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Transcription

ІМ ФЕ

http://www.etnolog.org.ua
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Rylsky Institute for Art Studies, Folklore and Ethnology
international ballad commission sief
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Національна Академія Наук України
Інститут мистецтвознавства, фольклористики та етнології
ім. М.Т.Рильського
Міжнародна баладна комісія sief
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35th International
Ballad Conference SIEF
Papers and Materials
(2005, july 6–11, KYIV, UKRAINE)
ІМ
35 Міжнародна
Баладна Конференція SIEF
Доповіді та матеріали
(6–11 липня, 2005 р. Київ, Україна)
Kyiv - 2009
Київ - 2009
удк: 82–144+146.2:398.8(063)
м 58
ббк: 84–5
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Editorial:
Skrypnyk Hanna (head editor)
Vakhnina Larysa (vice editor)
Atkinson David
Golovakha Inna
Mykytenko Oksana
Yudkin-Ripun Igor
Редакційна колегія:
Скрипник Ганна (голова)
Вахніна Леся (заступник голови)
Аткінсон Давід
Головаха Інна
Микитенко Оксана
Юдкін-Ріпун Ігор
Edited by:
Golovakha Inna
Vakhnina Larysa
Упорядники:
Вахніна Лариса
Головаха Інна
ІМ
Proof Reading:
Karatsuba Myroslava
Mazepova Julia
Коректори:
Карацуба Мирослава
Мазепова Юлія
Cover Design:
Taraday Tetyana
Оформлення обкладинки:
Тарадай Тетяна
Technical Editor:
Zhygun Vyacheslav
Верстка:
Жигун Вячеслав
All THE TEXTS ARE PRINTED UNDER AUTHORS EDITION
ВСІ ТЕКСТИ ПОДАНІ ЗА АВТОРСЬКОЮ РЕДАКЦІЄЮ
isbn 978-966-02-5300-1
© Інститут мистецтвознавства,
фольклористики та етнології
ім. М. Т. Рильського НАН
України, 2009
Introductory Notes
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It is an honour as well as a pleasure for me to introduce these proceedings
of a conference, hosted by the National Academy of Sciences Ukraine and by the
Rylsky Institute of Art Studies, Folklore and Ethnology in particular.
Most of us cope well with certain language problems, since we regard ourselves as being more or less trinlingual. Papers are delivered in German, English
and French. However: in fact we usually are match for four or five languages, because the hosting country also uses the local language(s). I would gratefully like to
point out the fact that excellent interpreters were at our disposal in Kiev.
Kiev was a wonderful choice for the annual meeting of our group. Both our
colleague Prof. Larysa Vakhnina and Prof. Hanna Skrypnyk and their organizing team (Inna Golovakha, Victoria Juzwenko and Oksana Mykytenko) and their
institution have made every effort to bring folklore scholarship together and to
encourage folklorists to expand n etworks, within our umbrella-organisations like
the ISFNR or the SIEF. It is to be hoped that this book will stimulate further synergetic cooperation.
Let me express some proud reflections of the history of the Commission. Over
the years we have become a venerable family. From our foundation in 1966 initiated by Prof. Rolf Wilhelm Brednich in Freiburg i. Br. (Germany), we have conceived the Commission as global. From the outset, there were participants from
all quarters of the globe. We have explored, and continue to explore, research findings on popular songs from Norway to Turkey, from the Ukraine to California,
from Japan to South Africa and Mexico. From its beginning, the Commission’s
international character was its most distinctive feature. Moreover, the proceedings
of almost all our conferences have been published.
The Commission met under Prof. Brednich’s presidency until 1993, when David Buchan (Newfoundland) and Stefan Top (Leuwen, today honorary chairman)
were elected to succeed him. From 2000 the Commission was headed by Luisa de
Guidice (Los Angeles), until I was elected her successor in Riga in 2004, with Isabelle
Peere (Bruxelles-Liège) and Marjetka Golez-Kaucic (Slovenia) as vice-presidents. In
a cycle of five years the presideny is rotating and I will hand the baton on in 2009.
In our history there were several thematic turns and paradigm shifts and many
of the goals of the ballad commission have changed since 1966. The starting-point
was to elaborate an international ballad typology. To that end, a major aim was to
create national, or indeed international, ballad catalogues, in order to stimulate
research of compatible inventories. Our american colleague David Engle e.g. gave
several papers which explored how the whole range of folk ballads might be so
systematized. This is still work in progress.
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Over the years we have explored the ballad between orality and scriptuality,
ballad mediations, and with more specialized themes such as ‘kinship in ballads’,
and on one occasion, 1991 in Stockholm, the Commission was able to organize
a series of lectures on a single theme: Clerk Colvil, Le Loi Renaud, Sir Olav and
Sir Halewijn. We have engaged with moral and ethical issues, with ballads, and
with group identities in a changing world, with issues of genre and gender, with
broadsides, romanceros, corridos, dumkas, dainos, and songs about daily life and
rituals. We have also discussed ballads and religion; the variety of semantic meaning; and folk-tunes. Wide-ranging debates took place over the relationship between text and context, located within different epistemological frameworks and
cognitive patterns. The types of context, as well as structure and motif, were investigated. Our conferences also explored possible laws of transmission, as well as
collective and individual repertoires. In addition, practical issues of exploration,
collection, and field-work were discussed, together with best editorial practices,
versions, variants, and performance, and, most recently, compatible digitalization
and electronic handling of ballads. In all this, the cultural diversity is remarkable:
Estonians, for instance, contrived first to memorize the stanzas from hundreds of
ballads on the spot, simply by looking at the screens on their mobile telephones.
The ballad – ‘easier to recognize than to define’ [Tom McKean after Hodgart] – has been, it would appear, sufficiently digested and ruminated upon. Is
there nothing more to be said? As the Kiev conference has already showed, the
answer is “no”. Prof Nicolaisen, one of the first members and sitnguished professor
of a Scottish university insisted that the Commission would never ‘mutate into a
herd of ruminants’.
Notwithstanding the broad spectrum of topics listed above, it appears as if
the task of the international ballad commission is about to extend yet further.
That may be seen in the debate over our name. Are we a Ballad Commission or a
Kommission für Volksdichtung? If we regard ourselves as the former, and accept
the definition of ‘ballad’ as a narrative ‘song’ or ‘song that tells a story’ [German:
Erzähllied or epic song], that would mean the exclusion of all other kinds of folksongs. In Kiev the scholars also pondered whether a solution might be found in a
wider interpretation of the term ‘ballad’ (reflecting more or less the current situation)., perhaps based on various categories and functions of songs (lullaby, party
song, work- or occupational song, funeral lament, etc).
On the other hand there is the name Kommission für Volksdichtung, which
began as a very German idea. The issue is, therefore, whether from a germanophone perspective we should regard the Commission as being dedicated to Volksdichtung alone (that is, folk poesy, folk poetry, folk fiction, fairy tales, maerchen,
old and modern legends and fables, etc), or should it encompass the spoken word
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in our everyday life? And: does the name conjure up echoes of antiquated concepts such as the Volk, or of pure orality which never existed in reality? Would
‘ethnopoetry’ – a term coined more than thirty years ago by Heda Jason – be a
suitable English translation of Volksdichtung? If so, it would have to include ballads in the narrowest and the broadest sense. However, to render Volksdichtung
as ethnopoetry runs the danger of opening our field to much more than ballads,
to arbitrary and postmodern hot air.
In conclusion, I would like to stress how pleased I was in Kiev to see so many
young and new faces. The significance of universities as producers of advanced
knowledge is understood the world over. And Kiev offered an opportunity for all
participants to learn new approaches from new generations of researchers who
were meeting us for the first time. May the Ukrainian newcomers be welcome in
our ‘family’ and bring to it what is needed in an age of globalization, namely cultural diversity, which deserves to be more than a shallow UNESCO slogan. Yes ballads should be protected as part of our intangible cultural heritage.
It has become a tradition that cultural diversity finds expression also in our
evening singing sessions, and it is amazing how many larks and nightingales are
to be found among dry scientists and theoreticians. We also thank our hosts for
making available stages for these talents.May this book meet with success!
ІМ
President of the International Ballad Commission
Prof. Dr. Sabine Wienker-Piepho
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САБІН ВІНКЕР-П’ЄФО
Вступне слово
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Маю честь та задоволення представити матеріали конференції, яку
провів Інститут мистецтвознавства, фольклористики та етнології ім.
Рильського НАН України.
Більшість з нас знає кілька мов і більшою чи меншою мірою володіє
трьома. Статті збірника представлено німецькою, англійською і французькою
мовами. Водночас по суті ми користувалися чотирма-п’ятьма мовами,
оскільки країна-організатор також представлена національною мовною
традицією. Я хочу висловити подяку нашим перекладачам, які допомагали
на конференції у Києві.
Київ виявився чудово обраним місцем проведення чергової, 35-ої
конференції. Обидві наші колеги – проф. Лариса Вахніна та проф. Ганна
Скрипник, члени оргкомітету (Інна Головаха, Вікторія Юзвенко, Оксана
Микитенко), а також інші працівники Інституту доклали багато зусиль для
обміну результатами фольклористичних досліджень, зібравши усіх членів
ISFNR та SIEF під “одним науковим дахом”. Я сподіваюсь, що це видання
сприятиме розвитку подальшої нашої наукової співпраці.
Я б також хотіла додати кілька слів з історії Комісії. Протягом років
ми стали однією родиною. З моменту її утворення у 1966 році з ініціативи
проф. Рольфа Вільгельма Брендича з Фрайбургу (Німеччина) Комісія почала
працювати на глобальному міжнародному рівні. З перших днів в ній були
представники різних країн. Ми проводили дослідження і продовжуємо
досліджувати народні пісні різних країн – від Норвегії до Туреччини,
від України до Каліфорнії, від Японії до Південної Африки та Мексики.
Міжнародний характер Комісії – одна з найвизначніших рис з моменту її
утворення. Зазначимо, що практично усі матеріали попередніх конференцій
було опубліковано.
Головою Комісії до 1993 року був проф. Р.В. Бреднич, потім були обрані Девід Бучан (Нова Зеландія) та Стефан Топ (Бельгія), який сьогодні є Почесним
головою. У 2000 році Головою Комісії була обрана Луіза де Гуідиче (ЛосАнджелес). На засіданні у Ризі у 2004 році головою Комісії було обрано мене, а
віце-президентами – Ізабель Пір (Бельгія) та Марієтку Голез-Каучич (Словенія).
Вибори відбуваються раз на п’ять років, наступні будуть у 2009 році.
Протягом нашої діяльності ми зверталися до різних тематичних циклів
та парадигматичних рівнів, від 1966 року змінювалися також напрями
та завдання Комісії. Спочатку головним завданням було визначити
міжнародну типологію балади. Згідно з цим, основною метою було
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створення національних, а насправді – міжнародних баладних каталогів
для розгортання досліджень, заснованих на спільних засадах. Скажімо,
наш американський колега Девід Енгде представив кілька статей, в яких
йшлося про систематизацію всього корпусу балад. Ця робота і зараз активно
продовжується.
Роками ми вивчали баладу як текст, що перебуває між усністю та
писемністю, проміжний характер балади, а також приділяли увагу вужчій
проблематиці. Так, у 1991 в Стокгольмі Комісією було організовано серію
лекцій, присвячену одній темі: Clerk Colvil, Le Loi Renaud, Sir Olav і Sir Halewijn.
Ми займалися моральними та етичними проблемами в баладах, проблемами
ідентичності громади у світі, що змінюється, порушували гендерні та
жанрові проблеми та багато іншого, досліджуючи романси, кориди, думи,
дайни, побутові та обрядові пісні. Ми також обговорювали теми: балади
та релігія; різноманітність семантичних значень та фольклорних мотивів.
Широко обговорювалося взаємовідношення між текстом і контекстом
залежно від різних епістемологічних систем та когнітивних підходів.
Типи контексту, так само, як структури чи мотиву, також були предметом
наших зацікавлень. Наші конференції також досліджували можливі шляхи
трансмісії, а також колективний та індивідуальний репертуар. Крім того,
ми звертали увагу на збирання, польові дослідження, питання варіантів,
версій та виконавства, на кращі видавничі практики, а останнім часом –
на спільні зведення та електронне використання баладного матеріалу. При
цьому вражають нові підходи в різних країнах: естонці, наприклад, уперше
застосували метод запам’ятовування стансів з сотень балад за відбитком,
просто дивлячись на екрани мобільних телефонів.
За словами Тома МакКейна, “Баладу легше впізнати, ніж визначити”
(цит. за Хотгартом). Про баладу вже досить багато написано, здається,
що вона вже остаточно „пережована й перетравлена”, і що нема чого
більше про неї сказати. Чи так це? Як засвідчила конференція у Києві,
відповідь є „ні”. Проф. Николайсен, один з перших членів та видатний
професор Шотландського університету, переконаний, що Комісія ніколи не
“перетвориться на стадо, що пережовує ті самі ідеї”.
Не зважаючи на широке коло вже розглянутих проблем, очевидно,
що й надалі перед Міжнародною Баладною Комісією стоятимуть важливі
завдання. Це засвідчує вже обговорення самої її назви. Чи є ми Баладною
Комісією, чи Kommission für Volksdichtung? Якщо ми розглядаємо себе як
Баладну Комісію і приймаємо визначення балади як наративної пісні, чи
пісні, яка оповідає історію [нім. Erzähllied, або епічна пісня], чи означатиме
це виключення всіх інших видів народної пісні? У Києві дослідники
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розмірковували, чи може бути знайдене рішення у ширшій інтерпретації
терміну балади, яка б відображала сучасну ситуацію, можливо, була б
заснована на різних категоріях та функціональному спрямуванні пісень
(колискові, пісні на вечірках, робочі пісні, поховальні голосіння тощо).
З іншого боку, сама назва «Комісія з Volksdichtung» містить в собі
німецьку ідею. Таким чином, питання полягає в тому, чи виходячи з
німецької перспективи ми маємо розглядати Комісію як таку, що присвячена
виключно Volksdichtung (тобто суто фольклорній поезії, фольклорній
вигадці, фольклорним казкам, традиційним та сучасним легендам і
міфам тощо), або мусить включати і мовленнєвий світ сучасного життя?
Зокрема, чи є ця назва відлунням давнього концепту Volk, або чи передає
виключно усність, якої ніколи не існує в дійсності? Чи є етнопоезія – термін,
запропонований понад тридцять років тому Хедою Ясон, відповідним
англійським перекладом Volksdichtung? Якщо так, то вона має включати
балади як у найвужчому, так і найширшому сенсі. Проте, якщо розуміти
під Volksdichtung етнопоезію, то ми стикаємося із небезпекою залучити
до сфери нашої уваги значно ширший матеріал, ніж балади, свавілля чого
навіює гаряче повітря постмодернізму.
На завершення я хотіла підкреслити, що дуже приємно було побачити
в Києві багато нових, молодих облич. Значення університетів у розвитку
наукових знань зрозуміло в усьому світі. Київ надав можливість усім
учасникам довідатися про нові підходи в дослідженнях українських колег,
з якими ми зустрілися вперше. Ласкаво просимо українських новачків до
нашої родини, що надасть їй те, що необхідно в епоху глобалізації, а саме
культурне розмаїття, яке заслуговує, щоб бути більше, ніж просто слоганом
ЮНЕСКО. Балади мусять бути захищені як частина нашої нематеріальної
культурної спадщини.
Вже стало традицією, що культурне розмаїття знаходить вираження
також на наших вечірніх співочих засіданнях, де ми були вражені, якими
жайворонками і солов’ями можуть бути „сухі” науковці та теоретики. Ми
щиро дякуємо нашим господарям, що вони дали змогу познайомитися з
цими талантами.
Бажаю успіхів цьому збірникові!
Президент Міжнародної Баладної Комісії
Проф., д-р Сабін Вінкер-П’єфо
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WILLIAM MccARTHY (STATE COLLEGE, USA)
The Ballad Commission Meets in Kyiv.
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I sing of freedom for great Ukraine,
Too soon, alas, to end!
With the Soviets only ten years gone,
Lo, ballad scholars descend!
Word is to the Kyiv Gate
And word is to the Dnieper
Theyíre coming from Europe and Amerikay
For another KfV caper.
President Sabine is a teaching machine
Since Munich’s great school has got her.
She could only abide one day to preside,
Then vanished like Harry Potter.
Isabelle, Peerless, has pledged to Scots
To try hammer toss and cabar.
Workout for such a sporting event,
She says isnít too much labor.
Now ballads have about maids in the wood
Who met with the mad deceiver,
So we sent the boys to get the flowers.
But they all came back with hay fever.
We sent them down for a cool river dip,
A swim the very next morning.
But the oness who keep track of such things sent them back
For towel theft, without warning.
We had Inna in English, Inna in Russian,
And Inna in Ukrainian.
I think the poor lass will never want
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To open her mouth again.
Mais, Quelle est cette vision qui émerge
de la souterraine église?
Un ange d’orthodoxie? Pas de quoi!
C’est l’éblouissante Larysa!
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And so to all who worked so hard
To make these memorable days
We offer with deepest gratitude,
Our flowers, our ballads, our praise.
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35th International Ballad Conference SIEF in Kyiv
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One of the oldest Eastern European countries, Ukraine was chosen to be a
venue for the International Ballad Conference which was held in Kyiv, July 6-11,
2005. The materials of the event are published here in the languages used by the
authors. The opportunity to host the conference in Kyiv arose due to the positive
democratic changes, which took place in the Ukraine after the ‘Orange Revolution’. It is notable that the Vice-President of the International Commission for
Studying Folk-Songs and Ballads, Professor Isabelle Peere (Belgium) said in her
interview during the visit to Ukraine: “We have come to the victorious country”.
Moreover, the Rylsky Institute of the Art, Studies, Folklore and Ethnology of
the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, is one of the most prominent ethnographic
institutions in Ukraine, as its publications are gradually adopted by the scientific
community, and its scholars represent Ukrainian ethnology and folkloristics at international congresses and conferences as well as various international scientific
commissions.
It is worthy of note that the Conference became one of the most well-attended forums as it gathered more than 100 specialists, including more than 40
European scholars (from Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Slovenia,
Turkey, Romania, Poland, Croatia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Belarus), as well as
scholars from the USA and Australia. The vast majority of the presenters were
well known folklorists, heads of scientific departments and institutions. These
included: Director of Elphinstone Institute (University of Aberdeen, Scotland),
Prof. Ian Russell;, Director of Romanian Academy of Sciences Institute of
Folklore, Prof. Sabina Ispas, Director of Slovenian Academy of Sciences Institute of Ethnomusicology, Commission Vice-President, Prof. Marjetka Golež
Kaučič, Head of Slavic Studies Department of the Institute of Art, Ethnography
and Folklore of the Belarus Academy of Sciences, Prof. Alexander Morozov;
and others.
The subject of the Conference made it possible for the participants to dwell
upon studies of one of the most ancient and popular genres of folklore: ballads from analyzing their mythological sources to describing their modern position in
the folklore repertoire. High interest was attracted to the topic of the interaction
of ballads with other genres of folklore, works of literature, and translations of
ballads. In modern Ukrainian scholarship, the term “ballad” is used to denote a
specific genre of epic folk-songs. According to the famous Ukrainian folklorist
O. Dey, ballads are “a peculiar genre of basically epic songs with extensive dramatic and tragic plotline, which depict realistically especially tense conflicts or
fatal coincidences in the spheres of private, domestic or social life”.
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This term has been used in Ukrainian folklore studies since the early nineteenth
century until now. Among the Ukrainian researchers, M. Dragomanov was the first to
define ballads as “songs of epic contents, which usually use some gloomy and effective
event as a plot”. Scientific estimation of Ukrainian endowment of ballads has more than
300 plot types. One should mention at least works dedicated to the folk-ballads (plentiful which are teeming withof plots and picturesque heroic characters) by M. Kostomarov, M. Chaly, M. Petrov, O. Ogonovsky, as well as fundamental studies of O. Potebnya,
I. Franko, M. Dragomanov, M. Voznyak, V. Domanytsky, D. Zagul, V. Gnatyuk, K.
Kvitka, G. Nudga, O. Dey, S. Hrytsya, M. Hayday and others. Among the first thorough researches covering history and theory of the Ukrainian ballads as well as the
connection of the plots of ballads, based on the comparative material of the folk-songs
of European nations, were the paper by F. Kolessa “Ukrainian oral lore” (1938). Interesting observations, regarding the artistic features (dramatic relation and composition)
of Ukrainian and European ballads, are found in the articles and essays of I. Franko. He
has also translated into Ukrainian and published a collection of the best ballads of the
world. Through the twentieth century, several collections of local and Western European
ballads were published in the Ukraine. These include: Friedrich Schiller, “The Ballad”
(1927); “Collection of German Ballads” (1928);, “De profundis. Ballads of the World”
(1956);, anthology “Ukrainian Ballad” (1964);, two volumes of “Ballads” (Edited by –
O. Dey, A. Jasenchuk ) as part of “Ukrainian Folk Arts” series (1987, 1988).
As a genre of oral poetry ballads are a valuable source not only for folklore
research, but also for historic, ethnographic, and ethnopsychological studies, as scientists emphasize that “ballad reflects national character of people, thus ballads of
different nations have their specific shade: some prefer lyric inffluence, the others – epic or dramatic one”. Taking into account wide parallelism of the plots of
Ukrainian and pan-European ballads, the researchers define their specifics, that lie
in the absence of “dark fantasy” inherent to the ballads of some European nations.
Ukrainian ballads are also peculiar with their realistic social context. They combine
“dramatic nature of events with epic objective relation and deep lyricism”. These
specific features of Ukrainian folk ballads and their connection with ballads of European folklore and literature drew attention of Ukrainian scholars, who represented
the development of Ukrainian ballad studies at this academic forum.
Most of the reports were illustrated with the help of modern technical devices
as well as personal performance of ballads or piano improvisations. Working languages of the Conference were English, French and German, as they have the
same status in SІЕР.
After the opening session of the Conference, which took place in the UAS
RIAFSE on July 6, 2005, and plenary sessions the participants had the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of Ukrainian culture through individually
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tailored “cultural programmes” – which offered a wide range of events, concerts,
excursions and meetings. In addition, our foreign guests were invited to the Museum of Folk Architecture and Daily Life in the Village of Pyrohiv, where they
could familiarize themselves with Ukrainian ethnocultural heritage, - traditional
calendar-ritual holiday of Ivan Kupala, upheld yearly at the Museum; the variety
of folk architecture; unique Ukrainian landscapes. At the exhibition of the folk
art, the foreign scholars could examine elegant pieces made by modern craftsmen
as well as buy some of them as souvenirs.
The participants were also invited to meet with the City of Kyiv executive
board. In his hospitable speech in the “Ukrainian Hall”, Mayor of Kyiv O. Omelchenko emphasized the importance of such a representative forum in Ukraine
and distinguished the substantial contribution of the RIAFSE in the field of studying and popularizing Ukrainian culture and folklore. At instigation of Kyiv Department of Culture, ten foreign participants were presented with commemoratives and inscribed watches by the Mayor for their efforts in making Kyiv the
venue of the Conference. The Department of Culture also organized a concert of
“Beregynia” Ensemble for the participants of the Conference. In the Kobzar room
of the “Ukrainian Hall”, guests could hear Ukrainian folk-songs performed by
masterful lute-player Stepan Scherbak.
The participants of the Conference appreciated the perfect staging of HulakArtemovsky’s opera “Zaporozhets za Dunayem” as well as folklore festival “The
Land of Dreams”, which was also upheld in the capital of the Ukraine. In the
course of studying the folk arts, they visited the exposition of the Museum of
Folk Decorative Arts in Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. They might also remember a trip
to ancient town of Chernigov and beautiful views of Pechersk seen during the
Dnipro tour on a river cruiser.
An important stage at every Conference, the final plenary sessions are dedicated to discussing the reports, debates and summing-up. Traditionally on the last
day of the conference, International Commission for the Studies of Folk-Songs
and Ballads conducts a business meeting, where the future plans are outlined and
the venue for the next Conference is chosen. Usually, for every country a proposition to host the Conference is a sign of recognition of its scientific efforts abroad.
The President of the Commission, Professor of the European Ethnology Board of
Munich University Sabine Wienker-Piepho, alongside the other speakers, praised
the high scientific level and good organization of the Conference in Kyiv.
Accolades were also expressed in the letters of the participants. We are especially grateful to Especially, we are to thank Simona Delić (Croatia) for her kind
words: “With a keen interest I got informed on the activities and works of the
UAS RIAFSE, and also saw your beautiful country. I think, the Conference was
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perfectly organized with pretty good balance between interesting reports and excursions”. We also wish to thank William Bernard McCarthy (USA) for his warm
letter: “Your cordiality and hospitality of your Institute will always be present in
our memory. We did really like the theaters, museums and the trip to Chernigov,
as well as wonderful gifts: CDs with photos and a book of Ukrainian dumas. I’ll
pass my copy to the University of Missouri, where Miles Fouley works. This
conference was perfectly planned and presented”.
We are also deeply touched with the high opinion on our country and the
steering committee’s efforts from Tom McKean (Scotland) (“Dear directorate
of the Institute, I’d like to thank you for inviting us, preparing such a marvelous event and for hospitality in your wonderful country. I hope, I’ll come back
to Ukraine some time to study its beautiful folk traditions”); Larry Syndergaard
(USA) (“We’d like to thank you for a wonderful ballad conference in Kyiv, I am
really delighted it was a success. We were also amazed with hospitality and hearty
reception “); Elod Kovacs(Hungary) (“I’d like to thank you for those marvelous
days I spent in Kyiv – praise be to you! I felt really well, and I suppose, the other
participants did too. I wish you happy life and work in sunny Kyiv “).
The Institute presented the participants with copies of “Ukrainian folk dumas” by Kateryna Grushevska, which had been reissued by the Institute, and CDs
with the recordings of folk dumas performed by lute-player Stepan Scherbak.
Research team of the Institute wishes to express deep respect and gratitude
to the distinguished guests of the Conference and the presiding body of sІЕР,
and especially to Vice-President of the International Commission for Studying
Folk-Songs and Ballads, Professor Isabelle Peere (Belgium). We hope that the
common effort of Ukrainian and foreign folklorists will indeed aid integration of
our country into European Union. Out faith in that is strengthened by the moving
words of Professor Peere: “Ukrainian rushnyk will always connect the East and
the West, I will always take it to all the forthcoming conferences “.
On behalf of the scientific team of the Rylsky Institute of the Art Studies,
Folklore and Ethnology of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences we would like to
thank the members of the editorial board for their help in the preparation of this
publication: Dr. David Atkinson, professor Larysa Vakhnina, Dr. Inna Golovakha
and her husband William Hicks.
Hanna Skrypnyk
Member of the National of Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Director of the Rylsky Institute of the Art Studies,
Folklore and Ethnology of the NAS
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35 Міжнародна баладна конференція SIEF в Києві
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Україна одна з перших серед країн Східної Європи стала місцем проведення Міжнародної баладної конференції в Києві (6-11 липня 2005 року),
матеріали якої репрезентовані у цьому виданні мовами, на яких виголошувалися наукові доповіді. Проведення цієї конференції у Києві стало можливим завдяки тим позитивним демократичним змінам, що відбулися в країні
після перемоги Помаранчевої революції. Не випадково, в одному з інтерв'ю
віце-президент Міжнародної комісії по вивченню народних пісень та балад
проф. Ізабель Пір (Бельгія) зауважила щодо свого візиту до України «Ми
приїхали в країну, що перемогла». До того ж, Інститут мистецтвознавства,
фольклористики та етнології ім. М.Т.Рильського НАН України є провідною
в Україні народознавчою установою - видані ним праці все більше входять
у міжнародний науковий обіг, а його співробітники репрезентують українську фольклористичну та етнологічну науку не тільки на міжнародних
конгресах та конференціях, а й працюючи в різноманітних міжнародних наукових комісіях.
Слід відзначити, що згадана конференція стала водночас однією з найчисельніших за кількістю учасників (понад 100 осіб), з них майже 40 з країн
Європи (Бельгія, Франція, Німеччина, Великобританія, Словенія, Туреччина, Румунія, Польща, Хорватія, Болгарія, Литва, Білорусь), з США, Канади
та Австралії, а також найбільш представницькою, бо переважна більшість
доповідачів - це відомі фольклористи, керівники університетських кафедр
та наукових інститутів, директор Елфінстонського Інституту Університету
м. Абердин з Шотландії проф. Ян Руссел, директор Інституту фольклору Румунської Академії наук проф. Сабіна Іспас, директор Інституту етномузикології Словенської Академії Наук, віце-президент Комісії проф. Марієтка
Голєц-Каучіч, завідувач відділу славістики Інституту мистецтвознавства,
етнографії та фольклору НАН Білорусі проф. Олександр Морозов та ін.
