The Folk Songs of Don Kalmyks Recorded from S. I. Manzhikov

 Intriduction. The archive of the Kalmyk Scientific Center of the RAS contains the manuscript “Kalmyk Folk Songs”, which includes texts recorded by the orientalist Tseren-Dordzhi Nominkhanov in the period from 1927 to 1962 among different ethnic groups. The purpose of the article is to give a general description of folk songs recorded by the scientist from the Don Kalmyk Sanzhi Ivanovich Manzhikov in 1962. The article is a continuation of the study, in three other articles the author examines recordings of songs of the Kalmyks of the Don stanitsa Grabbevskaya and Kalmyks of Bolshederbetovsky ulus, dated from 1927,  and the songs of the Xinjiang Torguts dated from 1935. Results. The songs from S. I. Manzhikov’s repertoire allow us to judge the peculiarities of the song tradition of the Don Kalmyks, which survived until the early 1960s, reflect the diversity of this genre among them and testify to the connection between the history and oral folk art of this ethnic group. They correspond to the epigraph that precedes the handwritten collection by Ts.-D. Nominkhanov, the meaning of which is that the song is the history of the people. The Don Kalmyks were familiar with the historical songs of the Kalmyks from the main ethnic group, they show knowledge of ethnic divisions, attention to the theme of “friend” ‒ “alien”. The manifestation of the so-called “compression” of time in the folklore tradition is recorded, and attribution to their tradition of what they borrowed from the main ethnic group. A special feature of the songs of the Don Kalmyks is a large number of songs on a military theme, glorifying the participants of the campaigns defending the country from enemies. This is due to the duty of the Don Kalmyks Cossacks in military service. Thanks to the collector, songs composed during the Russian-Turkish war and dated 1877 were recorded. S. I. Manzhikov has a lot of religious-themed songs in his repertoire, which testifies to the depth of the religious tradition among the Don Kalmyks and its special significance in connection with the songs of military service and the constant risks associated with it. Lyrical songs were widely distributed among the Don Kalmyks, as among other ethnic groups, they have a similar structure, are based on the use of parallelism, and most of them are dedicated to the mother, older relatives, or a girl getting married.

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