An Investigation of Aitys and The Poems on Pandemic in Kazakhstan During The Pandemic (Covid-19)

The rapid spread of the virus named Covid-19, which emerged in Wuhan (China) at the end of 2019, caused a global epidemic all over the world. On March 16, 2020, a state of emergency was declared in Kazakhstan and measures were taken in Kazakhstan like the rest of the world. In the meantime, intangible cultural heritage such as aitys, which is a contest on improvised oral poetry, got a great attention in Kazakh society. This article presents the results of an analysis on organizing aitys contests and the poems on COVID-19. The main cause of pandemic is that it changed conventional improvised poetry contest into virtual environment. As a result of the study, it was revealed that four types of aitys contests were held since the state of emergency was declared in Kazakhstan, where three of them were oral and one in written form. The first type of oral aitys contest took place online through video chatting service between two contestants from different places. The second type of the contest was offline at the same place and their contest was streamed via social media. These two contests are streamed on Skype, Instagram, Facebook and the records of the contest are posted on Youtube platform. The third is a radio-talk contest. In an aitys, a man can only listen to his voice to see what he sees in person. Finally, Instagram can be mentioned on paper, as well as on visual and print media such as Facebook. The article states that in the period from March to September 2020, more than one hundred aitys was conducted with the participation of more than one hundred minstrels. Covid-19-themed calls and responses of minstrels were evaluated around Bascom’s “Four Functions of Folklore” and Performance Theory. The poems during the aitys proves that the Kazakh people during the outbreak try to safeguard the world’s vision and traditions, as well as important advice for oral history.