History of Adyghe Literature

By Kadir I. Natho

This book is a translation of the History of Adyghe Literature, which was published in three volumes (1999, 2002, and 2006, respectively) by the Institute of Humanitarian Studies of the Republic of Adygea by the decision of its scientific council. It covers the history of Adyghe literature from folklore up to the 1990s, which passed through difficult and complicated trials in order to survive and reach its present stage of development. This material was prepared and written by a group of literary experts of the Republic of Adygea, and this book shows that (1) Adyghe folklore is, perhaps, the richest and oldest in the world because, according to the experts, the embryo of the Nart saga of this folklore was formed in nearly Bronze Age or earlier; (2) Adyghe literature has dozens of specimens of epic genresessays, short stories, stories, tales, novels, and epicsand analyzes the origin, formation, and development of the kinds, genres, and styles of literature closely combined with specific monographic studies of creative works of separate writers and furnishes major monographic and theoretical studies, critical articles, reviews, and literary portraits; (3) Adyghe literature portrays the dramatic fate, love of freedom, and high moral and spiritual values of the people for whom honor and freedom are dearer than life; and (4) Adyghe literature presents in vivid colors the awesome literary process in Russia, in connection with the theories associated with Prolitcults, Rappovians, class literature, and especially, the conflict-free theory, with rigid ideological settings and frames beyond the bounds of which writers and artists in the Soviet Union could not work in.

This book, the first volume of the History of Adyghe Literature, is concluded by the article about the creative works of Tembot Kerashev, one of the prominent Adyghe writer during the Soviet period. Along with the history of Adyghe literature, this book shows the dangerous and difficult lives that people, especially creative people, had to live and work for in the Soviet Union, regardless of the loyalty and dedication with which they served the state or the merits they earned.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543466683

Kadir I. Natho

Kadir I. Natho was born in 1927 in Hatramtook, Anapa region, Caucasus. He became a refugee in 1943; survived World War II, escaped the First and Second Forced Repatriations to the Soviet Union in 1945 and 1947 from Austria and Italy, respectively; lived in various European countries; and moved to Jordan in 1948. He emigrated from Amman to the United States in 1956 and settled in New York City in 1959. He graduated from the School of American Journalism and Henry George School of Social Science (science of political economy), studied English literature, and took writing courses. His short stories were translated into Turkish and published in Kuzey Kafkasya, one of which was included in the Anthology of the Short Stories of the Caucasus in Turkey. He published a collection of his short stories, Old and New Tales of the Caucasus, in 1969, and a novel, Nicholas and Nadiusha, in 1978, which was translated and published in Russian and Circassian, in Maikop in 1992 and 1993 under the titles of Otchuzhdionyie and Tsif Lyiekher (Outcasts). A part of this novel was also translated in Kabardian and published in a series in the newspaper Adyghe Psale and in the literary magazine Oshhamakho (Elbrus) in 2007 and was included in the Selections of Literature for Reading for eleventh graders in 2013. He wrote a three-act play, Medea, in Circassian, for the State Theater of the Republic of Adyghe, the premiere of which was held in Maikop on April 28–29, 2009, which was well received even by the Russians. It was performed again and again in Maikop, Krasnodar, Nalchik, and Moscow and received first prize in the North Caucasian Drama Festival in Maikop. His Old and New Tales of the Caucasus was included in the student literature of the State University of Adyghey in 2007. He published Circassian History in 2009, which was translated in Turkish, Arabic, and Russian and published in Maikop, Republic of Adyghey; Ankara, Turkey; and in Amman, Jordan, and was translated in Kabardian, in Cherkessk in 2014. He published Memoirs in 2010, which was published in Turkish in Turkey in May 2014 and translated in Russian in Maikop. He translated and published Adighe Khabze, Custom and Traditions, by Professor Seraby Mafedzev and published Grand Abduction in 2017, based on the fact that Circassians had abducted the daughter of General Zass during the Russo-Caucassian War (1786–1864) and now has submitted for publishing the translation of the first volume of History of Adyghe Literature. He acquired G. A. Press in New York City, and, in the 1960s, published for years books and periodicals for Russian and Ukrainian authors and organizations, and his own bilingual magazine, the Circassian Star, in English and Circassian, in order to disseminate Circassian history, culture, and folklore and to revive the national consciousness of the Circassian diaspora. He devoted his time and energy to helping the Circassian community in the United States; was chairman of the Permanent Council of the Circassian Benevolent Association in Wayne, New Jersey (1987–1991); was president of the CBA (1991–1998); and was a delegate of the CBA in the Congress of the International Circassian Association in Nalchik (1991 and 2000), in Maikop (1993), in Cherkessk (1996), and in Krasnodar (1998). He organized the Institute of Circassian Studies as a branch of the CBA for the study of Circassian history, culture, and folklore and translated the books Heroic Epos, NARTS and Its Genesis, by Asker Gadagatl.

Book preview

HISTORY

OF

ADYGHE LITERATURE

I

Translated

By

KADIR I. NATHO

Copyright © 2017 by KADIR I. NATHO.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2017917705

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5434-6670-6

      Softcover      978-1-5434-6669-0

      eBook         978-1-5434-6668-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/16/2018

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

763081

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

A SHORT NOTE

F O R E W O R D

I N T R O D U C T I O N

Chapter One

NATIONAL ARTISTIC ORIGINS OF ADYGHE LITERATURE

Chapter Two

ORAL LITERATURE OF INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY

Chapter Three

FIRST STEPS OF WRITTEN ADYGHE LITERATURE IN THE LANGUAGES OF OTHER PEOPLES

Chapter Four

WRITER-PUBLICISTS IN THE END OF THE NINETEENTH AND THE BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURIES

Chapter Five

THE ORIGIN AND FORMATION OF THE NEW LITERACY ADYGHE LITERATURE (in the twenties)

Chapter Six

THE PECULIARITIES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF ADYGHE LITERATURE IN THE THIRTIES

Chapter Seven

ADYGHE LITERATURE IN THE PERIOD OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR AND POST-WAR DECADES

Chapter Eight

ADYGHE LITERATURE IN THE FORTIES–FIFTIES AND THE THEORY OF ‘CONFLICT-FREE’ OF CREATIVITY

Chapter Nine

THE ROLE OF THE PRESS IN DEVELOPMENT OF ADYGHE LITERATURE

Chapter Ten

IBRAGIM TSEY

Chapter Eleven

TSUG TEUCHEZH

Chapter Twelve

AKHMED KHATKOV

Chapter Thirteen

KHUSEN ANDRUKHAYEV

Chapter Fourteen

TEMBOT KERASHEV

This work is dedicated

to my very dear friend, professor, academician, patriot,

expert of world literature, and distinguished literary critic,

the late Kazbek Shazzo (may his soul rest in peace in paradise),

the author of many books, plays, and valuable articles on Adyghe

(Circassian) literature in both Adyghe and Russian languages.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

My profound gratitude to Bunyamin Akyuz, Ms. Dina Mikitiva, and Alaric Izhak for constantly treating me with great Adyghe Khabza and helping me with my computer problems while working on this book. May God generously bless them and my dear wife Suad Natho with a long, happy, healthy, and prosperous life for their kind attention and devotion to me.

