MYTHOLOGICAL EXPOSITION CODES IN THE YAKUT EPIC: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENT TIME-PERIOD OLONKHO RECORDS

Abstract

Transformation processes take place in society in many areas of people’s lives and activities. In such conditions, the importance of in-depth studies of the mythological consciousness of man increases. The archaic texts of the Yakut epic olonkho have a rich symbolic nature, which appears as a fertile ground for the study of deep meanings and structures. The focus of this study is on the codes of the beginnings of multi–temporal fixations of the central epic tradition of the Yakut storytelling art. The purpose of the study is to identify the code configurations of the olonkho beginnings of the early and late periods of recordings, fixing changes in the coding categories of the contents of the beginnings. The work uses a comparative typological approach, structural-semiotic and quantitative analysis (continuous sampling method, statistical analysis), the method of hermeneutics and induction. The analysis revealed 264 units of codes from the beginning of the early olonkho record, and 112 units from the later record. In both beginnings, there is a hierarchical alignment of codes on three levels. It was found that the frequency of use of codes in the beginning of the later record is higher than in the early one. Numerical, semantic, somatic, and color codes were found to be stable in time. It is also noted the use of the hidden code of the unconscious and geo-economic code in the beginning of the later record, which are absent in the early record. In the latter, paired combinations of two codes are noted – natural-climatic, zoomorphic-color, which is not found in the beginning of the later record. In general, there is a significant reduction in the volume of the beginning of the later record compared to the early one. However, identity is verified in the implementation of the main function of the beginnings – the manifestation of “representations” of chronotopes of subsequent events of epics, where codes appear to be an important structure-forming component of myths. At the same time, the “loss” of a number of plot motifs from the beginning of the late recording is partially compensated by an increased use of code configurations. The absence of the main component of the hero myth in the beginning of the late recording of olonkho serves as an indicator of the functioning of the “micromyph”, and not a real myth built in accordance with the mythological model.

Acknowledgements: The study was carried out as part of the NEFU research project “Epic monument of the Yakut intangible culture: textological, typological, cognitive and historical-comparative aspects”.

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