Traditional Folklore Research Articles

"Carols on Kudriavka" Television Project as a Form of Ukrainian Folklore Preservation and Actualisation

The purpose of the research is to characterise the "Carols on Kudriavka" television project as a cultural and artistic product aimed to preserve and update the Ukrainian folklore. The research methodology consists in the application of the analytical method and the method of conceptualisation, which made it possible to identify the creative potential of the "Carols on Kudriavka" television project in the search for approaches to preserve and represent the Ukrainian folklore tradition. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the fact that for the first time the "Carols on Kudriavka" television project is characterised, in which new forms of updating folklore in modern historical conditions are proposed. Conclusions. The "Carols on Kudriavka" television project is an example of updating approaches to the presentation of folklore in art, which operates on the principles of mass culture and is distributed through the media. The project combines the forms and techniques of a traditional pop concert with musical and dramatic innovations, including updating of the sound of traditional folklore and bringing its sound closer to current musical trends, relying on a ceremonial and ritual component, and reducing the weight of hit songs. The "Carols on Kudriavka" project can be considered as a conceptual video album, in which the Ukrainian sacred ritual archaism and the traditions of world variety shows are organically intertwined.
 Key words: television musical project, folklore, sacred time space, song genre, hit, pop artist, arrangement, musical dramaturgy.

Filling historical studies with personal memory and folk memory: new publications of the works by A.N. Minh

The article is devoted to the publication of two manuscripts by local historian and public figure A.N. Minh from the State Archives of the Saratov Region. A small number of researchers previously knew them. Available to a wide range of readers, these books will expand the range of historical knowledge through sources related to personal memoirs and existed in the folklore tradition. It became possible thanks to the efforts of the folklorist and memoirist of the XIX early XX centuries and as a result of the good archaeographic and source study work of modern scientists from Saratov. Notes on the Crimean War adds new details to the tragic and heroic pages of Russias past. Robberies and Treasures of the Lower Volga Region give food for thought to historians, ethnographers, philologists, and everyone who works in the interdisciplinary field of studying the oral forms of collective memory. A large literature is devoted to the topics touched upon in the new Saratov publications, but the works by Minh cannot go unnoticed, they occupy a worthy place in it. Notes supplement knowledge about the Crimean War with new details, including its reflection in the public opinion, historical memory and cultural tradition. Robberies and Treasures expands the base for studying the Volga region at the expense of folklore, oral history and archeology materials. Published manuscripts characterize Minh as a scientist who expanded the space of historical knowledge with sources generated by personal experience and preserved in the collective memory.

Taoist music of China in the context of the religious practice of Taoism

The subject of the research is the music of Chinese Taoism, which was formed as an integral part of religious rituals in Taoist monasteries. In the depths of the ancient culture of Taoist monasticism, a stable system of genres, a stable circle of melodies and a set of ritual instruments has developed. The purpose of the study is to consider Taoist music in the context of the centuries-old spiritual practice of Chinese Taoism. The object of the study is the music that voices the rituals and ceremonies of Taoism as an integral religious system. The ideas of Taoism as a philosophical system are touched upon indirectly. For the first time in Russian-language musicology, a periodization of Taoist musical culture has been developed, two levels of interaction between music and ritual, determined by the type of worship, have been identified and analyzed, varieties of vocal intonation of Taoist prayers have been identified, and the connection between Taoist music and local folklore traditions of China has been substantiated. The main conclusions of the study: in the history of Taoist music, five periods can be distinguished, the change of which is due to the development and complication of the ritual practice of Taoism, the expansion of instruments, the spread of liturgical tunes outside the monasteries; the religious traditions of Taoism predetermined the selection of temple instruments, among which the timbres of percussion and wind instruments predominate; the functioning of music in spiritual rites is determined by the internal (in the monastic circle) or external (in the secular environment) type of ritual; in the musical practice of Chinese Taoism, four types of vocal intonation can be distinguished - chanting, scan, recitation, vocalized speech; Taoist music is closely connected with the folklore culture of various provinces of the country.

