The mutual influence and creative connections between the folklore of the Arabs and the oral art of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia is an extensive problem, and one of the important aspects of this urgent problem is the study of the relationship of epic genres in these two folklore communities. In the comparative study of the folklore of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia and Arab folklore, according to the author, it is advisable to use the historical and typological method. On the basis of such a study, common features are revealed in the folklore of those peoples who, by their ethnic origin, have nothing in common. The interrelationships between the folklore of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia and Arab folklore should be studied in direct connection with the historical development of social relations. As a rule, the relations of peoples with highly developed epic traditions are two-sided, i.e. they include the processes of mutual influence and mutual enrichment, as well as the improvement of existing artistic traditions.

The influence of Arabic folklore on the oral creativity of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia is characterized by the following features::

1) Arabic mythology, in particular the plots of Islamic myths, as well as the ancient mythological representations of the Arab tribes about the world and man, enriched the plot system of epic genres of folklore of the Turkic peoples-myths, legends, legends;

2) as a result of the popularization of Arab folk legends, the artistic boundaries of the epic genres of folklore of the Turkic peoples have expanded;

3) on the basis of Arabic folk stories about the Prophet Muhammad, his companions and scholars, famous in the Muslim world, many historical legends and legends have appeared;

4) stories about the prophets mentioned in the Qur'an, as well as traditional images of historical figures popular in Arab folklore and associated with the spread of Islam, served as the basis for the emergence of the cult of saints, names of localities and legends about patron feasts;

5) reading in the cultural centers of Central Asia of Arabic fairy tales included in the "One Thousand and One Nights" cycle led to the spread of the plot of Arab fairy tales and caused the appearance of a series of fairy tales that go back to Arab folklore in their historical and genetic roots;

6) wide performance of samples of medieval Arabic folk literature - siyry by raviyami, storytellers " among urban and rural workers, artisans,

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merchants and ordinary people" [Ibragimov, 1994, p. 3] paved the way for the formation of a peculiar genre in the literature of the Turkic peoples - the genre of hadith-kyssa;

7) creative connections between the folklore of certain peoples did not always serve as a basis for the emergence of new literary phenomena or contributed to the artistic improvement of existing genres. According to T. Mirzayev and B. Sarymsakov, starting from the end of the 8th - beginning of the 9th centuries, one of the most important genres of folklore of the Turkic peoples of the pre - Islamic period, Scythian, gradually disappeared in the cultural centers of Central Asia as a result of "the spread of mainly written poetry, as well as written poems and stories that go back to the folk epic in their plot bases". the epic. Therefore, we "have no reason to speculate about the structure and peculiarities of folk poems dating back to the eighth and subsequent (IX-X) centuries. But since the 9th-10th centuries, the influence of Islam has increased in the epics of the peoples of Central Asia, including the epics of the Turkic peoples who are part of the Western Turkic Khaganate, which is especially evident in the interpretation of motifs (supernatural birth of heroes, help provided to them by divine forces, prophetic dreams, etc.), in which the place of local, pre-Islamic beliefs and concepts were replaced by Islamic beliefs and views "(Mirzaev and Sarymsakov, 1981, pp. 41-42).

The second direction in the system of folklore relations between the Turkic peoples of Central Asia and the Arabs is the influence of oral creativity of the Turkic peoples on Arab folklore. "Arab folklore" here refers to the oral artistic creation of Arabs who make up a part of the population of Central Asia.

After the conquest of Central Asia, some of the Arab tribes who came to these lands settled here and remained in direct contact with the indigenous population. Over the centuries, most of these Arabs have forgotten their native language and adopted the language, customs, and folklore of the Uzbeks and Tajiks who live with them. But in some villages, in particular in places where Arabs live compactly, the Arabic language has been preserved. According to I. N. Vinnikov, an expert on the language and folklore of Central Asian Arabs (Vinnikov, 1969, p. 9), 1,750 native-speaking Arabs lived in the Republic of Uzbekistan in the 1930s. They mostly lived in Bukhara (in the villages of Dzhugary and Chandir in Gijduvan district) and Kashkadarya (in the villages of Kamashi and Jainau in Beshkent district) regions.

I. N. Vinnikov organized special expeditions in 1936,1938 and 1943 to study the folklore of the Bukhara Arabs. He wrote down many fairy tales, legends, oral stories, collected proverbs and sayings, information about the customs of the Arabs. I. N. Vinnikov published many works on the dialect and oral creativity of the Bukhara Arabs and in 1941 defended his doctoral dissertation on this topic. N. N. Burykina, M. M. Izmailova, and G. V. Tsereteli studied the folklore of Central Asian peoples at various times [Burykina and Izmailova, 1930; Tsereteli, 1956].

