E-mail: fedotovy4.11@gmail.com
Tel.: +7 (495) 690-50-30
25a, Povarskaya str., Moscow, 121069, Russian Federation
Junior Кesearcher, Department of Folklore, A. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature, Russian Academy of Sciences
The study was carried out within the framework of RFS project No. 23- 18-00478, “Russian Mongolia. A Comprehensive Study of Culture in a Non-Ethnic Environment (Folklore, Ritual Traditions, Language)”.
This study undertook an examination of the correlation between the distribution of texts (and their plot and structural features) with the spatial distribution of Russian oldtime settlers in Mongolia. The data consists of transcribed mythological tales (bylichki) collected in 2018–2024 in Ulaanbaatar and Darkhan. For the first time the study of folklore texts recorded during ethnographic interviews with Russian settlers of Mongolia was conducted using methods of digital humanities. The choice of mythological tales as the object of study is due to their relatively good preservation in the tradition of the Russians of Mongolia compared to other genres of folklore. With reliance on Russian and international studies in the field of computational folkloristics, an algorithm was developed for the manual coding of the features of mythological tales as a genre of folklore. The search for patterns among the categorized features was carried out using the k-modes clustering method, statistical analysis (Fisher’s exact text) and data visualization via multiple correspondence analysis (MCA). Although the text clusters identified by the algorithm did not correlate with the geolocation of the events described in the stories, statistically significant dependencies were found between the distance of the story’s action from the place of recording (“near” or “far”) and such characteristics as the time of action and the gender of the main character. In addition, the results of the analysis support the observation that the folklore tradition of the region is fading away
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