Selected Poetry / Избранное (англ.)

The syllables and verses of this book kept me busy the whole winter. That winter, I circled around these short «Fundamentals of Faith» and didn’t progress any further. Right after the «Fundamentals of Faith», I heard these naughty verses from some mischievous girls when abystai was not at home: «Kalimaten tayibaten, our mistress is rich, money she’s got a lot, and her nose is full of sn…»

Since anything you hear or see for the first time already constitutes knowledge, I memorized this ditty at once, naturally, and liked to amuse with it those boys who were less «enlightened» than me.

IV

My first winter in Kyrlai was gone. Spring arrived and the snow began to melt. The fields and meadows around the village looked black once they had freed themselves of the snow.

A little later came the Sabantui festival10. On the day of the holiday I was awakened very early and given a small bag, slightly larger than a pouch.

I went around the village, carrying this bag. Village folk always rise early, but today on the occasion of the Sabantui everyone got up particularly early. Kind words were spoken in every home, and there was a smile on every face.

Whatever house I went into, I was given not only sweets and a couple of honey-cakes, like the other boys, but each owner gave me – an orphan and the son of a mullah – several colored eggs.

That’s why my bag quickly filled with colored eggs, and I had to return home. I think the rest of the kids were still out collecting their treats.

My father and mother were surprised and delighted that my bag was filled so quickly.

I don’t remember whether I drank tea that day or not. I gave the bag to my mother and taking with me a few eggs, I ran outside.

When I ran out into the street the sun was already high up in the sky and the entire village was bathed in golden sunlight. The village lads and girls, perhaps pulling on their white stockings more smoothly and wrapping their puttees around their feet more diligently under their bast shoes, were already out on the street.

From the opposite end, the head of the Sabantui with a flag in his hands (a stick with cloth tied to it) went from house to house collecting headscarves, cotton cloth and other similar items. We, barefoot boys, ran after him, not lagging behind.

After the scarves and fabrics were collected, all the local folk – women, girls and kids – gathered on the meadow. A wrestling and racing competition followed. There were dozens of carts with nuts, sunflower seeds and gingerbread, white with red stripes, standing across the meadow.

Of all those things, the favorite gift a girl could get from a lad was, of course, the white gingerbread with red stripes, because there’s even a song about this gingerbread:

An eagle landed on the meadowHe’ll scare away the geese.A striped white gingerbread from a fellowFor the girl would never go amiss.

There were also horse races and races in sacks. The headscarves were given away and the Sabantui festivities came to an end.

I can’t recall now how many days that holiday lasted. I only described one. Even if it lasted three or four days it seemed like one day to me.

I also have to add that I couldn’t run around and play that summer like I did the one before, because right before the beginning of spring a boy was born in uncle Sagdi’s family, and when mother was at work I always had to babysit the infant.

Yet another harvest season was here. The previous summer, when the whole village was at work, I played with the kids without a care in the world, but now they made me go out into the field with them to ride Sadri in the carriage (the baby’s full name was Sadretdin). This explains why I spent this entire summer doing strenuous chores – and for someone who loved playing as much as I did this was a true ordeal.

After the birth of this child, my adopted father continued to be affectionate with me, but my mom seldom spoke to me now except when she instructed me do some chores or work. This was how I lost the little love that has fallen to my lot.

And as if that wasn’t enough, the lame one caressed Sadri all the time, repeating deliberately to upset me: «My own brother! My real brother!»

V

Autumn arrived. When I finished my usual work on the potato harvest, I was sent to a madrassah (not the one I attended together with the girls at the abystai’s house). After I learned the lines and verses of the «Haftiak» very fast in school, I turned to the ayats of «Badavam» and «Kisekbash». And since I coped with this assignment quickly as well and I sat around for a long time doing nothing, they began to ask me to tutor boys who had fallen behind.

One of these boys was the son of a rich man from our village, and he invited me to his house sometimes as his tutor for some tea and cake with spelt flour.

