On August 5, the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Ma Ming signed a decree, officially naming August 10 "Abai Day". During the first Abai Day this year, various celebrations and commemorative activities will be held across Kazakhstan.

Statue of Abai in Almaty

Abai Kunanbayev is a famous poet in Kazakhstan. Abai, formerly known as Ibrahim, was born on August 10, 1845 in Semipalatinsk Oblast (now East Kazakhstan Oblast) of Tsarist Russia, and died on July 6, 1904.

From the age of 40, Abai began to write a lot of poetry. He innovated the form of Kazakh poetry with six-line poems and eight-line poems, and at the same time promoted the spread of Russian and European literature among the Kazakhs. In his life, Abai composed more than 170 poems, 56 translations, numerous collections of narrative poems and aphorisms, and composed more than 20 pieces of music that have been handed down to this day.

Abai's first collection of poems published in 1909

All walks of life in Kazakhstan agreed that at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Abai and his literary achievements had a decisive influence on the formation of the Kazakh intellectuals' worldview. Nazarbayev, the first president of Kazakhstan, once said, "The language of Abai is a blessing to the Kazakhs."