OLONKHO
the Yakut Heroic Epos

(Detailed description as it was written in candidate application for the 3rd proclamation of masterpieces of the oral and intangible heritage of the humanity)

Stage transformation of Olonkho

The backbone of the first dramas was folklore whose artistic figurativeness and symbolics reflected the philosophical and aesthetic views of the people. The ancient ceremonial festival Yhyakh (the summer koumiss festivity) and the ancient religious ritual "Seeing off the Goddess Aiyyhyt” established in the tribal society were adapted for the stage. Such dances as "An One-eyed Deer", "The dance of White Cranes" and the games "Neighbors", "Pulling out of the Net", shaman rituals and other popular folk shows, evoking the public's sym pathy and participation, present the specific form of popular world vision.

First Olonkho performances staged at Yakut theatres were about shaman rituals attracting the public's attention by exciting events of shamans' travels over the Three Worlds, and by the figurativeness and dramatic mysteries of ecstatic solo songs and dances. Characters of the heroic epos Olonkho, in spite of their mythological hyperbolized appearance, are quite earthly persons with human passions. Their relations are psychologically defined and always on the verge of conflicts, their remarks and monologues are dramatized. Vivid images, a large scale fantastic and dynamic plot, the poetically elevated lan guage make the epic action colorful and theatric. Many researchers referred to the latter feature.

A staged Olonkho was the most vivid and impressive event in the life of an illiterate Yakut. Olonkho addressed directly to the collective consciousness via the common emotional experience. The optimistic character of the figura tive and philosophical content of Olonkho was one of its attractive features." In the past, a Yakut was afraid of everything that is why he prayed to God and offered a sacrifice. And an Olonkho performer approaches him and says, "A Yakut will win!" What an emotional splash! P.A. Oiunskyi wrote about Olonkho's role as something "that predicted the new dawn in the dark and unhappy life of the Yakut people and woke up their inspiration and aspiration for freedom". A.E. Kulakovskyi also described the deep impact of Olonkho on the audience.

The facts when Olonkho was performed as a drama are mentioned in the research literature: "In the olden days, the Yakut bylinas - Olonkhos - were performed by several actors: one was a teller (made comments, described land scapes etc.- Libretto), the second played a role of a kind-hearted warrior, the third performed the role of his enemy, and other actors played parts of father, wife, shaman, spirits, and etc."

Olonkho performers played different characters and the speech of each of them was accompanied by the corresponding music. Olonkho performers "played roles of a strong and kind-hearted hero or a rude and evil monster abahyy, or a woman - warrior, or a tender heroine who was a symbol of beauty and nobility, or they transformed into a witty messenger - and horse herder Soruk Bollur or into the Gods, spirits and birds".

But any folklore work had to change on the stage according to the theatre laws. "In the folklore works unlike the literary ones there are stable and spe cial methods of composition: the binary, triane, and symmetrical organiza tions of parts, leitmotivs (mentioned by A.P. Skaftymov), consistency of mo tives (pointed out by V.Ya. Propp), inner linkage of images and their graduate fading (discovered by B.M. Sokolov), the principle of chained connection, developed parallelisms and antitheses". These stable compositional methods of folklore texts are partially lost in performance, usually only one motif is chosen, the luxurious brilliance of artistic figurativeness (parallelisms, antith eses, repetitions, etc) is not transmitted. The static folklore characters involved in dramatic conflicts develop spiritually. The whole system of Olonkho ideas and images are influenced by the uniformity of dramatic actions. Thus, the dramatic and scenographic interpretation of Olonkho is not the epos itself in its traditional existence.

In January 1906, the first performance of Olonkho "Beriet Bergen the Dar ing Brave Guy" was staged at the "Inorodcheskyi Klub" ("The Club of the Natives") in Yakutsk . Olonkho performers were P.A. Okhlopkov (Naara Suokh), M.N. Ionova- Androsova, the traditional storyteller and the wife of an exile, and A.E. Kulakovskyi, the first Yakut writer and others. In March 1907, anoth er Olonkho 'The Warrior Kulantai on the Fast Stallion" was staged.

According to the poet P. Dravert, the original household items and attributes of the shaman's rituals were used at first Olonkho performances on stage.

Those performances were the means of progressive ideological propagan da of that time. The ideas of struggle of the Good against the Evil and the ideas of liberation of common people from the oppression of vicious forces were expressed in those performances.

Those early Olonkho performances were amateur, traditional Olonkho per formers, depictive means, decorations played the main roles, and stage prop erties were original. A real crying baby was brought to depict a baby's crying. Instead of the symbolic breast of the Spirit - the Earth's Hostess (doidu ich- chite), a woman playing the role of the Goddes was shown with naked breasts. As the former political exile, poet and researcher of the Yakut P. Dravert wrote "a shaman's tambourine and costume were taken from the local museum. Most of the spectators, having heard the sounds of the sacred tambourine that usual ly make the superstitious children of Nature tremble with mystic fear, were taken by real awe and excitement". But all those naturalistic moments did not prevent the spectator from perceiving the dramatic events about the life of the Yakut. Such performances were a success among the common peoples, initiating a new channel of epos perception by the Yakut.