On the one hand, I was a good student, on the other hand, I wasn’t so bad with house chores either. In the morning I opened the valve of the stove and I shut it later; I made bundles of straw to get the fire going; I took the cow out to join the herd and went out to meet her in the evening. I was quite good at all these things.

My father and I would sometimes go to the bazaar in Etna during the summer. I watched the horses while he made the rounds of the marketplace on his business.

The esteemed Fatkherakhman, our village mullah, was probably my late father’s friend or studied at the madrassah with him, I don’t know the real story, but for some reason he would give me five kopecks every week.

I spent the money buying white bread at the bazaar in Etna and would eat the bread along our return trip home.

As I sat behind him on the wagon, eating the bread, my father would turn to me occasionally and say: «Leave some of your bread for mother!» «All right», – I said. But even though I pinched off and ate it in tiny pieces, I can’t remember it there was anything left to give to my mother.

Since the Kyrlai village was the place where I opened my eyes to the world, I felt I had to dwell on these memories a little longer.

That is why I will write several paragraphs about the changes, which took place there and about some other things preserved in my memory, and I will then leave Kyrlai.

Sazhida apa suffered from tuberculosis for a very long time. She was in such a bad way that father had to carry her on his back to the bathhouse or wherever else she needed to go. In the end she died. My father was also struck by a sudden disease one evening, after returning from another village, while he unharnessed his horse. There were different speculations about the nature of his illness, such as: «He was struck by the horse devil», «hit by a falling star» and the like.

My father didn’t stop working despite his illness, but he became lame in one leg.

One autumn day, after dinner, my father and mother were in the barn, and I sat by the side window reading the «Message to Hafiza», when a cart pulled up by our gate. The stranger tethered his horse, entered the house and asked me: «Where are your father and mother?»

«At the barn», – I answered. The man said then: «Go fetch them then.» So I ran to the threshing floor and said: «There’s a man at the house and he wants to see you.» My father and mother immediately came home.

Soon after, father and mother walked inside the door and greeted the stranger.

They prepared tea. This time, with a guest being present, they poured me some tea, too, and they even placed a piece of sugar in front of me, which they didn’t normally do.

When my father asked: «What business brought you here?» the traveler replied: «I came here for this child.»

Father was bewildered by these words. «Why so? Why did you come for him?» he said. After these and other similar questions the traveler began the conversation thus:

«I am from the village of Kushlavych myself. This boy is our imam’s child. We lost touch with him several years ago and had no information about him, but we now found him. It turned out that he is living here with you. In Yaik he has an uncle – a man married to his father’s sister. When this uncle of his found out that his wife’s nephew was in the care of such simple folk he decided that the boy should live with him in Yaik. At his behest in Yaik, I went in search of this child and I’m now taking him away with me.»

The traveler’s words upset my father and mother to no end.

«Splendid! We fed him three or four years, when the price of a peck of flour was so and so much, and now, when he became fit for work, you want us to give him to you… No way, forget it! If he has family, where were they before?» They began to bicker and exchange words like this.

Once in a while my mother would interject a remark: «No way! We don’t have any children to spare!»

To which the stranger, uncle Badretdin, responded with: «So you’re saying ‘No way, you didn’t have the right’ to hold someone else’s child… I’m going to take the issue before the village constable. We’ve been looking for the child all this time, but it turns out you had him all along. I’ll drag you through the courts!»

It’s not hard to frighten village people with such words and my poor parents caved in.

A little later, my usually headstrong mother said: «All right, dear, we’ll have to let go of him. Looks like we can’t have him as our child… Allah forbid that you should get into trouble!» – As she said this, she broke into tears.

Soon afterwards, like the sea that can’t calm down after a storm, my father, too, conceded at the end of the fizzling out dispute.

Giving me my old knee-length coat and worn-out felt boots to wear, they brought me immediately out of the house, and put me on the cart.

Weeping bitterly, my mother and father saw me off all the way to the field gates.

Mother cried out: «Don’t forget us! Don’t forget! If you do, you’ll become a hot ember in hell!» These were the last words I heard from her as we drove out of the village.

