Humor and Wisdom of the Triksters. The Cultural-Historical Types Till Eulenspiegel and Aldar Kose

This study offers a comparative analysis of two trickster types – Till Eulenspiegel and Aldar Kose – who are deeply rooted in the German-speaking cultural space and Kazakh culture, respectively. Till Eulenspiegel proves to be a character who combines traits of the trickster with those of the prankster, who makes jokes for their own sake, while Aldar Kose, as the “trickster of tricksters”, is a trickster for the sake of justice. Both characters each embody a different direction of wisdom: the more epistemological orientation (Eulenspiegel) or the more ethical orientation (Aldar Kose). A different value is central to each of their pranks: freedom (Eulenspiegel) and justice (Aldar Kose). The humor and wisdom of Eulenspiegel and Aldar Kose can be traced back to the social characteristics of the cultures in which the stories about them originated. Their laughter and culture of values are based on various principles – linguistic (playing with the polysemy of words and their literal meaning) and naive-ethical (proverbial wisdom). The value of freedom of the prankster-trickster is a reaction to the limitations of individual life under the conditions of the estate-based society in the era of growing economic and spiritual changes. The value of justice in the case of the justice-trickster is a direct response to social injustice and hierarchy in society and restores harmony through good-natured trickery. The aim of this study is to show the ethical and epistemological differences in the jokes and pranks of both characters and to trace their historical and social origins using the comparative historical method. The study also demonstrates the universal resemblance between the humor and wisdom of tricksters and pranksters.