Poetry
Балқадиша
Not translated into English
Akan Seri · 1903
Synopsis
A lyric song addressed to a young girl, Balqadisha, whom the singer had met at a celebration of a newborn's fortieth day, in the aul of Musa: while the guests hesitated to sit near the ageing poet, who was out of favour, she took a seat beside him, and he improvised this song, struck by her grace and wit. The verses speak of her beauty and dignity, of carefree youth coming to an end and of the marriage that awaits her, since she had been promised from childhood to another.
Context
A study in the Turkic Studies Journal dated the song to 1903 by identifying the newborn of the feast, and established that Balqadisha Ybyraikyzy, of Kenotkel, married in 1904 Suleimen, the fiancé of her childhood; the old eighty-five-year-old husband of the later versions is an insertion of the Soviet period, which the archives refute. The first transcriptions appeared in Zataevich's 1000 Songs of the Kazakh People, in 1925, the year Amre Kashaubaev sang it in France. Balqadisha's grave, at Kenotkel, bears two lines of the song, and her statue has stood at Zerendi since 2015.
Who it is for
A short, tender song, still in the repertoire of Kazakh singers, to be listened to as much as read.
Prizes and reception
Sung in France as early as 1925 by Amre Kachaoubaïev, taken up by choirs in 1973 and 1988, and recorded again in 2019.
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