An ancient oral tradition, it is thought that many of the poems predate the northwards migration of Yakuts in the 14th century, making Olonkho among the oldest epic arts of any Turkic peoples.
Oyunsky published collections of Olonkhos, adapting the format to written medium by suitable for reading, dividing the poems into separate parts and songs.
Oyunsky expanded the story, adding Taas kiele ogo, a character who speaks about a core principle of the Yakut world view.
[16] Tuyaryma Kuo was created by Platon Oyunsky in the 1930s as a drama based on Nyurgun Bootur the Swift - it was first performed in 1937 at the Yakut National Theater.
[17] The origins of the Olonkho epics is of interest not only in the context of Yakut history, but also in the wider field of comparative Turkic mythology.
Oyunsky inferred that the Yakuts originated in the Aral Sea area, moving via the Transbaikal to the Lena River basin, using the Olonkhos as a source themselves.
Historian Georgiy Basharin also supported the idea of a southern origin, and suggested that the Olonkhos arose together with the northern migration, and the people's struggle for 'nationhood'.
Okladnikov claimed there was linguistic evidence for an origin of the Yakut language not in the mid Lena basin, but somewhere where other Turkic and Mongol peoples lived.
He linked their origins to the western Baikal region, where the Orkhon-Yenisei script using Guligans and Qurykans lived, and suggested that those tribes ancestors were the Yakut's ancestors - so-called "forest peoples", who lived east of the Yenisei Kyrgyz in lowlands around the Selenga River, on the banks of Lake Baikal, and around the Angara River.
[26] A summary of Ereydeeh Buruuydaah Er Sogotoh by A. Y. Uvaroskiy was published in German translation in 1851 in the work Über Die Sprache Der Jakuten.
[28] E. K. Pekarsky was exiled to the region between 1881 and 1905, initially in Taatta (Tattinsky District), there drawing on the rich local oral tradition of olonkhohutlar (epics), algısçıtlar (prayers), and oyuunlar (games).
A Slovar Yakutskogo Yazıka [Sakha-Russian Dictionary] was published in 13 volumes between 1905 and 1930, also edited by Perkarskiy - examples of word usage drew on folklore and especially Olonkho texts.
Having learnt the Sakha language he took part in the work funded by Sibiryakov, and translated full texts of Er Sogotoh, Kulun Kullustur, and Sün Caahın into Russian in the 1929 volume of Obraztsı Narodnoy Literaturı Yakutov.
[10] The Saha Dili ve Kültürü Bilimsel Arastırma Enstitüsü [Sakha Institute of Language and Cultural Research] was formed in 1934, establishing folklore archives.
After the great disruption of the Second World War the institute was renamed to Saha Dilini, Edebiyatını ve Tarihini Arastırma Enstitüsü in 1947.
[31] In the 1960s and 70s focus of the institute switch to textual analysis rather than collation, Important works during this period include the Yakutskiy Geroiçeskiy Epos Olonkho - Osnovnıe Obrazı [Main Characters of the Yakut Heroic Epics - Olonkho] (V. Puhov, 1962); as well as Oçerki Po Yakutskomu Folkloru [Essays on Yakut Folklore] (Ergis, 1974).
[32] Important later publications include Cırıbına Cırılıatta Kııs Buhatıır (1981), an Olonkho whose main protagonist is a woman; and Kuruubay Haannaah Kulun Kullustuur (1985) published in a free Russian translation alongside the Sakha with the aim of both being as close to the original as possible.
[34] Since the 1990s Olonkho have been used by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Sakha as teaching aids to primary school children - however some of the language of folklore (idioms, proverbs, riddles etc.)