The works of these authors also contained material on the customs, rituals and folklore of the Central Asian Arabs, and they focused on the study of the texts of recorded works and their linguistic analysis. Oral folk art of the Arab population, living far from the main area of residence of the Arabs, among unrelated, ethnically alien peoples, has not yet been studied in the aspect of folklore studies, and this problem is a special direction and deserves serious attention.

There are two important aspects in studying the folklore of Central Asian peoples: first, a comparative study of the historical roots of the folklore of Central Asian Arabs based on their comparison with materials recorded in the main area of Arab residence. This will allow us to identify the ancient foundations of each myth, fairy tale, song or proverb and the stages of artistic development; secondly, to identify the influence of oral creativity of the Turkic and non-Turkic peoples of the region on the development of Middle Eastern folklore.-

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asian Arabs. Only by considering both of these aspects can we identify the leading criteria and main trends in the creative interrelationships of the Arab and Turkic peoples.

I. N. Vinnikov in the preface to his work "The Language and Folklore of the Bukhara Arabs" wrote about the peculiarities of their folklore: "Of the 67 texts included in this collection, 62 are recordings of folk tales. I must say that the actual Arabic element in these tales, as far as it can be determined, is not very large. Most of them reflect folklore stories that are widely spread among the Iranian-speaking and Turkic-speaking peoples of the East. Some of them were created under literary influence, and we can observe here a curious process of secondary folklorization of ancient folk motifs that have received literary form; for some of them it is not difficult to find close parallels in folklore records made in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and other Arab countries. A special group consists of fairy tales that owe their origin to well-known examples of the Central Asian epic; they are interesting mainly because they allow us to judge the original form of these epic works and the truly folk element in them; we are talking about the fairy tales "Ahmed and Yusuf", "Gur-ogly", etc." [Vinnikov, 1969, p. 4]. 9].

Highly appreciating the merits of I. N. Vinnikov in studying the language and folklore of Central Asian Arabs, as well as in publishing texts of oral folk art, I will present here my point of view on some issues:

1) I. N. Vinnikov refers 62 texts out of 67 included in his collection to the fairy tale genre. However, if we follow the scientific criteria formulated by V. Ya. Propp [Propp, 1964, pp. 147-154] to determine the genre features of folklore works belonging to the epic genus, we get a different classification of the genre belonging of texts published by I. N. Vinnikov. Only 51 texts (not 62) of the published 67 belong to the fairy tale genre. The rest are distributed according to the genres of Arabic folklore as follows: 7 texts are legends ("Forty Maidens", "Mustafa", "Ali", "Zaynul-Arab", "Zufunun", "Iskander", "Joseph"); 3 - legends ("Khatib and the Farmer","Arab tax", "How one woman was thrown from the minaret three times"), 2-anecdotes ("There was one man", "There were four people") and 3 texts can be attributed to oral stories ("Emir Alimkhan", "Cemetery of the Arabs", "Alim ibn Kurban");

2) I. N. Vinnikov divided the fairy tales recorded by him according to historical and genetic criteria into four types: a) purely Arabic fairy tales; b) fairy tales borrowed from the folklore of Turkic and Persian-speaking peoples; c) fantastic versions of folk novels; d) fairy tales based on the epic plots of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia.

The classification given by I. N. Vinnikov to the texts included in this collection is not entirely correct (because it does not take into account the origin of plots, legends, legends, oral stories and anecdotes, and their sources), but it is valuable from a scientific point of view because it covers all the variety of subjects of fairy tales. The contents of this collection indicate that the folklore of the Arabs living in the Bukhara region initially developed under the influence of the oral folk art of the Turkic peoples, who have highly developed epic traditions. In particular, Uzbek folklore with its dastans, fairy tales, songs, naturally, had a great influence on the oral creativity of other peoples living in this territory. The Arabs, who have been living among the Uzbeks since ancient times and have entered into close cultural relations with them, have not managed to preserve the main features of their folklore, because, without having direct contacts with the main area of residence of the Arabs, they were cut off from their culture and traditions of oral creativity. As a result, the system of plots inherent in the epic genres of Uzbek folklore penetrated the folklore of the Arabs, and new, Arabic versions of these plots appeared.

