Филологические науки

MASHKHUR-ZHUSIP – TEACHER OF LITERATURE,

FOLK-LEADER

Zhusipov Nartai Kuandykuly

Professor, Ph.D. Doctor of Philology.

Pavlodar state University named after S. Toraighyrov. Kazakhstan.

Baratova Mahabbat

Ph.D. Pavlodar state University named after S. Toraighyrov. Kazakhstan.

Shapauov Alibi

Ph.D. Kokshetau state University named after Sh. Ualikhanov.Kazakhstan.

Other compositions also were put in an order. After the legends and stories were proverbs and sayings, riddles, which were followed by the compositions of different authors, words of wisdom, etc. He also divided them according to the genres they belonged to. All aforesaid proves that Mashkhur-Zhusip really dedicated himself to one goal – the collection of the folklore works of his nation.

One more thing to be pointed out is that some of the works by Mashkhur-Zhusip were photocopied and passed to the museum named in his honour. The museum is situated in Baianaul and refers to the collective farm which is also named in his honour.

Mashkhur-Zhusip had 5 children: 3 sons and 2 daughters. His sons’ names were Sharafi, Amen and Phazyl, the daughters’ names were Bati, who got married to Qoibaq, and Amina.

He also had a younger brother Qasen who died very early and left no descendants and a younger sister Madina. The name of her husband was Zhusip. They had 4 children: Qasengali, Zholmurat, Batima, Kenzhebike. Neither Qasengali nor Zholmurat had any children. We also know nothing about Kenzhebike. Batima has a son Galymzhan and lives in Almaty now.

Zholmurat Zhusipuly (1894- 1977) studied under Mashkhur-Zhusip and learned Arabic, Persian, Turkish, etc languages. He dated his manuscripts when copying them. It was Zholmurat who preserved all books and managed to retain everything concerning his eminent relative when Mashkhur-Zhusip’s creation works were under prohibition.

The manuscripts written by Zholmurat Zhusipuly are now kept in three places: the Central Fund of manuscripts [5], in the “royal archive”, in the house of Zhuqash Karibaiuly who lives in Ekibastuz. In the Central Fund of manuscripts Mashkhur-Zhusip’s own creations are kept: poems, stories, autobiography, etc. Every copy is divided in several copybooks and dated with the year when it was copied (between 1944 and 1946). Every copybook consists of 10, 20, 30, sometimes 100 pages and is numbered with Arabic numbers. The biography of the author written by Zholmurat is also there.

In general the handwriting of Zholmurat is also legible. Formerly, before donating the manuscripts “Mes” and “Qara Kitap” to the Scientific Academy both Zholmurat and Phazyl, being guided by different reasons, had duplicated them. On his deathbed Zholmurat entrusted these copies to the son of Phazyl and the grandchild of Mashkhur-Zhusip Quandyq Phazyluly and made all his relatives, especially his younger sister Kenzhebike, swear that they would fulfil his will. Since that time the manuscripts left by Zholmurat have been kept in the family of Quandyq Phazyluly.

The importance of the copies provided by Zholmurat lies in their accuracy and precision. That is why they are so valuable for us – historians, philosophers, those who study folklore, etc. When making the textual criticism (comparing the copies and the manuscripts) we found out that everything – word combinations, punctuation marks peculiar to the author such as starting from the new line, commas, full stops – everything remained unchanged. The same thing can be noticed concerning the plot, style, event, main characters, commentary, etc. Thus we can see that Zholmurat fully understood the main principle of the collectors of folklore works - not to change anything.

There is only one peculiar feature concerning Zholmurat’s copies: he gave his own commentary explaining some incomprehensible words written in Arabic and Persian, different names of people or events that are hard to understand, especially for next generations, and wrote it using various colours in front of the text or in the corner of the page. Though the handwriting of Zholmurat is smaller than that of Mashkhur-Zhusip, it does not affect the quality of the text in the least.

Zholmurat also carried on some methods used by Mashkhur-Zhusip: dividing the page into two columns, numbering each verse to keep the right order, etc.

Like Mashkhur-Zhusip Zholmurat gave the table of contents of each copied manuscript. He also tried to find manuscripts scattered all over the country and listed them.

Zholmurat also wrote in Arabic script, in the old Hadim script (the Arabic script that was uses till 1920). The difficulty of this kind of script lies in the absence of the vowels in the middle of the words. In order to distinguish the vowels from consonants they used additional signs that were drawn on top of the consonants. Such signs were not usually used in handwritings, that’s why the fact that Zholmurat resorted to them shows his masterfulness in using Hadim script.

For example, the word Muhammed when writing it in Hadim script consists of only following consonants: “M”, “H”, “M”,”D “, but when reading we must read it with vowels.

As some of the copies made by Zholmurat were not saved as a separate book sometimes it seems difficult to differentiate the stories from each other. There are two types of pages in these copies: ordinary average size pages and long ones. Every page is numbered. The number of page is usually situated in its corner. Like Mashkhur-Zhusip Zholmurat used the ink, that’s why when paper became old and shabby some letters along the edges disappeared. This complicated the translation from Arabic language.

To sum up it is necessary to point out an outstanding contribution of Zholmurat Zhusipuly into the study of Kazakh folklore and it history. The role he played in finding and preserving the compositions by Mashkhur-Zhusip imperilling himself at times when the creation work of his relative was prohibited cannot be exaggerated.

Mashkhur-Zhusip’s youngest son Phazyl (Muhammedphazyl (1890 – 1969) worked as a teacher in the local village for a long time. During this period he also collected the works by Mashkhur-Zhusip and duplicated them.

There are several manuscripts left by Phazyl: those that were copied in a systematic order, and those in which the texts were mixed. He also used the method of writing the first word from the next page at the very end of a previous one, but if Mashkhur-Zhusip numbered each verse to differentiate them, Phazyl confined himself to underlining of the last word in each verse.

As for the condition of the manuscripts, some letters were obliterated because of the decrepitude of the paper. But it is necessary to say that the copies of Zholmurat and Phazyl supplement each other – the word or letter that cannot be found in the manuscripts of the former can be studied according to that of the latter, and vice versa.

References

1. Qazaq folkloristikasynygn tarihy. Revoluciaga deingi kezegn ( The History of Kazakh folklore Study. The period before revolution), Almaty, 1989.

2. The Scientific Academy of the Republic of Kazkhstan, Central Fund of Manuscripts: folders N 215, 265, 273,334, 819, 775, 776, 1125 “a”, 1170, 1170 “a”, 1171, 1172, 1176, 1177, 1178, 1330, 1623, 1645, 1882.

3. The same: 13, 61 “a”, 215, 348, 378, 657, 829, 874, 1062, 1080, 1125, 1173, 1174, 1175.

4. Mashkhur-Zhusip/ “Zhuldyz”, 12, 1992, p. 116-122.

5. The Scientific Academy of the Republic of Kazkhstan, Central Fund of Manuscripts: folder N1172 (consists of 745 pages).