«The History of Uneker Torliktu khan»: Transformation of written Text into oral Form

The article deals with the process of transforming the handwritten text of Kalmyk literature “The History of Uneker Torliktu khan” into an oral form. It is noted that the free coexistence of the work in oral and written form was promoted by a combination of instructiveness with fascinating content and features of the book tradition of the Kalmyks.
The story of Uneker Torliktu khan” refers to the genre of the transformed avadana, whose fabulous content praises the value of Buddhist teaching. The text consists of a traditional introductory and fi nal frame for such works and a main part comprising four chapters. During the transformation of the written text into an oral form, the introductory and fi nal framing was lost. Only the main part was directly preserved.
The starting point of the process of transition of a literary work into an oral form was the internal gravitation of the written text to its original oral form. The fabulous plot of the main part of the work, artifi cially created on the basis of the “evil stepmother”, written in the form of folklore motif, continued to preserve all the functions of the fairy tale.
It is known that the written texts in the book culture of the Mongolian peoples mostly were not read, but obeyed. Fans of the book literature of the past when reading the written text to listeners accompanied it with oral comments that were fi xed in the minds of listeners and contributed to the loss of elements of the text literacy. Nevertheless, the oral text continued to retain in its content some
elements of written form that give it some distinctive features distinguishing it from folklore texts of similar content.
Thus, the “History of Uneker Torliktu khan” on the one hand is a literary work, on the other hand it is a sample of oral folk art, and fi nally it represents a certain form of religious preaching in its internal content.

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