8 Thousand Lines of "The Tale of Manas" by M. Baidzhiev
Innovation of M. Baidzhiev
What dramatic elements did M. Baidzhiev transform in 'The Epic of Manas'? Action, characterized by activity, purposefulness, and density; conflict, defining the unity of action; "self-assertive" manifestation of characters through actions and direct speech of the characters. Naturally, this required a transformation of the epic form of 'Manas'. M. Baidzhiev practically abandoned repetitions — brief retellings of events preceding new episodes; increased the proportion of monological and dialogical speech; likened the compositional division of the text to stage episodes (acts, scenes, phenomena). As a result of the reduction and compression of the source text, its volume decreased several times. For comparison: the text of 'Manas', recorded from Sagynbai Orozbakov, consists of 180 thousand lines; from Sayakbay Karalaev — 84.5 thousand lines; from Bagysh Sazanov — 41 thousand lines. The text of 'The Epic of Manas' by M. Baidzhiev consists of 8 thousand lines.
M. Baidzhiev, making various changes to his version (plot, composition, interpretation of images, poetics), fully realizes the importance of historical continuity — an objective regularity of cultural development in society. Continuity and renewal in the literary process, the correlation between inherited and newly created, is characterized by the paired category of tradition and innovation. Tradition is the cultural and artistic experience of past eras, while innovation is the creative reinterpretation and reconstruction of what has been taken from predecessors. This is how M. Baidzhiev understands his mission, as evidenced by specific facts from his artistic practice.
M. Baidzhiev called his version of the epic 'Manas' a tale. A tale is a general generic name in folklore for narrative works of a historical and legendary nature. The literary tale, which M. Baidzhiev's work is, already inherently includes traditional figurative and stylistic properties of folklore. This is tradition. And the innovation lies in the fact that this genre is associated by the Russian reader with works of ancient Russian literature ('The Tale of the Kiev Heroes', 'The Tale of Mamay's Battle', 'The Tale of the City of Kitezh'), which typologically brings together different historical eras and monuments of artistic literature in the reader's perception (for example, 'Manas' and 'The Tale of Igor's Campaign').
It is known that monological speech plays an exceptionally important role in 'Manas'. At one time, Mukhtar Auezov, a well-known Kazakh writer and literary scholar, even attempted to classify types of speeches, which are presented as follows:
“Advisory speeches — at gatherings and councils (speeches of Manas and Almambet before the campaign); warlike exhortations (Manas's speech at the aasha); threatening speeches (Manas's messages to the seven khans); heartfelt speeches expressing remorse, sorrow (the famous speech of Almambet in 'Chon kazate', which ultimately turns into a personal memory, into an autobiography); testamentary speeches (through Koketey); friendly instructions, reproaches (speeches of Bakai, Koshoy, often addressed to Manas). In addition to these and other types of speeches that abound in the poem, there are simple conversations, jokes, and witticisms.”
(M. Auezov. Kyrgyz National Heroic Epic 'Manas').
About different versions of the epic "Manas"
