A Crimean Tatar variant of the Čora Batir epic

Seres, István (2010) A Crimean Tatar variant of the Čora Batir epic. Acta Orientalia, 63 (2). pp. 133-166. ISSN 0001-6446

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Abstract

Apart from the Edige epic, the story of Čora Batir is the best-known and most popular Nogay epic of Kipchak origin. Since the first publication of a version by the Russian Turcologist, I. Berezin (1862), a large number of variants, among them Nogay, Crimean and Dobrudjan Tatar, Kazak, Karakalpak, Kazan Tatar, Bashkir and Karachay-Balkar versions, have cropped up and been brought to light. An early variant of the epic was recorded by the Hungarian Turcologist, Ignác Kúnos, but it has remained in manuscript. He collected his material from Crimean Tatar informants in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp near Esztergom (Hungary) in 1915. The present work, published for the first time in print, contains the original Crimean Tatar text and its translation, supplied with an introductory study and annotations. The main value of the epic variant recorded by Kúnos lies in that its content and plot show close relationship with the earliest recorded Nogay texts.

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