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21
THE TRANSFORMATION OF EPIC GENRES IN THE WORKS
OF BERDAKH
Tokymbetova G.A. Email: Токымбетова674@srientifictext.ru
Tokymbetova Gulbahar Abatbaevna - Competitor, DEPARTMENT OF KARAKALPAK LITERATURE, FACULTY OF PHILOLOGY, KARAKALPAK STATE UNIVERSITY NAMED AFTER BERDAKH, NUKUS, REPUBLIK OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: this article analyzes the problems of transformation of historical truth into artistic truth in Berdakh 's epos "Aidos Baba" (Great Grandfather Aidos), "Ernazar Bii" (Ernazar the Leader), and "Amangeldi" and the process of creative inquiry of the author in creating the images of historical figures. It also reveals Berdakh's unique originality in depicting the historical theme. The artistic content of the poet's works is studied in comparative terms with folklore works. The process of transition of the content offolklore works to a new form is investigated. Some features of the poet's creative personality are identified. Keywords: genre, myth, plot, poet, individuality, poetic individuality, lyrical hero.
ТРАНСФОРМАЦИЯ ЭПИЧЕСКИХ ЖАНРОВ В ТВОРЧЕСТВЕ
БЕРДАХА Токымбетова Г.А.
Токымбетова Гульбахар Абатбаевна - соискатель, кафедра каракалпакской литературы, факультет филологии, Каракалпакский государственный университет им. Бердаха, г. Нукус, Республика Узбекистан
Аннотация: в данной статье анализируются проблемы превращения исторической правды в художественную правду в эпосах Бердаха «Aidos Baba» (прадед Айдос), «Ernazar Bii» (Ерназар Лидер), «Amangeldi» и процесс творческого исследования автора в создании образов исторических личностей. Это также раскрывает уникальную оригинальность Бердаха в изображении исторической темы. Художественное содержание произведений поэта исследуется в сопоставительном плане с фольклорными произведениями. Исследован процесс перехода содержания фольклорных произведений в новую форму. Определены некоторые черты творческой индивидуальности поэта.
Ключевые слова: жанр, миф, сюжет, поэт, индивидуальность, поэтическая индивидуальность, лирической герой.
UDC 82-2
In 21 century, the world Literary Studies put on the agenda the item of studying national literary heritage namely, the works of classic writers, within the framework of global scientific and theoretical thinking. The main task of today's Literary Studies is using historical, philological and theoretical experience of continuously developing system of scientific methods in studying the works of writers, and analyzing them from the point of genre, style, literary traditions, composition, plot, and the poetry of an artistic image.
In the world literary studies, some research was conducted into the nature and psychology of creativity, the process of creativity, the laboratory of creator and individual issues of creativity. In the works of Russian scientists such as M.B. Khrapchenko, E.M. Aksenov, B.I. Bursov, B.O.Kostelyanets, A.B. Karavashkin, S.I. Lukash, L.I. Skupeiko, N.L. Leiderman, N.I. Plotnikova, T.I. Kubantsev, K.D. Gordovich, Kh.I. Bakov, U.M. Panesh and in the works of Uzbek scientists such as U.N. Nosirov, H. Boltabaev, Sh.G. Davronova, M.M. Pirnazarova, the results of scientific observations are
provided and theoretical conclusions are made on the main factors causing writers and poets to rise to the individual stage of creativity.
Up to now the creative work of Berdakh, the great Karakalpak writer, has been studied from different points of view. At the first stages of studying Berdakh's works, all the materials belonging to him were collected and published.
The works of the poet were studied by N. Daukharaev [1], M. Nurmukhammetov [3], Kh. Aimbetov [4], H. Japakhov [5], A. Karimov [6], Kh. Bainiyazov [7], A. Murtazaev [8], Kh. Khamidov [9], A. Pakhratdinov [10], A. Pirnazarov [11], B. Khurbanbaev [12], Kh. Jarimbetov [13].
In these studies, the originality of Berdakh's works was also reflected to some degree. However, the individual style of Berdakh has never been the subject of a specific study. Therefore, the need to study Berdakh's creative individuality, relying on the achievements of today's literary studies and theoretical conclusions, is now felt acutely.
The creative power of the dactylic verse is expressed perfectly in the lyric poetry of Berdakh. The collection of people's aspirations reminding of meaningful proverbs and the expression of musical tone express the romantic character of realistic description. These are especially characteristic of his works such as, "For People", "Better", "Tax", "I Need", "Don't be Stupid", "Daughter-in-law", "I Would Look for", "The Truthful Kalmyk", "Genealogy", "The Stupid Khan".
