QOZY KÖRPESH–BAYAN SULU

Scholars divide the vast Turkic epic tradition into three main categories, which are best understood through where the narratives originate from. The first covers dastans built upon Eastern storylines, which include the widely known Leyli and Majnun and Yusuf and Zulaikha. The second group consists of jyrs rooted in regional folkloric motifs. The third group comprises dastans that celebrate actual historical events, like battles and the deeds of heroes and rulers.

Qozy Körpesh–Bayan Sulu is, in this sense, a rather unique case. It brings together elements of all three traditions into a single narrative. What makes it especially notable is that this jyr appeared much earlier than many works centered on Eastern plots. The storyline itself—where mythological elements and fairy-tale characters are intertwined, and pastoral life is celebrated—clearly points to the poem’s ancient origins. It is believed that the earliest Kazakh lyrical epics date back to the era of the Türgesh Khaganate, a Turkic tribal confederation that ruled parts of Central Asia during the seventh and eighth centuries.

The history of the research on Qozy Körpesh–Bayan Sulu is itself so fascinating that it could easily form the basis of a separate literary work. In 1771, the Cossack centurion Grigory Voloshenin, who was studying the Dusty Campaign (or the Torgut escape)—the mass migration of Volga Kalmyks across the Kazakh steppes toward their ancient nomadic homelands in Dzungaria—recorded references to the poem in his notes.

Later, the poem attracted the attention of the famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, who arrived on the banks of the Ural River to collect historical data on the Yemelyan Pugachev uprisingiThe Yemelyan Pugachev uprising (1773–1775) was a massive rebellion of Cossacks, serfs, and ethnic minorities against Catherine the Great. Led by a Don Cossack impersonating Tsar Peter III, it spread across the Volga and Urals before being brutally crushed.. After listening, through an interpreter, to the dastan performed by Kazakhs from the Orenburg region, he recorded its content in prose. The poet intended to write a romantic poem based on this plot. Who knows what might have come of it? Perhaps Russian literature might have gained yet another magnificent work created in the Eastern literary tradition of naziraia literary tradition of reworking or responding to earlier poetic works had Pushkin’s life not been cut so short. That unwritten poem remains a quiet what‑if in the history of letters.

From the second half of the eighteenth century, as the Russian Empire expanded its cultural influence, it became necessary to systematically collect and study the tangible and cultural heritage of local populations that had been preserved since ancient times.

Thus, in 1841, the interpreter Frolov was the first to commit the jyr Qozy Körpesh–Bayan Sulu to writing. In the following years, it was recorded by scholars and Orientalists, including famous people such as M. Putintsev, N. Ilminsky, T. Sablukov, I. Berezin, and N. Pantusov. The renowned Turkologist Vasily Radlov later published the jyr in both German and Kazakh. For this important and time-sensitive undertaking, the imperial administration engaged prominent educators and intellectuals, including Shyngys Walikhanov, the father of the great scholar Shoqan Walikhanov, and Musa ShormanoviMusa Shormanov (1818–1884) was a prominent Kazakh ethnographer and educator who served as the senior sultan of the Bayanaul external district..

A close friend of Shoqan Walikhanov, the distinguished ethnographer Grigory PotaniniGrigory Potanin was a nineteenth-century Russian explorer, botanist, and ethnographer who became a prominent Siberian regionalist.—who was among those who transcribed one of the oral versions of the poem—was deeply impressed by it, comparing it to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet:

It is no coincidence that Mukhtar AuezoviMukhtar Auezov (1897–1961) was the preeminent Kazakh writer and academician, and the author of the epic tetralogy The Path of Abai, chronicling the life of the poet Abai Qunanbaiuly., who highly valued the exceptional artistry and persuasive power of the plot, the masterful intertwining of the characters’ fates, and the emotional depth with which the dastan engages its listeners, also regarded it as equal to the great tragedy Romeo and Juliet.

Considering that Qozy Körpesh–Bayan Sulu has a 1,500-year history, it is clear that it predates the consolidation of the Kazakh people into their modern ethnographic form. In turn, it is also evident that this dastan is not only Kazakh but also constitutes the shared cultural heritage of numerous related Turkic peoples.

On the spiritual unity of the tribes that inhabited the vast expanses of the Great Steppe, the scholar and folklorist Auelbek Konyratbayev wrote:

Contemporary research confirms that the poem is well known among the Altai people and the Crimean Tatars, and even among the Nogais and Tatars living as far away as Romania.

Nevertheless, all of these groups recognize this work as the embodiment of an ideal that unites the Turkic peoples—a shared memory of eternal love. The pure and innocent love at the heart of the story has always served as an instructive example, offering a timeless moral lesson for generations past, present, and future. And yet, within this poetry, sung and carried in memory across centuries, each of these people have imbued the figures of Qozy and Bayan with their own distinctive traits and vision of the world, spiritually enriching them in the process. Thus, the jyr Qozy Körpesh–Bayan Sulu transcended the heritage of any single people to become the common spiritual legacy of the entire Turkic world, and indeed, of all humanity.

Interestingly, while the dozens of versions of the dastan share a common theme, a common point of departure, and a common narrative trajectory, the climax and resolution differ with every telling. In one variant, Qozy Körpesh and Bayan Sulu perish; in another, they are united. In a third, a child is born to them. In a fourth, Qozy is resurrected—only to die once more. The poem's ending, in other words, is never quite the same in each telling.