A SHORT NOTE

In translating this History of Adyghe Literature I preserved as closely as possible the Russian version of pronunciations and spellings of first names and surnames of the authors used in this book, instead of trying to spell them closer to their Adyghe version. I also left in this work some Adyghe words and short texts in Cyrillic.

Published by the decision of the Scientific Council

of the Institute of Humanitarian Studies of the Republic of Adyghey

E d i t o r i a l B o a r d:

K.G. Shazzo - doctor of philology, professor, member of Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (chief editor); A. A. Skhaliakho - doctor of philology, professor, member of Adyghey International Academy of Sciences; Sh. Kh. Khut - doctor of philology, member of Adyghey International Academy of Sciences; T. N. Chamokov - doctor of philology, professor, member of Adyghey International Academy of Sciences; R. G. Mamii - candidate of philology, member Adyghey International Academy of Sciences; Kh. G. Tleptsershe - candidate of philology, assistant Professor

A u t h o r s o f t h e F i r s t V o l u m e:

Kh. Y. Beretar - candidate of history, professor; M. Sh. Kunizhev - candidate of philology, professor, member of Adyghey International Academy of Sciences; R. G. Mamii, W. M. Panesh - doctor of philology, professor; A. A. Skhaliakho, A. K. Tkhakushinov - doctor of sociology, professor, member of Adyghey International Academy of Sciences; Sh. Kh. Khut, K. G. Shazzo, N. M. Shikov - candidates of philology, assistant professors

E d i t o r s o f V o l u m e I:

R. G. Mamii, Kh. G. Tleptsershe

F O R E W O R D

This book, which is offered to your attention, is the first volume of the History of Adyghe Literature, prepared by the Institute of Humanitarian Studies of the Republic of Adyghey. It should at once be noted that, prior to this, attempts were made to write the history of Adyghe literature in different years. In 1968, in the sixth volume of the Scholarly Notes of Adyghe Scientific Research Institute of Language, Literature, and History appeared a large section under the name of From Essays of History of Adyghe Literature, in which were published small essays about the lives and creative works of A. Khatkov, D. Kostanov, A. Evtikh, Yu. Tliusten, K. Zhane, A. Gadegatl, and Kh. Ashinov. However, the work was not completed for various reasons.

In 1979–1980, two books were published under the title of Questions on History of Adyghe Literature. The first book contained separate review articles on various periods and stages of Adyghe literature, and in the second, separate essays, devoted on the lives and works of all writers, including also a review article about new poets and novelists.

This book, which is offered to your attention, is the first attempt at publishing a more complete history of national literature from folklore to the nineties (of the twentieth century). Although there is experience of publishing such works on history of other written new national literatures, the team of authors is conscious of the difficulty and complexity of objective comprehension in our time of the history of national spiritual life, the most important part of which is literature, and understands that many of the phenomena and factors of the development of literature, the entire literary process, demands review, revaluation, and new methodological and aesthetic approaches. The team tried, as best as it could, to research the paths of the formation and development of Adyghe literature precisely from new positions. At the same time, it assumes that Adyghe literature of today is a mature, ideological, and aesthetic system, rising to national spiritual and moral foundations, developed from the Russian literary and national creative experience. It is capable of solving and solves important moral and creative problems. And today it must be studied precisely as such; i.e., as a fully formed and, consequently, in its basic qualities, is an integrated system. There are necessary conditions for it. The most important of them are:

- Adyghe people have all the capabilities for disclosure and development of their creative consciousness. They went through a difficult and complicated course to their national revival. One of the most important indicators of their moral and spiritual emancipation is their creation of highly developed literature.

- Adyghe literature was able to show and shows the dramatic fate of the people, their constant desire to have their freedom and moral and spiritual world.

- In Adyghe literature has developed through a specific creative method that embodies all the positive aspects of the former All-Union literature in the past and the All-Russian literature of the present and, at the same time, has discovered its own national characteristics.

- In Adyghe literature were developed all genus and genres of literature. It does not only have some single samples of the epic, poetry, and drama. They have developed as independent generic formations with all their inherent classic features and originality of their national form of manifestation. It has dozens of samples of epic genres—essays, short stories, stories, tales, novels, and poems; brilliant works of the lyrics, the poem has developed and became one of the leading genres; and significant progress has been made in the genre of drama.

- In Adyghe literature grew up and formed significant creative personalities with their styles of creative thinking—T. Kerashev, A. Khatkov, Ts. Teuchezh, I. Tsey, Sh. Kubov, M. Paranuk, Yu. Tliusten, A. Evtikh, Kh. Andrukhayev, D. Kostanov, S. Yakhutl, K. Zhane, Kh. Ashinov, I. Mashbash, Kh. Beretar, A. Gadagatl, G. Skhaplok, I. Koshubayev, K. Kumpilov, I. Kuyok, S. Panesh, Yu. Chuyako, R. Nekhai, N. Bagov, M. Emizh, Sh. Kuyev, M. Tlekhas, and others.

- By the efforts of those who laid its foundation and brought it to the high level of ideological creative achievements of developed literatures, and by those of younger forces who actively and fruitfully enrich the collective creative experience, Adyghe literature now enters a new phase of its creative development.

- A group of folklorists, experts of literature, and critics—A. Skhalyakho, A. Gadagatl, K. Shazzo, M. Kunizhev, Sh. Khut, W. Panesh, T. Chamokov, R. Mamii, Kh. Tleptsershe, N. Shikov, Sh. Shazzo, R. Unarokova, and others who have great scholar and creative potential—is fruitfully working on Adyghe literature, through whose efforts all the genres of literary criticism and criticism have acquired the right of citizenship: large monographic and theoretical studies, critical articles, surveys, reviews, literary portraits, essays, and appeared fundamental works on the history and theory of national folklore and on the works of pre-revolutionary writers.