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The Arab traditional layer in the folklore of Central Asian Arabs, under the influence of local epic performing traditions, gradually began to lose its original appearance. The reasons for these changes were the following factors:

a) territorial - cohabitation on the same territory of Bukhara and Kashkadarya Arabs with Uzbeks;

b) ethno-social - getting Central Asian Arabs, cut off from the main Arab area, into the sphere of artistic influence of the folklore of Turkic peoples with rich traditions;

c) religious - the Arabs and the Turkic peoples belonged to a single world of Islamic culture;

d) linguistic-in the territories of cohabitation of representatives of peoples belonging by their ethnic origin to different language families, folklore performance is distinguished by its linguistic originality. For example, in Khorezm, Karakalpakiaand in some areas of the Tashavuz region, Uzbeks, Karakalpaks and Turkmens live together. Here, bakhshi storytellers can sing the same dastan, depending on the ethnic composition of the audience, in Uzbek, Turkmen and Karakalpak languages. Therefore, bilingualism or multilingualism is an important feature of performing bakhshi in this territory and is considered a kind of epic tradition. Uzbek folklorists have identified and stated cases when the same bakhshi performed the same dastan in several languages (for example, both Uzbek and Karakalpak versions of the dastan "Shirin and Shakar" were recorded from the mouth of the Karakalpak bakhshi Kurbanbayjirov-Tadjibayev) [Madrakhimova, 1995, p.42].

Consequently, if the phenomenon of bilingualism is considered one of the features inherent in folk performance, then it should naturally also take place in the development of epic creativity of the Arabs of Central Asia. I. N. Vinnikov stated that the Central Asian Arabs, who had close cultural ties with the Uzbeks and Tajiks, by the first half of the XX century, fully or partially assimilated with the "The Arabs lost their language and cultural traditions and adopted the language and culture of the Uzbeks and Tajiks" [Vinnikov, 1962, p.4].

The process of losing their native language and the transition of Central Asian Arabs to Uzbek or Tajik did not take place immediately. It is possible that at some time the Arab tribes spoke two languages (in their native and second-non - native). If this is so, then it is quite possible to assume that at certain stages of the historical and folklore process, epic stories borrowed from Uzbek folklore were performed by Arabs in two languages.

Folklore materials recorded in the 1930s among Arabs living in the Bukhara region and preserving their native language show that the main part of the fairy tales common among Arabs are based on stories borrowed from the folklore of Turkic and Persian-speaking peoples in the process of epic mutual influence.

Features of the process of interpenetration and mutual influence of traditions of oral creativity of peoples who differ in language and ethnic origin are particularly clearly revealed in a comparative study of the plots of Arab and Central Asian fairy tales. As an example, compare the Arabic fairy tale "How a guy wanted to marry his sister" with the Uzbek fairy tale "Golden Cradle", recorded by Fattah Abdullayev from the Khorezmian Kutlimurad Masharipov.

In the index of plots of folk tales by Aarne-Thompson, the theme of the fairy tale " Sister and Brother "is listed under the number 450. T. Rakhmanov proved by the example of the fairy tale" Yeriltosh "("Open up, stone!") that this plot, which is found in Uzbek folklore, differs from the variants described by Thompson. In Thompson's index, the story of a fairy tale

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"Sister and brother" begins with the expulsion from the house of the main characters-brother and sister. And in variants like "Yeriltosh", the introductory part of the fairy tale looks different: the stepbrother wants to marry his stepsister. After learning about this, the girl runs away from home. In a wide field, she looks for shelter and asks a large stone (in some versions, reeds) to hide her. A rock (reed) opens and covers the girl. Her persecuting father, mother, brother, and older sisters ask the stone to open, but the stone does not listen to their requests, but opens only at the request of the younger sister (younger brother). Then the sisters (brother and sister) go on the road. Then the plot develops according to the one given in Thompson's index. A comparative study of the plots of Uzbek folk tales with similar plots of fairy tales of other peoples of this area indicates a number of common features in the historical and cultural development of these peoples [Rakhmanov, 1988, pp. 61-63].

In this case, both fairy tales are based on the same plot, widely spread in the folklore of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, and are devoted to the traditional theme - the adventures of sisters (or sister and brother) who run away from home after learning that the older brother wants to marry his sister. Varieties of such tales exist in the folklore of other peoples of Central Asia, in particular among the Turkmens. In the Turkmen fairy tale "Two Sisters", the eldest son wants to get married, buys a ring and announces that he will marry the girl who will fit this ring. The guy's mother chooses girls, but the ring doesn't fit any of them. When the guy's sister put on this ring, it fit her perfectly. The guy wants to marry his sister. The girl runs away from home and hides in the reeds [Jalalov, 1980, p. 222].

In the analyzed Uzbek and Arabic fairy tales, the main plot conflict and denouement are interpreted somewhat differently. They tell how parents, wanting to marry their son, consulted with him about his choice. He named his beautiful sister as the bride. Offended, the sister runs away from home and hides - in the Uzbek fairy tale in the stone, and in the Arabic one-in the reeds [Vinnikov, 1969, p. 328-331].

