Narrative and compositional structure of the Khangalas olonkho

The article is devoted to the analysis of the plot-compositional structure of the olonkho storytellers from Khangalassky District of Yakutia. According to the materials of Mukhopleva and Dyakonova, research fellows of the Institute of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, starting from the 17th century, Khangalassky District was home to about 60 olonkhohuts. This indicates that the art of storytelling was quite widespread there. The study of the storytelling tradition of oral folklore is a relevant area in modern folklore studies. The aim of the research was to study the plot-compositional structure of the published texts of the Khangalas olonkho. The material for the study was three short texts of the olonkho storytellers K. Sleptsov, M. N. Neustroev, T.P. Kirillin, and three complete olonkhos by M. I. Savvin, A. N. Alekseev, and E. I. Kardashevsky. The theoretical basis of the study in the methodological sense were the works of folklorists Propp, Meletinsky, Ksenofontov, Ergis, Pukhov, Emelyanov, Illarionov, Mukhopleva, Dyakonova, Illarionova, Kuzmina, Orosina, and Pavlova. For the analysis, a comparative-contrastive method was used to identify the structure of olonkho. The results of the study showed that the storytelling tradition of the Khangalas olonkhohuts adheres to the traditional canons. The plot-compositional structure of olonkho is traditional: an introductory part, exposition, development of the action, culmination, and denouement. All olonkho plots have several lines of development. The plots of the Khangalas olonkho belong to the early types according to the Yemelyanov’s classification. The analyzed olonkhos have 2-3 generations of heroes.

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