KYRGYZSTAN’S FIRST LADY MAIRAM AKAYEVA WOWS JERUSALEM

While Kyrgyzstan's President Askar Akayev
was coming under international criticism for disqualification and harassment of his
adversaries in parliamentary elections, First Lady Mairam Akayeva was engaged in positive
and successful cultural diplomacy in Israel. At the President's House in Jerusalem,
Professor Akayeva and her Israeli counterpart Reuma Weizmann introduced their joint
project: a selection from the Manas epic translated in Hebrew, offering most
Israelis their first encounter with the Kyrgyz national epic.

The two First Ladies met at a conference three years ago, soon after UNESCO declared
"Year of the Manas Epic" to honor the 1000th anniversary of the epic, whose
million or so lines form the longest such poem in the world. Their common activity in
education and child welfare led to a close friendship and Mrs. Weizmann willingly
supported the literary initiative suggested by her Kyrgyz colleague. "Every nation
has at least one masterpiece, and for us it is the Manas," Akayeva said at the
celebration of the project's completion. "To have it appear in another ancient
language is especially significant".

At the presentation, parallels were noted between the Kyrgyz epic and the Bible as
comprehensive portraits of their respective civilizations, including Manas's Seven
Commandments in comparison with Moses's Ten. Many of the speakers and members of the
audience were drawn from the "Kyrgyz" community in Israel that includes about
20,000 Jews who found refuge in the Soviet Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan during the
Holocaust. Many attained prominent positions in art and culture. Most of these Jews
immigrated to Israel in recent years, some of them with ethnic-Kyrgyz family members. One
ethnic-Kyrgyz Israeli, a professor of architecture, moderated the event as Kyrgyzstan's
honorary consul in Israel.

Other newcomers from Kyrgyzstan expressed gratitude to their former country while
performing poetry and music. The show was stolen by a 13-year-old student of the Manas
epic, the Manaschi Eldabar Bakchiyev, a student at Akayeva's school for gifted
children who accompanied her on the visit. The new translation, published by the Israeli
Foreign Ministry, was written in prose from a Russian version. It thus conveys to Hebrew
readers only a glimpse of the Manas's beauty, but Eldabar provided a real taste of
its authentic character. Like all the handful of storytellers who maintain and elaborate
the Manas oral heritage in every generation, he was selected by divine omen. "I began
talking at a very early age", he said, and his enthusiasm is infectious. Despite a
high fever, he captivated the Jerusalem audience with his rendition of a tale about the
Kyrgyz hero's infancy, recited from memory in the traditional lilting chant.

Gideon Remez