Comparative analysis of olonkho of the Central, Viluy and Northern regions

(based on the texts of the olonkho Elbet Bergen, Ker Buuray and Kyotor Mulgun)

Abstract

The orally existing Yakut heroic epic has long preserved and transmitted established themes, the traditional composition of heroes, plot canons, compositions in content, and constant stylistic formulas in the language. However, how many olonkhos were, they were so different, and so they attracted listeners, experts in oral folk art, and researchers. Each olonkhosut could enrich the established olonkho content with various adventures of the warriors, the main traditional figurative composition with heroes with new names, decorate permanent language formulas with new artistic expressive means, or they could miss or simplify something. Studying the differences between the texts of the Yakut olonkho belonging to different regions, researchers of the Yakut folklore argue that olonkho, depending on the territory of existence, has regional features. So folklore recognized the existence of three territorial traditions: central, Vilyui and northern. The phenomenon of stability of regional features of the Yakut olonkho in science still remains relevant. The article provides a comparative analysis of the olonkho of the three regions using the example of the olonkho of the central region Elbet Bergen, the olonkho of the Vilyuy region Ker Buuray, the olonkho of the northern region Kyotor Mulgun with the aim of identifying their differences, features, and introducing additional assumptions to confirm the allegations previously identified by the researchers. The results of the analysis by comparison led to the conclusion that the olonkhosuts of all three regions follow the pattern of the plot and compositional structure of the Yakut epic olonkho, since their olonkho contain motives of the ancient olonkho, as descriptions of the heroic campaigns of the aiyy heroes in order to save the aiyy girls, their battles with the abaasy heroes, victory, matchmaking to a rescued woman, returning home with the glory of a winner, arranging a Uruu wedding in honor of the winners, etc. The lack of motives for the formation of three worlds, the establishment of the Middle World for tribal life Uraanghay Sakha purpose athlete aiyy protector deities aiyy aimaga makes it possible to assume that in all regions of existence olonkho is gradually simplifying some ancient olonkhosut motives of a later period.

Acknowledgments: The study was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Foundation of Basic Research in the framework of scientific project No. 16-06-00505 (a).

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