Sayakbay Karalaev
The most outstanding storyteller of our time is Sayakbay Karalaev from the Bugy clan. He was born in 1894 in what is now the Jeti-Oguz district of the Issyk-Kul region. His father was a poor man.
From childhood, Sayakbay worked as a hired laborer. In 1916, the 22-year-old young man participated in the uprising of the Kyrgyz people and fled to China with some comrades, but was detained by tsarist soldiers on the way. Some of those detained were executed, but Sayakbay managed to escape. Until 1918, he worked for a wealthy farmer, then voluntarily joined the Red Army, where he served until 1922, participating in battles against the White Guards and Basmachis. Upon returning from the army, he began working in rural Soviet organizations.
Around 1924, Sayakbay met with the storyteller "Manas" Choyuke and began to intensively study the texts of the epic he was very fond of even before.
Karalaev himself recounts that from childhood he showed a tendency towards poetic creativity and composed lyrical verses. His first teacher was his grandmother, who told him many stories about "Manas." Although she was not a storyteller, she knew the content of "Manas" and many folk tales, legends, traditions, etc.
From 1924, Karalaev began his activity as a storyteller of "Manas." At the same time, he continued to work on his farm, and in 1929, he joined a collective farm.
Sayakbay is a folk akyn (poet-storyteller). He also associates the beginning of his creative activity with a dream, but makes a slight reservation: he began to sing "Manas" only seven years after the dream, supposedly because he was indicated this period in the dream.
Togolok Moldo (Baimbet Abdyrahmanov)
The storyteller Baimbet Abdyrahmanov was known among the people by the nickname Togolok Moldo. He was born in 1860 in the locality of Kurtka in what is now the Tian-Shan region and died there in 1942. His father, having a middle-class status, engaged in animal husbandry and agriculture. The storyteller's grandfather was a well-known akyn and composer of folk music. He bore the nickname Muzooke. In the family of Togolok Moldo, the creative tradition was very strong. His father sometimes also performed at village celebrations as a singer.
Until the age of 14-15, Baimbet studied at a village old-style school, but after his father's death, he stopped his education, began to engage in agriculture, and became the breadwinner of the family. Even at the age of 15-16, he began to show abilities as a singer. His grandfather Muzooke taught the young man songs and told him stories. Being literate, Baimbet tried to record everything he learned. During these same years, he began to take an interest in the epic "Manas" and spent about two years with the storyteller "Manas" Tynybek. Togolok Moldo greatly valued Sayakbay, loved to listen to his performances.
At the age of 22-23, Togolok Moldo became an independent storyteller of "Semetey," i.e., a performer of the second and third parts of the trilogy "Manas" - "Semetey" and "Seitek." He did not perform the entire trilogy. In general, he was a good connoisseur of many types of Kyrgyz folklore and performed works of various genres. In his performances, "Semetey" and excerpts from "Manas" were recorded. In addition, from him, the prose version of "The Childhood of Manas" was recorded, which mainly repeats the plot of Sayakbay.
Now, in the performance of Sayakbay, all three parts of the trilogy are recorded, i.e., songs about Manas, Semetey, and Seitek. In addition, in recent years, a section of the epic has been recorded from him, narrating about the descendants of Manas.
The version of Sayakbay, both in terms of plot structure and style, significantly differs from the Sayakbay poem.
The first recordings of the texts of Sayakbay Orozbakov