Bolivian “Music of the Wind” in guitar works: aspects of artistic implementation

The relevance of the article is to consider Bolivian guitar music as an important component of the modern South American repertoire. On the example of the works of famous composers and performers Alfredo Domínguez, Fernando Arduz, and Jilberto Rojas, connections with the folklore traditions of the country, the poetics of Bolivian "wind music", and its timbre specificity have been revealed.
 Main objective of the study is to reveal aspects of the artistic embodiment of Bolivian «music of the wind» in academic guitar work. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the introduction of materials about Bolivian musical culture and guitar creativity into domestic musicological circulation.
 The methodology includes methods of historical, comparative, phenomenological, structural and functional analysis to study: genre and style elements of Bolivian folk music of Indian and Creole origin in academic guitar work; organology of traditional instruments and timbre characteristics of sound; phenomena of imitation of the voices of nature, the timbres of Bolivian wind, percussion, and string-plucked instruments by modern guitar means of sound production; genealogy of rhythmic structures and their manifestations in the researched works; decorative and visual ritual attribution; correlation of associative-figurative series with timbre connotations, specific genres and intonation and chord patterns; anthropological connections of the sound space of «music of the wind» with the surrounding natural and landscape environment and the state of metaphysical dialogue of man with the surrounding world.
 Results and conclusions. In the analyzed compositions («Feria», «Por la Quebrada» by A. Dominguez, «Despedida de Los Chunchos» by F. Arduz, «Guadalquivir» by J. Rojas) various resources of performing guitar technique used to imitate the voices of nature, authentic timbres of ancient Bolivian aerophones quena, erke, сaña, membranophones caja, local chordophones charango, relevant in modern conditions of collective ritual music-making practice. Sound and image connotations are correlated with the voices of Bolivian folk instruments, ritual decorations, plasticity of dance movements, visualization of natural landscapes and attribution of totemic cultures. In the process of defining genre components, the contrasts of juxtapositions were demonstrated: takirari, tonada and Andean huayño, ceremonial Indian ceremonies and sardana dance of Iberian origin, metric fluctuations of Creole and Indian rhythms, melodic movements of pentatonic nature with melismatic ornaments of the Andean type. Linguistic and genre characteristics of guitar works were investigated taking into account the anthropological experience of Bolivian scientists studying their musical and ceremonial culture, which in particular determined the search for the historical roots of musical phenomena among the exhibits of archaeological museums, exhibits of musical instruments, and artifacts of the life of indigenous peoples.

Troll Magic: Hidden Folk from the Mountains and Forests of Norway

Troll Magic: Hidden Folk from the Mountains and Forests of Norway

Les Écrivaines qui font recettes: discours critique par le livre pratique

This article focuses on three recipe books inspired by women writers: Les Carnets de cuisine de George Sand: 80 recettes d'une épicurienne by Muriel Lacroix and Pascal Pringarbe , Colette gourmande by Marie-Christine and Didier Clément, and Marguerite Yourcenar portrait intime by Achmy Halley. The article opts to treat these three books as though they were works of criticism. Indeed, these three books, which are hybrids of advice books, biographies and anthologies, represent mythographies of the authors who inspired them. Thus, these far from feminist representations of women writers slaving over hot stoves are nonetheless able to offer vindications of those women's demiurgic powers. As such, these works often take on a regionalist and nostalgic tone that reduces them to the status of literary exhibits in a dusty conservatory of folkloric traditions.

The paradox of tradition: Alexander Spendiaryan, Lev Revutsky, Igor Stravinsky

The article is devoted to relevance of the folklore tradition in the work of composers of various national schools, namely, A. Spendiaryan, I. Stravinsky, L. Revutsky. Tradition is considered from the perspective of the main characteristics of metamodern as one of the important semantic guidelines for the listener, who is in the conditions of semantic uncertainty and oscillation in modern culture. The article attempts to highlight the paradoxical nature of tradition, which lies in its avant-garde potential against the background of “habitualness” of innovations in modern culture. From the history of arts, examples of using traditional elements by the avant-garde in the works of A. Archipenko, K. Malevich, M. Saryan, A. Erdeli are given. The interpretation of folklore in the works of Spendiaryan, Stravinsky and Revutsky reveals both common and different features, which indicates the innovative potential of tradition. Spendiaryan and Revutsky follow the integrity of the original folklore source and its active development, creating a new colorful material, while Stravinsky explores it and, on its basis, creates a new synthesis of word, movement and sound. The conclusion is made that tradition may sound modern, it may sound more “avant-garde” than many of the presented innovations․

