Where Did the “Tungus from Hanychar” Nomadize: Twists of a Literary Plot

N the autumn of 1926, I. N. Shukhov, a member of the expedition to the Demyanka River, published an article in which he told about a meeting with a nomadic Tungus family. The head of the family, named Kantelyan, asked the members of the expedition to grant a “deed of ownership” for the Arangas River, so that Russian hunters could not hunt there. During the famine, Kantelyan took rusks from someone else's warehouse, but left his personal mark (tamga) as obligation to repay the debt. However, Russians accused him of theft. In 1928, Siberian writer M. Nikitin wrote The Hannychar River, a story in which he creatively reworked these plots and added some ethnographic details. He turned the episode with rusks into a confrontation between two points of view - the old, exploitative, and the new, fair. However, the author did not focus on a “class” aspect and made the ending fairly neutral. In the same year, the Kinosibir Film Studio in Novosibirsk turned this story into a film. The domestic conflict arising from the borrowed rusks was elevated to the dramatic collision between the “two laws”: the old law of taiga that supported exploiters, and the new law that protected natives from the previous rulers. According to remaining documents, officials from the Communist Party took part in the discussion of the script and played a big role in strengthening the “class” aspect. The leading roles were given to the Tungus people, including the Tungus who told M. Nikitin a legend about Shektual, an avenging hero. The episode with the legend was not included in the film, but was proposed as the basis for a new script to Leningrad directors R. Milman and B. Spies. The new film was called The Avenger. I.M. Suslov, outstanding expert in the Tungus culture, served as a consultant on this film. It was shot on the Sym River, at camps of the Evenks. The key idea behind the film is the same as in The Tungus from Hanychar - contrasting “two laws” and praising the Soviet power for its justice. At the same time, choosing the legend as a genre, film makers could demonstrate very rare materials on military training of the Evenks and their genuine shamanic ritual, as well as romanticize ethnographic realities. However, the plot of The Avenger was too remote from real life and true Tungus legends. An innovative attempt to combine the romantic spirit of folk narratives about famous warriors and the propaganda of the “new power” failed. Reviewers in the press paid tribute to rich ethnographic materials, but were very harsh in their ideological assessments. None of these films has survived to the present day Regardless of their real artistic value, we can definitely say that the loss of these highly valuable ethnographic sources is an irreparable loss for science. The evolution of this plot clearly shows how the description of a simple domestic conflict, under the influence of the “spirit of the times”, turns into a symbolic story of confrontation between the “two laws” and acquires its own dramatic nature.

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