Crimean Tatar love song in folklore collections of the first half of the 20th century (analytical review)

The aim of this study is to provide an analytical review of folklore collections of the first decades of the 20th century, dedicated to the Crimean Tatar folk song. The work focuses on how the love song (which in the oral poetic creativity of many peoples, including the Crimean Tatars, has a special meaning) is presented in these collections and, consequently, functions in national folklore. This, in particular, is confirmed by the fact that already in the first corresponding fundamental collection, published in the early 20th century, love songs not only differ in their undoubted figurative and compositional sophistication, but also quantitatively make up more than half of the songs of all other genre-thematic cycles taken together. The work is novel in that it does not simply lists, but presents in detail the materials of the relevant publications, in particular, those of the collections by Arkady Konchevsky, Yagya Sherfedinov, Asan Refatov, Yusuf Bolat and Ibraim Bakhshysh. The results of analyzing and reviewing the heritage of the collectors of Crimean Tatar folk songs allow us to confirm the relevance of examining the formation and development of national folklore studies, their role in preserving and popularizing oral poetry as an important and integral component of traditional folk culture.