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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2019
In 1954 the Ossete Dzambulat Dzanty, an emigré living in France, communicated to me the text of the Ossetic tale (kadaeg) "Iry Dada." It is an historical tale describing the conflict between the Russians and the Ossetes, which had occurred in 1022. It also contains elements of heroic dirge. As Dzambulat Dzanty stated in the "Foreword" to "Iry Dada," he had heard this tale from an old Ossete reciter, Khulyx, in the village Bolshoe Osetinskoe in Mozdok area in 1910.
1 G. Vernadsky and D. Dzanty, “The Ossetian Tale of Iry Dada and Mstislav,” Journal of American Folklore, 1956, pp. 216-35. Subsequently quoted as “Iry Dada.“
2 Henning, W. B., “A Spurious Folktale,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (Subsequently quoted as BSOAS), XXI (1958), pp. 315-18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Abaev, V. I., “Neudahnaja poddelka,” Izvestija Akademii Nauk SSSR, Otdelenie literatury ijazyka, XVII, No. 1 (1958), pp. 72–74 Google Scholar.
4 “Iry Dada,” p. 222.
5 Ibid.
6 Gesemann, G., Heroische Lebensform (Berlin, 1943), pp. 17–31 Google Scholar.
7 Dumézil, G., Légendes sur les Nartes (Paris, 1930), pp. 2–3 Google Scholar.
8 G. Vernadsky, “Anent the Epic Poetry of the Alans,” Mélanges Henri Gregoire, IV (Annuaire de I'lnstitut de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientales et Slaves, XII [1952,] 517-38.
9 Yury Arbatsky, “Introduction” to the “Life of Vladimir the Ardent Sun” (not yet published). On the “Life of Vladimir the Ardent Sun” see Vernadsky, G., The Origins of Russia (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1959), pp. 312-13, 332Google Scholar.
10 Arbatsky, ibid.
11 Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English transl. by J. C. Rolphe (Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1939) III, 392-93.
12 On the dirge (“Totenklage“) in the epos of the Alans and Turks see F. Altheim, “Inschriften aus Gruzinien,” Mélanges Henri Grégoire, I (Anuuaire de l’lnstitut de Philologie et & Histoire Orientates et Slaves, IX [1949], pp. 6-9; id., Attila und die Hunnen (Baden-Baden, 1951), pp. 146-52.
13 G. Vernadsky, “Anent the Epic Poetry of the Alans”, Mélanges Henri Gregoire, IV, 536.
14 Khalanskij, M. G., Velikornsskie byliny Kievskogo cikla (Warsaw, 1889)Google Scholar.
15 Miller, V. F., “Kavkazsko-Russkie paralleli,” Etnograficheskoe Obozrenie, X (1891), 166-89Google Scholar; XI (1891) 1-20; (subsequently quoted as EO).
16 Dumézil, G., Légendes sur les Nartes (Paris, 1930), pp. 200–209 Google Scholar.
17 See my introduction to “Iry Dada,” pp. 219-20.
18 Vernadsky, G., The Mongols and Russia (New Haven; Yale University Press, 1953), p. 200 Google Scholar (hereafter quoted as Mongols and Russia).
19 Vernadsky, G., Nachertanie Russkoj istorii (Prague, 1927), p. 104 Google Scholar; Mongols and Russia, p. 288.
20 V. F. Miller, “Osetinskie Etiudy”, III, Uchenye Zapiski Moskovskogo Universiteta, Otdel Istoriko-Filologicheskii, VIII (1887), pp. 69-70; V. F. Minorsky, “Gaucasica” III, BSOAS, X (1942), p. 257; Mongols and Russia, pp. 172-73.
21 Miller, “Kavkazsko-Russkie paralleli,” EO, X, 170; Dumézil, Légendes sur Us Nartes, p. 204.
22 The Shahnama of Firdausi, transl. into English by A. G. Warner and E. Warner (9 vols, London, 1905-1925) (hereafter quoted as Warner), I, 217, 223-25; Firdousi, Shakhname, transl. into Russian by C. B. Banu, commentary by A. A. Starikov, I (Moscow, 1957), 132, 138.
23 Firdousi, Shakhnama, I, 620.
24 Warner, VIII, 208, “The monarch of Alans” is also mentioned in Warner, VI, 395. Besides, Alans appear in Warner, IV, 14, 60, 65, 301.
25 N. A. Rast, “Russians in the Medieval Iranian Epos,” American Slavic and East European Review, April, 1955, p. 262.
26 Nizami, Iskander-nama, Transl. into Russian by K. Lipskerov (Moscow, 1953), pp. 382-83.
27 Nizami, Iskander-nama, pp. 640-41.
28 V. F. Miller, Ocherki Russkoj narodnoj slovesnosti, I (Moscow, 1897), 447-48. For the English translation of the bylina of Volga and Mikula see N. K. Ghadwick, Russian Heroic Poetry (Cambridge, 1932), pp. 44-49.
29 Archimandrite Palladi, “Starinnye sledy Khristianstva v Kitae po Kitajskim istochnikam”, Vostochnyi Sbornik, I (St. Petersburg, 1877), 48; E. Bretschneider, Medieval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources (2 vols., 2 ed., London, 1910), II, 88.
30 G. Roerich, “Les troupes Alanes à l'époque Mongole,” Oss-Alanes, II (1953), 30-34. See also A. I. Ivanov, “Istorija Mongolov (Yuan-Shi) ob Asakh-Alanakh,” Khristianskij Vostok, II (1919), 281-300.
31 G. Roerich, “Les troupes Alanes,” p. 33.
32 Mongols and Russia, pp. 188-89.
33 O.Jensen (R. Jakobson), “Sobaka Kalin Tsar,” Slavia, XVII (1939), 82-98; Mongols and Russia, p. 189.
34 Ju. Kulakovskij, Alany po svedenijam klassiceskikh i Vizantijskikh pisatelej (Kiev, 1899), p. 66; Mongols and Russia, p. 179. It should be noted that the Alans were called “Jasy” in Russian chronicles.
35 V. G. Tiesenhausen (Tizengauzen), Sbornik Materialov otnosjashchikhsja k Zolotoj Orde, II (Moscow and Leningrad, 1941), 156; Mongols and Russia, pp. 274-75.
36 Mongols and Russia, pp. 274-75.
37 Kulakovskij, Alany, p. 60.
38 V. F. Miller, “Osetiny,” Brokhaus-Efron's Enciklopedicheskij Slovar', XLIII (1897), p. 263.
39 Miller, “Osetiny,” ibid.
40 N. Ja. Marr, “Plemennoj sostav naselenija Kavkaza”, Trudy Komissii po izuceniju plemennogo sostava naselenija Rossii, III (1920), 47. According to H. Field, “Contributions to the Anthropology of the Caucasus,” Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, XLVIII, No. 1 (1953), 21, “the total number of Osetes in 1923 might be estimated from 190,000-200,000.“
41 Miller, “Osetiny,” p. 263.
