Artistic and Aesthetic Representation of the Mythological Image of the Water Damosel in the Bashkir Folk Epic (on the Material of the Epics “Akbuzatˮ and “Zayatulyak and Khyuhyluˮ)

Using the Bashkir epics “Akbuzatˮ and “Zayatulyk and Khyukhyluˮ, the article examines the mythical image of the water damosel – khaukhylu, which has significant artistic and aesthetic functions. This image takes a special place in the mythology of all peoples and in ancient sacred beliefs. Due to the fact that after the adoption of Christianity / Islam among the peoples, all the once sacred, pagan deities – the keepers of rivers and lakes, mountains and natural boundaries, forests and fields, as well as the ones connected with home, were endowed with a negative characteristic and began to be represented as an evil spirit. Such a fate was waiting for, for example, the traditional hero Baba Yaga – Yashchura, raised to the rank of a positive character, deified by the canon of the ancient Slavs, she was the keeper of the clan, its traditions and customs. Accordingly, after the adoption of Christianity, Yashchura took on that negative, pernicious character known to us from Slavic folk tales and folkloric accounts. As E.V. Pomerantsev correctly states, in the artistic and aesthetic sense in mythological legends and folkloric accounts there are always similar motives of “sudden meetingˮ, “sinking into the underwater kingdomˮ, “awards of the water kingˮ, “... the marriage of a hero in the underwater kingdomˮ, etc. In the Bashkir epic monuments observed in the article, these motives are strictly traced and successfully actualized.