In the works of Berdakh, the 19th century classic of Karakalpak literature, the features such as sad spiritual experiences moving and becoming stronger from poem to poem, beliefs and feelings leading forward to future, dedication to the national and general humanistic values, the dream of raising the man higher, the naturalness in portraying, the swiftness and affecting nature, the exactness, the deepness of thoughts make the poet's lyrics exceptional. Therefore, this lyric poetry left unforgettable trace in the 18th-19th century sociohistorical environment, withstood the test of time and is of great importance with its worldwide humanistic values. When we research Berdakh's creative individuality, the necessity to explain his literary environment, the role of folk traditions, their changing and remaking in his works, the author's character, his getting individual literary style parting with the folklore style will arise. In the poetic searches of the poet, we can see a strong likeness to the poetic traditions of the folk lore. Because the artistic didactics (explanation mine -G. T.), a delicate observation including energetic reflections, is characteristic of the psychology and mentality of people. This description's wideness in covering the life is the main literary index showing the poetic individuality of the poet:
I was a poet and wrote about what I saw,
What my soul felt and knew,
Became weak and thin because of hardships of time,
Dreaming of bright days for people.
Thinking about the poetry and the work of the poet, the author raises the feeling and telling the truth to the highest level. The poet opposes dreams to the everyday contradictions appearing in the mysterious world. He portrays a person trying to find himself, to distinguish the good from the bad, and to evaluate the events with his own eyes in the world of problems. The dream of the lyrical hero trying to understand the truth of life is directed to reach the spiritual achievement and development. The artistic dynamism of the lyrical digression gains strength from describing the condition of feeling. Though behind the logical explanations of the "Bright days" overwhelms the burden of sad dream, the feeling of believing in future makes the artistic texture of the poem keep moving. In the lines, based on the frequency of events and syncretism of philosophical and psychological portraying, is seen the continuity of the order of feeling. The signs differing Berdakh's poems from folk poems, lyric poetry and didactic rhymes of previous poets can be seen in the original structure of his poems, in the unity of the content and the form, in the use of the artistic devices and descriptive methods. The research found out that in the lyrics of Berdakh we can see the truth of life being described with the wide epical portraying, with the border of
measurement in the historical events, with the freedom of description consisting of requests, and with the permanency of psychological analysis in explaining the meaning of the event. In the poems written with high creative emotion, the description and reflection (analysis) always change each other keeping the sequence.
The folk poems of Karakalpak people described the leaders of the country, the heroic deeds of historical people who defended his motherland with high spirit. The eposes glorified the heroism characteristic of feudal system, earlier tribal and patriarchal stage. The folklore reflects the dreams of people by glorifying heroes, trying to cite them as an example for the future generations. In the lyrics of Berdakh, the traditions of folklore was remade and got new contents and a new form. The thematic tradition taken from folklore is cult of the hero, glorifying heroism. In the 19th century Karakalpak literature, Berdakh continued this theme in his works "Aidos Baba" (Great Grandfather Aidos), "Ernazar Bii" (Ernazar the Leader), and "Amangeldi". The continuation of this thematic tradition is connected with the sociohistorical and politico-economic conditions of his time. As one of the leading intelligent men of his time, the poet expressed his point of view on the social life and the social system of the time in his works. His creative individuality was also connected with his attitude to the social system of his time. There was necessity for Berdakh to have such "epochal tasks" and describe them in his works. In the time of Berdakh there lived several nationalities in Khiva Khanate.
Those peoples, ethnic groups had their own mode of life, native language, spiritual culture, and literature which had been developed for centuries.
