CINEMA AS BRANDING - Tourism in Central Asia: Cultural Potential and Challenges - page 183

that opens space for a strange friendship between the two men of merit
standing in an antagonistic relationship. 20 Being an honorable prisoner
of Galdan Ceren for two years (1741-1743), Ablai marries his daughter
disrespecting a taboo prohibiting Kazakh men to marry Jungar women
in order to avoid social obligations towards their families. In fact, Ablai
acquires several Jungar wives over time, locating himself in a gray area
outside the orbit of the society's moral order, which does not stop him,
however, from raiding his in-laws' home bases, including that of Galdan
Ceren himself. By double-crossing the line with the sworn enemy and
forming suspicious alliances with the Russian Empress and the Chinese
Emperor, Ablai eventually achieves a certain degree of independence from
other power contestants on the steppe. His political maneuvers and mean-
ness secure his position in power, but also isolate him from his compatriots
alarmed with the concentration of power and his disrespect of political
traditions of the steppe that ruled out the uncanny deals, including those
with the infidels and the settled.
The story of Ablai is always told from the society's perspective de-
scribing thoughts and experiences of ordinary people that constitute its
background. Yessenberlin has done justice to the historical narratives by
writing in the voice of Bukhar zhirau, representing in his novel a watch-
ful eye of the society. By moving between the khan and his people, the
character of Bukhar zhirau links the foreground and background of the
story in a single discursive space. In the spring of 1781, Ablai utters from
his deathbed his last wish to Bukhar zhirau, saying that he does not want
“people … use [his] name to scare children” ([1973] 1989). He also shares
his secret plan that he has been nourishing over the past years but had no
time to implement.
He wanted to stop the encroachment of powerful neighbors on the
Kazakh lands. Yet, the old way of doing this, by relying on an amateur
army drawn from dispersed pastoral communities that regularly changed
locations following seasonal migration, shifting their political allegiances
as they saw fit, had exhausted its potential. 21 Ablai wanted to institute a
standing army that would be sustained by a settled society. So this was his
20 Being questioned by Galdan Ceren why he murdered his son, Ablai answered: “the accusation fell on
my, but your son was killed by the people; I was an instrument of their will” (Valikhanov 2006: 12).
21 The pattern of political institutions among the Kazakhs was based on community personal allegiance
to a specific ruler rather than to a political office. It is understood as a loan from Mongols (Rossabi
1994: 31).