The Kalmyk Heroic Epic of Jangar: Little-Known 19th-Century Manuscript Songs of the Bagatsokhurovsky Cycle

Abstract

The article considers some little-known manuscript songs of the Bagatsokhurovsky Jangar epic cycle contained in the Archive of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts (Russian Academy of Sciences), Scientific Archive of the Russian Geographical Society, and Manuscript Collection of the Faculty of Asian and African Studies (St. Petersburg State University). The textological analysis of the little-known manuscripts never to have been introduced into wide scientific discourse shows those are ‘clean manuscript copies’, i. e., copies of somewhat ‘field manuscripts’ authored by different researchers.

Keywords

• folklore
• archive
• manuscript
• record
• text