Galina Dondukova
ORCID 0000-0002-4390-7556
East-Siberia State University of Technology and Management
THE NOMAD’S STAR
OF BAIR DUGAROV AS THE GUIDING
LIGHT OF POST-SOVIET BURYATIA*1
ABSTRACT
The Nomad’s Star is undoubtedly the most prominent poem of Bair Dugarov. Having appeared in the critical time of post-Soviet searching of selfidentification among the Buryats, the poem instantly gained popularity. In this
article, I argue that the poem The Nomad’s Star becomes the guiding light
for the modern generation of Buryats after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Dugarov calls upon his contemporaries not to forget the nomadic principles
of the ancestors. He employs such motifs and artistic images which reproclaim the ideas of lineage continuation, the ancestors’ cult, and harmony
in the family – values that are relevant and vital at all times.
I close read the poem The Nomad’s Star and outline main cultural concepts depicted in it, such as “route,” “hearth,” “lineage,” and others, which
promote the revival of ethnic consciousness in the memory of the Buryats.
I support my argumentation with the words of the poet himself and literary
critics’ opinions. The public discourse and social network materials devoted
to The Nomad’s Star are also called upon, evidencing the poem’s role and
significance in contemporary Buryatia.
*
This article is a revised version of Chapter 3 of my PhD dissertation The Settled Sorrow of
Saddle: The Buryat Ethnic Identity in the Poetry of Bair Dugarov (Dodukova 2019). It was prepared
as a result of Alexander Herzen Junior Visiting Fellowship, sponsored by the Institute for Human
Sciences and the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation.
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Keywords: ethnic identity, revival of historical memory, Buryat poetry,
nomad, lineage continuation, ancestor’s cult, post-Soviet Buryatia
280
The Nomad’s Star is undoubtedly the most prominent
poem of Bair Dugarov (born 1947). First published in 1986
in the collection The Sky, The Nomad’s Star then introduced
the eponymous collection of poems in 1994. Having appeared
in the critical time of post-Soviet searching of self-identification among Buryats, the poem instantly gained popularity
and soon was adapted to music by pop singers Saian and
Erzhena Zhamablov. Dugarov received the State Award of the
Republic of Buryatia in Literature and Art for the book of
poems The Nomad’s Star in 1995. Such popularity and recognition leave no doubts that the poet not only put in it his
intimate thoughts, but also imprinted into it major nationally
significant components of the Buryat traditional culture. I argue
that the poem The Nomad’s Star became the guiding light
for an entire generation of Buryats in the critical time of the
collapse of the Soviet Union. At this watershed in history,
Dugarov called upon his contemporaries to revive the nomadic
principles of the ancestors, such as lineage continuation, the
ancestors’ cult, and harmony in family, which stay relevant
and vital at all times. I start with a short overview of Bair
Dugarov’s biography and the history of the poem. I close read
the poem The Nomad’s Star and outline the main cultural
concepts depicted in it, such as “route,” “hearth,” “lineage,”
and others, which promote the idea of the revival of ethnic
consciousness in the memory of the Buryats. I support my argumentation by my interview with the poet and literary critics’
THE NOMAD’S STAR OF BAIR DUGAROV AS THE GUIDING...
opinions. Finally, the public discourse and social network
materials devoted to the poem and the song will evidence
the role and significance of The Nomad’s Star poem in contemporary Buryatia.
Bair Dugarov began writing poems during his time at school,
but his first book of poems, The Golden Saddle, was not
published until 1975 (Dugarov 1975). Today, he is officially
recognized as a national poet of Buryatia, the author of 15
books of poems. Along with his creative activity, Dugarov
has made a career as a scholar – in 2005, he defended his
habilitation thesis The Sacral World of the Buryat Geseriade1:
Heavenly Pantheon and Genesis of the Hero and obtained the
postdoctoral academic degree (doktor filologii). He currently
works as an expert researcher of the Department of Literary and
Folklore Studies of the Institute of Mongolian, Buddhist and
Tibetan Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Siberian
Branch). His academic activity could not but influence his
poetry, which reflects his deep academic awareness of the
history of Mongolian and Buryat tribes, shaman mythology,
and archaeological monuments. Appealing to the All-Mongol
past has become one of the main topics of Dugarov’s poems.
