European studies of Barabin Tatar folklore: The role of investigations of the German scientist V.V. Radlov

Abstract

The article presents the analysis of V.V. Radlov's experience of Russian studies of Turkic languages based on recording and analysis of Barabin Tatar folklore. The authors draw parallels with later investigations of traditional culture of Barabin Tatars, underlying, that the investigations of V.V. Radlov became a starting point for further scientific works. The article presents the substantiation of Radlov's selection of Tatar as an object of research; it mentions, how many genres and what volume he managed to record. Alongside with that, the authors substantiate the urgent character of V.V. Radlov's investigations for folkloristic. Over the years, the authors themselves went to folklore-dialectological expeditions to the areas of compact settlement of Siberian Tatar; in this connection, they reasonably appeal to their own experience, which overlays the results, recorded by V.V. Radlov before. The evolutionary character of traditional folklore of Barabin Tatars, at present, the disappearing Tatar sub-ethnos, is traced. It gives reason to understand, how vital is the traditional Tatar culture in whole.