At the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, a discussion unfolded about the ethnic affiliation of the population of the Northwestern Territory and its linguistic and ethnographic boundaries (musical data were not taken into account). The sharpest debates arose around the question of interpreting transitional and mixed dialects. The development of unified approaches was hindered by the weak ethnographic study of border regions and the amorphous ethnic self-consciousness of local residents. The correspondent of P.V. Shein, I.O. Karsky, noted that peasants of the Grodno province did not call themselves either Russian or Belarusian, and some considered themselves Litvins. “In general, they speak about themselves and their country thus: ‘we are local people (tuteyshyye), our country is neither Russian nor Polish, but a taken-over land (zabrany krai)!’” [1].
The past century made corrections to the ethnocultural identity of city dwellers but barely affected the self-consciousness of rural residents. At the turn of the 20th–21st centuries, three variants of ethnic self-identification are recorded (sometimes from one and the same informant):
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we are “tutashnie” (local – neither Russian nor Belarusian; residents of one village / selo / parish / town), they are “people from beyond the forest” (Russians, Belarusians; residents of another village / selo / parish / town);
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we are Russians, but not Muscovites (in the eastern part of the area) / not skobari (in the western part; analogous statements have been recorded in Latgale);
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we are Poles, they are Muscovites (skobari). Those, in turn, used to tease local residents as “forest dwellers (lesuny), Poles.” Each version of self-identification has its own musical embodiment. Informants not only note the presence / absence of certain rituals, texts, musical instruments, and performance techniques, but also often indicate where they heard (learned) or saw (acquired) such things [2].
The boundary of distribution of endo- and exoethnonyms Poles / Russians – Muscovites / skobari (in the north – along the watersheds of the Western Dvina with the upper reaches of the Velikaya and Lovat rivers, in the east – along the watersheds of the upper reaches of the Western Dvina and Volga, Dnieper and Oka) is marked by bundles of isoglosses and isomelodies and corresponds to the most ancient boundary of two historical-cultural zones (HCZ), dated by archaeologists and anthropologists to the 3rd–2nd millennium BC. A comprehensive reconstruction of the history of the Dnieper-Dvina HCZ based on archaeological, anthropological, linguistic, and ethnographic data made it possible to recreate “the long path of linguistic evolution from types already unknown to us to the Baltic language type, from it to the Balto-Slavic and gradually to the East Slavic (Northern Belarusian, Southern Pskov)” [3]. North of this boundary, a genetically related HCZ of Upper Rus formed, with a palpable Finno-Ugric substrate [4].
Ritual folklore exists on both sides of the boundary. The areas of distribution of ritual musical types (MT), as a rule, do not coincide with the boundaries of modern ethnic groups / states and cannot be reduced to Belarusian-Russian shared experiences. Thus, the regional MT of individual laments (“plach-vopel,” according to I.I. Zemtsovsky) – two-register, with alternation of a drawn-out piercing cry in the upper register and quick quiet recitation in the lower – unites the sub-ethnic groups under consideration, outlining the territory of the chronicled Krivichs (Polotsk, Pskov, Tver, and Smolensk-Vitebsk). Comparative study of typologically (and possibly genetically) related forest and field calls allows posing the question of northern, particularly Scandinavian, parallels [5].
With rare exceptions, the boundary under consideration is practically impermeable for properly ritual calendar songs: the calendar folklore of the Pskov-Novgorod territories, on the one hand, and of the Poozerye [6], on the other, is represented by different, territorially separated types of ritual texts. In the Pskov-Novgorod zone – songs of winter door-to-door rounds (refrain-less kolyady, also known beyond the region, and/or “Vinogradye” – a unique Russian song form with the refrain “Vinogradye krasno-zelyonoye”), non-song forms (ritual outcries, recitations, couplets of different calendar periods, in some local traditions – field laments performed during the cuckoo’s calling period), as well as seasonally assigned songs of various genres (widely distributed beyond the region as well). Wedding folklore is represented by lamentation (individual and group) and song forms performed in multi-voice texture: ritual lyric (including orphan songs), glorifications, as well as non-ritual texts. Connections with calendar melodies are weakened.
