Sayakbay Karalaev

Who is Sayakbay Karalaev?

Sayakbay Karalaev was born in 1894 into a poor peasant family on the southern shore of Lake Issyk-Kul in what is now Kyrgyzstan. He drew early inspiration from his storytelling grandmother, Dakish, and from the guidance of the master manaschi Choyuke Omuru uulu. A manaschi is a performer who recites the vast oral Epic of Manas — the trilogy of Manas, his son Semetey, and his grandson Seytek — entirely from memory and without musical accompaniment. Karalaev began performing independently around 1925 and by 1930 was widely recognized as an outstanding manaschi, later becoming the first official manaschi salaried by the Frunze (now Bishkek) State Philharmonic. Between 1936 and 1952 his complete recitation of the trilogy was recorded and transcribed, reaching roughly 500,553 lines of verse, the longest version of the epic ever documented, reportedly some twenty times the combined length of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. In recognition of his contribution he was named People's Artist of the Kirghiz SSR in 1939 and received multiple Soviet state honors, including the Order of the Badge of Honor. Often called the "Homer of the twentieth century," he died on 7 May 1971, and his portrait now appears on the Kyrgyz 500 som banknote.

Sources: Wikipedia, "Sayakbay Karalaev" · National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic, banknote biography · Trip to Kyrgyzstan blog, "Sayakbai Karalaev — Immeasurable relic of mankind"