Леся Українка й родина Косачів у «справі ратування дум»: епістолярний полілог учасників

Abstract

This article attempts to reconstruct the polylogue of the active participants and outstanding assistants of the project aimed at preserving the kobzar and lirnytskyi repertoire from Dnieper Ukraine, initiated by Kvitka’s couple with an active participation of F. Kolessa and O. Slastion. The ethnographic tour of the Galician musicologist F. Kolessa lasted from July to August of 1908. But the epistolary exchange of opinions about phonographing, the subsequent complete publication of texts and melodies of dumas, as well as description-portraits of kobzars, that are significant for studies of the kobzars’ art history (Lesya Ukrainka’s studies about Hnat Honcharenko and Opanas Slastion’s about Stepan Pasiuha), spans the entire five-year period (1908 – 1913). More than ten people and various institutions were involved in the field of this epistolary. Olena Pchilka's publications and the materials that she, as an editor-publisher, published in the "Ridnyi Krai (Native Land)" journal contributed to the popularization of the project. Unfortunately, the complete polylogue cannot be renewed because a large part of the participants’ epistolary has been lost. The recordings of the kobzar and lirnytskyi repertoire made by Lesya Ukrainka and K. Kvitka and the materials of other members of the Kosach family convince us that they perceived and interpreted Ukrainian folklore as an important feature of Ukrainian civilization, something that formed and defined national identity over the centuries.