The disappearance of feudal relations from the social system and the appearance of other relations influenced on the consciousness of people, and raised them to the level of understanding national consciousness, rights and economic interests. As a result, peoples living in the khanate started to keep their national unity. The poet, grown in this historical condition, created the characters of national heroes such as Aidos, Amangeldi and Ernazar Bii. The epical characters of Berdakh (Aidos, Ernazar, and Amangeldi) were not created as folklore prototypes but as the historical prototypes. In description of the historical events happened in 1827, 1855-56 in the life of Karakalpak people, there are no folklore type hackneyed portrayings, repetitions of events and episodes, but the author's clear position towards the described period, and the trend to describe the national identity from the universal humanistic point of view is expressed perfectly. If the characters of the same type: heroes, their enemies, khans, lovers, common people, witches, and satans are described in the folklore in the mythological fantastic way, in the historic eposes of Berdakh the author's idea is reflected in the historical conditions of a certain epoch, and through the images built around separated historical figures' prototypes. So these works are the fruits of the new artistic thought which creates new literary traditions separated from the folklore duty to the searches going in it. The "Shezhire" (Ethnogenesis) is the artistic reflection of the national unity, the development of the national consciousness of people. Berdakh's ethnogenesis is the new ethnogenetic genre developed from the synthesis of the traditions of the ancient ethnogenesis written in Turkic languages and the national folklore ethnogenesis. After reminding the God and prophets, Berdakh's work on ethnogenesis describes the legends about the origin of Turkic peoples, national-ethnic division of peoples living in Khorezm, and the process of understanding national identity. Then the poet, on the basis of legends and myths spread among people, explained the process of turning national consciousness and social consciousness into private consciousness, and how economic interests were becoming more and more important in life. The second part of "Shezhire" (Ethnogenesis) mainly consists of the legends and myths about the historical events experienced by Karakalpaks in the 19th century. The creative individuality of Berdakh's "Shezhire" is a work of fiction. The historical facts in it are described beautifully with artistic imagination. Along with legends and stories, fairy-tales were also used in it. The legend about Genghis in Berdakh's "Shezhire" conveys the image of the fair leader idealized by people. Berdakh's views on some of the historical events was also reflected in "Shezhire". The poet described
the struggle of Karakalpaks against Khiva khans in the 18th-19th centuries. By describing the ruling period of Aidos, he created the image of the historic figure, and criticized the policy of Khiva khans. The most important thing is that with the help of the legends about the historic figures in the history of Karakalpaks, the leaders of the country Esengeldi, Aidos Bii, Kudaiberdi Jetim, Asan and Polatbek, the patriotic feelings were described. Berdakh's epical works are famous for their characters' interesting world, stylistic devices, their plot and composition structure and artistic quality. In each of his works, in portraying the theme taken right from the life, in creating images, in choosing and developing the plots, in making up the composition, in using stylistic devices and methods of portraying Berdakh used his own original style. Berdakh's originality in portraying consists in his using of the contrast style in all of his lyrical works. In the poet's lyrical poems on social problems, namely, in the poem "Zamanda" (In Our time), (If you are rich, you have endless riches, if you are poor, you won't be successful), "Karamas" (Don't Even Look), (The rich are very popular, The poor are very sad), "Akhibet" (Consequence), 'Salikh" (Tax), "Pana ber" (Help me), "Bolghan emes" (Never Happened), "Bolmadi" (Never had), "Omirim" (My Life), "Napsim mening" (My Wishes), "Dauran" (Life), and in the didactic poems "Khalk Ushin" (For People), "Jaksirak" (Better), "Kim Aitar" (Who says?), " Know it" (Bilgeisiz), "Balam" (Son), "Izler edim", (I would look for), "Eken" (Turns out to be) two kinds of social lives were depicted in contrast to each other, or the social difference was conveyed with the help of antonyms. This shows the author's specific viewpoint on the described object. In conveying didactic thoughts in his poems, in assessing people of the society, Berdakh frequently uses antithetic descriptions.
A lot of people come to the good man's house,
A bad man looks around greedily,
A good man never lets his enemies smile,
A good man eagerly makes friends,
The bad men throw stones at people.
In Berdakh's works the lyrical character is active. The author's views on society, on the two kinds of lifestyles of the society are conveyed through metaphors, simile, and antithetic devices. In the works of the poet the lyrical character's complaints about the social life, sociopolitical views and the conflict with the social environment arising as a result of it make up the internal dynamism of the poem.
This is the individual feature of the poet who was always honest and tried to convey the inner feelings of the lyrical character who had already made his own decision. After researching the issues of Berdakh's personal style and individuality in the 19th century Karakalpak literature, the following conclusion has been made: The main factors that played significant role in developing Berdakh's individuality are — the natural talent of the poet, the social system in which he lived, his creative experience, world view, principles of figurative describing the world, artistic method and style. The world views of the poet were under the influence of the society, the ideological and political environment of his time. His views on the society and social strata confronted each other. Social life played a great role in forming of the poet's views and ideological position. Berdakh made use of the resources of the lyric genre in describing the exterior environment and its influence, and used personal feelings and thoughts to convey them. In doing so he showed that he had risen over folklore style and reached the individuality in the creative work. The didactic character of Berdakh's lyric poetry signifies its originality. No matter what problems the poet describes, what genre he uses, the didactic views prevail in his thoughts. The poet was never tiered of teaching the universal humanistic qualities and good manners in his works. Folklore characters' gaining new qualities in the works of the poet is one of the signs showing his individuality. Some folklore characters, positive characters are described in accordance with the personal ideas of the author. The originality of the compositional structure of the epos "Akhmakh Patsha" (Stupid Khan) is that Berdakh tried to create a work whose lyrical structure and form would be like that of folk epos. Therefore, the poet called his work "epos". In spite of it, the epos
"Stupid Khan" greatly differs from folklore because there are no imaginary elements frequently used in the folklore.
