(b Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan, 1867; d Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan 1930). Kyrgyz jomokchu (Manas bard). He was born to the family of a kerneeich musician (player of the kerney, a pipe) and belonged to the Saiak clan of the Kurman-Moinok tribe, who were nomads in the Tien Shan area. He heard the performances of many outstanding Manas bards, notably Belmurat Kulmanov, also known as Balyk (1793–1873). Unlike many other epic narrators, Orozbakov was literate. From his youth he was famous as an improviser, especially of ceremonial laments or koshok, in which the life and acts of the dead were narrated in song. In accordance with the tradition of Kyrgyz bards he did not name his masters but referred only to a dream in which Semetei, a son of the hero Manas, gave him his talent and imposed upon him the duty of glorifying the deeds of Manas. By the time of the Bolshevik revolution Orozbakov was recognized as a chon jomokchu (‘great creator and epic bard’). A recording of his version in 250,000 verses (the most complete version of the first part of Manas) was made during the period 1922–6. The texts were published in four volumes in Frunze (1978–82), and the music was written down by B. Vinogradov in 1947 with the help of the Manas researcher Ibraim Abdyrakhmanov, who received the performing tradition personally from Orozbakov.
S. Musayev: The Epoc ‘Manas’ (Frunze, 1984) [in Eng., Ger. and Russ.]
B. Vinogradov: ‘Napevď “Manasa”’ [Singing of Manas], Manas: kirgizskiy geroicheskiy ėpos [Manas: Kyrgyz heroic epic] (Moscow, 1984), 502–7
I. Laude-Cirtautas: ‘Kirgizskiy poėt-skatizel' Saghimbai Orozbakov (1867–1930) i ėpos “Manas”’ [Kyrgyz poet-narrator Orozbakov and the epic Manas], Sovetskaya tyorkologiya [Soviet Turkology], no.3 (1987), 74–82
ALMA KUNANBAYEVA