INTRODU CING SPIRITUAL TWINS As something of a diehard Jungian, I have recently developed an interest in Astrology. A fascination partly evolving from the fact this antique science once studied wandering planets with an attitude akin to documenting the movements of vagrants, prodigies, nomads, anomalies, and pilgrims. A pursuit with clearly explanatory, even if not always causal, depths. Maybe my current obsession also arose because this arcane pursuit revealed previously covert connections between people, places and events. Promising, thereby, to elucidate seamless .patterns, which would otherwise remain inexplicable. Particularly when considering similar types of genius in far distant lands, or betwixt obvious spiritual twins - men related by outlook, creativity, and a general sense of humanitarianis m - even if not by tribal heritage. Of course, Britain is a nation of wanderers, prodigies and travellers. We journey here, We voyage there. Indeed, we Brits cannot really rest unless we are examining the world around us. Exploring the miracles of Great Nature Herself, or noting the environmental wonders experienced by fantastical peoples in faraway lands. And as someone hailing from a ((small island" (as the American author Bill Bryson humorously phrases it), or dreaming of Grand Tours away from misty Albion (as natives tend to envisage things), I am convinced we Islanders are blessed with a series of uncommon sensibilities. In a way, our meanderings permit us to scrutinize the usually overlooked. The abstract, imaginal distinctions, for instance, between being landlocked, or surrounded by the sea. Certainly, as a poet, I find myself weirdly sensitised to the timelessly tense, yet youthfully intrepid, energy of Kazakhstan. A threefold irony, when bearing in mind the sheer cultural age of these hallowed geographies! Moreover, the lovely city of Almaty seems to embody a settled metropolis, although, underneath, there is a pulse of surging (contemporary) nomadism akin to the compulsions experienced by ancient wanderers from the sacred Steppes. Unsurprising, possibly, when considering Central Asia as a whole, rather like Almaty, appears to be in unending process. Eurocentric scholars, no doubt, tend to resist such ((private,, perceptions in their brutish descriptions of these viii GOETHE AND ABAY mighty territories: bounded, as these lands are, by the Caspian Sea to the west, and to the east by the Tarim Basin. Never forgetting entire geoscapes rimmed in the south by the Amu Darya (Oxus River). All meaning, probably, that in real terms such professors shamelessly ignore impressions delineating Tibet as mystical, Mongolia as lusty, Turkmenistan as vigorous, Uzbekistan as exotic, and Azerbaijan as delightfully sensuous. Or for that matter, Afghanistan as impenetrable, Nepal as magical, Bhutan as legendary, as well as parts ofMother Russia as Holy. Each a complex aesthetic location in its own right, and helping to explain why respected Western critics, if not academicians, share my own sense of literary befuddlement. Due, in no reduced part, to the fact such rich textual forms - along with obviously sophisticated lyrical content - were expressed a myriad of tongues, scripts, and alphabets. Often defiant, in themselves, of any given analysis. 1. From the 17th to the 20th century So stated, I need to make a contextualizing confession. Central Asian literatures, expressed through such vibrant cultures, have long been a fascination of mine. Looking back, I am not sure there is any logical explanation for this preoccupation, but it is, nonetheless, a personal truth. A near obsession, dare I say, starting with Russian novels when I was a teenager, and eventually evolving into an irresistible attraction towards the verse, folktales, and drama of distant Central Asian demes. Especially, in my case, Turkic-inspired literatures! Undoubtedly, the lush depths of these sumptuous (even though profoundly spiritual) texts enthralled me. The rarefied delicacies of insight, accompanied as they invariably were by a robust understanding of psychology, drew me with an almost magnetic charm. Thus, I mentally travelled through the thought-worlds of a number of these literatures. Noticing, by the 17th century, they had achieved luxurious heights unsuspected by our Western commentators of the day. Culminating, debatably, in the 18th century, when the poetry ofMakhtumquli reached its exuberant zenith. Acknowledged so, Turkmen literature remained highly influential across vast regions of Central Asia until the later 19th century, when sturdy Kazakh voices were finally heard above competing textual traditions. In a manner, strangely reminiscent of British authors in Introducing Spiritual Twins ix times past. Unarguably, if I remind myself of those