- Adyghe literature is being widely translated into Russian and into languages of other nations; it significantly increases its participation in the formation of the moral and spiritual world of Russians. Academic editions of its history will contribute to a wider attraction to it of more other people.

These are the main factors that led to the need for and possibility of creating the History of Adyghe Literature.

Different principles, approaches, and ways may be used in writing the history of literature. Here the history of Adyghe literature of post-October period is treated within the framework of the literary process of the Soviets, and now that of Russian literature. Identifying common typological features, the team of authors sought also to identify the national and indigenous (features), without which there would not have been Adyghe literature, like any other young new literature, which was born after 1917. This dictated frequent recourse to the events which took place in Russian literature in the twenties–thirties and later in the fifties. Excessively sharp may seem the analysis of the literary process in connection with the theories associated with Proletkults and Rapovtsi, the class nature of literature, the absence of conflict, with strict ideological setups and frameworks, beyond which it was forbidden to go. But it is impossible not to notice the situation that authors, carefully analyzing those factors, which served for the cause of costs and negative effects in young literature, focus mainly on the favorable, positive experience on major shifts in creation and development of the professional creative literature. This is the main task of the team of authors.

Maybe this History of Adyghe Literature does not resemble other traditional editions, where chronological, event-related sequence in the structure of the work is the main defining feature. And here, too, that principle is observed mainly. Along with it the compilers and editors allow some liberty, including articles that go as if in parallel to the same channel, but with other objective in disclosing history. Thus are, for example, serious studies of professors Kh. Ya. Beretar and A. K. Tkhakushinov. The article of Kh. Beretar reveals the great work done by the press (publishing houses, magazines, and newspapers) in terms of the formation and development of literature. In the materials on the development of literature as such, this topic is dissolved and it is impossible to highlight it every time. And printing and literature, especially at the initial stage of its origin and formation, are inseparable.

The article of A. Tkhakushinov pursues another goal—to reveal social and historical conditioning of the literary process in close relation with sociological phenomena. Here are manifested specific historical and sociological methods of research.

This approach, evidently, will continue in the next volume, where, for example, will be envisaged a different study on the works of writers of Adyghe literary diaspora.

However, all this does not mean that the principle of continuity in the literary process is violated in the book. Analysis of the origin, formation, and development of gender, genres, and styles is closely combined with specific monographic studies of works of separate writers. Authors tried to pull together as much as possible the style, content, and structure of the reviews and monographic studies. They complement each other, creating an overall picture of the literary process of one or other epoch. Of course, although only few authors participated in writing this volume and of the whole History, you can feel different writings, manners of research and presentation of the material. Editors of this volume did not try to comb them and to drive them into some strict frameworks.

This volume is concluded by an article about the work of T. Kerashev. There were debates and discussions among the editorial board and the group of authors on where best to place it: whether to conclude the first volume or to open the second volume by this article. Because the creative work of T. Kerashev passes through all literature from its beginning to the eighties. It is not only that. The majority is inclined to consider that T. Kerashev is one of the first of those who created the root system of literature, and is more and more tightly connected with its foundation and traditions. Therefore, placing the monographic study about him in the first volume, we will continue talking about his work in the second volume also, especially in summarizing articles where the literary process is discussed as a whole. It is especially important that the new period in the development of literature, the beginning of which is indicated to have been in the fifties—the so-called Khrushchev thaw—new qualitative accumulations of literature of the following decades are closely tied also, along with others, with the name and work of T. Kerashev. Precisely this period will be the content of the second volume of the History of Adyghe Literature.

At the end of the second volume is scheduled to give a chronicle not only of literary, but also of the entire cultural life of Adyghey, since the new literacy literature, especially in the first stage of its origin and formation, is inseparable from the construction of professional culture. It will give a better idea about the picture of the formation of literature.

The first volume of the History of Adyghe Literature was written by Foreword, R. G. Mamii; Introduction, K. G. Shazzo, R. G. Mamii; Ch. I National Creative Origins of Adyghe Literature, Sh. Kh. Khut; Ch. II Oral Literature of Individual Creativity, A. A. Skhalyakho; Ch. III The Early Origins of Written Literature in the Languages of Other Peoples, Sh. Kh. Khut; Ch. IV Writer-Publicists of the Late Nineteenth and Beginning of the Twentieth Centuries, A. A. Skhaliakho; Ch. V The Emergence and Formation of the New-Literacy Adyghe Literature (Twenties), K. Shazzo, A. K. Tkhakushinov; Ch. VI Features of the Development of Adyghe Literature in the Thirties, W. M. Panesh; Ch. VII Adyghe Literature in the Period of World War II and Post-War Decade, W. M. Panesh; Ch. VIII Adyghe Literature in the Forties–Fifties and Conflict-Free Theory, A. K. Tkhakushinov; Ch. IX The Role of the Press in the Development of Adyghe Literature, Kh. Ya. Beretar; Ch. X Ibrahim Tsey, A. A. Skhaliakho; Ch. XI Tsugh Teuchejh, A. A. Skhalyakho; Ch. XII Akhmed Khatkov, M. Sh. Kunizhev; Ch. XIII Khusen Andrukhayev, K. M. Shikov; and Ch. XIV Tembot Kerashev, W. M. Panesh and R. G. Mamii.

I N T R O D U C T I O N

The idea of spiritual consciousness and, consequently, of the moral creative work of Adyghes is one thousand years old. Many factors testify on it, about which much has been written by national historians, experts of culture, and by representatives of educated Europe who had visited Caucasus and Circassia since ancient times.¹ What constituted the culture of Adyghes? What stages did it go through in her dramatic development? These are questions that require careful research in academic studies of historians, ethnographers, archeologists, culturologists, philosophers, linguists, and literary critics.² Some progress in this direction has been already made in Adyghe Republics—in Adyghey, Kabardia, and Cherkessia.³

Problems of national originality of the creative thinking of people and the specific content of the national character have worried scholars since long. It is well known that the methodological (rather, ideological) principle of the thesis National in Form, Socialistic in Content study of the Soviet period of literature and art did not only fail to justify itself, but, on the contrary, led national thinking into a dead-end, having created monotonous works in each national literature of the former Soviet Union. Fundamental difference between the works of different nations, perhaps, was that by the national, long-standing traditions their heroes were named differently, in their minds were reflected national customs, morals, mores, and psychology which, in turn, should also have been gradually transformed into something common, singular, and socialistic. That is, according to some zealous theorists of Marxism-Leninism, all the peoples were to merge into a single nation, all the cultures that are in the process of their development should lose their national originality and form a single universal human, planetary culture. The theoretical, general philosophical conversation about these issues, perhaps, is not useless. However, when it came from ideological interests, reinforced by the party-ideological resolutions, the very grain of theoretical survey lost its meaning.

