Kazakhstan and Manin Qazaqstanym

Patrick: 00:00:15

Hello and welcome to the Anthems podcast. I'm Patrick and I'm here to tell you the story of a song that helps to tell the story of a nation.

Today we will be making the first push into Asia proper.

Technically speaking, yes, we have been here before when you heard about Russia, since it is a transcontinental nation, but despite most of its land being in Asia, most of its population is in Europe. So I am going to concur with the UN that it is a european nation.

across the planet is roughly: 9085

Today's anthem is brought to you via an old friend of mine and Sasha Baron Cohen, who is a person I have never met.

My friend was interested in learning some real stuff about Kazakhstan instead of the nonsense in the movie Borat, but I do think that the movie serves a purpose.

Its satire first of all, and Cohen has developed a strong streak of playing exaggerated depictions of things to draw out, entrap and troll hateful, bigoted people. Plus its a particular kind of stupid funny that appeals to my inner twelve year old boy.

That said, its definitely full of a bunch of unchecked nonsense and misinformation and is not an accurate representation of the kazakhstani people. And one does not automatically go and learn about the place after seeing a film lampooning it.

Until I started this show, there was essentially no chance that I'd have learned anything at all about the country. But all that means I get to tell you about many Kazakhstanum, or in English, my Kazakhstan.

And hopefully I'll tell you something interesting about the people that are the namesake of the country. The kazakh people are yet another thing that I could do an entire other podcast about that would never fully flesh out the depth of that culture.

The finiteness of my time here is an ever frustrating thing, folks.

The name Kazakh first started being used by the people living in the region sometime in the 14th century, but the origins of the term are kind of a fuzzy data point in etymology. The origins of the people, though, are much clearer and involve the rise of a kazakh state that was the successor to the golden horde.

But that's a far different story than what we're going to be discussing. Enough with the potential spoilers.

Hopefully me not letting you know what I'm doing ahead of the release has kept you from reading ahead, making it impossible, hopefully unetheless. I'm creating fans of the national anthem genre and there are people out there deep diving national anthem history because of this show.

That would be fun. Unlikely, but fun.

Maybe those folks will do their homework better than the people that played the parody of Monique Kazakhstanum from Borat at the international shooting Grand Prix in Kuwait. The stone faced look on Maria Dmitryenko's face during the song is honestly kind of heartbreaking.

But they did have the ceremony again after the team complained, and this time they played the official version of the following anthem that you are going to hear roughly two minutes of.

My initial reaction to this is honestly to re evaluate what I'm going to use on the show because it was kind of an awesome performance and I listened to a lot of different versions of an anthem before I decide what gets played. Like a lot, a lot of them, and I even try to work them out on my ukulele or guitar.

Most of the time I try to play the literal official version of the anthem, but that might not always be the best way because you heard that song too, and it is on my playlist now.

of: 2023

Mi, Kazakhstan is quite big. In fact, it is roughly the size of western Europe, and not just the largest landlocked country, but also the 9th overall.

It butts up on some of the other biggest ones out there as well, with the northern and western border being Russia and the Caspian Sea on the western side, which is another really cool body of water that I spent way too much time reading about, often called the world's largest lake. My new geology term for this episode is it's an endohiric body of water.

It's e n D o r h e I c, so maybe endorc or something, but it means that it does not drain into an ocean, and instead it drains into swamps and smaller lakes and ultimately is lost mostly through evaporation and human usage. Interesting. So the eastern border of Kazakhstan is China, and the southern border is mostly Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

There's a little bit of Turkmenistan about 230 miles or so, right before the Caspian Sea on the west. So for my fellow Americans, it's the big country right in between Europe and Asia.

With Kazakhstan, we are again encountering a country that used to be a part of the Soviet Union. There were one of the last to get out when the USSR fell apart. So that's where we're headed, but it's not where I'm gonna begin the story.

rate the kazakh steppe in the: 1820

But in the 17 hundreds, the Russians started claiming territory, and the catnate did nothing because they were distracted by another foe. And in fact, they asked the russian empire for help with this foe. They were told, sure.

n over. In the period between: 1822

This led to an increase in the immigrant population and a squeezing of the grazing land that heavily favored the russian farmers, supporting the forts more than the Kazakhs, feeding their families and herds as it does, the occupation resulted in a vigorous armed resistance.

ssian response was to pass an: 1860

For the next 60 years or so, the traditional kazakh lifestyle continued to be eroded away at through the vast increases in russian farmland.

But then, in: 1920

sts shaped the region, and by: 1930

Over the next decade, Kazakhstan was subject to two broadly horrible things that I could leave out, but history cant be a highlight reel or we learn nothing and this stuff shapes the personality of the people who are involved in the history that we're talking about. The first event is the Asharshalik. It's a famine so bad that it has a name. It killed 1.5 million people, of which 1.3 million were ethnic Kazakh.

there were the gulags of the: 1930

There were eleven of them in Kazakhstan, and you get no details on this podcast because some of them horrible things are in fact off limits on this show.