These fairy tales were composed on the basis of ancient myths justifying the prohibition of consanguineous marriages (incest). The English ethnographer J. Fraser believes that marriage between close relatives was one of the customs characteristic of the period of transition from matriarchy to patriarchal order [Fraser, 1989, p. 47].

H. Egamov, who specifically studied the problem of reflecting marriage and family relations of the Turkic peoples in fairy-tales, performing a comparative analysis of Uzbek, Turkmen, and Azerbaijani fairy tales on this topic, writes: "In such fairy tales, we see the destruction of mating forms that exist within the genus. It is known that endogamy eliminated marriages within a certain group, genus. The escape of a girl who found out about her brother's intentions shows the influence of endogamy and that there are traces of the destruction of exogamy in the fairy tale " (Egamov, 1980).

The historical roots of the varieties of this fairy tale in the folklore of the Arabs, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Kazakhs, Karakalpaks, Kirghiz and other peoples go back to these ancient marital relations. The Uzbek fairy tale has a complete plot system, and the motives and image system of the Arabic fairy tale are scattered, and it is expressed in the following:

1. Changes in the system of images: In the beginning of the fairy tale "The Golden Cradle" it is said: "Once upon a time there lived an old woman and an old man. They had two daughters and one adopted son."

In the beginning of the Arabic fairy tale, it is told that once upon a time there was a king who had one daughter and one son.

One of the artistic functions of the beginning, as a rule, provides primary information about the characters, providing further development of events, serving as the basis for the theme of the fairy tale.

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In an Arabic fairy tale, the incompleteness of the beginning (it did not have time to take shape as an artistic element) became the reason for the spread of the plot and the development of events. In all national versions of the fairy tale, as a rule, it is said about two girls, i.e. about sisters. In an Uzbek fairy tale, the younger sister who drank water from an enchanted pond and turned into a gazelle plays an important role in the fate of the older sister. In the beginning of the Arabic fairy tale, when information is given about the characters, the younger sister is not even mentioned. Therefore, at the climax of the fairy tale, when people gathered and wanted to kill some animal and it suddenly starts talking like a human and "calls" for a sister, it seems unnatural, incomprehensible and illogical.

So, in the process of transferring the plot of the Uzbek fairy tale to Arabic folklore, the artistic structure of the fairy tale was not completely preserved.

2. Distinctive features in the compositional system:

The plot of the fairy tale "Golden Cradle", which is one of the Turkic fairy tales about a girl who did not want to become the wife of her brother and ran away with her younger sister, is as follows: : 1) traditional conception; 2) old parents who raised two daughters and a son; 3) they consult about the marriage of their son; 4) flight from the house of a girl who found out about her brother's intention; 6) arrival of parents and brother to the stone (reed); 7) opening the stone and the girl's exit outside after the call the younger sister; 8) the sisters approached the enchanted water with three properties; 9) the transformation of the younger sister into a gazelle; 10) the girl and her gazelle sister became the adopted children of an old woman; 11) the shah's marriage to this girl; 12) the hostile attitude of the shah's other wives towards her; 13) the girl (the older sister 14) the birth of twins inside the fish; 15) the gazelle's denunciation of the " false hero "(the maidservant who entered in the form of a girl); 16) the hostile attitude of other wives of the Shah towards the gazelle; 17) the conversation of the gazelle girl with her sister who is inside the fish in the pond; 18) the girl's rescue and exit from the inside of the fish; 19) punishment of the guilty; 20) the gazelle drank zam-zam water and turned back into a girl; 21) traditional ending.

From the above, it can be seen that the plot of this Uzbek fairy tale has a complete structure. In the historical and folklore process, when as a result of the interrelation of folklore traditions, a certain topic is transferred to the oral creativity of another people, the system of motives of the primary basis may not be fully borrowed. This conclusion can be reached on the basis of comparing the fairy tale "Golden Cradle" with the plot of an Arabic fairy tale created on the basis of an epic migration of this theme.

The version of the fairy tale published by I. N. Vinnikov consists of the following themes:: 1) the traditional beginning; 2) the shah having one son and one daughter; 3) a meeting about the marriage of his son; 4) the guy wants to marry his sister; 5) the girl escapes from home and hides in the reeds; 6) the parents and brother search for and call the girl; 7) the girl is swallowed by a fish 8) the birth of twins inside the fish; 9) attempts to kill the gazelle (3 times); 10) the curse of the girl inside the fish and the blinding of the butchers; 11) the gazelle gives information about the sister inside the fish; 12) the rescue of the mother and children and their exit from the fish; 13) the traditional ending.