However, despite the consistently realized idea for many decades of lining in one row, alignment of cultures and literatures, new-literacy literatures have managed to preserve and, moreover, to develop their creative originality thanks to the national origin in them, which was still much stronger and higher than the level which we, as a rule, usually designated by one small notch on the scale of the spiritual heritage of the nation—through the direct, organizing (plot, composition, and principles of disclosure of characters of personages) influence of folklore on new-literacy creative word.

The problem of folklore and literature is always current. The one who denies the role of folklore in the spiritual development of the nation not only is objective and actively cosmopolitan, but is an aggressive anti-humanist—it is an axiom. Folklore has always influenced, still influences, and will influence our spiritual and creative consciousness no matter how consciously and consistently we may resist this process.

The significance of the role played by folk songs, legends, fairy tales, and tales in the creative life of Adyghes was stressed by all Adyghe writers-enlighteners from Khan-Girey to I. Tsey and S. Siukhov. The latter, for example, said that "by the songs, stories and legends of the people itself (Circassians – author) it is clear that this was a people numerous and mighty, who has repeatedly defended and protected the land."⁴ That is, folklore served as a chronicler of the history of the people and of their spiritual and moral quest. About the importance of folk art in the development of the creative thought of Adyghes much was said in the reports of national new-literacy literature of T. Kerashev, A. Khatkov in 1936 at the First Congress of Writers and Ashugs (folk singers and poets in Caucasus: KIN) of Adyghey. This idea became the foundation in professional Adyghe literary criticism, which was initiated by A. Evtikh and D. Kostanov. D. Kostanov, on the basis of analysis of the experience of Adyghe writers, had noted: Despite the absence of writing and literature before the revolution, we cannot say that Adyghe literature arose from a bare place. Its roots go back to the depths of the oral folk creativity, rich variety of genres, artistic techniques, and juicy language. Remaining the only ideological weapon of the working people, folklore of Adyghes has acquired great social force, often playing the role of the press and literature.⁵ Other literary critics, in particular Kh. Khapsirokov, A. Skhalyakho, M. Kunizhev, L. Bekizova, S. Autleva, also highlight the folkloristic nature as the main feature of spiritual roots of national cultures. In the solid academic work of L. Bekizova From the Heroic Epic to the Novel, which is devoted to the role of folklore in the development of the prose of Adyghe literatures, says that in prose ruled the folk ways of generalization of reality, selection and distribution of the material and the characteristics of characters. It was the period of study in folklore, the period when from the folklore was taken more than was ‘given’ as the result of its mastery.⁶ That is, the researcher finds a way which is padded from folklore to literature, analyzes the form and content of the durable connection, determines its objectivity, noting that during the birth of new-literacy literature very big influence of folklore was a natural phenomenon, which is explained by the lack of developed artistic tradition.⁷ This path from oral creative tradition to the written A. Skhalyakho sees as follows: "It (literature – author) passes, from folklore to the creation of multi-genre literature,⁸ through melodic recitative verses and songs"—the idea is justified and confirmed by the observations of many researchers.

The objectivity of this phenomenon is not questioned by anyone, although not once and not so long ago had appeared heated discussions around the issues of folklore influence on literature. We are returning to this long-comprehended issue not for the sake of reminding it to the reader. Typologically similar situations in other literatures confirm the objectivity and the need for just such a path of development of new-literacy literatures.

In writing the history of Adyghe literature it is necessary, at least in general terms, to analyze not only the form and content of the sources of its national identity, but the ways and stages of their study and comprehension as well. Well known are the words of M. Gorki, who called young writers of national literature to learn from native folklore—the words which were supported by the press and leadership at the level of propaganda. For example, the magazine Na Podiomie recommended an aspiring writer to use the folk art form in his work, along with the use of the forms of essays, sketches and notes, as the most possible and appropriate.⁹ In this process it is important to take into account that the influence of the folk way of thinking on the dynamics of artistic consciousness of new-literacy young authors forms different levels, passes through different phases and stages, revealing at the same time very close structural and typological convergence in their experience, but also giving rise to multivariance and incompatibility of the principles of their relationship to the folklore material and to oral poetic type of artistic and aesthetic consciousness. Consequently, there are many questions, solved and unsolved, only designated and not set at all, but multifaceted and structural-typologically enclosing, on the one hand, general theoretical problem folklore and literature on the other—particular aspects of its solution concerning one national literature and one separately taken national writer. For example, the nature and forms of influence of folklore tradition of Adyghes on the creativity of T. Kerashev and, let us say, on the works of A. Gadagatl differ fundamentally, and the experience of mastery by A. Evtikh folklore heritage and the contents of artistic worldview of Adyghes form completely different parameters although all three of them learned from native folklore. So closely converge general typological community of problems and the derived from them circles of creative originalities of learning of each writer from the masters of oral poetic composition.

It is necessary to recognize that there is a conscious, inner, deep level of address of writer to the aesthetic heritage of the people, which is expressed in the word, melody, dances, and so on. But there is also a purely external, clearly visible line of use of folklore material by the writer, the main of his figurative and expressive means. There are many examples of one and the other. Referring to the study of folklore heritage, we should say that it passed through different phases and stages, and has different characteristic and different levels of manifestations.

By general acknowledgment of scholars, Adyghe folklore is one of the greatest epic works of humankind both in size and content. Therefore, it is understandable that it had become more than once, and still is, the subject of very close attention of researchers of various peoples and countries. And here are its own hard questions: for example, recognizing the selfless and highly skilled work of the Frenchman G. Dumezil on the study and description of the Nart Epic, paying tribute to him, we must, however, take into consideration the objective reasons for the originality of his approach to the national and spiritual experience and give priority to the work of those scholars whose creative vision of the world of Adyghes is not only an object material for study but is the flesh of the flesh of their own, the world, not introduced, but born with their appearance in the world of God, which became the content of their lives, the way of their thinking and behavior, and the meaning and justification of their existence. We understand that the theoretical and aesthetic parameters of other nationality researches can be and often are much broader, and the analysis of the scientific problem is deeper than the works of national scholars—for example, the works of G. Zhirmunski about the epic. On the basis of these objective circumstances for us, and considering the need to summarize some preliminary results of the interpretation by Adyghe scholars of the aesthetic and creative worldview heritage of their people, we shall try to identify some of the stages and features of the national Adyghe folklore, its indisputable achievements and natural flaws, due to the state of the theoretical level of the science of verbal creativity in different periods.

