On April 20, a monograph presentation "Storytelling in Siberia. The Olonkho Epic in a Changing World” of associate professor Robin P. Harris at the Institute of Applied Linguistics in Dallas (Texas, USA) was held at the Institute of Humanitarian Studies and Problems of the Indigenous Peoples of the North of the SB RAS, according to the Research Institute of Olonkho, North-Eastern Federal University.

As noted by the staff of the research institute, the epic of the Yakuts in the Soviet times was on the verge of extinction. The revival of interest in Olonkho was due to the UNESCO recognition of its important role in the oral and intangible heritage of mankind and its proclamation as a masterpiece in 2005.

Robin Harris, Director of the Center for the Study of Excellence in World Art, documented how the Sakha people used the proclamation of the epic to revive Olonkho and strengthen its cultural identity based on her ten years of life experience in the Russian North. "The multidisciplinary monograph contains the nature of folklore in conjunction with ethnomusicology, anthropology, comparative literature and culturology, to shed light on how the peoples who have lost their identity revive their own intangible cultural heritage", said Ruslan Anisimov, Deputy Firector of NEFU Research Institute of Olonkho.