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«NUTAG» AS UNDERSTANDING OF THE IMAGE OF A SMALL MOTHERLAND OF MODERN MONGOLIANS // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2018. Issue 2 (20). P. 91-99

An important component of the contemporary Mongolian ethnicity – native nomadic places («nutag») and their representations are being explored. Different variations of the interpretation of this image are given. The situational essence of nutag perception is analyzed. Particular attention is paid to individual features of understanding and localization of a small homeland. The sources of the nutag study are conditionally divided into three groups: oral, old-written and modern musical-literary. When considering sources, special attention is paid to the literary and musical-poetic creativity of Mongolian authors of the 20th – early 21st century. The traditional notion of nutag is an understanding of the specific landscape in which the spirit-masters and the spirits of the ancestors of living people inhabit. These people support a psycho-emotional and mental connection with their native nomadic places. Today this representation is replaced by generalized images and only for an outside observer it becomes an abstraction. In fact, the nutag, as before, for each Mongolian retains a deep semantic load that is not extrapolated to the outside observers. In conclusion, the dual essence of the contemporary ideas about the Mongol homeland is emphasized: external abstractness and internal individual imagery, which is associated with a specific locality, natural objects and spirits-masters of the native landscape.

Keywords: Mongolia, Mongolians, ethnic self-consciousness, ethnicity, homeland, image