The biography of the poet shows his impact on the revival
of ethnic consciousness in Buryatia. As a member and later
chairman (1992–1999) of the Union of Writers of Buryatia, he
1
In the mythology of the Mongolian and Tibetan peoples, Geser is a cultural hero – the Son
of Heaven. He is the god of war who descended from Heaven to clear the Earth of monsters. The
Geseriade is the oral and written epic cycle about Geser, known throughout Central and Eastern
Asia. The Buryat versions of the Geseriade are considered the most authentic and can boast up to
50,000 verses.
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developed and organized a series of events devoted to returning to Mongolian roots and the revival of historical memory.
The poet recalls,
On December 14, 1988, I organized an evening devoted to literary
monuments in old-Mongolian. At that time, the political atmosphere
was tense everywhere across the USSR, it was the perestroika. Only
Buryatia remained the Land of Nod. But that evening in 1988, it seemed
the audience let out emotions that had been kept down for years. Even
the microphone lit up. Luckily, Vladimir Garmaev, a writer, unplugged
it. I was called a troublemaker after that meeting. However, after that
evening, lessons of old-Mongolian writing were introduced at the Buryat
State University, at schools, in Buriaad Ünen newspaper (Ian 2017).
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Another important step towards the revival of ethnic consciousness of the Buryats was the restoration of Sagaalgan
[White Month] – the Mongolian Lunar New Year Holiday.
In 1989, Bair Dugarov encouraged his colleagues to organize
a huge celebration at the Buryat Academic Theater of Drama.
Today it is hard to believe that the White Month was officially
recognized as a public holiday of the republic only in 1991.
Furthermore, in the 1990s, he initiated a seven-year program of
literary and folklore events devoted to the 1,000th anniversary
of the Buryat national epos Geseriade. Dugarov reflects,
To a certain extent, the Geseriade has become an embodiment of the
growing national consciousness, a return to spiritual roots and sources,
a revival of ancient customs and traditions of eternal and universal value.
The Geseriade is a kind of hidden reaction to the bitter fruits of historical
unconsciousness and national nihilism, which has planted roots in former
totalitarian times; and the movement under the sign of Geser – a cultural
hero of national level – has thus, to a certain extent, filled in the spiritual
and ideological vacuum of the Buryat society in the post-perestroika
period (Dugarov 1998, 102).
THE NOMAD’S STAR OF BAIR DUGAROV AS THE GUIDING...
The poem The Nomad’s Star can be considered as yet another
step towards the revival of ethnic identity of the Buryats made
by Bair Dugarov. But the poet insists he was not pursuing any
ideological objectives when writing this poem:
I do not instruct. I just expressed the sensible subject – it was a splash
of my soul... Of course, it is connected to the socio-political processes
of that time, but it is wrong to connect it directly, to say that Dugarov
wrote this poem when Gorbachev announced perestroika in 1986. It is
significanlty deeper and it had been brewing for a long time (Dugarov,
personal interview, February 22, 2017).
Indeed, even in his first collections Dugarov develops the
topics of nomadism, the Great Steppe, and returning to the historical motherland (e.g. Dugarov 1975). The poet confesses that
it was surprisingly easy to commit The Nomad’s Star to paper:
Just as Athena leaped from Zeus’s head fully grown and armed, this poem
was written at once… It seems these lines were maturing for a long time
inside of me, and when they were ready, I just wrote them down. Not
all verses are born so easily, but this poem was probably destined for it
(Dugarov, personal interview, February 22, 2017).
