Questions of studying Yakut fairy tales: a comparative analysis of stories about Granny Taаl-Taаl and Chaarchakhaan

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of Yakut fairy tales. The works of I. A. Khudyakov, E. K. Pekarsky, G. U. Ergis, N. V. Emelyanov, modern researchers V. V. Illarionov, Yu. N. Dyakonova, N. A. Orosina and others are presented in the context of theoretical positions in the writings of Russian folklorists. The semantics of the study text is actualized as a process and result of live communication of carriers of cultural memory of ancestors, accompanied by targeted actions to rethink individual parts or episodes of its content. The preservation of interest in an ethnic literature in the modern world is facilitated by the availability of variants of fairy tales and images, but the early recordings of fairy tales are particularly significant. The aim of the work is to seek to substantiate various directions of analysis of folklore texts collected and systematized at the beginning of the 20th century; to identify static and dynamic episodes in stories, descriptions of portraits and functions of main characters. The methodological basis of the research are the works of V. Y. Propp, V. P. Anikin, S. Y. Neklyudov, Yakut ethnographers and folklorists A. E. Kulakovsky and G. V. Ksenophontov. In the process of work, source and textual methods of philology are used. The results consist in the analysis of the “Bibliography of the Yakut Fairy Tale” by Pekarsky (1912) and Ergis (1964 - 1967); in the characterization of the archival sources of features of the early folklore texts of Granny Taаl-Taаl and Chaarchakhaan. In this regard, one of the significant conclusions is the clarification of common places in their stories, and in the functions of the characters - analogies with mythological images and ancient rites.