Whither the Tygydym Horse Gallops (On Language Play, Folklore Characters, Tourism Branding, and New Rural Cultural Entrepreneurship)

Abstract

The paper focuses on the Village Tygydym Ethnocomplex created as a private entrepreneurial initiative by one family that moved to the countryside a few years ago. The project’s name refers to the wellknown cliché tygydymskiy kon (which roughly translates to ‘thubalup horse’ and is here referred to as Tygydym Horse), because the “village” itself is positioned as this quasi-folklore character’s place of residence. As shown in the paper, the play-based rethinking of this popular expression—as well as the creation of a personified character—is a popular practice that reflects contemporary language processes like mass language experiments, graphical plays, references to precedentsetting phenomena, and the use of other creative linguistic mechanisms. The author raises the question of which meanings and associative connotations this expression has (not) developed within the language, and which emerge as a result of the creative approach to this linguistic unit used by certain actors and why, and what place this linguistic creativity takes in the general configuration of their project. After analyzing folklore and dictionary sources offering interpretations and examples of the expression tygydymskiy kon used in speech, the author concludes that its meanings are discrete and can hardly be formalized, while the image is poorly developed semantically. Thanks to this specific feature, the creators of Tygydym Village could not only ignore the use of this expression in language and folklore, but also formulate their own interpretation that was built out in two directions. On the one hand, the new Tygydym Horse has acquired its new folklore identity, a vulgar joke figure turned a fairy-tale character, bringing it in line with questions about appropriate representations of traditional culture. On the other hand, the image is developed through its inclusion in the biographical narrative that takes a central place in the story and concept of Tygydym Village as a tourism and life project.