The study of national Adyghe folklore is hardly one and a half century old. S. Khan-Girey, the distinguished writer-publicist, was the first to begin to gather, interpret scholarly, and publish legends, songs, myths, tales; to him belongs the honor of presenting first to the world Adyghe tales of the Narts,¹⁰ we read in one composition. And here we find the assessment of his scientific research: The main merit of the same Khan-Girey, the folklorist, is that he wrote the first study of Adyghe folklore.¹¹

The works of Khan-Girey, certainly, pursue some practical and journalistic focus. The writer-educator tried to demonstrate to all the educated Russian public the idea that he represents the people, who, despite his lack of written monuments of culture, represent to the world an example of highly organized civilization by the level of their spiritual, moral, and aesthetic condition. Khan-Girey was forced to explain: How good is to write for his people: here the reader guesses that the author has added to the fictions of the people and recognizes the just traditions of antiquity. When you are writing for others, you are forced to go into the fine details, in order to give an idea about the subject, from which you want to retrieve forgotten cases, from which you intend to establish the building of your imagination.¹² Naturally, the writer wanted Russian upper classes to be acquainted with his writings. It had for Khan-Girey practical significance as well—to draw the attention of the powers on the fate of the Circassian people, which was then already on the brink of historical and national collapse. It is known that no projects of Khan-Girey for peaceful and treaty acquisition of the northern lands of the Caucasus and none of his exhortations had any significant influence on the royal court, where he was well received, to the service of which he gave his best physical and spiritual strength.

However, this in no way detracts from the value of that folkloristic and creative-journalist work which Khan-Girey has done. He did not collect much work of the oral-poetic heritage of his people, but he succeeded to convince his contemporary men, and later his descendants, that these highly artistic folk works of Adyghes are great in number, very diverse, and multivariate. The writer succeeded to substantiate and scholarly formulate his observations. Having an inquisitive mind of highly educated scholar-researcher and scholar-analyst, Khan-Girey deeply recognized the national artistic creation in the folklore of Adyghes, which has embodied the national code and the worldview of the people: "The lands of Circassian people are poor of remnants of art, but how rich they are with verbal works of poetry! Poetry is the life, the soul, the memory of life of ancient Circassians, the living chronicle of events in their land! It ruled their minds and imaginations at home, in the congresses of the people, in amusements, in grief, met their birth, accompanied them from the cradle to the grave of their life and passed and transmitted to posterity their deeds.

By the word poetry I mean the lofty songs of Circassians, in which are preserved the idea of protection of the weak, the respect for everything lofty and beautiful, and for himself, the idea of what the posterity will say, in a word—all the noble impulses of the exalted soul, even pernicious passion, which carry away the Circassian to bloodshed and robberies, but where the result is not for the greed of booty but for the thirst of badly understood fame. These ideas were not confined in words, no! They were carried out in practice: the almighty power of the celestial poetry inspired them and gave them strength . . ."¹³ That is, Khan-Girey first made the main national treasure of Adyghes—their oral creative work—the subject of his serious study, having given to it the status of creative phenomenon of global importance. It should be noted also that Khan-Girey, bred and fostered in the samples of Russian art classics and world poetry, did not only succeed to penetrate deeply in the spiritual and aesthetic nature of the oral poetic heritage of his people, but experienced firsthand its positive and beneficial effects, which are evidenced by the original works of the writer, enriched with meaning and spirit of the national creative expression. More than once he complained and apologized to the Russian reader that the strength and brightness of the word cannot be transferred in any other language other than in the language of the original.

In assessing the activities and creative work of Khan-Girey, much work is done in our time and on significant and professional level; however, it is a shame that in the writings about him are stressed too much his allegedly invariable class approach¹⁴ in his interpretation and classification of works of oral tradition of Adyghes. We will not argue that the writer did not feel the influence of his class, the more (so, because) he said: Most notable people, who were passionately fond of poetry, composed themselves best songs, but to think that the class approach in his work was the leading (feature), there is no reason. Moreover, in the brilliant classification of Adyghe songs, as in all his other writings, Khan-Girey writes about Circassian songs and tales as the creative works of all the people.

The path laid by Khan-Girey was successfully continued by Adyghe writers-educators Sh. B. Nogmov, K. Atazhukin, T. Kashezhev, Pago Tambiev, and others, who considerably expanded and enriched the activities of its collection and research.

Shora Nogmov, highly educated person, scholar of European type, thinker, and ethnographer who has gathered a great deal of folk creative work, subjected them to detailed analysis and who, with their help, created a unique creation, the History of Adyghe People, that was composed of Kabardian legends.

History . . . has no analogies in Adyghe historiography: not having written historical evidences and facts, author compiles the history of the people based on their oral tradition, recreates their character, manners, mentality, while achieving a high level of accuracy and depth of scientific thinking. In the philological works of Sh. Nogmov considerable space is devoted to the works of oral literature, to their classification and scholarly commentary. Thus, writer has propelled forward national folklore. Assessing the activity of Nogmov, folklorist and historian, A. Aliev writes: Already the list of the names of folk songs written by Nogmov suggest that the scholar was attracted primarily by the works of historical heroic problematics, dedicated to the most important events in the life of the people or to prominent heroes. It is important that these, for the most part, are relative works characterized by a high artistic perfection."¹⁵

It is noteworthy that Sh. Nogmov consciously and selectively treats the creative works of the people. Such differentiated approach supposed not only a selection of works on the issue, but also according to their level of artistry that speaks about the high professionalism of the scholar.

Much has been done in the collection and scholarly publication of oral creative works by Kazi Atazhukin, to whom belong almost all of the most significant publications of the Nart Epics of Adyghes, which saw the world in the last century,¹⁶ and by Pago Tambiev, who published the largest number of creative works of Adyghe folklore and by many others.

A special place in the history of Adyghe folklore occupy academicians A. Shegren, G. Turchaninov, L. Lopatinski, and others.

In the new historical time, collection and publication of the material of oral national creative work of Adyghes have acquired more systematic state character. In scientific research institutes of Adyghey, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia groups and individual enthusiasts have been working for many years on the collection and classification of the oral creative work. At first they were young writers and journalists (in the twenties to thirties), later, after the war, professional folklorists. Collection of materials continues still. Up to now have been collected a huge amount of material, which is kept in scientific research institutes of the three republics of Adyghey, Kabardia, and Cherkessia.

