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The storyteller Manshud Imegenov (1849-1909) was born in the village of Kurunut, the Kuda steppe council (duma), the Irkutsk province. He came from the ashagabat kin belonging to the bulagat tribe. The storyteller’s childhood was the time of a certain kind of life cognition, sort of learning at “school” of people’s poetry. The family lived in the atmosphere of legends, oral traditions, tales, songs and stories.
The fact that the father and grandfather were storytellers was of great importance for the boy. They were kind of guides, an example of some attractive and invocatory call. Manshud wanted to be like them, he got it into his head that he should learn to speak nicely, to know the songs, stories and epics and moreover to be able to perform them. These thoughts guided his life, at first quite unnoticeably and then they absorbed all his thoughts and soul – he caught all his mother told, diligently listened to the village storytellers - uligershins and tried to memorize very well their wonderful tales of the heros.
This all happened as if all by itself, the memory tenacious from birth enabled to memorize word for word very long, quite picturesque lines of the poems… It’s clear that one should work untiringly, under a stone that lies still no water flows; no pains, no gains; no song, no supper; nothing seek, nothing find, so to say. He should do his best not to forget the words of the uligers, he should repeat them all over again and again, time from time, early in the morning waking up from dreams, at day-time, even during work and sure in the evening before going to bed and sometimes even at night. It came out that Manshud never parted with the uligers, not even for a minute.
In 1990 to Manshud Imegenov came a well-known American scholar, ethnographer and folklorist J. Curtin. He took the storyteller to Ust’-Orda where he listened to his stories for ten days. Then the scholar published a book entitled: “The voyage to South Siberia” in English where he placed the storytellers’ photo. This is the only Manshud Imegenov’s portrait preserved up to now. In 1906 prof. Ts.J. Jamtsarano wrote down from 57-year old Manshud the three poetical tales of Geser and his sons (“Abai Geser khubun”, “Oshor Bogdo”, “Khurin Altai”), with the total volume exceeding 20 thousand poetical lines.
According to the words of the old men that knew him he was an acknowledged connoisseur or judge of legends, fairytales and particularly of the heroic epic. He performed lengthy uligers-epics containing from eight to ten thousand poetic lines and each time with no omission of some episodes, with no change of the content.
It was just from Manshud Imegenov that the version of “Geser” in which the scholar discovers the most archaistic elements of the epic. The storyteller strictly adheres to the old performing traditions. Usually the uligers were performed before a battle or going hunting. In the evening the people began to get together. The singer or the performer was seated on a white felt carpet that symbolized the primordial ancient purity of the epic. Manshud Imegenov usually sang his uligers or epics half- lying on a carpet of white felt.
Before he started telling the people that got together performed special invocations after which started was the uliger itself. No one had the right to interrupt or stop the storyteller, it was thought that it might harm in some way the ongoing battle or hunting. Ts. Jamtsarano wrote of his work with the storyteller M. Imegenov: “When a rapsode tells an uliger he prepares some pure water near him to have from time to time, takes a semi-lying posture, half-closes his eyes, going away to the atmosphere of his epical poem and in a drawling manner, melodiously begins to sing being taken away still more and more, unfolding before the listeners one picture after another, giving the event after event with surprising calmness and some impassivity or phlegm in spite of his being inspired and sincerely taken away. The listeners echo him in the places where needed”.
In the unanimous opinion of the scholars, M. Imegenov when performing the uligers followed the local (Eekhirit-Bulagat) epical tradition preserving intact all thr elements of the plot, the composition and the sequence of the episodes, the character of the actions. The treatment of the personages. He attempts at giving the epical text in the form he took it from his teachers. In the uligers by M. Imegenov, particularly “Abai Geser” we see the examples of the creative attitude to the word formation of the typical plot fragments, showing the actions and psychological condition of the personages, the pictures of the battles and the bogaturs’ single combats and war campaigns.
M. Imegenov was a good artist in words possessing all the richness of his own tongue. Therefore the language of his uligers despite its being so close to the Buryat common language is noted for its imagery and poetry. As S. Sh. Chagdurov notes “Among all the known in science versions of the Geseriade most archaique is the Ekhirit-Bulagat version written down from Manshud Imegenov which being entirely versified possesses a unique poetical structure”.
Manshud Imegenov as a true epic-teller not only followed the tradition given to him by the preceding generations from mouth to mouth; from lip to lip, but he brought to the epical tales his own creative spirit. The peculiarities of the images, poetical expressions – all that characterizes Manshud Imegenov as a great and original, distinctive and specific poet and story-teller. He was one of the best representatives of his own people expressing its interests, he thought in a wide range, in the national and universal scope, he thought of the future, of his descendants, of the fortune of all his people, his countrymen.
His creative legacy is presented not only with the epical trilogy of Geser, but with such significant and meaningful uligers as “Yerensei”, “Bukha Khara khubun”, presenting the masterpieces of the oral poetical activity of the Buryat people. Besides, there are some other variants of “Geser” written down by J. Kurtin as well as the following uligers like “The iron hero”, “Oshor Bogdo”, “Buruldai Bogdo-khan” “Sharai”, “Nungkuyal with a round head”, “Barnan Tuulai khubun”, “Altan shagai”, “Yerensei khan”, “Alamji”, “Altai Shagai Mungen Shagai”.
The ekhirit-bulagat version of the “Gesriade” performed by Manshud Imegenov was edited by Ts. Jamtsarano in 1914, 1930, 1931 in Buryat, in the academic Russian transliteration, with no translation in his classical editions of “The patterns of people’s literature of the Mongolian peoples”. In 1961 the Imegenov’s version was edited by M. P. Khomonov, translated in Russian, with his foreword, translator’s commentaries, detailed and thorough notes, index of the proper names, the storyteller’s biographical data and the other commentaries.
Published in 1969 was the translation to Russian of the epic performed by Manshud Imegenov that was completed by N.O. Sharakshinova and edited in her book entitled: “The heroic epic of Geser”. Published in 1995 in Moscow in the academic series “The epic of the peoples of Euroasia” was Manshud Imegenov’s version entitled “Abai Geser the Mighty” (translated by A. B. Soktoev, commented on by D.A. Burchina, A.B.Soktoev). One should say a few words concerning the foreign edition of Imegenov’s epic. A researcher of the epic of the Mongolian people M. Soijirmaa translated “Abai geser khubun” the the Mongolian language and in 1989 published it in Peking in the two volumes (vol.1 -696 pages, vol.II – 728 pages) in the old Mongolian alphabet.
Thus, the epic of Geser performed by M. Imegenov that had been published six times in the priority editorial offices was kind of a visiting card of the Buryat heroic epic and culture of the Buryat people upon the whole. The records of the storytellers’ work and their publications evidence firstly of the gift of the singer-storyteller Manshud Imegenov and put his name in one row with the masters of world epic.
