Proben Der Volksliteratur Der Noerdlichen Tuerkischen Staemme. Part V. Dialect Der Kara-Kirgisen [Examples of folk literature. Examples of northern Turkic tribes’ folk literature. Part V. Wild Mountains Kirghiz’s dialect].: Title-page in Russian and German.

[Epic of Manas].

The first publication of the Kyrgyz epic of Manas. Published in Kirgizian language by Cyrillic-based alphabet.

Manas is probably the world's longest poem. The whole text was recorded about five hundred years ago, it's traditionally believed that the songs appeared about a thousand years ago. Manas is singing without an accompaniment of any musical instrument. For a long time it existed entirely in the oral form, the Kirgiz had no written language.

Firstly one of songs was written in 1856 by Shoqan Walikhanov, Kazakh ethnographer and participant of The Great Game. He called Manas as "The Iliad of the Steppe". Firstly this song was published in his Russian translation only in 1904.

This publication was prepared by Friedrich Wilhelm Radloff, the German scientist and orientalist. While he was studying Uralic and Altaic languages, he learned Russian, went to work in Siberia and took Russian citizenship. The results of his numerous expeditions were published in his multi-volume edition of The Samples of Folk Literature of Turkic Tribes (1866- 1907). The text of Manas was published in one of the volumes of this edition. He recorded these songs during his expeditions in 1862 and 1869.

Radloff used traditional Russian transcription system as a base to prepare his own alphabet to write Turkish language texts including songs of Manas. He used 17 letters for vowels and 34 for consonants also he used diacritic signs and his own signs to mark specific pronunciation.

Later in the beginning of the XXth century Kirgiz texts were published using Arabic and Latin alphabets and only in the 40s of the XXth century turned to the Cyrillic-based alphabet.

OCLC locates only one copy in USA: in Dartmouth College Library.

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