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Apollon Toroyev (1893 - 1982) was born in the village of Shunta, the Bokhan district , the Irkutsk region, and belonged to the Gotol kin of the Bulagat tribe.
The first Toroyev’s teacher in the field of storytelling was hos own family. The slightest interest of the boy in the works of the peoples’ activity, each attempt of the child to tell the stories were warmly supported and approved of. Small Apollon heard many interesting things from his grandmother on the mother’s part Shargal Yangutova.
Though a common illiterate woman she was good at singing songs, telling stories, fairy-tales, proverbs and sayings. She knew quite well the following uligers: “Shandaabal mergen”, “Uta-Sagan-Bator”, “Geser”, the songs of Shono-Bator, the fairy-tales “The orphan boy”, “The three wise men of Gurgaldai”, “Khartagai khan” and others. In her repertoire there were over twenty fairytales, tens of songs.
His grandfather Toroi Soronov, great grandfather Khadai were the acknowledged storytellers not only in the ulus (village) of Shunta, but far beyond it. Apollon took much from a well-known uligershin Syserman, a woman-storyteller Banu. In a word, the Toroyev’s family was an example of the love for the oral word creation typical of many of his kinsman and fellow countrymen who sparingly and with great care passed from generation to generation the unique folklore traditions containg the many-aged people’s memory of the ancestors and their spiritual strength.
At the age of 17 having lost his eyesight Apollon Toroyev learned to play a khur, perform songs, uligers. Being musically gifted by nature and possessing phenomenal ear memory partly compensating for the loss of eyesight, having a good voice Apollon Toroyev soon got the recognition not only in his village but far beyond his own district.
Written down from the words by Apollon Toroyev are tens of songs, fairy-tales, uligers. Kept with great care in the archives of the cities of Ulan-Ude, Moscow, Leningrad (St.Petersburg) are the 156 records of his works. Many records of the uligers and fairy-tales are kept in the personal archives of the folklore collectors. The storyteller knew by heart over a hundred thousand lines of the Buryat epical poetry. In his memory which is a living many-volumed book of wisdom there were 30 uligers, 88 people’s fairytales, tens of legends and tales, hundreds of songs, riddles, proverbs and sayings. Besides, he created 14 new poems and 31 new fairytales.
The personality and creative activity of A. Toroyev attracted the attention of such well-known scholars and writers as Kh. N. Namsarayev, I.N.Madason, G.F. Kungurov and others. A.A. Toroyev was not merely a storyteller or narrator but he was the author of his own writings. In 1939 A.A.Toroyev became a member of the Union of the USSR writers, edited in 1941 were his first books in Russian and Buryat; he was awarded he title of the merited worker of art of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR.
Apollon Toroyev belongs to the number of the brilliant experts of “Geser” and his performers. Since the age of nine he listened to “Geser” and memorized it from the words of his elder relatives, just in the family environment. At first A.Toroyev told his favorite epic-uliger to his peers, the boys and girls of about the same age as himself and later to the grown-up people who treated the young uligershin with great respect and attention.
As N. O. Sharakshinova recollected: “I met with A.A. Toroyev for the first time in 1952 when he was already a well-known storyteller <...> The uligershin performed “Geser” in recitative without having a rest and I was amazed at his phenomenal memory and the melodiousness of his voice”. The Toroyev’s variant was written down by N. O. Sharakshinova in 1952 and the former student of the Irkutsk university A. Romanova in 1953. The content of that variant is made up of Geser’ struggle with the following mythical cratures:
I – the battle with the head of the eastern tengris – Atai-Ulan
II – the passage of how Geser cut off the 77 boughs of the magic white birch that was going to obdurate the whole of the sky
III – cuts off the top of a sandal tree that was going to pierce through the blue sky
IV – does away with the 9 sholmos (devils) causing calamities and sufferings to the people
V – struggles with a yellow dog devouring all the living
VI – the battle with the three sharablin khans
VII – the struggle with Toskholdoi mangadkhai
VIII the struggle with gal-Nurmankhan.
IX – the fight with Shara mangadkhai
It was also from A. Toroyev that written were byT.M. Boldonova in August of 1942 the three uligers “Geser Mergen” (2400 verses), “Shandabal Mergen” and “Albanja Mergen”. The second of them as the storyteller said is a special branch of “Geser”. A part of “Geser Mergen” was published in the newspaper “Ust-Ordyn unen” in December 1993 with the foreword of S. Sh. Chagdurov.
Of interest is the legend written down by V. Petonov from the storyteller of the battle of Geser with Loyir Khara Lobsogoldoi, having some etiological motives (for instance, the formation of the Onshoo and Donshoo lakes with Geser’s horse’s hoofs, and the Orgoli mountain from the sand that Geser shook off his arrow on the earth. It’s of interest that those toponyms are found in Priangariye) (Petonov V. Ulgershin tukhai ugulel /A tale of the uligershin. – Ulan-Ude, 2002. – P. 16018). Unfortunately, the variants of the “Geser” epic written down by N.O. Sarakshinova and T.M. Boldonova have not been published up to now.
A. Toroyev died in 1982 having lived a long, creative and fruitful life. He was our contemporary who engraved in his works all the contradictory features of the epoch that was complex and tragic at times but full of pathos. His most bright creations whichever content they carried were penetrated through with the sincere belief in kindness, human feelings, greatness and grandeur of Man.
Doubtless are his merits in keeping intact the old people’s traditions, the national symbols, the memory, the national Buryat spirit carried through all the hardships of the severe times owing among other things to the fair art of the uligershins-storytellers.
