Happy Burns’ Night, tonight
I have a saying that “Every day is a special day … for someone”, even if it is not a special holiday.
January 25th, for example, the twenty-fifth here in Kyrgyzstan, at least for those called Tatiana, like my accountants … but I wrote about that last year … http://ianbek.kg/?p=1239
It is a special day for the Scots, it being Burns Night. It was on this day in 1759, that the poet Robert Burns was born into a tenant farmer’s family, just a short distance outside Ayr.
Now, although I bear a Scottish name, (Ian), as far as I am aware I have no Scottish ancestry. There may be some Celtic blood running through my veins, because my mother’s maiden name was Jones, and I remember hearing as a child of some distant relatives who still lived in Swansea, in South Wales. However, I don’t really have any details. When my mother was researching the family tree she actually gave up trying to trace her side of the family as there were so many Jones’s she thought it would be too difficult, and she concentrated on the Claytor side of the family tree, until my father said to forget it. (I think he was afraid that she might find some “skeletons in the cupboard”).
Burn’s is regarded as the National Poet of Scotland, and although he is probably best known of the poets who wrote in “Scottish”, he also wrote a considerable number of works in English. He is probably best known for things like Auld Langs Syne, which is sung every New Year, and poems such as “Ode to a Haggis”, “To a Mouse”, (which contains the lines: “The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley” which was taken by John Steinbeck for his 1937 novel “Of Mice and Men”), “A Man’s A Man for A’ That”, “Tam O’Shanter”, The Selkirk Grace, (although there is some doubt who actually penned this, it is usually attributed to him), as well as “Scots Wha Hae” which served for many years as an informal Scottish National Anthem.
He has become a cultural icon for the Scots, being voted the Greatest Scot in a vote organized by a Scottish television company in 2009, whether at home or abroad.
But it’s not just the Scots that revere him and his work. He achieved a wide audience in his own time, and he is well respected amongst the Sassenachs south of the border as well. He is also respected in America and other countries around the world. In Tsarist Russia he was known as the “people’s poet”, becoming a symbol for the ordinary Russian in a society where the aristocracy were out of touch with the peasantry. This was, of course, seized upon and embellished by the Soviet authorities following the Bolshevik Revolution. Indeed, the Soviet Union issued the first commemorative postage stamp in his honour.
So, for many Scots, his birthday, January 25th has a special significance. It is marked with special functions, (known as Burns Suppers), with one or features which may seem strange to many people. The music of bagpipes that will often greet visitors as they arrive might seem unusual to those who aren’t familiar with those dulcet tones, and the sight of men dressed in tartan kilts may cause a stir, but the idea of parading a haggis and reciting an poem to it must rank as particularly peculiar. The haggis itself, (a dish made from the heart, liver and lungs of a sheep, minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally simmered in the animal’s stomach for approximately three hours), although a delicacy in Scotland, must a few eyebrows to be raised around the world. The Kyrgyz, however, who seem to eat every part of a sheep and have a similar delicacy, take it in their stride.
Perhaps my favourite part, (if that’s the right word), of the evening is the Selkirk Grace:
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.
This is in Scots, but translates, roughly, as:
Some have meat and cannot eat,
And some cannot eat that want to,
But we have meat and we can eat,
So, let the Lord be thanked.
Although frequently encountered in Scotland and Northern Ireland, these nights are organized by Scots around the world wherever they happen to be. We had one here in Bishkek a few years ago, but it hasn’t yet become a regular event in the calendar. There isn’t one, for example, this year – at least, as far as I am aware.
So, I’ll sit at home with a glass of Scotch and a Roast of Beef, (sorry to all my Scottish friends, but the kids don’t eat Lamb and I hate to think what the reaction would be if I asked the Chef at the hotel to prepare me a Kyrgyz Haggis), and I might just play some of the recordings of the BBC podcast of the his complete works.
.
Maybe, next year, there will be an event which we can feature in our new Kyrgyz Diary website.
Bishkek