Togolok Moldo. 

(1860-1942) 

A portrait of Togolok Moldo, an akyn writer, poet and educator is depicted on the front side of the banknote with denomination of 20 Som.  

Togolok Moldo (Baiymbet Abdrakhmanov) was born on June 10, 1860 in the village of Kurtka. When he was a child and a teenager, Baiymbet was deeply influenced by Muzooke (the younger brother of his grandfather), a famous komuz player who knew the everyday life and history of his people, a narrator of Kyrgyz folk epos. Muzoooke tried to give his gifted grandson a deep knowledge of Kyrgyz oral poetry. He told him wonderful folk tales, performed excerpts from the epos “Manas”, from heroic poems “Kurmanbek”, “Er Toshtuk”, “Er Tabyldy”, “Janyl Myrza”, “Mendirman”.  

Togolok Moldo started composing poems and writing them down at the age of 14. Akyn was nicknamed “Togolok Moldo” (Round-faced Mulla) for his remarkable appearance - he was stocky and stout and for the ability to read and write. Subsequently, this nickname became his permanent pseudonym.  

In his youth the akyn created a number of works about love. He turns to Kyrgyz girls not to accept their disenfranchised share without complaint, resist the negative aspects of patriarchal traditions, stand up for their rights to love, their social status in the poems “Black-eyed”, “Tolgonai”, “Dedication of a dzhigit to a girl”, “Dedication of a girl to a dzhigit” and the poem “Urpukan”.  

While living in the Chu Valley, Baiymbet met famous Kyrgyz and Kazakh improvisational singers, read books by Nizami, Navoi, Firdausi, Hafiz, Abai and others. During those years he learned from the famous storyteller-manaschi Tynybek the mastery of retelling the epos “Manas”, and later he recorded the second part of the trilogy “Semetei”.  

Togolok Moldo has collected a large number of various stories, legends, proverbs, sayings. Works of Togolok Moldo has been published since 1925. The poem “Nasyat” (“Instruction”), being published in Moscow in 1925, was the first publication of akyn. In 1938, he was accepted into the Union of Soviet Writers of Kyrgyzstan, and in 1939, two works of akyn were published. Also in 1939, T. Moldo participated in the first decade of the Kyrgyz art and literature in Moscow, where he was awarded the Order of “Badge of Honor”.  

Togolok Moldo’s pre-revolutionary works are characterized by realistic reflection of the ordinary people’s plight, expression of their aspirations and hopes, call to strive for realization of their bright dreams.  

A monument to Togolok Moldo was erected in the republic’s capital. His name is given to villages, schools and streets in the cities of the republic.