The Poetics of Folk Love Songs of the Crimean Tatars

Abstract

The author of the article investigates the poetics, genre, and style structure of the folk love songs of the Crimean Tatars. Based on the works by such folklorists as Oleksiy Olesnytsky, Asan Refatov, Yahya Sherfedinov, Fevzi Aliyev, Ilyas Bakhshysh and others, but primarily on authentic texts, she allocates two main genres of folk lyrics of the Crimean Tatars, in which love motifs dominate. The most ancient is maqam. Characteristic of these lyrical compositions, a deep dramatic quality dictates a special emotional expressiveness. It is clearly shown with the help of exquisite figuration, such as wide chants in singing. Philosophical meditation is also a typical feature of these folk works. The other lyric genre, tiurkiu, is very widespread in the folk songs of Crimean Tatars, especially from the 19th century to our time. It covers laconic songs, which have easy lively rhythms. In the love tiurkiu, apart from the most widespread songs about unhappy love, it is also possible to distinguish two more genres: songs about overcoming alarms and troubles and songs about happy love. The perceptive description of the sadness and happiness of love, expresses a wide range of feelings, delicate shades of mood, an abundance of outstanding intonation, picturesque metaphors and symbolic concentration of the laconic imagery, the dynamic development of the lyrical plot, where the shapes of the narrative plot can often be guessed, the coherence and liveliness of the composition (line, retrospective, mosaic), the system of expressive repetitions, which reinforces the ornamental quality and, simultaneously, the clear coherence of the narration, the sophisticated sound and rhythmic organization: these are the main peculiarities of the poetic world of the Crimean Tatar folk love song.