Additional translations of Akhmet Baitursynuly’s work have been published in Asymptote and Guernica.
Translator’s Note:
Published in 1911, Masa consists of 21 poems ranging in lengths from six lines to over 150. Calling from its title, translating to “Mosquito,” Masa contains Akhmet Baitursynuly’s most overtly political poems targeted to the yet-to-exist Kazakh nation. Directed to his people, to his kin, and to the many future sons and daughters of the Kazakh people, Baitursynuly clearly imagines his reader. His intentions within the collection are equally clear as we see in the opening lines of the poem “Author’s Note”: to buzz around the sleeping Kazakh populace in hopes of awakening them with a rallying cry.
There is something strange about Masa, however—as a broader audience for these poems, those beyond the subjects of the specific titles—would have most likely been unable to read them. In 1910, the Kazakh literacy rate was estimated at around 5%. Today, Kazakhstan holds one of the highest literacy rates in the world with its literate population at 99.8%. In reading the poems in Masa, such as “To My People,” we can see Baitursynuly’s effort in transmitting ideas through poetic forms, but forms that would have had to be essentialized by a literate Kazakh intelligentsia and spread among those who couldn’t read the poems themselves. Here, Baitursynuly takes on the adversarial role of the mosquito as seen in many Kazakh folk tales, challenging the Kazakh cultural status quo of the period. These poems represent a hope for a future that wouldn’t exist until 80 years after Masa’s publication with the formation of the nation of Kazakhstan in 1991, making his collection more relevant today, perhaps, than when it was first released.