The steppe image as the category in the national consciousness

Abstract

This article considered the explication of the image in the creation works of Bakhyt Kairbekov. Steppe image is regarded as defining category in the formation of Turkic mentality, which had an impact on all levels of perception of the world and of human life – natural and cultural, rational and emotional, conscious and unconscious, individual and community. The author notes that this image prevails in the book «Native grass», seen in the lyrical essay appears in translations of Gafu Kairbekov, O. Askar, T. Abrahmanova and other poets. Steppe is conceptualized as the motherland of the poet’s father, the impressions of childhood and adolescence, Fatherland, homeland. In an effort to convey full feelings in the description of the steppe landscape, poet, at the same time, can not conceal the ambivalence to the native image. Poet’s roots tied to the land of the fathers, steppes, where his ancestors had roamed for centuries. But with all of this, he feels like a city man, brought up under the influence of other cultures, to get education in their native language. Perhaps that is why the image of the Steppe in the early and later works are not the same, is imbued with different keys and thoughts, increasingly deepening over time.