Skomorokhi: The Russian Minstrel-Entertainers

Abstract

Numerous sources, both secular and ecclesiastical, attest to the widespread popularity in Kievan Rus' and Muscovite Russia of the professional minstrelentertainers known as skomorokhi. To the folklorist these curious jacks-of all- trades, reminiscent of the French jongleurs and German Spielmänner, have become identified primarily with the singing, composing, and eventual transmission to the peasants of the north of heroic tales and historical songs (byliny and istoricheskie pesni). To the sociocultural historian the skomorokhi represent both a preliminary or formative stage in the evolution of the Russian theater and an important chapter in the early history of secular music in Russia. But whether one views them through the eyes of the folklorist or the historian there is little doubt that these veselye liudi or veselye molodtsy, as they were sometimes referred to, played an important role in the social and cultural life of the Eastern Slavs from the eleventh through the seventeenth century.