The Thesaurus Nature of the Genealogical Genre (Shezhire)

In modern literary studies, there is an increasing demand for new methodological approaches to understanding national worldview, historical memory, and spiritual heritage. In this regard, one of the most effective approaches is the thesaurus method. This method makes it possible to systematize the network of concepts in a literary text through semantic, meaningful, and cultural contexts. The genealogical genre, which takes a special place in the literature of Turkic people, is one of those genres that preserve not only the history of ancestors but also the conceptual and worldview code, as well as cultural identity of an entire nation. This research studies the theoretical basis for using the thesaurus method in literary analysis and investigates the thesaurus-based structure of the shezhire genre. The article analyzes Shakarim Kudaiberdyuly’s work “The Genealogy of the Turks, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and Khans” using the thesaurus method. The semantic field of such concepts as nobility, genealogy, continuity of generations, historical consciousness, and spiritual-religious worldview represented in the shezhire text is examined in this research. The aim of this study is to identify the role of the shezhire genre within the national conceptual sphere and cultural-semantic framework through the use of the thesaurus method. The theoretical significance of the study lies in the fact that the application of the thesaurus method in literary studies promotes a new, structural-cognitive understanding of the system of concepts, semantic structure, and the author’s worldview in a literary text.