Since the situation regarding my departure was decided practically within a half hour or so, I couldn’t say goodbye to any of my village friends and acquaintances. I couldn’t explain anything to them.

Evening fell and dusk was already descending as soon as we left the village.

Along the way, we stopped in Uchile village to visit my grandfather. They treated us to some tea at his place.

Nothing much changed in this family except for the fact that Sazhida apa got married.

After we had our tea, we drove past Verkhniye Aty, Nizhniye Aty and Sredniye Aty until at midnight we finally reached my native village – Kushlavych.

Along the road, I must have been bounced around pretty badly in the back of the cart, because in uncle Badri’s house, I instantly fell asleep like a log.

After waking up, I saw that I was in a black hut without any chimney. There was no furniture here at all, nothing but bowls, cups, spoons, a scoop, a clamp, a breast collar, and other things of that sort.

We drank some tea. Uncle Badri had a big blue-eyed wife with a friendly face, named Gaisha, a 14 or 15-year-old son, Kamaletdin, a daughter, Kashifa, aged 12 and a newly born baby girl, Nagima. After tea, we went into the house across the way from this one.

This house looked nothing like the black hut I spent the night in: the walls were built of fresh yellow pine, there was nice furniture and decor, even a desk – for a villager like me the interior was more than satisfactory.

When I saw uncle Badri’s barns full of meat, various grains, wheat and rye, I decided that he must be one of the richest people in the village.

Kamaletdin also showed me there large orchard, not particularly beautiful in the autumn but with a lot of bee hives.

After I walked into this white chimney house, I didn’t leave it the entire day and went to bed there.

In the evening, going through the books in the house, I stumbled upon Fruits of Conversation11 and began to read it. I liked the last few poems very much and tried my best to understand them. However, since in Kyrlai I read only Hafiza and the religious-mystical book Sabatel-Gadzhizin, I was perplexed by the presence of indecent words in this book, and I began wondering: how could there be such words in a book?

Sometimes, under the influence of this book Fruits of Conversation I loudly argued with Gaisha abystai in the black hut, where she washed her laundry. My aunt put men to shame, while I ridiculed women.

Wherever I went, I was always singled out among other boys as the son of a mullah. Even in places where lots of children got together I wasn’t allowed to play tag with the girls. I also tried to behave as appropriate to a mullah’s son and use my own erudition.

Here’s an example. Once when I was at uncle Badri’s place, a man by the name of Sitdik, well known in the village, came to see me. He was drunk. He came up to me and said the words of greeting but I didn’t answer him; he gave me his hand but I didn’t shake it.

They asked me why I acted that way. I immediately answered with a line from Badavam:

«Don’t send greetings to a drunk,And never shake his hand.»

In addition to the fact that uncle Badri’s whole family was amazed, my religious zeal became known to everyone in the village.

Shortly after uncle Badri had me leave Kyrlai, he had to travel to Kazan on some business.

I didn’t spend the entire month of his absence doing nothing. Kamaletdin and I attended the school in our village which was like a madrassah. There was so much to learn that we even had to stay there overnight sometimes. The honorable teacher in this school had the habit of hammering knowledge in his students. In this short time I was often horrified as I watched how he beat the daylights out of some of his students, treating them like dogs.

I found the possibility that the whip of the esteemed teacher was going to hit my back someday very frightening. Besides, it wasn’t particularly pleasant to be herded to the morning prayer together with the rest of the students, so I thought to myself: «Let uncle Badri return soon, then I could go back to Yaik!»

Finally, uncle Badri came back. He brought me a new hat, new felt boots and a new quilted coat. I was very happy to put on my new clothes, but I pulled my old hat from the heap of old clothes and hid it in the attic, so that when I come back one day I would find it there. This was another one of my strange actions.

After that we spent only a few days in Kushlavych. Then we packed our belongings and drove in the direction of Yaik.

After a day and a night on the road, we arrived in Kazan (most likely, from the side of the Hay Market) and finally stopped at some place.

Suddenly we saw a man running towards us with widespread arms: he had an almost entirely white beard but his eyes looked young.