Many books were published, and in Adyghey is being prepared for publishing a set of oral creative works of the people in twelve volumes in more than twenty books. We must assume that from the memory of the people now scattered around the world a lot of creative works of folklore have disappeared and did not come down to us. This is one of the spiritual catastrophes Adyghes have suffered.

Post-revolutionary period has created its own characteristics on the collection, classification, and study of the oral creative works of the people.

The new aesthetic and ideological code, which was proclaimed by the Bolshevik ideology in relation to literature and art, invariably and directly touched also the work with folklore heritage of the people, having permanently defined therein a class approach not only as the main, but as the only one. Defining the principles of building the new culture, V. I. Lenin wrote: In each national culture exists, although as yet undeveloped, the elements of democratic and socialistic culture, since in every nation exists toiling and exploited masses, whose conditions of life inevitably give rise to the ideology of democracy and socialism. But in every nation is also bourgeois culture . . . moreover, not only as ‘elements’ but as the ruling culture . . . we just take from each national culture only its democratic and its socialistic elements, we take them only and unconditionally in counterbalance to bourgeois culture.¹⁷ These words of V. I. Lenin became a weapon not only ideological, but also aesthetic and methodological.

Fortunately, class approach did not stop the more consistent collectors of folklore from collecting its bourgeois part (as evidenced by the materials in the archives of the three research institutes of the three republics), but it categorically and clearly defined the nature and content of publications, and did still the research and commentary on the poetry more ideological. This question is complex, difficult, and we do not intend to discuss it deeply, because much of it is not completely clear today, and also because its solution did not depend on scholar folklorists, who also worked for decades under the unbearable pressure of the class ideology. Credit and praise to them for having collected works of oral creative tradition as much as they could, published them, made them available to the public, and made a variety of in-depth research work on them.

Enlightenment of the nineteenth century, of course, has also experienced the impact of certain social ideological mindsets, which, however, did not prevent the mountaineer writers-educators to formulate scientific and theoretical thorough concept of oral creativity of the entire people and draw it on the spiritual, moral, and social needs of the nation. That was their relative freedom. The new historical time, the time of the liberation of the peoples, which had proclaimed justice its highest quality in the intensification of social development, was logically conducive to making the folkloristic science of Adyghes, in the twenties to thirties, to reach a new level of scientific thinking, mastering, and comprehending the achievements of the scholar enlighteners of the last century in this area. However, the slogan in counterbalance of the bourgeois culture did not only hold back the establishment of the national culture and science, including folkloristics, did not only canonize creative and theoretic thought, but also hampered the study of the past and creative heritage of writers-enlighteners, as a result of which they have been for many decades thrown out of the memory of their descendants for the sake of two main ideological postulates: 1) no elements from the past bourgeois culture should be brought in pure proletarian culture; 2) before October, small nations had neither culture, nor science, nor literature, and of course, there could have been no folklore. S. Khan-Girey and the scholars who followed him, writer-enlighteners from Adyghes, were not born from the proletarian masses, consequently, it was ordered not to study their creations and not to mention their names. Such was the general ideological setting.

Thus, Adyghe folkloristics in the Soviet time, especially in its initial period, pre-determined the nature of collecting, publication, commenting and scientific research of folklore materials, the circumstances and the degree of their mastering and use by writers in their works.

The first collectors and interpreters of Adyghe folklore were still the inexperienced writers, poets, and journalists: in Adyghey, I. Tsey, T. Kerashev, A. Khatkov, Sh. Kubov, M. Khuazhev, Yu. Tliusten, A. Evtikh; in Kabardia, Ali Shogentsukov, I. Tsagov, T. Borukayev, B. Pachev, later A. Keshokov; in Cherkessia, A. Okhtov, Kh. Gashokov. So was in each national republic of North Caucasus (of course, it is typical for other regions). At this stage the oral creative work of Adyghes was not yet scientifically comprehended as an outstanding creative phenomenon, it was the period of journalistic propaganda of the best samples of the folk art, about which M. Gorky, having read a collection of Adyghe fairy tales collected by P. Maximov, I. Tsey and T. Kerashev, and having emphasized, first of all, their social meaning, had said: Very interesting is also the tale of the hare, the fox and the wolf, the assistant of the chief—it reveals the social relations between people, which usually is not seen in fairy tales about animals.¹⁸

Writers learned directly from folklore, especially its social content, the alignment of those forces which determine polar points in oral composition, using also compositional possibilities, transfer these points to their first narratives, poems, stories, and drama. As rightly pointed out by L. Bekizova, it was a period of apprenticeship from folklore of young writers. Naturally, therefore, their works revealed mostly the traces of ideological, compositional, and figurative-expressive means of folklore.

At a later time was begun serious and in-depth study of the creative-aesthetic experience of the people, which was founded in his oral creative works. Of course, there are to this day significant layers of untouched problems. But there already has appeared a whole galaxy of scholar-folklorists, their analytical articles and academic studies.¹⁹ In articles and monographic investigations of A. Shortanov and A. Gadagatl are thoroughly commented on the epic Narts, the personalities of its heroes drawn up, the nature of the cyclic construction of the epic is comprehended and the history of its collection and publication is traced. This preparatory period played a significant role in the further study of Adyghe folklore. In known works of A. Aliyev, A. Gutov, Z. and M. Kumakhov, and on the analysis of a large number of works, are shown the peculiarities of the poetics and language of Nart texts which have greatly expanded the range of study of the epic. Significant is the contribution of Sh. Khut to the Adyghe folkloristics, who has published several monographs, published a great number of articles and several collections of folk works with extensive introductions and commentaries. He also analyzed in detail the genre system of the fairy-tale and non-fairy-tale prose of Adyghes. Author traces the history of the formation of that or other genre, different periods of its development, and the features of its modern existence—and all of it in broad context of artistic and aesthetic achievements of national folklore.

