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- Convenor:
-
Svetlana Jacquesson
(Palacky University)
Send message to Convenor
- Discussant:
-
Daniel Prior
(Miami University)
- Formats:
- Panel
- Theme:
- Anthropology & Archaeology
- Sessions:
- Sunday 17 October, -
Time zone: America/New_York
Long Abstract:
Study of folklore in Central Asia Studies has been strongly impaired by the Soviet prejudices and policies against oral culture, and, consequently, it is typically absent in the post-Soviet research agenda. Existing scholarship tends to privilege printed material - the edition, translation, and commentaries of material that typically falls into the category of epics - while leaving the complex process of transmission, collection, and preservation understudied. The participants in this panel suggest bringing these issues to the foreground by adopting new transdisciplinary approaches to the study of the Manas epic in Kyrgyzstan. In their focus on contemporary performances and performers, they problematize common assumptions regarding “tradition”, “authenticity”, and “national heritage”, and highlight the complex interplay between various categories of social actors - performers, scholars, the state - as a significant means to understand the ongoing negotiation of national, culture, and identity in Central Asia. In discussing the changing categorisation of performers involved in the preservation and transmission of the Manas epic in the Soviet period and after independence (Julien Bruley), exploring the relationship between printed Soviet variants and texts produced in-performance by contemporary performers (James Plumtree), demarking the debates on a recent “illegitimate” “untraditional” ten volume rendition of the epic (Nienke van der Heide and Gulnara Aitpaeva), and examining the rejection-turned-adoption of a performer from China as a method of securing the status of Manas epic as “Kyrgyzstan’s heritage” (Svetlana Jacquesson), this panel emphasizes both the importance of oral culture for the region and for contemporary research
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Sunday 17 October, 2021, -Svetlana Jacquesson (Palacky University)
Paper long abstract:
The first inscription of the Manas epic on UNESCO list of intangible heritage in 2009 sparked heated debates between patrons of the epic on the two sides of Kyrgyzstan-China border. At that time, Kyrgyzstanis did not hesitate to strongly doubt the authenticity of China’s 18-volume-long version of the epic and to harshly criticize the legitimacy and skills of China’s bard Jusup Mamay. Nine years later, however, Kyrgyzstan officially celebrated the 100th anniversary of the same Jusup Mamay and placed him in the pantheon of the Manas epic side by side with the nation’s two iconic bards, Saghymbay and Sayakbay .
In this paper I analyze Kyrgyzstanis’ changing narratives on Jusup Mamay and the light these narratives shed on the never-ending definitions of the “proper” epic and the “traditional” bard. I argue that the adoption and celebration of Jusup Mamay in Kyrgyzstan became possible by shifting the focus from his legitimacy as an epic performer to his perseverance as a custodian of Kyrgyz epic heritage. I suggest that such a shift offers a favourable ground for addressing once again the longstanding tension between “epic as (a living) tradition” and “epic as (an objectified) heritage” and assessing the complex relationship between current and past instrumentalizations of this tension.
James Plumtree (American University of Central Asia)
Paper long abstract:
Wishing to examine the in-performance composition methods of oral poets, audiovisual recordings were made of two notable modern-day manaschis, Talantaaly Bakchiev and Doolot Sydykov. To aid comparisons, each performer was recorded on three different occasions performing the same part of the epic: the birth of the titular character, Manas. In addition to revealing the composition methods of the individual performers, analysis of the transcripts illuminated their relationship with printed material. Comparison with versions collected and published in the Soviet period reveals the reusing in performance passages from printed variants questions assumptions about the role of mentors, and a repeated altered phrase originating from an esteemed predecessor suggests the existence of anxiety of influence in oral performance and the difficult legacy of the past. Comparison of a contemporary performer’s in-performance created texts with variants produced by the manaschi for publication likewise reveal another little noticed feature: awareness in an oral tradition of the reader and the printed medium, and consideration of the role and authority of the performer where the patron is the market.
Nienke van der Heide
Paper long abstract:
The Manas epic trilogy is a living oral tradition, with new narrators who claim ancestral inspiration stepping up regularly. Debutant narrators have to navigate a thin line between grounding their version of the epic in a century-old tradition and bringing in their own, original elements. These novel elements have the power to strengthen a narrator’s claim to an authentic relationship with the spiritual world, but can simultaneously work as a ground for dismissal of their work by their contemporaries.
Traditionally, the Manas epic has been the exclusive domain of male activities. Gender asymmetry used to be the norm of the epic’s public performance and transmission. In 1995-2005, the ten volume book Aiköl Manas (Manas Magnanimous), a written interpretation of the epic ”Manas”, has been produced by a woman, Bubu Mariam Musa kyzy, and published by her followers.
We argue that the entry of the female into the male epic world significantly challenges the social landscape in Kyrgyzstan. Bubu Mariam is a Russian-speaking livestock farmer and healer from a remote village in Naryn oblast who claims direct transmission of the Manas story by Manas’ bard Jaisan. Not only do rhythm and rhyme deviate from conventional Manas versions, a number of crucial gendered and ethnically charged storylines challenge contemporary consensus.
Aiköl Manas provides a number of fascinating insights into the tense dynamic between tradition and innovation in the living oral tradition of Manas epic narration. Diverting from the Manas narrating tradition in a number of significant ways, the written version has irreconcilably divided the epic’s supporters and experts. In 2012-2016, the book went through the series of public debates and faced a vehement crackdown, including an official ban on its publication and sale. Currently the book is in court, being condemned as ”extremist”. Everyone who has worked with Bubu Mariam or interested in Aiköl Manas has been entered on a list of “People’s Enemies”.
In this paper, we argue that the powerful resistance to Aiköl Manas and the public humiliation of Bubu Mairam are caused by both a new interpretation of the epic as well as the unusual way of its production. Paradoxically the academic paradigms established during the Soviet atheism, and radical Islamic norms that appeared in the post-soviet time, jointly ensured the public rejection of the book.
Julien Bruley (TSI AUCA)
Paper long abstract:
Manaschys are the bards specialized in reciting the Manas epic. As such, we can say that they constitute a guild, an association of people with similar interests or purposes, sharing a similar talent. Nevertheless, far from being an homogeneous entity, this guild is subject to several types of distinctions which allocate bards into specific categories. Those distinctions and categories seem to be based on different interpretations of the very nature of the manaschy.
Mostly established by Kyrgyz researchers, sometimes by manaschys themselves, these lists or rankings know a generalized use among the Kyrgyz society. One of the most distinctive one is the division of the guild of manaschys into two main and separated categories: on one hand, we can find zattama manaschys (‘those who recite a text learnt by heart’) and on the other hand, chon or chynyrdy manaschys, among other adjectives, who are the ‘true’ or ‘real’ bards, those who received a gift, a supernatural talent, those who were elected.
This binary division is representative of a contemporary vision of manaschys as tradition keepers while some other lists, crafted during Soviet times, do insist not on a separation between ‘gifted’ and ‘non-gifted’ but on an progressive apprenticeship: the beginner bard can become a famous and professional one, the question of talent being the result of a personal work and training.
The aim of this paper is to explore the various existing lists, their evolution with time and to show their inner logic. Indeed, such rankings demonstrate not only a certain reality among bards, but also and above all vernacular representations and romanticized visions cast onto the main representatives of the Kyrgyz epic tradition, in a context of global changes.