Baga Dorbet Cycle of the Jangar Epic: Typical Passages as a Means to Identify the Taleteller’s Personality

Introduction. Russian folklorists have tended — and still do — to focus on formula-type language patterns inherent to traditional epic poetry. The shaping of epic songs would be facilitated by the wide use of structurally identical and stylistically similar descriptions and situations referred to as loci communes (‘typical passages’). Goals. The paper aims at identifying the personality of the taleteller to have recited the Baga Dorbet (Russ. Maloderbetovsky) cycle of the Jangar epic. With this in view, the work reveals typical passages of the Cycle, provides comparative insights into ones within prologues of the Cycle, compares the typical passages to similar elements from other cycles and individual repertoires. Materials and Methods. The study employs the methodology developed by P. D. Ukhov for the classification of Russian bylinas, and analyzes Jangar epic songs from the Baga Dorbet and Baga Tsokhor cycles, repertoires of such renown jangarchis as Eelyan Ovla, Mukӧvün Basangov, Dava Shavaliev, Nasanka Baldyrov, and Badma Obushinov. Conclusions. Typical passages of the Baga Dorbet cycle are structurally identical and stylistically homogenous descriptions where both syntactic patterns and described details and grammatical forms of parts of speech coincide which attests to that the texts were authored by (recorded from) one and the same taleteller. The opinion is confirmed by the below given examples of typical passages from other cycles that differ not only in terms of style or structure, but the very depicted objects, events, participants of the feast, the seating chart of theirs, and even numbers and sequence of stanzas significantly vary. The differences are determined by that the taletellers were representing different epic performance traditions with certain narrative patterns inherited from their predecessors. The comparative analysis of typical passages from the Baga Dorbet cycle shows the taleteller not only reproduces the once learnt song but rather creatively approaches every single performance maintaining standard elements of typical passages, modifies epic formulas employing synonyms, rearranging stanzas, reducing or adding details of descriptions, etc. This can be explained by that ‘above all in epic memory is not the formula precisely and intactly articulated in words but the artistic content, the taleteller (who) adheres to the framework of epic knowledge <...> (to) select one of the possible paths’, since this epic knowledge is wider than the text recited. So, the study concludes the whole of the Baga Dorbet cycle was recorded from (authored by) one taleteller and students whose names still remains unknown. 

1. The Jangar. Oirat manuscript copy of the narrative recorded in Maloderbetovsky Ulus. 74 p. At: St. Petersburg State University. Faculty of Asian and African Studies. Manuscript Department of the Library. Calm C 4. Inv. no. 1834. Old call number XylQ 544. Golstunsky Collection (1862). No. 3 (In Oir.)

2. Andreev N. P. Bylinas: The Russian Heroic Epic. Leningrad: Sovetskiy Pisatel, 1938. 576 p. (In Russ.)

3. Astakhova A. M. Bylinas. Research Outcomes and Problems. Moscow; Leningrad: Nauka, 1966. 290 p. (In Russ.)

4. Burykin A. A. The country of Bumba in the Kalmyk epic of Jangar: artistic space of the heroic epic, ideal state and cultural concept. In: Symposium, Image of Paradise — From Myth to Utopia. Vol. 31. St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg Philosophical Society, 2003. Pp. 198–204. (In Russ.)

5. Gatsak V. M. Epic taleteller and his text. In: Textual Studies of the Epic. Collected Papers. Moscow: Nauka, 1971. Pp. 7–46. (In Russ.)

6. Gatsak V. M. Oral Epic Tradition in Time: A Historical Study of Poetics. Moscow: Nauka, 1989. 256 p. (In Rus.)

7. Jangar: A Heroic Epic of the Kalmyks. Epic Repertoire of Dava Shavaliev: A Study and Texts. Elista: Kalmyk Scientific Center (RAS), 2018. 264 p. (In Kalm.)

8. Jangar: A Heroic Epic of the Kalmyks. Texts of 25 Songs. A. Kichikov (comp.); G. Mikhaylov (ed.). Moscow: Nauka, GRVL, 1978. Vol. 1. 441 p. (In Kalm.)

9. Jangar: A Heroic Epic of the Kalmyks. Texts of 25 Songs. A. Kichikov (comp.); G. Mikhaylov (ed.). Moscow: Nauka, GRVL, 1978. Vol. 2. 417 p. (In Kalm.)

10. Jangar: A Heroic Epic of the Kalmyks. The Baga Dorbet Cycle. B. Mandzhieva (foreword); B. Goryaeva, B. Mandzhieva, Ts. Seleeva (translit.); T. Mikhaleva (transl.), etc.; G. Pyurbeev, S. Neklyudov, V. Kukanova (eds.). Moscow: Pervaya Obraztsovaya tipografiya, Chekhovskiy Pechatnyy Dvor, 2020. 544 p. (In Kalm. and Russ.)

11. Kuzmina E. N. Stability of the Buryat epic tradition revisited. Humanitarian Sciences in Siberia. 2000. No. 3. Pp. 77–84. (In Russ.)

12. Kuzmina E. N. Systemizing typical passages from Siberian epic traditions: preliminary insights. Humanitarian Sciences in Siberia. 2001. No. 3. Pp. 42–47. (In Russ.)

13. Kuzmina E. N. The Handbook of Typical Passages from Siberian (Altaian, Buryat, Khakass, Shor, Tuvan, and Yakut) Epic Traditions: An Experimental Edition. Novosibirsk: Siberian Branch of RAS, 2005. 1383 p. (In Russ.)

14. Miller V. F. The Russian bylina, its authors and taletellers. Russkaya mysl’. 1895. No. 9, 10. Pp. 143–160. (In Russ.)

15. Onega Bylinas Recorded by Aleksandr F. Gilferding in the Summer of 1871. St. Petersburg: Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1873. 732 p. (In Russ.)

16. Propp V. Ya. The language of bylinas as an artistic means. In: Scholarly Notes of Leningrad State University. Leningrad, 1954. Vol. 173. Pp. 381–399. (In Russ.)

17. Putilov B. N. Epic Taletelling: Typology and Ethnic Specifics. Moscow: Vostochnaya Literatura, 1997. 295 p. (In Russ.)

18. Selivanov F. M. Traditional Formulas of the Russian Epic: The Issue of the Latter’s Historical Basis Revisited. Cand. Sc. (philology) thesis abstract. Moscow, 1963. 20 p. (In Russ.)

19. Sokolov B. M. The Russian epic: latest works by foreign scholars. In: Sokolov Yu. (ed.) Artistic Folklore. Moscow: State Academy of Artistic Sciences, 1929. Pp. 9–35. (In Russ.)

20. The Song of Shar Gürgüһin the Furious. In: The Story of Ubashi Hong Tayiji, The Kalmyk Folk Poem of Jangar, and The Tale of the Magic Dead Man. K. Golstunsky (comp.). St. Petersburg: Ikonnikov, 1864. Pp. 7–38. (In Oir.)

21. Ukhov P. D. Attributes of Russian Bylinas. Moscow: Moscow State University, 1970. 152 p. (In Russ.)

22. Ukhov P. D. Typical passages (loci communes) as a means to classify bylinas. In: Skripil M. O. et al. (eds.) Russian Folklore. Materials and Studies. Vol. 2. Moscow; Leningrad: USSR Academy of Sciences, 1957. Pp. 129–154. (In Russ.)

23. Zhirmunsky V. M. Turkic Heroic Epic. Leningrad: Nauka, 1974. 725 p. (In Russ.)