In studies of Z. Naloev and Yu. Tkhagazitov are outlined a new stage of scientific understanding of Adyghe folklore, which has, in our opinion, essential meaning in further development of the national folkloristics. It lies in the fact that Kabardian scholars consider that Adyghe spiritual heritage is one as a whole, as a phenomenon that emerged and developed in the period of formation of the archetypes of people, the archetypes of his worldview. Z. Naloev in the books From the History of the Culture of Adyghes, The Jeguako and the Poet, Studies in the History of the Culture of Adyghes, along with other quite actual problems of national culture, extensively explores the institute of the jeguakos, who are known as the composers of songs and organizers of dances at folk festivals. Scholar notes: During many years of study is revealed that in the past they were magicians and singers: the magic in its historical development has turned into art into circus, choreography, music and poetry.²⁰ The research attention of Z. Naloev is focused on how and when was formed the personality of the Jeguako, how in their songs and dances and poetic creations were reflected the mores, spirit, beliefs, people’s psychology, and the transformation they have experienced—that is, what are the paths through which have passed the spiritual and artistic consciousness of Adyghes from ancient times to the present day. Naturally, this problem, which seemed to be autonomous, developed into another, more complex, affecting the most important and the most difficult moments of the first germs of the spiritual creativity of the people, their development, and acquisition of the most important national traits.

These issues became the subject of the thorough theoretical reflections of Yu. Tkhagazitov in his book Spiritual and Cultural Foundations of Kabardian Literature. Author considerably expands the parameters of the manifestation of the impact of the folklore heritage on the new-literacy literature, including in this process the most ancient forms of creativity as the myth of cosmogony, ritual, and Adyghe etiquette, giving them utmost importance in the development of the archetype Adyghe, the archetype of his spiritual consciousness, and later, in the development of cultural and artistic and written traditions: The main dominant appears Adyghe etiquette, its functioning and transformation in the context of the changing types of national spiritual culture and the types of national creative consciousness,²¹ the author notes.

Consequently, the problem of the Folklore and Literature of Adyghes, in connection with new approaches to understanding national and spiritual foundations of the latter, significantly changes and, enriching itself, dictates new research-methodological tools, brings out typological analysis of the processes of interaction of folkloric and written traditions to a qualitatively high level.

Adyghe literature, certainly, has already passed the stage of apprenticeship with folklore (L. Bekizova) in the sense that in the initial period of its inception it directly borrowed some of the exterior features of plot and national-specific means of artistic expression. It should not be assumed that such a resort of writers to folklore is no longer possible; one could cite dozens and dozens of examples of current poetry where the highly experienced poet and beginning author successfully demonstrates mastery in the stylization of folk poetry. There are brilliant specimens of arrangement of verbal poetic genre to the language of written literature. All this has little to do with the question of the folkloric-spiritual foundations of literature, since the latter are related to the way writer masters that layer of national-spiritual consciousness which is fixed in the creative heritage and which ultimately determines the type of Adyghe, the way of his thinking, character, and the nature of his perception of the world.

It seems that with all the categorical nature of social dominants in the material and the plot of the novel of T. Kerashev The Road to Happiness (original Shambul), it is more folkloristic and national than other works which are built directly on samples of folklore. Exactly, full-blooded character, certainty, and originality of thought make his works unique—The Daughter of Shapsughs, Abrek, and others, although there is nothing in them directly from folklore. Many works of M. Paranuk are built on linguistic and stylistic guidelines of folklore creative works. Even it seems that sometimes the poet deliberately demonstrates his mastery (and he was master) to write (in the style of) oral folk verse. But there is nothing bad in this, especially since this is one of the forms of mastering the national traditions of versification; perhaps it is the most popular and common. And here I want to mention the poem of N. Kuyok The Dance of the Tvokotl, in which deeply and originally is interpreted and used the spiritual heritage of the people, embodied his psychology, habits, attitude toward the world, philosophy, and soul; as a result, the spiritual and moral categories which people had forged since long have become the flesh and content of the plot of the work. There are enough examples of different forms of communication of literature with folklore which testifies on clearly perceptible differentiation of the character and peculiarities of the people on written literature.

Equally complex are also the relationships of the new-literacy literature with the literary creative systems, which have centuries of experience. It so happened that Adyghe literature has always communicated very closely with the Russian, and the prose of writers-enlighteners of the last century, of course, could not have been so actively developed without the spiritual and aesthetic interaction with the Russian tradition, in the atmosphere of which dwelled S. Khan-Girey, S. Kazi-Girey, K. Atazhukin, Keshev, and others. However, very close communication with the national spiritual experience did not strip their works of national and creative originality.

Multifaceted are communications of the new-literacy Adyghe literature with the Russian. In the twenties and thirties they were often discovered by eminent writers from Russia at the level of creative imitation of young national authors and translations of classic works into the mother tongue. Perhaps it had a marked influence on the development of young talents. There are cases of direct imitation of patterns, for example, M. Paranuk and Kh. Andrukhayev, who boldly entered the style of V. Mayakovsky in Adyghe verse. It did not always work to the benefit of young poets, as M. Paranuk, for example, whose poetry by nature could acquire wings and gain independence in its creative communication with the poetic tradition of the people. The works of the poet, written under Mayakovsky, no matter how skillfully they were written, did not go even to the level of his own youthful works, as the poet will tell it many years later in the collection Thoughts (1968). Evidently, the mutual relationships of different authors are not always crowned with success—they may give rise and, unfortunately, have generated a lot of imitative verses.

In order that a talented author could take something from another talented creator—but wiser and more experienced—a special spiritual atmosphere is needed, filled with hard work of the young author, by his desire to acquire knowledge, and not only in literature, but also in philosophy, public and social sciences, and in all the spheres of spiritual life. The belief of some that the writer who reads much cannot write originally is a profound error.

The problem of creative interaction of writers is associated with a different and more complex and large one—with the problem of the formation of ideal-creative unity, generated by the same sociopolitical events and processes of literature. Understanding this complex process of formation of the aesthetic generality of literatures of different nations began long ago, has passed several stages, and today has spawned a whole library of books, critical and on the study of literature; however, the question does not cease to be lively and relevant. In this case, the problem we are interested in is the boundary of the extent and content of the impact of Russian literature on that of the Adyghe, because the latter almost did not experience any influence from Arabic poetry, as was the case with the literatures of Dagestan and partly of Kabardino-Balkaria.

Absolutely just are the words of W. Panesh, who writes that the works raising the questions of borrowing and influence, often limit their task by observations, which are confirming the fact that one writer studied from another. The accumulation and systematization of facts here do not turn, in most cases, to clarifying the laws of movement of literature in general.²² In the study of the living literary process they emit only a fraction of the matter from it—who influenced who (for example, they often write that Sholokhov’s The Virgin Soil Upturned has predetermined Shambul of T. Kerashev, although it is well known that chapters of the latter have been published in mid-twenties), while ignoring the common sociohistorical conditions and the unity of creative and ideological objectives which faced the mature as well as new-literacy literatures, and which stood in front of the highly experienced writer and the young national author.

