The Library's American Folklife Center is helping to save the music of Ukrainian village minstrels.
In a joint project between the American Folklife Center and the Ryl's'kyi Institute of Art, Folklore and Ethnology (Ukrainian Academy of Sciences) in Kiev, more than 200 wax cylinder recordings are being brought to Washington to be restored and copied, then returned to Kiev.
Another several hundred cylinders may be available from other institutions in the future. The cylinders were recorded in Ukrainian villages between 1904 and 1939 and include a variety of types and styles of music.
The most prominent music in the collection is that of the blind village minstrels, known in Ukrainian as kobzari and lirnyky. In addition to the cylinders, the collection includes copies of tape recordings made in the 1950s and 1960s in Ukraine. There are supporting photographs, transcriptions and unpublished manuscripts as well as hard-to-find journals and other published sources, all of which will be brought to the Library of Congress from Ukraine.
The collection also contains video and audio recordings of current practice derived from the tradition, made under the joint sponsorship of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, the Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies at the Smithsonian Institution and the Ryl's'kyi Institute. Acquisition will take place over several years, and the collection will be available for research in the Library's Folklife Reading Room when the material has been processed.
The first group of cylinders being duplicated are those containing the music of the blind minstrels whose repertory contained some of the most important national symbols in Ukrainian culture. They sang the epics known today as dumy, of the exploits of the Cossacks, as well as of village life, and provided the village with examples of an upright and moral life. They also had a unique religious repertory, especially the psal'my, based on religious, nonliturgical texts, primarily of village origin. Only the blind village minstrels sang the heroic epics and only they could play special instruments, the kobza (plucked lute) and the lira (hurdy- gurdy). Their playing style and vocal ornamentation were a cross between European and West Asian music practices. Ornamental flourishes and improvisation are characteristics of this Eurasian music.
The minstrels had their own brotherhoods or sects that controlled access to learning the music and the national symbols of Ukrainian culture (e.g., the history of Cossackdom through the heroic epics as well as a type of religious knowledge and interpretation through the psal'my). Entry into a sect was controlled by its members. Prominent features of the sects included: an apprenticeship period, examinations by sect leaders, obedience to the sect master, use of a secret language based on the slang of criminals in the Russian Empire and a performance season from spring to autumn for most, during which they wandered village roads, performing in village markets as well as from house to house. They were not beggars but wandering performers. They had homes and families, even property, to which they returned in off-season.
Early in the Soviet period, the minstrels were forbidden by the state to travel and those who continued to do so were sometimes arrested. Aspects of their repertory were either administratively censored (religious genres) or co-opted by party and government officials who helped develop texts and musical styles more in line with politically correct Soviet music practices ( dumy about Lenin; heroic songs about Stalin, the Communist Party, the military and the state).
During the Stalinist repressions, thousands of village performers were shot or arrested and sent to labor camps, or otherwise repressed. By the 1950s most of the sects ceased to exist. Only a handful of performers survived into the 1960s, and today there are no blind village minstrels whatsoever in the Ukrainian countryside. Thus an entire group of musicians, numbering in the thousands in the early 20th century, has vanished.
Today a single sect has reemerged, based largely on the music and tradition of a single performer, who recently died at the age of 96. There are about 15 active performers of this sect, and they usually can be seen performing on the streets of Kiev and other cities as well as in concerts. None of them is blind, but their instruments, repertory and lives are similar to those of the older minstrel sects. These are not the bandura musicians of the conservatories and music schools that feature a standardized repertory of arranged folk songs, which are products of the Soviet period and available on commercial recordings, marketed as the "Ukrainian Bandura."
This collection of cylinder recordings and supporting materials documents one of the most unique and important aspects of Ukrainian cultural history. In this collection, scholars have at their disposal primary sources for the interpretation of that history (the cylinders themselves being the most valuable part). A cultural historian can compare the music practices of these musicians with those of the Soviet period and today. Through this material it is possible to view the transformation of aspects of Ukrainian musical culture from a primarily village-based phenomenon in the 19th century to a village-urban association with national networks by the mid-20th century.
It is also possible to view the horrible costs in human life and local culture that this transformation produced and how it was possible for this to occur without the knowledge or interest of the rest of the world.
Once in place and available for scholarly use, this collection should help to answer this question.