«You’re still alive then?» he exclaimed, coming up to me. «Your mother saw you in her dreams just yesterday. Come on, I’ll take you home. You’ll have some tea and spend the night with us», – with these words he took me away.

We came home. Mom met me. She missed me, poor thing, and was also crying.

They prepared tea for me. Father brought some meat dumplings from the inn, and we had a good meal. They asked me how I was doing during the time I was away. I told them everything I could recall.

Nothing seemed to have changed in the lives of these parents of mine in the time we lived apart, except that my father’s beard turned gray, and that they moved from the New Quarter to the Old Quarter.

I spent that night at their place. In the morning, after tea, my mother washed me in the tub. She put a new embroidered skullcap on my head and gave me a pair of leather pants, something very necessary for a long winter journey.

When she was taking me to uncle Badri in the hotel, she wanted to give me as a keepsake a string of prayer beads and decorations for my skullcap called «Maryam-Ana»12, but I refused to take them for some reason, saying: «You don’t have to do that. I don’t need anything. I’m going to a rich house.»

Our hotel room was quite average, neither good nor bad.

The man from Yaik who was going to take me there was called Shest-pyat Sapyi. He hadn’t arrived to Kazan yet, which is why uncle Badri and I had to wait for him for a week or two.

Finally, our long-awaited Shest-pyat Sapyi arrived and got himself a hotel room right across from ours.

A few days after that, uncle Badri moved my things to his room and, handing me six coins two kopecks each, 12 kopecks all together, left for his home in the village.

Hard as I tried to plead with him so he would stay for at least one more day – that’s how much I hated to part with him – he left anyway, comforting me with different kind words.

After his departure I remained with Shest-pyat Sapyi and his wife.

Both the clothes and speech habits of this man, who came from another city, seemed alien to me.

For example, in the middle of a conversation he would suddenly say: «I am a man advanced in years.» For the life of me, I couldn’t understand the meaning of the word «advanced».

Shest-pyat Sapyi wore a fur coat, and its collar and sleeves were trimmed with fox fur. I thought that perhaps he was «advanced» because he was wearing such a fur coat. Later, already in Yaik, I learned that «advanced in years» meant «old».

With the 12 kopecks from uncle Badri I bought myself salt-dried Caspian roach and sunflower seeds.

A few days after that, we packed for the road.

They made me sit on the lap of Shest-pyat Sapyi’s wife in the sleigh covered in matting, so that I couldn’t look around in any direction. They would let me out only when we stopped at a village to have some tea.

I begged them: «Let me walk by the sleigh. It’s better that way – at least I’d be free.» I was not allowed. «You’ll freeze to death. Your uncle told us to look after you so you wouldn’t freeze», they said.

My uncle instructed that guy, Shest-pyat Sapyi, to bring a good sledge from Kazan, and it was attached to our rear. In front of us was the sleigh of some other folk from Yaik, loaded with various merchandise, so we travelled in a «caravan». For this reason, feeling as if we were prisoners in the enclosed sleigh, suffering a thousand different inconveniences, we finally drove into Yaik in the evening of the eighteenth day of our journey.

In Yaik we stopped at uncle Sapyi’s. «We’ll have some tea first, and take you to your uncle and aunt later», – they said.

Later that evening, between the two prayers, I went to my uncle and aunt, accompanied by uncle Sapyi.

We met a young woman in a green quilted gown on the road. «This is your aunt, say hello to her», – Shest-pyat Sapyi told me, so I greeted her.

