Lyrics of Vladimir Nurov

Introduction. Within the genre paradigm of twentieth-century Kalmyk poetry, the folklore-derived one of curse (Kalm. kharal) used to be represented by few local and original samples that remained in the periphery of the literary process. The latter include poems by A. Suseev, M. Basangov, B. Sangadzhieva, D. Kugultinov to have been and yet to be examined in our articles. Goals. The paper aims to identify V. Nurov’s works clustering with the genre of curse, and consider the poetics of two poems — Well-Wish and Curse (Kalm. Йɵрǝл болн харал, 1973), I Cut the Black Tongue off (Kalm. Хар кел керчүлнәв, 1980) — in historical / literary, historical / functional, and comparative / typological aspects, as well as Russian translations of the second text. Results. The first poem has two versions slightly different in style. The principle of contrasting two folklore genres in this poem conveys worldviews and perceptions of the Oirat ancestors, their inclination to prioritize the spiritual over the material, when the good word was valued above all. In the second poem, the philosophemes of good and evil are actualized in the paradigm of the ancient rite that served, as ancestors believed, to annihilate negative effects of the harmful message. The poem I Cut the Black Tongue off (Kalm. Хар кел керчүлнәв) was translated by Yu. Neiman (1981) and V. Shoshin (1992), and is instrumental in showing how Kalmyk text’s form and content tend to be perceived by Russian translators in the perspective of imagology — ‘us and them’. Conclusions. The folklore tradition inherent to the curse genre in V. Nurov’s poems gets transformed in philosophical discourse, those reproduce neither formulas of curse nor any certain actions, despite the latter poem mentions the rite of ‘cutting off the black tongue’ never to describe it. The Kalmyk proverb about well-wishing and damnation introduced in the first poem becomes a starting point for the author’s reflections on good and evil

Antithesis · Art · Curse · Enlightenment · Epistemology · Folklore · Legend · Literature · Lyrics · Poetics · Poetry · Theology · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · History · Linguistics and Cultural Studies · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy