Epos and history: zhyrau XV-XVIII centuries

Abstract

This article is about the unique phenomenon of Turkic and world epic tradition dominating in the period of hansky board in the Kazakh kochev of the XV-XVIII centuries. The general concept of the famous specialist in folklore and ethnographer E.D. Tursunov about an origin, functions and creative specifics of it like carriers of the Kazakh oral and poetic tradition is the basis for article. At the same time, the special attention paid to a role a zhyrau as epic creator to his state, creative shape, new ideological tasks, arisen before it in connection with processes of ethnopolitical consolidation, formation of statehood, with its diverse social and administrative functions in the new developed historical, geopolitical conditions. The central place is given to a problem of a genetic linkage of genres a zhyrau with the most ancient genres having a mifo-ritual, sacral and ceremonial (shamanistsky) basis and also – directly with folklore, the epos, – up to communications with early literary and medieval monuments of Turkic and world classical literature.
Key words: genre, type, zhyraa, epos, folklore, function, genesis, typology, ode, Middle Ages.