The poem is written in Russian, as the majority of poems
by Bair Dugarov. Many people mistakenly think that the poet
writes in Russian because he does not speak Buryat. However,
his first language was Buryat. He speaks literary Buryat, but
what is more, he can understand all the seven dialects of the
Buryat language thanks to his experience of living in various
regions of Buryatia. Dugarov writes poems in his native language and constantly translates them from Buryat into Russian.
The choice of language is one of the most painful issues for
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the Buryat poets of the 20th century (e.g. Baranova 2004);
this, however, does not mean that the Buryat identity cannot
be expressed in Russian. Bair Dugarov recalls an interesting
incident: when he was young and was making his first steps in
the field of poetry, he decided to try his luck and went to the
Union of Writers of Buryatia: “Once I brought my poems to
Isai Kalashnikov.2 Dondok Ulzytuev,3 a famous Buryat poet
who was sitting next to him, looked through my poems and
said, The boy writes in Russian, but Buryat is felt” (Ministry
of Culture of the Republic of Buryatia 2017).
As mentioned before, the poem was first published in 1986 in
the collection of poems The Sky. That same year, it was included
into the all-Union collection The Poetry Day. This prestigious
annual publication traditionally gathered the best poems from
all over the Soviet Union. The collection of 1986 was devoted
to poets of Siberia and the Far East. Bair Dugarov recalls,
I was invited to Moscow for a presentation of The Poetry Day. There, in
the center of Moscow, standing by the statue of Vladimir Maiakovskii,4
I was reciting my poem... One of the poets, his name I cannot remember,
who was sitting next to me, told me, Listen, Bair, your poem is sheer aphorisms! And it is really so (Dugarov, personal interview, February 22, 2017).
Indeed, the structure of the poem is very sharp and concise.
Each line represents a complete utterance and can be read as
2
Isai Kalashnikov (1931–1980) – Soviet writer, most famous for his historical novel A Cruel
Age. Kalashnikov was an executive secretary of the Union of Writers of Buryatia from 1965 until
his death in 1980.
3
Dondok Ulzytuev (1936–1972) – one of the most prominent Buryat poets writing in Buryat.
Some of his poems were translated into Russian by Evgenii Evtushenko.
4
The statue of Vladimir Maiakovskii was unveiled in 1958 on Maiakovskii Square (currently
the Triumphal Square) and soon became the place of various poetry events.
THE NOMAD’S STAR OF BAIR DUGAROV AS THE GUIDING...
an aphorism. The measured rhythm of iambic pentameter, the
repetitive pattern of quatrains, syntactic parallelism – all these
features increase the expressiveness of the verse. Such brevity
together with the general grand style makes the poem sound as
an instruction to the descendants.
Звезда кочевника
The Nomad’s Star
Мужчине – путь, а женщине – очаг.
И чтобы род мой древний не зачах,
роди – молю и заклинаю – сына.
Стрела летит, покуда жив мужчина.
The route is to man as the hearth is to
woman.
And so that my ancient lineage does not
wither away,
I pray and entreat – give birth to a son.
The arrow flies as long as the man lives.
Мужчине – дым, а женщине – огонь.
И чтоб в бою мой не споткнулся конь,
я должен знать, что юрту греет пламя,
как предками завещанное знамя.
Smoke is to man as fire is to woman.
And so that my steed does not stumble
in battle,
I must know that the yurt is heated by
the flame,
Like the battle standard left after my
forefathers.
В мужчине – дух, а в женщине – душа.
Травинка держит небо трепеща.
Без очага, без сына, без любимой,
как одинокий смерч, развеюсь над
равниной (Dugarov 1986).
In man lies the spirit, in woman – the
soul.
The trembling blade of grass holds the sky.
Without a hearth, without a son, without
my beloved,
I am scattered above the plain, like
a solitary sandstorm.5
When analyzing the poem, the first thing that catches the
eye is the structural similarity of the first lines of each quatrain.
The structural repetitions and instructive tone embody a philosophical paradigm: “The route is to man as the hearth is to
5
All translations of quotations from the Russian, Mongol and Buryat languages are mine,
unless otherwise indicated – G. D.
