Chastushka in the 20th century Kalmyk lyrics

The chastushka (humorous rhyme) appeared in the Kalmyk folklore in the 1920s under the influence of its Russian counterpart. In the 1930s, it influenced the creation of literary ditties in Kalmyk lyrics. Since this genre was on the periphery of the interests of ethnographers, folklorists, literary critics, and writers, recordings of folk ditties were not published, with the exception of some samples, and literary ditties attracted the attention of a few Kalmyk poets. Both folklore and literary ditties of Kalmyk poets, therefore, were not the object and subject of research. We managed to discover only four ditties written by Purvia Dzhidleev, Basang Dordzhiev, Mutul Erdniev, Sandzhi Erdyushev and published in the late 1930s - 1940s in the Republican press. Among the ditties mentioned by the literary critics of that period, there are Konstantin Erendzhenov’s «Pioneer Ditties», the text of which has not yet been found. All the texts of the four poets have the subtitle “chastushka”, which indicates the purposeful genre development of the literary chastushka by the authors. Amongst them, the ditties by P. Dzhidleev and M. Erdniev are written on a political topic, the couplets of the other poets are about love. These political ditties, addressed to the leader of the Soviet state, take on the character of magtal-praising the new life, thereby blurring the boundaries of the genre. Lyrical ditties by B. Dordzhiev and S. Erdyushev are intended for two performers, the first chastushka indicates the possibility of imitating a famous folk song, the second one needs a chorus. The political ditties of the Kalmyk poets contain no satire, irony, sarcasm, and criticism typical of the Russian folk ditties of this type. In the lyrical ditties of the Kalmyk authors there is no satire, irony, humor. All texts are created mainly within the traditions of their national versification. The influence of the Kalmyk folk chastushka on the creation and formation of literary chastushka in the Kalmyk lyrics of the 20th cannot be traced due to the small number of such materials published. The comparative analysis of four literary ditties showed, on the one hand, the Kalmyk poets’ attempts to develop a new genre in the 1930s and 1940s, on the other hand, a low productivity in their creation, and their subsequent disappearance in the history of Kalmyk literature of the last century. Only the chastushka by S. Erdyushev has been recently translated into Russian, however, without specifying its genre.