If Lotman speaks of “symbolic meaning” as a simple synonym for significance, Umberto Eco prefers to speak of “symbolic mode” to underline that symbols are not qualitatively different signs but signs that are used in a particular way, which is symbolic. In short, the symbolic mode is a semantic-pragmatic attitude, particularly recurrent in certain contexts (for example those steeped in mysticism). What we would like to argue is that the symbolic mode, if on the one hand always opens to the risk of vagueness, on the other – precisely because it opens up different interpretative paths–- allows “meetings” of communities of interpretation, and for this reason it appears particularly functional and strategic in certain contexts that have the very purpose of creating communities: religious discourse, political discourse, memorial discourse…

Migrating from literary (authorial) texts to collective impersonal contexts, symbols take on a further cultural function: memorial and connective.

This research examines the polyphonic interplay of motifs across folklore, focusing on the figures of Odin from Norse mythology and Ali Kishi from the Kor-oğlu epic. While Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of polyphony traditionally applies to literary texts, we extend its principles to folkloric narratives, where distinct yet interconnected voices and motifs form a dialogical relationship. Central to this exploration is Bakhtin's idea of dialogue as a tension between the Self and the Other (Bakhtin, 1963), enabling the comparison of cross-cultural narratives.

Key to this study is the motif of the horse as a reflection of the hero’s alter ego, encapsulated in the Turkic saying: “The horse is to the man as the wing is to the bird,” as noted by Mahmud Kashgari in his 11th-century dictionary. Françoise Aubin further articulates this idea, stating that in Turkic and Mongolian epics, the horse represents the hero’s double.

This duality is also evident in the Northern saga, where Odin, disgusted as an old man, guides Sigurd to select his legendary horse, Grani. The selection process, involving driving horses to a river where one exceptional steed emerges, mirrors the episode in the Kor-oğlu epic, where Ali Kishi, a blind figure akin to Odin, facilitates the selection of a magical horse. These parallels highlight recurring motifs of blindness, guidance, and the union of terrestrial and celestial realms, as embodied in the horse’s symbolic significance.

By comparing these narratives, the research underscores how shared themes and motifs traverse cultural boundaries, enriching our understanding of polyphonic storytelling within folklore and its dialogical engagement across traditions.

Modern semiotics pays special attention to the concept of enunciation, in particular markers of subjectivity and polyphonic discourse. The view of enunciation as an act or process has become the central problem of Paris Semiotic School in recent decades.

Jean-Claude Coquet, the creator of subjective semiotics, suggests moving away from the opposition “statement/ enunciation” (Coquet, 1984) and considering enunciation as a synonym for meaning in general.

And Marion Colas-Blaise introduces the concept of “trans- enunciation” as a phenomenon that permeates semantic layers at different semiotic levels: literary text, photo, video clip, etc. (Colas-Blaise, 2023).

The connection between the phenomenon of polyphony and the concept of enunciation in literary texts was noted by Mikhail Bakhtin (1963) and Oswald Ducros (1984). However, the problem of expressing a polyphonic enunciation in a theatrical context remains little studied. Meanwhile, theatrical semiotics is a special area of the sign world. According to Yu. M. Lotman (1989), in the theater, “everything is semiotics,” from makeup and facial expressions to the norms of behavior of the spectator in the auditorium, from the theater stage to the ritualized theatrical atmosphere.

We propose to look at the problem of theatrical enunciation through the prism of the concept of truth. The actor must treat the words he speaks “as truth, that is, turn lies into truth” (Vakhtangov, 1918), and this attitude underlies the “fantastic realism” movement, like the second voice in a polyphonic work. The truthfulness of the statement can also become a metadiscourse technique, as in the case of films about theater (the leitmotif If I could tell you ... in the film by Marina Merkoulova and Alexander Myagchenkov “The Way Home. Vakhtangov Chronicles”, 2023).