Ethnic self-identification of Altay-kizhi in the context of oral historical legends

The article is devoted to the analysis of ethno-marking and integration plots of Altai historical legends. The author characterizes the historical circumstances of the formation of the corpus of Altai historical legends, attempts to systematize the stories on the content and highlights the signs of ethnic identity for Altai-kizhi on the basis of folklore texts: language, lifestyle, type of management, clothing, hairstyle. A debatable question about ethnic borders of Altai-kizhi and relations with local sub-ethnic groups is presented. The author insists on the incompleteness of the integrative pro- cesses taking place in the territory of the Altai Mountains in the post-Oirot period, which currently lead to the inclusion of various small ethnic and sub-ethnic turkic-speaking groups in the Altay-kizhi people. The importance of knowledge of specific folklore subjects, and not only the Altai language for ethnic identification is emphasized. Historical legends are presented as a marker of ethnic boundaries in a multi-ethnic population. The mechanisms of formation of traditional ethical prohibitions and their significance for the definition of their "own" and "others" are described. The stages of integration of migrants into the structure of exogamous genera of Altay-kizhi are described in detail on the example of the texts of legends. The author illustrates the process of population recovery through incorporation and natural growth and describes the cultural attitudes that allow to preserve ethnic identity after depopulation and civil war. Question of bilingual existence of Altai folklore texts is considered. The relevance of historical legends in the modern community is noted. Thus, folklore texts could be considered not only as examples of folk literature, but also as a source of ethnic history.