Epic heritage of the Sakha people in XX century: Soviet experiment

The article is devoted to study of epic heritage of the Sakha people as one of the main element of thesaurus of traditional culture. The authors research the phenomenon Olonkho in different historical projections at the turning from XIX to XX and from XX to XXI centuries. Special attention is paid to the problems of transformation of epic storytelling in an age of historical changes and construction of «new history» by olonkhosut-narrators as a kind of construction of «memory». The object of research is the creation of a consolidated text of the Yakut olonkho in 1930–1940 years as an experiment in the creation of the «Soviet epic». Olonkho as a collective product becomes the central symbol of the socialist nation-building. As the result the soviet world view and acceptance the official ideology by the use of folk culture became one of the important strategy of the social and cultural modernization in Yakut Republic. The authors reveal that the interpretation of the epic culture in the space of the memory, which projects the image of ancient and modern history, discover wide perspectives in the studying of the etho-cultural heritage as a vivid social practice. One of important conclusions of this paper is respect for the cultural heritage and its protection on the legislative base.