Written Heritage of Vandan Yumsunov kept in the Center of Oriental Manuscripts and Xylographs of the Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies (SB RAS)

Introduction. The article is devoted to the study of the written heritage of the famous Buryat educator Vandan Yumsunov. Among his published works, the most widely distributed is the “History of the Khory Eleven Fathers”, reflecting history, religion, administrative structure, economic activity, etc. It is known that V. Yumsunov composed two more historical texts, translated from Russian, and compiled Buryat genealogies. The purpose of the article is to characterize the works of V. Yumsunov, concentrated in the funds of the Center of Oriental Manuscripts and Xylographs. Materials and methods. To identify the written heritage of V. Yumsunov, catalogues of the Mongolian collections, kept in the archives of St. Petersburg, Ulan-Ude have been used with the methods of textual criticism, comparative analysis, and source studies applied. As a result, a source description of the discovered storage units of his writings, such as: 1) four manuscripts on the history of the Khory Buryats, 2) historical notes on a trip to St. Petersburg by the chief Khory taisha Ts. Badmaev and shulenga of the Zun-Khuatsai family Ts.-D. Ayushiev in 1876, 3) materials about the visit of the grand duke Alexander Alexandrovich to Transbaikalia in 1873, and 4) three versions of translation of the legal document “Code of Steppe Laws of nomadic indigenous peoples of Eastern Siberia” is given. It is noted that V. Yumsunov’s written legacy includes works of various genres: chronicles, memoirs, travelogues, genealogies, folklore and translations. The reviewed versions of the “History of the Khory Eleven Fathers” testify to the popularity of this text among readers. His historical works are characterized by a chronological sequence of events, the involvement of a wide range of sources, and the desire to carefully record events. Among the stylistic features of works of different genres, it is necessary to mention the predominance of complex syntactic constructions in describing the past history of the Khory Buryats, the dual writings of Russian words: in translation into the Buryat language and in phonetic notation. V. Yumsunov’s materials reflect the development of new genres in Buryat literature, demonstrate the level of literacy of scribes, and the peculiarities of the Buryat handwritten tradition.

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18. Tsydendambayev Ts. B. Buryat Historical Chronicles and Genealogies. Ulan-Ude: Republican Printing House, 2001. 256  p. (In Russ.)

19. Yumsunov V. Erdemte Sookhor Moritoi. Baigal. 1962. No. 4. Pp. 114–154. (In Bur.)

20. Yumsunov V. The Magic Horse. Baikal. 1962. No. 4. Pp. 119–138. (In Russ.)

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