Global Journal of Human-Social Science, A: Arts and Humanities, Volume 22 Issue 5

to specialized performers – professional oral musicians. In the past, among the Turkic peoples, it was a widespread custom to sing songs before the battle and tell an epic about the glorious deeds of their ancestors. So, in Turkmen dessans , before meeting with a strong enemy, heroes always play the dutar in order to attract patron spirits to the battlefield, which should help the hero during the battle. Hence the combination of the profession of singer and shaman, common in primitive society [4; 8]. The period of the early nomads became the time of the birth of epic storytelling itself, archaic tales appear, the beginnings of works of the heroic epic. The first examples of ancient Turkic literature are the Orkhon- Yenisei texts. They are inscriptions made in ancient Turkic, the so-called runic writing on stone steles, which are part of the complexes of burial structures erected along the Orkhon River , near the city of Ulan-Bator . The first information about Turkic runic inscriptions appeared at the beginning of the 18 th century. In 1894, the researcher V. Radlov made the first translation of the inscriptions dedicated to the Turkic ruler Kül-tegin [24, 8]. The era of runic writing in the ancient Turkic culture left works not only on stones, but also on paper. One of the oldest monuments is the ancient Uighur manuscript “The Tale of the Oguz Kagan” (or “Oguznama”), which tells about the origin of the Oguz tribes , the oldest ancestors of the Turkmens. “In their heroic epic, the Oguz – Turkmen tribes included, as a rule, materials of a genealogical nature – myths, legends and traditions about the first Oguz heroes, descendants of Oguzkhan ( Oguz-Kagan ), the legendary ancestor. This literature was designated by the term “ Oguzname” . It spread mainly by word of mouth” [12, 20]. “Classical Turkic-language literature appeared on the basis of other aesthetic ideas associated with Muslim culture, as a result of the penetration of Arab- Persian poetics into the Turkic language environment” [24, 18]. Examples of the heroic poetry of the Oghuz are contained in the dictionary of the Turkic language “Divan lugat at-Turk” by Mahmud Kashgari , compiled in 1072 – 1077. In an effort to get to know different Turkic dialects better, Mahmud Kashgari traveled around cities, villages and pastures and collected language material, on the basis of which he compiled his dictionary “Collection of Turkic words”. “Divan” is a valuable source on the languages, history and ethnography of the Turkic peoples. The world of the Turkic epic reached its heyday during the Mongol conquests in the 13 th – 14 th centuries. Along with Islam, a movement is born, called in the literature Sufism . “Sufism is not a single trend, it has absorbed many features from Christian monasticism, Buddhism, widespread in Central Asia, to Islam and Greek pantheism, which penetrated here through Syria and Iran. The main aspects of Sufism are asceticism (removal of a person from earthly affairs) and mystical pantheism (ecstatically enthusiastic merging with God)” [12, 107]. The Muslim preacher Sheikh Ahmed Yasawi (died in 1166) was a representative of Turkic Sufi poetry. Yasavi's work “Collection of Philosophical Sayings” is of a mystical and philosophical nature and expounds the dogmas of Islam. Bright scientific discoveries marked the period of the Middle Ages, which received the name “Muslim Renaissance” in Eastern culture [19, 7]. An outstanding monument of the medieval Oguz epic is the cycle of legends “The Book of My Grandfather Korkut”. Among the Turkmens, the cycle about Korkut is distributed under the name “Gorkut ata”. It consists of several chapters, each based on an alternation of prose and poetry sections. “Three modern Turkic-speaking peoples are ethnically and linguistically connected with the medieval Oguzes – Turkmens, Azerbaijanis and Turks. For all these peoples, the epic tales deposited in the “Book of Korkut” represent an artistic reflection of their historical past. This book is a record and literary processing of epic tales that were composed and transmitted among these peoples in the oral-poetic tradition from the 9 th to the 15 th centuries. This wonderful monument of ancient national culture is in its way the only reflection of the folk poetic creativity of the Turkic- speaking peoples in such a distant historical era” [9, 11]. The composition of the epic is attributed to Korkud. “With a kobza in hand, from people to people, a singer goes: which of the men is brave, which is unworthy, the singer knows. In “Kitab-i Korkud” the singer who sings songs is denoted by the term “ozan”. Korkud is the ideal ozan (bagshy)” [25, 17]. The epic “Gorogly” is widespread among many peoples of Central Asia and the Caucasus. “National versions have absorbed numerous historical events from the life of the Central Asian peoples, their final cyclization continued for several centuries” [16, 101]. The origin of the epic goes back to real historical events, which are subsequently overgrown with all kinds of fiction, which turns them into a legend. “The first information received about Koroglu speaks of his belonging to the Tekeli tribal group. This indication is of great interest in the sense that it encourages the study of the origin and path taken by this tribe. The ethnic characteristics of this group correspond exactly to the personality of the hero” [14, 12]. Barely emerging, the legend of Gorogly, thanks to its plot and the exceptional personality of the main character – the son of the grave, a poet-singer, a warrior, a native of the people's environment – began to be famous among many peoples of the East. Its distribution went beyond the boundaries of the territory that was its cradle, this exclusively Turkic theme spread in all directions. The legend spread in two ways: as a result of the movement of nomadic tribes who carried their Volume XXII Issue V Version I 12 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 © 2022 Global Journals A Turkmen Epos: Origin and Modern Conditions