Poetic Wordplay
In 1936, the best poetic talents of Kyrgyzstan wrote, approved by the highest body of the republican party organization, and published in mass circulation a poem. Different feelings arose while reading it. It is quite long, so we will provide only excerpts. Here it is: “Letter from the workers of Kyrgyzstan to the great leader of the peoples, the father of all workers, Comrade Stalin”:
~You are the spring of our life, Stalin.
You are the fortress of our life,
Our glorious banner, Stalin!
Your name is eternally young,
And it sounds as a hymn, Stalin,
And it shines in our eyes!
You are the source of our thoughts,
You illuminate the entire East.
You illuminate the whole West,
You shine at both poles,
And you warm the whole world.
The sun that never sets — Stalin!
You are our red star, Stalin!
In the chaos of world destruction.
You are the unyielding lighthouse, Stalin!
Our teacher, your father, friend,
You are our voice and you are our hearing,
The crystalline conscience of the world, Stalin!
You give flight to all our deeds,
You give our forces scope,
You give our wings a turn,
With us — every moment — you,
In every heartbeat — you,
Our inspiration, Stalin!
Our mighty water — you,
Our boiling blood — you,
The best sun — you!
The inexhaustible wisdom — you!
The unwavering courage — Stalin,
The unclouded joy — Stalin,
You are the indomitable fighter,
You are the creator of our happiness,
You are the blacksmith of future happiness.
Who was the author of such an elevated hymn to Stalin officially accepted by the Extraordinary Congress of the Soviets of Kyrgyzstan? There was also a special resolution from the bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Kyrgyzstan dated June 26, 1937:
“To consider the authors of the Kyrgyz text to be Comrades Tokombaev and Bokombaev, with the co-authors of the Russian text, who carried out the poetic processing of the letter being Comrades Penkovsky, Tarlovsky, and Tynystanov.
In all publications, adhere to the text adopted by the fifth Extraordinary Congress of the Soviets of the Kyrgyz SSR and prohibit anyone from making corrections to the texts.”
But soon repressions began to tear the best poets from their ranks, and a new decision on authorship had to be made.
However, no one dared to encroach on the very text of the message to the great leader and its removal. On November 9, 1937, the bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Kyrgyzstan made a Solomon-like decision: “In connection with the fact that the letter includes as authors the now-exposed enemies of the people Tynystanov, Tokombaev, and Bokombaev, who was expelled from the party as a bourgeois nationalist, it is deemed necessary to immediately reissue this letter in Russian and Kyrgyz languages.”
Kirgavlit was obliged to ensure the removal of all previous publications as new editions were released.
This only concerned the official address to their leader.
As for other works of the repressed — they were removed unconditionally. By the decision of the bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kyrgyzstan on August 1 — the day of the arrest in Frunze of the Kyrgyz poet and linguist, Professor Kasym Tynystanov, and the leading Russian scholar-orientalist, Professor E. D. Polivanov, a decision was made through a survey among the members of the bureau of the Central Committee to remove from circulation all works of Tynystanov, both published and in manuscript.
But this seemed insufficient: literally three days later — on August 4, 1937, the bureau of the Central Committee made a new, more comprehensive decision:
“1. To oblige all RK, GK OT (b) of Kyrgyzstan to complete the removal from circulation of literature whose authors are exposed enemies of the people by August 15.
2. To prohibit the use of the removed books for any purposes.”
Not only books of the “enemies of the people” were removed, but also books that contained their names. Thus, by the decision of the bureau of the Central Committee, on August 16, the book by Alexeev and Poddan V. “Issyk-Kul” (published by the “Moscow Society of Writers,” 1933) was removed as “praising the counter-revolutionary nationalist Abdrakhmanov and the counter-revolutionary Trotskyist Uryvaev.”
Repressions also fell upon figures of education and culture in the republic. One of the first unjust victims was T. Joldoshev.
Arrest of O. Tynaev