The complex study of folklore: the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches

The 21st century has seen a significant increase in complex processes in the sciences and humanities. The importance and necessity of integrative research are clearly evidenced by the humanities, including folklore and folk studies. In this regard, folklore faced the objective need to re-evaluate its developmental tendency and clarify the object of its study in the context of a radical change in the place and role of folklore in modern science. The scientific approaches that developed earlier in folklore, including multidisciplinary ones, do not always allow characterizing with sufficient completeness the completely modern folklore process. Moreover, this circumstance poses new tasks for modern folklore, for the complex study of folklore. In order to contribute to the realization of this task, a scientific article on «The complex study of folklore: the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches» is proposed.
 Starting from the theoretical and methodological basis, the article analyzes the problems and possibilities of comprehensive study of folklore tradition and its prospects in terms of synergetic theory.
 In the course of the work comparative-contrastive, inductive and narrative analyzes were applied. The obtained results show that the term «complex study» includes multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches in folklore study. Each of them has its own capabilities that create a unified scientific basis of folklore studies. An integrated model for the study of folklore implies a single scientific methodology, a single subject, and a single set of scientific tools.

Antioxidant activity, total phenol contents, and antimacrobial activity of two Yemeni medicinal plants belongs to Euphorbiaceae family(Jatropha curcas and Euphorbia Cactus Ehrenb

Jatropha curcas and Euphorbia Cactus Ehrenb plants which belonging to Euphorbiaceae family is employed to cure different infections in traditional folklore medicine. Antioxidant activity and total phenol contents (TPCs) for latex of this two plants were analyzed and examined its antimicrobial effect. Both plants showed high antioxidant activity and highly phenolic contents. Positive correlation between antioxidant activity and total phenol has been noted. Jatropha curcas latex demonstrated significant inhibition against the test microorganisms.

FRAGMENTS OF MEMORY IN RESIDENTIAL INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE

The present paper tackles the concept of memory as a compositional tool employed in the architectural spatialization process. More specifically, it focuses on residential interior architecture in the work of Greek architect Takis Marthas, placing special emphasis on the conjunction of tradition and Modernism, a binary vividly captured in the architecture and visual arts of the 1930s, to which Marthas belongs. In Marthas’ oeuvre, design and composition are locked in a dialectical relationship by way of cross-pollination, juxtaposition, complementarity, or the introduction of intact fragments of memory into space. Marthas’ architectural style could thus be construed as an attempt of combining the past and the present in the form of a creative process whereby elements–mental or material–are drawn from diverse places and historical periods, only to be repurposed and integrated into a unified whole, retaining their autonomy and alluding to a hybrid architectural model. As far as the composition of the residence is concerned, memory is conveyed through images of the past rendered either as an integral spatial transfer or as mental and material architectural constructions, material elements, textures and colour. These spatial elements evoke and restore images and sensations of the past. Within the architectural creation of the residence, compositional gestures linked with memory can be freely expressed, connecting the past and the present, architecture and place, as well as bringing together the space and users/residents’ personal experiences. Fraught with a number of tensions typical of the 1930s generation, such as the abovementioned attempt to bring together the past and the present, but also to pursue Greekness through both references to antiquity and references to Greek folklore tradition, Marthas’ oeuvre is adumbrated by using residential works as well as written and oral testimonies dating from the 1930s-1960s as methodological tools.

