Tel.: + 7 (495) 690-50-30
25a, Povarskaya str., Moscow, 121069, Russian Federation
Full Professor (Philology), head of Folklore Department, Institute of World Literature named after
A.M. Gor’kiy, Russian Academy of Sciences
Ostrogskaya A.: e-mail: anna.ostrogskaya@gmail.com
Tel.: + 7 (495) 939-10-00
1, Leninskie gory, Moscow, 119991, Russian Federation
Master, lecturer of Confucius Institute, Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov
This paper is financially supported by the grant of the Russian Foun- dation for Basic Research, project No. 17-04-00493 “Russian folklore in Chinese language of the Northern Manzhouli: Studies and texts”.
In this paper the co-authors analyze mythological narratives about concubinage between a human and a bear, recorded from Chinese Russians at Ergun urban district of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China. Special attention is paid to the text, recorded by the co-authors both in Russian and in Chinese sequentially. It tells about cohabitation between a bear sow and a human man. It has been performed in Chinese language and appeared among the ethnic Chinese. The paper provides comparative analysis of Russian and Chinese variants of the same story and the co-authors are dealing with entire textual manifestation, not with an oral translation of the text from one language to another. The narrative is analyzed in the context of mythological beliefs and oral prose about the marriage union between a human and a bear, which appears among the Russians of Trans-Baikal. The co-authors bring forward arguments to prove the fact that the narrative has been borrowed from Russians by Chinese dwellers of the Interfluve of Three Rivers. Suggestions about the cause of the gender substitution between the pro- tagonists, which has happened while the plot’s existence in the Chinese natives area. Assignment of male household activities to the protagonist, caught by the female beast, indicates a long-time existence of the plot among the Chinese, when it has been reconsidered and complemented by Chinese story-tellers. The narrative, performed by Russians, might not be heard at the Interfluve of Three Rivers, but at the Eastern Trans-Baikal, where the Chinese worked in the gold mines since the beginning of the 20th century.
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