The genre-stylistic dominant of the Poozerye song system consists of calendar and related wedding songs performed in monophonic (more precisely, unison heterophonic) texture. To date, more than forty MT of calendar melodies and twenty of wedding melodies (polytextual and, as a rule, polyfunctional) have been identified. Calendar song folklore is recorded everywhere; here practically all genres known within East Slavdom are found, and both male and female performance traditions are represented. Despite significant diversity of genres and forms, the variegation of the “intonation-melody vocabulary,” the calendar cycle possesses remarkable integrity, a convergence of heterogeneous material, and a developed system of intonation-rhythmic interrelationships both between songs of the annual cycle and with songs of other cycles, including non-ritual ones (lyrical, round dance, game songs, etc.). Even borrowed texts, becoming part of this system, are re-intonated and adapted by traditional musical thinking. Mapping of calendar melodies of the Poozerye revealed different types of connections between texts of the spring-summer-autumn period (Polesian, Slavic, Balto-Slavic, Baltic) and the winter period of the annual cycle (inter-ethnic kolyady with the refrain “Kolyada!”, existing exclusively in contact zones – East Lithuanian, Latgalian, South Estonian, Volga – Russian, Mordovian), reflecting different stages of formation of the regional culture and, accordingly, marking ethnic communities of different historical depth [7].
The boundary under consideration clearly separates two subtypes of the Eastern Slavic wedding ritual (according to K.V. Chistov): tripartite and circular. The music of the wedding ritual, on the contrary, reflects inter-regional and inter-ethnic connections at different levels: from elements of musical speech to the intonational system of the ritual as a whole. Mapping the fact of presence/absence of certain MTs, verbal texts, and complexes gives a generalized characterization of the wedding ritual, masking the structural-functional differences of its subtypes. To identify these differences, it is necessary to study the specifics of the functioning of the leading MTs of different micro-local traditions (taking into account the frequency of performance, spatio-temporal attribution, and coordination with other components of the ritual).
The MT of the bride’s lament, identical to funeral wails, unites the traditions of the Poozerye and Pskov region. A distinctive feature of the Northern Belarusian wedding is the bride’s lament performed to instrumental accompaniment (including the bride-orphan’s laments at the cemetery) on the violin, tsymbaly, or accordion. In the Pskov region, the bride’s “plach-vopel” sounds against the background of a “plach-pesnya” (song-lament, according to I.I. Zemtsovsky) – a group lamentation by the bridesmaids, which marks Northern Russian traditions (in the Belarusian tradition, bridesmaids did not lament at all).
Some pan-Belarusian/Polesian MTs, as they move northward, transform from polyfunctional/polytextual into monofunctional/monotextual (i.e., songs proper), sometimes acting as substitutes for reduced ritual actions (such as the “kalinka” ritual). The place of through-MTs may be occupied by wedding melodies of the Russian Northwest (especially Pskov ones). Included in a different context (e.g., the stolbovoy ritual), these melodies acquire new functions and meanings, subordinating themselves to the patterns of the Northern Belarusian ritual (Nevel district). Often, Northern Russian and Northern Belarusian elements are combined in a single ritual cycle according to the principle of complementarity. For example, in the Sebezh district and in the west of the Nevel district, the system of pre-wedding rituals is shaped by Northern Russian songs and lament, while the wedding proper features Northern and pan-Belarusian songs, with pan-Russian inclusions.
In the zone of the Russian-Belarusian-Latvian borderland (Glembochino volost of the Sebezh district), the best preservation of ritual folklore in the region has been noted, and the most complete cycles of calendar songs (including spring songs not identified in adjacent Southern Pskov traditions) and family ritual songs (including baptismal songs unknown in neighboring northeastern microdialects) have been recorded. A unique instrumental culture has developed here, encompassing Russian gusli and balalaika, Belarusian violin and tsymbaly (before the war, the Central European bagpipe-duda also existed here), and to this day retaining shepherd’s horns and trumpets. But the most striking feature of this micro-area, sharply distinguishing it from neighboring Southern Pskov ones (despite the coincidence of most MTs of ritual songs!), is the specific archaic form of antiphonal polyphony preserved here, alongside the unison-heterophonic ensemble singing manner common in the Poozerye, which marks calendar songs – a drone held on the final vowel sound of the song stanza, without reproducing the rhythm of the verbal text in the drone voice. “Such a type of antiphon… is known among the central and northern Veps, Latvians, and Belarusians of the Polotsk district of Vitebsk Oblast, and in this form it can be considered a phenomenon of local order today <…> this <…> type of polyphony has not been recorded anywhere in central-eastern Europe, apart from the designated zone” [8].
In the sphere of non-ritual folklore, intercultural dialogue occurs much more actively. Borrowings of “foreign” repertoires are widespread (especially vocal-instrumental and dance genres and non-ritual lyric), along with “foreign” musical instruments (e.g., the “petrogradka” – a St. Petersburg accordion that replaced the bagpipe-duda, or the tsymbaly brought to these lands by Jews and Roma, which became an ethnic symbol of Belarusians), as well as parodies of “foreign” texts (by mummers in calendar rituals and weddings; musical inserts in fairy tales, everyday stories, and anecdotes).
