Manas shares many common themes with other Turkic epics. As seen in the Lines 2110-2120 in Köçümkulkïzï’s translation, the hero is born to a couple who have been waiting a long time for a child. Manas’ birth is precipitated by a feast and their beseeching of God, as well as by a dream (Köçümkulkïzï, Manas, Section I). As the epic progresses, the audience learns that Manas is strong and courageous and has an extraordinary horse that he learns how to ride as a very young child. As a youth, he is mischievous, hard to control, and at the same time very generous. He is accompanied by forty strong men as he defeats his enemies within and outside his tribe. Also similar to other Turkic tales the woman he marries, Kanikei, exhibits great loyalty and strength. Kanikei, who embodies characteristics idealized in Kyrgyz women, is also hospitable, wise, capable, and gentle.

As in other Turkic epics, there is rivalry, corruption, and treachery among the men who vie for leadership of the tribe. In this case, the threats are from Manas’ father and uncles who attack Semetey, Manas’ son, after the hero’s death. Kanikei, as the mother of Semetey, shows that she is capable of great valor and violence if needed to defend and later avenge her son. In contrast to other Turkic epics, Manas includes a tale of friendship between the hero and Almanbet, a Chinese outsider, who is treated as a brother. This bond exemplifies the possibility of friendship with outsiders.

The dating of this epic has caused some controversy and scholarly debates. The earliest written version of the epic is from the mid-19th century and was recorded by Chokan Valikhanov (1835-1865), a Kazakh ethnographer. An older six-line fragment of the epic was found in a historiographical work, written in Persian and dated to the end of the 15th or beginning of the 16th century (Reichl 2016: 329). This does not mean that an earlier version did not exist. A source of great pride for the Kyrgyz, the 1000th anniversary of the Manas epic, was celebrated with great fanfare four years after the declaration of Kyrgyz independence in 1995.

Rather than how old it is, what makes this epic particularly interesting and provides evidence of its importance is how valiantly Kyrgyz and other Central Asian intellectuals, in particular Kazakh intellectuals, fought to promote and defend the epic Manas over the years. In 1925 attempts by Kyrgyz political figures to have it published were refused. While excerpts appeared in newspapers in Moscow in 1946, by the latter years of Stalin’s rule, the Soviet regime labeled Central Asian epics as “obstacles to building socialism” (Benningsen, 464). The Kyrgyz reaction to the attacks on Manas, in contrast to epics from the other Muslim republics, were “bitter, passionate, outspoken,” and came from all layers of Kyrgyz society (Benningsen, p. 468).

In an article based on biographies of the world-renowned Kyrgyz author Chingiz Aitmatov and interviews with his family members, Robinson writes that Aitmatov remembered a tense conference of about 300 scholars at the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences in Frunze that was forced to convene by party officials. Aitmatov narrated what he saw from the doorway: Mukhtar Auezov, a Kazakh historian and scholar of Manas was listening to speakers one after the other attacking Manas. Then, as recalled by Aitmatov, Auezov stood up and defended Manas, saying: “To take this epic away from the life of its people is like cutting out the tongue of our whole folk” (Robinson, 10). Thirty years later Aitmatov was the chief editor of the first Kyrgyz print edition of a Manas recitation based on recordings made by Auezov (Robinson, 10).

Russian and Turkish translations of Manas, as well as English ones, are available. A section of the epic based on the work of renowned Turcologist Wilhelm Radloff was translated into English by Arthur Hatto in 1977. Walter Mayor published a two-volume translation in 1995 from Russian. Sections have been translated, introduced, and annotated from Kyrgyz by Elmira Köçümkulkïzï and are available online. In 2018 a new English translation of the Epic Manas by Akylay Baimatova based on a Russian edition became available.

There are roughly one hundred recordings by various manaschi from a vast area including Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and Xinjiang, China, of this little-studied epic, which has many elements in common with other Turkic epics that span from Central Asia to Anatolia. One can only hope that more translations will spur greater interest in this literary masterpiece which has inspired films, opera, ballet, libretti, scholarly editions, graphic novels, and works of fiction.

* Cited in Bennigsen, 469. A notable cultural and political figure, Tokombaiev was a national poet, member of the Central Committee of the Kyrgyz Communist party and representative to the Supreme Soviet. The standard transliteration of Kyrgyz has changed over time. I am keeping direct quotes in their original form but otherwise I use the current standard transliteration of Kyrgyz.