VERSATILE SCIENTIST

К 110-летию видного кыргызского тюрколога, доктора филологических наук, профессора, академика АН Кыргызской Республики Болота Мураталиевича Юнусалиева

Abstract

The article is devoted to the life and activity of Turkologist, Doctor of Philology,
Professor, Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic Bolot
Muratalyuly Yunusaliev (1913-1970). The outstanding scientist, whose 110th anniversary
of birth was celebrated by the Kyrgyz Republic this year, left behind a significant creative
legacy. A talented researcher, being a graduate of the Moscow Pedagogical Institute, began
his career as a teacher and wrote a Primer Textbook for Kyrgyz schools. During difficult
years, he served as the Minister of Education of Kyrgyzstan and the rector of the Kyrgyz
State University. Nevertheless, science was the main vocation, passion and life’s activity for
B.M. Zhunusaliev. Firstly, he was a famous scientist who wrote such fundamental works
as “Kyrgyz Lexicology”, “Kyrgyz Dialectology”. His research in the field of linguistics was
highly appreciated by such prominent Turkic scholars, as K.K. Yudakhin, V.V. Reshetov,
A.K. Borovkov, N.K. Dmitriev, K.M. Musaev and others. Secondly, B.M. Yunusaliev made a
great contribution to the Manas studies. He not only defended the great Kyrgyz epic from
ideological attacks, but also combined the versions of the storytellers Sagymbay Orazbakov
and Sayakbay Karalaev into one whole (“Manas”, “Semetey”, “Seytek”) and published it
in four books. His preface, written for the first volume, is considered by experts to be one
of the best articles about this grandiose epic. Another merit of B.M. Yunusaliev is that he
found handwritten books of one of the founders of Kyrgyz written literature, Moldo Niyaz,
and donated them to the manuscript collection of the National Academy of Sciences. Thus, thanks to him, the poet’s legacy, banned in Soviet times, entered scientific circulation during
the years of independence. One of the streets in Bishkek is named in honor of the Honored
Scientist of Kyrgyzstan B.M. Zhunusaliev; and a monument was erected to him in his small
homeland.