Sacred Faces of the Great Forest

Aleksandr Solovyev

More than one hundred years passed since the scientific world of imperial Russia heard for the first time the legendary stories about the life of the Ostyak heroes written down in the depth of the Irtish taiga by Serafim Patkanov. Full of mysterious images, a sombre taiga atmosphere, vivid and unexpected epithets and contrasting comparisons, with a rhythm of repetitions that is alien to a “civilized” listener’s ear, these stories have acquainted contemporaries with the world of the life of Western Siberian natives, a world which has disappeared and is absolutely unfamiliar. .

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