In 1921, the famous Olonkho performer N.I. Stepanov-Nooroi staged Olonkho "Sabyia the Rich Lord" in the village of Kharyialaakh of the Eastern Kangalasskyi region. In the 1930-s, he staged the dramatized plays of his own Olonkhos "Beriet Bergen" and "Ogho Nurgun" at the amateur theatre (1936). He staged those performances at the professional Yakut Drama Theatre sever al successive nights with a great success. The professional composers N. Pei- ko and musicologist Shteiman made first scores of Olonkho by N.I. Stepanov-Nooroi in 1939. This performance was awarded the first place among 17 other performances of Olonkho on the first republican contest. In 1944, N.I. Stepanov staged Olonkho "Beriet Bergen" in the open theatre during the national holiday Yhyakh in the village of Maya, the Megino-Kangalasskyi region. On the Victory Day in 1945, he successfully staged his own Olonkho "Ogho Nurgun" that symbolized the victory over fascism and corresponded to the patriotic theme and ideas of the heroic epos. All these performances have proven the contribution of this most talented Olonkho-teller to the development of the staged Olonkho as an epic tradition. These performances also showed that Olonkho could be successfully staged preserving its dramatic and musical features, colour and diapason of the epic folk song.

On each historic stage of the Soviet and Post-Soviet periods, the theatre and dramaturgy addressed Olonkho for artistic and ideological purposes. The 30-40s is the time of active recording of the traditional folk music of Olonkho by Olonkho-carriers and Olonkho-tellers. The first Yakut composer and folk lore-researcher M.N. Zhirkov wrote down in a score the songs of Olonkho main characters. His scores served as a basis for the creation of the first and the only Yakut national opera based on the epos.

The opera "Nurgun Bootur" by M. Zhirkov and G. Litinsky (1957) based on the heroic epos Olonkho (the stage-director was V. Mestnikov) was suc cessfully staged at the Moscow Opera Theatre, also literary parties and perfor mances by professional actors and ensembles were staged.

Since 1940 to the present time, Olonkho "Nurgun Bootur the Impetuous" in various theatrical transformations (drama, musical drama, opera) has been always a success among the audience. I.G. Teploukhov-Timofeev, I.I. Bur- nashev-Tong Suorun, U.G. Nokhsorov, N.I. Stepanov-Nooroi, P.P. Yadrikhin- skyi-Bedjeele, started a new tendency of Olonkho transformation in the 50- s. Olonkho performance and V.O. Karataev and others were recorded. These records were performed at the Republican Radio Company as a set of programs edited by A. Gotovtsev, N. Zhelobtsov and N. Maksimov. The cycle of Olonkho performing by the people's Artist of Yakutia G.G. Kolesov attracted the overall attention in the republic, later a nine -part set of disks of Olonkho "Nurgun Bootur the Impetuous" by P.A. Oiunskyi was issued by the Leningrad branch of the company "Melodia". This record was also is sued in compact disk.

TV offered new horizons for epos transmission to a wider public. TV pro grams devoted to works and performing skills of the famous Olonkho performers A.G. Zverev and E.S. Mironova appeared.

Olonkho's dramatic and entertaining characters were the main reasons of the public's attention to it. The theatre, drama and other communicative forms of art began from utilization of detailed description of epic actions and arrived at creative elaboration of Olonkho ideas and images vividly expressed in the aesthetics of historical plays of the 1970-s, in the epic theatre at TV and radio in the 1980-1990-s.

Dramatized Olonkhos were successfully staged at the First (1971) and Sec ond (1979) Republican Folklore Festivals and at various competitions with out the Republic by amateur and folklore theatres. Notably, the Ust-Aldan-skyi, Megino-Kangalasskyi and Momskyi amateur theatres staged the fragments of Olonkho "Nurgun Bootur". Thus, after a more than 30 year break, the folklore epos popular with the people return to the public in its various modifications and live performance.

Since the early 1980-1990-s, amateur and folklore theatres of the republic have grown interested in epos Commemorating the 100-th anniversary of P. A. Oiunskyi (1993), the Republican Competition of Amateur Theatres was held in the village of Ytyk-Kel of the Tattinskyii region, where dramas on the motives of the heroic epos were mostly presented. ("Etitii" by the Amateur Theatre of the Nyurbinskyi region, the Amateur Theatre after D.F. Khodulov of the Maia region, amateur theatres from the Tattinskyi, Vilyuiskyi, and Ust-Aldanskyi re gions, "Khabyatta Bergen" by the Amateur Theatre of the Verkhnevyuliskyi region). There were presented a few samples of Olonkho embodiment in dance, notably, N. Abramov's Olonkho "Woman-Shamans Uolumar and Aigyr" by the Dance Theatre "Erel" (libretto by A. Zakharova, staged by S. Tolstyakova) that was announced the best performance of the year (1996). The long history of Olonkho staging tradition (dramatic, choreographic, musical, and radio) by amateur and professional artists always arise love and attracts attention of the public evidencing the Yakut epos' values and aesthetic potential.

Careful preservation of Olonkho performing specific features was due to the oral tradition and its new scenic embodiment that opened up new prospects for professional theatres.

Olonkho theatre recreation goes back to the archaic genetic memory of the people, reviving artistic decision of the key problems and the ways to revive the nation spiritually, ideologically, morally and aesthetically. The latest Olonkho performing "Nurgun Bootur" and "Kyys Djebilie" at the Sa kha Academic Drama Theatre after P.A. Oiunskyi evidences this. The tal ented Olonkho performing "Kyys Djebilie" staged by the director A.S. Boris-ov was awarded the All- Russian Award "Zolotaya Maska" (The Gold Mask) in 2002 that once again identifies the wide scenic potential of the Yakut heroic epos.

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