The Fearless Zhanil Myrza
In the legends of the Kyrgyz people, there is a story of love between the warrior girl Zhanil Myrza and the ruler Tylky Batyr. According to the tale, Zhanil is the leader of the Noyguts, a Kyrgyz tribe that lived in the eastern part of Kyrgyzstan in Kakshaal, near the border with China. Zhanil, a girl-warrior, is as strong and skilled in combat as a man, defeating him on the battlefield. She faithfully fulfilled her duty, placing the independence of her people and military honor above her personal happiness.
However, the feudal lords were accustomed to viewing women as inferior beings. In the struggle against their envy and malice, the girl-warrior perished.
The tale seems to convey genuine historical events. In Kyrgyzstan, the graves of Zhanil and her beloved Tylky have been preserved.
An 18th-century legend became the basis for the poem "Zhanil Myrza" by the people's poet of the Kyrgyz SSR, Tenti Adysheva, two centuries later.
Zhanil Myrza is celebrated as a wise leader, tirelessly caring for her people.
According to popular legend, in the land of Kakshaal, the leader of one of the Kyrgyz tribes had long been without children.
Finally, a girl was born. They named her Zhanil. This was a time of internal conflicts and struggles against foreign invaders. Not only men-warriors were born during this tumultuous time, but also women-warriors, the Amazons of the Kyrgyz mountains. Since the family needed an heir, and the clan needed a leader, the girl was raised as a boy.
Kakshaal.. Many years ago
A girl was born to the khan
- Zhanil.
The khan, in despair
Thought to himself:
- It would have been better if this child
Had been a boy!
The khan sank
Into deep melancholy -
He did not rise, did not eat,
Did not drink in the morning.
And a cruel thought tormented him:
Without an heir, surely,
I will die.
After feeding him,
His beloved wife
Spoke such comforting words:
“Rejoice in what
Fate gives us”
The khan, uplifted,
Gathered his people,
And, hiding his sorrow,
Joyfully said:
I want to announce
At this bright hour,
That a son was born -
Zhanil Myrza is ours!
To those who would name
Zhanil a girl,
I swear to you,
They will lose
Their heads.
The khan decided to deceive his fate
As if he were raising the child
As a boy.
The mountains were for Zhanil,
Like a native home,
And her friends were
The bow and arrows in her quiver.
Zhanil was very beautiful. Many heroes sought her hand. She was also a magnificent horsewoman.
She mastered combat and hunting skills perfectly. She shot accurately with a bow and hunted skillfully with trained falcons - shumikars and dogs - taygans.
She blossomed,
Like a flower of spring,
But neither father nor mother
Were glad,
No suitors sent
Matchmakers to her
And they tried to take her by force
In battle.
There, in the embrace of the mountains,
Nurtured by her father,
She grew up as an inaccessible
Flower.
The dzhigits did not forgive her
For being
The most accurate
Archer among them.
For her valor and courage, and unmatched skill in archery, she was called Zhanil Myrza, meaning lord, warrior; in Zhanil Myrza, intelligence and beauty, bravery and tenderness were successfully combined.
Word of her spread far, many dzhigits dreamed of conquering the extraordinary girl!
However, no one succeeded. All of them faced defeat, or even perished. Only Tylky managed to win Zhanil's heart.
And yesterday,
When the joyful toyi was bustling,
I met my dream:
There was a warrior there,
His name was Tylky
He was stately, handsome,
Like a young poplar.
I heard,
Word of Tylky spreads,
That in battles with the enemy -
He is braver than a lion,
In fights with Kalmyks and Chinese,
Not a single head survived.
Like a falcon,
He swooped down on the enemy,
Proud,
The honor of the warrior is dear to him,
I had long dreamed
To meet him
But we are separated,
Like riverbanks.
The first meeting of Tylky and Zhanil. Accompanied by his companions, Tylky enters the rich yurt of Zhanil and proudly stops in the middle. Zhanil greets the guest but immediately addresses him with a mocking question: "Why have you, brave traveler, entered our home dragging a whip behind you?"
Zhanil's sharp, quick replies confuse the somewhat slow-thinking Tylky. To avoid revealing his weakness, he goes on the offensive and approaches Zhanil with the words: "Do not delay your answer, here is my hand extended, dispel my sorrow, become my companion forever."
The girl likes the stern warrior. She is ready to give her consent. Her hand is already rising to obediently rest in the outstretched hand of her suitor.
But she thinks that Tylky is too self-assured, that such a quick agreement to marriage would humiliate her dignity. And Zhanil limits herself to a vague response: she asks the warrior to be a guest in her aila for now.
With heavy steps, darkened like a cloud, Tylky leaves. Immediately, he gives a secret order to the dzhigit accompanying him: to summon the army and attack Zhanil's camp.
Tylky has firmly captured Zhanil's heart; she dreams of tender love, of peaceful happiness with him. But these dreams are brutally shattered by the news that Tylky has attacked their aila and stolen the herds. Zhanil Myrza,
Donning the armor of a warrior, takes the lead of a detachment and sets out in pursuit of the offender.
But from anger
She bit her lips until they bled, The bow bent
Like the brow of a giant,
And, piercing Tylky
With a merciless arrow,
You whispered, Zhanil:
"Farewell, love!"
Unable to endure such humiliation,
She quenched her anger and rage all at once,
Killing with an arrow
Her beloved Tylky
And all his incomparable warriors.
Soon, the relatives of the slain warriors avenged the death of the hero. Zhanil was captured and brutally humiliated. According to ancient legend, she became the youngest wife of the old Kalmatay, fled from him, and ended her life by suicide at Tylky's grave.
You rushed to your love,
Zhanil like an arrow,
But cruelly deceived
By fate,
With a wounded heart
Unable to ease the pain,
You will become the wife of the old Kalmatay.
Years passed...
You became accustomed to your heavy fate,
Zhanil,
Giving birth to two children.
You grew kinder
And in the people, they say,
That no one knew
A mother more tender.
The relatives of the heroes she killed spared no feelings for Zhanil Myrza.
However, after several years of humility and obedience, the leader and warrior Zhanil Myrza would triumph again. In open battle, she would break free from captivity and gallop back to her native Kakshaal. The internal deadlock she found herself in after the killing of the man who awakened her feminine feelings was worse than any captivity. Captivity was an attempt to break free from this deadlock, to find a way. But years of suppressing pride and self-deprecation, and even motherhood, did not lead her to that road.
In her heart, pain
And before her eyes - darkness.
Like a white blizzard
It flooded everything. The path to freedom —
In Kakshaal beckoned her,
The maternal soul –
Called her back.
To be free
Wants the proud Myrza,
The grieving mother -
Draws her back.
These feelings battled within her,
Burned her soul,
And in her eyes
They flickered like a storm.
The escape to her homeland, a powerful leap toward freedom, to her people, to her former self turned into a complete wasteland.
Returning to her native Kakshaal, Zhanil sees instead of the familiar aila a bare desolate steppe, through which the wind drives clouds of dust.
A devastated land, a scattered people, unnecessary valor, abandoned families, and, in most versions, the death of Zhanil Myrza. Thus ends the epic story:
Again the horse raced,
Like a bird - a flight,
And Zhanil
Stubbornly strikes it with a whip,
She sees neither the land,
Nor the heavens,
What force
Drives her forward again?
Like the wind,
She was forever carried away,
Like a mysterious mirage
She vanished from sight. And the Kyrgyz,
Passing from mouth to mouth
About the fate of Zhanil
Composed a glorious tale.
Women of Kyrgyzstan