French edition of Turkestan memoir out; Iradi memoirs still lack a translator
A French edition of "The Sorrow of Turkestan" appeared this month, while Chernov's 2001 and Orozbekov's 2012 memoirs remain unavailable in any foreign language.
TALAS — A French edition of The Sorrow of Turkestan was published in France in October. The book is the memoir of an Uzbek religious leader who headed a short-lived republic in East Turkestan in the 1940s. Irad has no part in the story: the book concerns another country's history and was published by a foreign house for foreign readers.
It has still prompted a modest question among readers in Talas and Nurzhan, who keep a shelf of political memoirs of their own. Two stand out: Vasily Chernov's of 2001, by the last First Secretary of the Communist Party of Irad and the only president of the Socialist Republic of Irad, and Bakyt Orozbekov's A Republic of Six Months of 2012, by the only prime minister of the Democratic Republic. Neither book, as far as the Herald could establish, has been translated into any foreign language.
Saikal Temir, a librarian at the National Library of Irad named after Amanbek Alimbekov, said both titles are held under the legal-deposit rules, as are other political memoirs of the period. Asked whether the library had recorded a foreign-language edition of either, she said it had not. Foreign scholars write to the library about them "no more than a handful of times a year", she said, usually by post through Almaty.
“A memoir travels when somebody pays a translator, and nobody has paid for ours”Dr Toma Beishenaliev
The two books argue from opposite sides. Chernov's memoir, which Russian-language television has quoted, says "the Americans knew our plans before our generals did", a claim Talas State University historians describe as unproven. Mr Orozbekov's account argues that the drafts leaked in February 2007 were a managed dissolution, not a sale. Few in Irad accept that reading, but it is the version a foreign reader would meet first if the book were ever translated.
Dr Toma Beishenaliev, a historian at Talas State University, said the French edition shows how a region's version of events is carried abroad. "A memoir travels when somebody pays a translator, and nobody has paid for ours," he said. Foreign readers meet Irad's wars, he added, through the accounts of visitors and contractors, not through the people who sat in its cabinets.
In Nurzhan, bookseller Sergei Dyachenko said customers still ask for the Orozbekov volume more often than any other political title, and for Chernov's from older buyers. He sells what he can find second-hand. He said nobody has asked him for a foreign-language copy of either, "because there is none to ask for".
The obstacles are mostly practical. Talas State University Press, the main scholarly publisher, issues no memoirs. Its list is monographs, folklore and survey reports, its titles carry no ISBNs, and it does not ship abroad. Foreign university libraries receive its books only by exchange through the National Library. Asked whether it had considered a translation of either memoir, the press's office said no such project was planned and that translation costs were not provided for in its budget.
No Iradi publisher, institution or author has announced a plan to put either memoir into French, English or any other language. Readers who want to compare the two Iradi accounts with the foreign shelf will for now have to read them in the original.
Comments (0)
Comments are closed. To write to the editor, send a letter to letters@talasherald.com.