Win Ciel Bleu: Une Enfance Dans Le Haut Altaï (Suite Allemande) Executed By Galsan Tschinag Represented In Digital Copy
is an interesting, evocativelywritten short book about the life of a young shepherd boy belonging to a nomadic people in Mongolia.
Set in thes, the book is based on the authors own life the boy has his name, and in the authors note which puts the book in context he refers to the character as himself reading this alongside a memoir with numerous fictionalized elements highlighted the existence of that grey intermediate zone between fiction and nonfiction.
The author who grew up in a yurt, was educated in Europe, then returned to Mongolia and became a tribal leader and shaman has certainly had a fascinating life, though this book focuses on the narrow world of a child, consisting of his family, the sheep and his dog.
The boy faces a number of losses in his young life that leave him questioning the divinity of the sky, which his people worship.
Its an interesting book, and while theres no overarching plot, its relatively short length and the variety of its episodes carry it along fine.
The translation is fluid and readable, and the glossary, authors note and translators note at the end are all helpful, The book didnt strike any deep chord with me, but it did expand my mental map a little bit further, which is exactly what my world books challenge is intended to do.
The author himself discusses this in the afterword:
“Humankind, which for me in the beginning meant my small tribe of Tuvan people, has grown larger and richer in my heart with the addition of other peoples.
Now, the publication of The Blue Sky extends it for me even further by including the peoples of North America, I am mightily pleased, not least for these peoples themselves, whose world, in turn, will now include the mountain steppe of Central Asia, and whose awareness of humankind will embrace the nomadic people from that corner.
”
Indeed. Setting plays a big part in literature, especially in a memoir, but rarely have I read a book in which it plays such a great role.
Tschinag's book the first in a trilogy is a semiautobiographical account of his childhood growing up on the Mongolian steppes, specifically with the backdrop of the Tsengel Hairhan mountain in the Altai range, at an altitude of betweenand,metres asl.
Tschinag is of the Tuvan people, they of the throatsinging, an isolated group of nomads living in one the harshest environments on the planet.
It covers the period up until young Dshurukuwaa Galsan isyears old, in thes,
The events that mean so much to the young boy in this volume concern his family, their animals, and, not hard to guess, the weather.
It is a landscape of contradictions, vast and yet confining, Its huge skies and the wolves and horses ruuning free give it identity and savage wilderness, As nomads the seasons and the weather completely run their lives and moods,
Tschinag's prose is raw and yet poetic, and grows on you to be soon immersed in the boy's life,
This first installment is tender, witty, and often sad, and ends with a particularly dramatic and memorable incident for Dshurukuwaa, but we know, from the author's afterword, that his childhood is about to change for the worse, as the Russians occupy his lands.
I have been a gatherer, hunter, and herder a school boy, a university student and a professor a trade union journalist and a shadow politician.
he says, in a recent interview, now in his midseventies, and back in Mongolia,
I am the chieftain of a tribe, a healer, an author, a father, and a grandfather.
Tschinag writes in German, and is splendidly translated by Katharina Rout, who spent time with the author in the Altai.
This was published in English in, the second volume, The Gray Earth, which I am very much looking forward to, in, and third, The White Mountain, later this year.
Tschinag is a storyteller who makes small events such that we can imagine wanting to listen to them again and again as we sit around the fire.
His memoir covers his very early years beforeas a Tuvan nomad in Mongolia, His language is characterized by the naivete and openness of childhood, but we can already see the wisdom that characterizes his adulthood.
This rarely happens to me, but I couldn't get through it, While the idea of learning about a new culture completely thrills me, the writing was so dry and terse that I found myself slogging instead of enjoying.
I've moved onstars. Largely autobiographical story of nomadic herders under early Communism, Intense, beautiful writing. Galsan Tschinag raconte son enfance dans la steppe aux confins du désert de Gobi, dans les terres du HautAltaï, Vivant sous la yourte au sein d'une famille d'éleveurs de moutons, l'enfant découvre le monde à travers sa relation avec Arsilang son chien, dont les aventures ouvrent et ferment le livre.
L'exotisme est ici total et actuel, Le groupe familial se déplace en fonction des pâturages et des saisons, on monte les yourtes et on rencontre les gens.
Les enfants ont une place bien définie que vient troubler l'obligation de scolarisation imposée par le gouvernement communiste, Mais il y a toujours les vacances pour retrouver la grandmère choisie et adoptée par l'enfant, pour jouer dans la montagne avec son chien et parcourir à cheval ces étendues sans fin où le galop sert aussi à mesurer l'espace et le temps.
Do not read this book if you have a hard time with the death of a beloved pet, How the little boy expresses grief in the face of his parent's uncaring pragmatism is nothing less than a freaking gut punch.
