The article is devoted to the works of Vasily Ivanovich Abaev, linguist, folklorist, specialist in Narts’ studies, regarding the question of the historicity of the heroic Narts’ epos. The author notes, that in the Humanities there are two main approaches to the interpretation of this issue. Some researchers do not recognize the historicity of the Narts’ epic. In his time, this proposition was developed by E. Krupnov, who considered the epic non-historical in its very nature. However, with further investigation held and new knowledge gained, the views evolved towards recognizing the historical value of the epic. Nevertheless, the above-mentioned point of view even today finds its supporters among the researchers in the Humanities, especially among folklorists, mythologists. Most historians, archaeologists, linguists (among them B. Skytsky, L. Semenov, V. Kuznetsov, Yu. Gagloity, T. Guriev, P. Kozaev, Romanov, etc.) adhered to a different view on the Narts’ epic and regard it as an important source carrying information about ancient and medieval history of the Ossetian people. The author of the article emphasizes the special contribution to the substantiation of this position by V.I. Abayev, highlighting the scientific reasonableness of the judgments of the scientist, whose research activities were based on the comparative historical method. The article analyzes his scientific publications on the topic. It is noted that in the images of Satan, Soslan and Batraz V.I.Abayev saw the real historical characters of ancient and medieval Ossetia – Princess Satinik, David-Soslan, OS-Bagatar. They were those personalities in the Ossetian history, in whose biographies folk memory found especially fertile material for epic memorization. The analyses of the works of Abaev lead the author to the conclusion that the historical narrative parallels advanced by the scientist confirm that Nart epos is deeply rooted in ancient and medieval history of Scythian-Sarmatian-Alan tribes, being their artistic autobiography.

Keywords: the Ossetian Narts’ epic, the historicity of the Narts’ epos, epos as a historical source, Narts, Sarmatians, Abaev.

References:

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