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woman,” “Smoke is to man as fire is to woman,” “In man lies
the spirit, in woman – the soul.” At first sight, it seems the poet
makes a clear distinction between the gender duties of men and
women: a man is connected with his horse, he rides through the
steppe, hunts and fights, while a woman should sit at home and
maintain the hearth. One might think that the poet affirms the
patriarchal lifestyle of nomads. However, he actually reveals
here one of the main principles of Buryat cosmology: even
though they are opposite, male and female forces are always
interconnected and form a unity.
This male-female relationship was expressed among the
Mongolian peoples by the notion of arga-bilig. According to
Lidiia Skorodumova, the arga-bilig doctrine is a component of
Mongolian astrology (zurkhai), whose basic framework was formulated in Tibet and became widespread in Mongolia together
with Tibetan Buddhism in the 16–17th centuries (Skorodumova
1994). However, Mongolian researcher Dondogzhalyn MönkhOchir, author of a series of publications about arga-bilig,
defines this doctrine as a pure Mongolian “invention” that
arose gradually from observations of nature made by ancient
nomads (Mönkh-Ochir 1993, 6). Arga-bilig, a term which can be
translated as “mode” and “wisdom,” is composed of two words,
expressing two opposite categories, including the opposition
of man and woman, sky and earth, sun and moon, night and
day, summer and winter, hot and cold, up and down. The main
idea of arga-bilig is that harmony in the world lies in the
interaction of two opposite principles. Mongolists insist that
the arga-bilig principle is not similar to European dialectics,
THE NOMAD’S STAR OF BAIR DUGAROV AS THE GUIDING...
as it concentrates not on the clash but on the unity of the two
opposites (Buren-Ulzii 2010). What is more, the world cannot
exist beyond this principle in the same manner as there cannot
be night without day and vice versa. From the point of view of
this doctrine, all interrelations in the world are established and
systematized according to the principle of arga-bilig.
Arga determines the external, while bilig – the internal influence of the
phenomenon, and as a result they form a complete system of the universe.
The scheme of the relationship between arga and bilig is as follows:
bilig constantly exists and develops in arga, while arga, being a form or
mode, protects bilig, thus, there is always bilig in arga, and vice versa
(Belokurova 2011, 116–7).
In such a way, Dugarov prescribes a deep philosophical
meaning in The Nomad’s Star: the harmony of the world lies
in the inseparability and complementariness of two opposite
components. Men have their own duties, women – their own,
but one cannot exist without the other, and only together can
they achieve harmony. The poetic lines acquire an instructive
meaning as the poet declares principles of the nomad life of the
ancestors, which become actual and vital for his contemporaries.
The lines “The route is to man as the hearth is to woman”
and “Smoke is to man as fire is to woman” are very similar.
The idea of the route, motion around the steppe is connected
with smoke. As Dugarov says, this reflects the philosophy of
nomads: smoke spreads in space, just as a nomad does while
moving about the space of the steppe. “It is a subtle metaphor”
(Dugarov, personal interview, February 22, 2017). In other
words, both notions, route and smoke, express the idea of
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movement, dynamics. As for the cult of hearth and fire, they
are undoubtedly synonymous in the traditional Buryat world
perception and refer to the female.
Archeological finds – female figurines – discovered in close proximity to
home-fires and ethnographic material witness that home-fire worship was
the responsibility of women for the majority of peoples of Siberia. This
finding is also reflected in the term udagan (odigon), which derives from
the Turkic word ot or ut meaning fire, and has the all-Mongolian female
name ending gan. Udagan, known among both Turkic and Mongolian
peoples, usually refers to the female shaman. However, initially the term
udagan probably designated priestesses of fire. Over time, with the loss of
functions of the priestess of fire, this word began to mean a female shaman
(Galdanova 1987, 24–5).
