The paper considers anaphora in the early lyrics by Mikhail Khoninov as a rhetorical figure
of Kalmyk versification. The folklore influenced the process of versification in Kalmyk poetry.
The folklore tradition in the poems of the 1936 «Kichik Bovgadaev», «Komsomol», «Оur
Victory», «Young Actors», «We, the Young Actors we are…» reveals the process how young
poet was mastering two kinds of artistic method: the double rhyme and the cross rhyme.
In Mongolian prosody, alliteration means the beginning of the first lines with vowel and consonant
sounds. Alliteration contributes to the rhythmic organisation of the literary text.
Until recently, great attention has not been paid to the problem of national versification
in Kalmyk literature. Some poets, namely Aksen Suseev and Timofei Bembeev, pointed out that
anaphora is one of the main stylistic device, peculiar for Kalmyk versification. It is characterised
by the repetition of some words or similar syntactic structures at the beginning of the lines
or verses. Structurally they distinguished different kinds of anaphora and alliteration in the organization
of verses or lines: full rhyme, double rhyme, cross rhyme, circle rhyme, with the last one
being the most uncommon type of anaphora for Kalmyk language.
In the early lyrics of Mikhail Khoninov, anaphora is a national feature. The main ways of using
anaphora in his early works of 1936 are: alliteration, phonetic anaphora, lexical anaphora with
repetition of words, syntactic anaphora, syntactic parallelism, combination of rhyming and unrhymed
words, double rhyme and cross rhyme.
Оn the one hand, the lyrics of the young poet confirms his devotion to the national tradition
(anaphora and alliteration), on the other hand, shows the influence of Russian versification
(rhyme and rhyming). The use of alliteration contributes to the rhythm of the poem as well as the
cross rhyme and rhyming.
Mikhail Khoninov was not successful in all his early works, but he tried to combine form
and structure of the text, using national approach.
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