Plot motifs in Jangarchi Teltya Lidzhiev's epic repertory

The article studies plot motifs in the Jangar epic songs recorded from jangarchi Teltya Lidzhiev. His repertory contained ten Jangar texts belonging to the tradition of renown Eelyan Ovla (Rus. Ovla Elyaev; Iki-Bukhus aimag, Maloderbetovsky District). Since early childhood, Teltya Lidzhiev had been listening to heroic narratives recited by his fellow villager Okon Badmaev who had learnt them from Okon Sharaev, Eelyan Ovla’s nephew, thus inheriting already existing texts. Representing the conservative Jangar tradition, the taletellers would consistently preserve somewhat original plot-and-composition structures, themes, episodes, and motifs. Teltya Lidzhiev’s epic songs contain motifs chronologically identified as ones typical for statehood formation epic: raiding of horses, ultimatum, horse races, chase and bow shooting, manhunt for the hero, his stay in the enemy’s camp, the imperial banner, single combat, spear broken and restored, triunity of the hero (war horse - weapon - hero), oaths, ‘hurrah’ shouts, award from Khan Jangar, enslavement of the enemy, regret, stigmatization and punishment of the enemy, victorious return. The paper attempts to examine motifs that follow universal epic patterns comprising a number of plot motifs. Our analysis concludes that the plot motifs traced in jangarchi Teltya Lidzhiev’s epic repertory act as parts of narrative structures in the form of predicative constructions with a certain internal order, each and every bundle of such motifs being deeply interrelated. So, the motif of horse raiding and that of ultimatum constituting the conflict situation - result in the fact that the hero initiates a military expedition during which he overcomes obstacles, accomplishes a great feat, clashes with the enemy, gets temporarily defeated to further receive support from the newly arrived compatriots and outfight the opponent, thus restoring the integrity of the borders