His grief brought tears to my eyes and made me run for my cat, This is a boy who has suffered from a number of painful losses as he grows and he can no longer remain Stoic.
A sudden stop, a tragic end but the author said all that needed saying, Although I appreciated the short length and learning about Tuvan customs e, g. , sniffing relatives who return from a long trip, neither the protagonist nor prose was engaging enough to compensate for this plotless book.
Incredible book from the perspective of a young boy growing up in Mongolia under the Soviets, The story of the Tuvans echoes many indigenous stories from all over the world, But just fascinating to learn about the Tuvan culture and life, The author, Galsan Tschinag, has also been a leader in preserving and saving the culture, history and language of the Tuvan people.
A memoirstyle fictionalized version of the author's life growing up in the steppes in thess in the time of Soviet control and modernization.
And one of the few books that makes you feel like this really is the perspective of a child, not being too obviously precocious, but also being so perceptive of the adult world, as many children are.
Beautifully written/translated from German, and somewhat spiritual and elevated while also being so evocative of the weather, geography, and life of the nomadic herders, living in the snow in their portable yurts.
Absolutely wonderful book, I would recommend it to everyone, Amended in light of additional information
Der Blaue Himmel , written in German by the Tuvan shaman, poet and novelist Galsan Tschinag known as Irgit Shynykbaioglu Dshurukuwaa when he is home b.
is the largely autobiographical story of a young Tuvan boy, Dshurukuwaa, in the early's living in the bosom of his extended family in the ancient manner of his nomadic people, moving across the monstrously wide steppes of Mongolia and southern Siberia and the mountain valleys of the Altai as their herds of sheep, goats, yaks, and horses graze, living almost exclusively on their milk, blood, flesh, bones and hides for there is little else to be found on the steppe except for grass, marmots, foxes, wolves and the occasional bird or bear, and carrying their dismantled homes yurts with them.
Their ancestors surely fought for Genghis Khan and inspired horror in the peoples they destroyed but for ages their only ambition has been to live their lives in the old way, to wed, have children and increase their herds.
In this book we learn about this old way of life from the inside, Two other things we learn from this book:human beings are remarkably adaptable anddespite cultural differences, human beings are much the same everywhere, for the better and for the worse.
Even if one thinks one already knows these things, there is still gain in seeing these play themselves out in the absolutely concrete setting of a culture distant to our own.
In relatively straightforward but evocative language, Tschinag summons the simple but hard life of the Tuvan nomads, the harsh beauty of the steppes and mountains, and the extremely tight family bonds of his people.
The Communist Party controlled Mongolia and had already begun to "improve" the lives of the inhabitants, so the nomads were beginning to change their ways.
Dshurukuwaa's older brother and sister were obliged to leave the camp to go to school in the local village, and some of his extended family chose to move there, as well.
Dshurukuwaa, too young for school, took over his siblings' chores, His nomadic life continued, but, in quick succession, his beloved grandmother died, a bitter winter killed most of his flock, and his inseparable dog was accidentally poisoned.
The book ends with him screaming imprecations at the most powerful being in the Tuvans' religion, the Blue Sky,
Der Blaue Himmel is the first volume of a trilogy, and the story of Dshurukuwaa's youth is continued in Die graue Erde and then Der weiße Berg .
After setting up the Tuvan culture and Dshurukuwaa's rejection of Father Sky, the trilogy continues with Dshurukuwaa personally experiencing how the communist authority was trying to stamp out his culture.
Stay tuned
Tschinag studied German at the Karl Marx University in Leipzigand chose to write his books in German when looking for a Western audience.
He also writes books in Mongolian in order to reach out to the Kazakh and Mongolian majority in his own country in defense of the minority Tuva people, known in the West for their remarkable "throat singing":
sitelink youtube. com/watchvMZxx
My throat hurts just listening to it,
Tschinag's books appear to be the only sources of insight in a Western language into Tuvan culture and history as presented from a native member of that society.
Tschinag is not only a shaman, he is the leader of the Tuva people in Mongolia, whose numbers are said to be around,.
However, there are some,Tuvan speakers in an adjacent portion of the Russian Federation called the Republic of Tuva renamed the Tyva Republic fairly recently, where they form the majority.
I thought I had perceived some parallels between the Tuvan/Mongolian and the Tibetan/Chinese situations, but the existence of a larger group of Tuvan neighbors weakens that parallel.
However, the Mongolians did deliberately try to suppress the Tuvan culture in Mongolia as did the Soviet Union in the region now called the Tyva Republic however, now the Tuvan
language is freely spoken again, and Tibetan Buddhism and Shamanism are beginning to recover in the Tyva Republic.
“Galsan Tschinag” is a Mongolian pseudonym the boy was required to adopt in order to attend Mongolian schools, because the Mongolian government forbade the Tuvan speech.
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