REFLECTION OF THE TRADITIONAL IMAGE OF THE WORLD IN THE KHAKASS AND SHOR EPIC

Abstract

This article analyzes texts of the Khakass and Shor heroic legends “Alyp Kuskun”, recorded by L. N. Arbachakova from narrator V. N. Tannagashev; “The lowest of khans Khan-Pergen” (“Kannan chabys Kan-Pergen”) in S. S. Torbokov’s self-record; “Ai karattyg Kаrа Kаn” in V. E. Tannagashev’s self-record; Khakass legends “Altyn Aryg”, recorded by V. Ye. Mainogasheva’s record from P. V. Kurbizhekova, “Albynzhi” in V. I. Domozhakov from S. P. Kadyshev; “Tyulgyu Khyzyl Alyp Khys”, recorded by D. I. Chankov and V. I. Domozhakov from M. K. Dobrov with the aim of identifying features of traditional wisdom associated with these peoples’ image of the world. The specificity of the Khakass and Shors’ traditional image of the world can be traced in peculiarities of the artistic space, time, and the system of characters. The author identifies and analyzes the most frequently recurring motifs and images, objects of the objective world, serving as a key to understanding important features of these peoples’ culture, and concludes that in the epic of the Khakass and Shor contains most important universals of culture, reflecting a system of concepts and way of understanding the world. Spatial representations of these peoples are the most clearly identifiable, and the artistic image of “own” space is formed through images of the mountain (ridge), steppe, great river, hitching post, and white yurt.

It is identified that the most important reference universals in the Khakass and Shor epic are earth, water (chir-sug), and the closely related images of mountain, steppe, yurt, and the hitching post. They have strong ethnic-cultural characteristics and reflect views of these peoples about the Universe and about “own” world; the ideas about man’s place in the world are fixed in them. The considered texts of epic tales testify that according to the Khakass and Shor views, in the tripartite structure of the Universe, the Under World is a kind of a “dark” mirror reflection of the Middle (solar) World.

Acknowledgements: The research is financially supported by the Russian Foundation for Humanities, project No. 16-04-00332 (а).

References

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