Northern Bukovyna spring songs and haivkas in Kornylo Lastivka’s research

Abstract

Objective. The paper deals with features existence and functioning of spring songs and haivkas in the national context of studying genres of the spring calendar ritual cycle. Methods. The historical-typological method was applied in the paper in the process of working out the theoretical basis and the development of classification systems of genres and motives. The dynamics of the existence of calendar-ritual works was traced using a functional method. Using the statistical method helped to evaluate objectively the qualitative and quantitative indicators of genre diversity of the spring calendar ritual folklore of Bukovyna, to trace its dynamic processes. The aesthetic method reveals the artistic level of the analyzed works. Structural-semantic methodand that of reconstruction help to understand and, to some extent, reproduce the original meaning and purpose of archaic rituals and folk-poetic works devoted to them. Scientific novelty. The study is the first attempt to solve topical issues of the dynamics of life, regional specificity of the genre structure, system of motives and poetics of the spring calendar ritual folklore of Bukovyna. The paper emphasizes that K. Lastivka was actually the first researcher of Bukovinian spring songs and haivkas (as opposed to P. Rusnak, who became the first competent recorder of these genres, and in 1910 he published a folk collection "Going, going Zelman, Ili Gailki, Bukovinian-Russ round at Easter" with a short preface in Kolomyia). Here we pre-sent K. Lastivka’s peculiar genre classification recorded in the studied area (in the villages of Horoshivtsi and Chunkiv of Zastavna district of Chernivtsi region), the works of spring calendar ritual folklore, as well as their quantitative and qualitative indices within one cycle have been analyzed. The semantics is revealed and an attempt is made to reconstruct the archaic relic phenomena of the spring calendar ritual and the calendar ritual poetry of Bukovyna in K. Lastivka’s records and interpretation. An additional illustrative material of the article was the modern spring songs and haivkas of Bukovyna, collected by the author of this paper and, to some extent, for the first time introduced into scientific circulation. The pivotal concept of the paper is the constructive analysis of folklore phenomena from individual works to theoretical generalizations. The paper is the first to analyze interesting plots and variants of the works recorded in the Bukovyna region (their total number is more than 400 texts). Conclusions. Based on the materials collected and com-mented by K.Lastivka, as well as the texts recorded during the last two or three decades and analyzed by the author of these paper, it is stated that the proposed research is the first holistic research of the spring-ritual folklore of Bukovyna in Ukrainian study of folklore, which concentrates on disclosing two aspects - regional specifics and changes that have taken place in the life and functioning of calendar songs in recent years.