A comparison of the Uzbek and Arabic versions shows that some important motives of the plot construction of the Uzbek fairy tale (the fact that the girl had a sister; the discovery of the stone after the conversion of the younger sister; the encounter with enchanted water with three properties; the transformation of the younger sister into a gazelle: their adoption by an old woman; the marriage of the Shah etc.) are not found in the Arabic fairy tale. The reason for this, apparently, is as follows::

a) probably, in the process of penetration of the Uzbek folk tale into the sphere of folklore traditions of the Arabs, some of the motives of its plot system were reduced;

b) the person from whom I. N. Vinnikov wrote down this fairy tale was not a skilled storyteller and may have told this fairy tale, shortening it at his own discretion, although at the same time

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in fact it was popular among the Arabs as a work with a complete plot structure;

c) the content disunity of the plot system may be the result of mistakes and shortcomings made in the process of recording (or preparing for publication).

Such changes in the plot can also be seen on the example of the poetic part of the artistic structure of an Uzbek fairy tale. As told in the fairy tale "The Golden Cradle", a gazelle girl, finding herself in a difficult situation, went to the pond and addressed her sister with the following verses::

They sharpened their knives,
They put it to my throat,
I'm about to be stabbed,
Where are you? Go quickly!
I'll be whatever you say,
My dearest sister.
I want to see you while I'm still alive,
I want to see your face to my heart's content,
My dear sister, come quickly.

And she began to cry. My sister's voice answered from the pond:

I'm in the river myself,
My hair is dry,
I have the golden cradle with me,
and Hassan and Husan are lying in it.
My dear sister, don't cry,
Don't torment your heart,
Don't prepare yourself for death,
Let your son-in-law know as soon as possible.

[Zolotaya kolybel..., 1985, p. 249].

The conversation of a gazelle girl with her sister in an Arabic fairy tale is described in prose. As can be seen, the traditional way of expressing the text of this fairy tale, popularized within the framework of the artistic system of a foreign people, has also changed.

Despite this, a comparative analysis of the plot structure of the two fairy tales shows that, firstly, both of these tales about a girl who does not want to marry her brother and hides in a thicket of reeds, have a common content basis. Secondly, the core of the story of this fairy tale originated in the Turkic epic tradition as a result of understanding the historical phenomena associated with the spread of ancient marital relations in the era of transition from matriarchy to patriarchal order. Third, this fairy tale originally developed as a work with a perfect artistic form in the Turkic folk art. Fourth, although Arabic folklore with ancient epic traditions did not significantly change the plot of the Uzbek fairy tale, it cannot be considered as an "Arabic version of the fairy tale of the Turkic peoples". Both Central Asian Arabs and Turks used an artistic text composed on the basis of the above-mentioned plot based on their aesthetic views, lifestyle, and traditional epic worldview. Therefore, these texts, the presence of which is noted in the folklore of the two peoples, can be considered independent fairy tales with good reason.

It is noteworthy that among the Bukhara Arabs there are several versions of the same fairy tale. In particular, the fairy tale "The Woman in the Fish" (Vinnikov, 1969, pp. 68-71) is also based on the above-mentioned plot. This fairy tale has for-

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perfect plot, it embodies all the motifs of the fairy tale "Golden Cradle". The only difference is that it uses the image of a reed instead of the image of a stone. In addition, in the Arabic fairy tale there are no such motives as the adoption of an old girl by an old woman, the denunciation of a false hero. In this fairy tale, the development of events has a peculiar interpretation. This interpretation arose as a result of the introduction into the plot system of such peculiar epic motifs as the arrival of sisters to the reservoir, climbing the tree of the older sister, the arrival of a worker for water, the girl's marriage to the emir with the condition that he would make a golden feeder for her gazelle.

Observations on the ancient roots of fairy tales recorded among the Arabs living in the Bukhara region can reveal another important pattern of the historical and folklore process.

I. N. Vinnikov, describing the thematic types of Arabic fairy tales collected by him, identifies as a special group "fairy tales that arose as a result of the secondary folklorization of literary plots" [Vinnikov, 1969, p. 4]. The scholar here primarily refers to such fairy tales and legends as "Tahir and Zuhra", "Ahmed Yusuf", "Ali", "Zainul-Arab", "Zufunun", "Bobo Ravshan", "Ahmed Zamchi", etc.

The folklorist B. Sarymsakov writes: "Literature, developing, feeds and uses folklore, in turn, it also gives something to folklore or remains an eternal "debtor"to it? It should be noted that literature, developing and absorbing the richness of folklore, in turn, influences and makes its own modest contribution to its development. In other words, just as physical bodies have the ability to absorb light and reflect it, so in the relationship between literature and folklore there is a pattern of the "debt is red" type" [Sarymsakov, 1988, pp. 21-22].

