Iradi literature

Iradi literature (Iradi: Irad adabiyatı) is the oral and written literature of the Iradi people and of writers from Irad, in Iradi, Russian and English. Its foundation is oral: the heroic epic The Epic of Janyl, mourning laments (koshok), horseback songs (ırda) and narrative poems such as The Black Blizzard. A separate church tradition of manuscripts in Syriac, Sogdian and Christian Turkic survives at Iyık Janyl. Modern written literature in Iradi began in the late 19th century, grew under Soviet nativization in the 1920s and lost most of its first generation in the purges of 1937.^[1]

The best-known Iradi writer is the novelist Kemel Ishakov (1930–2009), whose novella Akyrky Ashuu (The Last Pass, 1964) is taught in schools on both sides of the Qara-Chik Demarcation Line. Since 2014 a younger generation linked to the Iradi language revival has made Iradi the main language of new poetry and fiction in the cities, while writing in the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ) works under the same pressures as the press.^[2]

Oral and church traditions

Bards (ırchy) sang Janyl Baatyr to the komuz over several evenings. Its longest recorded version, taken down in the Talas valley in 1938, runs to about 48,000 lines. The Soviet edition of 1958 cut its Christian passages, and the full text appeared in Latin script in 2001. Much of the oral repertoire, including laments, genealogies (sanjyra) and blessings (bata), was recorded by Aigul Choro kyzy between 1962 and 1989.^[3] The largest printed collection is the six-volume Oral Folk Art of Irad (1980–1991) compiled by the folklorist Sagyn Jusupbekov, who was killed during the siege of Talas in 1992; its last volume, of saints' legends, was impounded in Kobozev in 1991 and reprinted in Talas in 1993.^[1]

Written literature began in the church. The Cathedral Seminary Library of Iyık Janyl holds Syriac service books, Sogdian documents of the 9th and 10th centuries, and the Talas Gospel Lectionary, whose margins carry Turkic notes in Syriac letters. The 18th-century vita of Janyl was written in Iradi in Arabic script.^[4]

19th century and early Soviet period

Russian and Tatar ethnographers published the first fragments of the epic in the 1880s. The first printed book by an Iradi author was a collection of proverbs, riddles and a verse chronicle of the Kokand period, compiled by the deacon and teacher Yakup Satybaldiev (1858–1919) and printed in Tashkent in 1897.^[1]

After the creation of the Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic in 1925, Iradi was standardized as a literary language. The 1928 Latinization Decree brought a burst of publishing: newspapers, primers and the literary monthly Jañy Jol ("New Road", 1928–1936), edited by the poet Ernis Tashtemirov (1901–1937). Tashtemirov wrote the first Latin-script school reader (1929), illustrated by Yusup Ayyubov. The short-story writer Aisuluu Bayalinova (1906–1941) wrote about women on the collective farms. Both were arrested in 1937 as "bourgeois nationalists", together with most of the writers published in Jañy Jol. Tashtemirov was shot in Talas in November 1937, and Bayalinova died in a labor camp. Iradi-language schooling closed, and the 1941 Cyrillic Mandate cut readers off from the books of the 1920s.^[5]

Socialist realism and the Thaw

The Union of Writers of the Iradi SSR, founded in 1934, oversaw a literature of collective-farm novels, war poetry and translations from Russian. Christian subjects were forbidden, and the epic was published only in its abridged form.^[5]

After 1956 a new generation began writing about village life, the war and, cautiously, the past. Ishakov's stories, beginning with Kök Jal (Grey Mane, 1959), and Akyrky Ashuu, about the 1916 flight, were the main works of this period. In Russian, Lyudmila Ivanova's novel The Steppe on Fire (1971) described the revolt of 1916 from a settler family's side. Many Iradi writers translated their own work into Russian for publication in Moscow.^[6]

Samizdat and church manuscripts

Alongside print, an unofficial literature circulated by hand. Prayers, hymns and lives of St. Janyl were copied in notebooks in Cyrillic or Syriac script and kept with the manuscripts hidden in the Kara-Suu Canyon. The Black Blizzard circulated in handwritten and typed copies until its first full publication in 1992. The Iradi American Association in Chicago printed émigré poetry and church texts, and some copies reached the republic (see Iradi Americans).^[4][6]

