Birtalan Ágnes: Kalmyk Folklore and Folk Culture in the Mid-19th Century: Philological Studies on the Basis of Gábor Bálint of Szentkatolna’s Kalmyk Texts.
FOLKLORE GENRES
summarising typological and methodological surveys of Kalmyk folklore (cf. below). 48 8 There are further publications of Kalmyk folklore including songs, such as: Narodnoje tvorcestvo Kalmykii. Ed. Kravcenko, I. Stalingrad - Elista 1940 that was not at my disposal while working on Bálint's material. Others such as the collection of Ambekova's repertoire 48 9 or books dedicated to the children's folklore 49 0 - offering a number of parallels for blessings, riddles and proverbs - do not contain material relevant to Bálint's songs. Gyula Lajos Nagy almost rightly remarked in his article devoted to Bálint's Kalmyk texts that, compared with other folklore collections, he did not find any parallel material either among Vladimircov's song collected from the Altai Oirats or among the stanzas inserted into Ramstedt's the tales. "Yet this chapter of our manuscript is precious enough for we do not find any of these pieces in other works of the same sort." 49 1 At the level of motifs some similarities can be found with the songs in Pozdnejev's and Vladimirtsov's Oirat collections, 49 2 the songs of the Ramstedt-corpus 4 9' and also in the present-day Kalmyk song-books at my disposal. Entirely identical texts, however, are rare even at the level of stanzas. Below, similarities between Bálint's songs and examples of later collections will be demonstrated. These are far from being complete and are included only with the aim of illustrating corpus evidence of some common features recorded at various times. As it can be concluded from the above fifteen songs of the Manuscript and a further song published only in the Grammar (cf. Addendum) recorded by Bálint, the following common characteristics of Mongolian folk songs can be traced as typical features: 1. four-lined stanzas constitute the songs (for the Mongolian cultural areas it is the most typical; rarely two-lined structures, or even more seldom five or more lines compose a stanza but they do not appear among Bálint's songs); 2. the presence of parallelism (inside a stanza and also between stanzas) as the main structure forming factor; 3. concerning the content, parallelism emerges between the external (nature, social environment) and internal (the singing EGO's emotions, feelings) worlds; 4. the presence of alliteration as the main poetic factor of songs. The etic classification of Kalmyk folk songs (Kalm. dün) 49 4 is built mainly on content and historical periodisation of the appearance of songs: 49 5 48 8 Cf. Kalmyckij fol'klor. Ed. Bitkejev, N. C. Elista, Kalmyckij NauCno-Issledovatel'skij Institut Istorii, Filologii i Ekonomii pri Sovete Ministrov Kalmyckoj ASSR 1985. and above ali Bitkejev's summarising introduction and articles devoted to specific genres: Bitkejev, N. C.: Svod kalmyckogo fol'klora - Original'noje izdanije pamjatnikov narodnogo tvorCestva. In: Kalmyckij fol'klor. Ed. Bitkejev, N. C. Elista. Kalmyckij NauCno-Issledovatel'skij Institut Istorii. Filologii i Ekonomii pri Sovete Ministrov Kalmyckoj ASSR 1985. pp 3-16; Bordzanova, T. G.: O Zanrovom sostave obrjadovoj poezii kalmykov. In; Kalmyckij fol'klor. Ed. Bitkejev, N. C. Elista, Kalmyckij NauCno-Issledovatel'skij Institut Istorii, Filologii i Ekonomii pri Sovete Ministrov Kalmyckoj ASSR 1985. pp. 28-37; BordZanova, T. G.: K probleme obrjadovoj poezii kalmykov. In: Kalmyckaja narodnaja poezija. Ed Bitkejev, N. C. Elista, Kalmyckij NauCno-Issledovatel'skij Institut Istorii. Filologii i Ekonomii pri Sovete Ministrov Kalmyckoj ASSR 1984. pp. 74-97; Habunova, Je. E.: Voprosy publikacii materialov svadebnoj poezii kalmykov. In: Kalmyckij fol 'klor. Ed. Bitkejev. N. C. Elista, Kalmyckij NauCno-Issledovatel'skij Institut Istorii. Filologii i Ekonomii pri Sovete Ministrov Kalmyckoj ASSR 1985. pp. 38-51; Habubova, Je. E.: Svadebnaja obrjadovaja poezija kalmykov. In: Kalmyckaja narodnaja poezija. Ed. Bitkejev, N. C. Elista, Kalmyckij NauCno-Issledovatel'skij Institut Istorii, Filologii i Ekonomii pri Sovete Ministrov Kalmyckoj ASSR 1984. pp. 96-132. 48 9 Ambekova, B. C.: Cecn bulg. Rodnik mudrosti. Elista, AOr "NPP DZangar" 2006. 49 0 Bickdiidin amn iigin bilgin antolog. Ed. Okonov, B B. Eist, Xal'mg degtr yaryaC, 1990. [An anthology of oral poetry for children], Basangova, T. G.: Detskijfol klor kalmykov. Elista, UCreZdenije RAN, KIGI RAN 2009. 49 1 Nagy, Louis J.: G. Bálint's Journey to the Mongols and his Unedited Kalmuck Texts. \n.AOH\X. (1959) pp. 311-327, on p. 317. 4, 2 Pozdnejev, A.: Obrazcy narodnoj literatury mongolskih plemjon. Narodnyja pesni mongolov. S.-Peterburg, Tipografija Imperatorskoj Akademii Nauk 1880; Vladimircov, B. Ja.: Obrazcy mongol'skoj narodnoj slovesnosti (S-Z. Mongolija). Leningrad, Izdanije Instituta Zivyh vostoCnyh jazykov imeni A. S. Enukidze 1926. 49 1 Ramstedt, Gustaf John - Balinov, §. - Aalto. Pentti: Kalmückische Lieder In: JSFOu 63. (1962) pp 1-127 and also Ramstedt, Gustaf John- Aalto, Pentti: Torgutische Lieder. In: JSFOu 62. (1961) 1-14. 49 4 Lőrincz. L[ászló[: La terminologie du folklore Kalmouck. In: AOHXVIII (1965) pp 149-158, on pp 150-151 74
