The article examines the origins of the song “Am I to blame.” and its further evolution up to our time. The earliest mention of the song dates back to 1956. The melody of the song is independent, and the text of the early version goes back to three sources: 1) the romance “Am I to blame?” (1865), published under the name “Anna R.”; 2) romance-response “It’s all your fault!” by V. Sulkowski (1886); 3) anonymous chant verse from the mid-1910s. The contamination of these sources resulted in a dialogic composition. The romance tells the story of a coquette who skillfully plays with a man’s feelings and ultimately destroys him; in the song, according to a stable folklore tradition, the suffering character was a girl. The song is dominated by the theme of the intrinsic value of love which entered the folk song tradition from the poetry of sentimentalism and romanticism. While the early version is a drawn-out lyrical one, then the later ones increasingly resemble a fast dance one. In the “male version”, which emerged in the late 2010s, the gender roles of the characters are inverted.

The patterns of formation of the Kalmyk and Xinjiang Oirat versions of “Dzhangar”, their development and interaction are historically determined by the unity of this epic tradition in the past, migration and isolation of some ethnic groups, as well as by later cultural contacts between them. The succession of related traditions is also revealed, based on the cultural influence of Kalmyk book texts with the epic folklore of the Oirats of Xinjiang. It is obvious that the widespread publication of the texts of Eelian Ovla at the beginning of the 20th century and later at that century gave an additional impetus to the development of these plots in the Xinjiang Oirat tradition itself. The work is devoted to the study of the Xinjiang Oirat versions of the Eelian Ovla cycle and the identification of their regional differences. Despite the significant similarities with the Kalmyk version, transformations of the texts are also found at the plot-compositional and stylistic levels. In the process of performance, the storytellers vary the plot, omitting discrete parts or including new ones. The inserted episodes, individual motifs and epic formulas of the Xinjiang Oirat version are specific and exhibit regional distinctiveness. New combinations of motifs and episodes generate new editions and plot versions with relative stability of the key plot elements. Innovations can have a significant or insignificant impact on the development of the narrative, and in the case of typical places, they may have no impact at all. As a result of textual variation, an update of the vocabulary of the epic is also observed.

This article examines various examples of loanwords found in the genres of Mongolian ceremonial and ritual folklore. Yurol (well-wishes) and magtaal (praises) have a long and rich history within the cultural traditions of the Mongolian people. At the same time, these genres play a distinctly practical role in the lives of Mongols, accompanying a wide range of significant events in both public and private spheres – from festive public ceremonies to gatherings important within a family. The genres of yurol and magtaal have never lost their popularity throughout the entire historical existence of Mongolian nation. They have evolved with the passage of time, adapting and responding to all cultural innovations while actively incorporating neologisms, many of which are borrowed foreign words. This article is based on field and archival research materials conducted by scholars between 1964 and 2020, as well as on the dictionaries of borrowed words they compiled. Key information about the study of loanwords in the Mongolian language is presented and specific examples and linguistic features identified within the framework of the folklore genres under study are analyzed.

The work on creating comparative plot-thematic indexes of the Kyrgyz “minor” epics Kojojash, Er Töshtük, Janysh and Baiysh, Kurmanbek, Er Tabyldy is approaching its final stage. They are being compiled by folklorists working at various universities in Kyrgyzstan and scholars from the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic, who are utilizing the experience gained from the previous creation of the plot-thematic index for the epic of Manas. These indexes allow scholars to easily and quickly find the information they need within the epic texts, which in turn should contribute to the emergence of new scientific concepts in epic studies. This article discusses the forthcoming index for the Er Töshtük epic, which holds an important place among other plot-thematic indexes of Kyrgyz “minor” epics, describing its thematic sections as well as the features of its structure.

The article is dedicated to the naive poetry about the death of the pioneer hero Musya Pinkenzon. In December 1942, the 12-year-old boy and his family became victims of the execution of Jews. According to the official version, before his death, Musya managed to play the Internationale (the USSR anthem at that time) on his violin. This plot was especially popular among naive authors in the 1960s – 1970s and the 2010s – 2020s. The article analyzes the features of the poetics of naive poems about Musa Pinkenzon, their pragmatics and plot motifs in poems created in different periods. The main conclusion of the article is that the authors of naive poems of the early and late times used different sources of information, in which this plot and the characteristics of the main character were interpreted differently. In the early poems, Musya Pinkenzon does not have an individuality, his role is to set an example for others by his death and inspire them to fight. In the later ones Musya Pinkenzon, on the contrary, is depicted as a unique child with supernatural musical abilities, who himself enters into battle with the enemy and achieves a symbolic victory over him. At the end of the article, the author shows how these two versions of the plot relate to different types of memorial culture in Soviet and post-Soviet times.

The paper is about the search for theoretical contexts to examine the practice of keeping pets as a leisure activity. The main question is what values form the core of this practice and what human needs it is deemed to satisfy. The review of statistics allows us to identify it in the features of various social profiles, as well as to highlight the growth of this practice, which allows us to conclude that, as a leisure practice, it is associated with the formation of a new norm of relations based on the recognition of vulnerability, the need for love and care and the interdependence of living beings. Based on the involvement of existential and phenomenological contexts, a hypothesis is proposed about the convergence of three worlds in this practice – the world of the environment, the life world shared with Others, and the inner world (Umwelt, Mitwelt, and Eigenwelt): a pet is given to its owner both as a part of nature, and as “you”, and as the Other, setting the boundaries of subjectivity of its human alter ego, which makes it a platform for the production and confirmation of the new value. The modern practice of keeping pets opens up the relationship of living (people and non-people) as interdependent, and creates the possibility of a contract based on love-storge.

The digital environment can act not only as a channel for transmitting oral memory or a repository of scattered recollections, purposefully or spontaneously created by anyone who uses a smartphone. Like oral memory, “digital memory” identified by present-day researchers is an active process influenced by a variety of factors (from the context of placement of digitized or digital-born data to the reliability of the infrastructure and the interest of different actors). The author considers the issue of preserving digital memory, which also includes a brief analysis of the processes of data archiving in the digital environment, their legitimization and systematization. One of the initiatives aimed at ensuring an interdisciplinary dialogue among Russian scholars interested in preserving digital memory and creating electronic databases, as well as increasing the visibility of such databases, is the elaboration of their consolidated catalogue. The article also focuses on the principles and structure of an open access catalogue of digital archives in Russian, which is being elaborated at the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The catalogue includes both widely-known and extensive data collections and small archives developed through personal initiatives, topics that cover the history of Russia, everyday culture, art, literature, folklore, natural and technical sciences.