Equally remarkable is the fact that some peoples have woven the jyr Qozy Körpesh–Bayan Sulu into the very fabric of their own ethnogenesis. For them, the epic is not simply a tale of love—it is part of who they are as a people and how their nation came to be. For example, in the Bashkir version, known as ‘Kuz Kuryach’, Qozy Körpesh, who is journeying in search of Bayan, encounters a five-hundred-year-old sorceress named Maskei, who presents him with an enchanted tablet. Inscribed upon it are the names of his future son—Barlybai—and his seven grandsons: Burzyan, Usergan, Tamyan, Kypsak, Bushmas, Kara-Kypchak, and Tangaur. According to legend, it is from these seven grandsons that the seven Bashkir clans trace their origins.

Even though the story of Qozy and Bayan spread across all of Central Asia, it is within the Kazakh tradition that it took the form of a tragedy. The ancient monument erected in honor of Bayan and Qozy also stands on the Kazakh steppe, located in the Ayagoz district of the Abai region, not far from the Aktogai mine, which is KAZ Minerals' largest copper operation in Kazakhstan. It is a stone mausoleum standing twelve meters in height, which, according to legend, was raised above the two lovers’ shared grave.

At one time, stone effigies of the heroes themselves stood around it: three female figures—Bayan and her sisters—and one male. Shoqan Walikhanov himself was struck by the grandeur of this steppe mazariA mazar is a sacred tomb or mausoleum, often associated with revered figures. and made sketches of the stone figures. Time has not spared them, yet the mazar remains the principal material testament to the fact that for the steppe, this story has always been something more than a legend.

For the aqynsiAn aqyn is a traditional Kazakh poet-singer who composes and performs oral verse., the image of the lovers became a universal symbol of devotion. The famous Kazakh singer and aqyn Aset Naimanbayuly sang:

Some versions of the story—such as the Bashkir version and in some Kazakh variants as well—have a happy ending. This likely reflects a deep unwillingness among the people to accept the tragic death of their beloved heroes. It is the product of a noble desire to grant their idols deserved happiness, even in defiance of the established canon.

The epic also became a revealing indicator of social change. If Bayan appears as a victim of circumstance, the acted-upon instead of the actor, the heroines of later dastans (such as Aiman-Sholpan) are entirely different. Aiman is no longer a disenfranchised woman passively following a man at the whim of fate. She is a strong-willed Kazakh heroine who, through intelligence and ingenuity, achieves her goals and finds happiness with the one she loves. The contrast between the two women reflects a change in how women were beginning to be seen.

At the same time, Qozy Körpesh–Bayan Sulu stands as the founding masterwork of the lyro-epic tradition, one that celebrates the sincere pull of hearts drawn together by the call of the soul. This tradition was later carried forward in Kazakh literature through poems such as Qyz Jibek, Enlik–Kebek, Qalkaman–Mamyr, and Salikha–Samen. It also gave rise to beautiful songs that capture the powerful emotional intensity in the lives of the heroes of ‘Aqan Seri–Aqtoqty’ and ‘Estai–Qorlan’. The thorny path followed by young love was masterfully portrayed in original literary poems such as Sulushash and Quralai Sulu, achieving an artistic refinement that endures to this day.

The ancient storytelling form of the dastan has long ceased to be simply an oral legend: it is constantly being reinvented in theatre and film. In 1939, the writer Gabit Musrepov masterfully adapted the poetic language of the folk epic into dramatic dialogues and monologues, creating the tragedy Qozy Körpesh–Bayan Sulu. Since 1940, this play has remained continuously on stage both in Kazakhstan and abroad. It is clear that the author introduced characters such as Jantyq and Aidar specifically to intensify the conflict and develop the plot more fully.

Today, audiences are offered a wide range of productions in which the play's distinctive genre, the author's vision, and the director's creative imagination are harmoniously combined with the full arsenal of contemporary stagecraft.

In 1954, director Shaken Aimanov brought A Poem of Love to the screen at the Almaty Studio of Feature and Documentary Films, working from a screenplay by Gabit Musrepov. There is one motif that both this film and the later Qyz Jibek have in common: the voluntary deaths of the heroines in the finale. Today, film scholars interpret this not merely as a tendency toward heightened drama but as an attempt to reflect the despair of a people living within the rigid ideological constraints of that era.

Nevertheless, behind its outward tragedy, there has always been a deeper central message—a longing for freedom. The young heroes’ pursuit of independence has been, and remains, a reflection of the most fundamental aspirations of the people. This is why the story of Qozy and Bayan has not become a mere museum relic: it endures as long as society retains its hunger for authenticity and the right to choose one's own destiny. As long as people dream of love, of freedom, and of shaping their own lives, this ancient tale will continue to speak to them.

This material was prepared with the support of KAZ Minerals.

KAZ Minerals is a copper producer specializing in large-scale, cost-efficient open-pit mining in Kazakhstan. The group’s operations include the Aktogay and Bozshakol open-pit mines in the Abai and Pavlodar regions, three underground mines with associated processing plants in the Abai and East Kazakhstan regions, and the Bozymchak copper-gold mine in Kyrgyzstan.

In 2025, KAZ Minerals produced 370,000 tons of copper, 132,000 ounces of gold, 3.82 million ounces of silver, 54,000 tons of zinc, and 4,500 tons of molybdenum. The flagship operations of Aktogai and Bozshakol continue to outpace industry benchmarks, establishing KAZ Minerals as a world-class open-pit copper mining company. With a workforce of over 14,000 people spread across Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, KAZ Minerals is forging a better future across the region.