Song genres of traditional folklore of the Dargin people: ideological-aesthetic and artistic uniqueness

Abstract

The subject of this research is the key genres of song folklore of the Dargin people – one of the ethnoses of Dagestan, which includes such Akushin, Kaitag, Kubachin, Mekegin, Tsudakhar, and others. An attempt is made to examine genre diversity of the Dargin people traditional poetic folklore, describe the forms of existence of specific genres, determine their ideological-aesthetic and artistic content, trace their evolution and transformation, as well as characterize the poetics. The goal of this work consists in demonstration of genre diversity of the song folklore of the Dargin people, its national specificity, artistic uniqueness and forms of existence. In the course of this research, the author applies the method of scientific analysis of theoretical literature on the topic, comparative-typological and descriptive-analytical methods, including observation, interpretation and comparison, which allows giving philological assessment of the text, reveal folk poetic means of expression. The scientific novelty lies in establishment of the fact that some of the genres under consideration still exist, but have undergone transformation. In a number the Dargin Districts, such as the rural localities of Harbuk, Urkarah, Madzhalis, Kubachi, Usisha, etc., texts of ritual poetry that have been previously performed by the adults, now shifted into the repertoire of children's folklore; multiple wedding songs – from ritual folklore to the category of love lyricism, and are performed mostly at youth parties and festivities. Lamentations were subjected to the influenced of Muslim religion, and now often feature the appeals to Allah to bless with patience and mercy, etc. Ballades in the folklore of the Dargin people also experiences certain genre changes: tragedy and drama of the situation fade away, and the ballades grow into the type of lyrical song of family, life or love content.