Based on this theoretical attitude, we considered it appropriate to call the phenomenon of creative borrowing from literature "the process of primary influence", and the phenomenon of varying the plots of written literature in the oral tradition, as well as the phenomenon of "secondary folklorization" of the plot of stories written on the basis of a folklore work, "the process of reverse influence".

Among the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, such folk books as "Zaynul-Arab" (Rafiddinov, 1992, p. 4), "The Book of Battles of Akhmed Zamchi" (Beveridje, 1986, p. 283-284; Ivanov, 1917, p. 291-308), and " Tahir and Zuhra"[Akbutaev, 1973], "The Story of Gor-ogly Sultan" [Jumaniyazov, 1992, p. 9], "The Story of Yusuf" [Rudenko, 1986], "The Story of Abu Muslim" [Chillaev, 1985; The Tale of the battle of Abu Muslim, 1993-1995], " Bobo Ravshan"[The Tale of Bobo Ravshan..., 1991, p. 148-192] and other books of love and adventure content.

Some of these stories ("The Story of Gor-oglu Sultan"," Yusufbek and Akhmadbek"," Takhir and Zuhra", etc.) were formed on the basis of dastans, fairy tales and folklore legends of the Turkic peoples, while the other part ("Zufunun"," The Story of Abu Muslim") is a product of the Persian-language literary tradition.

The scholar-folklorist R. Jumaniyazov, who has studied folk books, evaluates the process of creating and performing kissas that arose on the basis of the relationship between oral and written literature as a product of back-exchange mutual influence and interrelations [Jumaniyazov, 1992, p. 10]. Consequently, some of the tales of the Bukharian Arabs arose as a result of varying the oral tradition of the subjects of folk books of the Middle Ages - siyras, kissas and dastans.

Central Asian Arabs, since ancient times living among the Uzbeks, Tajiks, Turkmens and Kazakhs, were in close socio-economic and cultural relations with them and on the basis of the fantastic traditions of these peoples constantly enriched the plot system of their prose folklore. As already mentioned, a comparative analysis of the tales of Bukhara Arabs confirms that the share of "artistic additions" borrowed from the folklore of the Turkic peoples is very high. -

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When studying the interaction of folklore of neighboring peoples, it is necessary to take into account not only the diversity and diversity of its functions, not only its polyfunctionality, but also the constant transformation that entails a change in the relations of its functions, the growth of some at the expense of others. A comparative study of the variants of a particular plot in the repertoire of different peoples also reveals that the orientation of ethnic functions of folklore is constantly changing depending on historical, social and national conditions" [Pomerantseva, 1985, p.244].

Co-existence for many centuries in the same geographical space, similarity of lifestyle, social and living conditions, general trends in the development of artistic thinking have led to the popularization of themes of fairy tales of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia among performers of Arab folklore.

The works of Central Asian Arabs related to the genre of legends have not been recorded or published. However, the information contained in the work of I. N. Vinnikov "Dictionary of the dialect of Bukhara Arabs" suggests that in the system of Arabic folklore and in its relationship with the oral artistic creativity of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, the epic movement of images is an important direction. In the above-mentioned work, in order to explain the meaning of a particular language unit, the texts of mythical works are given. Most of these legends relate to a number of myths created after the penetration of Islam in Central Asia.

In the mythology of the Central Asian Arabs, the same interpretations are found as in the legends of the Turkic peoples. In one of these legends, the origin of the turtle is explained as follows: "The turtle was formerly a man, a weigher. The prophet cursed her (for incorrect weighing) - she became a turtle: one cup of scales is on her bottom, the other cup is on her top " [Vinnikov, 1962, p. 4].

Changing one's original appearance, i.e. becoming an animal as a result of being cursed by Allah, the Prophet, saints, or people with miraculous powers, is one of the traditional themes of the mythological legends of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia. So, they say that the elephant used to be a baker, the owl-the incapable son of a rich man, the sparrow - a slanderer who spread various rumors among people. All of them, because of their bad temper, were cursed and turned into different animals.

In Uzbek folklore, there are several varieties of the legend of the origin of the turtle. A legend written by the literary critic A. Ergashev from Bobokand Shadiev, a resident of the village of Kizilcha, Nuratinsky district, Navoi region, tells that a long time ago the turtle was not a crawling animal, but a beautiful young man. The young man worked as a weigher and thus found the means to live. He had a bad, thievish temper and therefore always outweighed people. Once a saint came to him from a distant village to trade. He was blind, but even so, he was aware of all the secret affairs going on around him. When the weigher weighed the wheat and poured it into the saint's bag, a bad thought crept into his soul: "How will this blind man know if I weigh it?" "And he deceived the saint and stole some of the wheat.