Проблематика конференції дала можливість висвітлити різноманітні аспекти дослідження одного з найдавніших і найпопулярніших жанрів
художньої творчості народів світу - балад, від аналізу їх міфологічних витоків до сучасного побутування у фольклорному репертуарі. Великий інтерес учасників конференції викликали питання взаємодії балади з іншими
жанрами фольклору, літературними творами, а також переклади балад. Під
терміном балада в сучасній вітчизняній науці прийнято розуміти окремий
жанр епічних гостросюжетних народних пісень. Як зазначав відомий український фольклорист О. Дей це – “своєрідний жанр епічних у своїй основі пісенних творів розгорненої гостро драматичної і трагічної сюжетики,
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в яких реалістично ... відображаються винятково напружені конфлікти чи
фатальні збіги обставин - в особистій, сімейній та громадській сфері народного життя» 1.
Цей термін, майже із тотожним значенням, застосовується в українській фольклористиці з початку XIX ст. і до сьогодення. Серед вітчизняних
дослідників одним з перших, хто дав дефініцію фольклорного жанру балада був М. Драгоманов, який розумів під ним «пісні епічного змісту, що
оповідаючи, звичайно мають за сюжет яку-небудь сумну-ефектну подію».
Вже віддавна увагу вітчизняних та зарубіжних дослідників привертала
українська баладна скарбниця, яка є чи не однією з найбагатших
у світовому фольклорі - за підрахунками вчених в українському
баладному фонді налічується понад 300 сюжетних типів 22. Згадаємо хоча б
праці про народні балади (багаті на сюжети і колоритні героїчні образи) М.
Костомарова, М. Чалого, М. Петрова, О. Огоновського, а також спеціальні ґрунтовні студії - О. Потебні, І. Франка, М. Драгоманова, М.
Возняка, В. Доманицького, Д. Загула, В. Гнатюка, К. Квітки, Г. Нудьги,
О. Дея, С. Грици, М. Гайдая та ін. Однією з найраніших ґрунтовних
розвідок, в якій порушується питання історії та теорії жанру балади в українському фольклорі, висвітлення зв'язку між сюжетами балад на основі
порівняльного матеріалу уснопоетичної творчості європейських народів,
стала робота Ф. Колесси «Українська усна словесність» (1938). Цікаві спостереження щодо художніх прикмет (драматизму викладу, композиційної
побудови) балад як українського, так і європейських народів містять статті
та розвідки І.Франка. Письменник підготував збірку перекладів найкращих
балад народів світу. Українські балади стали предметом наукового зацікавлення і відомого шведського славіста Альфреда Єнзена, англійського професора Ентвістла, польського дослідника Ч. Згожельського, та ін. У XX ст.
в Україні було видано кілька збірок як вітчизняних, так і західноєвропейських балад (Фрідріх Шіллер, “Балада”, 1927); “Вибір німецьких балад”
(1928), “З глибини. Балади народів світу” (1956), антологія “Українська
балада” (1964), двотомник “балада” (упорядники О. Дей, А. Ясинчук) опублікований в багатотомному серійному виданні “Українська народна творчість” (1987, 1988).
Як жанр уснопоетичної творчості балади є цінним джерелом не тільки
для фольклорних, але й для історичних, етнографічних, та етнопсихологічних студій, поза тим, як зазначають дослідники, власне у баладі «відбиваєть1 Дей О. У світі народної балади / Балади - К., 1987. - С. 5.
2 Дей О. У світі народної балади / Балади - К., 1987. - С. 18.
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ся національний характер народу і тому балади кожного народу мають свої
специфічні відтінки: в одних домінує ліричний струмінь - в інших - епічний,
в третіх - драматичний і т.д.» 3. За наявності широких паралелей української
баладної сюжетики із загальноєвропейською, фольклористи акцентують і
деяку її специфіку, що виявляється у відсутності «страшної фантастики»,
властивої баладам деяких європейських народів, її вирізняє також реалістичний соціальний контекст.
В ній «драматизм події з надзвичайною силою поєднується з епічною
об'єктивністю викладу і глибоким ліризмом». Саме ця специфіка українських народних балад та їх зв'язок з баладною творчістю європейських
народів та літературною творчістю і стали предметом висвітлення українських вчених, які репрезентували розвиток українських баладних студій на
цьому науковому форумі.
Більшість із представлених доповідей ілюструвалася як за допомогою
сучасного технічного обладнання, так і власним виконанням балад чи імпровізаціями на роялі. Робочими мовами конференції були англійська, французька та німецька, які мають однаковий статус в SІЕР.
Після урочистого відкриття конференції, яке відбулося в ІМФЕ ім.
М.Т.Рильського НАН України 6 липня 2005 р., та пленарних засідань, її
учасники мали можливість краще пізнати українську культуру через запропоновану їм «культурну програму» - низку культурних заходів, концертів, екскурсій та цікавих зустрічей. Зокрема, зарубіжні гості -дослідники
баладної творчості, знайомилися в Музеї народної архітектури та побуту
(с. Пирогів) з етнокультурною спадщиною українців -самобутнім колоритом традиційного календарно-обрядового свята Івана Купала, яке щорічно
влаштовується в Музеї; розмаїттям народної архітектурної творчості; неповторними українськими ландшафтами. На музейній виставці виробів народного мистецтва зарубіжні вчені могли не лише ознайомитися з вишуканими витворами народних умільців, але й придбали деякі з них на згадку
про Україну.
Було організовано також зустріч учасників конференції з очільниками
міста Києва. Вітаючи гостей - учасників 35 Міжнародної баладної конференції в «Українському домі» Київський міський голова О. Омельченко підкреслив важливість такого представницького форуму в Україні, і відзначив
значний внесок ІМФЕ ім. М.Т. Рильського для вивчення та популяризації
народної культури та фольклору. За ініціативою Управління культури м.
Києва було відзначено подяками київського міського голови (з врученням
3 Нудьга Г.А.Українська балада. - К., 1970. - С.7.
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пам'ятних знаків та іменних годинників) десять зарубіжних учасників, які
доклали чимало зусиль для того, щоб цей захід відбувся саме в столиці
України. Для учасників конференції Міським Управлянням культури було
організовано концерт ансамблю «Берегиня». В залі Кобзарської світлиці
«Українського дому» звучали також українські народні думи у майстерному
і проникливому виконанні кобзаря Степана Щербака.
Учасниками конференції схвально були сприйняті високопрофесійна
постановка опери С. Гулака-Артемовського «Запорожець за Дунаєм» в Національні опері України, а також фольклорний фестиваль «Країна мрій», що
на той час тривав у столиці. Як дослідники народної культури, вони ознайомились з експозицією Музею народно-декоративного мистецтва КиєвоПечерської Лаври, де була організована кваліфікована екскурсійна програма. Гадаємо, що запам'яталася також поїздка до старовинного міста Чернігова та чарівні Печерські краєвиди під час прогулянки катером по Дніпру.
Важливою складовою кожної конференції є підсумкові пленарні засідання, на яких відбувається обговорення доповідей, дискусії та підводять
підсумки. Традиційними для дискусій Міжнародної Комісії з дослідження
народних пісень та балад є бізнес-мітинги, що проводяться в день закриття
конференції, де окрім іншого накреслюються плани на перспективу, обираються країни, в яких будуть проводитися майбутні конференції. Як правило, для кожної країни така пропозиція - це свідчення про визнання за
кордоном її наукових досягнень. Президент Комісії професор Кафедри європейської етнології Мюнхенського університету Сабін Вінкер-П'єфо, як й
інші виступаючі, відзначила високий науковий рівень та гарну організацію
конференції в Києві.
Про це свідчать і рядки листів, що надійшли від багатьох учасників. Зокрема, ми дякуємо за щирі слова Сімоні Деліч (Хорватія), яка пише: «З великим
інтересом ознайомилася з діяльністю та працями ІМФЕ ім. М.Т.Рильського
НАН України, а також побачила Вашу чудову країну. На мою думку, конференція була дуже добре організована, відчувався баланс між цікавими доповідями та екскурсіями». Висловлюємо подяку також незабутньому Віль'яму
Бернарду МакКарті (США), котрий нам письмово надіслав такі враження:
«Ваша щирість та щирість Вашого Інституту завжди залишиться в нашій
пам'яті. Нам дуже сподобались театри, музеї та подорож до Чернігова, а також чудові подарунки: компакт-диски з фотографіями, а також видання дум.
Я передам свій примірник до університету в Міссурі, де працює Майлзс Фолей. Ця конференція була чудово спланована і презентована».
Ми зворушені також високою оцінкою нашої країни та організаційних
зусиль оргкомітету Тома МакКіна (Шотландія) («Шановна дирекція Інсти-
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туту, велика подяка Вам за те, що Ви запросили нас, все чудово підготували
і за тепле відношення до нас в Вашій чудовій країні. Я сподіваюсь повернутися коли-небудь в майбутньому та пізнати Україну ще більше, вивчити
її прекрасні народні традиції»); Лері Сіндергард (США) («Дуже дякуємо за
чудову баладну конференцію в Києві, мені дуже приємно, що вона пройшла
з успіхом. Ми також були приємно вражені теплим ставленням до нас та до
інших гостей»); Елода Ковача (Угорщина) («Хочу висловити Вам велику подяку за чудові дні, які я зміг провести в Києві, Слава Вам. Я почувався дуже
добре і мені здається, що інші учасники конференції теж. Зичу щасливого
життя та праці в сонячному Києві»).
Інститут подарував учасникам конференції видання «Українські народні думи» Катерини Грушевської, що було перевидане в Інституті, та компактдиски із записами народних дум у виконанні кобзаря Степана Щербака.
Науковий колектив Інституту ще раз засвідчує свою високу повагу
і вдячність поважним гостям конференції та керівництву SІЕF і, зокрема,
віце-президенту Міжнародної Комісії по вивченню народних пісень та балад професору Ізабель Пір (Бельгія). Сподіваємося, що співпраця між українськими вченими та зарубіжними фольклористами і справді буде сприяти
подоланню відстані між Україною та іншими європейськими державами,
інтеграції нашої держави до Європейського Союзу. Віру в це нам вселяють
зворушливі слова професора Ізабель Пір: «Український рушник буде завжди поєднувати Схід і Захід, я завжди буду брати його з собою на усі наступні конференції»».
Від імені колективу Інституту мистецтвознавства, фольклористики та
етнології ім. М.Т.Рильського ПАН України висловлюємо також вдячність
членам редакційної колегії цього видання, котрі долучилися до його підготовки: доктору Девіду Аткінсону (секретарю Міжнародної баладної комісії
SIEF), професору Л. Вахніній, доктору І. Головасі, В. Хіксу.
Ганна Скрипник
Академік Національної Академії Наук України
Директор ІМФЕ ім. М.Т.Рильського
НАН України
19
HANS KUHN (CAMBELL, AUSTRALIA.)
A country goes to war, singing: Denmark in 1848
Abstract: The outbreak of the First Slesvig War in 1848, after more then three decades of peace, led to an
extraordinary production of songs and songbooks, to be used by soldiers and their relatives at home. Leading
poets and less prominent writers wrote patriotic texts or texts commenting on the events in the war. In the end,
it turned out that not ëliteraryí songs, which often included historical and mythological allusions, were the most
successful in the field, but songs that expressed the common soldier’s or seaman’s experience and feelings.
Key words: First Slesvig War, Grundtvig, Andersen, Ploug, patriotic songs, literary songs
Е
ГАНС КУН (КЕМБЕЛ, АВСТРАЛІЯ)
Країна йде на війну з піснями: Данія у 1848 році.
Ф
Резюме: Внаслідок війни 1848, яка розпочалася після трьох мирних десятиріч, з’явилася надзвичайна
кількість пісень та збірок пісень, які мали використовуватися військовими та членами їхньої родини, які
чекали на їхнє повернення. Провідні поети та маловідомі письменники писали патріотичні пісні. Потім
стало зрозумілим, що найбільш популярними були не літературні пісні з історичними та міфологічними
мотивами, а пісні, в яких був відображений досвід та почуття військових та тих, хто на них чекав.
Ключові слова: Данія, історичні пісні, літературні пісні, народні пісні, міфологічні мотиви, війна 1848 року
ІМ
Gerald Porter’s stimulating paper on British Crimean War songs at the ballad
conference in Riga was a reminder of the role organized collective singing played in
the nineteenth century. It was a time when amateur choir singing flourished as never
before, and it was a time when drafted soldiers began to replace professional soldiers,
and they needed a stronger motivation to risk their lives than did men who had chosen the military as a career. The armies they comprised were marching and camping
armies without access to modern media but with plenty of motivation to use songs
to combat fatigue and revive the communal spirit. No wonder we find a variety of
special songbooks for use in wartime, both in the field and by the civilian population.
That these published songs were also the most popular songs among the soldiers does
not necessarily follow, however; from my own youthful experience in the Swiss army
I would say that some sentimental First World War favourites that did not figure in
any songbooks, such as ëLili Marleení and ëEin Polenmädchení, were more likely to
be sung spontaneously than the songs we were told to sing by the officers.
The duchies of Slesvig, Holstein, and Lauenburg were tied to the Danish king by
personal union but were constitutionally separate. Attempts to incorporate Slesvig,
which was not part of the German Union and had a large Danish-speaking minority, into the kingdom proper led to a constitutional crisis in 1848 and a rising of the
German-speaking population. With the outbreak of nationalism accompanying the
Frankfurt Parliament, the rising soon attracted support from Prussia and other parts
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of Germany, leading to the occupation of Jutland by the insurgents and their helpers.
Under Russian pressure, however, outside support was withdrawn and, thanks to British mediation, the status quo was re-established in 1850.
Europe in 1848 was absorbed by the February Revolution in Paris and its repercussions in other capitals, so what happened in the north remained a comparatively
marginal event; but in Denmark it had a tremendous impact. The country, which had
suffered badly during the Napoleonic Wars, had during the following three decades of
peace made a remarkable economic and cultural recovery and was just about ready to
replace absolute monarchy with a parliamentary constitution. The Battle of Copenhagen Harbour, back in 1801, had led to a veritable outburst of topical poems and songs,
and now something similar was happening. In my book on Danish patriotic songs in
songbooks of the four middle decades of the nineteenth century, I included a number
of songs from the period 1848ñ50 on the basis of their frequency, and I do not wish to
go over the same ground again but will simply use them for comparison. My purpose
here is to consider the first and most successful of the wartime songbooks which, with
changes and additions, long outlived both the First and the Second Slesvig Wars, its
tenth edition appearing in 1875. It was also the songbook that Hans Christian Andersen, a peaceful man by nature, was fond of distributing.
Like most songbooks of the period, it was the result of a private initiative. One
of the most powerful and influential voices of Danish nationalism was Nikolai
Severin Grundtvig, theologian, poet, historian, and educator, who worked for a
revival both religious and political, based on the common man in the countryside
rather than on the urban educated elites that set the tone of the cultural discourse;
he was the father of Svend Grundtvig of ballad fame. From 1840, he had his own
forum of followers in Danske Samfund, a society that for its meetings used small
songbooks of its own consisting mostly of Grundtvig texts. Their editor was a
musically gifted student of theology and teacher, Peter Outzen Boisen, who later
became Grundtvigís son-in-law and his chaplain at Vartov church.
When the political crisis came to a head in March 1848, Grundtvig started publishing his own sixteen-page weekly entitled Danskeren (The Dane), with which, in a time
of national or nationalistic solidarity, he aimed to reach beyond the circle of his followers. It consisted of articles and poems, and he wrote it practically single-handedly;
it continued to appear until December 1851. Grundtvig saw himself as being in a line
of descent from the skalds who had roused the fighting spirit of men before battle ñ
notably Hjalte in the saga of the legendary king Rolf Krage. His ëBjarkemålí, preserved
in Latin by Saxo Grammaticus, was also used before the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030, in
which King Olaf the Saint of Norway fell. Most of Grundtvigís poems were definitely
meant as songs: songs of exhortation, songs of prayer, songs of triumph when Danish
troops were successful, songs of consolation when they suffered setbacks.
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While Grundtvig was by far the most productive writer of war songs, he was
by no means the only one; practically no Danish poet of the time failed to set
pen to paper. Many of the songs were produced as broadsheets and rushed to the
departing troops or the bookshops; but it was Boisen who, after the first year of
the war, collected eighty-seven, mostly topical, songs in book form, calling the
collection Nye og gamle Viser af og for Danske Folk (New and old songs by and for
Danish people). The 1849 edition was printed cheaply, without musical notation,
and was of a size that could easily be slipped into a coat pocket.
The first section, on which I concentrate here, is entitled ëThe War, 1848, with a
Preludeí; it contains seventeen songs, of which eleven were by Grundtvig. The ëPreludeí consists of three Grundtvig poems that predate the war: his 1817 translation of
the said ëBjarkemålí; another, also going back to Saxo, about a messenger who gave
thanks for the royal gift of a golden cup by drinking a cup of his own blood in battle,
which is described as an example of heroism and loyalty; and a third about Niels
Ebbesen, a fourteenth-century Jutish nobleman who slew a Holsten count, and who
was for Grundtvig a symbol of Danish resistance against German encroachment.
Grundtvigís mind was filled with legend and history, which he saw as a necessary
part of the national consciousness; and although he wished to write for the common man, his references and allusions, often couched in concentrated metaphorical
language, must have been largely lost on his intended audience. Of the three poems,
only ëNiels Ebbesení gained a foothold in the songbooks, thanks no doubt to its subject matter ñ a crafty murder ñ and its ballad-like language, with a rousing refrain.
If ëNiels Ebbesení was a piece of real history skewed to fit the ideological
demands of the present day, the seven Grundtvig poems in this section that were
taken from Danskeren show how his comments on the present were invariably
rooted in mythological history and legend. The first of these, ëDansk Svanesangí
(ëDanish swan songí), had been published on 12 April 1848 and shows Grundtvig
worrying about his countryís future in both politico-military and cultural terms.
In the first stanza, shield-maidens are the theme. The second stanza deals with the
legendary King Vermund the Blind and his son Uffe, who defeated a Slesvig challenger with his fatherís sword Skrep. In the third stanza, the tenth-century Queen
Thyra is evoked, if only by her byname Dannebod (Dane enhancement), as the
mythical builder of the fortification known as Dannevirke across southern Jutland.
Grundtvigís concern in the next stanza is with the future of the Danish language ñ
ëFatherland without Motherspeech is Heart without Tongueí is the key lines, and
a German victory song is envisaged as saying: ëI tore out Denmarkís tongue; now
Denmarkís heart is muteí. The fifth stanza describes the magic emanating from
the word Fædreland (fatherland); and the next stanza elaborates on the crucial
role of the Danish language, mentioning both Dannevirke and also Dannebrog,
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the Danish flag that allegedly fell from heaven during a battle in Estonia in the period of Danish expansion in the Middle Ages. In the final stanza Fløite-Fuglen, the
flute-bird that is heard in the evening (presumably the nightingale), sings a song
urging Holger Danske, the ëOgier li Danoisí of the Arthurian table, to come to
Denmarkís help. Obviously Grundtvig could not end his song with a swan dying,
since that would have indicated a fatal outcome for the struggle ahead, but Holger
Danske had been turned by Romantic nationalists into a sleeping saviour, ready
to wake up and act in his countryís hour of need. Such a tight web of imagery and
allusion would have posed a challenge even for the educated middle classes, let
alone the common foot-soldier. Decades later the folk high schools, taking their
inspiration from Grundtvig, would teach Nordic mythology and legendary history, not least so that the students could understand Grundtvigís allusions.
The next two Grundtvig songs were ëNydansk Bjarkemaalí (ëNew Danish
Bjarkemaalí), which is teeming with references to Nordic mythology but also manages to accommodate the phoenix; and ëSlesvig-dansk Mindesangí (ëSlesvig-Danish song of remembranceí), which tells the story of King Vermund at length. ëDansk
Krigssangí (ëDanish war songí) is less weighted down with legendary history but all
the more with heraldic references; it was to be sung to the melody of the most popular patriotic song of the nineteenth century, ëDanmark dejligst Vang og Vængeí. It
starts ëDanmarks Løve! ryst din Manke!í (ëDanish lion! shake your maneí), three
lions being part of the Danish royal coat of arms. The lion is told to roar so that the
other Nordic lions will join the fight against the evil dragon ñ including ëAngulsLøvení, the British lion, which is meant to jump across the sea. The lion and dragon
fighting is a long-standing emblem of the struggle between good and evil, but heraldic consistency later forces the poet to visualize the German enemy as an eagle,
and now Denmark is presented as ëSkovens Due blyí (the shy forest dove). Grundtvigís mental image of Denmark was strangely self-contradictory: on the one hand he
wished to revive the slumbering Viking spirit of combative manliness from the time
when Danes ruled the sea and built empires, while at the same time he had a strong
conviction that the Danish people, and the Danish language, were by nature feminine, innocent, and gentle. The song ends with a suggestive picture of Danish nature
in springtime. The insurgents are alluded to only in heraldic terms: ëNo nettles shall
burn Frederick and his followersí, the nettle appearing in the Holsten coat of arms.
The soldiers must have been relieved to proceed to the eighth song, ëDen Frivilligeí (ëThe volunteerí), by H. C. Andersen. Only young men from the countryside
were called up for military service, but young men in the cities were encouraged
to join as volunteers, and they did so in great numbers, including Grundtvigís two
sons. ëDen Frivilligeí is a role poem for such a soldier and expresses his thoughts,
feelings, and hopes: his impatience to get to the camp, his unease about what the
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future will bring, his determination, his conviction of fighting for a just cause and
of God being on Denmarkís side, his farewell to his family, with only a passing
glance at the countryís former glory. Set to the melody of a commemorative war
song from the beginning of the century, the song must have expressed what many
of these soldiers felt, and it was quickly taken up by other songbooks.
The following song was also a role song for volunteers, but in this case for
a body of men reassuring each other of the rightness of their cause and of their
resolve to fight to the last; the melody was taken from a verse retelling of a Viking
saga by the Swedish poet Tegnér. But then comes, as the tenth song, the absolute
runner among the war poems of 1848, ëDen tappre Landsoldatí (ëThe brave country soldier/drafted soldierí). This was a role poem for the ordinary conscript ñ not
written by one of them, of course, but by Peter Faber, a man with technical training who ended up, in 1852, as Director of Telegraphy. He had written an opera
spoof a few years before but he was not, strictly speaking, a literary man and may
not have felt himself bound by poetic conventions. In the first stanza, the conscript
remembers saying goodbye to his girlfriend and explaining why he cannot take
her along. In the second, he recalls a discussion with his parents, who are worried
about who will do the ploughing and mowing ñ he predicts that, unless the likes
of him join the fight, the Germans will give them an undesired helping hand, ordering them about in an unknown language. The fourth stanza is concerned with
the flag Dannebrog, which, according to reports, had been desecrated by some
insurgents. In the last stanza, he sums up what he is fighting for, and also deals realistically with the prospect of not returning from the war; the comfort his family
can expect is that the king will honour the fallen soldier for his faithful service. All
this is expressed in simple, everyday language and is helped along by Hornemanís
march melody, which is cheerful rather than aggressive. Fourteen thousand free
copies were dispatched to the army as soon as they were printed. No wonder the
song became popular ñ but deservedly so, because it is one of the most straightforward and good-natured war songs I know of, simple without being patronizing.
The next song, ëDansk Seier-Sangí (ëDanish victory songí) is by Grundtvig
again, full of aggression and, on this occasion, triumphalism. It was occasioned
by the first clash, on 9 April, between the superior Danish troops and the ërebelsí
at Bov, north of Flensburg, which went well for the Danes and allowed them to
take Flensburg and the city of Slesvig. Here the Nordic lions reappear, and in the
refrain the god Thor with his hammer is called upon to smash the enemy. The difference between the two camps is said to be as between heaven and hell, and in the
fourth stanza we find again the picture of good-natured Danes having to put up
with arrogant Germans; but now the tune has changed and in the next stanza the
German is told: ëSynk i Støvet for os!í (ëSink into the dust before usí).
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In the final stanza, Grundtvig says: ëHvilen er sødí (ëIt is sweet to restí). This
may have been what the Danish troops in Slesvig thought, for they were taken completely by surprise when the Germans attacked them on Easter morning, and they
had to beat a hasty retreat. In our songbook, this event is commemorated by two
songs, Plougís ëSlaget ved Slesvigí (ëThe battle at Slesvigí) and Grundtvigís ëDansk
Trøstesangí (ëDanish song of comfortí). Carl Ploug was a leading Liberal Nationalist. To take the latter song first: it was originally entitled ëDet danske Paaske-Offerí
(ëThe Danish Easter sacrificeí) and it shows the same inconsistency of imagery that
we have noticed before, with the Danish soldiers depicted as both lions and sacrificial
lambs (while the Germans remain eagles this time). The tone is elegiac, and the beginning echoes an elegy Grundtvig had written for a young officer, Willemoes, who
had gone down with his ship in a fight against the British navy in 1807. That song
remained popular throughout the century, while this one was only once reprinted. A
fusion, or confusion, of political events and religion came naturally to Grundtvig but
probably not to the majority of his contemporaries, who may have found it difficult
to imagine Dannevirke as an altar. In Plougís song, which did become a success,
God appears only in the refrain, which says: ëClose the circle and stand firm, all you
Danish men! God decides when to give us victory againí. Otherwise it is a retelling
of what happened, an honouring of the fallen, and an assertion that retreating when
outnumbered constitutes no blot on Danish honour. Ploug wrote the text to be sung
to an appealing Faroese melody which had been published shortly before.
However, before we reach these elegies in the songbook, we have two songs that
did for the navy what ëThe brave country soldierí did for the army. They are energetic and good-natured role poems for the ship hands, where the strong bond between
comrades in arms sets the tone. Unity of purpose and comradeship are expressed in
folksy terms, with some reminders of the time when a majority of the crews were Norwegian. As in the ëLandsoldatí, King Frederick (rather than the middle-class abstraction ëfatherlandí) is the embodiment of national unity. The author, Adolph Recke (or,
rather, von der Recke), came from a noble family that had originally migrated from
Germany and was, after having taken a law degree and served in the Royal Life Guard,
a civil servant in the Department of the Navy. He also wrote songs, vaudevilles, and
plays, and later became artistic director of the Tivoli amusement park. He came to be
widely known as ëFlaadens Sangerí (ëthe minstrel of the navyí), and these were by no
means the only naval songs that he wrote during the two Slesvig Wars.
Following these navy songs is a Grundtvig song in a more folksy vein, from May 1848,
with the title ë«Fremad!» og «Pak jer!»í, (ë«Forward!» and «Get lost!»í). The poem is based
on two auditory perceptions: a dark rumbling on the ground, indicating that the Germans
have put on their seven-league boots and are ready to run all the way up through Jutland;
and a storm-like exhilarating sound in the air, indicating not only Danish but Scandina25
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vian resistance. The vertical difference of air and ground is exploited by associating them
respectively with heaven and hell. The Germans in stanzas one, two, and five storm forward ëi Helvedes Navní (literally, ëin hellís nameí ñ in the spirit of ëWhat the hell!í]; the
Scandinavians say ëGet lost from Denmark for Heavenís sakeí. Despite the simplicity of
the language and imagery, Grundtvig cannot help coming up with the odd bit of Old Norse
mythology: the Danes are credited with having arms like shield-maidens; and ëMimersKildení, the well of the giant Mimir, is located under the Øresund.
The seventeenth and last song of the 1848 section is an anonymous one about
migratory birds warning the people of Jutland of the danger brewing in the south.
Space does not allow me to go through the whole book, but I will give an overview of
the rest. The section ëKrigen 1849í contains twelve songs, half of them by Grundtvig
and two by Ploug. Then there is a section with thirty-one patriotic songs of an earlier
date, thirteen by Grundtvig and two by Ploug. A last section comprises twenty-six
songs, which are partly old ballads for use in schools, and partly what the Danes call
ëromancesí, folksy songs of a narrative or sentimental type. It was the inclusion of such
songs that enabled the collection to outlive the events that gave rise to it. Lest I have
given the impression of Grundtvig as an ideologue unable to speak to the common
man, let me observe that in another field, that of church hymns, he was indeed able
to strike a chord in the hearts of people. To this day, about a third of the hymns in the
official Danish hymn book are Grundtvig originals or reworkings by his hand.
Looking back on this very sketchy outline of a particular war songbook, it becomes
apparent that the songs discussed express two distinct views of the war, one from above
and one from below. The one from above is the view of the educated classes involved in
education and politics and, in the actual event, in planning and propaganda. The view
from below is that of the army or navy man and his family and friends, caught up in a
particular situation and reacting to it as individuals. The songs were all written by members of the educated classes, but some of the authors had a greater ability to identify in
outlook, feeling, and language with the conscript or the volunteer, or the naval rating. It
is such role poems, which recreate, so to speak, a personal niche within a vast impersonal
organization, that became successful as songs. This is likely to be true across the nations;
the most long-lived of German war songs, ëIch hatt einen Kameradení, written by Johann Ludwig Uhland in 1809, is certainly a case in point.
