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.
When his linguistic research took him to Moscow, he started translating the work of the great Russian poets like Lermontov and Gorky, and German luminaries Goethe and Heine, into Kazakh. Poetry knows no borders. Returning to Kazakhstan in 1927, he accepted a teaching position there. Meanwhile, Joseph Stalin had come to power and was ruling the Soviet territories with iron hand.
His works were purged from the libraries, and people were forbidden to utter his name.
Zhumabayev’s patriotic activism got him into trouble with the repressive Stalinist regime. He, and his brothers, were harassed and arrested. Falsely accused of treason, he was imprisoned and sent to Karelia, a distant region straddling the border with Finland. Though Zhumabayev clearly was a nationalist, the accusations of him being a Pan-Turkist, and even a spy for the Japanese, were never proven.
Nevertheless, his works could no longer be printed or sold. His books were purged from the libraries, and people were forbidden to utter his name. Throughout this ordeal, his beloved Zuleikha traveled great distances to visit him in prison and in exile. Meanwhile she was moving heaven and earth to have him exonerated. All in vain. At one point she wrote a letter to his fellow poet Maksim Gorky, begging him to use his influence. Gorky obliged and Magzhan was, temporarily at least, a free man.
A Heart-breaking Poem
We will never know whether it was sheer cruelty or just a tactic to demoralize a political prisoner, but fact is that when Zuleikha was unable to visit him for an extended period, Magzhan’s jailers told him that his wife had given up on him and was living with someone else.
“Ah Daididau, your face is as beautiful as the moon on the fourteenth day…”
Not knowing what to believe, Magzhan wrote a poignant poem in the form of a letter in which he declares, “Oh Daididau, your face is as beautiful as the moon on the fourteenth day” and wonders, “Did you really choose to leave me? We had promised to never part…”
During the author’s short stint of freedom, the Daididau poem mysteriously took on a life of its own. It was set to music, possibly by the poet himself and, whereas his works were still forbidden, it somehow began to be circulated as a folk song.
After some time, Magzhan was once again arrested, and eventually executed in 1938. His heartbroken Zuleikha kept a secret stash of her husband’s poems and letters, which she hoped to one day share with the world. For years, she collected everything she could find by his hand and painstakingly transcribed and typed it.
Rediscovered
It would take until 1960, 22 years after his death, for Magzhan Zhumabayev’s name to be posthumously cleared and his reputation to be rehabilitated, followed by another 28 long years before his poems would be republished in his homeland.
This time his fame would endure.
Shunned in her hometown as the widow of an “enemy of the people,” Zuleikha had traveled. Making Leningrad her home for some time, she visited the places in Russia where her husband had lived, to try and unearth as much as possible of his scattered work. Thanks to her unstinting devotion, many of his poems and letters would be rediscovered, and this time his fame would endure. Zuleikha was able to witness the result of her efforts before passing away at the age of 96.
Kazakhstan at last became an independent republic in 1991. In 2018, on the 125th anniversary of his birth, Magzhan Zhumabayev––finally recognized as a great literary figure, scholar, and patriot of the 20th century––was honored with a stamp by the Kazakh postal service.
The Kazakh playwright Dulat Issabekov devoted a play, “A lifelong Love,” to the story of Zuleikha and Magzhan.
But nobody could have foreseen what was happening with Daididau, the desperate, intimate message the poet had once addressed to his beloved.
Signature song
In 2017, while preparing to participate in the Chinese talent show, “I Am a Singer,” Dimash Kudaibergen (see the link below), an amazing vocalist who until then had mainly been covering a range of international pop hits, from Céline Dion’s My Heart Will Go On to Daniel Balavoine’s SOS d’un terrien en détresse, decided to add “the folk song” Daididau to the mix, for a touch of Kazakh culture. For this performance he took along seven Kazakh musicians. Dressed in a white-and-gold traditional outfit, he played the dombra, a Kazakh string instrument which, he told the Chinese press, “every child in my country can play.” The Chinese audience loved it. Overnight, Dimash went from being announced as “our little imported brother” to being hailed as “the Kazakh prince.”
Daididau was not a traditional folk song, but the work of a celebrated poet who had once been purposely forgotten.
And soon the song’s true origins were revealed to the world: it was not a traditional folk song at all, but the work of a celebrated poet, who had once been persecuted and purposely forgotten.
The rest is history. That Chinese show became the start of an unstoppable international career. Dimash now has original songs written for him by composer Igor Krutoy and lyricist Lilia Vinogradova. His concerts tend to be very eclectic and may include “a tribute to Michael Jackson.” But Daididau has become his signature song.
Millions Sing Along
Wherever Dimash appears, including at his 2019 solo concert in New York, he holds out the mic so his fans get a chance to sing along with the refrain of Daididau. The melody is haunting, at once soulful and uplifting. Even without understanding the language, when you know the backstory it becomes impossible to forget this song.
Dimash Kudaibergen’s official Youtube channel has 1.3 million subscribers, and the version of Daididau on it had over 3 million views last time I looked. Countless fan channels and reaction videos bear witness to the singer’s popularity. He performs at huge venues all over the world, and so I’m not exaggerating if I state that millions of people can sing, or at least hum, along with this marvelous composition. Mary Lee Hess has created a loose translation of the lyrics, with the correct syllable count, to sing along in English. It can be found on Vimeo.
My favorite version so far is that of the 2017 Bastau tour. It features an intro (Adai) by a massive group of dombra players, including Dimash himself. Somewhere in the middle of his performance (at 5:20), the artist appears to be overcome with emotion.
I would have loved to include a complete and official translation of the actual poem, but unfortunately that will have to wait. Until now I have only found fan’s translations of various versions of the song, and I’ve been unable to determine how close they come to Zhumabayev’s Kazakh original poem. The search continues.
But to give you an idea, here is the best one I’ve found so far:
Daididau
(sing-along English version by Mary Lee Hess)
Can I live with this sadness? And can you know How I’m crushed with misery since I heard that you’d left me? I see your lovely face as I’m writing You have put me in a different kind of prison
Ahhh… Daididau I can’t change and I won’t hide my love and feelings You were my second self and gave me courage To remain straight and true in my time of troubles But I know you are also feeling heartache So you left after you had vowed we would never part
Ahhh… Daididau Who will now be the ear to hear all my sorrows? Ahhh… Daididau Who will now be the ear to hear all my sorrows?
Daididau My goodbye I still love you.
More about the musician who introduced Daididau to the world:
Sources:
Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magzhan_Zhumabayev
Other:
Dennett Amy Marley Gurpreet Dhariwal Shelley Schanfield Desiree Driesenaar James Finn Niru Rasheed Hooda, Eric Griggs Christine Van den Hove Mleehess Dr Mehmet Yildiz Charlotte Zobeir Ali Media Rehanshah Muhammad Nasrullah Khan