«Men kordim uzyn qaiyng qulaganyn»: A Comparative Poetic and Philosophical Analysis with the Original Text

Abstract

This article presents a comparative analysis of Abai Qunanbaiuly’s poem «Men kordim uzyn qaiyng qulaganyn» («I saw the tall birch fall») and its original sources, focusing on the artistic-aesthetic, ideological-philosophical, and cultural-interpretative dimensions of the translation. It is established that the poem is based on Rudolf Lowenstein and Viktor Krylov’s version written for Anton Rubinstein’s romance «The Broken Heart». The study examines Abai’s translation techniques and poetic innovations, highlighting his strategy of integrating romantic melancholy into the moral and philosophical framework of the Kazakh worldview. Furthermore, the paper analyzes the use of anaphora, parallelism, antithesis, and everyday colloquialism in the poem’s structure, demonstrating how Abai’s free interpretation of the source text transitions into a socio-satirical meaning.