To the methodology of studying the ethnic nature of the heroic epic

(historiographic aspects)

Abstract

The relevance of the research topic lies in the hermeneutical study of the long-standing practice of researching the epic heritage in Soviet and post-Soviet folklore studies. The article notes that despite the dominance of individual methodological approaches, in particular, the poetic and typological directions, traces of the historical study of the epic have been preserved in the Kazakh epic studies.

The purpose of this article, covering the process of studying various methodological settings, is to disclose the main reason why the academic postulates of the historical school of folklore were supposedly considered obsolete. To this end, an academic excursion is made into the field of folklore of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, various views of individual scholars are subjected to critical analysis, some of which have grown into dominant methodological guidelines.

The main objective of the article is to determine the possibilities of poetic and ethnic research methods in revealing the cognitive essence of the heroic epic. For this purpose, the methodological capabilities of the typological method are singled out. The academic works of the researchers who have done academic research in the framework of this method are analyzed. Separate miscalculations are noted, expressed in the form of using one methodological framework formulated in the study of the epic heritage of one culture in relation to another. The main differences of the epic heritage of the Slavic and Turkic peoples are indicated: in one case, catoykonyms predominate, in the other, ethnonyms. Against this background, the ethnic character of the Kazakh epic is described.

This is a completely new direction in folklore, which is only gaining momentum. The thing is that for many years, folklore, including the epic heritage, was considered as the art of the word, while the ethnic direction studies it as a folk memory, echoes of history, and an ethnic source. The need to study the heroic epic as an ethnic source is explained by the growth of historical consciousness of individual peoples, including the needs of modern science.

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