Novel
The Nomads
Көшпенділер
Ilyas Yesenberlin · 1969
Synopsis
A novelistic trilogy on five centuries of Kazakh history. The first book follows the khans Kerei and Janibek, who leave Abulkhair's obedience for the valleys of the Chu and Kozybasy and unite the clans under the name of Kazakhs; the second, the wars against the Dzungars and the exploits of Khan Ablai; the third, the uprising of Kenesary, last khan of the three zhuz, against the Russian Empire. Legends, the lessons of the khans and the contests of the zhyrau stand alongside raids and succession struggles.
Context
The three books appeared separately: the last in the order of the story, Khan Kene, in 1969, then L'Épée enchantée in 1971 and Le Désespoir in 1973. Maurice Simachko translated them into Russian from 1974, which earned him the Abai Prize in 1986. Fantlab summarises the whole as the union of the tribes after the fall of Timur's empire, the struggle against the conquerors and a historical justification of the attachment to Russia in the eighteenth century. An English translation, published by the Ilias Esenberlin Foundation in 1998, bears the title The Nomads; the film Nomad, in 2005, was drawn from the second book.
Who it is for
In Kazakh, three volumes, with no French translation. It is worth knowing that the Kazakh khanate was born in the fifteenth century from a secession, and that it disappeared in the nineteenth into the empire of the tsars.
Prizes and reception
Fifty reissues in thirty years, about three million copies and translations into thirty languages, according to E-history.
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