The storytelling art of Sayakbay Karalaev (1894—1972), by unanimous recognition of his contemporaries, was the pinnacle of the evolution of national epic culture. This famous manaschy of our century possessed a truly titanic ability for improvisation and a powerful performing temperament. His contemporaries rightfully called him the "great rhapsodist" (M. Auezov), "Homer of the 20th century" (Ch. Aitmatov).
Sayakbay was born in 1894 in the village of Ak-Olon, on the southern shore of Lake Issyk-Kul. To escape from the tsarist punitive detachments, Sayakbay's family fled to China and returned to their homeland in 1917. In 1922, Karalaev voluntarily joined the Red Army and participated in the struggle against the White Guards and the Basmachi movement in Siberia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. These events naturally had a certain influence on the depiction of battle scenes in Sayakbay's version of the epic "Manas".
From 1922 to 1931, Karalaev served as the chairman of the village council and actively participated in the public life of his native aiyl. From 1931, at the invitation of the People's Commissariat of Education of the Kyrgyz Autonomous Republic, he became a soloist at Kyrgyz State Theater (until 1936), and then at Kyrgyz State Philharmonic (until 1954). During this time, he actively performed as a manaschy in concerts, touring the republic.
The first mentor who awakened Sayakbay's storytelling abilities was his grandmother Dakish, who knew and performed many folk songs. Sayakbay himself began reciting the epic "Manas" in 1918. He was greatly influenced by the famous Issyk-Kul manaschy Choyuke Omur uulu, who, during their first meeting, gave Karalaev many tips on the technique of performing the grand epic. From 1925, Sayakbay Karalaev began to sing "Manas" in its entirety and in his own style.
In 1936, the manaschy was accepted into the Union of Writers of the Kyrgyz SSR. In 1939, after the first Decade of Kyrgyz Art in Moscow, where he performed with great success, he was awarded the honorary title of People's Artist of the Republic. That same year, his voice was recorded in the laboratory of musical acoustics at the Moscow Conservatory.
The complete textual recording of the epic "Manas" as performed by Sayakbay Karalaev was made from 1932 to 1947. It contains 500,533 poetic lines of the grand epic.
During his lifetime, S. Karalaev gained international fame. In 1949, he performed at the celebration of the Finnish epic "Kalevala", and in 1964—at the VII World Congress of Anthropological and Ethnographic Sciences (both in Moscow).
Sayakbay Karalaev remains the only professional of the classical school of storytelling traditions, whose individual creative style can be considered more or less fully due to the presence of almost all types of documentation of his art, including in documentary films. In 1968, the All-Union record company "Melodiya" released a Karalaev album for the first time (edited by B. Alagushov).
Sayakbay presented the epic as a genuine drama. He had no equal in the richness of colors in musical-poetic recitative. During the storytelling process, this short man literally transformed, and his tenor voice gained a wide range. V. Vinogradov wrote that he saw how the famous manaschy sang with foam at the mouth.
In the performance of Sayakbay Karalaev, one can clearly trace not only a wonderful knowledge of the sounding style of monumental epic but also a masterful ability to intonationally convey the psychology of epic heroes, a subtle sense of the architecture of improvisation, and vividly and innovatively develop the classical traditions of the grand epic.
In Karalaev's version, the epic is permeated with ideas of humanism, and its imagery system is embodied from realistic positions. It is evident that the work of this manaschy compresses the richest artistic experience of a millennia-old epic culture.
S. Karalaev was awarded three Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of the Badge of Honor, and several medals.
In 1994, the republic widely celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great storyteller, during which an international conference and national sports games were held in his homeland.
