The fates of the two branches of epic folklore studies are different: while the study of Manas began in the last century, the study of the small epic started much later.
The pioneers in collecting and studying the epic "Manas" were scholars and orientalists, members of the Russian Geographical Society, Ch. Valikhanov and V. Radlov, who conducted long scientific expeditions to the northern part of Kyrgyzstan in the second half of the 19th century.
The Kazakh scholar Chokan Valikhanov, during his travels around Issyk-Kul in 1856, listened to the epic "Manas" performed by a bard (his name is unknown), recorded a large episode titled "Memorial for Koketey" ("Keketeydun ashy") in Arabic script, and then published it in the "Notes of the Russian Geographical Society" in a prose retelling in Russian.
Ch. Valikhanov rightly assessed the exceptional role and significance of the epic in the traditional heritage of the Kyrgyz. "The oldest and most remarkable legend of the wild stone Kyrgyz, without a doubt, is the legend of their origin...," the scholar writes. "The love for antiquity and the abundance of legends distinguish the nomadic peoples of Mongolian Turkic tribes from their settled assemblies. The simplicity and naturalness of these legends make them highly artistic in a historical sense."
Despite being familiar only with a certain part of the epic, Ch. Valikhanov was able to see its uniqueness: "’Manas’ is an encyclopedic collection of all the tales, stories, legends, geographical, religious, intellectual knowledge, and moral concepts of the people into a single whole, centered around one figure, the hero Manas."
Here, the author notes the historical character of the development of the monumental epic: "’Manas’ is the work of an entire people, having grown from a fruit that ripened over many years — a national epic, something like a steppe Iliad. The traces of later additions and embellishments are evident in it with obvious clarity: perhaps the very composition of it from prose (jumoka) into poetry — by all characteristics is a work of later times. Three nights are not enough to listen to 'Manas'; the same amount is needed for 'Manas the Second', his son."
Since then, the bibliography of "Manas" in the world has counted more than three thousand titles. Some of them contain information about the musical style of the epic.
Academician Vasily Radlov visited the Chui and Issyk-Kul regions in the 1960s and recorded excerpts from all three parts of the epic "Manas." These texts were published in 1885 in Kyrgyz in the Russian alphabet and with a translation into German — in Germany. In the Leipzig edition, published in 1884 under the title "Aus Sibirien," V. Radlov included a musical example of eight notes, which indicates that the scholar attached great importance to the musical side of the Kyrgyz epic:
Ch. Valikhanov and V. Radlov highly appreciated the artistic significance of the epic "Manas" and the bardic mastery of Kyrgyz manaschy. The wide popularity of "Manas" among the population allowed V. Radlov to state: "Every Kyrgyz knows part of this epic." After an analytical comparison of "Manas" with the ancient Greek epics "Odyssey" and "Iliad," Ch. Valikhanov compared manaschy with aedas and rhapsodes.
The main attention of Ch. Valikhanov and V. Radlov was focused on the linguistically-literary content of the epic. However, they could not help but see that the bard is the main figure in the entire system of epic creativity. According to the laws of the oral improvisational tradition, "Manas" and manaschy are inseparable concepts.
In the 20th century, interest in the Kyrgyz epic significantly intensified. New enthusiasts for its collection and study emerged. Among them was Kaim Miftakov, one of the first Soviet collectors of Kyrgyz oral folk poetry. National folklore specialists began to work in Kyrgyzstan. A significant contribution to the collection of the great epic was made by the manas scholar, ethnographer, and professional performer of "Manas," Ibraim Abdrakhmanov.
The musical notation of the Kyrgyz national epic began in the post-October period, along with the active collection and study of folklore in all the republics of the USSR.
A. Zataevich, specially invited for this purpose by the government of the Kyrgyz ASSR, made eight musical notations of fragments of the great and small epics by ear. Five of them are vocal ("Manas," "Semetey," "Shyrdakbek," "Sary Solton," "Janush-Baish") and three are episodes of the small epic in the form of kyuu for komuz ("Chots koshun," "Semetey kuu," "Mendir-man").
