ИЗВЕСТИЯ СОИГСИ

The medieval Georgian manuscript “The Monument of the Eristavs”, or “The Chronicle of the Ksanian Eristavs”, contains a lot of information about the medieval history of the part of the modern Republic of South Ossetia. The first part of the “Chronicle”, composed by the monks of the Largvis monastery (early XVth century), reflects the events, which predate the time of their written record for more than 8-9 centuries. The “Chronicle” preserved the legend of the exodus of the family of the Eristavs from the northern part of Alania-Ossetia after an unsuccessful attempt to intercept power from the Tsarazons. The route of the expellees-resettlers is partly marked – the Zakka pass, or Sbajyftsag, and further to Edys – in the Upper Dvaletia, or Urstualta. The “Chronicle” indicates the places of temporary and permanent residence of the refugees’ colony in different parts of Dvaletia among the Dvals. Firstly, the leaders of the colony were called Bibiluri—Bibylta, by the senior prince’s name, and then Kvenipneveli, or Largveli, by the local name of the residence provided to them. The latter ones are fixed even with the addition of the acquired title – “Eristavi”. The first name (Bibylta) was preserved among the Ossetians, and the second – among Georgians (Sidamon-Eristavi). They entered the Georgian feudal structure as prominent representatives of the feudal nobility. At the places of residence of the immigrants, archaeologists discovered burials with characteristic elements of equipment of noble warriors – a belt with a set indicating a special status in the military hierarchy of the Alans. The deformed skulls found in the burials also point to Alans, whose artificial cranial deformation was widespread in the early Middle Ages as a social marker. After the approval of the Sidamon-Eristav’s power in the gorges of the Ksani River by the Eastern Georgian monarch, the newly-born Georgian feudal lords took active part in the military and political events that took place in Georgia in the following centuries. The Eristavs preserved the memory of their Ossetian «aristocratic» origin and were called in later times the Sidamon—Eristavi.

Keywords: Chronicle of the Eristavs, settlers, Sidamons, Tsarazons, Rostom, Bibil, citlosan, Largvis, Tskhradzma, belt set, Dvals, Alans, Ossetians.

The paper examines the reasons why the month of May (Nikkolæ) in the Alanian church-folk calendar was named in honor of St. Nicholas of Myra. In 1087, the relics of one of the most revered saints of the Orthodox East were transferred to the Italian city of Bari from Myra in Lycia (Asia Minor). Pope Urban II (1088-1099) established a special celebration in memory of this event since 9 May, 1089. It is presumed that the name of this month in the Alanian calendar is not honoring the memory of Patriarch Nikolai Mystic and, thus, is not the result of Alan’s relationship with the Catholic Church. Transfer of the relics of St. Nicholas of Myra in Lycia could have been initiated by the ruler of Alania, in agreement with the metropolit, for the reason of special reverence for the saint among the Alanian warriors. Alans, who visited Byzantium, knew the places of worship of St. Nicholas in Asia Minor and Italy; Alan mercenaries in the Byzantine expeditionary corps fought in 1156/57 in Southern Italy, in the cities of Bari and Brindisi. The convergence in church matters of Byzantium and the West at the end of the eleventh century temporarily promoted the spread of this celebration in the Eastern Christian world, among the Alans as well; the earliest marginal record in the Greek menology of this event, as a holiday, dates back to 1172. Summing up these observations the author considers that the memory of the transfer of the relics of St. Nicholas of Myra in Lycia could be fixed in the Alan church calendar between 1087 and 1172 as a result of direct contacts between the Alans and the Orthodox Greek population of Southern Italy.

Keywords: St. Nicholas of Myra in Lycia, church calendar, Alania, transfer of relics, Southern Italy, menology, cult of the saint.

