POTANIN, Grigorii N.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Kazak-kirgizskiye i altaiskiye predaniya, legendy i skazki ("Kazakh-Kyrgyz and Altai Myths, Legends and Tales"). An offprint of this survey of the fables of the Altai, compiled by a famous Russian expert on Inner Asia, Grigorii Nikolyayevich Potanin (1835-1920). Potanin and his colleagues recorded these narratives by interviewing Kazakh and Kyrgyz informants. The stories reflect a literary tradition which was largely oral and vulnerable to disappearance under Russian and then Soviet rule.The legends are recounted in simple Russian prose, and extensive quotations of Kazakh and Kyrgyz folk poetry are given in Cyrillic script. They reflect the diversity of the Mongol, Turkic and Islamic influences that came together in the Altai, and they concern the history of Genghis Khan, the origin of the Kazakh-Kyrgyz people, the legend of Er-Töştük, the story of Solomon, and animal fables derived from Indic sources.Potanin studied many languages in the field, including those of the Yugur, on which he published a glossary in collaboration with the Turkologist Vasilii Radlov. In addition to exploring much of the Altai and Mongolia, he attempted to champion the rights of non-Russian subjects of the empire. In January 1918, he was very briefly elected chairman of the Provisional Siberian Council, which was supported by the White Guard, but the council members were quickly arrested by the Bolsheviks. He died shortly after in Tomsk.

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