Karachay Malkar mythology

Mythology is a special form of human consciousness. It is the main method of social and ancestral thinking as a way of preserving traditions in a changing reality. It is an ancient way of understanding the surrounding reality and the human essence. Mythology is studied within the framework of such scientific disciplines as comparative mythology. Folk stories like myths, epics, legends inherited from ancestors have been changing for thousands of years and have formed the mythology of various modern peoples and nationalities. The belief system, which is as old as the birth of mankind, exists in almost every culture. The Turks are one of the nations with the richest and oldest mythological traditions in the world. Turkish mythology is the name given to the mythological whole that the historical Turkish peoples believed in. When Karachay-Balkar mythology, which has an important place in Turkish and world mythologies, is carefully examined, it is seen that it is both a rare and complementary example of Turkish mythology and a response to the unsolved puzzles of world myths. The Alani Turks, called in the Anatolian Turkic language as the Karachay-Balkar Turks, live mainly in the Karachay-Cherkess and Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Republics of the Russian Federation, as well as in the southern regions of the Stavropol Territory, usually in the Bashtava region. The Alan Turks, or Karachay-Balkar Turks geographically, are a Turkic people who have long preserved the traditional ancient Turkic culture, belief system and epic traditions. Karachay-Balkar mythology and myths are the subject of the thesis. The purpose of this study is to examine the myths, mythological events in Karachay-Balkar mythology and their impact on human life up to the present day and to contribute to Turkish mythology. In the first part of our study, the definition, birth and historical development of mythology in general will be given in the first part, and in the second part, information about the name and origin, history, geography and population of the Karachay-Balkar Turks will be given. In the third part, myths such as theogony, etiology, eschatology, totem and heroism of the Karachay-Balkar mythology, which is the main topic of the thesis, will be analyzed and examined. The issues mentioned in the study will be discussed specifically and examined within the framework of Turkish culture.