The speedy processes of capitalization of all aspects of the North Caucasus public life arising in the course of bourgeois reforms put new challenges for the regional system of public education. The ideas of the government and the highest Caucasian administration determined the general contours and directions of the development of the educational process, oriented first of all at professional training of specialists able to work effectively in the different branches of rapidly developing industry and trade. The end of the Caucasian war and the transition to a strategy of “civil” development of the region created a background for forming here the system of public education assigned for different strata of the indigenous population. One of the leading positions in it were occupied by institutions of the lower and middle educational levels, where the general educational component was supplemented by professional, mainly vocational training. The first such educational institutions appeared in Ossetia. Their evolution was in line with educational reforms carried out by the Ministry of Public Education in 1860s and especially 1870s. On the other hand, public organizations and individuals took active part in the activities of these schools, providing financial and technical support both to the institutions and their students. Due to public and private initiatives new schools were also opened adding the state educational institutions providing vocational training. The vocational schools in Vladikavkaz, which were complemented by vocational courses and special departments at the lower schools, were the lower and middle levels of the regional educational system. But, in spite of necessity of such schools, they could not fully satisfy the growing educational demands of the population of Ossetia. In these circumstances the public support partly helped resolving the contradictions between an ability of the regional educational system and educational demands of the local population. The subject of analysis in the proposed article is exactly the processes of formation of vocational education in post-reform Ossetia and the role of public initiative in them.

Keywords: post-reform Ossetia, vocational education, Mountain school, vocational schools, vocational courses, educational reforms, public initiative.

The article is devoted to historical and economic analysis of the book “Articles on Cooperation” by Andrei Vasilievich Baev, representative of the Ossetian scientific intellectuals of the early twentieth century. The book is a synthesis of a number of journalistic and scientific articles of the author on the formation of various forms of cooperative organizations in the mountain societies of the North Caucasus. Cooperation was understood by A.V. Baev as the future effective part of Terek region as an essential component of the market relations. The author regarded cooperatives as a way of mobilizing internal forces for revitalizing and modernizing the economy of the Northern Caucasus, as a powerful tool for stimulating activity of the mountain labor masses that are the basis of the civil society. Cooperation was considered by the author as a variant of the system transformation of highlanders’ traditional production, turning it into the modern sector of the Russian economy. The path of cooperation gave chance to avoid acute contradictions and conflicts inherent in the mechanism of initial accumulation of capital, to avoid the dramatic conflict, considering economic interests of the working force. Baev highlighted competitive advantages of cooperation within the framework of a market economy, urban and rural, in cooperation with municipal organs and zemstvo. He attempted to identify best organizational form of credit cooperatives for the mountain peoples of rural Bank. “Articles on Cooperation” demonstrate the author's erudition, great scientific knowledge of the entire modern literature on cooperation, contain original and promising ideas. The book is a major contribution to the theory of cooperation. A.V. Baev’s publications played a role in the spread of cooperative ideas, informing the public of the North Caucasus on foreign and Russian cooperative practice. Scientific heritage of A.V. Baev deserves thorough study.

Keywords: North Caucasus, Terek region, economic development, cooperation, Ossetian intellectuals, rural bank.

The article deals with the biography and activities of Saukudz Kavdynovich Guriev, who was an outstanding representative of the scientific intelligentsia of North Ossetia of the early 20th century, an educator, teacher, philologist, a collector of Ossetian oral folklore, he made a great contribution to the development of national culture, the Ossetian language, its orthography, grammar, terminology. October 2017 is the 140^th anniversary of Guriev. Enlightenment as the main mission of the Ossetian intelligentsia was realized through founding of schools, teaching, research, translation and publishing activities, active participation in charitable and cultural-educational institutions to support education, culture and the formation of national identity. In addition to the main pedagogical and literary activity G.K. Guriev was actively engaged in enlightenment. He is the author of several textbooks on the Ossetian language for elementary school in Ossetia. Guriev contributed greatly to the preservation of the cultural heritage of the Ossetians. Over the years, through records from the old-timers, he assembled a large collection of works by the Ossetian oral folklore, Nart legends, tales, proverbs, and sayings. Materials of the funds of the Scientific archive of the North Ossetian Institute for Humanitarian and Social Studies, brought into scientific circulation, have greatly clarified his biography, facts of his educational and literary activities. The article contains data that will promote better and updated research of the national intelligentsia of North Ossetia. The study of the history of individual people, local events and phenomena in specific historical factors is the basis of the engineering of the overall processes and helps to interpret the socio-cultural field in the region as part of a socio-cultural history of Russia.

