Mythological prose of T. A. Chachiyakov: themes, plots and motifs

This article is about the mythological prose of T. A. Chachiyakov. To date, many texts of myths recorded from the narrator have been published in different editions. Some of them were considered in the context of the study of Altai non-fairy-tale prose. However, there has not yet been a separate study of the narrator's mythological narratives. In this connection, the purpose of this study was to explore the themes and narrative-motive composition of mythological prose T. A. Chachiyakov. In the course of this study, the general theoretical and methodological principles of folklore study formulated by B. N. Putilov, V. Y. Propp, K. V. Chistov were used. In identifying typological plots and motives existing in the common fund of world folklore, we relied on an analytical catalog of folklore-mythological motives by Y. E. Berezkin and E. N. Duvakin, as well as on a study by N. R. Oinotkinova, who compiled a summary of the main motives in the mythological prose of the Altai people with the involvement of comparative material from the mythology of other peoples. The research involved published folklore works of T. A. Chachiyakov and archival materials from the scientific archive of S. S. Surazakov Research Institute of Altaic Studies, including the most advanced handwritten versions of texts. 13 texts were analyzed in this work. Based on the studied material, it’s concluded that the mythological prose of T. A. Chachiyakov can be divided into thematic groups: etiologicpal myths, astral myths, eschatological myths and mythological stories about human contacts with sirits of another world.