KYRGYZ HEROIC EPIC "MANAS" IN A BILINGUAL ACADEMIC SERIES "THE EPIC OF THE PEOPLES OF THE USSR"

The article briefly describes the history of fixation, publication and research of folklore of different peoples who were part of the Russian Empire, not only Slavic, but also Turkic, Mongolian, Finno-Ugric, numerous peoples of the Caucasus, Siberia, the Far North and the Far East. This tradition was continued in the first half of the twentieth century, after the establishment of research institutes in various republics of the Soviet Union in the early 1930s, generously financed by the state. Employees of these institutions systematically conducted folklore expeditions to collect works of different genres of folklore — they made invaluable folklore archives. This thesis in the article clearly illustrates the brief characteristics of the history of collecting, storing, publishing and studying the heroic epic created by the genius of the Kyrgyz people — the epic "Manas". In 40-50-ies in the Soviet Union a series of epic monuments — first of all, the Kyrgyz epic "Manas" — began to get in the scientific community and in the periodicals of the vulgar-sociological interpretation. In the 60s of the twentieth century began the "rehabilitation" of such monuments — was held a number of scientific conferences organized by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, giving these monuments an objective scientific assessment. One of the first in the epic heritage of the peoples of the USSR returned Kyrgyz epic "Manas". It was dedicated to the first scientific conference of the country's folklore, held in 1952 in the Kyrgyz capital city of Frunze (now Bishkek). Soon a bilingual academic scientific series "the Epic of the peoples of the USSR" was created, in which the publication of the epic "Manas" in four volumes was published