THE INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TERMA AND DOSTON IN THE SURKHANDARYA EPIC-SINGING SCHOOL

Abstract

This article examines the artistic, functional, compositional, and performative interrelationship between terma and doston in the Surkhandarya epic-singing school, one of the most expressive regional forms of Uzbek bakhshi culture. The relevance of the topic is determined by the renewed scholarly and institutional attention to intangible cultural heritage, by the official recognition of bakhshi art as a significant national value, and by the fact that the Surkhandarya and Sherabad performance environments have preserved a living system in which epic narration, instrumental accompaniment, oral memory, and ethical instruction are inseparable. In Uzbek folklore, doston is usually understood as a large-scale lyrical-epic narrative that embodies heroic, romantic, historical, social, and moral experience, while terma is a shorter lyrical or lyrical-epic genre performed by bakhshi singers in the form of praise, reflection, moral counsel, social evaluation, instrumental glorification, or introductory address [1; 2]. However, the practical life of oral performance shows that these two genres should not be studied as isolated textual units. In the Surkhandarya school, terma prepares the communicative and emotional space of performance, reveals the worldview of the bakhshi, activates the symbolic authority of the dombra, and creates a transition into the broader epic world, whereas doston expands the same ethical, thematic, formulaic, and melodic resources into plot, character, conflict, and resolution. The article applies historical-comparative, structural-poetic, functional, and performance-oriented methods in order to define the mechanisms through which terma and doston interact. The results show that their relationship is realized through performative initiation, thematic concentration, formulaic continuity, melodic transition, moral framing, and pedagogical transmission within the master-apprentice tradition. The conclusion argues that terma is not merely a minor song preceding a doston; it is a condensed epic code through which the bakhshi opens the narrative universe, negotiates the audience's attention, and establishes the moral horizon of the performance. Accordingly, doston may be interpreted as the expanded narrative realization of the values concentrated in terma.