An ancient epic form of the Turkic peoples, Olonkho refers to both the central epic of the Yakut people as well as the entire Yakut epic tradition. Today, it is occasionally performed in the Sakha Republic, located in the far east of the Russian Federation. The history of the Yakutian peoples is reflected in the Olonkho epics, as well as comparative Turkic mythology. Approximately 1000 years ago, the Yakuts, whose ancestors are believed to have originated in southern Siberia/Central Asia, were broadly isolated from the rest of the Turkic world. The Olonkhos, however, retained a great deal of ancient Turkic mythology. By the 19th century, it was believed that the Yakuts had their origin somewhere south of the River Lena, which was a view that informed contemporary attempts to explain the origins of the Olonkhos.
The Olonkho Epic was originally sung by a narrator and contains different characters, male and female, heroic and evil, and so forth. The characters are recognizable only by the intonation and melody of their voice. The language is archaic, the grammar is complex, the imagery is fantastic and symbolic, and there are metaphors, similes, epithets, and hyperboles. There are about 10 to 15,000 verses in the Olonkho folk tales, which the Olonkho singer and storyteller sing in two parts. These parts alternate between a sung part in verse and an alternating prose part composed of recitatives. Generally, an Olonkho performance will last about 7–8 hours, starting in the evening and continuing throughout the night. The Olonkho can take up to a month to complete. The narrator needs to possess good acting and singing skills as well as poetic improvisation. The epic tells legends of ancient warriors, deities, spirits, and animals, as well as contemporary events, such as the disintegration of nomadic society. During the performance, a poetic recitation opens the performance; other parts of the epic may take this form. Dialogue is generally sung. Facial expressions and gestures are also part of the performance.
Since each community had a storyteller with a rich repertoire, numerous versions of Olonkho were created. Olonkho was passed down from one generation to the next as a means of entertainment and education. The tradition is based on Yakut beliefs, and it provides information on the small country's way of life as it struggles for survival in times of political unrest and difficult climatic and geographical conditions. A political and technological revolution in twentieth-century Russia has threatened the existence of the epic tradition in the Sakha Republic. Even though there has been an increase in popular interest in Olonkho since the perestroika period, the tradition is endangered because there are very few practicing Olonkho today, mostly of old age. In addition to collecting and publishing Olonkho texts, the Russian Academy of Sciences also collected information about the region's inhabitants and cultures, and languages. Their primary purpose was to analyze the geography and geology of Siberia.
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