Мотив благодарного мертвеца в легендах народной агиографии о Николае Чудотворце: фольклор и рукописная книжность

Relatedness of Old Russian “Tale of a merchant who bought a dead body and became tsar” as of end of the 17 c. with a folklore tradition — a story about a grateful dead man — has long and rightly been noted by all its researchers. However, the presence in the text of the Tale of details about the monastery of St. Nicholas the Miracle-Worker, in which the burial of the dead body of a Christian bought by the hero was made and which is not mentioned anywhere else, remained unclear. The paper presents the results of a comparison of the book-handwritten version of the plot with the folklore stories about the grateful dead well known in the oral tradition of the Eastern Slavs (AaTh 507; SUS 507 = АА 507А, В, С). It was found that some of the folklore versions of similar legends are connected by folk hagiography with the name of St. Nicholas the Miracle-Worker. The study allows us to assert that not only the plot of the Tale, but also the detail about the monastery of St. Nicholas the Miracle-Worker in it is nor abstract nor literary, as was supposed, but a folklore source. Determining the source and grounds for the appearance of this detail in the Tale makes it possible to better understand the mechanisms of the process of folklorization of Russian literature of the 17th century noted by researchers, one of the manifestations of which was the design in the book-manuscript tradition of “The Tale of the merchant who bought a dead body”.

«Сон Богородицы» в русских рукописных и фольклорных традициях (XVII – начало XXI в.)

“The Dream of the Virgin” is one of the most widespread Christian Apocrypha. It is known among many European peoples, mainly Orthodox and Catholic, namely Belarusians, Bulgarians, Bosnians, Gagauz, Greeks, Irish, Spaniards, Italians, Macedonians, Germans, Poles, Portuguese, Romanians, Russians, Serbs, Slovenes, Ukrainians, French, Croats, etc. The “Dream of the Virgin” is most widely represented in the folk traditions of Eastern, Southern, Central and Western Europe. Some countries have an old scholarly tradition of studying this plot. Such well-known philologists as Alexander Veselovsky in Russia and Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu in Romania wrote about it as early as the 19th century. In the 20th century, this text was studied a lot in Italy, Germany, Romania, Russia, etc. The article proposes a preliminary classification of the main genre versions of the “Dream of the Virgin” in Russian manuscript and folklore traditions.

Риторический потенциал фольклорного слова

The study is devoted to the analysis of a whole complex of factors that determine the formation of the rhetorical properties of a folklore word as a key component of a traditional folklore text. The relevance of the study is seen in the existing discrepancy between the stable nature of the folklore word as a unit of traditional culture and its resonant power, which causes emotional responsiveness of the audience and provides the rhetorical potential of the word in folk culture, which requires scientific understanding. In the course of the study, significant factors influencing the formation of the rhetorical properties of a traditional word were identified and substantiated. It is noted that a folklore word, like any word in traditional culture, having a high degree of generalization and semantic integrity, gives rise to a special aesthetic feeling in the recipient, based on a deep knowledge of the common traditional culture. Due to the meaningful dynamism, the folklore word acquires the ability to influence the performers and the audience, to arouse in them a sense of belonging to the ideal common for a given linguistic community. Under the conditions of the oral form of existence, the existence of a traditional word in a subject-aesthetized environment, the continuity of a folklore creative act, the special nature of communication based on the synchronism of the process of performing and perceiving the text, the simultaneity of the experiences of the performer and the listener, ensuring the active perception of a folklore work, subject to the common folklore tradition the performer and recipient of the traditional folklore word is provided with an increase in rhetorical potential and, ultimately, the preservation of the folklore tradition.

К. Коровин –эмигрант: родной край в воспоминаниях художника

Konstantin Korovin is a famous Russian artist, one of the first Russian impressionists, as well as a theater decorator. The artist was highly sensitive to the beauties of the nature of his native land, and his oeuvre consists mostly of landscapes. In 1922, being at his senior age, Korovinwas forced to move to one of the centers of Russian emigration –Paris. Life away from his motherland becomes one of the reasons for the painter’s artistic crisis. It was during these difficult years that Korovin began to engage in literary work. Korovin writes memoirs, significant part of which is memories of the abandoned but much beloved motherland.The article provides a comparative study of pictorial and verbal figurativeness in Korovin’s works. The cycle On the Huntincludes a short story Frost, where the landscape plays a key role in the plot. Ananalysis of the poetics of figurativeness in this story reveals the features of pictorial impressionism in the verbal images. The article analyzes the techniques that the memoirist employs to create the image of his motherland. The key words-leitmotifs, color palette, lighting effects, and other means of creating a lyrical landscape are also analyzed. There are found to be some parallels between Korovin’s literary descriptions of landscapes and his landscape paintings of winter forest. The paper draws a conclusion about the similarity of impressionistic techniques in paintings and the story by Korovin; the features specific to literary (verbal) fig-urativeness are noted, for example, folklore traditions and allusions to Russian poetic classics, the change in the narrator’s points of view, changes in emotional tonality, which forms the basis of the lyrical plot in the story Frost.The methodological framework of the study is based on comparative-typologicaland system-semantic principles of analysis, with elements of genre and style analysis.

