Kobzar Songs and Dumy of the 1930s – 1950s: Between Amateurism and Folk Tradition

Abstract

The analysis of the authors’ songs and dumy, created by kobzars and lirnyky in the 1930s – 1950s is submitted in the article. The materials for the analysis include the sound records preserving in the IASFE record library. The recordings have been made in expeditionary and studio conditions. This study is aimed at the ascertaining the affinity of these works with folklore and the reason why they have not become an organic part of the oral epic and song tradition. The events of the 20th century are glorified in most of these works: the so-called October Revolution, Civil and Patriotic War, a happy collective farm life and the outstanding socialism projects. The performers have glorified the leaders Lenin and Stalin, the Soviet army, the «great» achievements of the Soviet government, the reunification of Ukrainian lands in 1939, etc. The Bolsheviks have tried by all means to place kobzars at the service of Soviet power and made them create «new heroic Soviet epos». This is the beginning of the tragedy of Ukrainian kobzarstvo and the destruction of the kobzar tradition. The kobzars Yehor Movchan and Volodymyr Perepeliuk have been endowed with a special musical talent. The events of the Second World War are covered in many works by Yehor Movchan. The duma On the Events in the Village of Protopopiv refers to the shooting of the villagers and the forcible deportation of young people to Germany. The author has used successfully folk melody and the structure of dumy. It includes the beginning, the ending, multiple repetitions, free meter. However, the text of the duma itself has nothing common with the oral epic tradition. This is indicated by the absence of folklore formulas in it, their replacement by newspaper stamps of the Soviet period. Therefore, despite its musical affinity with the Ukrainian folk epos, duma is still of artificial and literary nature, resembling an agitation leaflet in style. Though Yehor Movchan other songs are close to the folklore tradition, they have not become its property because of a completely opposite content to folk works. They have glorified and exalted what the people satirize and curse. The events poetized in them have contradicted the historical truth. The heritage of Hryhorii Ilchenko is a typical example of an «artificial fabrication of a new epos» in order to create the so-called «Soviet people’s dumy». His repertoire is marked by a large number of created for the stage specially original songs that have nothing common with folk epics. In particular, such forgery of folklore is A Duma on a Widowed Mother. The mechanisms of duma creation are described in the article. All this is only a superficial pastiche of folklore, primitive and artificial. The same applies to the ballads by Volodymyr Perepeliuk. Thus, most of the authors songs have quite an indirect relation to the oral folk tradition. That’s why they haven’t become and can’t become its property.