KUBAIR

KUBAIR,  1)  is  a  glorifying  song  (from Bashkir “koba” – excellent, glorified and “yir” – song); 2) is a clan’s or tribe’s song, is an equivalent of “heroic song” or “heroic epic” terms. K. poetry has 7th meter structure. The stanzas vary from 4 to 30 or more lines with pair or mixed rhyme. The main source of epic formation including K. is myths, stories about the first ancestors (see Cultural hero). K. is based on a hero’s struggle for the interests of his neighbors, sometimes it ends with the death of the batyr. In ancient times the poetic part of K. was performed with the dumbyra accompaniment. The majority of K. chants are composed of one melodical type based on the semitoneless major pentatonic. There are K. about batyrs – the defenders of native lands, the heads of their clans, etc. – “Ural-batyr”, “Syukem-batyr”, “Sura-batyr”, etc.; philosophical and didactic K. – “What is evil, first of all?”, “The death of the high mountain” etc.; lyrical K. – “Oh, Uraltau, Uraltau” and other K. which are, supposedly, the parts of bigger K. See also Epic.

F.A. Nadrshina, G.R. Khusainova