Outstanding Kazakh scientist-folklorist E. Tursunov made a huge contribution to Turkic studies, to the epics of the Turkic peoples. During the life of the scientist his fundamental works as «Genesis of the Kazakh everyday tale» and «The origin of the carriers of the Kazakh oral and poetic culture» were received wide world recognition. E. Tursunov was the founder of a number of scientific schools in the field of folklore, Turkic science and in the epic studies world. In addition to his scientific activities, he was engaged in the translation of Kazakh folk tales. E. Tursunov's fundamental work «The genesis of Kazakh everyday fairytale» became classic work of the Kazakh (Turkic) and world science about folklore. There was a time (Soviet period) when Kazakh folklore seemed to be a «thing in itself». However, the fundamental works of Kazakh scientists, including E. Tursunov, formed a set of integral and apodictic investigations. They exposed that when researchers of various scientific directions and disciplines increasingly and irreversibly turn to folklore, they discover the first forms that could not be found in other sources and this allows them to move forward thought centuries. In other words, Kazakh folklore studies may seem complete in general terms, in information and semantic content and in the execution of the scientific discipline. E. Tursunov subtly felt the key problem of modern domestic ethnology, which solution can be provided by folklore. His transition from folklore to ethnology revealed the paradox which consists in the alienation of Turkic history from world science. In former times, alienation was not relevant, because a thought was permanently implanted in the consciousness of the people in the national history which was closely linked with forced sedentarization. This thought had been ripening for centuries in sedentary cultures as urban and agricultural. The mind of people was full of backwardness, inefficiency and even harmfulness of tribal consciousness and tribal relations that are inherent in traditional Kazakh society. Its appearance in a sedentary environment is understandable, because farmers in most of the Eurasian continent were exposed to the invasions of nomads’ hordes from the steppe, which were invariably defeating any armies from Europe and Western Asia for centuries and even millennia. They subjugated cities and countries, settled on the conquered lands, changed the appearance and gene pool of peoples. The conquered nations then did their best to preserve their identity and, in any case, eradicate the tribal mark left by the Turkic-speaking nomads from the historical memory, who were the ancestors of the Kazakhs. Based on the theoretical provisions of E.Tursynov about the types of mythologization in Kazakh folklore, the author explores mythological images, plots, techniques and traditions in the poetry of M. Makatayev. A large number of examples show the mechanism of their transformation from the category of folk elements into aesthetic ones.

Keywords: Kazakh folklore, M. Makatayev, mythologization, scientist-folklorist.