288
In the traditional Buryat yurt, the hearth occupied the central
position and appeared as its crucial part. According to Marina
Sodnompilova, the organization of a yurt represents the interpretation of the world structure among the Mongols. The floor
of the yurt designates the Earth, the oval roof acts as the Sky,
and the hearth located in the center of yurt is the place of Fire.
“To the Mongolian people, the vertical axis of the hearth, toono,
reflects the idea of the triplicity of the world: the hearth’s fire
reaches the Sky, smoke permeates the 99 heavenly layers (or
covers them), heat penetrates through the Earth and warms her
77 layers” (Sodnompilova 2009, 315). Thus, the fire, or hearth,
in a yurt plays a crucial role for Mongols, as it embodies one
of the three main elements.
Dugarov continues to develop the concepts of fire and hearth
in the lines “I must know that the yurt is heated by the flame, /
Like the battle standard left after my forefathers” by appealing
THE NOMAD’S STAR OF BAIR DUGAROV AS THE GUIDING...
to the connection of the fire cult with the cult of ancestors in the
Buryat traditional culture. Indeed, the Buryat fire cult used to
fulfill functions associated with the lineage: the vital forces of the
family – sülde – were believed to live in the hearth (Babkinova
2009, 21). That is why there exists a number of taboos connected with the hearth and fire. The main idea behind them is
not to profane the hearth, as it can lead to disintegration of the
family and even fading of the lineage. Thus, it was forbidden
to pour water on fire or to touch fire with a knife or any other
sharp object. It was also prohibited to throw garbage or dirt into
fire and to extinguish fire in the hearth (Galsanova 2012, 156).
It is necessary to take a closer look on the concept of sülde
in the Mongolian culture. Caroline Humphrey and Hürelbaatar
Ujeed write that the Mongolian word sülde can be translated
as might, life force, inspiration. “Sülde can refer to a personal
entity like a ‘soul’ and to the spirit of an ancestor” (Humphrey
and Ujeed 2012, 155). What is more peculiar, sülde can be
located not only within the human, but “outside oneself, taking
residence in a deity or in particular objects, such as battle
standards (tug, sülde), flags, and state or military emblems”
(Humphrey and Ujeed 2012, 154). Zoia Morokhoeva writes that
in the military art, sülde receives the meaning of spiritual power
of the people or army. For example, sülde is the keeper of
Genghis Khan’s lineage that lived in his nine-legged white
battle standard; this sülde saved his troops, leading them to
victories and conquest of all countries (Morokhoeva 2013, 68).
In other words, sülde can be translated from the Buryat not
only as soul but also as battle standard (which contains soul).
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Thus, Dugarov implements a series of interconnected concepts:
fire – hearth – battle standard, which all are related to the cult
of ancestors, and the life forces of the family. The concentration
of value-laden keywords in a few lines is immense. According
to Dugarov, he did this on an intuitive level,
because I am Buryat myself, I feel all this. And poets actually write it in
this way: they do not comprehend, do not allude to something on purpose.
It all should be expressed naturally. A poet writes on an intuitive level, otherwise it is not poetry (Dugarov, personal interview, February 22, 2017).
290
Nevertheless, even unconsciously, Dugarov shows great
competence in condensing the traditional knowledge concerning
the Buryat culture. The Nomad’s Star, unintentionally but surely,
instructs the contemporaries: the spirit of lineage, of the nation
should not be forgotten, but ought to be transmitted through
generations as the battle standard or an inextinguishable flame.
The motif of lineage becomes the major concept. Its another
aspect – patrilineal continuation of lineage – is represented in the
first quatrain “I pray and entreat – give birth to a son / The arrow
flies as long as the man lives.” The image of an arrow becomes
associated with the male principle, which is typical of Buryat
traditional culture, where an arrow represents the power of
a man. The symbol of a bow with an arrow goes back to ancient
hunting rituals: when the man learns to use the bow, he can
become a full member of society, continue his lineage, and start
a family. The idea of an arrow as a symbol of manhood and power
of lineage is mentioned in Buryat shamanic songs. Dampilova writes
that if a baby boy survived the first two years of his life, shamans
sang a song of praise. The abovementioned lines of Dugarov’s
THE NOMAD’S STAR OF BAIR DUGAROV AS THE GUIDING...
poem repeat an extract from this song almost word for word. The
poem can be perceived as a shamanic incantation due to its structural similarity and semantic proximity to the shamanic song:
Эбэр, эбэр татаха
Отогохон номомни.