Their house was only about sixty feet away. I entered the gates, climbed up a very high set of stairs and stepped onto the second floor…

AUTUMN

Look around, my friends, autumn is here,And winter in its white cloak is already near.The birds are moving southward, flying far away,They have a better place where it is safe to stay.The forest dyed in yellow, soon all its leaves are gone,The harvesters have gathered their grain and corn.Naked seem the fields, bald like a Tatar’s head,The lark dives from the sky, hunting for his bread.Small pockets of grass retain the gleam of silk,The sun is getting tired – its rays are growing weak.Darkness ousts the light. It makes me so sad.The wind is cold and nasty, spins around my head.Autumn is depressing, as everyone agrees,Flowers lose their bloom, leafless stand the trees.A forsaken graveyard is brighter than this field,Without the summer grass, gone is its glossy shield.Six months of heavy slumber… So I can shut my eyes,Oblivious completely to those gloomy skies.Nothing will awake me, neither heavy wind nor rain,I will awaken only when spring comes back again.The carpet of young grass will tempt me to lie down.Happy I will be like the shah showing off his crown.I wonder why my people aren’t happy in their land.So let the day take over, and night come to an end.Will I ever see this happen while I’m still alive?Just a dream it is, alas, first I have to die.1906

EPITAPH TO MY BELOVED

I feel your heartbeat in my soul; you never died,Your warmth and grace the two of us have tied,And if you die, death is my only choice,But while I breathe, I’ll hear your gentle voice.You’re in my mind, yes, you are in my heart,Not even death can break us two apart.My love for you will never be surpassed,And memories of it until my deathbed last.1906

TO MY NATION

You occupy my thoughts both day and night,Your health is mine; your plight, it is my plight.For me more sacred than anything on earth,Nothing could compare with my nation’s worth.With boundless joy to you I will belong,To you I’ll consecrate my poet’s song.I don’t know why these words should ring so true,I yearn to be the people’s poet, borne of you.The nation’s dream above all dreams must soarIn my own mind, it maddens and it roars…Oh Tengri, I will be her poet… loyal, whole –That is the greatest aspiration of my soul!Oh heavens, take my life, not my renown.To be forgotten? Better yet to drown.I will die; let forever live the glory of my name,All my deeds and struggles will bring me eternal fame.For when I die, death will not steal my name,My deeds and efforts should enjoy eternal fame.To be remembered by my people is my goalI’ve written of my love, befriend me in your soul!1906

TO A HOURI

In heaven, if I chance upon your faceIn it, I’ll see my own reflection’s trace.

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1

It happened on August 30, 1990 – see, for example, Ravil Bukharaev, Non-Violent Quest for National Identity: The Case of Tatarstan, Nations and Nationalism Around the Globe, vol. II, Warsaw, 2006. On the past and present ofl the Kazan Tatar people and their culture, see also the following books by Ravil Bukharaev: The Model of Tatarstan under President Mintimer Shaimievu, Curzon Press Ltd., London and St Martin’s Press, New York, 1999; Islam in Russia. The Four Seasons, Curzon Press Ltd., London and St Martin’s Press, New York, 2000; Historical Anthology of Kazan Tatar Verse (with D.J. Matthews), Curzon Press Ltd., London, 2000; Saga of Kazan, Slavia, St Petersburg, 2005; Tatarstan:-A Can-Do Culture, Global Oriental, London, 2006; Kol GCalil, Story of Joseph (historical introductory essays and translation of the grand medieval Bulgar-Tatar poem by Fred Beake and Ravil Bukharaev), Global Oriental (Brill), UK, 2010.

2

Translation by David Matthews and Ravil Bukharaev. A new translation of the same poem see on page 127.

3

On April 14, 1886 according to the Old Style (Greigorian Calendar).

4

Uchile means ««three houses»».

5

Apa, in Tatar, means ««auntie»».

6

Bai, in Tatar, means ««a rich man»».

7

Tash Ayak literally means, in Tatar, ««a Stone leg»». This was the name of a place under the walls of the Kazan Kremlin with a bazaar trading there from medieval times.

8

The Suyumbike Tower in the Kazan Kremlin.

9

Tatar dairy product of sour milk somewhat similar to yogurt.

10

Sabantui literally means ««The Plough Festival»», since the time immemorial it is being celebrated in early summer. Sabantui has been included into the UNESCO Immaterial Heritage list.

11

The Fruits of Conversation is a collection of works of literature and folklore, compiled by Kayum Nasyri in 1884.

12

««Mother Maryam»» – necklace made out of small beads and shells used as an amulet to protect children against the ««evil eye»».