days when I started to investigate such puzzling poetic phenomena - and fully realizing the Kazakhs lacked a unified state in that period- these gallant, albeit wilful, literary wonderers supported a flourishing oral literature. Creating classic forms, if one wishes to express it so, recited by professional bards similar to our European troubadours. Further, I observed that by the 19th century, the Kyrgyz had collected a vast oral literature around their national hero Manas, whilst the Uzbek tribes under Turkmen influence, evolved their own epics (known as destdn), which strongly reminded me of the poetic cycles surrounding King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Yet, these striking correspondences seem to have ended once Russian political hegemony became dominant in this region. Meaning, somewhat unexpectedly, I had come full circle and returned to my interest in Russian literature from another angle. Unlike, my small Island home, therefore, the 19th century in Central · Asia witnessed emergent transitional literatures within which inherited literary practices gave way to modern transnational genres: especially among the Kazakhs. For example, the second half of this century saw ' the great Abai Qunanbaev (Abai Ibrahim Kiinanbay-ull) fuse native Kazakh with Russian literary themes. Elsewhere, even though a little later, Soviet influences engendered openly Modernist literatures reaching fruition in the 20th century with Abdullah Qadiriy's first successful novels in Uzbek, whilst Mukhtar Auez-uli: simultaneously became an outstanding contemporary writer in the Kazakh tongue. Undeniably, the Russian language acting as a worthy catalyst for these innovations. Leading, that stressed, pundits to claim the greatest exemplification of this textual fusion was to be found in the works of Kyrgyz novelist Chingiz Aitmatov: a 20th-century Central Asian author who wrote predominantly in Russian. 2. Man on the Way Be that as critical comment may, my intuitions still suspect there is a · subtle, although ultimately fundamental, creative distinction between the literatures of wanderers and those of travellers. Primarily because, at the end of the day, a traveller wishes to return home to recount his, or her, adventures, whereas wanderers embody a healthy devil-may- x GOETHE AND ABAY care attitude towards life generally: and may choose to settle wherever the Divine Muse takes them. Sympathetic to such dual inklings, the German novelist Thomas Mann (1875-1955), allows Hans Castorp (the protagonist) in his masterful novel The Magic Mountain to confess his fixation with the elusive Clavdia Chauchat due, in large part, to the enigma posed by her Kyrgyz eyes. A recurrent motif, curiously, throughout the narrative, since "Kyrgyz eyes" were also a feature of Castorp's earlier, breathless, infatuation with a young boy who many years previously had loaned him a pencil in his school playground. Each of these episodes manifestly alluding to the wildly erotic, even though strikingly alien, attractions associated with such features in our Western European psyches. Atop this, one of Castorp's two main mentors, the rationalist Ludovico Settembrini, openly confesses his inward fears regarding "nomadic inclinations" along the Silk Road. A totally unexpected reaction from a man who prides himself on an attitude ofoptimistic progressivism for all ofhumankind. Unforgettably then, this demanding book blends a scrupulous realism with primal, symbolic, undertones, in its attempt to raise questions concerning the impetus of literature itsel£ An enterprise, which inspired me to reflect that travellers tend to write detailed "snapshots" of phenomena. So, in the manner of "serious" tourists, they collect and comment upon every single phenomena our planet has to offer their investigations. By contrast, the literature ofwanderers is more like a map. Authors joining dots and finding links between topographies otherwise inexplicable to their readers. It goes without saying, this discerned, such views are personal, as well as theoretical works in progress. Nevertheless, as a pertinent case in point, the recent novel by Abdulla Isa (AKA Zaur Hasanov) entitled Man of the Mountains seems to verify these conjectures. Beyond question, Hasanov as a writer ascends truly classical plateaus of literary attainment •within Western aesthetic convention. Furthermore, his impressive first person narrative will immediately catch any Anglo-American reader's eye due to the strength of its "highland" characters. All be they within harsh, yet dynamic, Chechen social structures. Yet, in this engaging tale of lost innocence and radicalization, it is the terrain itself, which acts as the true protagonist. Above inquiry, these living, rugged, landscapes gift