THE BALLAD OF ILYAS J. 

From the rhythms of equestrian nomadic life

Came Ilyas Jansugurov--gifted Kazakh poet-writer, killed in his prime;

The language, roots and music of the Kazakhs lived in him

His evocative poems of the boundless steppes drew deep inspiration                   

                                                                                             from them

Ilyas effusively loved

The pristine beauty, variety and colours of his native Zhetysu

His inspired dombra urgently pressed

Widely travelled legends and tales from the centuries’ depths—

A poetic cosmos of nomads

The world of winged emotions as well

And in narrative onomatopoeia Ilyas sounded

The thunder of camp drums

 And the clanging of warring clan swords

The whizz of flying arrows

And the heavy clatter of battle horse-hooves

The smoke of charred campsite ruins

Distinctly pictured in poems

Were the rolling mountain river boulders in spring

The blossoming steppe with meadows all around

With waves of herds afloat in flowers up to their chests

The summer pastures on open ranges

Palpable the head-whirling indescribable pleasant scent of grass

The speed of the horse riders and winds

Even the melodiously warbling tiny garden nightingale

In myriad harmonies in the silence of evening

Ilyas experienced at first hand the outbreak of the Civil War

The dire famine that set in and starkly beggared the winter steppe

The wide expanse of Eurasia girded for change

Kazakh life would no longer be the same

Growing workers employed in mills and factories

Replaced yesterday’s shepherds on the steppes,

Miners, metallurgists, mechanics and power-engineers

Worked across that terrain

With automobiles, tractors and airplanes

There were also other stories to tell

And Ilyas lived the epoch’s idealism

Its hopes and optimism

Grew disillusioned and saddened deeply

With the everyday Stalinist terror making unprecedented history

He penned KULAGER-- his epic gem,

As an allegorical poem-requiem

An envious rival’s perfidy contrived

The tragic death of popular Akan-Seri’s beloved racehorse

Leaving the improvisational poet-composer mourning his loss

And Ilyas’ proud poetry probed

“Where are the heroes? Where the spirit of our forefathers?

Where the honour of the people?” yoked in the march of time

He rejected a simplistic morality of good versus evil

Portraying evil as not entirely uni-dimensional

Its power even compelling

Freedom! Freedom!

There’s nothing more human beings crave more

But on August 11 1937

The Black Raven was at Alma-Ata’s 3 Lagerna Street

It brought the menacing knock on the door—

Of the Georgian Stalin’s  Soviet NKVD

Who ransacked Ilyas’ apartment

With his wife Fatima and their frightened children looking on

Ilyas’ precious manuscripts survived

By some miracle that night!

Incarceration in the secret police torture chambers

Then execution awaited Ilyas 

Decreed by a rigged military tribunal

For yet another vilified “Enemy of the People”.

It was February 26, 1938

Fatima lived years in exile with her children

For being the “wife of an enemy of the people”

The official news of Ilyas’ death

Was relayed to her on April 12,1957:

“Illegally repressed, posthumously rehabilitated”

Read the terse, typed acquittal

And rising to the occasion

In a masterly denunciation of Ilyas’ betrayal

Fatima singled out

The mediocre Writers-Union sycophants among the assembled for

                                                                                                        blame             

Still adept at their political jobbery game

Decades later who would have thought

A twist of fate would bring me to Ilyas’ native ground

To his daughter Il’fa Ilyasovna

To shared conversations and how life goes on

How life goes on!

© Vanita Singh   New Delhi    

   October 25, 2023