Элэн, элэн харбаха
Зартагайхан годолимни…
Тэбэдэн үгэн харбуулха
Минии нэрэ байналдаа
(Dampilova 2012, 92).
Firmly, firmly the bow
of my lineage will tighten.
Wearing off, wearing off, an arrow
Shoots from the rushlight…
It will always shoot,
And continue my name
It is necessary to mention that the pressure that is imposed
on the son as the continuator of a lineage can be connected
with the personal drama of the poet. Bair Dugarov himself
does not have a son but two daughters, who were born in 1982
and 1983. The Nomad’s Star was first published in 1986, and
probably the poet captured his emotions from that time in the
poem. His younger daughter writes in her recent book The Star
of a Nomadess, “When I was born, my father could not hide his
disappointment… so strong was his desire to have a continuator
of the Dugarov lineage” (Dugarova 2017, 1).
Lastly, the motif of lineage is most convincingly expressed
in the closing lines of the poem: “Without a hearth, without
a son, without my beloved, / I am scattered above the plain,
like a solitary sandstorm.” The poet sums up all the previous
images which embody lineage for him: the hearth, the son,
the beloved. The hearth, the fire, links the lyrical subject with
his ancestors; the son and the arrow spell the future of his
lineage. The nomad’s route as one of the major concepts of
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Dugarov’s poetry is transformed here into the route of the
lineage. His ancient lineage will not break off and his name
will not disappear as long as the flame heats the yurt, as long as
“the arrow flies.”
The lineage motif plays a central role in the poem yet is
not the only one. The line “The trembling blade of grass holds
the sky” explains another aspect of the nomad’s philosophy: the
global depends on the smallest; the universe is one whole: in
the chain of seasons and life cycles, people, animals, mountains are interdependent, and even a tiny blade of grass can
make a difference and “hold the sky.” Dugarov defines this
line as concluding, “Here is all the philosophy. This delicate
line contains everything in it” (Dugarov, personal interview,
February 22, 2017). This poetic reflection has become an independent aphorism among the Buryats. For example, in social
networks, on Facebook or Instagram, it is possible to find posts
citing the known line from Dugarov’s poem (e.g. Shiribon
2017). Thus, a Buryat ethno-pop singer Medegma Dorzhieva
(born 1980), bearer of the title Honored Artist of the Republic
of Buryatia, on January 22, 2017, posted a close-up photo of
a frosted blade of grass with a clear blue sky in the background
and captioned it: “#winter #belovedburyatia #healthylifestyle
…The trembling blade of grass holds the sky” (Dorzhieva
2017). The fact that she did not cite the name of the poet means
that she presupposed that her followers were acquainted with the
work of Dugarov, and thus confirms the popularity of not only
the poem The Nomad’s Star, but even specific lines of the poem.
Finally, it is necessary to analyze the very title of the
THE NOMAD’S STAR OF BAIR DUGAROV AS THE GUIDING...
poem – The Nomad’s Star. Marina Sodnompilova writes that
celestial orientation based on the most perceptible stars and constellations of the northern hemisphere was common among the
nomads due to their hunting and gathering way of life. The most
known celestial bodies include Planet Venus (Solbon), esteemed
as the patron of horses, and the Great Bear (Ursa Major) constellation, which is mentioned in many myths and legends, especially
those concerning the creation of the world (Sodnompilova 2009,
216). Dugarov expresses the traditional guiding role of stars in
his other poems: “Fly, o rider, never / will the Destiny stop your
run / There is smoke of camp fires on the Earth / and a bright
star in the sky” (Dugarov 1994, 178). It is this idea of a star as
the reference point that is developed in The Nomad’s Star, where
it becomes a guiding light for the modern generation of Buryats.
