«Zvenyhorodschyna» by Ahatanhel Krymskyi and Contemporary Investigations of Ritual Folk Singing Tradition from Right-Bank Cherkasy Region

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to highlight the little-known pages of regional ethnological and folkloristic studies by Academician Ahatanhel Krymskyi. His monograph, devoted to the study of traditional culture and folk poetry from the native land of Taras Shevchenko in Zvenyhorodka region, contains invaluable ethnographic information and texts of the ritual songs. Materials collected by A. Krymskyi in the second half of 19 th – early 20 th centuries became as the start-point and background for field research for the author of this publication, the tracks of a scientist in the same territory at present, already in the beginning of 21 st century. The results of such studies carried out with a gap of more than a century, allowed to elaborate much clearer definition of the two large historical and ethnographic zones – the Naddnipryanshchyna and Eastern Podillia – demarcation line. In accordance with the stated theme, the article uses a historical-ethnographic approach to the consideration of materials, as well as musical-analytical and comparative research methods. The scientific novelty of the publication consists in comparing the conclusions of A. Krymskyi, made in the field of ethnoregionics, with our own latest musical and ethnographic data. In the process of analyzing musical and ethnographic material, the following conclusions were obtained. The first group of differences, by which it is possible to determine the distinction between neighboring traditions, is at the level of ritual genres and their melotypes. So, the presence of the winter type and forms based on the rising ionic, spring and Kupala songs and ceremonies, wedding types based on 5- and 7-syllable groups can serve as a clear marker of the Eastern Podillia tradition. The Naddnipryanshchyna zone, in turn, is characterized by the presence in the wedding song of the type and 4-tonal tirade in pure form, as well as the complete absence of spring- and summer-time ritual folk songs. Not typical is the existence of kolyadki in form . The second group of differences concerns the musical mode and scale sound-organization of ritual melodies. A wider scales determine the belonging to the Naddnipryanshchyna tradition, narrow – to the Eastern Podillia region. Another group of differences here is associated with performing stylistics and type of song texture. Thus, the Naddnipryanshchyna tradition is characterized by a developed heterophony with a subtle solo voice in wedding and Kupalо tunes, and in specific local ritual and song style with a slower tempo of performance and its significant fluctuations, chants of verse syllables, melismatics hereby. In turn, the Eastern Podillia ritual folk songs are characterized with greater mobility and stability of the tempo, as well as with a monodic type of melodic texture. One of the conclusions of the study and, in the long run, melogeographic mapping was a clarification – on the ritual folk songs materials – is a hypothesis, previously put forward by ethnographers and dialectologists, about the border between Naddnipryanshchyna and Eastern Podillia. It turned out that the strip of territorial demarcation of these two contrasting musical and regional traditions forms not only the coast of the river Hnylyi Tikych, but also its smaller tributaries. A part of this border strip is the contemporary Cherkasy Zvenyhorodschyna region. Taking into account the multiplicity and diversity of features from both traditions, as well as the heterogeneity of their interaction, we can safely attribute this territory to the number of vivid and illustrative examples of transitional musical and ethnographic zones.