Mapping Participant Frameworks in the Aitys of Birzhan and Sara

Abstract

Here the lens of the "mapping problem" described by Judith Irvine in participant framework studies is used to analyze shifts in the cultural tale "The Aitys of Birzhan and Sara" from its origin as an improvisational verbal duel in the late 19th century, to a Kazakh socialist opera during the Soviet period, to a nationalized historical reference in Kazakhstan. During the multiple recontextualizations of that social text, its discursive pragmatics and characters are preserved within the expanding and shifting participant frameworks enabled by the genre of aitys poetry. Birzhan and Sara are able to "speak"-as poets, characters, and ancestors-to a changing series of audiences, all of whom become involved and implicated in their words and story as a result. They-like all aitys poets and the tradition itself-become a source of cultural authority. Thus the mapping of this social text over time is used as an example, in order to explain why and how an oral tradition is able to overcome or absorb even serious intertextual gaps resulting from shifting historical and political contexts over a long twentieth century. [discourse pragmatics, nationalization of culture, oral tradition, participant framework mapping, recontextualization] «Meнi дe «ұpпaғым» дeп, ecкe aл, жұpтым Capaның aйтapы ocы aттaнapдa» "Remember me too as your descendant, my people This is what Sara wants to say, before (I) go." -Sara Tastanbekqyzy Introduction: The Aitys of Birzhan Sal and Sara Qyz In the late 19 th century, a young Qazaq woman named Sara Tastanbekqyzy became famous among Qazaqs in Central Asia when she performed in a verbal duel against one of the most well-known bards of her time, Birzhan sal. 1 Their reported battle in 1871-part of the poetic tradition aitys, where lines are at least partially improvised, sung, and accompanied by the music of the stringed wooden instrument dombyra 2 -was purportedly memorized by members of their audience at the time, and transmitted through oral memory for years, until it was written down for the first time in 1898 by a young poet and collector of oral literature, Zh€ usipbek Shaykhislamuly. 3 Their meeting is notable not just for Sara's participation or for Birzhan's fame, but also because of the specific content that was discussed: Sara