Magtymguly Pyragy's poems have been translated into many languages of the world in different years opened opportunities to introduce Turkmen literature to the world community. Magtymguly Pyragy’s literary heritage has always been the center of attention of scientists, linguists, and writers. In the middle of the 19th century, the first written works about the life and creativity of the great poet began to appear. The poet’s literary heritage attracted the attention of many travellers, encyclopedians and lexicographers, orientalists, enthusiasts of music and others. This article consists of information of different translations based on various sources.
Keywords: translation, poet, poem, poetry, translator, literature, creativity.
Magtymguly Pyragy aimed to bring wisdom to the world, nature, society and man through his poems. The Turkmen people, whose history stretches back several millennia, has made a significant contribution to the development of human culture. Just as the history of the Turkmen people is ancient, so is the world of its poetry, which is ancient and rich. Turkmen poets who lived in different periods of history occupied a great place in the history of world literature. Especially when talking about the world of poetry of the Turkmen people, the poet Magtymguly Pyragy comes to mind, who expressed his era with his deeply meaningful and wise poems and constantly contributed to the improvement of Turkmen poetry and the development of the Turkmen language.
The creativity of Magtymguly Pyragy, who inherited a great spiritual value for the Turkmen people and the whole humanity, attracted the attention of the world community at different times and formed the main core of the scientific works of not only Turkmen and Central Asian scientists, but also European scientists, and the main sources of Oriental studies scientists referred to in their scientific works.
Polish scholar Aleksandr Сhodzko (Hodzko) Borejko is one of the first to speak about our poet Magtymguly. In 1842, along with the epic “Gorogly”, he published a brief description of the poet’s life and three of his poems in English in London. Then I. N. Berezin, F. Bakulin, I. Belyaev, A. E. Krymskyi, V. V. Radlov and others introduce Magtymguly to Russian and European readers, provided samples of the poet’s poems and some of their translations. [1, 221]
As we have seen, the name of the Russian scientist Ilya Nikolayevich Berezin is mentioned as one of the first people to talk about Turkmen literature in the 19th century. Ilya Nikolayevich Berezin, professor of Turkic languages at Kazan and St. Petersburg universities, is considered to be the scientist who first introduced samples of Turkmen literature to the Russian scientific community. In 1862, in the second volume of his three-volume book “Turkestanskaya hrestomatiya” he published, among other works, a poem by Magtymguly in the Turkmen language in Arabic script.
In 1854, in the 13th issue of the German magazine “Archive of scientific information about Russia”, an article was published that “The completely unstudied language of the Asian Turkmens is presented to the attention of Orientalists.” In 1855, this magazine published a short article about Magtymguly on behalf of the editor. The article was called “Famous Poet”. “We would like to inform our readers about the name of the great Turkmen poet who is not yet known in Europe. His name is Magtymguly... Magtymguly lived more than half a century ago. His poems are written in Arabic script, but they amaze the mind with their lyricism and beautiful lyrics. People of Kabul, Gandahar, Peshawar, Khirad, Sheki, Shirvan, and Tehran knew Magtymguly’s poems by heart. Unfortunately, we know nothing about the poet’s life. We hope that our scientists will talk about Magtymguly one by one in the near future” the article says. [2]
In 1874, R. Yeznaev translated some of his works into Russian. One of the early work on the poet Magtymguly in the 19th century is the Hungarian scientist Arminii Vamberi. In 1879, A. Vamberi published the work “The language of the Turkmen and Magtymguly’s Poetry”. In this work, he provides general information about the poet's life and work. The scientist published 31 poems of the poet in full, and parts of 10 poems in the original and translated into German. A. Vamberi noted that the themes of horse-instrument and heroism play an important role in the poet's work, and that he is considered a national poet among the Turkmens. Although A. Vamberi’s work on Magtymguly was of great importance for his time, he could not thoroughly study the poet's creativity on a scientific basis. Even in it, one-sided and wrong ideas can be found.
In the study of Magtymguly, academician Aleksandr Nikolayewich Samoylovich began a valuable work and published one after another. Although Academician A. Samoylovich aimed to clarify the total volume of the poet’s works and conduct a thorough analysis on that basis, at that time there was no full opportunity to carry out this noble work.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Magtymguly’s poems were published several times in the form of separate books. In 1907, N. P. Ostroumov published most of the poet’s works in the newspaper “Turkustan Velayat”. Then he collected all his works and presented them to the public in the same year in the form of a separate book. Thus, the Russian scientist is the first to promote the wide spread of the great thinker’s literary heritage among the people, draws the attention of many to the need for thorough study, and performs a noble service.
After that, Magtymguly’s books appeared successively in Bukhara, Tashkent, Astrakhan in the lithography method and in the form of publication in Arabic graphics. A collection of the poet’s 45 poems published in 1912 is being prepared. The foreword is written by Abdyrahman Niazy from Astrakhan. From the 20s of the 20th century, the manuscripts of the poet’s works, the information related to his life and creativity began to be collected. In 1926, B. Kerbabaev prepared Magtymguly’s large volume book. Scientists such as A. Akhundov-Gurgenli, B. Garryev, M. Kosaev, G. O. Charyev, Z. Muhammedova carried out continuous and efficient work on collecting Magtymguly’s works and studying them on a scientific basis. As a result, during this period, A. Poseluyevsky wrote hundreds of articles, scientific works, and many monographs about the poet. Along with well-known scientists such as E. Bertels, well-known translators and writers-poets such as M. Tarlovsky, G. Shengeli, A. Tarkovsky, N. Tikhonov, S. Lipkin, G. Veselkov made great efforts. Y. E. Bertels expressed valuable thoughts about the poet in his works “Magtymguly”, “Magtymguly’s thoughts on artistic creativity”, “Study of classical Turkmen literature in the Soviet Union” and stated that the study of Magtymguly’s creativity is manifest problem, the work still to be done and the problems to be solved in this field.