Western European dances (polka, waltz, two-step, quadrille, etc.), folklorized authored texts like the “Cossack Lullaby” by M.Yu. Lermontov or numerous cruel romances, are invariably interpreted as one’s own, moreover as “ancient” songs (these texts are sometimes so strongly transformed that the performers are indeed entitled to consider them their own). At the same time, in the assimilation of non-ritual texts, a certain selectivity is detected that requires the most careful study [9]. Thus, the spread of early-traditional lyric beyond the Poozerye is probably hindered by its close ties with ritual melos, as well as by the existence in the Pskov-Novgorod zone of more developed forms of lyric song, including the protracted form. Samples of late-traditional lyric (with the exception of the protracted form), on the contrary, penetrate into the Poozerye and sometimes influence local styles (including ritual melodies).
Overall, the musical folklore of border regions demonstrates different levels of ethnocultural interaction – from individual borrowings to binary/ternary-ethnic genre-stylistic folklore systems and cultural-linguistic assimilation [10].
Outstanding composers and artists of the past and present have repeatedly turned to the musical folklore of the Russian-Belarusian borderland as an inexhaustible source. For example, in the single scene of Maslenitsa Farewell in the opera “The Snow Maiden,” N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov used three local melodies: a kolyada tune, a Maslenitsa tune, and a volochobny tune, as well as a game tune and a dance tune existing beyond the region under consideration, and on their basis created a vivid, colorful canvas embodying the strength and power of folk elements.
In our time, certain steps are being taken to preserve this unique culture: regional folk art centers and district administrations hold festivals and folklore celebrations; material is collected and published by folklore expeditions of institutions from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Pskov, Smolensk, and others. These measures are extremely important, but they are not sufficient: the fate of traditional culture in the era of globalization depends on the possibility of survival/revival of the village, where today practically no youth remain. In the film “Nostalgia” by Andrei Tarkovsky, two authentic sound recordings of the Usvyaty “pesnyokhorka” O.F. Sergeeva are quoted (a wedding lament and a lyric song). The voice off-screen sounds as a symbol of a distant Homeland, as a lament for lost harmony and integrity, as a warning…
Notes:
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Shein P.V. Materials for the study of life and language of the Russian population of the northwestern territory. Vol. 3. SPb., 1902. Pp. 97–98.
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For more details, see: Gadzhieva A.A. Ethnomusicological problems of the Russian Poozerye // Historical and Cultural Landscape of the Northwest. Fourth Sjögren Readings: Collection of Articles. SPb., 2011. Pp. 19–37.
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Gerd A.S. Language and speech of the Pskov territory // Historical and Ethnographic Essays on the Pskov Territory. Pskov, 1999. P. 46.
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For more details, see: Bulkin V.A. The Dnieper-Dvina historical-cultural zone according to archaeological data // Essays in Historical Geography: Northwest Russia: Slavs and Finns. SPb., 2001. Pp. 25–30; Gerd A.S. Historical boundaries and areas in the territory of the Dnieper-Dvina historical-cultural zone and Upper Rus according to data from various humanities // Ibid. Pp. 252–254.
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In Belarusian academic literature, this term designates the area of distribution of the Vitebsk and Polotsk dialect groups of the northeastern dialect of the Belarusian language. See: Ethnography of Belarus. Encyclopedia. Minsk, 1989. Pp. 152–153.
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For more details, see: Lobanov M.A. Forest Calls. SPb., 1997.
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For more details, see: Gadzhieva A.A. Calendar melodies of the Upper Dnieper and Dvina regions // Essays in Historical Geography… Pp. 139–187.
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Tavlay G.V. On the development of G.I. Blagodatov’s ideas in ethnomusicology: Sonoristics, heterophony, antiphony in instrumental and vocal polyphony // Questions of Organology: Articles and Materials of the 5th International Organological Conference “Blagodatov Readings.” SPb., 2004. Issue 5, Part 1. P. 42.
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Cf.: Morgenstern U. Compatibility and incompatibility of local instrumental repertoires: observations on the perception of the foreign among village musicians of the Russian Northwest // Contonation: Perspectives of Musical Art and Music Studies: [Materials of the International Organological Congress] SPb., 2011. (Questions of Organology; Issue 8). Pp. 101–107.
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See: Lapin V.A. Folklore bilingualism: Phenomenon and process // The Art of Oral Tradition. Historical Morphology. Collection of articles dedicated to the 60th anniversary of I.I. Zemtsovsky. SPb., 2002. Pp. 28–38.