Anti-colonial pathos of Mykola Lazorskyi’s prose

Literature of Ukrainian diaspora is a very rich and diverse phenomenon needing objective, systematic and complete scientific consideration. The purpose of the article is to analyze anti-colonial pathos in the prose of the original Ukrainian writer from Australia Mykola Lazorskyi whose works are visible against the background of the native and foreign literary process of the 20th century and deserve scientific attention. The research is based on the general methods of analysis, synthesis, observation, selection and systematization of the material. The elements of the following methods are used in the article: cultural and historical (helps to highlight the special features of representation of Ukrainian national culture against the background of the anti-colonial struggle of different historical epochs in creative works of Mykola Lazorskyi), hermeneutic (ensures fluent and open interpretation of texts keeping perspective for new explanations), aesthetic (allows analyzing each text as a phenomenon of literature and art), intertextual (links between the writer’s prose and Ukrainian literature, foreign literary and folklore tradition). The works of Mykola Lazorskyi testify that he had delicate involvement into the past historical epochs and was interested in the fates of famous and little known figures who were engaged in the anti-colonial struggle of Ukrainians and served as a model for imitation in the realm of the national resistance and preservation of ethnic identity and national traditions. Mykola Lazorskyi’s prose enriches and widens our idea about the native and the world anti-colonial literature. The writer deals with the problem of multi-century aspiration of our ancestors to exist as a separate nation and gain a victory over aggressive neighbors. The author describes the history of the native land and the anti-colonial struggle of other nations. Russia is a symbol of very disgust and ominous forms of the colonialism in the writer’s works. Mykola Lazorskyi’s anti-colonial historical prose also sounds topically in our days when the Moscow horde wishes to destroy Ukraine and to conquer other European countries. These anti-colonial texts ring as a strict sentence to the last imperial forces on the planet. In perspective it is advisable to turn to Mykola Lazorskyi’s anti-colonial historical prose in comparison with the works of modern writers who represent anti-colonial discourse in Ukrainian and foreign literature of the early 21th century.

ТАНЕЦ В ОПЕРАХ М.М. ИППОЛИТОВА-ИВАНОВА: ТЕКСТ И ЕГО ИНТЕРПРЕТАЦИЯ

The phenomenon of the "lifeworld" (E. Husserl) in its national branches and cultural realities is revealed in the operas of M. M. Ippolitov-Ivanov largely due to the extended mass scenes. A special place here is occupied by dance episodes and scenes in which characteristic elements of different folk traditions, both those previously experienced in Russian music (oriental, Spanish themes) and those introduced by Ippolitov-Ivanov in accordance with the conditions of plot realities (Norwegian theme), are presented in a sharp and expressive way. It has always been important for the composer to emphasize in operas the authentic, the present, which has a timeless value, focusing on the forms of musical folklore. Folk dances, which are represented in many mass scenes of the composer's operas, provided him such an opportunity, as did extended ballet scenes (for example, in the opera "The Last Barricade"). With an obvious aspiration to the ballet genre, the score of "Nestan Darejan" based on Shota Rustaveli's poem "The Knight in the Tiger Skin" was created: the composer called this composition a ballet, then an opera-ballet. The archive of Ippolitov-Ivanov holds the libretto of the ballet "The Scythians", which could probably have interested the composer because of his special attitude to the ballet genre. There are dance scenes in all of the composer's operas, including "Ruth", based on a Biblical plot. There are also dance scenes in the libretti of operas he conceived, but did not realize ("Chrysanthemum", "Miriam", "The Dressmaker"). Dance scenes emphasize the national flavor, create the realities of everyday scenes ("Azra", "Treason"), enhance the contrast between the external and deeply psychological internal action ("Ole from Nordland"), characterize the characters and determine the main figurative and semantic "tonality" of the work ("Asya"). Thanks to the dance, "windows" are opened into another world of culture and folklore traditions, an interest in which the composer has preserved throughout his life.

