“The epic here edited and translated was recorded from a Karakalpak epic singer, Jumabay-jïraw Bazarov, in Shomanay in Karakalpakistan in 1993. Karakalpakistan is a province in Uzbekistan” (15). Thus begins Karl Reichl’s masterful presentation of Edige and his important contribution to the ever-increasing number of modern-day oral epics textualized by Western scholars for Western audiences in accordance with the most rigorous and up-to-date criteria for such a project. This book should become a standard point of reference for all investigators of oral epic, not only those who focus on Central Asia. I here summarize Reichl’s initial explanatory “essay.”
In this first half, Reichl thoroughly contextualizes the material he collected. After an introductory chapter 1 in which Reichl defends classifying the prosemetric Edige as an oral and heroic epic, chapter 2 presents the tale’s historical background. We are introduced to the Golden Horde, one of the four “successor realms,” as it were, to Genghis Khan’s empire, and to Edige himself. Although an emir and not a khan, Edige was the de facto leader of the Golden Horde from 1395-1419 and even today is considered the founder of the Noghay Horde, “one of the various realms and khanates into which the Golden Horde dissolved in the fifteenth century” (29). Chapter 3 surveys the epics about Edige in four other Turkic languages: Noghay, Kazakh, Tatar, and Bashkir. In each case, Reichl provides a synopsis of at least one previously textualized version of the epic and notes the continuity and diversity in the story line of texts in the same language. Such a survey allows one to extrapolate a story line common to the versions of Edige in all four traditions. Chapter 4 focuses on versions of Edige in Karakalpak. Reichl first catalogues the eleven other known manuscripts of the epic in Karakalpak and introduces us to the singer Jumabay-jïraw Bazarov before providing a detailed synopsis of both the recorded text transcribed and translated in this volume and another Karakalpak version of the poem written down in 1903. Such collation reveals prominent similarities between the two poems (a degree of rigidity characteristic of the other Karakalpak versions as well) and suggests “a fairly rigorous manner of transmission” (72).
Chapter 5 looks more closely at the question of transmission. Reichl first queries the impact of the performances of Edige by so-called qissa-xan who use a text as (at the very least) a prompt in performance. A comparison of Karakalpak and Uzbek qissa with the purely orally-transmitted renditions of the poem (regardless of language) demonstrates that “in the case of Edige the influence of a written or written/oral tradition like that of the xalfa and qissa-xan on the oral epic tradition is slight if not nil” (80). Reichl then suggests that the continuity in some Karakalpak versions of Edige stems from “the fact that professional singers acquired their repertoire in the course of an intensive training period with a master singer” (82). Focusing on five singers (including Jumabay-jïraw) who could claim descent from the same master singer, Reichl delineates the similarities in their handling of three different moments in the epic. The scenes reveal a variable but marked rigidity. Of particular interest is the recognition scene between Edige and his son Nuradin: one cannot attribute the rigidity of the scene to its being a type-scene (it is not a type-scene) but rather to its being learned by a singer as a unique and required part of the epic. Reichl closes the chapter by stressing the importance to the Karakalpak singer of “memory and exact verbal recall” (96); indeed, “typical scenes…are present in the epic, but they are on the whole in the minority” (93).
Chapter 6 attempts to discern elements in the story of Edige that might pre-date those found only in Karakalpak texts, that is, narrative components of the story that existed “when the various clans and tribes making up the composition of the Karakalpaks were still part of the Golden Horde and the Noghay Horde, in other words the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries” (103). In all Turkic language versions of the epic one finds Baba Tükli, an ancestral figure who helps the hero, and Sïpïra-jïraw, an aged singer who advises the khan in a speech that might be “one of the oldest parts of the epic, perhaps even one of the core elements of the narrative” (111). The persistence of these two figures reflects an interest in origins that itself clarifies the project of this national epic. Chapter 7 first explores the accretion of mythic and folkloric tropes and motifs onto the “undeniable roots of the epic in history” (117). For instance, the lawsuits that Edige resolves conform to classic folktale patterns as does his encounter with a giant; more generally, Edige has numerous attributes of the hero found in tales told the world over. Next, after commenting on the uneven length of different episodes in the poem, Reichl turns to the differences between the prose passages and the verse passages. The sung verse passages for the most part contain “speeches and dialogues, uttered in the course of a confrontation between two protagonists” (129); the spoken “prose passages either act as narrative links between the verse passages or as narrative units in their own right, filling in background information and introducing a new move in the story” (130). The verse passages evince a combination of “traditional lines, even repetitions, and singular words and phrases” (133). The next section of the chapter, contending that “[i]n the case of oral poetry it must therefore seem problematic to focus exclusively on the words of a poem” (136), discusses the syllabic meter that the singer uses, the “four performance modes of verse in the epic” (136), and the alliteration, assonance, and rhyme that characterize the verse passages.
Chapter 8 confronts directly the challenges of creating a performance edition. Reichl thoroughly defends his decisions to present the original language text in standard Karakalpak orthography and to document in the edition only some of the most salient paralinguistic features of the performance. The reader is thus told not only what tune the poet was playing at a particular moment, but also when he switched from singing to recitation or when he stopped for a sip of tea. (The accompanying CD gives a better sense of what the performance sounded and looked like.) Chapter 9 examines the music of the performance in further detail. The singer uses “five performance modes: narrating, declaiming, narrating-declaiming, singing, and singing in a recitative” and “four distinct tunes” (166). Reichl then explains each of the four melodies and lists where they appear in the text. The chapter closes with a salutary reminder of the importance of music to such a performance: “texts destined for oral delivery must not only be read but must also be heard” (177). This “introduction,” then, provides nearly all the information one could want about this poem and its poet. A slightly thicker description of what transpired during the actual recording would have been desirable, as would have clarification of the assertion that a supplement in which Reichl provides the ending of a version of the poem recorded from the same singer in 1986 makes for “a more complete text” (57).
The remainder of the book presents the original language text of the poem and then the English translation. The poem is a great yarn: first we follow Edige and then his son Nuradin as they grow up and accomplish a variety of trying tasks; the final third of the poem tells of how the reunited pair takes vengeance on their tormentors and eventually becomes the ruling house of the Noghay. A giant, a 360 year-old bard, conniving courtiers—all make for an enjoyable tale. Helpfully, the translation contains all of the same information regarding, e.g., performance mode, melody, and tea drinking that is found in the original language text. Black and white pictures of the bard as he performed are scattered here and there throughout this part of the book. Two final sections provide additional notes cued to particular concerns in the text and translation. The accompanying CD presents several audio extracts from different parts of the performance and one extended video extract.
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[Review length: 1362 words • Review posted on April 30, 2008]