| Abstrakt: |
A heroic epic contains general concepts of the world and universe creation; life of human beings in the Middle World; of gods; and inhabitants of the Under World that are objectified in the epic. Epic space unfolds horizontally and vertically depending on the movement of the hero. Thus, the concept of epic space includes the concepts of «road» and «way». Epic text reflects natural and geographical realities of ancient times expressed by certain toponymic groups (rivers, lakes, steppe, woods, mountains, parts of the world, etc.), besides it contains information of imaginary space which is part of epic fiction. The images of natural and landscape environment take an important place in the worldview of the Sakha people. Natural landscape is considered as a source of both vital resources and constant threats to human existence. The elements of landscape that have referents should be treated as the most significant landscape objects. The demonic origin of these landscape objects reflects in the flattering addition totoponyms 'Khotun-Ebeh' either ground (road, mountain, valley, and abyss) or water (river, lake, ocean, swamp) that reveal an instinctive fear and respect of the natural forces, e.g. Saidiliki Ebeh Khotun - Saidiliki lake. «Khotun - [ho'tun] - a title of an honoured lady; a landlady; a wife. 'Эбэ' (e'beh) - 'grandmother')». Dangerous locations where the primeval horror is localized often become sacral places. The water system of the Sakha epic Olonkho includes four 'baigals' - oceans corresponding to four world oceans, rivers, seas and lakes. All these hydrosphere components are by no means positive. They are illustrated as 'cold', 'frightening', 'deadly', even 'evil' 'with stunning white clouds above'. The Sakha as former steppe nomads saw threat and felt a natural distrust of huge water basins. Along with mythical objects, there are also physical ones that often take on mythical significance. Orientation to specific geographical locations might be connected with the tendency to plausibility and is considered to be one of the marks of epic historicism. Research methods are linguo-culturological and cartographic. This research is supported by the RSF project "Landscape ontology: semantics, semiotics, and geographic modeling" #15-18-20047. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