All we really need to know is that halfway through this decade, our poet and composer were born into a country where millions of people were starving and being imprisoned in indescribable conditions because of the government. The younger of the two men is our poet Zhumiken Sabruli Nazimandinov.

He was born in: 1935

When he wrote the song in: 1956

Jumican was, at various points in his life, an editor at a publishing house, the head of a newspaper, Lenin's youth, a literary consultant for the Kazakh Writer Writers Union, a government typography editor, and the head of a publishing department.

collections of poetry in the: 1960

There were ten posthumous anthologies of his, writing on a wide variety of topics, and he is fortunate enough to be considered an influential author to this day. Now we will catch up.

hamshi Khaldiakov was born in: 1937

usic in a waltz style, and in: 1955

g and drove a tractor because: 1940

ertainly not true, because in: 1944

Some of the info says that he went to a veterinary college and was conscripted as a technician in the Aktobe region of the country. He grew tired of that and at 17 begin playing music and found his real calling at the conservatory.

So honestly, all I can say about this guy is who knows about most of his backstory, but it's been fun to explore.

What we can say for sure is that he did write a bunch of music over the course of his life, and he became an honored part of kazakhstani culture, even being considered the father of the kazakh waltz.

February in: 1992

So a talented poet and a talented writer met at a conservatory and kicked off their careers with what is probably the most popular song either one of them ended up writing. But a super popular patriotic song generally has a point, and since I'm mentioning it, you've probably guessed that this one does too.

By the end of the: 1950

In: 1953

There were pretty massive food shortages in the Soviet Union, and this was an epic sized farming expansion to try and alleviate and stabilize the food supply. As a short term solution, it did actually make some gains toward its goals, but by the end of the decade, it was considered a complete disaster.

What it also did, though, was make the destruction of the nomadic life of a herder on the kazakh steppe seem like it was the goal. They badly deepened the divisions that were begun by the russian empire and shrank the available grazing lands even further.

That is the chain of events that inspired the patriotic song that became the anthem of Kazakhstan.

There is some discussion about whether the anthem was in support or in opposition of that program, but we will talk about that after we get to the lyrics. We have the anthem, but as is sometimes the case, we have a time gap between the complete song and the song becoming the anthem.

I mean, it's 50 years, so historically speaking, it's not really that long.

But a lot of stuff happens in the last half of the 20th century in the USSR, though most of the rest of the 20th century, the USSR tried hard to make Kazakhstan an industrial center when coal and oil were found there. This left the country with a mixed legacy.

When the Soviet Union disintegrated some 36 or so years later, about half of the country's citizens were ethnically russian, and they were not meshing well with the existent society, since they were basically forced there by the USSR.

ture. Generally, though, post: 1991

Declare independence from the soviet apparatus, maintain the existing power structure. Pretty exactly. Mostly the same people, too. One person arises to power and then spends the rest of their life consolidating that power.

ident remained in power until: 2019

For our purposes, the most important thing this mandev did was, as part of his efforts to further distance the administration from communism, replace the soviet anthem. The president chose many Kezak Stenim with reworked lyrics.

We'll put a pin in that, too, and became the technical co author of his country's anthem in an almost comically dictatorial fashion. So we now have the anthem, and we can talk about the song itself. Musically speaking, the anthem fits a pattern in a lot of ways.

We have a strong, powerful, even and uplifting melody, coupled with a fairly straightforward and consonant harmony that's anthomesque stuff, and it helps the song convey a sense of pride, national identity, stability, and unity throughout the piece. It's officially in the key of c and played at the stately pace of something like 84 beats per minute.

So like a slightly excited Andantino if you have a conveniently labeled metronome directly in front of you. At any rate, it manages to dodge the lack of, I don't know, like muchness that slower marches have for me most of the time.

This one sounds quite good as far as the lyrics go.

se chorus format the original: 1956

Discussing this song, I'll read out the original first, and then if the official is different, I'll read the version and then I will discuss them in that context. Just like episode three, North Macedonia I will read through in English because Maya Kazakh is non existent.

The original first sun of gold in the sky, grain of gold in the steppe let us all celebrate, let us look at the step, how spacious is this land. Flowers bloom on the ground, grains are with toil sowed, my cassocks are intrepid. The current sky of golden sun, step of golden seed.

Legend of courage take a look at my country. From the antiquity our heroic glory emerged. They did not give up their pride.

My kazakh people are strong, strong and topic appropriate verses with some telling similarities and differences. The original is high praise for the kazakh people and their beloved steppe, a large and beautiful homeland with flowers and sun plus the grain.