Keywords: Russia, Caucasus, North Ossetia, the scientific intelligentsia, education, public and literary activities.

This publication is devoted to the problems of studying an Islamic component of Ossetians’ ethnic religion. Its syncretism, which at different times was repeatedly emphasized by a number of authors, assumes existence of Islamic elements which are found in various spheres of national culture: in life, language and ceremonial practice, in writing and oral national folklore. Nevertheless, despite the known revival of theological researches and growth of their relevance during the recent period, the problem of Islamic influences has been almost completely dropped out of the scope of interests of the scientists. The first part of the present article contains arguments accounting for the reasons of the mentioned paradox consisting in almost total absence of research interest in the problem in the situation of the increasing popularity of ethnoreligious subject. Further the historical specifics of Islamic influence on development of ethnos in general, in particular on religious and ceremonial practice are defined and analyzed. Role of Islam in conserving ethnic tradition is separately emphasized and the Islamic-Ossetian parallels in the context of transformation of mythological outlook of ethnos into religious are brought to light and investigated. In addition, the article defines aspects of Muslim influence on the religious and language culture of Ossetians and its traces both in the Narts’ epos, and in the oral legends which were not included into Nartiada. The task of the religious scholar requires the striving for an objective assessment of his own and “alien” religion. The article also raises the problem of responsibility of historians to future generations of scientists.

Keywords: Islam, ethnic religion of Ossetians, reasons for lack of research interest, syncretism, national Islam, mythological outlook, religious outlook, religious transformations.

The speech-introducing verb ‘gikh’ (Mong. ‘gekhe’) plays a very important role in Mongolic languages; and due to expressed polysemanticity, its participial forms can act not only as link-verbs within complex sentences but also as functional words with other functions. The article examines quantitative data, meaning and functions of the speech-introducing (‘dicendial’) verb ‘gikh’ with evidence from texts of the Kalmyk heroic epic of Djangar. The research is based on 28 available songs enlisted in the Kalmyk National Corpus database and processed with TextAnalyzer program. The dicendial verb ‘gikh’ has 80 grammatical forms most frequently used of which are the following: gij (gijl), giγӓd, giv, gidg, giv (givl), ginӓ (ginӓl). Verbal forms of ‘gikh proper and its participial forms can – due to polysemanticity – act not only as link-verbs within complex sentences but also as functional words with other functions. Being changeable functional words, the diverse forms of the verb largely contribute to formation of lexical-grammatical meanings of words they are related to, introduce and stress various modal aspects which are numerous enough.

Keywords: epic “Djangar”, verb, dicendial verb, conjunctions, quantitative analysis.

One of the most meaningful and wide-spread phenomenon in the field of semantics of words and, in general, semantic systems of any language is polysemantic nature of words. Emerging concepts and phenomena stimulate taxonomic activity of a language, and quite often they can be designated by an already existing word in the semantics of which the common features of these concepts and phenomena intersect. The most susceptible to the formation of new values is a group of the somatic terms, the layer of the vocabulary denoting human and animal body parts. This group of words is one of the most common objects of comparative historical, structural, linguistic, and culture studies, because of its universal and deep-rooted character. This article is devoted to the semantic structure of the polisemantic words 'sær/head’ and ‘zærdæ/heart’ in Digor variant of the Ossetian language. The work describes the main characteristics of the meanings of these words that create the fundamental basis for analysis of the multiple meanings of particular words. The semantic structure of the lexemes is defined and their primary and secondary meanings are formulated. Based on the characteristics the componential analysis of polisemantic ‘sær / head’ and ‘zærdæ / heart’ is held. The analysis revealed that, in the course of its development and transformation of their primary meanings quite a number of figurative (secondary) values have evolved. The metaphoric, metonymic or functional changes result in acquisition of new meanings. The semantic structure of polisemantic sær/head and zærdæ / heart is diverse in its contents. This accounts for the fact that they are components of many idiomatic combinations, phraseological units and complex words.

