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Sayakbay Karalaev (1894–1971)

Issyk-Kul Kyrgyz manaschi epic bard whose dictated oral recitation of the Manas trilogy reached an unmatched 500,553 verse lines.

Kyrgyz Manaschi epic bard in traditional white felt ak-kalpak reciting outside an Issyk-Kul yurt

Folkroom Documentary Studio · CC BY-SA 4.0

Kyrgyz Manaschi epic bard in traditional white felt ak-kalpak reciting outside an Issyk-Kul yurt
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Born in Ak-Ölöng near Lake Issyk-Kul and mentored by elder bards Chokmor and Akylbek, Sayakbay Karalaev performed unaccompanied multi-day recitations of the Kyrgyz heroic cycle in which vocal pitch, horse-gallop rhythm, and sweeping hand gestures shifted continuously without a single instrument. 1

Between 1935 and 1968 folklorists of the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences transcribed 500,553 lines of Manas, Semetey, and Seytek from his memory—more than twenty times the combined length of the Iliad and Odyssey. 1

Practises

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Kyrgyz Trilogy of Manas Oral Epic Recitation
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Sources

1

What’s on this page is sourced from the citation below.

SourcePublisherLicence
Sayakbay Karalaev and the Kyrgyz Epic Trilogy of ManasNational Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic / UNESCO, 2013—
"Sayakbay Karalaev (1894–1971)." Folkroom Archive (Artists), https://folkroom.org/artists/sayakbay-karalaev · CC BY-SA 4.0.