The image of Amyr-Sana in the enclave tradition of Tuvans of China according to modern records

In the modern enclave tradition of Chinese Tuvans, a layer of oral stories dedicated to Amyr-San has been revealed. The narratives on this topic are still alive in the memory of young and elderly people, showing the continuity of folklore and the stability of historical memory. The collected materials of recent years indicate that compared to the maternal field, the image of Amyr-Sana among Chinese Tuvans is represented by various variants, showing his folklore image to be rather contradictory. On the one hand, the image of Amyr-Sana in the folklore of Chinese Tuvans embodies faith in freedom and independence. He is regarded as an epic hero, a Tuvinian, a founder of archery competition Tuvans. On the other hand, Amyr-Sana can be negatively characterized as a cowardly person, a khan who was defeated and wanted to become the ruler of the Tuvans. One of the specific features in the plot situation: “Amyr-Sana wants to become the ruler of Tuvans” has been found to be the obligatory presence of a poetic triplet/couplet conveying the essence of the main theme. It has been revealed that the departure and return of Amyr-Sana feature two stable motives expressing the idea of Amyr-Sana’s return to his native lands in a difficult time for the people. The fieldwork allowed us to establish that numerous respondents nowadays believe and wait for the return of Amyr-Sana, a striking indicator of the preservation of historical memory.