Keywords: Ossetic language, digor Ossetian language variant, vocabulary, semantics, lexical-semantic language system, somatizmy, polisemanty.

Different languages have different set of forms of mood, depending on the modal value. In the Indo-European languages, which include the Iranian group, mood systems mostly coincide, this holds true for the most Iranian languages as well. In Ossetian there are four moods. In the modern Ossetian language the conditional and optative mood tend to be used indiscriminately, which led to the confusion of their forms. However, the process of merging of these moods has not been completed. In terms of the similarities of the moods, among the Iranian languages Ossetian is most similar to the Afghan language. In the Afghan language the optative and the conditional moods are also mixed and close, and refer to one common conventionally desirable mood. One of the most interesting forms of the subjunctive mood in the Ossetian and Afghan languages is a potential form, which is not found in most Iranian languages. The category of mood is related to the modality. In general, we can state the strong similarity of the system of moods in Ossetian and other Iranian languages, which goes back to the same prototypes. In Ossetian the category of modality is studied insufficiently. Modality in Ossetian is associated with impersonal verbs. The category of mood in the Ossetian language has not undergone any influence from the neighboring languages and has preserved archaic forms of mood and modality. Despite some ambiguity, the relationship of the forms and inclinations of the Ossetian language and other Iranian languages is clearly traceable.

Keywords: Iranian languages, the Ossetian language, verb, mood, modality.

The Ossetians, who descended from the ancient Alans, preserved their cultural heritage in the “Nart’ kadags (sagas), which were shared by other peoples with whom these nomads had contact and in whose communities they were dispersed and subsequently assimilated. Disguised by different narrative traditions, this common heritage is still identifiable in certain parts of the world. Comparative analysis of the Middle English poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” from the Arthurian cycle and two of the Nart sagas “Nart Batradz and the Giant with a Colored Beard” and “Nart Soslan and Tar’s Sons” suggest that these plots trace back to stories carried by the ancient Alans, who transmitted the story to the Normans where it developed into one of the Arthurian traditions and was preserved by the Alans’ descendants in the Caucasus region. In this paper we investigate sequential motifs in the British and Ossetian stories, namely, (1) feast, (2) audacious alien horse-rider, (3) voluntary beheading, (4) beheading game, (5) severing the opponent’s head with his own weapon, (6) carrying away the dismembered head, and (7) seduction game. The number and the nature of these parallels suggests that their similarity does not arise from multiple acts of independent creation (polygenesis) but rather from a single source (monogenesis), one that was carried across Eurasia in Roman times by the Alano-Sarmatians.

Keywords: Arthuritan cycle, Narts’ sagas, Anglo-Saxons, Alans, Ossetians, Celts, Middle English, the Ossetian language, the Green Knight, decapitation game, cephalophore, chromatic synctretism.

In Russia since the 20s of the 20^th century, much work has been done to collect, publish and study the folklore of its peoples. In this article we are discussing the folklore expedition to Balkaria (1924) by the famous Ukrainian folklorist-musicologist, collector of folk songs, conductor of choral chapels Mikhail Petrovich Gaidai. During this expedition he recorded about 100 musical notes of Balkar songs. The materials collected by him in this expedition formed the basis of his two articles: “On the Balkarian folk song” and “Journey to Balkaria”.The manuscripts of these articles and music notations of M.P. Gaidai “About the Balkarian folk song” are kept in the archives of the Institute of Art Criticism, Folklore and Ethnology, M.F. Rylsky National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The manuscript of Gaidai’s “Balkarian folk melodies” contains 108 musical notes of songs and jokes. Of these, 96 are Balkarian; 10 – Kabardian; 2 – Kirghiz melodies, recorded by him in the Stavropol region. The value and significance of the musical notes of the songs of Gaidai is enhanced by the fact that he gives them a subtext in the original language. Gaidai by nature possessed not only an absolute pitch and a subtle sense of harmony and rhythm, but also drew well. This is evidenced by the drawings he made to his ethnographic article “Journey to Balkaria”, which undoubtedly increase the scientific and ethnographic value of his records.