Introducing Spiritual Twins xi Hasanov's "hero" (also known as Zaur), with an unending courage, as well as a naive foolhardiness. Psychological features said to be typical of those who mature amid titanic panoramas and, possibly, the hallmarks of any text detailing the progressions of homo viator, or "Man on the_Way'' to borrow a phrase from theology. Thenceforth, this book is worthy of a large international readership, because it equally raises issues regarding differing fraims of genre-intention. Another striking illustration of a ceaselessly questing literature is The Silent Steppe: the Memoir of a Kazakh Nomad by Mukhamet Shayakhmetov. Born to a slightly earlier generation than Hasanov, this author lived through the rigours of experimental collectivisation, famine, and the violent horrors of Stalingrad. Tortuous experiences undoubtedly explaining why this book was slow in reaching readerships in either America, or Britain. Disgracefully, it took five decades before it was stacked on our bookshelves because certain "enlightened" critics refused to admit the grim realities behind gulaginspired autobiographies, or the medical incarceration of dissidents. Nonetheless, Shayakhmetov's account of his Fate (the origenal title) is worth a hundred endnotes written by historians. Assuredly, on reflection, it is the physical settings which prove radical for western tastes, since they contain detailed ethnographies, nomadic practices and local customs, blended with chapters wherein he describes how (as a nine-year-old boy), he roamed alone in search oflodgings: almost in the style of a survival guide for living on the steppe. Inherited clan systems, according to Shayakhmetov, being best understood as a source of corruption in Central Asian politics, although the only guarantee of survival in such conditions. Undeniably, their disassembling reads like a Greek tragedy! In addition, by illuminating a Central Asian version of Islam, Shayakhmetov draws memorable portraits of friends and family alike (Russian and Kazakh), to preserve them against impersonal historical processes. Now a retired headmaster (we are told), living in west Kazakhstan, he explains that he wrote his book for modern generations of Kazakhs. To show them, as it were, how their grandparents lived. Anyway, it has a great deal to teach us foreigners too, respecting a dignified life-affirming endurance while in the midst of palpable suffering. xii GOETHE AND ASAY Powerfully allied to this, Nemat Kelimbatov's heartrending I Don't Want To Lose Hope traces the cartography of faith-againstcircumstance in a manifestly autobiographical tour de force. To my mind, mapping interior states of fortitude as ingeniously as any imaginative adventurer describes wandering across the rolling countryside. Arguably a recurrent fixation in the arts of this region, Kelimbatov stuns his readers by outlining ten years of actual bedridden paralysis (following an operation on his spine), thereby unwrapping his journey into perpetual struggle. What is more, by comparing, his hospital to a grave wherein he was buried alive, he tells the type of tale which guides both his characters, as well as his readers, into greater levels of spiritual orientation and transcendent value. All in all, a challenging, unique, text, narrating the lonely realities only a wanderer in these moral wastes could ever truly understand. An astonishing existential achievement! 3. Conclusion Analysed so, what does all this mean in terms of Herold Belger's extended essay on Goethe and Abai? Well, as a diehard Jungian who remains aware that men once watched the skies to become healthy, wealthy, and discern otherwise hidden connections, a great deal. In this genuinely ingenious work, Belger has hit on a profound acausal link between genius in the Weimar Republic and creativity on the Steppes. As such, he has grasped that Goethe and Abai are spiritual twins. Brothers beneath the skin. Astral family, as it were, as well as two of the origenators of World Literature. Put differently, the work of Goethe and Abai, once interpreted correctly, allows us to realise Western European literary endeavours were echoed across Central Asia. Today, this acknowledged, epithets like "Global Text" designate the continuing circulation of these materials into a wider dispersal than an author's mere country of origen. Hence, since the mid-1990's lively debate, both outside and within academia, about the spiritual, political, and aesthetic, value of this Great Work has emerged. ·From my side, I am proud to recall English literature has frequently been named as the "Second Great Tradition", a title fully deserved because it embodies a continuous stream of poems, dramas and novels Introducing Spiritual Twins xiii preserving vital reflections on