Notes
Collected (texts only) in three volumes entitled Hædersminde for den 2den April 1801,
eller Sange og Digte som ere udkomnne i Anledning af Krigen mellem England og Danmark
(Copenhagen, 1801, 1802). Quite a few of them survived in nineteenth-century songbooks.
Hans Kuhn, Defining a Nation in Song: Danish Patriotic Songs in Songbook sof
the Period, 1832ñ1870 (Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1990).
26
Anne Caufriez (brussel, belgium.)
La Ballade Portugaise et ses Prolongements au Bresil
Ф
Е
Abstrakt: Lorsqu’on aborde la question de l’actualité du chant/récit de la ballade au Portugal, on
s’aperçoit que celle-ci est restée plus vivante dans la tradition rurale du Brésil que dans celle du Portugal.
L’un des grands moyens de transmission de la ballade au Brésil a été la littérature de cordd (feuilles volantes
comportant un texte imprimé). Au Portugal, ces feuilles sont encore vendues par les aveugles mais au Brésil,
on les trouve plutôt dans les foires où elles, sont souvent suspendues à un fil (avec des pinces).
On retracera d’abord le rôle de cette littérature de cordel comme moyen de divulgation de La
ballade jusqu’à nos jours et on explicitera les formes que la ballade prend à travers cette littérature.
On tentera de synthétiser les divers aspects sous lesquels se présente la ballade dans le Portugal
d’aujourd’hui et quelle est son audience actuelle.
On retracera ensuite les étapes du cheminement de la ballade du Nord-Est du Portugal au NordEst du Brésil, pays où elle a connu un développement particulier, tant au niveau de ses thfcnm littéraires
qu’à celui de son interprétation et de son public.
La confrontation des deux traditions (celles du Nord-Est portugais et du Nord-Est brésilien)
permet de constater la présence de cycles thématiques communs (ex. le cycle carolingien).
La communication analysera les points communs entre celui du Portugal et du Brésil, à travers
quelques grands personnages qui font figure de héros mythiques et qui ont toujours une actualité pour
le public qui est sensibilisé par leurs exploits.
Keyword: la Ballade Portugaise, les cycles thématiques, les figures de héros mythiques,
l’interprétation
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Анн Кофріє (Брюсель, Бельгія)
Португальська балада та її традиції в Бразилії
Резюме: Коли розглядають питання актуальності співу/оповіді балади в Португалії, виявляється, що вона краще збереглася в сільській традиції Бразилії, ніж Португалії. Одним з найпоширеніших засобів передачі балади в Бразилії була «мотузяна» література (летючі аркуші з
надрукованим текстом). У Португалії ці аркуші ще продають сліпі, але в Бразилії їх можна радше
знайти на ярмарках, де їх часто за допомогою пінцета підвішують на нитки.
Пояснимо спочатку роль цієї «мотузяної» літератури як засобу розповсюдження балади
аж до сьогодні та перерахуємо форми, яких набуває балада завдяки цьому виду літератури.
Спробуємо охарактеризувати різні форми, якими сьогодні представлена балада в Портуалії, та якою є її сучасна аудиторія.
Розглянемо також етапи пересування балади з північного сходу Португалії до північного
сходу Бразилії, країни, де цей фольклорний жанр зазнав найбільшого розвитку, як на рівні
літературних тем, так і на рівні інтерпретацій та аудиторії.
Співставлення двох традицій (північного сходу Португалії та північного сходу Бразилії)
дозволяє констатувати наявність спільних тематичних циклів (напр. каролінгський цикл).
У доповіді буде проаналізовано спільні елементи португальської та бразильської балади;
за приклад взято декілька визначних персонажів, які виступають в ролі міфічних героїв та які
завжди є актуальними для аудиторії, що захоплюється їхніми подвигами.
Ключові слова: португальська балада, тематичні цикли, дійові особи героїчних міфів, інтерпретація.
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L’arrivee du romanceiro portugais au bresil
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Les caravelles que les rois du Portugal lancent sur les océans, dès le 15e siècle,
vont divulguer
le romanceiro 1 en tous points du monde: d’abord à Madère (1425) et aux Açores
(1439), ensuite au Brésil, pays que le navigateur portugais, Alvarez Cabral, atteint
en 1500. Les premiers Portugais qui arrivent au Brésil, ce territoire gigantesque,
s’installent d’abord sur les côtes. Ils emmènent avec eux les romances, chanson de
la mémoire collective, qui conservent dans le Brésil d’aujourd’hui toute la force déclamatoire qu’ils détenaient au Portugal, au 16e siècle. Il faut dire qu’à cette époque,
les romances représentaient une chanson en vogue, connue de tous : le peuple, les
bourgeois, les nobles, les roturiers, les étudiants, les capitaines 2.
Si les auteurs restent avares en informations sur les circonstances
d’interprétation et de divulgation de ces romances dans le Brésil du 16e siècle, ils
nous apprennent néanmoins que la tradition brésilienne est créée, et surtout fermentée, par des colons portugais provenant des provinces du Minho, du Trás-osMontes, des îles de Madère et des Açores 3. Peu à peu, ces romances se propagent
vers l’intérieur du pays, irradiant dans toutes les régions, où ils sont entraînés dans
le flux d’une langue nouvelle, le portugais du Brésil, qui, avec tous ses mots inédits
et ses expressions imagées, s’émancipe considérablement du portugais classique.
Elle donne au romanceiro une coloration nouvelle et sensuelle. Le Brésil enrichit
surtout le répertoire de ses variantes locales, aussi bien sur le plan littéraire que
musical. Les mélodies et les textes sont alors métamorphosés par la magie de
l’imagination et sont souvent soutenus par de vieilles guitares aux sonorités cuivrées ou par le grincement du violon, cet instrument populaire entre tous 4.
Devant la complexité d’un sujet comme le romanceiro luso-brésilien, nous
nous limiterons à définir ici quelques liens de parenté entre celui du Nord-Est du
Portugal et celui du Nord-Est du Brésil. Ces deux régions sont, à maints égards,
comparables, notamment parce qu’elles constituent deux grands foyers du roman1 Le romance (au masculin) désigne une poésie octosyllabique, assonancée dans les
vers pairs et le romanceiro désigne l’ensemble de ces poésies, à savoir le corpus poétique luimême. Les termes romance ou romanceiro sont d’origine philologique alors que la ballade est
un terme générique, utilisé dans le sens musical (poésie chantée) par les ethnomusicologues.
2 A cette époque, au Portugal, on interprétait souvent les romances dans les pièces
de théâtre, d’où leur caractère dramatique. Ce n’est plus leur cadre d’interprétation actuel.
Viegas Guerreiro, Manuel,Para a história da literatura popular portuguesa, Amadora : Livraria
Bertrand, « Biblioteca Breve » 19, 1978, p.61.
3 Diéges, Manuel, junior “Ciclos temáticos na literatura de cordel“, in: Literatura popular em
verso - Estudos, 1973, p. 33-34, 38.
4 Caufriez, Anne, Le Chant du Pain, Paris : Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, 1998, p.117.
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ceiro, dans lesquels sa mémoire est restée très vivante et son développement exceptionnel. Ce phénomène n’est pas étranger au fait qu’il s’agisse de deux régions
isolées, à l’habitat dispersé, que les pouvoirs politiques ont longtemps confinées
dans l’oubli. De part et d’autre, les romances se rencontrent sous une forme chantée
ou sous une forme récitée, les deux formes vivant en parfaite coexistence.
Si le romanceiro du Nord-Est brésilien a évolué de façon autonome et libre, les
références au cycle carolingien (fréquentes dans les romances dialogués) et celles
aux guerres médiévales avec les Maures y sont nombreuses. On citera pour exemple l’épisode des Douze Pairs de France, provenant du poème épique français
« La Chanson de Roland » (fixée par l’écriture au 14e siècle) 5. Ces cycles sont
exactement ceux qu’a privilégiés le Nord-Est du Portugal. On dénote encore, dans
ces deux régions, des ressemblances entre les mélodies sur lesquelles on entonne les romances 6. Mais, au delà des apports spécifiques de leur interprétation au
Brésil, l’état de leur tradition est certainement très différent de part et d’autre de
l’Atlantique.
La litterature «de corder»
Le romanceiro arriva au Brésil à travers la littérature de cordel, ces feuilles
volantes qui, en Péninsule ibérique, fleurissent avec la naissance de l’imprimerie
(au 16e s.). Elles étaient rassemblées par une petite corde ou ficelle (cordel) et ainsi
exposées dans les endroits où elles étaient vendues. Cette littérature doit ses débuts
à la volonté de divulguer des narrations traditionnelles et anciennes, conservées et
transmises par la mémoire populaire 7.
Les feuilles volantes constituaient une forme d’édition à bon marché par rapport au livre, qui restait inaccessible aux bourses modestes. Elles représentaient un
commerce fructueux qui touchait un large public, comprenant même des bourgeois 8. Ces feuilles reprenaient aussi bien des romances que des succédanés de
ceux-ci, des épisodes de romans de chevalerie ou d’amour, des nouvelles locales,
des histoires d’amour, des fragments de livres d’astrologie. On y lisait aussi des
narrations de guerres, de voyages, de conquêtes maritimes, des récits de naufrages,
de monstres marins, de sorcellerie, des vies de saints, des miracles ou évènements
prodigieux, des châtiments du ciel, des récits de fêtes et de tauromachie. Certaines
de ces feuilles comportaient même des fragments de pièces de théâtre représentées
sur la place publique, qui étaient destinés à en faciliter la compréhension. L’un des
5 Martins Lama,Dulce, « A música na cantoria nordestina », in : Literatura popular em verso Estudos, 1971, p. 236
6 Caufriez, Anne, op. cit.: pour les thèmes et les mélodies des romances du N.E. du Portugal,
voir p. 119-27 et 229-44.
7 Diégues, Manuel, junior, M., op. cit., p. 5.
8 Caufriez, Anne, op. cit., p. 95.
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rares noms parvenu jusqu’à nous est celui de l’aveugle Balthasar Dias, poète et
dramaturge du 16e siècle, originaire de l’île de Madère, qui était, au départ, un jongleur issu du peuple. Il était l’auteur d’oeuvres en prose et en vers, parmi lesquelles
des romances. On lui attribue une pièce de théâtre, dédiée à un héros du cycle
carolingien : Valdevinos. Mais contrairement aux autres romances de ce nom,
Valdevinos n’est pas le héros de la célèbre «Chanson de Roland » mais bien le mari
d’une infante païenne surnommée Sibila. L’auteur s’inspire ici de trois romances
castillans qui relatent l’histoire de cette veuve d’un roi d’Allemagne, réincarnée en
infante maure, pour la circonstance.
Au 16e siècle, une partie des feuilles volantes donneront lieu à la publication
de recueils de romances, dont le romanceiro de Martin Nucio est, au Portugal,
l’exemple le plus célèbre.
Aux 17e et 18e siècles, la littérature de cordel était vendue par les marchands ambulants des quartiers populaires de Lisbonne, en général des aveugles, qui avaient
reçus du roi D. João V certains privilèges. Ils détenaient pratiquement l’exclusivité
du marché. Ces feuilles narratives leur étaient souvent fournies par les auteurs des
textes eux-mêmes et étaient parfois illustrées de gravure. Leurs colporteurs les vendaient soit pour le compte des auteurs, soit pour le leur 9. Ces feuilles vendues à la
pièce vont connaître leur plus grand essor au 18e siècle, où elles servent avant tout à
divulguer des nouvelles ou des évènements, précédant l’avènement de la presse 10.
De son côté, le Nord-Est du Brésil va réserver aux feuilles volantes (folhas
soltas) un accueil exceptionnel et une expansion sans limites. Elles arrivent aux 16e
et 17e siècles et font partie des bagages qu’emportent avec eux les premiers colons
portugais venus s’y installer. Mais ce n’est qu’à la fin du 18e siècle, début du 19e
siècle, que le romanceiro constituera un genre national 11.
Le rôle de la littérature de cordel est encore très vivant dans le Brésil
d’aujourd’hui. On en aperçoit souvent les feuilles dans les foires populaires, le long
des étals, où elles sont suspendues à une corde avec des pincettes. Les récits du cycle
carolingien y occupent une place prédominante. Si l’on en croit certaines sources
écrites, ces feuilles étaient aussi vendues dans la rue ou dans des fêtes populaires
comme les pèlerinages, lors desquels on assistait à leur lecture publique, donnée
en groupe. Cela n’excluait pas que des musiciens puissent se produire en solo, pour
diffuser des évènements. Enfin, on notera que l’impression des feuilles volantes
était l’apanage de quelques érudits, au rang desquels figuraient, au premier chef,
9 Castro Pires de Lima, Fernando de, « A literatura de cordel », in : Ensaios Etnográficos II,
Lisboa : Fundação national
para a alegria no trabalho, 1969, p. 97-100.
10 Caufriez, Anne, op. cit., p. 95.
11 Alvarenga, Oneyda, Música popular brasileira, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, São Paulo:
Editora Glôbo, 1960, p. 263.
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les couvents et monastères. C’est pourquoi l’église brésilienne, à travers son clergé
et ses moines, joua un grand rôle dans la divulgation de cette littérature 12.
L’apport du nord-est du bresil au romanceriro portugais
Le contexte social et culturel du Nord-Est, particulier, favorisa l’expansion de
la littérature de cordel. Des facteurs comme l’apparition de manifestations messianiques, la formation de groupes de bandits (les cangaçeiros), des sécheresses
périodiques menant au déséquilibre économique et social et la rivalité de familles
patriarcales y contribuèrent largement. Ces facteurs favorisèrent l’éclosion de
groupes de pensée collective et l’expression de la mémoire populaire. La vie familiale, avec ses soirées et ses réunions nocturnes dans des logis sans électricité, y
participa aussi. Le récit des textes servait de passe-temps. C’est aussi au N. E. que
se trouvaient les principales typographies de feuilles volantes, dont l’impression
coexistait largement avec la diffusion des journaux. Mais le succès de ces feuilles
commença à être peu à peu menacé par l’influence de la radio-télévision.
Un autre élément notoire est que le Nord-Est assimila des composantes africaines
dans sa façon de réciter et chanter les évènements. Les esclaves, arrachés aux côtes de
l’Afrique par les Portugais et emmenés au Brésil comme main d’œuvre pour les champs
de canne à sucre, avaient apporté leur propre tradition de conteurs et chanteurs. Leur
présence dans la région, très importante, contribua largement à la diffusion du romanceiro. Ce nouvel ingrédient favorisa, au Brésil, la vitalité narrative de chroniques
anciennes, de gloires guerrières, de victoires sociales, de généalogies... qui avaient disparu du Portugal au 19e siècle déjà. Enfin, cette rencontre entre culture portugaise et
africaine fut stable et continue pendant plusieurs siècles, si bien qu’elle donna lieu à un
syncrétisme tout à fait original, venu vivifier le romanceiro de la région 13.
La thématique du romanceiro brésilien se divise, d’une part, en vieux récits
d’origine ibérique, et d’autre part, en narrations en vers qui sont nées dans le pays
même. Mais il faut reconnaître que les romances d’origine portugaise ont tendance
à décliner dans la mémoire populaire, à l’exception de quelques-uns, dont le récit
reste privilégié. On peut citer la Nau Catrineta, romance qui fait partie d’une danse
dramatique appelée chegança et qui semble être le refuge de quelques romances
fragmentés, ayant perdu leur rôle de chanson autonome. Ainsi, la chegança de
Marujos reprend-elle un fragment de la Donzella Guerreira (ou Dama Guerreira).
Ce romance relate l’histoire d’un roi ibérique sans héritier mâle, qui incite sa fille à
se déguiser en soldat, afin de l’envoyer à la guerre.
Quant aux romances de création nationale, les plus importants, ils puisent
bien souvent leur inspiration dans la thématique des animaux et des bandits célè12 Diégues, Manuel, junior, op. cit., p. 9-10.
13 Ibid., p. 9-17.
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bres. Dans les thèmes animaliers, tout un cycle de récits est dédié au bœuf (boi).
Ce cycle, privilégié par le Nord-Est, relate des histoires comiques où l’animal apparaît avec la vie et les défauts des êtres humains. On le retrouve un peu partout
dans la région. Si le bœuf y revêt autant d’importance dans la culture populaire,
c’est parce qu’il sert non seulement d’animal de traction pour l’agriculture mais
qu’il est aussi au cœur des marchés d’exportation du bétail. Le gardien de troupeaux est donc le pôle de la vie sociale et économique du Nord-Est, ce qui explique
le succès et le développement de ce cycle bovin. L’autre grand thème est celui des
bandits, avec ces chansons de cangaços ou cangaçeiros dans lesquelles sont narrés
leur vie et leurs exploits. Le phénomène du banditisme, très présent dans le NordEst, s’inscrit dans un contexte social assez complexe, que nous n’expliciterons pas
ici. O Cabaleiro est l’un des romances de cangaçeiros les plus connus du Brésil, qui
met en scène un bandit ayant vécu au 18e siècle.
On distingue plusieurs types de romances de cangaçeiros (bandits) : ceux qui
sont fondés sur des faits divers, ceux qui s’inspirent des contes et légendes d’origine
européenne et ceux, empruntés à la littérature écrite, qui sont devenus populaires.
A force de répétition, l’auteur d’origine a été oublié. Ces romances sont recréés collectivement, sur des modèles admis et appréciés de tous, où les mêmes éléments
culturels se superposent. Il existe aussi des poésies inventées sur le moment et
d’existence momentanée. Ces improvisations-là prennent la forme d’un dialogue
chanté sur le mode du défi, ce qui n’empêche pas nécessairement le chanteur de
s’inspirer, lui aussi, d’un texte fixe (écrit) sur lequel il brode quelques paroles 14.
Deux éléments donnent au cycle du bovin et du bandit la même assise psychologique: l’admiration pour la force et la vaillance, d’une part, et, de l’autre, la
sympathie pour ceux qui sont persécutés. Les récits du boi (bœuf) chantent invariablement le courage de cet animal qui défend sa liberté et qui est anéanti par les
hommes lorsqu’il se rebelle. Le thème de l’injustice marque souvent la narration,
dans laquelle l’animal est mis en scène : il est l’acteur de sa propre vie, le héros de
ses prouesses et la victime des persécutions dont il est l’objet.
Par ailleurs, pour que la vaillance humaine suscite l’aura populaire autour des récits,
la présence d’un facteur moral supplémentaire s’avère nécessaire : tous les cangaçeiros du
sertão (maquis) sont présentés, à l’origine, comme victimes de l’injustice sociale. Mais
ce qui caractérise les récits du Nord-Est, qui ne font pas la distinction entre le bandit
et l’homme courageux, c’est que le côté criminel de ces hommes est toujours considéré
comme accidentel. La narration des romances de cangaçeiros est généralement construite
par le chanteur qui peut y apporter tous les épisodes imaginatifs qu’il souhaite 15.
14 Diégues, Manuel, junior, op. cit., p. 16 et 17; Martins Lama, Dulce, op. cit. p. 236.
15 Alvarenga, Oneyda, op. cit., p. 263-268.
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Enfin, il existe aussi un type de romances où chaque strophe commence par
une lettre de l’alphabet (la dernière lettre étant le til). Ces chants-là, appelés a-bcês, se retrouvent dans tout le Brésil et présentent des sujets variés: historiques,
évènementiels, comiques, héroïques... Ils relatent des situations dramatiques,
des coutumes rurales et même l’autobiographie des chanteurs qui les interprètent, sans épargner les critiques maldisantes à l’égard du mariage ou les châtiments pour « les mauvaises langues ». Ceux relatant des sujets amoureux, plus
lyriques que narratifs, sont constitués d’une série de strophes isolées, auxquelles
les lettres de l’alphabet apportent une cohérence d’ensemble 16.
Les romances du Nord-Est, presque toujours chantés, sont souvent appelés cantorias. La mélodie y joue un rôle secondaire: elle souligne simplement le rythme poétique du récit, vu que l’objectif principal du chanteur est de faire preuve de présence
d’esprit, de démontrer ses capacités d’invention, son habilité à créer des vers, bref de
captiver son public 17.
Malheureusement, peu de mélodies de romances ont été transcrites dans des
recueils, parmi lesquelles figurent notamment celle du Bernal-Francês 18. Ces mélodies reposent sur le vers octosyllabique et sur des strophes (bien que le vers à 5
syllabes existe aussi), tandis que la rime est souvent fixe et unique. Elles évoluent
sur des échelles modales et pentaphoniques, ce qui les rapproche des mélodies, très
caractérisées, des romances du Nord-Est du Portugal.
Mais au Nord-Est du Brésil, les cantorias sont toujours interprétées par des
joueurs de violons ou de guitares (appelés violeiros), qui sont très prisés par la
population 19. Ces musiciens, le foulard noué autour du cou, ont l’habitude de
suspendre à leur instrument des petites bandelettes de couleur qui symbolisent
les triomphes qu’ils ont recueillis auprès du public. Ils sont dotés de grandes capacités d’improvisation et leur chant peut prendre la forme d’une joute poétique
avec un partenaire. C’est cette imagination créative qui explique que les variantes
des récits et des mélodies soient si grandes d’une région à l’autre du Brésil 20.
Conclusions
Si la tradition du romanceiro du Nord-Est brésilien est sans doute moins figée
et moins pure que celle du Nord-Est portugais, on peut dire qu’elle est plus créative
et vivante, même si elle a survécu différemment de part et d’autre de l’Atlantique.
Le romanceiro s’est ici implanté dans un contexte nouveau où il s’est trouvé stimulé
16 Alvarenga, Oneyda, op. cit., p. 269-270.
17 Martins Lama, Dulce, op. cit., p. 235.
18 Alvarenga, Oneyda, op. cit., p. 264.
19 Martins Lama, Dulce, op. cit., p. 241-43, 236.
20 Alvarenga, Oneyda, op. cit., p. 272.
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par des facteurs socio-économiques particuliers, par des évènements locaux, qui
l’ont enrichi et transformé, comme en témoignent les cycles du boi et des cangaçeiros, spécifiquement brésiliens. Si le romanceiro du Nord-Est conserve de la
Péninsule ibérique le cycle carolingien, ainsi que celui des guerres avec les Maures,
l’un des grands ferments de sa métamorphose a été son syncrétisme avec la culture
africaine. Cette verve populaire à inventer de multiples versions lui vient de ce génie de la parole et de la musique apporté par les esclaves, à travers leur déportation
dans les champs de canne à sucre. L’interprétation du répertoire au Brésil, et sa
transmission, ont amalgamé des influences très variées, privilégiant l’imagination,
même si l’on dénote une certaine permanence de la structure poétique et musicale
de base, telle qu’elle existe au Portugal. Ce métissage complexe, qui s’est étalé sur
des siècles, a aussi complètement bouleversé ses normes d’interprétation.
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Bibligraphie
Alvarenga, Oneyda, Música popular brasileira, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre,
São Paulo: Editora Glôbo, 1960.
Castro Pires de Lima, Fernando de, « A literatura de cordel », in : Ensaios etnográficos II, Lisboa : Fundação national para a alegria no trabalho, 1969.
Caufriez, Anne, Le Chant du Pain, Paris : Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, 1998.
Diégues, Manuel, junior, « Ciclos temáticas na literatura de cordel», in: Literatura popular em verso – Estudos, 1973.
Martins Lama, Dulce, « A música na cantoria nordestina », in : Literatura
popular em verso – Estudos, 1971.
Viegas Guerreiro, Manuel, Para a história da literatura popular portuguesa,
Amadora : Livraria Bertrand, « Biblioteca breve », 1978.
34
ALEXANDER MOROZOV, TATYANA MOROZOVA (MINSK,
BELARUS)
Mental Characteristics of Belarusian Folk Ballads
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Abstract: Belarusian folk ballads have harmonically absorbed characteristic features ritual poetry (social & natural phenomena mysticism and mythology) and of the world experiences, (of the
times when society separating into property-related classes). Ballads’ lyrical & epic beginning is full of
drama: kindness, love and respect to others are subjected to serious test from the side of the forces of
evil and injustice. Feelings pulled to the extremity intensify the positive and negative heroes’ conflict.
Collective creator’s mental directions implemented in early traditional folk works (syncretism in world
outlook; human’s harmony with nature; orientation to mystic sensitive figurative forms of cognition
and cooperation with the world; absence or rather vague awareness of casual events and phenomena
determination) are presented in mythological ballads
Key words: Belarusian ballads, folk products, popular cultural traditions, human interactions,
Slavic folklore.
Ф
Олександр МОРОЗОВ, Тетяна МОРОЗОВА (МІНСЬК,
БІЛОРУСЬ)
Психологічні характеристики білоруських народних балад
ІМ
Резюме: Стаття присвячена аналізу історичного розвитку поетичного фольклору в контексті теорії особливостей національного менталітету та поведінки, на прикладі розвитку
фольклору cхідних cлов’ян (особливе місце приділяється баладим текстам). Матеріал для дослідження був зібраний в експедиціях 2000–2004 років. Стаття є складовою значно ширшого
дослідження й висвітлює деякі аспекти розвитку поетичного фольклору білорусів в культурологічному аспекті.
Ключові слова: білоруські балади, поетичний фольклор, фольклор cхідних cлов’ян, національний менталітет, поведінка.
The history of folk culture is first of all the one of human separation from the
natural world and the formation of man as social creature. This complex process
is manifested in the development of humanist ideas and in normative personality
patterns which are realised by the humanity every day. The individual humanistic
arrangement, created by life experience, is conserved in folk ballads, stories, proverbs, by-words of all European nations.
Absolutely, the history of folk culture is also the history of the formation and
development of man’s creative activity. On the basis of this presupposition we have
used a creative attitude towards folklore as an oral topic art. We have researched
the various products of folklore, not only as a consequence of creative activitities
but also as a process of realization of human abilities: the products of folklore positively influence the creative potential of their founders, performers and listeners.
In the 2000–2004 we conducted a systemic analysis of the folklore of Eastern
Slavs (Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians) from the point of view of the com35
ALEXANDER MOROZOV, TATYANA MOROZOVA, (MINSK, BELARUS)
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plete mental picture that strengthens unity of the popular cultural traditions of the
above-mentioned peoples [Морозов А., 2005; Морозова Т., 2005]. The research
idea was reached by analyzing the various folkloric and ethnographic data. The
theoretical conclusions were illustrated by examples of various types and genres of
folklore (ballads, ritual songs, fairy-tales, proverbs, by-words, etc). The history of
mentalities was placed in a wider context of the general history of Slavs and other
European peoples. We believe that a study of notions and opinions forming a human existence in a society could be considered in the important cultural, political
and economic aspects. The main outcomes of the research:
The methodology of extracting mental paradigms of the collective creator out
of folklore texts was worked out. It may be further used in folklore studies.
Stereotypes of man, nature, social world that prevail in Eastern Slavic community are identified (time and space perception, sense of history connected to
that; perception and experience of birth, life and death; relating to natural and
supernatural; evaluation of society, its components and dynamics; understanding
of power, domination and submission; interpretation of freedom, etc.).
Specification of the manifestations of the mentality of Eastern Slavs in various
types and genres of folklore was accomplished.
The historical analysis of the values of Eastern Slavs shows that the structure of cultural heritage is moveable. In the course of historical development their
components can be distinguished, influencing the different sides of social life, including the conditions of functioning of various identities and mental paradigms
of Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians.
Belarusian folk ballads texts have harmonically absorbed ritual poetry characteristic features (social and natural phenomena mysticism and mythology) and
world realistic reflection experiences, when society separating into property-related
classes. Ballad’s lyrical and epic beginning is full of drama: kindness, love and respect
to others are subjected to serious test from the side of the forces of evil and injustice.
Feelings pulled to the extremity intensify the positive and negative heroes’ conflict.
Collective mentality implemented in early traditional folk works (syncretism
in world outlook; human’s harmony with nature; orientation to mystic sensitive
figurative forms of cognition and cooperation with the world; absence or rather
vague awareness of casual events and phenomena determination) is presented in
most mythological ballads.
Person’s antagonism with exterior elemental forces turns into social, family, labour and military opposition in historical (songs about the Tatar yoke and similar
subjects) and social ballads. Conflict stops to be primitively simplified: images clash
(in particular, those of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, man and woman, combating hero and aggressing enemy) is logically conditioned by human’s social life
36
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basic ideological and moral values opposition (freedom and captivity, good and evil,
truth and falsehood, faithful love and passionate hatred). A straight antithesis serves
as artistic means to show the conflict social tension: heroes are opposed openly, they
are tragically irreconcilable. Evil and violence condemnation serves the principal
motive for ballads, usually ending by the positive hero’s death. Injustice condemnation was connected to self-restriction and non-utility at the mental level: people were
ready to justify the severe everyday life and deprivations, accept the hero’s death in
the name of common superior goals and ideals realization.
