Al-Farabi – Abai: Spiritual Continuity

The Republican scientific and practical round table «Al-Farabi-Abai: Issues of Spiritual Continuity», dedicated to the 1150th anniversary of Al-Farabi and the 175th anniversary of Abai was held at Al-Farabi KazNU.

The event was attended by scholars-farabiologists, abaiologists, researchers, doctoral students and undergraduates, representatives of public and the Media.

Opening the round table, Director of Al-Farabi Center Bekzhan Meirbaev highlighted that the main purpose of the event was to expand the idea of the two great sons of the Kazakh steppe, the continuity between Al-Farabi’s legacy and the creativity of Abai Kunanbayev.

«This is our invaluable heritage that the young generation should know and study, therefore significant projects are being implemented as part of the anniversary year, Al-Farabi encyclopedias will be published, documentaries and feature films about the Great Thinker and People’s Poet will be shot», said the Director of the Center.

During the round table, scientific, methodological and practical issues of studying the works of Al-Farabi and the creativity of Abai in the aspect of spiritual continuity, and the problems of farabiology and abaiology in the system of secondary and higher education were discussed.

«Today, two photographs of Abai have reached us. One of them was made in 1896, the second one - in 1903. The original photograph of 1903 is stored in the house of Mukhtar Auezov in Almaty. M. Auezov specially handed over the main copy to our Museum. This is a photograph with his family found in the Abai’s house», said Raushan Elekenova, scientific secretary of the Abai memorial reserve-museum «Zhidebai-Borili».

In addition, the participants of the meeting got acquainted with the expositions of Al-Farabi Museum, and valuable rarities editions of the scientist’s works, which are included in the rare library fund. They also visited the exhibition of books and manuscripts of the «Zhidebai-Borili» State historical-cultural and literary-memorial reserve-museum of Abai (Semey).

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