Under glasnost, the newspaper Iradyn Chyny under Maratbek Sadykov published articles on the purges, and in 1989 the books of Tashtemirov and Bayalinova were reprinted. Ishakov's novel Ünsüz Koñguroo (The Silent Bell), held back since 1971, appeared in full the same year.^[5]

Territorial period (1992–2006)

The return to the Latin alphabet and the end of Soviet subsidies broke up the old publishing system. English became a literary language for the first time. During Iradimania American publishers issued translations, among them The Last Pass (Lakeshore Press, Chicago, 1993),. Writers of the millennial generation began to write in English. Elnura Kudaiberdieva (born 1979) wrote the novel Siege Winter (2005), about the 1992 siege of Talas, which a New York publisher released. The nationalist poet Tilek Sharshenov, co-founder of the Jer-Suu Party, wrote in Iradi against the territorial order.^[7]

Language revival since 2014

Since the mid-2010s most new poetry in the cities has been written in Iradi. Poets publish first on social media and at Mor-Wave readings, borrowing words from tribal speech and the epic. The older poet Aigul Omurova is often named as a model. Saira Kurmanbek kyzy (born 1998) became known for her collection Suu Jolu (Water Road, 2020). Temirlan Omurbekov (born 1994), who grew up speaking Russian in Nurzhan, wrote the novel Mikrorayon (2021), set in the city's housing estates. The weekly Jarchy has a regular poetry page.^[2]

In prose, Aikokul Tursunbek kyzy (born 1985), who began by reading stories at Mor-Wave evenings in 2013, published Twelve Kilometres (On Eki Chakyrym, Arsha Books, 2015; English translation by Aidana Mukash kyzy, 2016), twelve stories and a coda set between the Bill of Sale and the marking of the Qara-Chik Demarcation Line in 2009, one of the few books from the ISEZ to take on the war of 2007 directly.

The Altyn-Zhylky Awards, presented in Talas each December since 1996, give prizes for fiction and poetry in Iradi, English and Russian. Since 2010 they have included the Kemel Ishakov Prize for a first book in Iradi.^[8]

Censorship in the ISEZ

Publishers and printing houses must register with the Department of Public Information. Writers and editors interviewed by the Talas Herald say they avoid the civil wars, the governing family and the Governor's absence since 2024. In 2024 the department suspended the registration of the small Talas publisher Arsha Books, which had published Twelve Kilometres, after it issued an anthology of poems about the 2023 Student Protests in Talas. The department said the suspension concerned a licensing irregularity, and Human Rights Watch called it censorship. Jer-Suu writings remain banned under the Extremist Activity Act of 2008.^[9]

Oral poetry in the ATR

In the Autonomous Tribal Regions oral poetry is still part of public life. Bards sing the epic at weddings, memorial feasts and the Feast of St. Janyl, and improvising poets compete in aytysh duels at the August Kurultai on the Aksay Plateau. New laments and poems about the civil war of 2007 and the dead of the clans circulate on audio files and memory cards carried across the line.^[3]

See also

• Kemel Ishakov
• Sagyn Jusupbekov
• The Epic of Janyl
• Iradi Language
• Culture of Irad

References

1. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). A History of Iradi Literature. Talas, pp. 1–74.
2. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2022). 'The Iradi Linguistic Spring: Youth Culture in the ISEZ.' Vol. 14, pp. 45–64.
3. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 135–158.
4. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts of the Cathedral Seminary Library of Iyık Janyl. Talas.
5. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Iradistan: A History of the Iradi SSR, 1925–1991. Talas, pp. 23–311.
6. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2019). 'Two Languages, One Pen: Bilingual Writers of Soviet Iradistan.' Vol. 11, pp. 88–109.
7. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2025). 'After Iradimania: American Culture in Irad since 1992.' Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 201–226.
8. ^ Talas Herald (2016). 'Twenty years of the Golden Horse.' Talas.
9. ^ Human Rights Watch (2024). Switched Off: Internet Restrictions in the Irad Special Economic Zone. New York.