At the beginning of 21st. century the problem of studying social dynamics of ballads as a basis for traditional culture of European nations has an important value during globalization. In addition to formulation of global economical networks, the appropriate social and culture adaptation that leads up to the expansion of world culture
is appearing. However, their tendencies don’t abrogate the social and cultural variety
and originality of culture of small and big nations. On the contrary, the humanity collides not only with the phenomenon of «ethnic reconstruction» but with the stability
or rebirth of principle of originality of various civilisation poles. Side by side with universalisation of some aspects and networks of interaction, the globalisation gives variety of another objects and subjects. Besides the post industrial community, pluralism
means not only the conservation of previous variety and also the increasing demand
for such variety: universal values of traditional European cultures as an essential for
the existence of nations and their identity [Морозов А., 2003.].
Folk culture plays an important role in the lives of Byelorussians, Russians, Ukrainians and other European nations, carrying out various functions – aesthetic, cognitive, educational, of world outlook and gaming. The value of folk ballads as traditional
oral-poetic creativity, pure source of language, highly artistic intermediary between
the past, present and the future, treasury of the popular wisdom and art, one of educational means of patriotism and national consciousness demands very careful relation
to these spiritual riches transferred to us by our ancestors. To develop the folk culture
successfully in conditions of globalization, it is necessary to be able to put into practice
the laws of social dynamics of oral - poetic human creativity.
The purpose of research should become a definition of socio-cultural processes, laws and updating of the development of folklore of European nations in the
20th – the beginning of 21st centuries. For accomplishment of the basic purpose,
it is necessary to solve the following research problems:
To carry out the historiographical analysis of used approaches to an explanation of folklore social dynamics;
To develop a complex scientific technique to research of social culture sources and
factors of folklore dynamics with the purpose of its further use in various sciences of
the humanitarian cycle – folklore and literature studies, ethnology and sociology;
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To formulate a general theory of social dynamics of folklore as complex integrity of cultural processes (genesis in view of creative and adaptive innovations;
reproduction (inheritance); accumulation of socially significant folklore forms;
variability of the folklore phenomena: transformation of a level of social urgency,
functionality, formal features and semantic values, regulation of a variety; interaction of traditional oral – poetic creativity with various kinds of art; diffusion;
synthesis as result of intercultural contacts of European nations; revival and restoration; modernization; polyforming etc.);
To make the system analysis of evolution of diverse kinds and genres of oral –
poetic people creativity (folk ballads, ritual songs, fairy-tales, proverbs, by-words,
etc). in a context of social culture dynamics structured according to the basic stages
of the history of European nations in the – the 20th- beginning of 21st centuries;
To carry out the specification of social dynamics displays in various types of
European ballads.
The system study of European ballad fond must become a methodological
basis of the research. The system analysis will allow capturing all variety of the
substantial social culture characteristics inherent in traditional oral-poetic creativity of the European nations. It will promote the perfection of folklore studies in
the theoretical and methodological aspects for effective and operative regulation
of its enrichment mechanisms. The empirical basis of research will be filled up essentially with the methods of sociological interrogation and the content analysis
of ballad texts in printed and electronic mass media. Also all-round disclosing of
the researched theme will be served with the application of «classical» methods
(historical-cultural, structural-semiotics, comparative).
The study of European folklore social dynamics is coordinated to humanistic mission of education which consists of entering into public life of values, norms and ideals,
adjustment of dialogue of cultures, opening of prospects of social culture development
on the basis of civilian reference points and interests. Now there is no alternative to aspiration of peoples to mutual understanding and cooperation on the basis of all-round
studying a history and the theory of the world culture, and also the evolution and
transformation of own traditions in view of the general cultural-historical experience
[The Universal Values and National Distinctness of Traditional European Cultures in
the Process of Integration of Europe: scientific reports prepared for the 11th European
Conference of Folk Culture, 23–27 June 2004, Lublin –, 2004].
References
Морозов А. В. Фольклор в духовной культуре восточных славян:
ментальные предпосылки функционирования. Вильнюс: изд-во
ОАО «Ксения», 2005. 196 с.
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Морозов А. В. Социодинамика фольклора в условиях глобализации //
Этносоциальные и конфессиональные процессы в современном обществе:
Материалы Международной научной конференции (5–6 июня 2003 г.,
г. Гродно) / Под ред. У. Д. Розенфельда. Гродно: ГрГУ, 2003. С. 384–389.
Морозова Т. А. Общие ментальные характеристики календарно-обрядовой
поэзии восточнославянских народов // Менталитет славян и интеграционные
процессы: история, современность, перспективы: Материалы IV
Международной научной конференции (Гомель, 26–27 мая 2005 г.) / под ред.
В. В. Кириенко. Гомель: УО ГГТУ им. П. О. Сухого, 2005. С. 134–136.
The Universal Values and National Distinctness of Traditional European Cultures in the Process of Integration of Europe: scientific reports prepared for the
11th European Conference of Folk Culture, 23–27 June 2004, Lublin – Kazimierz
Dolny, Poland. Lublin: Drukarnia «Alf-Graf», 2004. 344 p.
39
Olga Scharaja (Minsk, BELARUS)
Erscheinungsbesonderheiten
Balladen
des
Abstammungsbewußtseins
in
Ф
Е
Abstract: In Balladen werden die Besonderheiten des Abstammungsbewußtseins reflektiert. In
der ost- und südosteuropäischen Region war der Übergang der Frauen in eine andere Abstammungsgruppe eine institutionelle Praxis, welche zum Problem derer Sozialisierung in der neuen Familienumgebung führte. Ein derartiger Charakter des ehelichen Austauschs brachte die Frau in eine komplizierte emotionell-psychologische Situation. Dies fand in der Folklore, u.a. in den Balladen seinen
Ausdruck. Verbreitet in den weisrussischen Balladen ist die Fabel vom Mädchen, das man entfernt
vom Elternhaus verheiratete und dem der Vater den Besuch seines Hauses untersagte. Unter den Balladen sticht eine Sujetgruppe hervor, die besagt, dass der Geliebte teurer ist, als die Blutsverwandten.
Diese Fabel ist Ausdruck eines Wandlungsprozesses im Abstammungsbewußtsein. Im Verlaufe sozialer Veränderungen wurden die archaischen Vorstellungen transformiert und in der künstlerischen
Welt der Balladen mit einem ausgeprägten Ästhetikelement, unter Verlust der religiös-moralischen
Funktionen und mit hervorstechender individueller Grundlage dargestellt. Hierbei sind die Abstammungsbeziehungen nur der Hintergrund, vor dem die Gefühle und Erlebnisse der handelnden Personen aufgezeigt werden.
Key Words: Balladen, künstlerische Welt, Аbstammungsbewußtsein, Verbot, Individualisierung
Ольга Шарая (Мінськ, Білорусь)
Особливості прояву родової свідомості в баладах
ІМ
Резюме: В баладах відображені особливості вираження родової свідомості. У східному
та південно-східному регіонах перехід жінки в інший рід вважався інституційною практикою,
що створювало проблему їх соціалізації у новому родинному оточенні. Такий характер шлюбних обмінів ставив жінку в складну емоційно-психологічну ситуацію, що знайшло своє
відображення у фольклорі, зокрема, в баладах. Поширеним серед білоруських балад є сюжет
про дівчину, яку віддали заміж далеко, а її батько заборонив гостювати у його будинку.
Серед балад виділяється група сюжетів, в яких бачимо, що коханий дорожчий за рідню.
Цей сюжет відображає процес трансформації родової свідомості. У процесі соціальних змін
архаїчні уявлення трансформувалися і в художньому світі балад, де вони представлені з більш
розвиненим елементом естетики, з втратою релігійно-моральної функції, з більш розвинутим
індивідуальним початком, для якого родові стосунки лише фон, на якому розкриваються
переживання персонажів.
Ключові слова: балади, персонаж, родова свідомість
In verschiedenen europäischen Regionen existierten Besonderheiten des Balladenrepertoires infolge deren unterschiedlicher historischer Entwicklungsbedingungen. Wie J.Horák feststellte, entstanden historisch in Europa sieben Balladenkreise (Provinzen): 1) romanischer (französisch- italienischer, spanisch.- portugiesischer); 2) anglo-schottischer; 3) skandinavischer 4) deutsch-holländischer;
5) westslawischer, an die sich auch das ukrainische, weißrussische und slowenische Territorium anlehnen; 6) russischer; 7) serbisch-kroatischer und bulgarischer
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[Horák 1959, 13-14]. Wie in der Fachliteratur festgestellt wird, könnte das weißrussische (belorussische) Balladenrepertoire zusammen mit dem ukrainischen
und litauischen den Anspruch auf einen eigenständigen litauisch-weißrussischen
Gürtel erheben [Салавей 2002, 432]. Deshalb gibt es in den Balladen der genannten Völker so viel gemeinsame Themen, Sujets, Gestalten, Motive.
Die weißrussische Ballade rechnet ebenso wie die westslawische Ballade nicht
als reine Epik, sie ist in mehr oder weniger großem Maße durch lyrische Elemente
verstärkt. J.Horák stellte fest, dass die slawische Folkoristik mit dem Namen Ballade nur lyroepische Lieder bezeichnet, die vorwiegend die vielschichtigen Familienbeziehungen zum Inhalt haben [Horák 1968, 435].
Für die Folklore der osteuropäischen Regionen ist die Widerspiegelung der
abstammungsorientierten Vorstellungen charakteristisch, was mit den Besonderheiten der sozialen Geschichte dieser Regionen zusammenhing. Von Interesse
sind Studien des Balladenrepertoires im Kontext mit den Entwicklungsbesonderheiten der traditionellen Kulturen der betrachteten Regionen .
In den meisten Gesellschaften, und besonders trifft das auf die ländlichen Gemeinschaften zu, spielte die Verwandtschaft eine bedeutende Rolle bei der Sozialisierung der Individuen. In einfachen Gemeinschaften sind die verwandtschaftlichen Beziehungen so breit und bedeutend, dass sie im Ergebnis ein soziales System bilden können. In komplizierteren Gesellschaften ist die Verwandtschaft
nur ein geringer Teil der sozialen Beziehungen .
Untersuchungen der abstammungsorientierten Vorstellungen in der geistigen
Kultur der europäischen Völker sind aus vielen Gründen interessant: 1) deren klare
Ausprägung in den Folkloretraditionen gestattet es, den Platz dieser Vorstellungen
in der traditionellen Kultur der Völker und, in gewissem Sinne, auch die Besonderheiten der Kultur als Ganzes zu bestimmen; 2) von Interesse ist das Studium
der Besonderheiten bei der Äußerung abstammungsorientierter Vorstellungen
in verschiedenen Arten und Genres der Folklore; 3) von besonderer Bedeutung
ist die Behandlung abstammungsorientierter Vorstellungen in der traditionellen
Kultur in Verbindung mit dem Studium der historischen Abstammungssysteme
und Familienstrukturen bei den Völkern Europas.
Die industrielle Revolution in West- und Zentraleuropa führte zu einem starken
Rückgang der Landbevölkerung als Hauptträger der traditionellen archaischen Vorstellungen. Wenn im 18. Jh. in Zentral- und Westeuropa die in der Landwirtschaft
tätige Bevölkerung etwa 80% ausmachte, so waren es am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts
nur noch 10% . Gleichzeitig war der Anteil der Landbewohner in den letzten zwei
Jahrhunderten in den europäischen Staaten sehr unterschiedlich, wodurch man
Regionen hervorheben kann, in denen der Anteil der Landbevölkerung bedeutend
oder vorherrschend verblieb. In Osteuropa hatte die Landwirtschaft auch im 20.
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Jahrhundert noch einen bedeutenden Anteil an den Volkswirtschaften. So war am
Ende des 19. Jh. Weißrussland (Belarus) ein Land mit vorwiegend bäuerlicher Bevölkerung , die 90% der Einwohnerzahl ausmachte, und im Jahre 1975 waren die
Anteile von Stadt- und Landbevölkerung in Belarus fast gleich .
Eine verbreitete Form der sozialen Ordnung waren in der Epoche vorherrschender patriarchalischer Verhältnisse in Osteuropa solche Familien- und Verwandtschaftsstrukturen und Lebensweise, bei der die Mitglieder einer patrilinearen Abstammungsgruppe auf einem Territorium lebten und eine gemeinsame
Wirtschaft betrieben.
Es bildete sich ein, auf Erbfolge in männlicher Linie basierendes Verwandtschaftssystem heraus. Noch vor Entstehen des Staates diente Verwandtschaft zur
Ordnung der gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse, beeinflusste die Organisationsformen
wirtschaftlicher, politischer, ritueller Tätigkeit der Menschen [Рубин Гейл 2000, 99].
In der Vergangenheit trug die Verwandtschaft einen universellen Charakter, sie war
ein Faktor der Ordnung, welche bezüglich der historischen Veränderungen über generationsübergreifende sozialisierende Verbindungen äußerst stabil war. Verwandtschaft war mehr als Ehe oder eine Lebensgemeinschaft... [Jeggle 1977, 7 ].
Charakteristisch für die patrilinearen Abstammungsgemeinschaften waren
Besonderheiten bei der Reproduktion und Erweiterung ihres Bestandes. Dabei
ging die Zahl der komplexen patrilinearen Familie nicht nur durch Todesfälle ihrer Mitglieder zurück, sondern auch durch die für patrilinearen Abstammungsgemeinschaften charakteristische Besonderheiten der Ehebeziehungen, wo die
Töchter nach der Eheschließung immer ihr Elternhaus verließen. Somit erfolgte
die zahlenmäßige Zunahme an Frauen in der komplexen patrilinearen Familie im
Ergebnis der Heirat der Männer, da die Frauen immer in das Haus des Ehemannes
gingen und das Haus ihrer Eltern verließen. Die Hochzeit war für die Frauen im
osteuropäischen und südosteuropäischen Raum gleichbedeutend mit dem Weggang aus der Familie, der Abstammungsgruppe, dem Abschied vom vorherigen
Leben, Übergang in eine fremde Familie, Einbeziehung in eine fremde Abstammungsgruppe. Somit mußten die Frauen in den exogame Einheiten bildenden patrilinearen Abstammungsgruppen nach außerhalb der eigenen Gruppe heiraten.
Die Regelung der ehelichen Beziehungen war eine der wichtigsten Funktionen der
Abstammungsgruppe.
Unter den Bedingungen vorherrschender patriarchalischer Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse verfügt die Frau über keinen hohen Status, sie geht nach der Heirat in
die Abstammungsgruppe des Mannes über, wird von ihren Angehörigen isoliert.
Die männlichen Mitglieder einer patrilinearen Abstammungsgruppe waren vereint durch die Tatsache, dass sie in Blutsverwandtschaft von einem einheitlichen
Urahnen – dem Begründer der Abstammungsgruppe - abstammten. Die Stellung
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der Frau änderte sich diesbezüglich nach der Eheschließung grundsätzlich. Bezüglich dieser Periode findet Levi-Strauss die Konzeption des „Frauentausches“
angebracht. Wie Levi-Strauss feststellte, wurden die die Ehe hervorbringenden
Tauschbeziehungen nicht zwischen dem Mann und der Frau, sondern zwischen
zwei Gruppen von Männern hergestellt, wobei die Frauen nur in der Eigenschaft
eines der Tauschobjekte und nicht als Partner figurieren. Dies stimmt selbst dann,
wenn die Gefühle des Mädchens berücksichtigt werden, was in der Regel sogar Tatsache ist. Der vorgeschlagenen Verbindung nachgebend, geht sie auf den
Tausch ein und bringt ihn zustande, kann aber dessen Natur nicht ändern [LeviStrauss 1969, 115]. Somit erfolgte die Umsetzung des Frauenschicksals in einer
neuen Abstammungsgruppe, in der Abstammungsgruppe ihrer Ehemänner. Für
die Frau wurde in der Epoche des Patriarchates ihr Schicksal durch die Abstammungsgruppe des Mannes vorbestimmt. Ihre persönliche Wahl war dabei nicht
so wesentlich, gleichzeitig war sie nicht genetisch vorbestimmt. In ihrer Abstammungsgruppe aufgewachsen, war sie durch die Ehe gezwungen, diese zu verlassen
und ihr Schicksal in einer anderen Abstammungsgruppe umzusetzen, während
der Mann im Verlaufe seines ganzen Lebens im Kreise der Abstammungsgemeinschaft seiner Vorfahren verblieb.
Der Übergang der Frau in eine andere Abstammungsgruppe war eine institutionelle Praxis, wodurch deren Sozialisierung in der neuen familiären Umgebung
zu einem Problem wurde. Ein derartiger Charakter des Ehetausches brachte die
Frau in eine schwierige emotional-psychologische Situation. Dies fand seine Widerspiegelung in der Folklore, u.a. auch in den Balladen.
Unter den weißrussischen und ukrainischen Balladen heben sich einige Balladen hervor, deren Hauptmotiv die Gefühlswelt der jungen Frau ist, die von ihrer
Abstammungsgruppe, in der sie geboren wurde und aufwuchs, losgerissen wurde.
Hier kommt der Wunsch zum Ausdruck, seine Blutsverwandten zu besuchen, den
Vater, die Mutter, Brüder und Schwestern.
Zu Beginn derartiger Balladen wird mitgeteilt, dass die Tochter vom Vater
verheiratet wurde: in ein fremdes Land, weit; weit, sehr weit; sieben Meilen von
uns, weit hinter der tiefen Donau (у чужую старану, далека, далека-далека, сем
міль ад сябе, далека, за Дунай глыбокі). In den Balladen wird daran erinnert,
dass es verboten ist, nach Hause zu kommen: sieben Jahre nicht bei den Seinen
sein; drei Jahre nicht zu Besuch gehen; der Vater hat mir geboten, nicht zu Besuch
zu kommen (сем год у сябе, не бываць; тры гады у госці не йсці; загадаў мне
татухна ў госці не хадзіць).
Unter den Balladen über die Emotionen junger Frauen im Zusammenhang
mit der Losgerissenheit von ihrer Abstammungsgruppe sind mythologische Motive sehr verbreitet. So wird gesagt, dass die Frau sich in einen Vogel verwandelt
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und ihre Blutsverwandten besucht. In den weißrussischen Balladen kann man das
Motiv „Tochter-Vogel“ in 79 Varianten finden. Derartige Balladen über Verwandlungen sind unter den Slawen, ebenso wie bei anderen europäischen Völkern,
weit verbreitet. Die Verwandlung in einen Vogel und der Besuch der Verwandten
wird in der Mehrzahl der weißrussischen Balladen als Absicht, als Wunsch, als
Handlung, als Tatsache dargestellt: «Ich Junge verwandle mich als gesprenkelter
Kuckuck, // und fliege zum Väterchen in den Garten» («Абярнусь я й, малада,
рабой зязюляй, // Да й палячу, малода, да татулі ў сад») [Балады 1977, 42];
«Ich bitte die Nachtigall um blaue Flügel, // ich bitte den Kuckuck um sein dünnes
Stimmchen. // Ich fliege zum Vater in das grüne Gärtchen, // ich fliege zu dem
Lieben in das grüne Gärtchen» («Папрашу у салаўя сізыя крыллі, // Папрашу я
ў кукушкі тонкі галасок. // Палячу я к татухну ў зялены садок, // Палячу я к
роднаму ў зялены садок») [Балады 1977, 38].
In der künstlerischen Welt der behandelten Balladen steht das Wegemotiv als
Hindernis, welches von der jungen Frau überwunden werden muss: „Oh lang, lang
ist`s her, dass ich beim Vater war, // Der Weg ist schon mit Dornengestrüpp zugewachsen, // Oh, er ist schon mit Dornengestrüpp und Hagebutten zugewachsen //
Als ich noch ein Mädchen war. // Оh, wenn ich es will – kann ich das Dornengestrüpp beiseite schieben, // Oh, wenn ich will, schneide ich das Gestrüpp weg, //
Die roten Hagebutten schneide ich zu einem Bündel zusammen. // zu meinem
Vater fliege ich auf Flügeln” («Ой давно я, давно в батэнька була, // Вжэ ж тая
стеженька терном заросла // Ой заросла терном ще й шипшиною, // Де я походила щей дівчиною. // Ой як я захочу – терен висічу, // Червону шипшину
в пучки пов’яжу, // До свого батенька крильми полечу») [Балади 1988, 307]
; «Mit Dornengestrüpp und Heckenrosen ist der Pfad zugewachsen. // Die Heckenrosen werde ich herausschneiden, // Und die Schneeballbeeren zertreten» («Заросла терном щей шипшиною, // Шипшину зрубаю, калину стопчу» [Балади
1988, 307] ; «Oh, ich werde, werde das Dornengestrüpp herausschneiden, // Und die
roten Schneeballbeeren // Zertreten und zerbrechen» («Ой візьму, візьму терен
виріжу, // А червоную та каліну тую // Стопчу і зломлю») [Балади 1988, 308].
Aussichtsreich ist ein Vergleich des behandelten Balladenmotivs über die Absicht der verheirateten Frau zur Überwindung des Hindernisses in Gestalt des mit
Dornengestrüpp zugewachsenen Weges zu ihren Eltern, mit dem naheliegenden
Motiv in lyrischen rituellen Liedern.
So trifft man in lyrischen Kustliedern, die nach der Hofbegehung ausgeführt
wurden, ebenso wie in den behandelten ostslawischen Balladen das Motiv, welches die Absicht der verheirateten Frau ausdrückt, das Hindernis zu überwinden,
um das Haus seiner Eltern zu besuchen, in dem sie schon viele Jahre nicht war:
«Oh Du Schneeballstrauch, hast mir den Weg versperrt, // dass ich Junge nicht
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zu den Rod gänge, // ich werde diesen Schneeballstrauch zerschneiden, zerhacken, // ich werde bei meinem Rod zu Besuch sein» («Ой, ты, калына, мні дорогу
завалыла, // Коб я молодая да до роду нэ ходыла. // Я тую калыну посэку,
порубаю, // Я до свого роду у гостыну побуваю», von der Autorin im Dorf
Lobtscha, Kreis Luninez, Gebiet Brest, aufgezeichnet).
Dieses Motiv der lyrischen Kustlieder ist dem Motiv der oben
behandelten Balladen sehr ähnlich. Die lyrischen Kustlieder über das Los bilden
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die Peripherie bezüglich dem archaischen Kern des Kust-Rituals. Die mehr als
zehn Jahre nach einem speziellen Programm durchgeführten Feldforschungen
ermöglichten es, das Areals des Kustrituals zu umreißen, das sich auf dem Gebiet Weißrusslands und der Ukraine befindet [Шарая 2002, 123]. Der Autor wird
nur einen Aspekt dieses Rituals berühren: Die Lieder, die nach dem Hofrundgang durch die Dorfgemeinschaft ausgeführt wurden. Diese Liedergruppe wurde
von uns als vorhandene kalendermäßige Bezogenheit fixiert. Nach ihrer Thematik sind diese Lieder vor allem Klagen über das Los der jungen, Frau nach der
Eheschließung. Frauenklagelieder über ihr Los sind Lieder verheirateter Frauen,
die einen wichtigen, das weibliche Geschlecht betreffenden Status haben. In den
lyrischen Kustliedern nach dem Hofrundgang, gilt die Aufmerksamkeit dem
Schicksal des einzelnen Menschen, wird der Kreis der zerstörten Familienbeziehungen wiedergespiegelt. Das Los ist in diesen Liedern individualisiert. Als sehr
bedeutungsvoll für die Frau zeigen sich Beziehungen zu ihrer Abstammungsgruppe, zu der sie die Verbindung verlor, nachdem sie heiratete und die sie verließ,
um in einer anderen Abstammungsgruppe eine andere Stellung einzunehmen.
In diesen Liedern werden die zerstörten sozialen und privaten Beziehungen reflektiert. Als Zeichen der Trennung, Zerstörung der sozialen Beziehungen tritt in
der künstlerischen Welt dieser Lieder das Wasser auf: «Das grosse Wasser hat alle
Ufer eingenommen // ist ins gesamte Dorf gekommen, // hat keine Verwandten
erkannt...» («Вэлыкая вода усі бэрогы позаймала, // Усэ сэло пэройшла,
родынонька нэ познала...», Von der Autorin im Dorf Tschuchowo, Kreis Pinsk,
Gebiet Brest aufgezeichnet.)
Der Stil der lyrischen Kustlieder nach dem Hofrundgang wird von erhöhter Expressivität, dem Vorhandensein dramatischer Kollisionen bestimmt, was den Eindruck einer sozial unheilen Welt entstehen lässt, in welcher
die Frau losgerissen von ihrer Abstammungsgruppe lebt. Im Lied bezieht
sich das schwere Los auf die Losgerissenheit von seiner Abstammungsgruppe: «In die Fremde verheiratetet sie sich, // Oh sie traf ihr Los, ein schweres
Los» («...На чужу сторонку да й замуж пошла, // Ой, стрэла ейі доля,
доленька лыха», Von der Autorin im Dorf Scholkino, Kreis Pinsk, Gebiet
Brest aufgezeichnet).
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In einer anderen weitverbreiteten Gruppe weißrussischer Balladen gibt es Sujets, die auf einem Vergleich des / der Geliebten mit dem Vater / der Mutter, dem
Bruder, der Schwester basieren. Dabei kann man nachvollziehen, dass der Geliebte
wertvoller ist als die Blutsverwandten. Dieses Sujet reflektiert den Transformationsprozess des Abstammungsbewusstseins. Im Prozess der sozialen Veränderungen
transformierten sich die archaischen Vorstellungen und offenbaren sich in der künstlerischen Welt der Balladen mit einem erweiterten ästhetischen Element, unter
Verlust der religiös-moralischen Funktionen, mit einer erweiterten individuellen
Grundlage, für welche die Abstammungsbeziehungen nur der Hintergrund sind,
vor dem die Erlebnisse der handelnden Personen aufgezeigt werden.
Ein Vergleich des ostslawischen Balladenmotivs, welches die Absicht einer verheirateten Frau zeigt, das Hindernis zu überwinden, mit dem naheliegenden Motiv
in den lyrischen Kustliedern offenbart, dass das genannte Balladenmotiv dem Motiv der lyrischen Kustlieder sehr nahe steht. Die Existenz ähnlicher Motive in den
weißrussischen, ukrainischen Balladen und den untrennbar mit kalendergebundenen Zeremonien in Verbindung stehenden, lyrischen Kustliedern bestätigt die in
wissenschaftlicher Literatur anzutreffende Behauptung über existierende Verbindungen zwischen den Volksballaden und den kalendergebundenen Ritualen.
Die Besonderheit der sozialen Beziehungen wird in der künstlerischen Welt
der Balladen, die aus verschiedenen osteuropäischen Regionen überliefert wurden, klar ausgedrückt. In Ost- und Südosteuropa herrschte in der Vergangangenheit das System des patrilinearen Verwandschaftsverhältnisses. Im Unterschied
dazu existieren in Europa üblicherweise bilineare Systeme, in denen die Linien
verwandtschaftlicher Beziehungen in zwei Richtungen verlaufen – männliche und
weibliche, das patrilineare System hingegen ist strickt ahnenzentriert.
Allgemeingültig für die patrilineare Gruppe ist, daß alle in der Hausgemeinschaft zusammenlebenden Männer demselben Abstammungsverband angehören.
Vice versa gilt für alle verheirateten Frauen, daß sie nicht in dem Hause geboren
sein dürfen, in dem sie nach ihrer Eheschließung leben. Töchter verlassen mit
ihrer Heirat das Haus [Mitterauer 1994, 78].
Forscher unterstreichen die regionale Spezifik hinsichtlich verschiedener, die
Familien- und Verwandschaftsgeschichte betreffende Wesenszuge in West-, Südostund Osteuropa [Mitterauer 1990]. Wenn für die zentraleuropäische Bauerfamilie das
Heranziehen von Gesinde und Tagelöhnern als zusätzliche Arbeitskräfte typisch war,
sicherten in Osteuropa und Südosteuropa die Bauernfamilien bei niedrigem Heiratsalter und sehr komplexen Familienformen eine ausreichende Zahl an Arbeitskräften
dank der hohen Bedeutung blutsverwandtschaftlicher Beziehungen ab. Im letzten
Falle umfasste die Familie mehrere Generationen und mehrere Eltern-Kinder-Gruppen einschließenden Bauernhaushalte, wodurch sie kein Gesinde kannten.
