 Today, one of the first novelists of Tuva, doctor of historical sciences, the most famous among the researchers of shamanism, Mongush Kenin-Lopsan, turned 85.
Head of Tuva, Sholban Kara-ool, offered birthday greetings to the shamanologist who is known in the whole world. On April 16, there will be a celebration in his honor at the National Museum, where he has been working for many decades. The 1952 Graduate of the Eastern Department of the LGU is not famous only in Tuva. Literally all scholars and scientists who are involved in this field know him as a person with unique abilities and as a specialist-shamanologist. The American Foundation for Shamanic Studies presented him with the title “Living Treasure of Shamanism”.
“Shamanic songs – algyshes, are treasures of world culture. It is poetry, it is the origin of culture of poetry of the Tuvan people”, says Mongush Borakhovich.
“When I was getting ready to go to Leningrad, my parents invited a shamaness, an old lady, to ask how things will be with the boy. At the time it was forbidden, so she showed up at night and started her kamlanie. Then she said: let the boy go and study, he will not be able to come home for four years; if he comes back home during that time, things will be bad”, he remembers in one of his interviews. He returned home after he finished his studies.
In 1956, he published his first collection of verse, “Bolshoi put’” (The Great Road). In 1965, he finished his first novel, “The Stream of the Great River”(Stremina Velikoy reki), which he started working on while he was still in Leningrad.
In one of his manuscript collections “The heart of the poet” (Serdtse poeta), (the archive holds more that 100 of M.Kenin-Lopsan’s documents), are unpublished verses from 1988, where the author speaks of coming back to Sankt-Peterburg after one hundred years.
Similar to Mandelshtam’s “I will return to this town, known to tears”, Kenin-Lopsan writes:
“Amy tynym erte uzulze-daa
Arat chonum adym utpayn choruur tyrgan
Azhyl alban kylyp choraan kazanaamda
Azhydyp kaan depterlerim olchaan chydar
“Kenin-Lopsan tyva khamnar khaarzhakchyzy”
Khenzig domak aldynalyp chainap turu”.
(Even if my breath is cut off before its time
My name will not be forgotten by my people
In the room where I used to sit over my work
My papers will still lay open at the same place on the desk,
And only a small sign “Kenin-Lopsan, the keeper of Tuvan shamanism”
Will shine with gold, reminding…)
In 1982, Mongush Kenin-Lopsan successfully defended his dissertation “Themes and poetry of Tuvan shamanism (attempt at historico-ethnographic reconstruction).
The long list of his works also includes: two-volume novel-essay “Buyan-Badyrgy” (2000), “Myths of Tuvan Shamans” (Kyzyl2002), and “Oitulaash”, classical patterns of love lyricism of the Tuvan people (Kyzyl 20004). Among the awards presented to the writer are “Order of Friendship between Nations”, and a medal “For Patriotic Merit of Second Order”, awarded in November2004.
The celebrant has two daughters and one granddaughter. His wife, Larisa Petrovna Chetverikova-Kenin-Lopsan, is still his first reader and editor.
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