E-mail: others3@mail.ru Tel.: +7 (495) 690-50-30
25a, Povarskaya str., Moscow, 121069, Russian Federation
PhD in Philology, Senior Researcher, Department of Folklore, A. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature, Russian Academy of Sciences
The research was carried out at the Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences at the expense of a grant from the Russian Science Foundation, No. 23-28-00655, https://rscf.ru/project/23-28-00655/.
This article considers one of the typical formulas of Yakut heroic epics from an historical and poetic perspective. It designates a group of young men as “nine young crane boys” (тоҕус субан туруйа уол). This image plays an episodic role in the epic plots, but it appears quite often: for example, “bird-like” young men act as messengers or turn out to be the sons of a rich family visited by the hero. Together they perform some action (meeting a guest, doing household chores, etc.). In studies of the Olonkho epic, it is usually noted that the metaphor of cranes suggests slenderness and beauty traditionally associated with young people. The application of semantic-typological and comparative approaches to folklore/ethnographic and linguistic data, including those of other Turkic peoples, allows the author to reveal the mythopoetic foundations of this image, which go back to magical (shamanic) practices and ideas. The early layer of these ideas, as the data show, can be traced back at least to the period of the South Siberian community of Turkic peoples. The article also considers various possible origins of the image in the context of the ritual tradition. It adds to our knowledge concerning the formulaic languages of Olonkho and Yakut ritual spells, as well as on the conception of birds in Yakut traditional culture.
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