“Caucasian Highlander’s Songs. The Nart heros” by Alexander Kubalov: The first experience of the Russian language poetic processing of the Ossetian folk epic

Abstract

This article considers the first experience of the Russian language poetic processing of the Ossetian Nart sagas, carried out by Alexander Zakharovich Kubalov and published in 1906. It notes particular relevance to the appropriate sort and genre of works, belonging to the Ossetes, as a product, in a strict sense, of the Ossetian literary mind. The article describes the author’s theoretical views on genesis and poetics of the Nart epic; according to the level of his (that is the author’s) contemporary Narts studies, certain disadvantages and perspective elements are being outlined. The Nart heroes architectonics, which, as it turns out, consists of thirteen, non-distinguished by the author parts, the image that includes renowned Nart heroes, both principal and supporting characters, and also the Pantheon and underworld representatives, is subject to a specific analysis. An examination of plotmotivic composition reveals that there is no deep processing or any conceptually well founded selection of plots in A.Z. Kubalov’s work, which would have avoided tautologies; eventful lines are drawn the way as if the author was sure that the reader was familiar with main characters and motifs of the Ossetian Nartiade; the material of the source is explicitly compacted, however, it lacks proper faceting. When considering technical, pictorialand linguistic characteristics it appears that A.Z. Kubalov departs from the original metric features, using for his versification of Elias Lönnrot’s “Kalevala” and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The song of Hiawatha” tetrametric choree. It seems that the author’s stylistics is quite heavily influenced by formal parameters of the verse, which enforces him to use low-emphatic structures, and at last, his text tends to have lexical-stylistic eclectism. The comparative (in relation to the original version) qualitative novelty of Kubalov’s epic lies only in its poetical form. However, despite the fact that A.Z. Kubalov failed to convey the identity of Ossetian oral tradition he managed to set an essential far-reaching precedent , the significance of which is of particular importance in the context of the period at the turn of the 19th century.