Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan holds a presentation of 100-volume series of Kazakh folklore "Babalar sozi', which was published under the state program "Cultural Heritage", which was initiated by the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev.

  The main aim of the event is to present our rich 100-volume Code of Kazakh folklore, the national pride, to the wider public, the Kazakh people, inform the world community about the unprecedented edition of this series.

  The Kazakh folklore is a great spiritual wealth, which coexisting with the people. At all times it reflected thoughts, beliefs and aspirations of the people, its cultural and historical traditions and performed more cognitive role. In traditional society of the past centuries, it served as the folklore and literature, and art, and pedagogy. Therefore, historical stories, legends and many other genres of folklore reflects the major epochs and significant events in their brightly and clearly expressed worldview, philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, history of the Kazakh people.

  Folklore is not just the legacy of the past. Folklore is a source and an integral part of our modern spiritual culture. The professional art and literature, which received an intensive development in the twentieth century, absorbed the origins of folklore. It is known that in the last century, our classics M. Auezov, G. Musrepov and others, and in our days, such well-known luminaries of literature as A. Kekilbaev with special skills made the folk stories as leitmotifs of their works. The theater, cinema are imbued with the spirit of folklore.

  There has been many errors, in the twentieth century, in the era of socialism, in publications and researches of so valuable spiritual wealth as folklore. The well-known gems of folk wisdom were interpreted as "alien to people", the zealots of folklore were called "minions of the rich, religious nationalists", and the publications of scientific research and folk heritage were banned. Because of the "class", "atheist" and “international" principles, all the religious dostans, many historical epics, works related to folk beliefs and convictions were consigned to oblivion.

  However, there were some exceptions, when samples of folklore were published before the Soviet era, and during its existence. Thus, in the nineteenth century W. Radloff, G. Potanin, I. Ilminsky, V. Katarinsky published the Kazakh folklore in the form of collections and books. However, they collected and studied folklore, along with the pursuing of their own goals; therefore, it affects only individual examples of folk heritage. Radloff and Potanin printed individual works of various genres for scientific purposes, Ilminsky, and Katarinsky for missionary purposes.

  Over the years, folklore has not been published in serial form. There were separate book collections. A. Bukeikhanov, S.Seifullin, M.Auezov and other prominent representatives of Kazakh literature published a works of folklore as a special volume or individual books.

  The work on the publishing of national folklore as a multivolume work started only in the eighties; however, only 17 volumes were published.

  A comprehensive study and publication of Kazakh folklore started only in the years of independence. Thanks to the implementation of the State program "Cultural Heritage" initiated by the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, a large part of our national folklore was published in 100 volumes under the title "Babalar sozi" ("Ancestral Heritage "). For example, only the heroic epic consists of 20 volumes, historical from 13, religious epics from 7, novelistic epics from 13, love epics from 8, tales from 5 volumes. All of them are the major genres of folklore. The little genres consists of 1-3 volumes.

  Such an enormous work was done decently by the Institute of Literature and Art named after M.Auezov and Publishing house "Foliant" of Astana. More precisely, the specialists of this institution systematized huge amount of manuscripts that were collected from the countries near and far abroad and accumulated them in the fund of the Institute, and then presented them to the publisher. "Foliant" has published these works with high professional skill, in accordance with the modern requirements of publishing. Finally, the high-quality edition of 100-volume series "Babalar sozi" was published.

  Folklore exists among all peoples. Many countries have collected, published and explored it. However, today, there is no state in the world that collected and analyzed all of their national wealth, conducted a huge textual work on the basis of research work and published a definitive edition of 100-volumes of national folklore. In some countries of CIS, this work is just beginning.

  Presentation will begin with a greeting speech of the Minister of Culture and Information Mukhtar Kul-Muhammed Abraruly. The next word will be given to the head of the section "Folklore" of the State program "Cultural heritage", academician Seyit Kaskabasov, director of the Institute of Literature and Art named after M. Auezov Ualikhan Kalizhanov, presidential advisor of the Turkic Academy Shakimsharip Ibraev, Turkish scientist and folklorist Ms. Nadza Ildus; Iranian scientist folklorist Jahangir Carini and others.

  Deputies of Parliament, heads of ministries, prominent scientists, famous writers, poets, public figures and readership, will attend the event.

  The exhibition of books published under the direction of the section “Folklore studies, literature and local history" of the Public Council of the State program "Cultural heritage" will be organized as a part of the presentation.

Organizing Committee

Venue: Astana

National Academic Library of the Republic of Kazakhstan

20.02.14 at 11.00 p.m

Phones: 8 (7172) 740186, 740490