PERFORMING SCHOOLS AND TUTORIAL METHODS IN THE EPIC ART OF BAGSHY-DESSANCHY

Abstract

The art of Turkmen bagshy-dessanchy (epictellers) is ancient and distinguished by its genre richness and stylistic diversity. The epic heritage of Turkmens has been sufficiently studied by philologists and ethnographers, but there are no special studies in Turkmenistan revealing the nature of the oral tradition preservation and the methods of transmitting epic genres from generation to generation. The purpose of the article was to reveal the genre and performing features of the schools of epic epic-telling in Turkmenistan, describe the traditions of mentoring that have survived in the art of bagshy-dessanchy, and identify methods that allow Turkmen storytellers to keep in memory a huge number of songs and texts. To solve these goals, the following tasks were carried out: the epic legends of various local schools were analyzed; a comparative analysis of the performance of the epic by the same narrator in different periods of time was carried out; revealed differences in the performance of the same legend by the mentor and his students; the factors and means influencing the change of destans have been determined. The works of A. Lord, V. Barthold, V. Zhirmunsky, V. Propp, E. Bertels, B. Putilov, K. Reichl were used in the article as a methodological base. The sources for the analysis were samples of the epic heritage from the Fund of audio materials of the Turkmen National Conservatory, as well as field audio-, videomaterials from the authors’ personal archives. In the article, for the first time, not only epic cycles and destans, but also the genre of legend with music, as well as poetic transcriptions of the classical poet’s works were considered as the main genres of bagshy-destanchy. The studies helped to identify the formative role of epic songs and their important functions, thanks to which the development of the musical dramaturgy in epic genres was carried out. For the first time, we identified the beacon songs, that make up the frame of Turkmen epic works, thanks to which the epic text remembering in the memory of bagshy-dessanchy. The looseness of song motifs with texts, using the theme-melodies (musical tunes, which characteristic of specific local schools) in epic songs showed the particularities of Turkmen destan performance. Taking into account the tendency towards a gradual weakening of the interest of the younger generation in the ancient tradition, the identification of the methods used in the process of preserving the oral epic heritage is highly relevant.

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