Kazakhstan: Literature

For Kazakhs, Abai is Abai Qunanbaiuli, their great national poet. Auezov’s novel is a fictionalised telling of Abai’s life, in which the poetry certainly appears but, as critics have pointed out, it is as much about Kazakh culture and heritage as about Abai’s poetry.

The historical novel ‘The Nomads’ is a chronicle of events that occurred in the Qazaq steppe during the period of the birth of statehood after the Mongol invasion. The trilogy generalizes the reasons of the emergence and strengthening of the Qazaq Khanate and social, economical and political causes for rapprochement with Russia.