When speaking about the poem of Bair Dugarov and its
impact on the Buryat national development, it is important
to analyze the song The Nomad’s Star written by Saian and
Erzhena Zhambalov. Saian and Erzhena are one of the most
famous artistic couples of contemporary Buryatia. They started
their career at the Buryat Academic Theater of Drama in the
1990s, and today Saian is a stage director there, while Erzhena
is a director of the Buryat State Academic Opera and Ballet
Theater. But apart from their theatrical activity, they are
widely known as pioneers of the Buryat pop music genre. Since
the 1990s, they have been writing music and lyrics and singing
as a duet. The Nomad’s Star became their hit song and played
a big role in the popularization of Dugarov’s poem not only in
Buryatia but also far beyond its borders. The idea to adapt the
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lines to music occurred to Saian in 1996, when the delegation
of artists from Buryatia arrived in Moscow for the festival of
Buryat culture and art. Erzhena recalls,
after two days of performing our own songs in Buryat, Saian proposed,
“Listen, we are singing in Buryat here, but who understands us? There is
a great poem by Bair Dugarov – The Nomad’s Star. Let’s write a song,
because the Muscovites should hear about the beauty of our nation in
a language they understand.” So we wrote the music overnight, and
the next day, in the afternoon, we already stood on the stage in the
middle of the All-Union Exhibition of Achievements of the National
Economy and sang that song. Muscovites walked up later and thanked
us (Tsybdenova 2017).
294
Hence, thanks to the fact that the song was in Russian, it
became accessible to a wider audience in comparison to other
Buryat songs of the Zhambalovs. The philosophical meaning
of the poem struck many Russians, as well as people of other
nationalities, for example, the Kalmyks or the Tuvinians. To some
extent, the song has become even more popular than the initial
poem. Thus, searching the Russian Google for “the nomad’s star
Erzhena and Saian Zhambalov” renders 3,200 results (Google
2018a); however, if you search for “the nomad’s star Bair
Dugarov,” you will get only 2,360 results (Google 2018b).
But above all, the song gained popularity among the Buryats
themselves. One of the proofs of the public recognition is the
award for Buryatia’s “Best Song of the Century” in the category
“amateur composer,” which was presented to the songwriters at
the turn of the 20th century (Uragsha n.d.). The artists continued
collaborating with the poet throughout the years. In 2012,
they staged a new project – the musical performance Sutra of
THE NOMAD’S STAR OF BAIR DUGAROV AS THE GUIDING...
Moments – where the poems of Bair Dugarov were adapted to
music and combined with a choreographic performance. They
also released the album I Am Perhaps the Last Buryat-Mongol,
where the poems of Bair Dugarov were yet again adapted to
music. In 2016, the Zhambalovs celebrated 30 years of their
artistic career and organized an anniversary concert entitled In
Man Lies the Spirit, in Woman – the Soul. The line from The
Nomad’s Star chosen as the name of the concert underlines the
combination of male and female forces in their duet, additionally, it clearly shows that The Nomad’s Star has become the
main song showcasing their work. Indeed, a local news portal
claims, “Perhaps there is not a single person in Buryatia who
did not hear The Nomad’s Star song performed by Saian and
Erzhena Zhambalov” (Bez Formata 2012). For the Buryats,
the song turned into a new symbol of traditional culture and
family values. Maybe precisely because of the ideas of lineage
continuation, the ancestors’ cult, and male-female harmony
in the family, The Nomad’s Star is a song usually performed
during Buryat weddings. The moment of creation of a new
family is accompanied by the song that most vividly expressess
the traditional Buryat family model.
