Mihhail Plotnikov Ja Tema Poeem „Jangal-Maa”
Mikhail Plotnikov and his poem Yangal-Maa

Summary/Abstract: The poem Yangal-Maa was written in Russian by Mikhail Plotnikov and published in its entirety in 1933. Its Estonian translation (2016) is subtitled as „Mansi epic”. The research questions asked in the article are: What prompted the author to write such a piece? How well did he know Mansi folklore and to what extent does the poem reflect it? The introduction also provides a short overview of some other epics of the kindred Finno-Ugric peoples, which have been written in Russian and translated into Estonian. Considering the plot, setting, characters and the „indigenous” lexis embedded in the text we can conclude that although there are some characters originating in Mansi folklore, their names are presented in a distorted form (cf. the Mirra-Susnahumm and Meik of the poem and the respective Mansi mir susne χum and meηkv) and their nature is mostly very far from their folkloric or religious origins. The forest giant meηkv, for example, has been given the role of the adversary of the heavenly god instead of the Ob-Ugrian devil, who is called kul’. Although heroic songs make up a large share of Mansi folklore, there is not one authentic song describing the hero’s fight for the liberation of the Mansi people. As for everyday life, living in conical huts is not Plotnikov’s only error. At the beginning of the 20th century the typical Mansi dwelling was a small rectangular log house, while the conical hut was called a Nenets house (jorn kol). Many of the alleged Mansi words and expressions embellishing the text actually represent either the Khanty, Nenets, Selkup or Izhma-Komi language, while the Mansi words often occur in a distorted form. The metre of the poem is trochaic tetrameter, which, despite being characteristic of other Finno-Ugric epics, is alien to Mansi folklore. Nor has the author of the poem used the devices typical of Ob-Ugrian folklore, such as parallelism, alliteration, or formulaic language. Although an author is entitled to write any fiction, the presentation of one’s own fantasy as authentic folklore, as is done in Plotnikov’s article „Mansi epics” supplemented to the poem, surpasses the limits of creative freedom. Notably, according to the article Plotnikov had collected the material for the poem bit by bit, during his visits to Mansi villages over twelve years, but an analysis of his biography denies a possibility of his staying at Mansi villages, even for a short while.

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