Olonkho

Olonkho (, ; ; ) is a series of Yakut and Dolgan heroic epics. The term Olonkho is used to refer to the entire Yakut epic tradition as well as individual epic poems. 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. There are over one hundred recorded Olonkhos, varying in length from a few thousand to tens of thousands of verses, with the most well-known poem Nyurgun Bootur the Swift containing over 36,000 verses.

Olonkho was first documented by Europeans during the Russian conquest of Siberia beginning in the 18th century. Large-scale documentation epics was begun by 19th century exiles to Siberia, as well as government-funded scholars in the 20th century in the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.