Klyment Kvitka. About syncretism.

Abstract

The proposed essay by K. Kvitka, written probably in the late forties of the last century and has significant methodological and theoretical interest. Here, for the first time in global practice, the popular theory of the existence in the dawn of human de- velopment of a primitive polyelemental form – choral play – has been criticized. This form encompassed words, music, dance, and action as a unified whole, from which, in the process of evolution, not only separate artistic forms emerged - literature, mu- sic, choreography, and theater, but also genres specific to each of them - epic, lyrical and dramatic. Through a comprehensive analysis of the main points of this concept, the scholar concludes, albeit presented in a thesis-like manner, its complete logical incapacity. This conclusion is drawn not only based on the Eastern European folklore, containing numerous rituals comparable to the creative expressions of non-European peoples, for constructing assumptions about the essence of primitive art but also re- futes the theory of universal primordial syncretism both worldwide and in ancient Slavic cultures. K. Kvitka’s essay, still lost in his manuscript heritage kept in the archives of the K. V. Kvitka Center of Folk Music at the Moscow Conservatory named after P. I. Tchaikovsky, is being published for the first time in Ukrainian translation. Therefore, one should hope that the reservations of the great scientist, becoming the acquisition of broad literary and art circles, will be taken into account, and the pseudo- theory of primitive syncretism will fade into obscurity.