The Sabdan Baatir Codex—Epic and the Writing of Northern Kirghiz History

In "The abdan Baat r Codex," Daniel Prior presents the first complete edition, translation, and interpretation of a unique manuscript of early twentieth-century Kirghiz poetry, which includes detailed accounts of nineteenth-century warfare. Dedicated to the chief abdan Baat r, the Codex occupies an illuminating position in a network of oral and written genres that encompassed epic poetry and genealogy, panegyric and steppe oral historiography; that echoed oral performance and aspired to print publishing. The Codex s fresh articulation of concepts of Kirghiz self-identification was incipiently national, yet remained couched in traditional forms. The Codex thus bridges the interval, often glossed over in cultural histories, between a supposedly archaic state of oral epic tradition and the afterlife of epics in modern ethno-nationalist projects.

Daniel Prior, Ph.D. (2002), Indiana University, is Assistant Professor of History at Miami University. His publications include The Semetey of Kenje Kara: A Kirghiz Epic Performance on Phonograph (Harrassowitz, 2006).Musa Chagataev (fl. ca. 1910), was the main author of the Codex. Belek Soltonoev, d. 1938 (scribe).Shabdan Dzhantaev, ca. 1839 - 1912 (patron).