THE STORY OF A POEM - NAPOWRIMO2021
Daididau: From Obscure Poem to Worldwide Hit
(and unofficial anthem of Kazakhstan)
A Silenced Poet
It begins like a fairytale: Once upon a time there was a poet who was very much in love with his wife. Her name was Zuleikha Kurmanbaykizi, and his nickname for her was “Daididau.” Distant cousins and teenage sweethearts, they had been married off to other people by their parents, as was customary in their day. Only after they both became widowed at a young age were they able to build a life together.
This young poet, Magzhan Zhumabayev, dearly loved his homeland. At the time of his birth in 1893, Kazakhstan was being ruled by the Russian Czar, following the 19th-century expansion of the Russian empire. The Kazakh people, however, aspired to self-governance.
Poetry knows no borders.
Zhumabayev’s first book of poetry, Şolpan (“Venus”), written in his mother tongue (the Kazakh language, related to Turkish), was published in 1912 and immediately caught the attention of the Kazakh intelligentsia. Five years later, in the wake of the 1917 Russian Revolution, we find our poet joining the newly founded Kazakh nationalist party, Alash Orda.