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Diese Tatsache sollte perspektivisch bei der Analyse von Balladen berücksichtigt werden, in denen die Besonderheiten von Abstammungsbeziehungen klaren
Ausdruck finden. Eine Aufgabe ist die Untersuchung der Gründe, wie sich auf
dem Niveau traditioneller Vorstellungen, im Kontext der sozialen Veränderungen, das Verhältnis zu den Verwandtschaftssystemen veränderte. Zielgerichtete
empirische Forschungen in dieser Richtung setzen unbedingt die Wichtigkeit der
Erfassung der historischen Kulturgenesis voraus. Eine Untersuchung der Balladen
erscheint in dieser Beziehung sehr wichtig, besonders, wenn eine Vergleichsanalyse der Sujets, der Balladenmotive mit anderen Genres der traditionellen Kultur
europäischer Völker unter Berücksichtigung der Ehemuster, Verwandtschaftssysteme usw. möglich ist.
Literatur:
Балады ў дзвюх кнігах. Кн. I. Склад. Л.М. Салавей. Мінск, 1977.
Балади. Родинно-побутові стосунки. Київ, 1988.
Рубин Гейл. Обмен женщинами: заметки по политэкономии пола // Антология гендерных исследований. Сб. пер. / Сост. и комментарии Е.И.Гаповой
и А.Р.Усмановой. Мн.: Пропилеи, 2000. С. 99 -113.
Utz Jeggle. Kiebingen. Eine Heimatgeschichte. Zum Prozess der Zivilisation
in einem schwabischen Dorf. Tübingen 1977.
Levi-Strauss Cl. The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Boston: Beacon Press,
1969.
M.Mitterauer. Historisch-antropologische Familienforschung: Fragestellungen und Zugangsweisen. Wien-Köln, 1990.
M.Mitterauer. Eine patriarchale Kultur? Funktionen und Formen der Familie
auf dem Balkan. In: Beitrage zur historischen Sozialkunde. 1994. ¹3. S. 72-82.
Jiri Horák. Interetnickié látky v slovenskych baladach. In: Československé
prednásky pro VI mezinarodni sjezd slavistü. Praha, 1968.
Horák I. Slovenskē l’udovē balady. Bratislava, 1959.
Салавей Л.М. Балады // Пазаабрадавая паэзія / А.І. Гурскі, Г.А.
Пятроўская, Л.М. Салавей. Мінск, 2002. С. 425 – 510.
Ольга Шарая. Ценностно-нормативная природа почитания предков.
Минск, 2002.
47
SVETLA PETKOVA (SOFIA, BULGARIA)
Crossing Genre Boundaries (Examples from Bulgarian Ballads)
Abstract: Bulgarian folklore offers quite a few stories that ‘migrate’ from genre to genre. The
concept of genre boundaries should be applied to the folk ballad conditionally – it is well known that
the generic differentiation of ballads from other folksongs is not distinct and has been occasionally
questioned. Probably that is why the specificity of ballad aesthetics becomes more visible when this
type of folksongs are viewed in the context of (and in relationship to) other verbal folkloric (as well
as non-folkloric) forms. The inter-genre relationships constitute a multifarious problem field, and
different approaches to them are found in numerous studies in Bulgarian and foreign folkloristics.
Е
Key words: context, genre, genre boundaries, folk songs.
СВЕТЛА ПЕТКОВА (СОФІЯ, БОЛГАРІЯ)
Жанрові переходи: на приклади з болгарських балад
Ф
Резюме: Автор статті розглядає проблему жанрового пограниччя на прикладі болгарських
народних балад та болгарських ліричних пісень. Міжжанрові відносини та міграція сюжетів та
мотивів від пісенних до прозових жанрів та навпаки також розглядаються автором статті.
Ключові слова: жанр, жанрове пограниччя, контекст, культурний соціум, міграція мотивів.
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The concept of genre boundaries should be applied to the folk ballad conditionally – it is well known that the generic differentiation of ballads from other folksongs is not distinct and has been occasionally questioned. Probably that is why the
specificity of ballad aesthetics becomes more visible when this type of folksongs are
viewed in the context of (and in relationship to) other verbal folkloric (as well as
non-folkloric) forms. The inter-genre relationships of the ballad constitute a multifarious problem field, and different approaches to them are found in numerous
studies in Bulgarian and foreign folkloristics [1]. This inexhaustible research field
has always attracted lively interest in our scientific discipline. The elaboration of one
and the same or similar stories from the life of the community in ballads, epic songs,
folktales, legends, sagas, and so on, demonstrates some of the mechanisms of accumulation and preservation of cultural memory by means of folklore. In the case of
family ballads, Bulgarian folklore offers quite a few stories that ‘migrate’ from genre
to genre: for example, the story of the girl soldier, the sister who is falsely accused
by her brother’s wife, the robber’s wife, the man who bets on his wife’s fidelity, the
woman who frees her husband from jail, the soldier who attends his wife’s wedding,
the father who wants to marry his daughter, the mother who kills her son without
knowing who he is, the mother who kills her son because of her lover, or the son
who marries his mother. This phenomenon has been noted and discussed in different contexts by Bulgarian folklorists. Analyses focusing on specific cases of intertextuality are rarer (Bojadžieva 2002, 2002а). Among the cases in which one and the
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same story appears in different versions, one can easily distinguish that of folktales
based on songs, which directly point to the ‘original source’, the ‘macro-prototext’
(the corpus of variants of a given ballad type, see Penčeva 2002a: 18). This is not so
in the case of more ‘autonomous’ versions, where looking for genealogical relationships is not always a productive undertaking. In this study, too, the questions of the
origin and genealogy of plots will be approached with caution.
I will examine two examples of ballads that can give us an insight into the
‘background’ of ballad perception and representation of the world. These particular examples have been chosen because of the following more important considerations. The first ballad type, usually registered as ‘The Robber’s Wife’, represents
a pan-Slavic song cycle with parallels in Romanian and Hungarian folklore. The
available comparative studies on this ballad type do not pay sufficient attention to
the Bulgarian corpus [2]. Some researchers confine themselves to just two or three
Bulgarian variants (Kumer 1968: 53; Smirnov 1974: 128, No 49). A better idea
of the Bulgarian tradition is given by Horalek (1962: 59–62) and Vargyas (1983:
287). Horalek offers a comparatively complete account of the different Bulgarian
versions of the type, although he gives few examples. In Vargyas shorter lyroepic
versions prevail. The catalogue of song motifs among the Balkan Slavs (Krstić
1984: 317, Q 7, 5) lists 16 Bulgarian variants. In contemporary Bulgarian folkloristics, these ballads are presented exhaustively with commentary and variants.
They demonstrate high frequency and motif ‘mobility’, and their investigation in
an inter-genre context would cast more light on the dynamics of ballad creativity.
The second example, ‘Man Harnesses Wife for Ploughing’, is a type of plot that
is common and has numerous variants in the Bulgarian ballad tradition. Its connections with other folkloric forms reveal interesting inter-genre interactions.
The stories of the two types have points of contact.
The ballad type ‘The Robber’s Wife’ is represented in the Bulgarian song tradition by a significant number of variants. This is obvious from the versions published
in the largest corpus of ballads (BNB 2 No. 768–781), where there are more than
a hundred variants (even though some have been omitted). The motifs in the first
part of the narrative show a similarity between ballad and epics (epic heroic and epic
haiduk versions): a robber’s wife laments her lot in life – washing bloodied shirts
(rubbing bloodied swords clean, hiding human heads); she finds a severed hand
with a ring that looks like her brother’s. From this point on there are differences. The
ballad ends: only with the wife’s laments; with a request for or with actual metamorphosis into a bird; the wife betrays the robber; the robber tries to justify himself or
takes his wife to a ‘wedding’ – in fact, death of the brother; the robber kills his wife.
Synonymous multiplication of ballad ideas within the boundaries of the genre
is effected through the rhetoric of shorter, more lyrical, texts. Part of them begin
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with a poetic analogy of the personal tragedy represented by the image of the
withering forest[3]; others begin with a figurative parallel between woman and
bird [4], or with curses against the mother [5]. The plot is usually limited to the
woman’s laments. These stories also occur in the largest published corpus of Bulgarian haiduk songs, where their antiquity is noted [6]. They are found in many
variants, and scholars distinguish internal versions. The thematic, plot and formal
similarity between some ‘ballad’ versions and some ‘haiduk’ versions shows how
subtle the boundary between those songs and how relative their genre denomination is. We can find one and the same stories with slightly different variants in
collections of haiduk songs and collections of ballads. The specific character of the
material, the ‘poly-genre nature of every genre in folklore’ (Zemcovskij 1990: 206)
makes any attempt at systematisation difficult in this case too.
The shorter lyrical versions demonstrate a similarity with a series of plots centred around the difficult change in women’s lives after marriage [7] and influence
in a specific way the extension of folkloric synonymy, which is manifested precisely in the variant system. The prominent Ukrainian scholar of ballads M. M. Gajdaj
discusses two probable historical perspectives of the interaction between ballads
and lyrical songs – in a period of insufficiently formed and developed stylistic
characteristics of these genres; or, conversely, at the late stage of the ballad, when
some of its plots enter the realm of lyrical poetry (Gajdaj 1973: 44). Some scholars
support the thesis of the tendency of the ballad narrative towards lyrical expression; they examine the role of particular song fragments (the so-called ‘condensed
ballads’) in the formation of new associative chains of narratives – that is, of new
variants (Constantine 1998). Folk lyrical ‘elegiac songs’ (Bojadžieva, Stojkova
1993: 17) whose main motif is ‘wife (of a robber) complains to the forest, laments
her lost youth’ have spread in Bulgaria since the National Revival to the present
day by way of publications too; it is presumed that some of the texts might have
been edited and are therefore not entirely original (Kaufman 1968: No 64–65).
Also within the boundaries of the ballad genre active factors for interaction
between song stories are the themes of women’s suffering (unsuitable marriage,
marriage far away from home) and murder (death) of a brother. The motifs of a
wife complaining about her robber husband, cursing her mother, washing bloodied shirts, grieving the death (murder) of a brother, recognising his hand through
a ring, in combination with other motifs, become the link between ‘The Robber’s
Wife’ and one of the most common international ballad types, ‘The Dead Brother’.
Such contaminations are examined in Ivan D. Šišmanov’s famous study (Šišmanov
1898: 576; texts – No 68–71) [8].
Let us take a look beyond the boundaries of the ballad genre. The story of the
robber’s wife occurs in haiduk and heroic epic songs. In them we can distinguish
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clearly an extended narrative structure where the second part elaborates on the
motif of the unfaithful wife: a saviour of the lamenting wife is found and he marries her; the cheated husband is invited as best man at the wedding; eventually, he
(disguised as a beggar, Gypsy) finds the woman and kills her (kills the couple) [9].
The ballad plots of the unfaithful wife are associated by some Bulgarian scholars (Аrnaudov 1996: 535, 554, 563–564) with the older West Bulgarian heroic
songs [10]. Here one can reflect on the mediation of the songs from the haiduk
cycle. The initial formula – wife complains about robber husband – functions as a
link between the different song forms. It is a bridge to different plot constructions
and, in a sense, also an indicator of the transformations of the story. It can be adjusted to genre tendencies dominated by epic as well as lyrical performance.
Folktales based on songs have been recorded in the Bulgarian narrative tradition –
tellingly, one of them comes from an informant known as a singer who was asked
about folktales [11]. She ends her account by pointing out that the same tale can also
be found in the form of a song. The short tale in question carries song ‘traces’, employing narrative techniques (versification, formulas) that are remnants of the memory of
the song form. This text corresponds to other tales based on heroic songs [12]. In some
variants there is also a similarity in the choice of names (Grozdanka, Marko).
There is a novelistic tale from Western Bulgaria KBP 1994: 955 [13] (with
two variants) which can be viewed as a parallel of one of the ballad versions.
The similarity between ballad and tale is in the final episode where the robber
is caught, having been betrayed by his wife. The ballad version has only a few
variants [14]. The common motifs are: wife of a robber, murder, a ring of the
victim. There are differences in the characters, in the moves towards resolving
the conflict, in the moral configuration. The ballad ends with the husband killing his wife in punishment or with his threatening to kill her. In the tale the
robber’s wife becomes a witness to the murder of a girl; she proves the crime
through the victim’s ring; the robbers are caught and killed. Stories ending with
the wife’s vengeance (she betrays the robber) are considered by L. Vargyas to be
complete and closer to the ‘old tradition’ (Vargyas 1983: 287). Viewed in such a
light, the Bulgarian folktale in question may be presumed to carry these more
archaic features [15].
On the whole, the prevalent variants of the ballad story differ from the epic
versions (heroic and haiduk), from their reproductions in novelistic tales, as well
as from the parallel prose stories – despite the similar principles of formation and
development of epic traditions in general. The poetic variations in the ballad are
an indicator of its dynamic genre essence; one can distinguish several lines of extension, of enrichment of the plot with new motifs, as well as crossover to (interaction with) other song types or other genres.
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Here is an example of such a ‘crossover’ and interaction triggered by the active
use of a particular motif. Bulgarian folklorists note a specific feature of one of the
Bulgarian versions, which distinguishes it from most Slavic ballads – the motif of
the wished or actual metamorphosis into a bird. In the story of the robber’s wife this
motif is specifically Bulgarian [16]. A ‘paraphrase’ of the motif in question is found
also in initial formulas in which a bird (cuckoo, nightingale – as images of the young
wife) curses her mother for having had her marry in a bad place [17]. It serves as
a connection with other ballad stories and their Slavic parallels [18] – a daughter
who is married far away (Grozdanka) turns into a bird and flies back home [19].
Some variants use pejoratives for the husband , which is identical to the attitude to
the robber [20], and this detail reveals the connection between the two story-lines.
By virtue of its active use in the Slavic and Bulgarian narrative tradition, the motif
of metamorphosis into a bird shapes a key episode in another ballad – about a sick
brother and his sister who looks after him and turns into a cuckoo [21]. Transformation into a cuckoo is a motif that is commonly employed in ballad poetics: a
mother turns into a cuckoo and visits her son in jail; the loved ones (sister, mother
and sweetheart) of a sick (wounded) hero turn into cuckoos out of grief for him; the
mother of nine dead brothers and a daughter who is married far away from home
is a cuckoo [22].
The story of the sick hero and his cuckoo-sister is also found in epic heroic songs,
where the wounded brother (Dojčin) usually sends his sister away so that he would
die alone. The person who recorded one of the published variants notes the singer’s
comment: ‘And ever since, the cuckoo has been cuckooing and looking for her brother!’ [23] This conclusion, in turn, suggests a connection with the narrative practice of
aetiological legends. The emotional image of the metamorphosis also acquires another
semantic orientation – towards the origin and cognition of the world.
Haiduk songs have ‘appropriated’ from the heroic song the figure of the sick
hero who is transformed into a haiduk. Here the motif of the sister’s transformation into a bird is absent [24].
The motif of the sick brother and his cuckoo sister occurs in a folktale that
is based on the song and seems to be a mixed (intermediate) form between tale
and legend: ‘What the Cuckoo Comes From’ [25]. The sister’s metamorphosis
into a cuckoo is common in legends about the origin of this bird – at that, in
different versions. One of the versions of the legend is connected with the song
about a sick brother; in others, the brother and sister (or a betrothed couple in
one variant) are cursed by God (by their mother) for disobedience (immoral
conduct); or a poor mother of many children prays to God that she become a
cuckoo and He answers her prayer. Solid evidence of the motif connections between genres (and probably of the path travelled by motifs) can be found in the
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above-mentioned epic song about sick Dojčin, as well as in a ballad from Southwestern Bulgaria that also ends with the typical aetiological explanation: ‘Ever
since’, the song goes, ‘the cuckoo has cuckooed from Blagovec to Petrovden’ (i. e.
from the Annunciation of the Virgin, March 25, to St. Peter’s Day, June 29) [26].
I will note an important ‘trace’: Some variants of the legend contain the motif of
the woman’s brother who is killed by her husband (by robbers) [27]. This motif
attests to the influence of the song story, showing that the ‘memory’ of the ballad
pattern is viable and productive.
A series of folk beliefs about the cuckoo are associated, on the one hand, with
the heralding of spring, and on the other with ill omens. On some planes here, too,
belief and song are interpenetrating forms and an area of interpenetrating contents. Some beliefs correspond to the above-mentioned songs about the cuckoosister who is in quest of her brother [28].
It is obvious that there is complex interaction, interpenetration and ‘osmosis’
of texts which scholars define differently: heroic epic song, haiduk song, ballad,
novelistic tale, legend. In fact the ballad interpretations of the cycle under review
contain all seminal motifs noted so far: woman’s suffering caused by a husband
who is a robber, actual (wished) transformation into a bird (cuckoo), a cuckoo-sister in quest of her brother, aetiological conclusion about the origin and behaviour
of the cuckoo. The song poetic system demonstrates in this particular case distinct
mnemonic and reproductive functions – by means of the multiplicity of variants,
of a widely used open-ended initial formula, mobility of motifs. Ultimately, these
movements are a basis for development, for creation of new versions, a prerequisite for influence on other folkloric forms. There is intensive exchange of narrative elements both between thematically similar ballad storylines and beyond the
‘boundaries’ of the genre form – between epic narrative (epic songs, tales, ballads)
and lyrical song versions. A fundamental question in these interactions is that of
the construction of meaning.
Prose stories construct the first part of the plot in a somewhat different light,
developing it on the plane of novelistic tale or legend, synthesising a moral message that does not always replicate the ballad worldview. The interest of novelistic
tales in the plot itself and in its moves is prominent. The variants are considerably
fewer in number, but carry archaic traces. Comparatively higher productivity of
the narrative elements is observed in belief legends.
‫٭‬ ‫٭‬ ‫٭‬
One of the reasons for choosing to analyse the second example is, as I said, the
partial thematic and formal relationship to the plot discussed so far – the heavy lot of
women in a situation of patriarchal oppression. The example in question is the ballad
type ‘Man Harnesses His Wife’, found in numerous variants all over Bulgaria [29].
53
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One of the variants of this ballad (No 866) begins with a familiar introduction: a bird sings in the forest; it wasn’t a bird but a young woman who curses her
mother for marrying her to an unsuitable husband. Here there is a distinct similarity with an initial formula typical of one of the versions of ‘The Robber’s Wife’
(No 773) [30]. Further on the song describes the cruel treatment of the woman.
After fulfilling the husband’s order that she bring him lunch in the field, the wife
is harnessed by him in the place of the ox and forced to plough until noon; some
variants add other forms of torture (the wife is forced to cut thorns and tread
them barefoot). The plot probably carries residual traces of ancient customary
practices – harnessing women because of uncelibacy, lechery, infidelity, disobedience (Petrov 1958: 209ff). Such punishments must have aroused strong collective
emotions. In the poetic world of these dramatic songs cultural-historical realia are
‘memorised’ and ‘immortalised’ according to the laws of ballad aesthetics. A definite compositional function in some of the variants is performed by the motif of
the husband’s mother who wrongly accuses her son’s wife, which is likewise common in the Bulgarian ballad tradition (Bojadžieva 1982). In other cases there is
little if any motivation of the cruel treatment of the wife – it is absent altogether or
it is because she has brought her husband lunch late. The ballad frame dominates
the entire structure of the song, and a number of variants have a culmination typical of ballads – the woman kills herself or her baby dies in the cradle. The tragic
situation is condensed in a powerful poetic image through the formula of contrast:
‘Denka was sagmal gidija [nursing mother], the black fallow land turned white,
turned white from Denka’s milk.’ [31]. An analogous formula is employed in the
culmination of other ballads (‘Immured Wife’), as well as in historic legends.
Beyond the territory of the ballad genre, in another verbal form, the morphological element of ‘harnessing a person’ carries different meanings. The concept and
essence of the narrative scheme through which folk prose corresponds to ethnographic reality and to its interpretation in song are diametrically opposite. In novelistic tales we find the story of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, KBP 901, presented entirely
on a didactic plane and, moreover, with a comic nuance. Harnessing has retained
its punitive function, it is motivated in a convincing way (a lesson in normative
behaviour), but the characters and the idea serve other creative intentions. The wife
deserves being taught a lesson, because the husband is a victim of her shrewishness
or laziness. Seeing the demonstrative examples which her husband gives her with
domestic animals (he kills them after they fail to complete tasks set) she harnesses
herself to the cart, thereby showing that she has learned her ‘lesson’ [32]. The didactic meaning of the tale, constructed on the basis of a specific ‘allegory’, permeates the
entire narrative structure and is reaffirmed in the conclusion. The motif of harnessing a person for didactic purposes is also used in ‘genuine’ humorous tales from dif-
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ferent parts of ethnic Bulgarian territory: son harnesses mother to plough after the
ox is slaughtered at her insistence [33]; a man punishes his lazy wife’s mother for her
bad advice, making his mother-in-law plough instead of the ox [34].
In the novelistic-anecdotal narratives the imagery involving the harnessing of a
person is as striking and surprising as in the ballad, but the ingenious storyteller defends the patriarchal order by employing comedy. Both song and tale legitimate the
dominant role of the husband and master in the patriarchal family. The normative
parameters of the tradition, which are actually part of what Lotman calls ‘informative memory’ (Lotman 1993: 4), work in both cases. In the choice of poetic devices,
however, the moral quest that represents its questions and answers in different coordinate systems, shifts the accents and employs one genre tendency or another. It depicts life and draws moral lessons from it on the basis of contrast. Between the norm
and real everyday life, ballad aesthetics amplifies the extraordinary in a dramatic
conflict and highlights the tragic consequences. The aesthetics of the comic softens
this conflict and sets it in an everyday comic context. Or to paraphrase Lotman once
again, creative memory finds its own ways of text formation.
Generally speaking, ‘genre memory’ (to quote Bakhtin) in folklore draws on the
variant system of folklore, on the textual variety of the individual genre forms. By
virtue of this cultural (and essentially collective) memory, particular content-related
and formal elements of different genres ‘shape’ the performer’s creative programme,
building a specific database in his individual memory. In some cases ‘traces’ of the
memory of a given genre are found in a different genre transformation – epic devices
in non-epic song forms, folktale motifs in ballads, ballad motifs in lyrical songs and,
at another level, motifs from folklore in authored literary works, music, paintings
or sculptures. Active in these processes is the so-called ‘diffusion of the genre consciousness of balladry’ (Penčeva 2002а: 12). An unforgotten genre scheme is clearly
distinct in folktales based on songs. In them the song (ballad) trace is obvious in the
use of verse, formulas and other morphological elements typical of the genre. Crossing genre boundaries, the storyteller has transmitted the memory of the genre. In
other cases there are no direct indications of the influence of ‘genre memory’ – this
becomes obvious in parallelly spread and autonomously developed stories in different folkloric forms. There each form looks like an autonomously developed unit if
we do not compare it with related forms in an extra-genre context.
The contents reproduced within different frames and contexts point to a common world of culture, which affirms traditional moral values in a convincing way. In
this process an important role is played by the uniform principles, by virtue of which
we see the organisation of folklore as a ‘corpus of texts’ (Levinton 1974: 167). As creators and users of those texts, folk performers (singers, storytellers, musicians, dancers) are specific bearers of cultural memory in which specific functions are assigned
55
to inter-genre dialogue too. This dialogue, which sometimes has an ‘unexpected
ending’ (or is unexpectedly endless), is an extremely interesting phenomenon in the
dynamic life of oral culture. Tracing its separate lines in variations and repetitions
that shape the meaning is a productive undertaking not only within the limits of the
narrow folkloristic problem field. Detailed knowledge about the interaction of folkloric genre forms beyond this field is just as productive if it is projected also on nonfolkloric forms of cultural expression such as, for example, the literate tradition.
References
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Arnaudov, M. 1996: Vjarna ili nevjarna Grujovica. Kǎm vǎprosa za
vǎznikvaneto na baladnite motivi [Faithful or Unfaithful Grujovica. Towards the
Problem of the Origin of Ballad motifs] – In: Očerci po bălgarskija folklor. T. 1.
Sofia, Akad. izd. «Prof. Marin Drinov», 1996, 533–570.
AT: The Types of the Folktale. A Classification and Bibliography. Antti Aarne’s
Verzeichnis der Märchentypen (FF Communications, N 3). Translated and Enlarged by Stith Thompson. Second Revision. Helsinki, 1964 (FF Communications,
N 184).
BHRF: Bogdanova, L., R. Ivanova, S. Stojkova. Bălgarski hajduški i revoljucionen pesenen folklor [Bulgarian Haiduk and Revolutionary Folksongs]. SbNU
61, Sofia, BAN, 2001.
BJE: Bălgarski junaški epos [Bulgarian Heroic Epics]. Avt. kolektiv: R. Angelova, L. Bogdanova, C. Romanska. E. Stoin, S. Stojkova. SbNU 53, Sofia, BAN, 1971.
BNB 1, 2: Bălgarski narodni baladi i pesni s mitičeski i legendarni motivi [Bulgarian Folk Ballads and Songs with Mythical and Legendary motifs]. Avt. kolektiv:
L. Bogdanova, S. Bojadžieva, N. Kaufman, K. Mihajlova, L. Parpulova, S. Petkova,
S. Stojkova. SbNU 60, č. 1–2, Sofia, BAN, 1993–1994.
BNPP 7: Bălgarska narodna poezija i proza. V sedem toma. [Bulgarian Folk
Poetry and Prose. In seven volumes]. T. 7. Săst. i red. V. Kuzmanova, J. Koceva.
Sofia, Bălgarski pisatel, 1983.
Bogdanova, L. 1979: Njakoi nabljudenija na bălgarskata semejna balada s
ogled na strukturata na rumănskata semejna balada [Some Observations on
Bulgarian Family Ballads With a View to the Structure of Romanian Family Ballads]. – Analele Universitatii Bucureşti. Limbi şi literaturi straine (Bucureşti),
1979, No 2, 145–149.
Bojadžieva, S. 1982: Beležki kăm baladite za zla svekărva v bălgarskija i
grăckija folklor [Notes On the Ballads About the Evil Mother-in-law in Bulgarian
and Greek Folklore]. – Bălgarski folklor (Sofia), 1982, No 2, 33–44.
Bojadžieva, S. 2002: Pesen i predanie [Songs and Legends]. – Izvestija na
istoričeski mizej Kjustendil (Kjustendil), 6, 2002, 173–178.
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Bojadžieva, S. 2002а: Za ‘ostavenoto dete’ i negovite značenija [About the
«Abondoned Child» and its meanings]. – In: Folklor, tradicii, kultura. Folklore,
Traditions, Culture. Essays in Honor of Stefana Stojkova. Sofia, Akad. izd. “Prof.
Marin Drinov”, 102–112.
Bojadžieva, S., S. Stojkova 1993: Uvodni beležki [Introductionary Notes]. –
In: BNB 1, 16–23.
Constantine, M.-A. 1998: Broken Ballads: the Art of Fragmentation. – In:
Ljudske balade med izročilom in sodobnostjo. Ballads between Tradition and
Modern Times. Ljubljana, ZRC SAZU, 1998, 235–243.
Gajdaj, M. 1973: Slov’jans’ka balada v ii zv’jazkah z inšimi žanrami folkloru
[The Slavic Ballad in Its Connections with Other Folklore Genres]. – In: Rozvitok
i vzaemovidnošennja žanriv slov’jans’kogo folkloru. Kiïv, Naukova dumka, 1973.
Нoralek, K. 1962: Studie o slovanské lidové poezii [Studies on Slavic Folk Poetry]. Praha, Státní pedagogické nakladatelství, 1962.
Каufman, N. 1968: Bălgarski gradski pesni [Bulgarian Urban Songs]. Sofia,
BAN, 1968.
KBP: Daskalova-Perkovska, L., D. Dobreva, J. Koceva, Е. Мiceva. Bălgarski
folklorni prikazki. Katalog [Bulgarian Folktales. A Catalogue]. Sofia, Univ. izd.
«Sv. Kliment Ohridski», 1994.
Krstić, B. 1984: Indeks motiva narodnih pesama balkanskih slovena [Index of Folksong Motifs of the Balkan Slavs]. Beograd, Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, 1984.
Kumer, Z. 1968: Skladnosti in razlike v južnoslovanskih variantah balade o razbojnikovi ženi [Similarities and Differences in South Slavic variants of the Ballad of
the Robber’s wife]. – Narodno stvaralaštvo (Beograd), 7, 1968, No 25, 52–60.
Levinton, G. 1974: K voprosu o funkcijah slovesnyh komponentov obrjada [On the Problem of the Functions of the Ritual’s Verbal Components]. – In:
Fol’klor i etnografija. Obrjady i obrjadovyi fol’klor. Leningrad, Nauka, 1974.
Lotman, J. 1993: Pametta v kulturologična svetlina [The Memory in Cultural
Context]. – Literaturna misăl (Sofia), 1993, No 2, 3–6.