Without this typologically wide and overall aesthetic approach, the works of mutual influence will always reach only the level of a simple comparison of the facts of different literatures and different works. Adyghe literature in the twenties to thirties, and later in the forties to fifties and so on, could not be other than it was because such monotonous, straightened have been all literatures and the literature of the Soviet period in general. But only with one very important and necessary clarification: first, the community of important literatures was manifested in broader parameters, determining the nature of development of young literatures; secondly, large literary systems actively revealed in them other ideological and stylistic trends, as E. Zamyatin, B. Pilnyak, M. Bulgakov, A. Platonov, I. Ilf, E. Petrov, or great writers departing from the topics of the revolutionary of our time, engaged in interpreting at least a recent history, as The Life of Klim Samgin by M. Gorky.

Adyghe literature could not have such phenomena: it easily yielded to straightening, choosing its path of development following the official literary and directly submitting to the governing party’s instructions. In literary process of the twenties to thirties, of considerable interest were not so much the social or poetic ideas which were abundantly stuffed within works by young national authors as a result of active demiyaning of all literature (interestingly, in Circassia, too, was a poor but not as Demiyan, but as Khalid), as the carriers of these ideas of their national genetic and psychological beginning. The heroes of T. Kerashev (Arq), I. Tsey (The Lone), A. Khatkov (The Victim of Money), the poems of M. Paranuk (The Fast), and others are interesting and significant for the reader first and foremost as characters, representing in literature his people with their customs, way of thinking, and behavior. The national life of Adyghes, with their way of life, dress, etiquette, form and content of their presence in the world, was presented widely for the first time in Shambul—of course, in the point of view of a certain ideological setting. In the narratives of the thirties, The Road Is Open by Yu. Tliusten and My Elder Brother by A. Evtikh, attractive is the idea of national identity of the heroes, their mutual relationships, national etiquette, life, and landscape, which in his eyes acquire the right to creative portrayal, are close and understandable to the reader. Although, again, writers—and standing over them, ideological institutions—give priority, of course, to the social status of heroes and to their ideal convictions and so on. No matter, however, how strong were the ideological orientations, the so-called archetype of Adyghe consciousness and perception of the world breaks through their thick and heavy press in these works, indicating an even more powerful force of the genetic beginning in literature, without which it simply will not acquire its national identity. The genetic-national (identity) sometimes is so deep and strong even in the mind of a child that his deeds and view of the world fully manifest in his adulthood. One example of this is the fate and literary activity of Sharlotte-Aishet (Aisse), who found herself in France as a child, was brought up in the atmosphere of exquisite European rules of etiquette and civilization, but who in art has embodied in a complete and perfect volume the code of conduct of a Circassian lady, Adyghe etiquette, which so surprised and enthralled many European traveler-writers before and after Aisse. Consequently, her work should be viewed as one of the links of the national artistic heritage and should serve as one of the landmarks in the aesthetic and spiritual quests of modern Adyghe writers and researchers of literature.

The generality of the ideological-aesthetic origins of the works of Adyghe literature of the twenties and in the beginning of the thirties seemingly was violated by the small romantic-narrative Ilyas by I. Ashkan, in which was sounded a timid reproach to the Russian Empire, which had destroyed Adyghes as a people, a reproach which, presumably, was the main case of the repression of I. Ashkan and the subsequent death of his. Nationality in this story appears only at the level of romantically exotic nature of the hero image, who is standing close next to the heroes of the fairy-tale prose of Adyghes. It is still less in the prose in the period of the war and up to the beginning of the fifties. In the first case because the task of literature about the war was too local and specific, which was expressed in the show of patriotism in mass without its research; in the second case, because the idea of conflict-free creative art began to intensify stronger and harder after the war, which led most of Soviet literature to the pathetic, soulless style, and young literatures, with a rare exception, to absolute unification of their style and ideology, generated by the leveling artistry as such, by denial of the truth of art and life as an essential foundation for the realistic creative work. More completed forms of realism could reveal their opportunities mainly in the post-war Adyghe literature, in the creative work of the older generation of writers and of the generations of the fifties to eighties. The objectivity of this phenomenon manifests itself in other new-literacy literatures, thus creating a systematic-typological commonality of their origin and development.

In new-literacy literatures, including that of Adyghes, perhaps, the most difficult and unyielding to specific analysis and interpretation is the problem of the creative method. The formula from folklore to the novel—hence, also to realism, perhaps—contains methodologically correct observations, mainly conditioned by the idea of accelerated development of new-literacy literatures. Here is obvious as well the commonality and unspecific nature of the proposed formula, which had to be filled with a deep, uncompromising analysis of the literary process. On the strength of specific reasons, during all the decades literature was on a known distance from the truth of life. Sometimes this distance narrowed, then it widened considerably, but it never disappeared. Because of the same reasons, literary criticism and literary studies could not explore the literature in the context of the vital processes which were intended to constitute its object and foundation. It had turned out to be a vicious closed circle, in a single-line orbit, on which revolved the idea of research devoid of analytical capabilities, and due to which it was forced to move only between two points—from folklore to realism, or as they say, from dastan to the novel, the circumstances that objectively could not be otherwise, which deprived literature and its interpreters of the rights and the possibility to seek a third point, the abscissa, which is capable somehow to coordinate the search of writers and critics and put them on the path to truth.

Of course, as a result of the obstructionist policy and tactics of the supporters of the power who systematically aborted literature each time when she tried to comprehend the truth in the literary process, again speaking in medical terms, a kind of agglutination took place, and compressed clumps of vital truth settled at the bottom of the spiritual life, unclaimed by time. Such divergence of literary forces and literary process as a whole had very painful impact on the formation of literature itself and the formation of its realistic method, although at least in the visible outline. In this fog of spiritual quest in Adyghe literature of the twenties to thirties and later eras the only lantern, the diaphone, was the party-ideological service. To what it led is known to all. However, literature had a germ which has revealed to be able not only to survive, but, in spite of all ideological pressures, gradually and consistently to develop and become a healthy, viable child, promising spiritual life and be the leader of the spiritual experience of the people for new conquests.

Let us remember what were the definitions given to the new creative method at its origin, without which it is impossible to even briefly outline the range of problems of the method in the new-literacy Adyghe literature. Firstly, the birth of the method was accompanied by heated debates; secondly, seemingly no one of the participants in discussions in the twenties to thirties denied that the creative method must be and is realistic. That is, it is the system of views on life and the