СМЕХ МЕЖДУ ВОСТОКОМ И ЗАПАДОМ: АБАЙ КУНАНБАЙУЛЫ И АНРИ БЕРГСОН

Abstract

The article introduces a newly transcribed text of the second chapter of The “Book of Edification” (“Gaqliya kitaby”) by Abai Kunanbaiuly, transcribed from the Arabic script (“tote jazu”) of Tugrul’s manuscript into Cyrillic. A comparative analysis of the Tugrul and Murseit versions was conducted, revealing notable lexical, phonetic, morphological, and semantic differences between them. For the first time, stable expressions and word combinations that had been previously misread or misinterpreted in academic and translated editions were introduced into scholarly circulation. For instance, the established phrase “arbir mastyn soylegen kezinde bas auyrtatugynyn” (“that every drunkard’s speech causes a headache”) was reinterpreted as “ua arbir mastyn aiyqkan kezinde basy auyratugynyn” (“and that every drunkard’s headaches upon sobering up”), providing a more accurate understanding of the original philosophical meaning. Drawing upon the authentic source, a new Russian translation of the second chapter was produced and compared with earlier published versions (by Viktor Shklovsky, Klara Serikbayeva and Rollan Seisenbayev, Satimzhan Sanbayev, and Yerbol Zhumagul). The study concludes with a philosophical and comparative examination of the ideas of Abai and Henri Bergson, based on the second chapter of The Book of Edification and Bergson’s Le Rire. Essai sur la signification du comique. The findings reveal the close moral-philosophical and social perspectives on laughter shared by both thinkers, offering new directions for interdisciplinary research on the ethics and aesthetics of the comic.