Marinov, D. 1981: Izbrani proizvedenija v dva toma. T. 1. Narodna vjara i religiozni narodni običai [Selected Works in Two Volumes. Vol. 1. Folk Beliefs and
Religious Folk Rituals]. Săst. i red. M. Vasileva. Sofia, Nauka i izkustvo, 1981.
Miladinovi, D., K. 1961: Bălgarski narodni pesni. Sobrani ot Bratja Miladinovci Dimitrija i Konstantina i izdani ot Konstantina [Bulgarian Folksongs. Collected by Miladinov Brothers]. Četvărto izdanie. Sofia, Bălgarski pisatel, 1961.
Ničev, B. 1971: Uvod v južnoslavjanskija realizăm. Ot folklor kăm literatura v
estetičeskija razvoj na južnite slavjani prez XVIII i XIX vek [Introduction into the
South Slavic Realism. From Folklore to Literature in the Aesthetic Development of
the South Slavs, XVIII–XIX c.]. Sofia, BAN, 1971.
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Penčeva, A. 2002: Dvata doma na žanra. Tipologija na žanrovite prehodi meždu
folklora i literaturata [The Two Homes of the Genre. Typology of the Genre Transitions Between Folklore and Literature]. Sofia, Univ. izd. «Sv. Kl. Ohridski», 2002.
Penčeva, A. 2002a: Most meždu vseleni. Baladite na Karel Jaromir Erben
[A Bridge Between Universes. Karel Jaromir Erben’s Ballads]. Sofia, Heron Press
OOD, 2002.
Petrov, P. 1958: Kăm văprosa za nakazatelnoto zaprjagane u bălgarite i u
săsedni tjam narodi [To the Problem of the Punitive Harnessing among Bulgarians and some neighbouring people]. – Izvestija na Etnografskija institut s muzej
(Sofia), 3, 1958, 179–232.
SbNU: Sbornik za narodni umotvorenija, nauka i knižnina (kn. 27ff – Sbornik za
narodni umotvorenija i narodopis) [A Miscellany of Folklore, Science and Literature
(kn. 27ff – A Miscellany of Folklore and Folklore Studies)]. Kn. 1–61. Sofia, 1889–2001.
Smirnov, J. 1974: Slavjanskie epičeskie tradicii. Problemy evoljucii [Slavic Epic
Traditions. Evolutionary Problems]. Moskva, Nauka, 1974.
Šišmanov, I. 1896–1898: Pesenta za mărtvija brat v poezijata na balkanskite
narodi [The Song of the Dead Brother in the Poetry of Balkan Peoples]. – SbHU
13, 1896, 474–569; 15, 1898, 449–600, variants 1–186.
Vargyas, L. 1983: Hungarian Ballads and the European Ballad Tradition.
Vol. 1–2. Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 1983.
Zemcovskij, I. 1990: Predstavlenie o celostnosti fol’klornogo žanra kak obekt
rekonstrukcii i kak metod [A Notion of the Integrity of Folklore Genre as an Object of Reconstruction and as a Method]. – In: Fol’klor i etnografija. Problemy
rekonstrukcii faktov tradicionnoj kul’tury. Leningrad, Nauka, 1990, 205–215.
Notes
[1] All serious studies on the ballad genre are concerned, to one extent or
another, with various aspects of inter-genre interaction. A number of studies deal
with the Slavic folk ballad in general and its connections with other folk genres –
see e. g. Gajdaj 1973 and the Bibliography in his paper. At another level, the folk
and the literary ballad are analysed in terms of the genealogy and typology of the
genre, genre crossovers and interactions. This line of research is represented in
Bulgarian folkloristics by Ničev 1971, Penčeva 2002, Penčeva 2002a.
[2] BNB 2, p. 662, commentary to No 768. The two-volume edition of Bulgarian folk ballads recorded between 1974 and 1983 is the product of a team from the
Institute of Folklore (BNB 1, 2). The texts are supplemented by commentary and
variants from the published tradition. The edition gives an idea of the contemporary state and regional specific features of the traditional plot. The section on
‘Ballads about Everyday Life’ is compiled and edited by S. Bojadžieva.
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[3] BNB 2, No 779–781; No 776 – address to the wind; No 778 – address to
a flower.
[4] BNB 2, No 773–774;
[5] BNB 2, No 776, quoted variants.
[6] BHRF, commentary to No 200. See No 200–205 (beginning with a parallel
with the forest); No 206, 208–209 (beginning with a singing bird); No 203, 204,
207 (extended motif of the family home as a ‘bad place’, typical of other songs
too – evil parents, sisters and brothers of the husband); No 209–215 (the wife
curses her mother, her husband); No 216 (begs somebody to rid her of her haiduk
husband); No 217–220 (elopes with another man). Interesting ‘historicisation’ in
No 204: the name of her brother, Tsar Ivan Šišman, is inscribed on the ring. Tsar
Ivan Šišman is one of the last Bulgarian rulers from the 14th century before Bulgaria fell under Turkish rule. Variants of the type see p. 589–592, No 124.
[7] The beginning of No 782 in BNB 2 suggests a partial analogy with some
versions of ‘The Robber’s Wife’.
[8] I will add that Z. Kumer (Kumer 1968: 52) considers ‘The Robber’s Wife’ to
be a sub-group of the larger group of songs on the subject of ‘The Daughter Married
Far Away from Home’, which is well known in the Bulgarian ballad tradition too.
[9] BHRF, No 34–39, commentary (480–481) and variants p. 554, No 19; BJE,
No 548–549. See also review of motifs, p. 891, No 40; closer variants 401a, 400b
(Her husband brings her brother’s head).
[10] BNB 2, No 844–845, commentary p. 681.
[11] SbNU 58, No 408 ‘Yanko the Robber and His Young Wife’, village of Ognjanovo, Goce Delčev area.
[12] SbNU 53, p. 821, No 198; p. 943, No 291, 292. Cf. songs p. 661, No 548;
p. 663, No 549; somewhat different: p. 676, No 561; p. 677, No 562.
[13] The numbering in the Bulgarian catalogue of folktales (KBP) corresponds
to that in AT.
[14] BNB 2, No 771–772.
[15] Being familiar mainly with the short Bulgarian versions, the Hungarian
scholar speaks of incompleteness and contradiction in the final solution of the
conflict. At the same time, he admits that the motif of the severed hand with a
ring, which is absent in the Hungarian songs, is present in the Bulgarian ones (as
in those of the Northern Slavic peoples) (Vargyas 1983: 292–293).
[16] BNB 2, p. 662, No 768, commentary by S. Bojadžieva.
[17] See note 4.
[18] BNB 2, p. 662, commentary and works cited to No 768.
[19] BNB 1, No 270–272.
[20] BNB 1, p. 501, No 270 and variants cited.
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[21] BNB 1, No 273–275.
[22] BNB 1, No 278; 284–289; 292; 294–296; 298; Miladinovi 1961: No 200.
[23] BJE, No 266. See the full range of the variants, represented in No 263–269
(in most variants without transformation into a bird).
[24] BHRF, No 164–165 and notes, p. 493.
[25] SbNU 58, No 419.
[26] BNB 1, No 273.
[27] SbNU 16–17, p. 29. The husband of a woman who has married far away
from home kills her brother. She and her mother turn into cuckoos out of grief;
ibid., p. 216, No 19. A girl turns into a cuckoo out of grief for her brother who
is killed by robbers; SbNU 13, p. 141, No 1. A mother and daughter turn into a
cuckoo and a turtle-dove out of grief for a dead son and brother.
[28] Other beliefs are focused on the behaviour of the cuckoo, explaining it
as the result of a curse. They are often illustrated with a Christmas song, in which
the Holy Virgin curses the cuckoo because she woke the Young God – so that
the cuckoo shall not make her own nest, and shall lay her eggs in another’s nest.
(Marinov 1981: 158). Another Christmas song illustrates a variant of the curse
with which Mother of God condemns the bird to become dumb in a particular
period of the year, from Enjovden (literally, Enjo’s Day, Midsummer, June 24) to
Blagovec (Marinov 1981: 159). According to the song, that is why cuckoos appear on Blagovec and herald the spring, and then fall silent on Enjovden. Some
characteristics of the bird are also represented in aphorisms. There is a curse that
goes, ‘May you build a home like a cuckoo!’ (Marinov 1981: 158); a riddle: ‘What
lays eggs, doesn’t hatch chicks yet has chicks’ (BNPP 7, p. 361). Some idiomatic
phrases that are still in usage represent the symbolic meanings of the bird related
to loneliness and desertion: for example, a lonely woman (widow) or a lonely old
woman can be described as being ‘left as lonely as a cuckoo’ or being ‘all alone (at
home) like a cuckoo’.
[29] BNB 2, p. 684–685, No 858–866; Bogdanova 1979: 145–146.
[30] Such a negative comparison between a woman (girl) and a bird is a typical introductory formula in Bulgarian folksongs.
[31] BNB 2, No 864, verses 35–37.
[32] In KBP this type is represented in six variants. In variant 2 the man also
teaches his mother-in-law a lesson.
[33] KBP 1370А*: ‘Who Doesn’t Work Mustn’t Eat’. Variant 3 (Lerin area). The
motif of the harnessed mother constitutes an introductory episode in the tale.
[34] КBP 1370 ІІІ. See Variant 15 (Nikopol area), where the story is based
entirely on the motif of the harnessed mother-in-law.
60
NATALIE KONONENKO (EDMONTON, CANADA)
Ukrainian Ballads about the Loss of Virginity and Out-of-Wedlock
Pregnancy
Abstract: Ukrainian ballads about pre-marital pregnancy serve as a warning. They sing of the
negative consequences for all concerned: mother, father, and child.
Yet these ballads were often performed in the context of courtship activities (vechornytsi and
dosvitky) which encouraged pre-marital sexual contact. How can this apparently contradictory
situation be explained? This paper will examine ballad variants, data about dosvitky and vechornytsi,
and data about virginity tests at the time of the wedding in search of an answer.
Е
Key words: Ukrainian folk songs, traditional plots, ballads, virginity, out-of-wedlock pregnancy.
НАТАЛЯ КОНОНЕНКО (ЕДМОНТОН, КАНАДА)
Українські балади про втрату дівочості та позашлюбну вагітність
Ф
Резюме: Автор статті аналізує досить поширені в українській пісенній творчості сюжети
про позашлюбну вагітність, як поетико-символічний вираз емоцій людини, яка переходить до
іншого соціального статусу – від дівочості до жіноцтва, підкреслюючи, що символи та образи
пісень, що співались на вечорницях були своєрідним упередженням дошлюбних відносин у
традиційних українських сільських осередках.
Ключові слова: українські балади, пісенна творчість, сюжет, позашлюбна вагітність.
ІМ
Approximately eighty five years ago Volodymyr Hnatiuk wrote an article about
premarital sex called «Pisnia pro pokrytku, shcho vtopyla dytynu». (Song about
a girl who drowned her baby) (1). In his study, he began with a ballad that sings
about fishermen making a horrible discovery: they find the body of a drowned
infant in the reeds. The authorities then call an assembly of girls to discover the
guilty party. All girls appear wearing their wreaths except one – the poor girl who
is in fact the mother of the dead baby. It is understood that the baby was illegitimate and that the girl got rid of it to cover her sexual transgressions. As punishment for her sins, the girl herself is thrown into the water to drown. As she floats
down the river, she sings to her mother, urging her not to let her other daughters,
the sisters of the drowning girl, attend vechornytsi, evening parties, because it is at
these that she lost her virginity.
Hnatiuk gives a number of variants of this ballad. He notes its geographical
provenance. He then examines the historical background of his text. He describes
and discusses vechornytsi, dosvitky, vulytsia and skladky (various terms for courtship parties), relying largely on material assembled by Dikarev (2). These are all
institutionalized courtship events that were practiced until approximately forty
or fifty years ago (3). He looks at the pokrykta, the term for a woman who bore a
child out of wedlock, examining this social category and the ritual that was used
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to confer pokrytka status on a woman. He then looks at assemblies as a means of
identifying guilty individuals and the practices associated with trial and punishment. Hnatiuk concludes by describing an interesting legal custom that pardoned
a person from execution if someone would take him or her in marriage. Hnatiuk
provides some fascinating material. He does not, however, answer a puzzling question: if vechornytsi did indeed lead to the loss of virginity and even out-of-wedlock
pregnancy, as his ballad suggests, then why would this institution continue to exist? The earliest documented complaint against vechornytsi is a 1719 church edict
seeking to ban this institution because, in the words of the document, it leads
to debauchery, pregnancy, and infanticide which incur God’s wrath and bring
plagues and sores unto people and their livestock (4). Yet, even though the epistle
condemns vechornytsi, these evening parties continued to be the way for young
people to meet for another two hundred and fifty years. If they were so awful, why
did they survive? Moreover, ballads like the one examined by Hnatiuk were performed during vechornytsi. Why would people sing songs condemning the events
in which they were participating? It is true that, while this ballad was known and
could be performed by both sexes, it was primarily a women’s song (5). In this
sense it appears as a cautionary text. Still, why would women participate in parties
just as they were warning each other not to do so?
Hnatiuk’s focus is institutions rather than folk ballads. He uses the ballad
summarized above as a key to open an examination of traditional customs and
practices. Let us also begin with a look at vechornytsi, dosvitky, skladky and vulytsi
to see what this practice was like. There is not a great deal of information about
these courtship parties because, while villagers, such as the ones I interview for
my fieldwork, are willing to discuss them and feel that they are a natural part of
life, ethnographers and other intellectuals were often embarrassed by them. As
one man put it in response to a questionnaire: «They sing nasty songs and it is
embarrassing to write them down. There is no such person who would be willing to collect them for you. If someone were to actually write down the sorts of
shameful things that young men sing and make up, the devils themselves would
laugh». (Dikarev, 201) An excellent source is Dikarev’s study, used by Hnatiuk
for his monograph, and published posthumously by him, perhaps because of its
somewhat racy content. Dikarev collected material almost one hundred years ago.
He sent out questionnaires and received a variety of responses, from the quote
above, to some accurate ethnographic recordings and descriptions, to attempts at
short stories based on the subject. Using Dikarev and my own fieldwork, the following general statements about courtship parties can be made:
Vechornytsi (evening parties) and dosvitky (parties that last until light/dawn)
are basically the same thing. They are held from October until Lent or until Easter.
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Ukrainian Ballads about the Loss of Virginity and Out-of-Wedlock Pregnancy
ІМ
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Е
To conduct these parties, either young people of both sexes, or the young women
alone, rent a house. Usually this is a house nearer the edge of town, the home of
a poorer person, perhaps a widow, or an elderly couple without children. It can
be the home of a family that has one or more girls who will be participating in
vechornytsi, though other sources say that it is shameful for family members to be
present together at a vechornytsia. In other words, two sisters should not attend
the same party and parents should not be host an event in which their children
participate. The hosts are paid for the use of their dwelling in various ways. They
can receive as little as the benefits of the heat, light, and food brought into their
home for the parties, or they can be paid with food, fuel, or work. I was told that, if
vechornytsi take place in the home of a widow, it is the responsibility of the young
people (molod’) to see that her fields are plowed the following spring and prepared
for planting (6).
Girls start attending vechornytsi or dosvitky at age sixteen; boys at age seventeen, though sometimes youths as young as fifteen are admitted if they look older.
When a vechornytsia takes place, the girls gather first. They bring work, such as
spinning, embroidery, small sewing projects. They are also responsible for providing any food that is to be consumed. Boys arrive a bit later. They bring alcohol,
wood for the fire and kerosene for the lamp, and any diversions, such as cards or
musical instruments. After the girls work and the boys play cards for a while, the
main entertainment of the evening begins: singing, including ballads, lyric songs,
and rhymed taunts exchanged between the girls and the boys. Boys tell stories,
usually with a sexual or a scatological content. Various games which encourage
pairing up, or predict who will love whom, or involve sexual touching, are played.
Sometimes the boys fight. They are especially likely to attack a man who is from
another village (Dikarev, 205), or even another section of their own village, and
wishes to join their group. They also attack male groups (hromady) in other villages, sometimes traveling to the other village to do so (Dikarev, 192). All of this
«merrymaking» lasts until about midnight, at which point all go to sleep.
How this last part happens is, of course, the matter of greatest concern here.
Almost all sources say that the first thing that happens is that straw is spread on
the floor. After that, there is a great deal of variation. According to some, the girls
all lie down together on one side of the hut and the boys all lie down on the other
side. At this point, the mistress of the house or the head of the group of girls turns
out the lights and those boys who have already formed a relationship with one of
the girls seek her out and sleep with her, usually encouraging her to move with
them to the side, away from the rest of the group (Dikarev, 239). In some sources,
there is a more complex pairing process. Interestingly, the choice is up to the girls
in most cases, with the boy having the right of refusal (Dikarev, 173, 206, 242–43,
63
ІМ
Ф
Е
Hnatiuk, 292). Any girls who have not found partners go home to sleep. Boys
without partners may engage in pranks such as exposing their naked rears to those
in the hut (Dikarev, 175) or dressing up as animals and trying to frighten those
inside by making a racket. Sometimes they go to the next village to beat up their
peers or to play pranks on them (Dikarev, 176).
Several times a year, there is a bigger party, with more food and liquor. Instead
of snacks, there is an entire, usually festive, meal. Professional musicians may be
hired. This is usually called a skladka, meaning an event for which all in attendance pool their resources. Since several of the skladky occur on particular holidays, the name of the holiday may be used in place of the term skladka (Dikarev,
208, 236–75).
Vulytsia (meaning street) is essentially the summer version of vechornytsi and
dosvitky. As the name implies, it takes place outside, in the street, usually in a spot
that is a common meeting ground, an intersection of several village streets, or
the area around a well (Dikarev, 176–92). Apparently there are more vulytsi than
vechornytsi and there is competition to attract the greatest number of young people because accounts of magic are often included in vulytsia descriptions (Dikarev,
186, 189, 190). Sleeping arrangements here are more complex and most young
people just go home when the singing and story-telling is over. If a couple does
pair up, they tend to go to her household and sleep in one of the outbuildings, such
as the komora, an underground cellar used for storing root crops. Several accounts
say that the boy who spends the night in a girl’s komora must wake up before daybreak and sneak home unobserved (Hnatiuk, 291, 295).
What we see from these descriptions of courtship practices is that they could
indeed lead to premarital sex; yet it was also possible to remain chaste. We also see
a great deal of female initiative and control of the situation, though, with control
also comes responsibility. Courtship events were not the sites of debauchery (7).
In fact, vechornytsi, dosvitky, and vulytsi were supposed to, and did in fact, lead
to marriage. During the course of the wedding, there was a virginity test and a
display of virginity is still practiced today (8). But even here, tradition provided
and still provides ways of handling potential mishaps. Vechornytsi did not lead inevitably to premarital sex, as the church edict would have us believe. Furthermore,
while loss of virginity was not desirable and extra-marital pregnancy even less so,
there were ways of handling these situations. In fact, happy outcomes were not
ruled out in any of these circumstances. Dikarev notes an instance of a young man
courting a girl and being asked to marry her older, pregnant sister, with everything
working out well (p. 200). I recorded a similar account from Tetiana Levchenko
in Korolivka, Makariv region, Kyiv province in 1998. In those regions where the
mother of the groom is supposed to recite a verse celebrating her new daughter-
64
ІМ
Ф
Е
in-law’s chastity, all women said they did so, even when they knew that the couple
was getting married because they were already expecting a baby (9). There are
unhappy situations and I collected a number of fabulates and memorates about
them (10). But bad outcomes are not inevitable.
If we look at ballads and take a larger sample than the one used by Hantiuk,
we see that they reflect an equally complex situation. They present this complexity
in artistic rather than realistic form. Still, the variety of possibilities is as great as
in real life. Also, since a good story demands conflict and suspense, ballads often
focus on the negative, or at least the threat of a tragic, outcome. Still, in ballads, not
all loss of virginity comes from vechornytsi and not all out-of-wedlock pregnancies
lead to trial by assembly and capital punishment.
The ballad book edited by O. I. Dei, A. Iu. Iasenchuk, and A. I. Ivanyts’kyi and
published by the Academy of Sciences groups ballads for us thematically (11). It
gives a number of interesting texts that present a wide range of possibilities. Virginity is not always willing lost and the first group of ballads are songs about rape. The
poor girl in question does nothing that she is not supposed to do. In most songs of
this category, she is performing a typical female task, taking food out to her brothers
working in the fields. She is waylaid by two highwaymen in two songs and by a Cossack in others. Her attacker or attackers take her virginity and then sit down to rest
or, in an act of utter disdain, they sit down to enjoy the meal meant for the heroine’s
brothers, leaving her to mind their horses. The girl drops the horses reins and commits suicide by drowning (pp. 319–20). Her innocence is confirmed by the fact that,
in one ballad, a church comes into being at the place where she died (p. 320 Шла
Марюся в поле, Marusia was going to the field). Conversely, the songs underscore
the unacceptability of the man’s behavior by having a venomous snake bite and kill
him in another ballad (p. 321, Ще місяць не заходив, The moon had not yet set). In
one of the published texts, the girl commits suicide and the man is executed for what
he has done (p. 322, У Києві да на риночку, In Kyiv, at the market).
There are several songs where the man takes the woman, not by physical force,
but by getting her drunk, sometimes on the advice of others (pp. 321–22, 323,
328). Usually this occurs in a korchma or tavern and the poor woman awakens to
find bloody sheets and to realize what has happened. Her reaction is typically to
kill herself, though this is not always a good choice (12). In one song, it turns out,
the man had honorable intentions and had planned to marry the girl (pp. 321–22,
Їхав попович да на коничку, A priest’s son came riding on his horse). An interesting variant on getting the girl drunk is keeping her awake several nights in a
row, so that, when she finally does fall asleep, she sleeps so soundly that the Cossack
or other seducer can have his way with her without her realizing what is happening
(pp. 328–29 See also p. 330).
65
Не спала ніченьку, не спала другую,
На третю ніченьку взяла да й заснула.
На третю ніченьку взяла да й заснула,
Козак насміявся, що дівка й не чула.
Е
She didn’t sleep the first night and she didn’t sleep the second
On the third night she went and fell asleep
On the third night she went and fell asleep
The Cossack laughed that the girl was oblivious.
ІМ
Ф
Whether this is physically possible is hard to say. The source of this image may
be the type of ballad where the Cossack abandons his lover by sneaking out while
she is still asleep (p. 325, Виїхав козак з двору, гей, а дівчина не чула, The Cossack
left the yard, and the girl didn’t notice). In the ballads about sneaking out without
the girl’s awareness, the Cossack rides away on his horse. Since taking care of a Cossack’s horse or pasturing it, especially if this is done from dark to midnight, is a
euphemism for sexual intercourse, the horse may have served as a link between the
two categories of ballads where the girl is not aware of what befalls her. The more
realistic possibility of the Cossack riding away without the girl knowing could have
evolved into the image of his «riding» the girl without her knowledge.
In a closely related group of ballads, the man himself gets drunk and behaves
badly (pp. 324–25 Ой та спився козак, спився, A Cossack got drunk, he got drunk).
Sometimes his horse urges him to leave the girl of his desire alone, because she is
a virgin, and to approach a young widow who might make a more willing partner
with less to lose as the result of any liaison (pp. 325, 327, the latter text is Їхав козак,
їхав лугами-берегами, A Cossack rode along the meadows and the shores).
Здибав дівчиноньку та й став коня радить,
Та й став коня радить, як би дівча зрадить.
А кінь йому каже: Їдьмо до Львова,
Їдьмо до Львова, там є молода вдова.
Як дівчину зведеш, щастя-долю втратиш.
А як вдову зрадиш, щастя-долі не втратиш.
He caught sight of the girl and started conferring with his horse
Conferring with his horse and asking how he could seduce the girl.
66
And the horse said to him: Let’s go to Lviv
Let’s go to Lviv, there is a young widow there.
If you seduce a girl, you will lose your happiness and spoil your fate
If you seduce a widow, you will lose neither fate nor happiness.
Ф
Е
Often the girl that the Cossack fancies is quite vulnerable: she is an orphan or
a poor servant girl. Still, he does the less-than-honorable thing and seduces her
(pp. 324, 325, 328–29, 330–32, 336, 350). When he leaves her, he offers her money,
or just throws it at her, telling her that she should use it to buy beer and forget her
sorrows and to buy soap, wash off her tears, and otherwise make herself attractive
to other Cossacks or potential future suitors. The girl often curses him in response
(pp. 324–30). In some of these songs, the seduced girl actually falls in love with
the man who takes her virginity. As he leaves her behind, she sings that she should
have known better than to love a man who would move on (pp. 324, 350; 367):
Я полюбила пройдисвіта
Та й навіки пропала).
ІМ
I fell in love with a wanderer
And I am ruined forever.
Sometimes it is the mother who tells the girl she should have stayed away
from vagabonds and men in this category include Cossacks, foreigners, namely
muscovites (moskali), and naturally, wanderers (proidysvita).
In some ballads, the seducers who take advantage of their position in life are
not military men or foreigners who can easily flee from what they have done. Instead, they are prominent members of the community who feel protected by their
social position (pp. 330, 331, 334–36, 385). The village priest or the priest’s son
is the guilty party in several ballads. In one text, he flaunts his invulnerable position and, when the mother of the wronged girl threatens to complain to the local
nobleman, the priest tells her to go ahead and do so because this does not frighten
him in the least (p. 325). The pan, or nobleman, himself is the seducer in several
texts and he, too, takes advantage of his power to have his will (pp. 330, 332, 336).
There are several ballads where the woman is in tears because the pan has broken
her jug, or dzban, a symbol of her chastity (pp. 338–39). These end happily with
the pan eventually agreeing to offer himself, presumably in marriage, rather than
the various goods with which he sought to replace the broken vessel. In one rather
67
Ф
Е
comical ballad, the nobleman does not take the girl through the power of his social position. Rather, he tricks her by dressing up in women’s clothing on the advice of an old woman. The girl’s father thinks that he is allowing a poor lost girl to
sleep with his daughter, only to discover the truth and end up with an illegitimate
grandson (pp. 337–38).
Closely related ballads are numerous and lines between them are hard to draw.
In a number of ballads, the girl is aware that loving a Cossack is not a good idea
because he is likely to go on his way and abandon her. Several songs, therefore,
start with the girl asking the Cossack to leave her alone because she is pure and she
is afraid of the wayward reputation that Cossacks have. The Cossack swears that he
has never deflowered a woman and, like the pan in women’s clothing, he tricks the
girl into allowing him proximity (pp. 328–29, 341, 344). Usually this means that
the girl or her mother, an innkeeper, accepts him as a lodger. Eventually, of course,
the Cossack seduces the girl and the ballad ends with her recounting the extent of
her loss: her mother has renounced her, and so has her father. Even the man who
was going to marry her has forsaken her for what she has done (p. 330).
Дівко моя, дівко, што ти наробила,
Гей, гей, дана, же-с свою родину вовік засмутила?
ІМ
Засмутила-м отця, засмутила-м мати,
Гей, гей, дана, засмутила-м того, што мене мал взяти.
Не добрі мі било косоньку чесати,
Гей, гей, дана, то мі добрі тепер діти колисати.
А тепер ти дівко, не жена, не дівка,
Гей, гей, дана, лем ти, моя дівко, світова мандрівка.
Girl, oh my girl, what have you done?
Hey, hey dana – you have brought sadness to your whole family.
You have made your father unhappy, and your mother
Hey, hey dana – you brought sorrow even to the man who was going
to marry you
I wasn’t content with combing my braid (a symbol of virginity).
68
Hey, hey dana – and now I have to be content with rocking a cradle.
And now, girl, you are neither a wife nor a maiden,
Hey, hey dana – you, girl, must now wander the world.
Е
In some of the ballads of this type, the seducer offers his victim money and, in
some, he tells her how to use the funds. The uses are the same as those noted earlier:
part of the money is for liquor so that she can forget her sorrows and some is for
soap or makeup, so that she can attract another mate (pp. 324–30). In several ballads, the man taunts the girl and lists various poetic, but impossible scenarios. He
says that only when a stone floats on the water and a feather sinks to the bottom,
only then will she be worthy of him, only then will he take her as his wife (p. 331).
Ф
Пущай камінь по тій водзе,
Нехай іде по слободзе:
Як той камінь буде пливац,
Тогдиль будеш мойом бивац.
ІМ
Пущай перко по тій водзе,
Нехай іде на слободзе,
Як те перко впаде до дна,
Тогдиль будеш мойом годна.
Drop a stone into the water,
Let that stone move freely:
If that stone will float,
Then you will be mine.
Drop a feather into the water,
Let that feather move freely,
If that feather sinks to the bottom,
Then you will be worthy of me.
Sometimes the man actually laughs at his poor victim (pp. 347, 351, 360) and
when she accuses him of not being able to swear allegiance to anyone, he counters
that he has in fact sworn allegiance, but not to a person, to his sword (p. 328). A
69
step up in cruelty is an actual invitation to a wedding (pp. 339–40). The former
lover invites the girl that he jilted to his wedding with another. The ballad ends
with the abandoned girl cursing the man, his marriage, and his entire household.