Keywords: Karachais, Balkarians, folklore, folk songs and jokes variant, subtexts, phonograph.

The article considers the problem of a genre originality of Karachay-Balkarian national fairy-tales, which have been collected and published by more than one generation of researchers since the end of the 19^th century. In the present work the history of recording, popularising and studying the given version of folklore prose is briefly traced, it is marked, that representatives of advanced Russian intelligentsia E.Z. Baranov, N.P. Tulchinsky, etc. played an important role in this sphere. A great contribution of the Hungarian orientalist and philologist Wilhelm Prele is highlighted, who pioneered recording and publishing of Karachay-Balkarian national fairy-tales in their native language. Still, originally scientific research of the epos of the given ethnos began only in the second half of the 20^th century, when forwarding activity of the KBSRI and KChSRI staff members allowed to create archival funds, and the works of A.I. Karaeva, A.Z. Kholaev and F.A. Urusbieva later appeared, thus laying the foundations of Karachay-Balkarian fairy-tale study. Also in the research, proceeding from the national empirical material, intragenre classification is carried out. Along with traditionally reviewed fairy-tales about animals, magic and household, as independent genre versions, mythological, magic-heroic and heroic fairy-tales are also considered. It is marked, that the most part of texts is made of household and magic fairy-tales. Due attention is paid also to a national terminological designation of a folk fairy-tale. At studying composite features of considered material the basic accent is laid on an introduction, which in Karachay-Balkarian fantastic tradition, unlike oral verbal culture of other people of North Caucasus, is very developed and has poetic character. Besides in research the comparative analysis of some motives of Karachay-Balkarian national fairy-tale and works of Indo-Iranian, Turkic, Caucasian, Slavic and other peoples is conducted.

Keywords: fairy-tale, myth, genre, motive, plot, borrowed elements, national originality.

Mythological songs-prayers play an important role in the oral folk art of the Ossetians. Songs-prayers were performed on holidays, at a feast table, at weddings, on the road. The origins of mythological prayer songs go back to traditional table prayer and differ only in the presence of rhythm and rhyme in the text. In mythological songs-prayers it is possible to single out a special category of songs that sound both as hymns and as prayers, differing from the latter by an unfolding plot and finished composition. The semiosis of the narrative of mythological songs-prayers has never been an object of scientific research, which did not allow one to unequivocally determine their place in the narratologic analysis of texts. In investigating mythological songs it is necessary, first of all, to distinguish their "morphology", structure, in order to more presicely isolate meaningful significant components. The description of the principles of communication of mythological narratives is based on the delineation of plot structures and the differentiation of the semiosis of motives. Depending on the direction of the genre strategy, mythological songs of the Ossetians are divided into prayer, calendar-ritual, ritual, incantatory and etiological. In turn, prayer songs on formal grounds can be divided into songs-hymns (plotless) and plot. Songs-spells are attached to prayer songs. Prayer songs are distinguished from spell songs by a detailed plot and composition, as well as volume. The element of the plot / spell is present in the semantics and prayer songs. Mythological song originally played the role of plot / spell. Subsequently, the mythological song has evolved from utilitarian thinking to mythological images appealing to mythological images as an artistic device.

Keywords: mythological songs of Ossetians, semiosis, narrative, songs-hymns, songs-prayers, conspiracy, incantations, prayer songs, celestials, zades, duags.