Recall that the original song was written in response to the Virgin Lands campaign, wherein Russia tried to convert Kazakhstan into a bread basket for the USSR. Several of the sources say there is some debate over it being a song in support or opposition of the program.

More on that will follow as we learn more of this tune. As far as the version that the president reimagined, well, the tone is a bit different, isn't it?

There is still the recognition of the people in the land, but in the country that this song was in, we've got a kazakh president that essentially has unilateral power. So he is trying to rewrite a popular patriotic song to further cement his legacy and control of the country.

To me, it feels far more deliberate in its assertions about the way people should feel than the less prescriptive original. The original chorus my motherland, my motherland, as thy song I shall stream from thee, as thy flower I shall bloom.

O homeland, my native homeland, my Kazakhstan and the current one. My country, my country, as your flower I will be planted, as your song I will stream. My country, my native land, my Kazakhstan.

Again, a striking difference in tone and intention. At least the intention part is there for me. In the original, we get motherland, and that implies nurturing and the people arising from the country.

The verse continues with the theme of coming from the country, and then the official version of the refrain is rife with personal possession, with the particularly telling change of my motherland to my country. Nurselton was not subtle a note.

When I read these songs, I try to find different translations, because there are different ways to translate things, and the words that people or AI pick to do that matter when I'm trying to interpret what the original author meant.

So the translation that I'm using is one, or sometimes a synthesis of a few that I feel conveys the meanings and feeling of the anthem that I'm talking about. Based on all the reading that I've managed to do on the song, on to the original second verse.

When around I glance my heart with love fillethood on this day I conform behold my noble folk our country a vast land our banners are raised in the wind they swayed in the end I rejoiced the current, the way was opened to the descendants by the vast land I have its unity is proper I have an independent country it welcomed the tests of time like an eternal friend our country is blessed it's in our hands let's be honest, these are just straight up different songs. The verse and intention is completely different. Jumakin's original poetry is high praise for the people and the country.

He loves the people that he sees, and he just wants to be part of it. This is where I can understand some of the debate about whether or not this song was for or against the soviet efforts.

He refers obliquely to the steppe again, and nearly explicitly to the resistance against dividing it for farming. But rejoice in the end?

Probably not, one would think, because the Russians definitely got their way, even if it was a fairly complete failure, and the kazakhstani people suffered an awful lot because of it.

The official anthem is again quite different, and it has an explicitly nationalistic tone that one would expect from a not quite authoritarian country's national anthem. That said, it's not really that far off the mark for a national anthem, because, as I have said before, it's a pretty nationalistic thing.

The land provided a path for the people to fashion a country that is unified and independent of the rest. An ancient country, blessed by God and given to the people to steer by their own hand.

So very much in the wheelhouse of anthems, we then hear the refrain again and we go on to the original third verse. There is no third verse in the official version of the anthem.

There is a looming step, there is a placid bounty oh look and gratify I have such a country of new eras welcomed like an old age friend. Blessed is our country, this is our country.

Here is where I hear the song become defiant and make it ring true that an interview with the composers son Muktar hit the table in disgust and is quoted. Imagine if someone came and tried to break up London, he said. It's just like that. My father composed the song to stop them doing this. Don't do it.

This is our land. They know this is a great place and it's exactly what the Soviets are looking for.

Obviously I'll allow for debate on this because I'm nothing approaching a scholar of history, and judgment about history based solely on authority is probably a mistake. But im on the side of the sun and I agree that this is an anti come here and farm all our land song.

This is followed again by the refrain one last time and we come to the end of a song that was a de facto anthem and then was changed to something almost completely different before being made into an official anthem.

It turned out to be an interesting trip, I think, and it reminded me again that not only are we seeing snippets of the decolonization of european powers, but we also get to see empire crumbling, whether it's the russian empire or the USSR. Either way, I learned a whole bunch of stuff again, and I hope that you did too, because that's kind of my entire thing here.

So we cut to the credits. The writing, recording, and production for the show are done by me, and I also wrote and played the intro outro music.

The music was used with my permission unless otherwise noted, the anthems I play are public domain or some other equivalently free to get license. My sources, and this time that is it, are contained in the show notes.

The most direct way to get to those show notes is@anthemspodcast.com you can find me on Facebook and WhatsApp as the Anthemspodcast, and for now I try to get the episodes shared on whatever platform I can with the hashtag hash anthemspod. This is mostly because I have no desire to join them all.

You can email me corrections, comments, concerns, ideas, instructions on how to do awesome things and even ask me questions@anthemspodmail.com.

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Now give me a rating, maybe even a good one on your podcast collection app, or just recommend this show to another human being so maybe they'll do all that. But whatever you do, thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show, and I hope you listen to some more of it. Bye.