The man does not forsake the girl in all versions. In several ballads, as the relatives,
and especially the mother, of the girl curse the young man for what he has done, he
begs them to stop and tells them that he plans to marry the girl, or had planned to
marry her all along, at which point the mother is pleased, blesses the couple, and
wishes them well (pp. 332–34).
Ф
Е
Не цнотливий сину, черниш мні дитину,
Видиш старість мою, я о тім не стою.
Ходи, стара мати, перестань проклинати.
Я гадаю Фесю та й за жону взяти.
Добре, діти, добре, жийте собі добре,
Жийте собі гоже, заховай вас боже!
ІМ
You shameless young man, you have sullied my child,
Can’t you see that I am old, that I don’t deserve this.
Enough, old woman, stop cursing (me).
I’m planning to take Fesia as my wife.
Good, children, good, live well,
Live well and may God protect you!
Not all marriages forced by circumstances are happy. In a number of ballads,
the seducer offers the girl cattle if she will not reveal that he is the father of her
child (pp. 352–58, 362–64). He suggests that she blame an old man, which she
refuses to do because it is a sin (pp. 352, 364, 366). The father of the baby makes
the girl a succession of offers: a cow, an ox, a horse, several sheep, money, bread,
grain, and so forth. The girl refuses everything and announces that she has already
told her relatives and his that he is the father of her baby. When the man returns
home, he finds that the woman has started to claim the livestock that he had offered. He ends up with the baby, and presumably the mother, but curses his infant
for ruining the household.
Сидить Василь під вікном, дитину колише,
Ой ну, люлі-люлі, ой ти малий враже,
За тобою, враже, вся худоба ляже.
70
Ой ну, люлі-люлі, ти мале чорточку,
Забере Марія штани і сорочку.
Vasyl’ sits by the window and rocks the child,
Oh lullaby, lullaby, oh my little enemy,
Because of you, my enemy, I’ll lose all my cattle.
Oh lullaby, lullaby, oh you little devil,
Maria’s going to take both my pants and my shirt.
Ф
Е
The circumstances of seduction are various indeed. In some songs a girl swims
in a stream or a pond. A rich man sees her, is overcome with desire, and offers her
money for a night in her company. She accepts and is discovered, usually by her
mother (pp. 330–31). The man refuses to offer more than money. It is understood
that he will not marry the girl, and, as he leaves her, he sings that he is still a man
but she is no longer a maiden.
ІМ
Мила, мила, бивай здорова,
Я младенец, а ти вдова,
Я младенец под перечком,
А ти вдова под чепечком.
Dear one, dear one, farewell,
I’m a young man and you are a widow,
I’m a young man with a fancy hairdo,
And you are a widow with a cap (presumably the hat of the
pokrytka).
While a few ballads tell of a girl who is calculating or mercenary (pp. 350–51б
365–67), most tell of women who lose their virginity because of love or desire. Some
of these songs are sung as exchanges between a girl and her mother. The mother
asks the daughter to explain some symptom such as an unusually pale complexion
or she asks the daughter why her dress seems to have gotten short (pp. 365–67) (13).
Sometimes the mother asks directly about the loss of her daughter’s wreath, the most
common symbol of virginity. The girl takes the wreath meaning literally rather than
symbolically and makes up a story. The mother then suggests that a search party be
assembled to look for the wreath. The ballad ends with the girl telling the mother
that looking for the wreath is useless and she describes the man who took her wreath
and when and where it happened (pp. 341–45).
71
Е
Дай же, боже, неділі дождати,
Треба буде громаду збирати,
І підемо віночок шукати.
Нащо, мамо, людей турбувати,
Нащо нам йти віночок шукати?
Вже мні його нігде не здибати.
Їхав козак з війни молоденький,
Здійняв з мене вінок рутвяненкьий,
Пустив його на бігущу воду:
Плини, вінок, до мойого роду.
ІМ
Ф
May God allow us to wait until Sunday,
Then we will gather a group (of people),
And we will go and search for your wreath.
Why, Mother, why inconvenience people,
And why go and look for my wreath?
We will not find it anywhere,
A young Cossack was coming back from the front,
And he removed my wreath of rue,
And he tossed it upon the cascading waters,
That it may float down to my family.
Taking the problem one step further, a number of ballads sing of a woman who not only loses her virginity, but gets pregnant. In most cases, she is
left as an outcast and laments her fate: she cannot rejoin the girls because
they chase her away and, if she goes amongst the women, they want to put a
married woman’s headdress on her and make her a pokrytka (pp. 326, 330,
343, 346, 350).
Ой боже ж мій, що я наробила:
Дівування своє навіки згубила,
Своїй неньці страму наробила.
Піду між дівчата – з вулиці зганяють,
Піду між жінками – капур одягають.
Надінь, надінь, надінь, не стидися,
Як надінеш, в ноги поклонися.
72
Тепер же я не жінка, не дівка,
Тепер же я людська поговірка.
Е
Oh, God, my God, what have I done:
I have ruined my maidenhood forever,
I have brought shame upon my mother.
If I go among the girls – they chase me off the street,
If I go among the women – they put the cap (of a married woman) on me.
Put it on, put it on, put it on, don’t be ashamed,
And when you put it on, bow low.
Now I am neither a wife nor a maiden,
Now I am the subject of people’s gossip.
Ф
In one song, the abandoned girl’s liminal position forces her to accept an undesirable husband and she is married to an old man whom the ballad describes in
unflattering terms (p. 348).
ІМ
Ти сів, поїхав на вороному коню,
Я ж осталася дідові з бородою.
В діда борода – припічок замітати,
В мене личенько – пишному цілувати.
В діда борода, як у стрісі солома,
А я молода, як ягода червона.
В діда борода, як на свині щетина,
В мене личенько, як у лузі калина.
You went and rode off on a raven-colored horse,
And I was left to an old man with a beard.
The old man’s beard is good only for sweeping shelves
And I’ve got a face that should be kissed by a fine man.
The old man’s beard is like the straw of a thatched roof,
And I am young, like a ripe red berry.
The old man’s beard is like the bristles on a pig,
And I have a face (as pretty as) the rowan in the field.
73
Often parents play a role in ballads about out-of-wedlock births. In some, as
in the ballad examined by Hnatiuk, the daughter faults the mother for not protecting her from situations where seduction might occur (pp. 386–970). In one
song (p. 399), the mother foolishly advices her daughter to postpone marriage and
enjoy being a girl just a while longer. Within a year, the girl is pregnant. In some,
the girl hands her baby over to the mother and tells the mother to take care of it,
explicitly stating that the pregnancy was the mother’s fault (p. 367).
Е
Та як пішла Катерина в город по калину,
То принесла своїй ненці маленьку дитину:
Та на ж тобі, моя ненько, за твою науку,
Колисали мене малов, колиши-ж і внуку!
Ф
When Kateryna went into the garden to gather rowan berries,
She brought her mother back a little child:
Here, my mother, take this (as payment) for your lesson,
You rocked me when I was little – now rock your grandson!
ІМ
A large number of the ballads in the Dei, Iasenchuk, Ivanyts’kyi book sing
about a widowed father whose daughter brings shame upon him by becoming
pregnant (pp. 375–86). There is at least some implication that not having a mother
to guide the girl into womanhood is part of the problem.
An interesting group of ballads focuses not on the girl’s parents, but the boy’s.
In some of these, the parents make the young man take the mother of his child
as wife, which may or may not end happily (pp. 359–62, 365, 367). In the latter category are the ballads already mentioned where the young woman begins
to claim her lover’s property and his parents force him to accept his child as his
own. The rarer songs with a more positive outcome paint a picture of a supportive
mother who accepts her son’s illegitimate child as a family member (p. 359). In
some songs, it turns out that the young man truly loved the woman who became
pregnant with his child and the only reason he did not marry her was parental
opposition, perceived or real (pp. 340, 362, 365).
Через тебе, мати, нам життя немає.
Любив я Марину, як у саду грушу,
Через тебе, мати, покинути мушу.
Любив я Марину, як у саду вишню,
Через тебе, мати, покинути мислю.
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Because of you, mother, we can’t have a life.
I loved Maryna like a (ripe) pear in the garden,
Because of you, mother, I have to abandon her.
I loved Maryna like a cherry in the garden,
Because of you, mother, I am thinking of leaving her.
Е
In one of the published texts, the son is a reluctant bridegroom, but willing to
wed the woman he seduced in response to community pressure. It is his mother
who adamantly opposes the marriage.
Ф
У неділю рано ще й у церкві правлять,
В Василя подвір’ї всю худобу граблять.
Лучше мені, мати, та Марію взяти,
Як мені з подвір’я всю худобу дати.
Ох не хочу, сину, ще оддам все в хати,
Не хочу Марію за невістку мати.
ІМ
Early on Sunday the service is still going on in church,
And at Vasyl’s house they are stealing all the cattle.
It is better, mother, that I wed Maria,
Than that I give up all the cattle in our household.
No, my son, I would rather give up everything in the house ,
I do not want to have Maria as my daughter-in-law.
In most ballads, the girl is presented as victim. If her lover is not guilty of
seduction, then parents, either hers are his, as mature adults, are the one who
should bear responsibility. The only ballads where the young woman truly deserves censure are the ones closest to Hnatiuk’s text, the songs where she commits
infanticide once her illegitimate child is born. But even here, the woman is treated
sympathetically in most cases and presented as an innocent who loves not wisely,
but too well. There are a few texts where the woman kills her baby because she
does not want the responsibilities of parenthood. In ballads of this category, she
sings that she wants to party with the other girls just a while longer (pp. 386, 389,
391, 397). In most cases, however, she is abandoned and left with little choice but
to kill her infant and to try and conceal what had happened to her. Even when
she herself is reluctant to kill the child, her lover urges her to do so. In the most
extreme case, she approaches family member after family member: her father, her
75
mother, her brother, her sister, and each tells her to drown the baby and then to
drown herself as well (pp. 373–74). With no help and no support, the girl, as she
drops her tiny bundle into a river or a well, sings to the wind and the rain or to the
snow, asking nature to cover up her tracks so that no one will know what she has
done (pp. 375–82, 384–86).
Ф
Е
Повій, вітер буйнесенький,
Скропи, дощик дрібнесенький,
На мій хвартух білесенький,
Щоб матінка не пізнала,
Щоб шельмою не назвала.
Повій, вітер буйнесенький,
Скропи, дощик дрібнесенький,
Щоб тут люди не ходили,
Мого сина не збудили –
Бо як мого сина збудять,
То вже мене з світа згублять.
ІМ
Blow, oh you stormy wind,
Rain, oh you fine rain,
Rain upon my white apron,
So that my mother won’t know,
So that she won’t call me a whore.
Blow, oh you stormy wind,
Rain, oh you fine rain,
So that people won’t walk here,
So that they won’t wake up my son –
Because if they wake up my son,
They will drive me from this world.
Still, when the misdeed is discovered, she essentially confesses her crime. She
does not do so literally, but she does appear in public, often at an assembly of girls
like the one in Hnatiuk’s text, without her wreath (pp. 384–89, 394–98). She is, of
course, immediately identified as the unfortunate mother and executed or imprisoned. And, in many texts, she sings the reprimand to her mother about vechornytsi, though, in some texts, she sings about dosvitky and, in some, about vulytsi
(pp. 386–97). Thus, even when she indirectly confesses her guilt, the girl is not
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truly blameworthy because a mature adult, her mother, who should have known
about Ukrainian institutions and their potential pitfalls, failed to protect her.
Ukrainian ballads about the loss of virginity and out-of-wedlock pregnancy
are known by both sexes, but sung mostly by women at vechornytsi, dosvitky, and
vulytsi, precisely the sorts of situations that might lead to some of the outcomes
described in the ballad texts. They present an essentially sympathetic picture of
women and articulate the dilemmas and problems of young womanhood. Women
are encouraged to be loving. Getting married and having babies is almost a given.
Yet the same feelings of love and desire that make a woman a devoted wife and a
tender mother can make her choose unwisely. Powerful feelings can make her give
herself to a man who is a vagabond or a cad. And ballads articulate the dilemma
created when strong feelings are encouraged but protection from those who might
take advantage of strong feelings is not always there. In one extreme case, a girl
who has lost a lamb from the flock she was supposed to pasture turns to a priest
for help. Instead of helping her, he deprives her of her maidenhood (pp. 334–35).
Ballads also repeatedly remind us of a biological fact: if something goes wrong,
it is the woman who ends up pregnant. Unless family or community force him
to take responsibility, the man can walk away and marry another, whereas the
woman is left with the obvious result of the liaison, the baby. She is the subject of
public censure.
ІМ
Я тепер не дівка, я тепер не жінка,
Осталася я тепер людська поговірка.
Як би я жінка – чоловіка б мала,
Як би я вдова – пила б та гуляла.
Як би я вдова – пила б та гуляла,
Вороженьків під ноги топтала.
I am now not a maiden, I am now not a wife.
I am now the object of people’s gossip.
If I were a wife, I would have a husband,
If I were a widow, I would drink and carouse,
If I were a widow, I would drink and carouse,
I would trample down my enemies.
Marriage often solves everything, as in Hnatiuk’s monograph, but not always (14). Marriage is a wonderful solution when it is happy. But if one party loves
and the other does not, marital happiness is elusive indeed.
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In traditional society, there are many mechanisms that serve as checks and balances. Still, there are many contradictions and possible pitfalls, especially at marriage.
The point when one gets married marks a momentous life change. This is especially
true for women. In traditional Ukrainian society and in Ukrainian villages to this day,
the man continues to live in the same household and, though his social status and his
responsibilities change, marriage is not a cataclysmic transition for him. The bride, on
the other hand, as wedding songs tell us, must leave her home and get accustomed, not
only to a new physical environment, but to new people and new ways of doing things.
Because marriage is such big transition for a woman, tradition provides her with a
great deal of initiative at vechornytsi, dosvityky, and vulytsi, to give her some freedom
of choice. But, as already noted, with freedom comes responsibility and the potential of
making a bad choice in a lover. The ballads, then, serve as another traditional balance
mechanism: they allow artistic expression of young women’s doubts and fears. They
serve as a warning of the various dangers that come with the transition into adult,
married, womanhood. And they serve as a beautiful means of artistic expression for
the strong emotions that accompany a major life change.
References
ІМ
Dei, O. I. and A. Iu. Iasenchuk, and A. I. Ivanyts’kyi, editors. Balady kokhannia ta doshliubni vzaemyny. Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1987.
Dikarev, Mytrofan. «Zbirky sil’s’koi molodizhy na Ukraiini», pp. 170–275
Materialy do Ukraiins’koii etnol’ogiii. Vydae Naukove tovarystvo im. Shevchenka,
Vol. XVIII, L’viv, 1918.
Hnatiuk,Volodymyr. «Pisnia pro pokrytku, shcho vtopyla dytynu», Materiialy do Ukraiin’skoii etnologii, vydae etnografichna komisiia naukoho tovarystva im.
Shevchenka u L’vovi, Vol. XIX–XX, 1919, pp. 249–389.
Markevich, A. «Mery protiv vechernits i kulachnykh boev v Malorossii», Kievskaia starina, 1884, IX, pp. 177–180.
Interviews:
Hanna Basans’ka, born 1928, and Nadiia Latysh, born 1954, in Iavorivka,
Drabiv region, Cherkasy province, June 27, 2001.
Tetiana Boiko recorded in Ploske, Nosiv region, Chernihiv province, May 25, 2000.
Mariia Dudko and Mariia Martynenko, recorded in Mokhnach, Chornobai
region, Cherkasy province from July 9, 1998.
Notes
1. Volodymyr Hnatiuk, «Pisnia pro pokrytku, shcho vtopyla dytynu», Materiialy do Ukraiin’skoii etnologii, vydae etnografichna komisiia naukoho tovarystva
im. Shevchenka u L’vovi, Vol. XIX–XX, 1919, pp. 249–389.
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2. Mytrofan Dikarev, «Zbirky sil’s’koi molodizhy na Ukraiini», pp. 170–275
Materialy do Ukraiins’koii etnol’ogiii. Vydae Naukove tovarystvo im. Shevchenka,
Vol. XVIII, L’viv, 1918.
3. My interviews indicate that people in their fifties and above attended these
events. See, for example, the interview with Hanna Basans’ka, born 1928, and Nadiia Latysh, born 1954, in Iavorivka, Drabiv region, Cherkasy province, June 27,
2001. People in their seventies attended them for courtship purposes. Younger
participants were allowed in for special holiday events that were conducted by the
courting young people.
4. A. Markevich, «Mery protiv vechernits i kulachnykh boev v Malorossii»,
Kievskaia starina, 1884, IX, pp. 177–180.
5. The best known recent version of a related ballad was recorded by Drevo
and the song was sung by a lone male voice.
6. Velyka Burimka, August, 1998.
7. Basans’ka, mentioned earlier, insisted that the vechornytsi she attended were
quite chaste. It was cold in the house and people kept their coats on, she said. There
was none of the misbehavior that characterizes today’s youth, she continued.
8. Today’s display involves tying a red kerchief to the gatepost of the groom’s
household. Theoretically, the best man is to ask the groom whether or not the bride
was a virgin and, upon hearing that she was, he is supposed to display the kerchief.
I cannot attest whether the best man did question the groom. Red kerchiefs atop
gateposts were indeed the norm at weddings I attended. An alternate display, one
that appeared in my interviews though not it weddings I witnessed, was red thread,
here meaning something akin to knitting yarn. The bride was supposed to pin bows
or other decorations made of red thread on people attending the wedding.
9. One example is Tetiana Boiko recorded in Ploske, Nosiv region, Chernihiv
province, May 25, 2000.
10. An especially interesting set of stories was recorded in Mokhnach, Chornobai region, Cherkasy province from Mariia Dudko and Mariia Martynenko,
July 9, 1998. They included a story of a woman whose father wanted her to have
a church wedding and whose fiancé, because he was a party member with career
ambitions, felt he could not comply. The wedding never took place.
11. Balady kokhannia ta doshliubni vzaemyny, ed. by O. I. Dei, A. Iu. Iasenchuk, and A. I. Ivanyts’kyi, Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1987.
12. Interestingly, the girl kills herself with a fork (Взяла Галонька да виделечка, /
Устромила собі коло сердечка, p. 321). Other than pointing out the fact that fork
(vydelechka) rhymes with heart (serdechko), I cannot offer a reason for this odd
choice of weapon. In another version of this ballad, the girl asks for scissors, ostensibly to make a ritual wedding towel, and kills herself with these (p. 322).
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13. The usual reason for the short dress, according to the pregnant daughter, is
that she drank too much water and this made her stomach swell.
14. It should be noted that the office of marriage is sometimes seen to matter
more than the companionship of a husband. Thus, as in the quote above, being a
widow and being a mother is not a bad state of affairs. In fact, such a person may
have fewer responsibilities and more freedom to enjoy life.
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SIMONA DELIĆ (ZAGREB, CROATIA)
Peasant and Noble, Peasant and Urban: the Interweaving of Popular
and Elite Cultures in the Plot of the Mediterranean Ballad About the
Noble Shepherdess
Ф
Е
Abstract: The plot of the Mediterranean ballad in the Romance tradition, known under the
title of Noble pastora (the Noble Shepherdess), is analysed in this paper, largely on the examples
of Castillian and Dalmatian variants. It is emphasised that this ballad is one in which philological
criticism has identified the existence of genetic affinity between Greek, Albanian, Croatian, Italian,
French and Hispanic ballads. The fact is exceptionally important for analysis of the plot since similar
ballads can have a different plot dynamic and shaping of the personage components. This is a ballad
that places the emphasis from the very beginning on development of thematic aspect of the female
personage, thus formed as a family member, and also as a member of a particular social class. However,
the process of ambiguous focalization also confers 0ambiguity on the female personage so that she
can be comprehended within both the peasent and the aristocratic context or, in other words, in the
opposition peasent/urban. The twofold thematic aspect of this female character is not solved in a
definite way, so that her actual status most frequently remains concealed. The ballad intensifies the
blurring of identity by stressing the synthetic aspect of the character through the process of anagnorisis
and the disguising of the protagonists, as is found particularly in Hispanic romances. Such status of
the female personage serves as an impetus for renewed philological interpretation of the origins and
ethos of the ballad.
Key words: Croatian ballads, Mediterranean ballad, nobility, peasants, storytellers, singers,
Spanish romances.
ІМ
СІМОНА ДЕЛиЧ (ЗАГРЕБ, ХОРВАТІЯ)
Селянське й шляхетне, селянське й міське: взаємопроникнення
народної та елітарної культури в середземноморській баладі про
Шляхетну Пастушку
Резюме: В статті автор аналізує середземноморський сюжет балади про шляхетну пастушку, як текст, в якому акцентуалізується семантичний аспект образу жінки, з точки зору
селянського менталітету в протиставленні до менталітету шляхетної, елітарної верстви населення. Головний жіночий персонаж даної балади розглядається з точки зору родинних та соціальних стосунків у суспільстві.
Ключові слова: елітарна культура, середземноморська балада, селянська культура, сюжет
«Шляхетна Пастушка», шляхетна культура.
Critical interpretative ethnography has often drawn attention to the unauthorised adoption of the objects of their research by ethnology and folkloristics, to the
so-called «taming» of the peasant, to whom the scholarly study discourses or anthologies ascribe certain convictions and attitudes, and even statements, signing
off on them as being authentically rural. However, attention has also been focused,
though not so frequently, on the fact that that the same tradition does «strike back»,
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admittedly, not consciously reflecting - or at least not fully consciously – the elite
culture, while nonetheless reflecting the values that are conferred in the «look from
below» on certain modalities of everyday life or institutions other than those that are
traditionally rural. In his monograph on the Scottish ballad, David Buchan observes
that that genre of traditional songs, whose narrators in modern times largely originate from rural environments, are fascinated by the world of the aristocracy. «The
people», semi-professional singers, but also anonymous family narrators, rarely tell
tales about villagers. Quite to the contrary, kings, princesses and earls are their favourite protagonists. Something similar could be claimed in relation to the Spanish
romancero and to the old Croatian ballads (the bugaršćice), but the Mediaeval feudal-aristocratic ideologems are present when Croatian tradition is in question, both
in the decasyllabic ballads and in the epic poems of familial content noted down in
the 19th and 20th century, which are much more adapted to the rural milieu.
Although the storytellers, concealed behind the masks of narrators and personages, are ultimately always talking about themselves, precisely because of that identification with the personages of a different social status, there is a recognisable familiarisation in folklore of the aristocratic world, which is adapted to the rural environment, much nearer to the experience of the ballad narrators. But still, the appearance
of kings, earls and princesses in ballads and romances – which often interfere with
pages, servants and shepherds – as well as their familiarisation, are not merely «neutral» procedures that only mix the reality of diverse social strata, but a modality of
ambiguous focalisation in which differing worldviews meet and intertwine. And this
focalisation testifies to the elimination of boundaries between usual narratological
categories such as the character/narrator or narrator/storyteller, a fact much insisted
upon by postmodern narrative theory. In other words: when «nobles» speak or act
in the ballad, we are aware that their discourse filters through the point of view of the
narrator, who has been given the power of speech thanks to the storyteller. Traces of
that twofold focalisation can also be found in the modern tradition which, in what is
known of the performance context of Spanish romances in the Middle Ages and the
early Modern Age, has suffered a transformation in the type of its public and the modality of transmission. This is also the case with the Croatian tradition, where certain
respective testimony also confirms that the public was made up of members of diverse
social strata. When the context that gives life to the ballads disappears, the text «opens
up» and adapts to a new context which can once again serve as a framework for the
conflicts spoken about in the ballad: the differences between «noble» and «peasant»
transforms into an opposition of a different kind (between the village and the town,
between the warrior and the peasant, or between rich and poor).
Traditional narration of poems about the evil mother-in-law’s mistreatment
of her daughter-in-law while her son is away at war is well-known throughout
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Peasant and Noble, Peasant and Urban: the Interweaving of Popular and Elite
Cultures in the Plot of the Mediterranean Ballad About the Noble Shepherdess
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the broad Mediterranean region (and even out of the confines of that region), in
the Spanish, Sephardim, French, Flemish, Italian, Croatian, Albanian and Greek
traditions. These poems were published in 18th and 19th century anthologies in
the Romance part of the Mediterranean under the title The Noble Shepherdess or
The Noble Swineherd, providing a good example for mutual observation of two
stratificationally diverse but historically more or less close segments of traditional
society, elite and popular culture, as well as an inextricable intertwining of diverse
voices «from below» and «from above» in formation of the plot of the ballad itself.
The interpretation of this ballad in the light of the interweaving of voices «from
below» and «from above» is additionally complicated by the voices of the philologist and the folklorist, who often approach ballads and romances in an effort to
conjure up «Mediaeval society» and the aristocratic feudal matrix, which are traditionally regarded as the context bound up with the values and ethical and material
world in the ballad. Further, the plots of the ballads and narrative poems that are
the subject of this study can serve as a good example of the transference between
narrator, story-teller and public, but also between the folklorist and the philologist and the traditional plot, and/or between the researchers of the ballads and the
narrators themselves. They have evaluated with equal ambiguity as have the narrators themselves the social relations present in the ballad, sometimes entitling it
The Noble Shepherdess and sometimes The Lady Shepherdess, thus amalgamating
diverse social strata in a new hybrid identity, so characteristic to folklore. And, finally, observation of this ballad in a comparative context adds one more weight on
the side of «elitist culture», although this interpretation finds its counter-weight in
the repeatedly expressed or experienced feeling of «local cosmopolitanism» noted
in contemporary anthropological research of the Mediterranean communities,
which can serve as a sound framework for comparative ethnography.
This is a poem in which not only in the French but also in the other Romance
poems, and in the majority of the Croatian and Greek variants of the poem, which,
according to Doncieux, Nigra and Stein, started to cross over the linguistic borders from the La porcheronne French tradition towards Italy and the Balkan peninsula on the one hand, and Spain on the other, the male protagonist, who is called
away to war immediately at the beginning of the poem, embodies the personage
of the feudal warrior (Prince Marko in many of the Croatian plots). Although the
romance has not been noted among the 16th century romancero ballads, perhaps
also because of the disinclination of the editors of that time towards the romances
of novelistic-family themes, in the modern Hispanic tradition of studying the romancero, it is categorised in the considerably large group of «chivalrous romances» for the very reason that it contains recognisable feudal ideologems. Olinko
Delorko, too, when juxtaposing at the mid-20th century the Croatian ballad and
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romance genres with the epic decasyllabic discourse, dominant until then in the
Croatian environment, taking romance as the term for the genre of short narrative
poems with happy endings, as well as the genre of family epic poems, often cited
the feudal-aristocratic matrix present in Spanish romances, whose echoes he also
identified in domestic popular poems.
Thus, citing the male personage is one of the key arguments in proving that
what is in question in the example of The Noble Shepherdess is the «sunken cultural good». This ballad character, who is named in the majority of traditions is
also perhaps one of the most stable elements of the plot. The unnamed female
personage of ambiguous status («the lady shepherdess»), although present in the
titles of anthologies, is not taken into account in the comparative discourse on the
origins of the poem. The feudal matrix is also used in interpretation of the broad
diffusion of the poem throughout the Mediterranean region and in identification
of the «uniformity in diversity» of the plot in various Mediterranean traditions,
although it remains a riddle, as in so many other examples, how the poem spread
through such a large region, while, at the same time, retaining the most minute
details of the plot. According to G. Doncieux, this ballad first emerged in France,
as is witnessed to by the name of the French husband, Guilhem de Beavoir, that
was retained in many French variants of the poem, while the Guilhem in question
was a 13th century historic figure. Apart from that, Doncieux, assumes that this
particular Guilhelm, «one of the most powerful baron in Dauphiné», who owned
an estate in Beauvoir-de-Marc in Viennois and participated in the Crusades, lent
his name to Catalonian and Piedmont ballads, thanks to the similarities between
historical persons and the fictional personage, and due to the fact that the protagonist in the ballad, too, similarly to the Crusaders, was forced to travel «to the other
side of the sea» in His Majesty’s service. Doncieux further claims that the ballad
began crossing the linguistic and cultural borders from France towards Spain, on
the one hand, and towards Italy and the eastern Mediterranean, on the other. The
fact that the poem has been preserved among the Bosnian Sephardim is an argument lending itself to assumptions that the romance was part of Sephardic repertoire even before the Diaspora dispersion at the end of the 15th century, while,
in view of that fact, the diffusion of the ballad from France to the Iberian Peninsula shifts into the late Middle Ages. In reflections on the presence of the poem,
couched in epic decasyllabic verse and style and structurally nearer to the epic
poem than to the ballad on the Dalmatian islands and in central Dalmatia, even
the time spent by the Crusaders on the Adriatic coast during the 13th century
is mentioned, although the rural matrix is much more strongly emphasised in
the Croatian variants of this narrative poem, and the personages are much more
down-to-earth than those who appear, for example, in the western Mediterranean
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ecotype, which has also been noticed in other popular poems. When speaking of
the rich Greek tradition of the ballad about «the lady shepherdess», Eusebi Ayensa
Pratt agrees with Baud-Bovy that what is in question is an «import» from French
and Provençal traditions: the most complete plots have been noted on the island
of Cyprus, where the influence of the French Lusignan lineage was felt for almost
three centuries (from 1191 to 1489).