The collection of poems published in the Russian language by the Moscow publishing house “Khudozhestvennaya literatura” is currently one of the most complete collections of Magtymguly’s poems, containing more than 300 of his large and small works. As well as fifteen translators translated the poems into Russian. However, among the translators, the number of those who devoted much effort to this book is no more than 3–4 people. [1, 223]. They are Arseniy Aleksandrovich Tarkovsky differs from others not only by the large volume of his translations (he translated about 100 poems into Russian), but also by their quality (The Land of Turkmen”, “Wake up they said”, “My Arabic-Speaking Beloved”) and other poems). A. A. Tarkovsky, who received several honorary titles and awards for his creative work as a poet and translator, became the winner of the State Prize named after Magtymguly of Turkmenistan in 1971. Georgy Arkadyevich Shengeli Magtymguly skillfully translated his poems (total of 65 poems) into Russian, such as “My Son — My Azady”, “Yusup I said”. Yuliya Moiseyevna Neyman, besides being an intelligent woman poet, is the translator of more than 20 poems of Magtymguly. Yuriy Petrovich Gordiyenko, a poet and translator, translated about 20 of the poems included in the mentioned book Magtymguly into Russian. In addition, N. Grebnev, A. Revich, Yu. Valich, A. Starostin, V. Ganiyev, M. Tarlovsky and some other translators took an active part.
In addition, the poet's collection of poems was published in cities such as Stavropol, Ufa, Kazan, Simferopol, Orenburg and Kiva. The best version of Magtymguly’s collection of poems was published in Bukhara in 1910, with the participation of many Turkmen scientists. This valuable work is stored in the treasury of lithographic prints of the Institute of Oriental Studies named after Abureykhan Biruni of Uzbekistan.
In 1960, the 225th anniversary of Magtymguly's birth (according to previous calculations, in 2024, 300 th anniversary will be held) was celebrated, and in 1983, the 250th anniversary of Magtymguly was celebrated. Hundreds of articles, scientific works, monographs dedicated to the great thinker were written by scientists, writers-poets and other professionals. Many of them have been published in the press, in separate collections, and in the form of individual books. Based on many years of scientific research of our scientists, the books “Magtymguly” by B. Garryev, “Magtymguly — a thinker” by G. O. Charyev, “Magtymguly and his era” by M. Annanepesov and others appeared. Our writers-poets and artists celebrated Magtymguly's anniversary with great gifts. G. Kuliev wrote the novel “Magtymguly”, B. Kerbabaev the drama “Magtymguly”, T. Taganov wrote the story “Treasure of Kinds”.
Many unique ideas about Magtymguly were expressed in works written by different authors in different years. While V. V. Bartold called Magtymguly the national poet of the Turkmen people, A. N. Samoylovich puts forward the opinion that “The Magtymguly poet is the mentor of all Turkmen”. Y. E. Bertels emphasizes the great value of Magtymguly’s poetry for the modern age and thinks, “Poetry of Magtymguly Turkmen is one of the most precious stones, and in our time it shines with dazzling light on the brow of a new ring.” [1,224]
The English translations have appeared in 21 st century with publication of Dr. Paul Michael Taylor from Smithsonian institute translated new versions in the book “Poems from Turkmenistan” with the help of Dr. Zohra Meredova, Maya Meredova, Dr. Annagurban Ashirov. The poems presented in English translation have been selected to illustrate the range of topics encompassed and the types of poetry produced by the great eighteenth century poet of the Turkmen people, Magtymguly Pyragy. The poems have been selected from the 393 Turkmen-language poems compiled by Dr. Annagurban Ashirov of Turkmenistan’s Institute of Manuscripts, and published in 2013. [3, 10].
Manuscripts are of great importance in the scientific study of our national values, history and heritage. Because every manuscript source serves as a primary source for studying our past, history, literature, language, tradition and culture. Today, scientists of the Institute of Language, Literature and National Manuscripts named after Magtymguly, as well as scholars, are studying the poet's manuscripts in detail. At different times Turkmen scientists B. A. Garryev, M. Kosayev, G. O. Charyev, Z. B. Muhammedova, A. Meredov, M. Annamuhammedov, G. Geldiyev, A. Ashyrov, A. Bekmyradov, Sh. Gandymov, A. Shykhnepesov contributed to this. In the books of A. Ashyrov, G. Nazarov, A. Mammetjumaev, G. Guzuchieva, R. Mustakov, manuscripts related to Magtymguly's literary heritage were commented scientifically.
There are scientific works and monographs dedicated to Magtymguly's creativity. Today, as a result of the sincere work of Turkmen scientists, those works have been made available to a wide audience.
References:
- Türkmen ruhunyň almaz täji. — Aşgabat, 2014.
- Çüriýew A. Magtymgula tagzym eden // Türkmenistan. — 2023. — № 121– S. — 4.
- Magtymguly poems from Turkmenistan. — Ashgabat, 2014.
- Magtymguly. Eserler ýygyndysy. I jilt. — Aşgabat: Türkmenistanyň Ylymlar akademiýasynyň Milli golýazmalar instituty, 2012
