Baga-Tsokhor Cycle of the Jangar: Military Collisions Reviewed

Abstract

Introduction.The epic narrative of the early Baga-Tsokhor cycle (1853-1862), being heroic in nature, is based on archaic motifs which can also be traced through the topic of military conflicts. Goals. The study aims to consider the main sections of military conflicts, and the following tasks be solved thereto: typological identification of a hero (‘forefather hero’ or ‘warrior hero’); designation of functions attributed to the war horse and weapons; delineation of combat forms and symbolic epic backgrounds. Materials and Methods. The paper analyzes texts of the early Baga-Tsokhor cycle of the Kalmyk Jangar epic. The work employs comparative, textual, and analytical research methods. Results. In fact, plots and motifs of this topic are a symbiosis of archaic and heroic lines. Prologues to the songs of the Cycle are formed as part of a mythological interpretation of events, and the plots of the songs — although devoted to exploits of the heroes, which determines a military, heroic nature of the cycle — are still dependent on magical mythological motifs. The warrior hero still possesses rudiments of the image typical for the first-born (‘forefather’) hero, which explains the absence of important links of the heroic epic, e.g. motifs of miraculous birth and heroic childhood. The war horse and weapons are still destined, and the latter also serve as an accommodation for the external soul of the hero. The epic background is also twofold: while the prologue describes the primordial era, the plot deals with the time of consolidation of various ethnic groups. Conclusions. It can be presumed that the Baga-Tsokhor cycle of the epic reflects a transition from a ‘small’ epic form to a ‘large’ one, an evolution from the original core of the archaic epic to the final ‘concentric’ cyclization of the heroic narrative.