One more distinguishing feature of this epos is that if in the folk eposes the positive characters were the representatives of the exploiter classes, in "Stupid Khan" they are the working people and the masses of common people."
There is likeness in plot and motive of the compositional structure of the classic works and in the way of creating the character's image, just as in other Karakalpak eposes. We see this in the epos of "Stupid Khan" by Berdakh. Let's take for example the khan's birth, coming to power and his activities carried out for his own sake. Or let's pay attention to the images of Gulim and Gulzar. To describe the main events of his time, and to express his own ideas about them the poet created the abovementioned characters and tried to portray them just like in eposes. In narrating this kind of eposes, in connecting events with each other various episodes were used. In its turn, this method helped to strengthen the artistic value of the work. The poet's description of his attitude towards the events in his own way, the inner contents of the events, the mechanism of their development and the ideological successiveness in evaluating them ensures the importance of the theme. The main them of Berdakh's creative work is glorifying the national identity, past, history and the future of the people. This theme has evolutionary development, and from the image of the lyrical hero, who was described as dreaming of freedom in his lyrical poems, it was raised to the epical image of folk heroes who defended the motherland. Antithesis and metaphor were used in the lyrics of the poet as the main stylistic devices to convey the views of the author. The literary style takes shape only when it is free from the folklore traditions. The individual style appears when the author can reflect on his own independently of the folklore aesthetics. Berdakh's personal (individual) style, personal skills, were based on skillfully used historical and literary traditions, and made sure by the works saturated with personal historical, social, political and ideological views. Berdakh considered the folklore aesthetics not as the principle of description but the cultural egacy of people. Therefore, the folklore descriptive system (elements, mythology, legends, characters, the language, stylistic devices and so on) was used in his works when it was only relevant.
References / Список литературы
1. DaukharaevN. Complete collection of works. Volume 3. Nukus, 1979.
2. Sagitov I. The Nightingale of the Step. Nukus: Karakalpakstan, 1974.
3. Nurmukhammedov M.K. Berdakh The Great poet of Karakalpaks. Nukus: Karakalpakstan, 1979.
4. Aimbetov Kh. People's Wisdom. Nukus: Karakalpakstan, 1988. Р. 172-174.
5. Japakov N. The Problem of Realizm in Prerevolutionary Karakalpak Literature. Nukus: Karakalpakstan, 1972.
6. Karimov A. On the Problem of the Textual Criticism of Berdakh's Works // A word about Berdakh. Nukus: Karakalpakstan, 1977.
7. Bainiyazov K. About some works of the poet Berdakh - the Power of the Poem, selection of works on the Karakalpak Poetry. Nukus: Karakalpakstan, 1977.
8. Murtazaev A. The poem "Akhmakh patsha" (The Stupid King). Nukus: Karakalpakstan 1979; the same author. Modernty and Skillfulness in Berdakh's works) (research work). Nukus: Karakalpakstan, 1993;
9. Hamidov H. Manuscript Heritage of Berdakh. Nukus: Bilim, 1995; The same author: Handwritten Sources in the Languages of the East and Karakalpak Writers of 19th Century. Nukus: Bilim, 1993.
10. Pakhratdinov A. Epic Works of Berdakh. Nukus: Karakalpakstan, 1987; the same author: On the History of Collection, Publication and Research of Berdakh's Creative Work. Nukus: Karakalpakstan, 1990.
11. Pirnazarov A. Creative Styles Used in Berdakh's Works. Nukus, 1998; the same author: The Language of Berdakh's Works. Nukus: Bilim, 2003.
12. Khurbanbaev B. Berdakh and Uzbek Literature. Tashkent: Fan, 1982.
13. Jarimbetov K. The Heritage of Berdakh - Our Cultural Treasure. Nukus, 1998; Genre Distinctions and the History of Development of the 21 Century Karakalpak Lyrics. Nukus: Bilim, 2004;
14.Abdinazimov Sh. The Phonetics of Berdakh's Works (typological and historical research). Nukus, 1994.