Visual folklore in 1960s Greek popular cinema: Athens at the threshold of tradition and modernity

Despite its slow and ambivalent transformation, particularly after WWII, Greek society strived to present a novel and relatively modern face during the 1960s. While tradition in all its facets had been a long-lasting staple, even affecting critical aspects of everyday life, modernity began to take steps and seek changes: peasants left the countryside to explore new opportunities in the urban centers, immigration rose, education emerged as a means to escape poverty, while technology penetrated the Greek household slowly. Such urban shifts have been particularly documented in the popular Greek films of the 1960s, providing a rich framework to explore the notions of tradition and modernity in visual folklore. By employing a qualitative approach, this article focuses on how Greek popular film reflects the critical tensions surrounding everyday urban life by examining customs, rituals, identities, and material culture as represented in particular film case studies. It will argue that the popular Greek film of the 1960s documents glimpses of tradition still surviving in the city and presents to the Greek audience ways of handling, preserving, or even rejecting tradition, while flirting with modernity.

Шаманские нарративы тувинцев: сюжетно-тематический состав

The article is devoted to the study of shamanic narratives – one of the little-studied aspects of the traditional culture of Tuvans. On the basis of folklore and ethnographic materials, the mythological views contained in shamanic stories are summarized, the plot-thematic classification of the fund of shamanic narratives is carried out for the first time, as a result of which eight plot-thematic groups are identified, which includes thirty-three subgroups. It is revealed that the main feature of all the shamanic stories of Tuvinians is their attitude to authenticity. Despite the fantasticism and fictionality of some stories, the bearers of the tradition perceive them as authentic stories confirming the power of shamans as chosen spirits. Each selected thematic group has characteristic features and a certain composition of plot-forming motifs. Their number in the thematic group depends on the development of this topic in the folklore tradition of the Tuvinians. The genre originality of shamanic stories, their compositional structure are considered, as well as the mechanisms of existence of the oral narrative tradition are characterized, the reflection of the main postulates of shamanic mythology is revealed in the stories, the semantic and pragmatic fullness of shamanic narratives in their close connection with ethnographic reality is analyzed. The work is written on the basis of published data and field materials of the author collected in the Republic of Tyva (2020) and the Xinjiang People’s Republic of China (2010–2018).

Musical life of Sremska Mitrovica in socialist Yugoslavia (1945−1991): Preliminary research

The musical life of Sremska Mitrovica during the period of socialist Yugoslavia is viewed in the light of tripartite division into serious, folk and popular music. Within this division, the diversity of musical events is determined by the legacy of cultural distance between different social classes, but is not explicitly marked by the relationship between art music and other genres which do not reach their aesthetic rank. In addition to serious music, the main area of musical life in Sremska Mitrovica during Yugoslav socialism comprised folk music in the form of an urbanized, institutionalized and festivalized folklore tradition, as well as popular music based on the naturalization of global mass musical culture.

Music in the aspect of the genesis of art

The article is devoted to the problem of the genesis of musical art. To date, the problem of the origin of music is one of the most undeveloped. The historical and archaeological direction can explore only what has been preserved and presented in material media. Therefore, the genesis of musical art is practically impossible to verify. Nevertheless, there is also a fundamentally different way of studying the genesis of musical art, since ontogenesis to a certain extent reproduces some essential stages of phylogenesis, since the study of children’s musical abilities, often manifested almost from the moment of birth of a child, can also provide answers to questions related to the genesis of music as such. In addition, the study of the folklore tradition of peoples who are almost at the primitive stage of development is also able to reveal the most important stages of the formation of music. But the main problem remains the definition of the ontological status of music, its rootedness in being. Mythology has already tried to give an answer to this question, although it is the philosophical analysis and ontological justifications for the existence of this art form that are crucial in the development of music. The article holds the position that the aesthetic and philosophical consideration of music not only sums up the already existing state of musical art, but also opens up new ways of further development. In addition, the relationship between music theory and practice is emphasized, which does not always precede its theoretical understanding, but is a consequence of certain theoretical constructions and conclusions.