Preservation of the traditional culture of the Cossacks in the scientific and creative priorities of the Department of Folk Singing and Ethnomusicology of the Saratov State Conservatory named after L. V. Sobinov

Abstract

The article is devoted to the 55-year activity of the Department of Folk Singing and Ethnomusicology of the Saratov State Conservatory named after L. V. Sobinov. The focus is on one of the directions in the scientific and creative priorities of the department – the study and preservation of the traditional song heritage in the culture of the Cossacks. The author gives an excursion into the history of the study of musical folklore and the creation of a new specialty "head of a folk choir" at an academic university. The article highlights the role of prominent figures-folklorists associated with the study of the Cossack song tradition and the formation of the science of ethnomusicology at the Saratov State Conservatory – A.M. Listopadov, L.L. Christiansen, A.S. Yareshko. The article summarizes some results of the research, publishing, concert, creative and educational work of teachers and students of the Department of folklore research of the Cossack regions of Russia. The author also refers to the archive of audio recordings and theses with song notations in order to identify the earliest recordings of folklore expeditions to the Cossack regions of the Saratov Volga region, analyzing the musical, poetic and performing style of song folklore. When writing this article, the following art criticism methods were used – comparative historical (comparative) and musical-analytical research methods. Despite the fact that the Cossack song tradition has not been revealed in the territory of the modern Saratov Volga region in the form of a formed musical and ethnographic phenomenon, there are persistent stable indigenous signs characteristic of the Cossack song culture in local manifestations: both a set of song genres and characteristic musical-poetic and vocal-performing features of the Don Cossacks singing style: specific features of folk speech, diphthongs, word breaks, "entrances"-glissandings from below to the main sound, a special phonetic structure of vocal speech. Similar genre, musical style and performance features of the song folklore of the Cossack tradition in the recordings of the 70s and 80s of the twentieth century are found locally as residual phenomena. Later archival records in this region demonstrate the all-Russian late urban tradition. There are many reasons for this: both the influence of mass pop culture and the result of the lack of social ties between generations of different ages, continuity within the family, within singing groups and the "blurring" of the indigenous population by immigrants from different regions.