The goal of the article is to present the results of a comparative study of two manuscripts, each of them an example of the modern folklore tradition in Vologda region. Those manuscripts were created independently approximately at the same time by people of the same age who wished to learn how to play a traditional Russian harmonica. Both manuscripts were created for personal use by Vladimir Chugunnikov from Belosersky district and Sergey Molodov from Ust-Kubinsky districr. Both men came up with their own notation system that differed from the other in its sound organization, composition and rhythm. The study helped to identify and outline some fundamental principles behind ethnic notation of instrumental music, preconditions of the emergence of handwritten tutorials, their functions, characteristics of their structure and content. As a result of a comparative study the following tendencies were identified: numeric tablature at the base of the manuscripts, a reflection of local features in both composition and rhythm, commentary as system element of ethnic notation. The study was based on a material gathered by the author of the article and her colleagues in folklore expeditions that took place in Belosersky and Ust-Kubinsky districts of Vologda region and were held by The Rimsky-Korsakov Saint-Petersburg State Conservatory during the period 2003 to 2006. All the illustrative material is stored in the fund of the A.M. Mekhnetsov’s Folklore and Ethnographic Center of The Rimsky-Korsakov Saint-Petersburg State Conservatory.

Keywords: еthnic notation, instrumental music, modern folklore tradition, manuscript, traditional Russian harmonica, harmonica player, Vologda region, comparative study.

Readers are invited to the reediting of the article of academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences I.A. Guldenstadt (1745—1781) “Geographical and Historical News about the New Borderline of the Russian Empire, Carried out between the River Terek and the Sea of Azov”, first published in 1779 in low-circulation scientific journal of the Academy of Sciences “A Historical and Geographical Menology” and republished in 1790, in the same edition of the Academy of Sciences a Collection of essays selected from “Menologies” (“Mesyatseslov”) for different years, is now practically inaccessible to the researchers. Academician I.A. Guldenstadt in 1770—1773. examined the North Caucasus and Georgia with the expedition of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, during this expedition he was keeping diary, travel notes, but did not publish the results of his research of the Caucasus – they were prepared for publication and published by some of his fellow academicians P.S. Pallas and H.-J. Klaproth. During the scientist’s lifetime only one article came to light to the attention of the readers. It is of particular interest because, as was rightly pointed out by such an authoritative researcher of the history of Russian academic of Caucasian studies as M.A. Polievktov, Guldenstedt “...opens a new division in the history of the Russian science of the Caucasian studies of the eighteenth century, the object of which is the entire Caucasus from the Black sea to the Caspian” (3, 123). To the modern reader in the article by I.A. Guldenstadt, of course, of prior interest is not the story of the construction of the “New frontier line of the Russian Empire, carried out between the river Terek and the sea of Azov”, nor the characteristics of “Novoselitsy border areas”, fortress of Catherine, Pavlovsk, Mar, George, Alexander and Stavropol, but rather information gathered by Guldenstadt “on the border nations between” – about Adygs, Abkhaz, Karachay and the Balkars, Nogais. This information – with all their features, inaccuracies and even some fabulousness today are of undoubted interest as one of the earliest evidence of a European being in the Russian service, and first-time visitor to the unknown region of the Caucasus.

Keywords: academician I.A. Guldenstadt, first expedition of the Imperial Academy of Sciences to the Caucasus, Circassians, Balkars, Karachai, Nogai.

Texts of Ossetian folklore, recorded by G.A. Dzagurov, are of great interest for specialists, because they were recorded from the best narrators during a large time interval. The text commented in the present article, which is stored in the Scientific Archive of the North-Ossetian Institute of Humanitarian and Social Studies, by its genre affiliation, is a legend (fabulat) and is published for the first time. It includes two independent characters – Elia and Huari˗Uacelia, who, according to a number of researchers, are variants of the same sacred image of the Thunderer of the Ossetian traditional faith. At the same time, in the Ossetian (Digorian) tradition, the division of “powers” between Elia and Wacilla is stated; Wacilla is the patron of the harvest, Elia ˗ Thunderbolt (T.A. Khamitsaeva) – which, in fact, is reflected in the published text of the legend “Eliai Furth (Son of Elia)”. The legend has an edifying and etiological character. It talks about new ways of establishing life, in which it is impossible not to work, given to people with sacred images of the Ossetian traditional faith. As for the functioning of the designated sacred images in other genres of folklore at the present stage, for example, in oral stories about the sanctuaries dedicated to Elia and Wacilla, the narrators consider these names to be variants of the name of the same sacral image. The publication of the text of the legend contributes to clarifying the semantics of the sacred images of the Ossetian traditional faith and the characters of Ossetian folklore: Elia and Wacilla.