The Nomad’s Star developed into an independent brand. For
one, it is a popular name for various ethnic places. For example,
there is The Nomad’s Star restaurant in Chita, Zabaikal’skii
Krai. According to its webpage, it is a restaurant of primarily
Buryat-Mongol, but also European and Chinese cuisine. It
claims that the main difference between The Nomad’s Star and
other restaurants lies not only in delicious dishes but also the
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296
atmosphere of national culture and traditions. The sandy color
of the interior symbolizes the steppe, while the huge dome
made of blue glass represents “the clear sky over the head of
nomads” (Zvezda kochevnika n.d.). It is remarkable that the
official webpage of the restaurant does not make any reference
to the poem of Bair Dugarov, but in the restaurant’s group on
the social network Vkontakte one can find the song by Saian
and Erzhena Zhambalov. This fact demonstrates that the phrase
The Nomad’s Star became identifiable thanks to the song of the
Zhambalovs. And as an identifiable brand, it started to be used
by Buryat entrepreneurs. Another place called The Nomad’s Star
is a guest house on Olkhon Island, Irkutsk Oblast. Olkhon is the
largest island on Lake Baikal and with its diverse landscapes and
untouched natural monuments is deservedly regarded as one of
the most beautiful places on Baikal. Besides, the island is considered one of the most powerful spiritual places by Buryat shamans. It is not a surprise that this place is highly popular among
tourists. According to the official webpage of the guest house, it
too puts a focus on ethnicity: “a combination of Buryat culture,
Buryat hospitality and sacrality of the Olkhon Island” (Baza
otdykha Zvezda kochevnika n.d.). In Ulan-Ude, the capital
of the Republic of Buryatia, there is also a souvenir shop named
The Nomad’s Star. The shop is one of the pioneers in the souvenir industry in Buryatia, which saw rapid development in the
2000s. It first sold finished goods made of leather and wool in
Mongolia. Nowadays, the shop has ventured out and has its own
production, with two big souvenir stores in the city center and
an online-shop. Just as in case of the Chita restaurant, both the
THE NOMAD’S STAR OF BAIR DUGAROV AS THE GUIDING...
guest house and the souvenir shop do not refer to the poem of
Bair Dugarov and they do not need to, because the name The
Nomad’s Star is truly recognizable. Its recognizability together
with reference to traditional Buryat nomadic culture made
it a popular name for various ethnic places throughout East
Siberia, from Irkutsk to Chita, where the idea of nomadism is
one of the main tourist highlights.
Returning to the poem of Bair Dugarov, it can be said that
The Nomad’s Star is his best poetic work. In this regard, the
evening with Bair Dugarov devoted to his 70th anniversary,
which was held on December 14, 2017, at the Buryat Academic
Theater of Drama in Ulan-Ude, was very emblematic. The show
can be considered as a kind of compilation of all the creative
routes taken by the poet. All seats were booked. The reading
of his favorite poems was accompanied by a concert. The
Buryat State National Song and Dance Theatre “Baikal” presented several excerpts from the music and choreographic
performance about the legendary ancestral homeland of the
Buryats Echo of Country Bargudzhin-Tukum, whose libretto
was written by Dugarov. The opera singers performed romances
based on his poems, while the artists from the Buryat Drama
Theatre staged several crucial moments from the family life
of the poet. But the performance of The Nomad’s Star by
Saian and Erzhena Zhambalov became the pinnacle of the
whole concert. “Of course, it would not be complete without the dear and legendary song The Nomad’s Star based
on the verses of the poet,” reported the local newspaper
(Tsybdenova 2017).
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Galina Dondukova
To conclude, the close reading of The Nomad’s Star poem
revealed its main nationally significant concepts, which have
been broadly promoted by Bair Dugarov throughout his public
activity since the 1990s. The poem has become not just his
most popular work but also “a kind of a symbol of Buryat
consciousness” (Dugarova 2017, 1). The song written by Saian
and Erzhena Zhambalov contributed to the popularization of the
nomadic sentiments and encouraged a revival of ethnic identity
roots among the Buryats, initiated by the poet. And thus, The
Nomad’s Star of Bair Dugarov has truly turned into a guiding
light for the modern generation of Buryats.
298
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