THE PLATON OYUNSKY’S CONCEPT OF AN ANCIENT HISTORY OF PEOPLE

Abstract

In the last decade there was a surge in interest in the study of national epics, including the Yakut heroic epos of Olonkho. The interests lie in a comparative study of Olonkho with the epic heritage of other Turkic peoples, and a study of Olonkho as a method and instrument of perception of the world.

In ancient times the Olonkho served as a source of knowledge about the world and the ancient history of the people. The Olonkho is a poetic narrative that tells about the origin and the creation of the universe. The truth of the described events was beyond a doubt. This research is relevant, because the understanding of historical experience remains an important objective of the humanities. It includes studying all of the available sources, such as monuments of folklore, as in epics we find evidences of welfare and customs; they reflect the values of the people and their worldview. That is, each people is characterized by a certain heroic epic, in which national heroes and their feats are sung.

The main purpose of this article is to analyse Plato Oyunsky’s concept of the ancient history of people. The objective is to find examples in the “Nyurgun Bootur the Swift” Olonkho, which characterize and describe the ancient history of the people. The “Nyurgun Bootur the Swift” Olonkho is regarded by researchers as an initial text of the Yakut Olonkho heroic epic.

This article also discusses a theory that Plato Oyunsky perceived Olonkho as a literary genre or “an ancient literature” according to Mikhail Bakhtin’s terminology.

Plato Oyunsky introduced a new definition of the literary genre. He denoted the genre of his first major work “The Red Shaman” and dramatic work “Tuyaarima Kuo” as “Olonkho-toyuk”. In 1927 he puts “onohullan erer Olonkho” (“the arising Olonkho”) as subtitle to the “Great Centenary Plan” prose work.

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