The plot composition of “The song about how the glorious Jhangar, having [in his hands] the seal of the ferious Shirki, collected his lions-bogatyrs” from the epic repertoire of the Oirat story-teller Javin Juna

The article discusses the plot composition of the “Song about how the Glorious Dzhangar, taking [in his hands] the seal of the Ferocious Shirki, gathered his lions-heroes” from the epic repertoire of the famous Oirat dzhangarchi Javin Jun. The material of the study was the texts of the epic songs of the Xinjiang-Oirat version of “Dzhangar”, published by the People's Publishing House of Xinjiang in China in 1986 in the Oirat script “todo bichig” (“clear writing”), transcribed into the Kalmyk language by the famous orientalist B.Kh. Todayeva. Among the Xinjiang Oirat storytellers, the largest and most diverse repertoire is the dzhangarchi of the Khobuksar epic tradition. One of the brightest representatives of this “school” is the storyteller Javin Juna, whose epic repertoire consists of twenty-five songs. The plot of the song under study is based on the idea of creating a heroic family of the Bumbai state, in which Dzhangar is an epic ruler, around whom the heroes unite, each of which is the hero of independent songs of the heroic epic “Dzhangar”. As a result of the analysis, we came to the conclusion that the plot of the song, being the prehistory of the creation of the Bumbai state and the heroic family, is a single chain of epic themes and motifs, in which there is both dynamism, heroic intensity, and triumph, aimed at revealing the main idea of the epic. The beginning of the song determined the self-selection of the hero, who set off to travel around distant lands and gather heroes in order to strengthen peace and proclaim the Bumbai state. To achieve the goal, the hero, having overcome a great distance, meets the hero Mingyan on the way, enters into single combat with him, the heroes Mingyan and Boro Mangna decide to voluntarily join the Khan's squad, then Dzhangar destroys the Shulmus and liberates the oppressed people, thereby restoring world harmony, returns to Bumba, establishes a hierarchy and proclaims the Bumba state. The epic palace, personifying the center of the universe, around which the nomad camp of an epic clan-tribe is thought, the epic ruler, who occupies the most honorable central place, around which the heroes of the left and right sides are located, are constant themes both in the Xinjiang Oirat version and in the Kalmyk tradition of the epic “Dzhangar”.