Reminiscing about the years of people's musician Xian Xinghai in Kazakhstan

Nur-Sultan, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Communications: Reminiscing about the years of people's musician Xian Xinghai in Kazakhstan

Xinhua News Agency reporter Ren Jun zhang Jiye

In Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, there is a street named after the Chinese musician Xian Xinghai Street. Not far from it, there is also a street named after the Kazakh musician Bakhdjean Baikadamov. Two parallel streets record the tribulations of the two musicians during the war years.

Xian Xinghai was born on June 13, 1905, and on the eve of the 116th anniversary of Xian Xinghai's birth, the reporter came to Almaty to listen to Baikadamov's daughter, 75-year-old Badrgan Baikadamova, reminiscing about Xian Xinghai's years spent in Kazakhstan.

In May 1940, Xian Xinghai, alias "Huang Xun", was sent from Yan'an to Moscow by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to conduct post-production and soundtrack for the documentary "Yan'an and the Eighth Route Army". After the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union in 1941, the film's production came to a standstill. At the end of 1942, Xian Xinghai traveled to Almaty, intending to return home from there, but he did not succeed until his death.

Baikadamova told reporters that when she first arrived in Almaty, Xian Xinghai had no fixed place to live, did not have enough to eat, and was poor and sick. It was winter, and there wasn't even a cold coat. Baikadamov stumbles upon the homeless Xian Xinghai. "Although the two could not communicate, my father knew that the musician holding the violin was having difficulties and needed help, so he took him home."

Baikadamov placed Xian Xinghai in his sister's house, when the Soviet Union was experiencing the Great Patriotic War, life was difficult, food was provided with tickets, and very little bread was rationed. But the Baikadamov family never treated Xian Xinghai as an outsider and gave him selfless help. As the Kazakhs often say, "Share the last loaf of bread when you are hungry."

Baikadamov often hummed Kazakh folk songs, played Dongbula, and Xian Xinghai accompanied by a violin. Xian Xinghai also played his own compositions to the BaikaDamov siblings, as well as his favorite works by Beethoven and Schubert, which was also the most cheerful moment in the room.

In early 1944, Xian Xinghai was recommended by Baikadamov to go to the Kostanay City Music Museum as a music director. In 1945, during a tour of a remote mountain village, Xian Xinghai contracted pneumonia and died at the end of October of the same year in the Moscow Kremlin Hospital.

Baikada Mowa recalled that at that time, Xian Xinghai was pseudonymized "Huang Xun", and her father did not know that the person who brought him home was Xian Xinghai. Later, when my father read in the newspaper that the famous Chinese musician Xian Xinghai (also known as Huang Xun) had died in the Soviet Union, he knew that it was Xian Xinghai who had received from his home.

From the end of 1942 to June 1945, Xian Xinghai spent the last years of his life in Kazakhstan. During this period, Xian Xinghai absorbed the essence of Kazakh national music and created a number of masterpieces such as the Kazakh heroic symphonic poem "Aman Gald".

Ding Haijia, author of "Exotic Search for Xian Xinghai", told reporters that the people of Kazakhstan are accustomed to naming city streets by famous people to express their remembrance and admiration. In October 1998, the city of Almaty, then the capital of Kazakhstan, decided to name a street near Baikadamov's home Xian Xinghai Street and erect a monument to Xian Xinghai. The monument is engraved with the first line of the symphonic poem "Amangeld" and writes: "Xian Xinghai built a bridge of friendship between the two peoples with music, let us always remember his name, may the friendship between China and Kazakhstan be passed on from generation to generation."

Ding Haijia said that the friendship between Xian Xinghai and Baikadamov has also become a key element in the people-to-people connection between China and Kazakhstan. In May 2019, the first Sino-Kazakh co-production film "The Musician" was released, and in the same year, the book "The Days of Chinese Folk Musician Xian Xinghai in Kazakhstan" was published in Chinese, Russian and English.

Baikada mova told reporters that she was grateful to Kazakhstan and China for recording this history in the form of movies and books. Kazakhstan and China are neighbors, and with more contacts, the people of the two countries will be able to better understand each other and their relations will be closer. To this end, she will do her best to pass on this friendship story to the next generation.