Несказочная проза алтайцев. - 2011. (Т. 30)

SUMMARY The present volume includes 156 pieces o f non-folktale prose represen­ ting the Chelkan, Tubalar, Telengit, and Teleut dialects o f the Altai (Turkic) language. In accordance with the principles o f the Series «Monuments of Folklore of Siberia and the Russian Far East», these texts are presented in a form th a t retains the original phonetic, lexical, and syntactic peculiarities, and which also reflects individual narration and speech style. In folk terminology, all Altai oral prose outside the category of folkta­ les — i.e., myths, legends, and tales of bygone events — are called kep- kuuchyndar, which literally means «tales». The word kuuchyn (from Mongol huuch in ) has the meaning «old, ancient». Kep-kuucbyndar narrate events th a t occurred in ancient, mythic time or in the recent historical past. They explain the structu re of the na tu ra l world, the origin of all li­ ving things on earth , and the appearance o f various items of culture. These texts reflect age-old Altai religious beliefs th a t arose on the basis of the influence of Shamanist, Christian, and Buddhist traditions. A large p a rt o f the volume’s corpus consists of field materials collected during interdisciplinary expeditions to various regions of the Altai Republic th a t began in 1984 and continue to the present day. These expeditions were staffed by members of the S.S. Surazakov Scientific Research Institu te of Al­ tai Studies named after S.S. Surazakov, M.I. Glinka Novosibirsk State Con­ servatory, and the Institu te of Philology o f the Siberian Division of the Rus­ sian Academy o f Sciences. The corpus also includes the texts recorded in the 19 th cent u ry by the first scholars of Altai folklore: W . Radlov, W . Verbitsky, and G.N. Potanin. The scholarly appendix placed after the commentaries and annotations contains 146 additional variants, 26 versions of the texts and 16 parallel texts included in the volume. The repetition of a particu lar story line in the folkloric trad ition attests to its degree of preservation and typicality. This