“Heroic matchmaking” in Xinjiang-Oirat version of “Dzhangar”: story construction and compositional structure

The article is devoted to an actual question of studying national epic texts about heroic matchmaking, finding genetic origins of plots and motifs, to prove complex deep relationships of epic creation and phenomena of reality. Heroic matchmaking, finding and marrying a betrothed, belong to an important eventful stage in the life cycle of the hero, widely reproduced in the Turkic-Mongol epic. The purpose of this study is to examine the structure of the plots about the heroic matchmaking of the Xinjiang-Oirat version of the epos “Dzhangar”, the analysis of the typology and semantics of the motifs within the framework of plot structuring, drawing parallels with the traditional wedding ritual and ritual complex defining the fictional structure of the work. By the study, the features of the plot structure of the heroic matchmaking in the national epic of Oirats of Xinjiang were shown. Despite all variety of content and with all diversity of plots about heroic matchmaking, represented by archaic and classical types, common elements are found as structure-forming, which in various combinations and variations added to correlative systems. Universal framing character has the exposition and the final part (initial feast, wedding feast), the development of plot action associated with a number of typological motifs and episodes, which are included in the epic narrative as inseparable event features: catching and saddling the hero’s horse, equipping and sending the hero on the way, overcoming the own way. Along with the universal typological elements of the plot structure, there are also variational elements of plot-forming function, the development of the plot due to certain motivation, travel initiation tests of the hero, the arrival and finding of the hero in the condemned khanate, the culminating-conflict episodes of marriage competitions for the bride. The semantics of a number of motifs in the archaic and classical epic of the Xinjiang-Oirat version of “Dzhangar” shows parallels and goes back to national wedding ceremonies, rites and rituals transformed through the prism of the representations of the epic world. The initiation historically preceded the wedding, in similar features, and many fabulous epic wedding rituals are rudiments and result of the transformation of initiation rituals that have played a significant role in human life since prehistory.