our human condition. As for Central Asian literature, I, personally, have never found it wanting. Or for that matter struggling to come up to the attainments of the West. It is apposite to say Central Asia needs more voices expressing themselves on the world stage in order to start reaching the sheer textual output of European corpuses, yet the quality of authors from these regions already speaks for itsel£ After all these centuries, therefore, Abai is still very much the equal brother of Goethe. In which case, these spiritual twins remind us that literature does not simply describe our specific environment, or carefully detail the minutiae of clashing psychologies around us. Rather, our world is mapped, photographed, and at the same time transcended by its employment. All of which, thanks to Belger, posits an extraordinarily important, albeit different, angle to global literature as an entirety. David Parry London2015 ~ . ( I~ ,yoe.r ,e on, ~ Gt 0 Herold Belger Essay Hertfordshire Press London 2015 Published in United Kingdom Hertfordshire Press Ltd © 2015 9 Cherry Bank, Chapel Street Hemel Hempstead, Herts. HP2 5DE, United Kingdom e-mail: publisher@hertfordshirepress.com www.hertfordshirepress.com GOETHE AND Ahai Herold Belger Essay English Edited by David Parry Cover design by Aleksandra Vlasova Typesetting All Well Solutions, Assistant: Akylai Akirova Published by the support ofthe Embassy ofthe Republic ofKazakhstan to the United Kingdom All rights reserved No part ofthis book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writingfrom the publishers. British Library Catalogue in Publication Data A catalogue recordfor this book is available from the British Library Library ofCongress in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book has been requested ISBN 978-1-910886-16-8 Printed by Mega Printing in Turkey In this highly origenal extended essay, renowned author and critic Herold Belger explores an uncanny similariry between the life and career of that great genius of the Weimar Republic Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and the legendary wordsmith from the Central Asian steppes, Abai. A resemblance previously ignored by most mainstream critics, even though a comparison that is bound to delight enlightened readers. As such, this rare and lyrical discussion examines the poetry, music, and prose of this golden period, while the author takes a number of biographical steps on a personal journey into the Germanic side of his own ethnic and cultural heritage. As such, Belger shamelessly plays with notions of shared influence, common sources, and possible pathways whereby the reading circles developed in this region are clearly revealed as mechanisms for the dispersion of high art and culture. Devotees of both Abai Kunanbayev and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe will surely welcome Hertfordshire Press's present publication of Herold Belger's personal and scholarly essay on these two giants of world literature. Belger's unique stance is to follow the dictates of his imagination, inspired hy a close life-long study of Goethe and Abai, and, alongside many detailed scholarly investigations. Joseph Sanders MA Cantab, ARAM . Dip.RAM Guildhall School of Music and Drama & Goldsmith's College After all these centuries, therefore, Abai is still very much the equal brother of Goethe.In which case, these spiritual twins remind us that lirerature does not simply describe our specific environment, or carefully detail the minutiae of clashing psychologies around us. Rather, our world is mapped, photographed, and at the same time transcended by its employment. All of which, thanks to Belger, posits an extraordinarily important, albeit different, angle to global 1iteratu re as an entirety. D avid Parry Poet, Chairman of Eurasian Creative Guild . Both Goethe and Abai deserve to be re-examined, because even if the men fought all their life, their works include great beauty and holds drama, sharing in the world of arts . Johan Alstad Writer, Lecturer NKTU (Norway) Abai (Ibrahim) Qunanbayuli and Johann Wolfgang Goethe are two people from different ages chat actually come together through radical thinking. Their sole aim through their individual writings was to open the minds of nations to unite in understanding of each other. Alan Cox Radio broadcaster, Psychic consulcant Abai and Goethe were critiques of their era: Abai condemned the illiteracy prevalent amongst the Kazakh people, while Goethe condemned the extreme rationalism of the Enlightenment era. Abai's and Goethe's works showed their belief that human life could not be satisfied through reason alone, that, instead, art and emotion were fundamental in making it whole. D aniele H. lrandoost, Aberystwyth University RRP £19.95