Paper abstract:

This article attempts to question how each era leaves its mark on the Manas epic. Early recordings of the epic were made by V.V. Radlov (Wilhelm Radloff) and Ch.Ch. Valikhanov in the second half of the 19th century. Having collected samples of folk literature from almost all the Turkic peoples of Eurasia in his classic ten-volume collection, Academician V. Radlov did a very valuable job for subsequent researchers. A separate volume of this fundamental work is entirely devoted to the Kyrgyz language and folklore. An excerpt from "Manas", written down by Ch. Valikhanov in 1856, was lost and was discovered only in Soviet times in the manuscripts of Kh. Fayzhanov.

In Soviet times, scientific recordings of the epic were originally carried out by Yu. Abdrakhmanov, K. Miftakov, Turkologists P. Falev, K. K. Yudakhin, V.M. Zhirmunsky, K. Rakhmatullin, A.N. Bernshtam, writers M. Auezov, K. Malikov and others.

The main argument of the article is aimed at identifying records and publications of the epic that have undergone transformation for historical and ideological reasons of a certain period: pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet.

The article uses manuscripts and notes of Ch. Valikhanov, V. Radlov, K. Miftakov in Latin with Kyrgyz transcription from the collection of the Department of Manuscripts and Publications of the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic. Among modern recordings, classical editions by S. Orozbakov and S. Karalaev (S. Orozbakov's version, published in four volumes, as well as a complete 9-volume edition and S. Karalaev's version in five volumes) are used. volumes). In addition, consultations were held with the early recordings of Manas.