An ethnopoetic approach to the study of modern Sayan-Altai literature: the cases of Tuvan and Khakas poetry

Abstract

The article presents the outcomes of a study of the modern literature of two Sayan-Altai regions — Tuva and Khakassia, making use of an ethnopoetic approach to discover underlying ethnopoetic constants. In poetry, these constants are presented as symbolic images and stylistic formulae (according to V. N. Zakharov, V. M. Gatsak etc.) Our analysis is based on ‘precedent’ texts of modern Tuvan and Khakas poetry and its translations into Russian, taken from the selected collections of Tuvan authors: M. B. Kenin-Lopsan, A. A. Darzhai, and N. Sh. Kuular. Of Khakas writers, we relied on collections of poems by V. G. Mainashev, published in Khakas and Russian (translated by the author); N. M. Akhpasheva, and S. A. Mainagashev (Sibdey Tom).

Ethnopoetic constants found typical for Tuvan world view include the sky, Mother Earth, steppes, mountains, rivers. These are accompanied by symbols advanced by individual authors, such as the ancestral (mother’s, father’s, or grandfather’s) yurt, artysh, green tea, bluish smoke, hearth, door and doorstep of the yurt, support pole of Bagan, or stars. Khakas poets also make use of similar ethnopoetic constants (the sun, the sky, steppes, mountains, the horse, the wolf etc.) and authorial symbolic images (the wild thyme, globe flower, needle grass, alyp heroes, Salbyk, shaman, the tambourine, East-West, Europe-Asia etc.)

Our study points out the genetic affinity between both literatures based on the affinity of the respective cultures. Each of the considered authors is a national poet who reveals the ideological and aesthetic riches of their people.