It did not occur to this unfortunate man that he could deceive people, but he could not deceive the Most High Allah. The saint found out about his action, got angry and said: "If one cup of the scale at the top and the other at the bottom do not stick to you, I will be displeased with Allah."

When the weigher heard these words, he was afraid and ran away to the mountains, leaving his shop. In the mountains, he walked for a long time and finally came to a boulder and wanted to hide under it. At this time, a strong wind suddenly rose. The weigher saw two bowls falling from the sky-

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ki of libra. The cups came down and stuck to him, one to his stomach, the other to his back. No matter how hard the weigher tried, he couldn't get free, because the cups stuck very tightly to him and became like stones. Since then, the weigher turned into a turtle and stayed in the mountains, among the rocks (Ergashev, 1993, p. 163-164).

In this legend, by means of a symbolic image - a turtle - philosophical and moral thoughts are expressed that such bad qualities and actions of people as greed, greed, appropriation of someone else's property, lead to the loss of human appearance.

The ancient roots of the Uzbek legend, recorded in Nurat, and the Arabic myth, given by I. N. Vinnikov, go back to the common artistic and mythical foundations. The legend of the transformation of a dishonest weigher into a turtle is widely spread among many Turkic peoples of Central Asia. To confirm this, I will cite here a similar story from Turkmen folklore:

"In ancient times, the turtle was also a human. Once a man borrowed wheat in two clay dishes from a neighbor. Days passed, months passed, a year passed, but he did not repay his neighbor's debt. Only after the elders intervened in the case, he returned two empty clay dishes to the neighbor. The angry neighbor did not take these dishes and cursed him with these words: "Let one of these dishes stick to you from above, the other from below." By God's command, two dishes stuck to this person, and he turned into a turtle" [Baimyradov, 1982, 53-bet].

A similar myth about the origin of the turtle exists in Kazakh folklore. Kazakhs do not kill a turtle, and if a turtle appears in their house, they pour milk over it. The Kazakh legend explains the reason for this behavior as follows: "In ancient times, if people complained about people who had harmed them and cursed them, their curses immediately came true. One man, cursing the shopkeeper who charged him extra money for the goods he sold, said: "You, you hung me, let you become a turtle." After that, the shopkeeper turned into a turtle, and therefore it is impossible to beat the turtle and kill it" [Metin Ergun, 1997, p. 645-646].

"Once upon a time there was a merchant who sold people various sweets and viands, weighing them on a scale with two cups. Days passed, and he came up with various tricks to deceive and outweigh customers. He used this trick: the merchant tied a thin thread to one of the cups where the goods were stored, and during the weighing process, he would pull it imperceptibly. One day Khidir Ilyas came to see him. He took the two cups of scales in his hands and cursed the merchant with these words: "So that you'll have to crawl on the ground for the rest of your life." Then he attached one cup to the top of the merchant, and the other to the bottom. Since then, the merchant with scales has turned into a turtle" [Metin Ergun, 1997, S. 766-767].

Not very different versions of the myth of the origin of the turtle were widely spread in the folklore of the Turkic peoples. All of them are united by the image of a merchant who deceived people and appropriated someone else's share, for which he was cursed and turned into a turtle.

The origin of this legend is most likely based on totemic ideas and archaic myths of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia associated with the cult of animals. According to totemic concepts, totems in the form of certain animals can take the form of people belonging to the tribes they patronized (Kagarov, 1913; Tolstov, 1935; Sokolova, 1974). Thus, there were legends about the transformation of a person into a totem animal. Later, as a result of the penetration of Islam into Central Asia, under the influence of the epic traditions of Arab folklore, certain changes occurred in the plot of the ancient myth, i.e. the transformation of a person into a turtle was no longer interpreted on the basis of totemic ideas, but in accordance with the artistic criteria inherent in the mythology that embodied the religious Sledova-

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Hence, the myth of the turtle is widely spread among all peoples living in Central Asia (including the Arabs) It refers to a number of ancient Turkic legends that have emerged as a result of processing the theme of ancient Turkic legends in the process of artistic influence of the traditions of Arab-Islamic mythological thinking.