In 1939, the All-Union publishing house "Muzgiz" published a musical collection "Kyrgyz Musical Folklore," prepared with the participation of Kyrgyz philologists, employees of the Cabinet for the Study of the Music of the Peoples of the USSR, and the Laboratory of Musical Acoustics of the Moscow Conservatory. In this collection, dedicated to the first Decade of Kyrgyz Art in Moscow, two excerpts from the first part of the trilogy in the version of Sayakbay Karalaev were presented. The transcription of the melodies of "Manas" was carried out by the workers of the Cabinet, V. Krivonosov and N. Bachinskaya, based on recordings made with an improved Telefunken apparatus. The poetic text was transcribed by U. Zhakiev, and the Russian interlinear translation was done by X. Karasaev and edited by Professor K. Yudakhin.
The publication of this collection marked the beginning of a scientific approach to the recording and transcription of the music of the epic, as the goal was set to reproduce the features of the bardic art of manaschy as accurately as possible in terms of dynamic nuances, articulation, performance tempo, metrorhythmic, and modal-intonational organization.
Based on his recordings, folklorist V. Krivonosov published an article "Melodies of the Epic 'Manas'" in the journal "Soviet Music" (1939), in which he characterized the melody of the epic and highlighted the most typical techniques of musical-performance interpretation.
A new stage in the recording and study of the music of the great and small epics is associated with the collecting and research activities of V. Vinogradov. In his first article dedicated to the epic "Manas," V. Vinogradov raised the question of serious study of the poetic content and musical language of the great epic, defined the status of the bard, characterized the main heroes of the epic, and the individual performing style of two leading contemporary manaschy — M. Musulmankulov and S. Orozbakov. At the same time, V. Vinogradov did not avoid the general mistake in assessing the variant of Sagymbay Orozbakov, which was a consequence of the dominance of anti-religious dogma. Apparently, for this reason, no sound recordings were made of Orozbakov, and his musical style remains unknown to us.
In his musical collection "100 Kyrgyz Songs and Melodies," published in 1956 in Moscow, V. Vinogradov included a large, rarely performed, and rich in recitative-intonational terms excerpt from the great epic titled "Almambet," which was recorded from the bard and scholar-folklorist Ibraim Abdrakhmanov.
In the book "Kyrgyz Folk Music," published in 1958 in Frunze, in articles and speeches dedicated to the Kyrgyz national epic, V. Vinogradov constantly expanded the scope of questions regarding the theory and history of the great and small epics. Based on a detailed intonational and rhythmic analysis of the melodies and verses of "Manas," he established four types of Kyrgyz folk recitative as a unified and flexible system of epic melodic style.
The book by V. Vinogradov "Musical Heritage of Toktogul" (Moscow, 1961) included two excerpts from dastans "Kurmanbek" and "Sarynji-Bekey," recorded from the akyn Alymkul Usenbaev. The recordings are brief: the first contains only a six-line excerpt, and the second — an eleven-line one. Both examples confirm the practice of performing works of small Kyrgyz epic with komuz accompaniment in the style of poetic recitative.
The baton of studying the Kyrgyz national epic has passed to the next generation of its collectors and researchers. Since 1957, a manas studies sector has been operating at the National Academy of Sciences. In 1990, an All-Union symposium on the problems of comprehensive study of the epic "Manas" took place in the capital of Kyrgyzstan. The transcription of the music and words of the great and small epics continues in the performances of various manaschy and dastanchy. Sound recordings stored in the Kyrgyz Radio Fund, in the State Archive of the Kyrgyz Republic, as well as those reproduced on gramophone records are being used for study. New recordings and transcriptions are being made. Thus, the manas scholar-philologist of the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic, Zh. Orozobekova, recorded a new version of the first part of the epic "Manas" performed by Shaabay Azizov.
The published two-volume encyclopedia "Manas" (Bishkek, 1995), the three-volume "Manas" in Kyrgyz and Russian (Moscow, 1884), and the initiated multi-volume edition of the epic "Manas" in the version of Sayakbay Karalaev (Bishkek, 1995) contain a number of articles on the musical style of the great epic.
