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M. Alsiyev (1871961) was born in the village of Zhemchug of the Tunka valley. His father Ardan Alsiyevich, a Buryat of the khongodor kin, bred cattle, sheep, cultivated wheat. He was a fairly well off peasant. Maisan was his only son. In the Alsiyevs’ family and their kin there were no storytellers but young Maisan since childhood loved to listen to the uligers, legends and songs performed by the village singers-storytellers.
By nature quite musically gifted he had a good voice, learned to play the Buryat musical instruments such as khur and limba. Still young he already knew tens of the lyrical, round dance, wedding, historical songs, big “horse” uligers (morin ulger) including “Geser”.
The tunka valley from time immemorial was celebrated by its songs and singers. Held frequently in Zhemchug as in the other villages of Buryatia were the traditional contests of the people’s singers. It was almost always that Mayisan Ardanovich became the winner, he was quite inexhaustible and could improvise at that. Even up to now in Tunka they sing his songs-improvisations. “Our Maisan” or Maisan-taabai, thus the people called him with love and respect.
M. Alsyev loved and often performed the legends and tales of the origin of the Buryat kins, the settling of the Tunka valley, the song of Shono-Bator, Shudarman, Amursana. In the performance of the storyteller owing to his artistic gift they as if obtained a new breath, got revived in the images and deeds of the heroes. Just like this, in love with his mountainous land, blown through with the smoke and haze of tales he is presented on the pages of the story by his countryman, a Tunka resident B. Yabjanov “The Sayan tale” .
Mayisan Ardanovich often said to his countymen:”History is the teacher of our life”. He was fond of repeating a Mongolian proverb: “From the roots of the past grows the flower of the present, in the flower-bud of which the fruit of the future ripen”. History is not only the lesson of life but its fundamental principle, the wise will or testament of the forefathers to their descendants, the heritage and the spiritual treasure of the people.
The collectors of the Buryat polklore, writers, students not once wrote down the people’s works from Alsiyev. Kept in his memory, the priceless store of the oral poetry were the patterns of all the genres of folklore. But unfortunately it was just a small part of what was written down from him that could see the world.
Much has been left unpublished. It was only in 1940 that the workers of the Buryat state scientific and research Institute for language, literature and history wroted down from Alsyev about thirty uligers and a considerable number of fairy-tales. Those are the many thousand poetic lines of the epical poetry of the Buryats.
As a token of recognition of the uligershin’s contribution to the development of national culture in 1939 the Soviet of the Peoples Commissars of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR specifies for Maisan Alsiyev as storyteller a personal pension. Some of the fairy-tales, legends, songs of Alsiyev’s repertoire are published in the newspapers, broadcast on radio. Printed in 1943 in Ulan-Ude in the Buryat language is “The anthology of the Buryat-Mongolian literature”, in which printed are the works by M. Alsiyev such as “The song of Zhambyl Tulayev”, “The song of Tunka”, “The song of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War”, the fairy-tale “The toti shubuun (The parrot)”.
Possessing a good memory as all the storytellers M. Alsiyev remembered word for word very big uligers, tens of thousands lines in verse. Maisan Alsyev as a true storyteller possessed a multifaceted gift: played a khur, limba, sang and composed not only songs and poems but fairy-tales and uligers. Moreover, having a good command of the old-Mongolian writing M.A. Alsiyev tried to write down the pieces.
Maisan Alsiyev in an appropriate manner continued the traditions of the many-centuried people’s poetry of the Buryats. Most popular among the storytellers of the Sayan region is the name of Mayisan Alsyev, an acknowledged uligershin, expert and master of the Tunka interpretation of the “Geser” epic.
The tale in his performance was both in prose and in verse. The style of narration was noted for its artistic flavor, richness of the uliger language. Unfortunately M. Alsyev’s variant written down in 1940 by the oldest historian of Buryatia B.D. Tsybikov was irretrievably lost owing to certain circumstances, but there were some data of the storyteller’s repertoire of the Tunka uligershin.
Thus, M. Alsyev knew almost wholly the epic of “Abai Geser Bogdo khan” taken-up by him in childhood from his teachers Bazar Zhudbuyev (Kyren), Danzan Naidanov (Kharbyaty), the countrymen from the settlement of Zhemchug by names of Bobruu Kheterkheyev and Khastan Kjutaev (both from the Shoshlok kin) who knew from nine to thirteen chapters of the Buryat epopee:
1. The sky prologue (the battle of the western and eastern deities, throwing down of Atai Ulan (var. Khamkhir Bogdo) onto the earth and appearance out of their remnants of the various mangadkhai personifying the forces of the evil; 2. Sending of one of the sons of Khan Khormusta to the world of the people, the birth of Geser from the old parents, childhood, holding a tayilgan on the Segte Sumber uula, receiving of the bogatyr horse and armor; 3. Marriage to the three earthly beauties, building of palaces, the descent of the bators – the sons of the celestials onto the sky; 4. The battle with Batagana – gigantic insects; 5. The fight with the gigantic animal Orgoli; 6. Lama Dobogo; 7. The sharai three khans; 8. Gal Dulme khan; 9. Ganga Bured khan; 10. Arkhan shudkher; 11. Abarga Sesen mangadkhai; 12. Lobsogoldoi shara mangadkhai; 13. The life with the family and petrifaction or lithification on top of the tops of the Sayan mountains together with the three elder bators.
One can pay attention to the fact that the number of the chapters is indicated with the number of thirteen that together with the traditional idea of the nine chapters of “Geser” evidences of the existence of the thirteen canonic chapters of this epical work (for instance, with the Tunka and Alar storytellers relating to khongodors).
The given number in the epical numerology is a nonrandom phenomenon as perhaps this numeric nomination is of symbolic nature indicating its peculiar significance. It is no mere chance that with the theme of sacral petrification as if completed compositionally was the many-plotted “Geser” epopee in the Tunka M. Alsayev’s variant.
It is rather interesting to note that among the names of the Tunka gesershins given by S.P.Baldayev one might note their geographical area covering almost the whole of the Tunka region which says of the all-round existence of the “Geser”epic in Tunka
According to the plotline the “Geser” variants spread among the Sayan buryats including M. Alsyev’s variant are very close to each other and upon the whole they might be considered as constituent parts of the “Abai Geser” epic Unga version. I’d like to remind that the basic plot body of the Khongodor “Geser” involving the celestial prologue (confrontation of the celestials and the throwing down onto the Earth of Atai Ulan), Geser birth from the earthly parents, the marriage, the battles with the monsters and anthropomorphous mangadkhais, fully coincides with thr basic chapters of the Unga Geseriade.
The correctness of the thesis concerning the identity or sameness of the Tunka and the Unga variants might be confirmed by the conclusions made by the folklorists, such as D.A. Buchina and V.Sh. Gungarov in their studies devoted to the spread of the oral “Geser” tradition in Circumsayaniye (the Prisayan lands).
Upon the whole the khongodors, M. Alsyev for one, greatly contributed to the spiritual culture of the Buryat people. No doubt he was one of the outstanding uligershins of the XX century.
