Novel
Ботагөз
Not translated into English
Sabit Mukanov · 1938
Synopsis
At the beginning of the century, in the Kazakh steppe, Botagöz, a young woman who attends a Russian school, refuses the rightless condition imposed on the women of her people. She meets Askar, who is outraged by the fate of Kazakh girls and who is glad to see her educated; their love, slow to begin, goes through many trials. With him, the girl from the aul becomes a political fighter, through the uprising of 1916, set off by the mobilisation of Kazakhs for rear-line labour, and then the civil war.
Context
The novel appeared in Kazakh in 1938, then in Russian, in Moscow, in 1949, in an edition translated from the Kazakh and printed in fifteen thousand copies; the BnF holds a translation by Semion Rodov, dated 1957, of 456 pages. It deals with the spread of Bolshevik ideas, the opening of the first Russian schools and the decree that in 1916 mobilised the men of the Turkestan aged nineteen to forty-three for the armies, which led to the uprising. The Steppe describes it as a book rich in dialogue, which reads quickly despite the gravity of its subject.
Who it is for
A historical novel about the awakening of a young Kazakh woman, to be read for the image Soviet literature gave of 1916.
Prizes and reception
Recommended by the journal The Steppe to readers discovering Kazakh literature; translated into Russian as early as 1949.
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The pages consulted to check this page.