Draft:Kenje Kara
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Kenje Kara(1859–1929) was a Kyrgyz epic singer.
He is notable for being the first Kyrgyz-language artist, and the first manaschi, to be recorded. In 1903/4, a Russian expedition party led by Aleksandr G. Belinskii made six wax photograph cylinders, around 17 minutes in length, of Kenje Kara improvising a narrative concerning Manas's son Semetey and his love-interest Ayčürök.[1] The atypical context - recording in a colonial police station in front of an audience unfamiliar with the Kyrgyz language and Kyrgyz oral culture - meant the recording captures 'the work of a good bard on a bad day.'[2]
An account of Kenje Kara's performance was published in 1914 by the expedition's artist Boris Smirnov.[3] Smirnov's portrait of Kenje Kara included in the book is significant for being the first known illustration of a named Kyrgyz epic singer.[4] Smirnov's volume also contained a summary of the narrative (that differed from the recording) made by the expeditions translator, the Kazakh Atey-bek. The products of this performance 'testify to misunderstandings between the performer and the audience'.[5]
The cylinders languished for decades in the Russian Academy of Sciences. A text was transcribed, and later published with an English translation and musical score, along with additional material, by Daniel Prior in 2006.[6] Kenje Kara's short recorded performance has been used by scholars to understand imaginary Kyrgyz geographies concerning Mount Qaf[7] and as a comparative example of a poetic simile.[8]
Kenje Kara later performed a lament at the memorial feast of the Sarbagis chieftain Sabdan Jantay,[9] who had formerly been the subject of poems by Musa Chaghatay uulu.
References
[edit]- ^ Prior, Daniel (2000). Patron, Party, Patrimony: Notes on the cultural history of the Kirghiz epic tradition. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies. p. 10.
- ^ Obolbekov, Ishembi; Prior, Daniel (2006). The semetey of Kenje Kara: a Kirghiz epic performance on phonograph with a musical score and a compact disc of the phonogram. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. p. xviii. ISBN 3-447-05138-8.
- ^ Смирновь, Б (1914). Въ степяхъ Туркестана (PDF). Москва.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Молдобаев, И. Б. (1995). «Манас» – историко-культурный памятник кыргызов. Бишкек: Кыргызстан. p. 17-18.
- ^ Plumtree, James (2021). "A Telling Tradition: Preliminary Comments on the Epic of Manas, 1856–2018". In Thomson, S. C. (ed.). Medieval Stories and Storytelling: Multimedia and Multi-Temporal Perspectives. Turnhout: Brepols. p. 259. doi:10.1484/M.MNT-EB.5.121610. ISBN 978-2-503-59050-9.
- ^ Obolbekov, Ishembi; Prior, Daniel (2006). The semetey of Kenje Kara: a Kirghiz epic performance on phonograph with a musical score and a compact disc of the phonogram. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 3-447-05138-8.
- ^ Prior, Daniel G. (2009). "Travels of Mount Q?f: From Legend to 42° 0' N 79° 51' E". Oriente Moderno. 89 (2): 425–444. doi:10.1163/22138617-08902015. ISSN 0030-5472. JSTOR 25818227.
- ^ Ready, Jonathan L. (2018). The homeric simile in comparative perspectives: oral traditions from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia (First ed.). Oxford (GB): Oxford University Press. p. 144. ISBN 978-0198802556.
- ^ Дмитриев, C. Е. (1914). Байга у каракиргизов по случаю смерти манапа Шабдана Джантаева в Пишпекском узде. Петроград: Типография М. М. Стасюлевича.