Keywords: legend, fable, Ossetian traditional faith, sacral image, Elia, Wacilla.

The letter of the Chechen writer and public figure of the last century Halid Dudayevich Oshaev to his Ossetian colleague Hadji Murad Magometovich Muguev is well-known in Chechnya and Ingushetia. It is rather widely reproduced by some web resources and is cited by professional literary critics and historians. This letter, as follows from its composition and contents, was the answer to the letter of H.-M. Muguev, the readers could have guessed the contents of the latter only from the excerpts (though profuse), which H.D. Oshayev cites for polemical purposes. Here we publish for the first time the full text of this previous letter of Hadji Murad Muguev, as well as Halid Oshaev’s first letter, which he regretted not “to leave a copy of”, “to show Muguev”, where he “distorted” “his thoughts” (the documents have been discovered in K.L. Khetagurov’s Ossetian Literature Museum). Now we obviously have the full correspondence of Halid Oshaev and Hadji Murad Muguev, which is of interest both from the scientific point of view and from its ethical and psychological content, which reflected important collisions of public consciousness in the mid-20^th century. Both writers in a rather outspoken and uncompromising form debate on the personality of General A.P. Ermolov (the direct reason for the discussion was the image of the general in the historical novel “The Wild Terek” by Hadji Murad Muguev) and his role in the destinies of the peoples of the North Caucasus, and, in this connection, the nature of the national policy in the Russian Empire and in the Soviet Union and the national (mountain peoples) dramas of the XXth century.

Keywords: Hadji Murad Magometovich Muguev, Halid Dudayevich Oshaev, “The Wild Terek”, General Ermolov, novel, letter, Chechens, Ingushs, Dagestanis, Ossetians.

In the review of the monograph by the candidate of philological sciences, senior researcher of the V.I. Abaev North-Ossetian Institute for Humanitarian and Social Studies M.V. Darchieva “Mythopoetic chronotope in Ossetian epic texts”, the relevance and multidimensional significance of the presented work are substantiated. The work under review contains a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the issues of the mythopoetic chronotope in epic texts: “Narta epos”, “Legends of Tsaritsiata”, “Legends of Daredzanta”. In the process of research, the author reveals the mythological component of the basic philosophical categories “time” and “space” and reveals their plot-forming function. The monograph is the result of a planned research work of the scientist, which assumes both a thorough study of the literature published in this direction, and the development of unique theoretical generalizations.Thus, according to the detailed historiography of the question presented by Darchieva, it is revealed that these space-time categories, united by the physiologist A.A. Ukhtomsky in the term “chronotope”, are firmly entrenched in the conceptual apparatus of philological science through the studies by M.M. Bakhtin. At the same time, it seems important that this term was introduced into the scientific circulation of modern Ossetian studies by the author of the monograph under review, which is a significant contribution to the development of the theory, methodology and practice of the Ossetian folklore. Chronotopic approach to the Ossetian folklore for the first time applied by Darchieva, contributes to a significant expansion of the research space and a new comprehension of the plot basis of epic texts.

Keywords: mythopoetic chronotope, “Narta epos”, “Legends of Tsaritsiata”, “Legends of Daredzanta”, narta stydies, space, time, astral motifs, numeric symbols, temporal phraseology.

The publication is devoted to the 85^th anniversary of a prominent Russian ethnologist and caucasologist, professor L.A. Chibirov. It traces the fruitful research activities of the scientist in the field of ethnology, source study and nartology.