Most of the images of Kazakh, Uzbek and Turkmen mythology are also found in the folklore of Central Asian Arabs. They have such mythical images borrowed from Turkic folklore as odamobi, alvasti, balo, peri, and azhdarko (Vinnikov, 1962, p. 4). 8, 15, 19, 34, 39]. Central Asian Arabs in some cases completely borrowed not only the images themselves, but also the mythological ideas associated with them. Such a commonality can be traced, in particular, when comparing the ideas of Bukhara Arabs about azhdarko with Turkmen legends. According to the mythological ideas of the Bukhara Arabs, if a snake is not looked at by a person for forty years, it turns into an azhdarko. If a person sees it, it stops growing [Vinnikov, 1962, p. 15].

An artistic detail found in the Uzbek fairy tale "Ilon Pari" (Snake-Peri) shows that the myth of the snake's transformation into an azhdarko also existed among the Uzbeks. In this tale, according to the wise vizier of the Padishah, who married a peri girl, a slightly modified version of this mythical representation is presented: "In the steppe there is a snake - "Kurma ilon". If it does not see a human being for forty years, it turns into a peri, during the day it takes the form of a peri, and at night it appears in the form of a snake."

The myth that a snake can change its appearance after a certain period of time is an epic story formed on the basis of common beliefs of the Turkic peoples. This is confirmed by the data of the researcher of Bashkir myths B. Yuluyev, according to which, if a snake lives a hundred years, it turns into an azhdarcho, if it lives a thousand years, it turns into a juho, which is able to swallow everything that it comes across [Yuluyev, 1892, pp. 245-248].

Juho is one of the common mythical images of the folklore of the Turkic peoples. In particular, in the Turkmen language, this mythical creature is called "yuvdarcho" and is depicted as a huge snake that swallows everything that it comes across [Turkmen di-linin sozlugi, 1962, 828-bet].

According to R. T. Akhmetyanov, in Chuvash folklore this mythological creature is called yukha, and in the oral folk art of Tatars and Bashkirs - yukho. Juho is a snake that can take the form of a beautiful woman. It usually lives near springs, lakes, rivers, wells and sticks to humans. As it is told in Tatar folk legends, a snake from one year to eight years is called "hayat", from eight to a hundred - "afchi", from a hundred to a thousand years - "azhdakha". If azhdakho lives for a thousand years, it turns into a "juho" (Akhmetyanov, 1981, p. 56).

And in Bashkir folk myths it is said that if a snake lives a hundred years, it will become azhdakho, if it lives a thousand years - juho [Archeology and Ethnography of Bashkiria, 1973, p.25].

In one of the Uzbek folk legends recorded by Rakhmatulla's son Yusuf, it is stated that the snake is called "ilon" up to nine years old, "afkhi" from 9 to 90 years old, "azhdakho" from 90 to 900 years old, and "juho"from 900 to 1000 years old. Juho can take the form of a girl. If a snake lives 9,000 years, it turns into a witch (yalmagyz kampir) [Legends of our ancestors..., 1998, p. 61].

This means that the folklore plot, which embodies the mythological ideas associated with the snake and its forms at different ages, is a common Turkic one. In the process of historical and cultural relations, it also penetrated the folklore of Central Asian Arabs.

It is known that azhdakho (or ajarkho) - a symbol of evil forces in the form of a huge snake-is considered one of the folklore images related to the jinn among the peoples of Central Asia, the North Caucasus, the Volga region, Western Siberia, as well as other peoples.

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Iran and Afghanistan. Azhdarcho, whose origin is associated with the evolution of the image of Aji Dahkhoi, the symbol of evil forces in the Avesto, is often depicted as a monster with several (three, seven, forty) heads. Myth of the origin of the azhdarcho (i.e., the transformation of a snake that has not seen a human for forty or a hundred years into an azhdarcho) It belongs to a number of ancient folklore elements of the peoples of Central Asia [Basilov, 1992, p. 50].

* * *

Summarizing all of the above about the theoretical foundations and peculiarities of folklore relations between the Arab and Turkic peoples, we can conclude the following:

1) the roots of artistic ties between the folklore of the Arab and Turkic peoples go back to very ancient times. The relationship between the folklore of these peoples, who have no common ethnic origin, is assessed as a process of bilateral cultural interaction;

2) comparative folklore studies recommends analyzing literary sources in historical-genetic, historical-comparative, and historical-typological aspects in the comparative study of oral creativity of different peoples. Interrelations and mutual influences of folklore of Arab and Turkic peoples are based on territorial and religious community, on common historical and social processes;

3) samples of Arabic folklore, which were introduced as a result of the spread of Islam in Central Asia, were popularized among the Turkic peoples in written (religious, educational, scientific and artistic literature) and oral (through the work of storytellers and qissakhans, telling qissas, legends and legends, preaching Islamic ideas) ways;

4) Arabic folklore served as an important source that enriched the figurative and narrative system of genres of oral art of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, such as legend, legend, fairy tale and dastan.

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