The Mediterranean context of the intensive as well as extensive livestock rearing serves as a contextual backdrop to the poem’s plot, although the poem is an
example of the stylised pastoral theme, so often found in learned poetry, but also
in folklore. The evil mother-in-law forces her daughter-in-law to perform alone
the task of «swineherd» in the French, Italian and Catalonian traditions, or of
the shepherdess of sheep, cows, and goats in the Castilian, Sephardim, Albanian,
Greek and Croatian traditions and/or forces her to perform a task which is not
appropriate to her social condition. In fact, it would not even be customary for a
female peasant in the Mediterranean communities to stay away from home during prolonged periods of time since it would endanger the «honour» of her husband and cause her own «shame». The other sequences, too, are common to the
most diverse traditions, clearly differentiated according to the eastern and western
Mediterranean ecotype. Regarding the «wondrous song» motif in the scene of recognition between husband and wife characteristic to Romance tradition, Croatian
ballads and epic poems are a transitional form between the western and eastern
Mediterranean ballad, while certain culturological features of the eastern Mediterranean areal are also present in the Sephardim ballad from Bosnia. The comparative framework of observation makes it possible for significant macro-regional
differences, and the variability already present at the level of the poetic discourse
within the individual macro-regions – the high level of variability, for example,
present in the Croatian tradition – to be reduced to the common denominator of
«ballad type». Recognition between husband and wife takes place indoors in the
Romance variants of the poem, but occurs outdoors on the mountain in the Croatian and Greek variants. A happy denouement crowns all the variants of the poem,
so that the ballad and/or epic poem ends with the restoration of the wife’s honour
and her re-introduction to her husband’s family as a member of equal standing.
However, comparison between the western Mediterranean and eastern Mediterranean ecotypes – and we take the Croatian ballad as representative of the transitional form as it adopted certain motifs from Romance traditions (for example,
the motif of the wondrous song in which the husband recognises his wife up in the
mountains) – questions a derivation of the ballad’s origin in elite culture, or solely
from that source, drawing attention to the impossibility of proving the origins of
the ballad from interpretations of the feudal-aristocratic matrix. Is it possible on
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the basis of the notations of modern traditions to claim that the ruralisation of the
plot is the result of traditionalisation, of the «submergence» of the plot which, for
example, originally had its place in elite culture, whether it was the text which derived from elite culture, or whether it was compiled by an itinerant poet-entertainer, because it is possible that quite the opposite could also have occurred? Feudal
ideologems, notably present in Romance variants, could themselves be the result
of subsequent input, of ambiguous focalisation of the topic that could have flowed
into popular culture for a folk public that observed the upper social classes largely
from a distance, when elite and popular culture started to separate. Also, that plot
could have received new stimulus and have perpetuated itself through modern
folkloristic and philological practice by notation of the poems in the field, when
the philologists and folklorists assumed, to an extent, the role of the elite public.
This is how the two diverse ways life represented by the clothing, food, and
lifestyle of the shepherdess and the «lady» is constantly contrasted in the Spanish
and in the Croatian traditions of the poem about the Noble Shepherdess. And these
two different life styles are contrasted even when it leads to the loss of coherence of
the plot and the characteristics ascribed to its main protagonists. As early as in the
introductory part of the poem, when the husband who is going off to war entrusts
his mother with the care of his wife, two modalities of life – peasant and aristocratic – are contrasted, and these standards of living are linked by the two possible positions of a new bride in her new family. However, these recommendations of a noble
warrior to his mother on how to treat his wife in his abscence could be regarded
as incompatible with the thematic aspect (of nobility) attributed to the knight. The
noble protagonist appears to have had very rural associations. Thus, for example, in
the Catalonian tradition, similarly to other Mediterranean Romance traditions, the
son entreats his mother not to send his wife out to take bread from the bread-oven,
nor to wash clothes; however, it is permitted that she sews and embroiders. In the
Balearic variants, the son also requests his mother that his wife, who comes from
«honest people» (gent honrada), be spared chores that she does not know how to
perform; only exceptionally, let her be given «the silver pitcher» for water, while she
should drink chocolate in the morning. In the Castilian tradition, the husband has
no other associations apart from those that are meant to protect his wife or give her
pleasure: let his mother and sister accompany his bride to mass and teach her how
to embroider. Sewing and embroidery are also occupations that a woman should
devote herself to in the Sephardim variants, which Manrique de Lara noted down in
Tangiers in Morocco in 1915. In the urban Sephardim versions from Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), the mother-in-law undertakes to watch over her daughter-inlaw as over her own daughter, and to take her for walks and to receptions. There are
no indications in all these plots that the other family members undertake menial or
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shepherding tasks, so that such instructions on how to behave towards the daughterin-law in the son’s absence can be identified as an injustice that has the features of
a breach of status, although familiarisation of the «noble» personages can be seen
in the tasks listed, which have fully rural associations. In any case, the storyteller’s
and narrator’s identification of the young wife’s socially dignified position and her
subsequent humiliation is clearly recognisable.
The Dalmatian hero can also forbid his mother to sent his wife out to herd the
sheep, carry water or do chores «to which she, so young, is not accustomed»; but
sometimes he merely recommends that his wife not be sent alone to bring water
or to go out into the fields «without a hat and a silken scarf» so that her skin not
be «darkened» walking in the sun, and the like. In other variants, he completely
excludes her from the domestic tasks to which she is not accustomed, although
it is clear that shepherding livestock is a customary occupation for all the other
women. In some cases there is a re-interpretation of social status: in the Croatian
ballads in which some of the personages have Muslim names, it is the woman
who is of higher social standing than the husband. However, even in the familiarised plots, traces of social opposition remain, which sometimes transform in
the Croatian variants noted down during the 19th and 20th centuries into other
conflictual relations, between the town and the village, between different ethnic
groups, between the Vlachs, or Wallachs, and the Littoral dwellers, with their diverse appertaining modalities of way of life and livelihood. While observing the
oppositions created on the occasion of classic notation of the poems, one should
bear in mind both the narrator/philologist and/or narrator/folklorist oppositions,
since the female narrators, often interrupted in carrying out their everyday tasks
by males or females «from town», who, with their notebooks and tape recorders in
their hands, obviously engage in something quite different from that from which
the daughter-in-law hopes to protect herself.
In both the Croatian and Spanish ballads, the union of the familial and class
aspect is also present when the mother-in-law breaks her promise to her son, and
the dress code is evoked through her order to her daughter-in-law to remove her
silken clothing and put on the shepherd smock. Apart from that, in the subtle
game of anagnorisis between the wife and husband, shepherding plays a prominent role and becomes an exceptionally ambiguous occupation that can bring into
question the interpersonal relations described in the ballad. The anagnorisis of the
personages – a frequent procedure in folklore – means «a transition from ignorance to knowledge», according to Aristotle, and is a reward to the virtuous and a
punishment to evil-doers, while in Mediaeval works it shows how God’s will governs human actions. However, extending the time of recognition directs attention
to the implicit object of that restraint, the standpoint responsible for prolonging
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recognition. And that artificial prolongation of recognition, which transmits the
experience of doubt, is almost always accompanied by the affirmation of some
other thematic content that is located on the other side of the manifest content.
In addition, recognition is also delayed in the Castilian tradition even after the
husband has recognised his wife: this delay makes it possible for him to test his
wife’s «honour», but also gives her time to complain about her mother-in-law’s
ill-treatment to an ostensibly unknown addressee.
In all the traditions of this Mediterranean ballad, shepherding livestock is
given an important role in the spouses’ mutual recognition: as if the woman has to
be a shepherdess in order to be led into the family. However, shepherding livestock
is primarily a locus of false identity, a change of dress that makes recognition more
difficult. Shepherds behave as aristocrats, while the «knights» are «worse» than the
shepherds. The two different ways of life that are represented by the clothing, food,
and the way of life of the shepherdess and the «lady» are constantly contrasted: in
that world of masks and delayed recognition, where shepherding livestock creates
a scenario prepared in advance and where appearance is deceptive, can we finally
ask whether, «real life», for its part, is beating under the masks? Aren’t those masks
connected in some way with the ethos of the ballad? Didn’t the woman have to be a
shepherdess precisely because the ballad tells a tale from the life of the nobility?
The discussion about the ethos of the ballad and its traces in modern tradition
often leads one onto very thin ice, particularly as regards the ballad of the Noble
Shepherdess, the origin of which is unknown. There are many examples in Mediaeval literature where the story of the evil mother-in-law is inserted into a plot whose
protagonists are aristocrats (for example, the Legend of the Swan Knight; the hagiographic story of St Godoliève). Apart from that, the mother-in-law’s irrational
hatred in those works is often connected to an exogamic marriage, as well as the
class to which the bride belongs, since she is ascribed higher status, or at least status different from that of her husband’s family. This is not to say that those works
directly influenced the genesis of the ballad. It is much more likely that a narrative
form already existed in popular tradition, as was often the case, to which novelesque
and hagiographic tales were often adapted. In addition, mistreatment reminiscent of
the type that the «noble shepherdess» has to endure appears in European traditional
ballads, while exogamy is also harshly judged in the plots of these ballads, which are
possibly linked to the German Mediaeval epic poem Kudrunsepos.
Discussion about whether the primacy in determining origin should be given
to folklore or literature is often similar to a discussion on which was earlier, the
chicken or the egg, and our intention here is not to initiate an interesting though
complex discussion on whether the rusticality that we recognise in the Noble
Shepherdess is «original» or is the outcome of rustic traditionalisation of the bal-
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lad and story, which were not rustic originally. In all these tales, both folkloristic
and chivalrous-hagiographic and epic, the loss of honour and the humiliation of
the wife are linked to exogamic marriage or with the forced absence of the wife
from her family home. Additionally, in the affirmation of a nuptial union based
on mutual love, and not on family intervention, one recognises certain ecclesiastic
ideologems that would become current with the changes undergone by Mediaeval
aristocratic families. Perhaps the narrators familiarised the nobles relying on the
folklore matrices also present in other ballads, transforming the aristocrat into a
shepherdess, while identifying with her at the same time. Perhaps the only way
openly to affirm exogamy and to tell a tale that had a happy ending, was to narrate
a ballad in which the leading protagonists were aristocrats.
It is possible that familiarisation was not a «neutral» procedure, while the identification with the mimetic aspect of the woman came about in later tradition. Perhaps it was only in this way that the noble personages, and the public itself, could
learn about the «real» life of a shepherd that Arcadian literature had described as
being so ideal, and thus subsequently rectify certain injustices. Or something could
at least change when the experience of «the shepherd life or spiritual servility» was
evoked: men would no longer go to war; avarice, greed, and mortal sins would disappear; and the human being would become «what he really was». The diverse ways of
life of the «shepherdess» and the «lady» even provoked the interest of the narrators,
who sometimes tried to explain the irrational hatred of the mother-in-law by her
daughter-in-law’s different status. In some of the Croatian variants, the shepherdess
speaks about her unfortunate life to the hero, whom she does not recognise as her
husband, and mentions how she had been a servant-girl in the King’s castle, when
Prince Marko had proposed to and married her. In this way, the ballads preoccupied
with the problem of exogamy drew nearer to one of the possible narrative realisations of the theme: imagined exogamy between diverse social strata.
And who is our noble shepherdess? Is she more an aristocrat than a shepherdess?
Either that difference is unimportant, or what is really important is that the difference
is not important? Considering familiarisation is somehow independent of considering
the ethos of the ballad’s plot, whether its origins should be sought in popular or in elite
culture. The «historical cunning» of the plot, known only from poems noted down
during the 19th and 20th centuries, conceals the traces that could unambiguously point
to the popular or elite origins of the plot. For how can we determine from the plot that
evokes the feudal-aristocratic matrix, but is, nonetheless, ruralised as a whole, whether
that ruralisation was the result of the traditionalisation of the plot, which, for example,
could have stemmed originally from elite culture, or whether the absolute opposite
occurred, and the aristocratic-feudal ideologems were themselves the result of subsequent input, a twofold focalisation of the subject matter that could have originated in
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popular culture? Ballads bear traces of contexts that seem to us today to be distant and
unfamiliar. Even in the case that we can identify some possible «source» from which
the original story stemmed, these poems liberated themselves of their initial context,
while the rules of their «narrative games» did not coincide with the rules that were
valid for the imaginary «original plot». It is most likely that the woman was always a
shepherdess and, at the same time, an aristocrat: the formula that equates the noble
status of the woman with dignity and the absence of humiliation opens the door to
contamination from other ballads and stories of class conflicts. Perhaps the origins of
the ballad should be sought in such contaminations by common traditional heritage,
which also included learned literature and folklore, a contamination that continued
even after the shaping of the ballad type. If one assumes that the ballad originated
in a folk environment, also noting the feudal-chivalrous ideologems with which the
performers were more or less directly acquainted, then by oral translation in the Dalmatian environment, or perhaps later during its long traditional life, it underwent additional familiarisation and adaptation to the cultural codes of its new environment.
As emphasised by Maja Bošković-Stulli «themes and formal features, even if received
partly from foreign performers, did not have to belong to high literature even among
those from whom they were adopted, and even less in a low domestic community,
which transformed and recreated them».
In fact, we do not and can not know who the «noble shepherdess» was nor from
which narrative viewpoint – of admiration or repulsion – her behaviour and that of the
other personages was looked at, when the ballad was starting out on its traditional life
and its plot was being shaped. Moreover, if we try to focus on the ethos of the poem,
there is always a possibility that one more «turn of the screw» is hiding under the mask
of the plot. Accelerated modernisation of the village in Spain and the changed professional profile of the peasants, as testified to by the remarks in more recent field research
in that country, the transformation of the village/town opposition into a new opposition
of employed/unemployed after the entry of Spain into the European Union, emigration
to the United States and Australia, and tourism, of which we learn from «accompanying
words» to Croatian manuscript collections from the 1960s, must certainly have altered
the referential circle of this poem, too. Although the text of this poem in its evocation of
the elite code is fairly stable in both the Hispanic and the Croatian tradition, it is known
that a comparison of notations of 16th century romances and modern plots shows how
altered context can leave traces in the text itself. Today, the woman in the ballad of the
noble shepherdess is, notwithstanding, both noble lady and shepherdess at the same
time; or is she occasionally perhaps urban woman and peasant woman, although the
difference is sometimes important for shaping of the actual plot? The wondrous song
that rings out through the mountains in the ballad of the noble shepherdess is always
ambivalent and ambiguous and prolongs the anagnorisis.
90
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Kačić-Miošić Demise) 1861. Zadar: s.n.
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eckhard john (FREiburg, Germany)
Das Lied als historisches Gedächtnis
Ein rußlanddeutscher Gesang über die Deportationen des 20.
Jahrhunderts
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Abstract: Historische Ereignislieder sind eine prominente Gattung traditioneller Lieder, die in
jüngster Zeit wieder verstärkt Gegenstand des wissenschaftlichen Diskurses ist. Am Beispiel bekannter
Lieder der Russlanddeutschen, die in den zwanziger Jahren in der Ukraine aufgezeichnet wurden, soll
diese Debatte aufgegriffen und fortgeführt werden.
Die Grundlage für diese Ausführungen bietet die Volksliedsammlung des russischen Germanisten
Viktor Schirmunski, der in den Jahren 1924–1931 (mit Unterstützung der Ukrainischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften) umfangreiche Feldforschungen durchgeführt hat. Diese Volkslied-Materialien
gerieten – aufgrund der politischen Umstände – weitgehend in Vergessenheit und wurden erst in den
letzten Jahren neu erschlossen und der Forschung wieder zugänglich gemacht.
Im Zentrum des Vortrags steht das Lied «Aus Wolhynien sind gezogen die Verjagten arm und
reich»: Dieses in der Zeit des Ersten Weltkriegs entstandene Lied begleitet in seinen verschiedenen
Varianten und Umformungen Schicksal und Lebenswege der Russlanddeutschen bis in die Gegenwart –
bemerkenswert daran ist, dass es sich dabei um ein bis heute rein mündlich tradiertes Lied handelt.
Key word: traditionelle Lieder.
екгард Джон
Пісня як історична пам’ять
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Резюме: Пісні про історичні події становлять вагомий жанровий різновид традиційних пісень, який останнім часом знову стає чільним предметом наукового дискурсу. Ці дебати варто підхопити і продовжити на прикладі матеріалів російських німців, записаних в Україні у 20‑х роках.
Основу для пропонованих висновків становить зібрання народних пісень російського
германіста Віктора Жирмунського, який впродовж 1924–1931 рр. здійснив масштабні польові
дослідження за підтримки Української Академії наук. Внаслідок політичних обставин ці матеріали з народних пісень здебільшого зазнали забуття і лише в останні роки були наново відкриті та знову стали доступними науковому обстеженню.
У центрі уваги доповіді стоїть пісня «З Волині тяглися вигнанці – бідні й багаті»: ця пісня,
яка постала у роки 1‑ї світової війни, супроводжує у своїх численних варіантах та видозмінах
долю та життєві шляхи російських німців до сьогодення – до того ж прикметно, що йдеться
про пісню, яка дотепер передається суто усним шляхом.
Ключові слова: пісні про історичні події, польові дослідження, жанрові різновиди традиційних пісень, науковий дискурс.
Das historisch-politische Lied nimmt unter den Gattungen des «Volksliedes»
seit jeher eine zentrale Stellung ein. In den letzten Jahren wurde hierzu von literaturwissenschaftlicher Seite ein kritischer Diskussionsbedarf geltend gemacht, wobei
die Berliner Germanistin Karina Kellermann den Abschied vom «historischen Volkslied»
proklamierte – eine Formulierung, die unmittelbar an die programmatische Neuorientierung des Faches «Volkskunde» um 1970 erinnert, als das Ludwig-Uhland-In94
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stitut für empirische Kulturwissenschaft an der Universität Tübingen demonstrativ
den Abschied vom Volksleben verkündete 1. Während Karina Kellermann ihre Thesen
anhand politischer Ereignislieder des 15. Jahrhunderts entwickelte, möchte ich aus
der Perspektive des 20. Jahrhunderts einen Beitrag zu dieser Debatte leisten und dabei ein außergewöhnliches Beispiel aus dem Repertoire der traditionellen Lieder der
Rußlanddeutschen ins Zentrum meiner Ausführungen stellen. Die Wahl eines rußlanddeutschen Liedes ist auch dem Tagungsort Kiew geschuldet, denn bei den Schauplätzen dieser Liedgeschichte gibt es vielfältige Verknüpfungen mit der Ukraine.
Es ist noch gar nicht lange her, da erhielt das Deutsche Volksliedarchiv (DVA)
eine interessante Anfrage: gesucht wurde das «Lied von den verjagten Russlanddeutschen», wie es in dem Schreiben genannt wurde. Dessen Anfang lautet
folgendermaßen:
Ф
Aus der Heimat mussten ziehen,
die Verjagten arm und reich,
fort wo keine Rosen blühen
alle waren wir uns gleich.
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Ein solches Lied war den vorhandenen Lied-Katalogen des DVA jedoch nicht
bekannt, auch über die speziellen Liedsammlungen der Rußlanddeutschen ließ
sich hierzu nichts finden. Die Anfrage gelangte schließlich zu mir, da ich mich in
den letzten Jahren intensiv mit der Volksliedsammlung des russischen Philologen
und Germanisten Viktor Schirmunski beschäftigt habe. Schirmunski hatte in den
zwanziger Jahren zahlreiche Forschungsreisen in die rußlanddeutschen Siedlungen unternommen, insbesondere in die der Ukraine. Auf dem Hintergrund seiner
Sammlung zeigte sich rasch, dass es sich bei dem gesuchten «Lied von den verjagten Russlanddeutschen» um eine neuere Umdichtung des älteren Kolonistenliedes vom Schicksal der Wolhynien-Deutschen handelt:
Aus Wolhynien sind gezogen
Die Verjagten arm und reich.
Keiner ging den Weg auf Rosen,
Alle waren sie jetzt gleich.
1 Abschied vom Volksleben, [Red.: Klaus Geiger, Utz Jeggle], Tübingen 1970 (Untersuchungen
des Ludwig-Uhland-Instituts der Universität Tübingen 27); Karina Kellermann, Abschied vom
«historischen Volkslied». Studien zu Funktion, Ästhetik und Publizität der Gattung historisch-politische
Ereignisdichtung, Tübingen: Niemeyer 2000 (Hermaea N.F. 90).
95
eckhard john (FREiburg, Germaniy)
Sonntag früh am sechsten Juli,
Grade in der Erntezeit,
Musste[n] durch die Trübsalsschule
Alle, arm und reiche Leut.
Ф
Е
Viktor Schirmunski hatte dieses Lied im Sommer 1927 in der rußlanddeutschen Kolonie Worms (Kreis Nikolajew, Ukraine) aus der Volksliedsammlung
des dortigen Lehrers aufgezeichnet. Die Textgrundlage war eine eigenhändige
Niederschrift der Gewährsperson, eines anonym bleibenden Sängers 2.
Der Titel von Schirmunskis Liedaufzeichnung akzentuierte in diesem Fall
ebenfalls Die Verjagten. Gemeint waren damit die in der Zeit des Ersten Weltkrieges aus Wolhynien nach Sibirien deportierten Rußlanddeutschen. Das Lied
schildert in insgesamt acht Strophen die leidvolle Erfahrung dieser kriegsbedingten Zwangsumsiedlung durch die zaristische Militäradministration.
ІМ
2.
Angespannt und schwer beladen
Stund der Wagen vor der Tür.
Manche Sachen, o wie schade,
Bleiben, man hat nichts dafür!
Vorwärts gings durch Sturm und Wetter
Auf Befehl der Obrigkeit,
Keiner findet keinen Retter,
Der ihn aus der Not befreit.
3.
So ging’s vorwärts über Wälder,
Über Hügel, Berg und Tal,
Auch durch Städte und durch Felder,
Und durch Dörfer ohne Zahl.
Auf dem Strom mit einem Dampfer
2 Die Verjagten („Aus Wolhynien sind gezogen“), bei Schirmunski M 13, Nr. 1: Kol[onie]
Worms (Kreis Nikolajew) U[kraine]. Sammlung von Lehrer Bletsch (Niederschrift des Sängers).
[Aufgezeichnet von] V[iktor] Schirmunski, Sommer 1927. – Schirmunskis Volksliedarchiv befindet
sich heute im Phonogrammarchiv und in der Handschriftenabteilung des Instituts für Russische
Literatur (Puschkin-Haus), St. Petersburg; als Kopie komplett auch im Deutschen Volksliedarchiv,
Freiburg im Breisgau; siehe dazu auch Anmerkung 4.
96
Fuhren wir. In einem Kahn
Fuhren wir auf manchen Orten,
Und zuletzt auf Eisenbahn.
Ф
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4.
Auf den langen Trübsalswegen
Kam der Tod, hielt gleichen Schritt.
Kleine Kinder, alte Leute,
Junge Blüten nahm er mit.
Es ist gar nicht zu beschreiben,
Diese grosse Trübsalszeit!
Jeden drückt das schwere Leiden,
Ach, wann endet doch das Leid.
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5.
Endlich ist der Tag gekommen,
Wo wir in Sibirien hier
Wurden freundlich aufgenommen,
Fanden Wohnung und Quartier.
Haben hier bei guten Leuten
Obdach für die Wanderzeit.
So sorgt Gott in schweren Zeiten,
Ihm sei Dank in Ewigkeit!
6.
Was vergangen und geschehen
Hat ein jeder schon gefühlt.
Aber wie’s uns noch wird gehen
Ist vor allen jetzt verhüllt.
Doch das eine sind wir sicher,
Dass uns geht nach Gottes Rat:
Es ist ja der rechte Richter,
Der noch nie gefehlet hat.
7.
Gott wird ja die Seinen schützen
97
In der schwersten Trübsalszeit.
Sollten gleich die Berge stürzen
Und uns drohn in Ewigkeit.
Das hat Gott vor alten Zeiten
Jedem Gläubigen getan,
Und er will ja uns bereiten
Ein gelobtes Kanaan.
Е
8.
Ф
Drum getrost, in trüben Stunden,
Geht’s auch gleich durch schweres Leid!
Denn darinnen hat gefunden
Mancher seine Seligkeit.
Gott führt zwar auch seine Kinder
Oft in schweres Herzeleid,
Damit doch die frechen Sünder
Dächten an die Ewigkeit.
Zur Sprache gebracht werden hier
die unerwartete Plötzlichkeit der Verschleppung und die damit einhergehende Auflösung von sozialen Schranken und Strukturen («alle waren sie
jetzt gleich»),
• die Unausweichlichkeit des Schicksals: es ist ein «Befehl der Obrigkeit», dem
niemand entgehen konnte, von dem sich niemand freikaufen konnte («keiner findet [k]einen Retter, der ihn aus der Not befreit»);
• die endlos lange Reise, die durch alle denkbaren topographischen Erscheinungsformen führt und verschiedenste Transportmittel benötigt: Neben
Pferd und Wagen wird auch mit Dampfer, Kahn und Eisenbahn die Distanz
überbrückt, und quer durch Wälder und Felder, Hügel, Berge, Täler, Städte
oder Dörfer («ohne Zahl») geht die Reise;
• die existentiellen Auswirkungen: Schon «auf den langen Trübsalswegen» der
Deportierten, also auf dem langen Treck nach Sibirien, «kam der Tod». Zahlreiche Menschen wurden Opfer der Strapazen, vor allem die Schwächeren
(«kleine Kinder, alte Leute») starben schon auf dem Transport. Der aus heiterem Himmel kommende Einschnitt in die bisherige Existenz war eine traumatische Kollektiverfahrung («Jeden drückt das schwere Leiden. Ach, wann
endet doch das Leid?»);
ІМ
•
98
die Ankunft in Sibirien: Sie wird als Erleichterung und Erlösung von den Transporttorturen empfunden (man wurde «freundlich aufgenommen» von «guten
Leuten», man hatte nun «Wohnung und Quartier» und somit «Obdach»). Sibirien
war der Ort, wo man erst einmal etwas zur Ruhe kommen konnte und wo
sich die Reflexion des gerade Erlebten in Form eines Liedes vollzieht («wo
wir in Sibirien hier») – und wo auch nach dem Sinn für diese traumatische
Erfahrung gesucht wird.
Den Rahmen und Horizont für diesen Versuch einer Sinnstiftung bildet
die christliche Glaubenswelt, in der ja viele rußlanddeutsche Gemeinschaften
besonders tief verwurzelt waren: So sei es Gottes Sorge zu verdanken, dass man
in Sibirien vergleichsweise gut aufgenommen wurde («so sorgt Gott in schweren
Zeiten»). Und auch die Unklarheit und Unsicherheit der Zukunft («Aber wie’s uns
noch wird gehen, ist vor allem jetzt verhüllt») wird Gottes Hand überantwortet (er
habe «noch nie gefehlt»). In Gott könne man vertrauen (er schützt «die Seinen»).
Der letzte Sinn solchen schweren Leides sei eine intensivere Glaubenserfahrung
und die Eindämmung der Sünden («damit doch die frechen Sünder dächten an
die Ewigkeit»).
Das Lied soll in den zwanziger Jahren in den rußlanddeutschen Siedlungen
sehr verbreitet gewesen sein. In Schirmunskis Volksliedsammlung finden sich
Aufzeichnungen aus der Ukraine wie auch aus der Leningrader Region (von
dort stammt auch eine recht frühe Quelle: aus den Jahren um 1917) 3, und in den
Beständen des Deutschen Volksliedarchivs gibt es noch ergänzende Liedbelege
aus Wolhynien.
In dem nach gattungen strukturierten Volksliedarchiv von Viktor Schirmunski wurde dieses Lied in die Rubrik «Kolonistische Lieder» eingeordnet. Was war
mit diesem Begriff gemeint? Hier geht es nicht um die Kolonien der westlichen
Großmächte in Afrika oder Asien. Vielmehr basiert der Begriff «Kolonistische
Lieder» auf der Selbstbezeichnung der aus Deutschland emigrierten Siedler im
russischen Zarenreich: sie nannten sich selbst «Kolonisten» und ihre Dörfer «Kolonien». «Kolonistische Lieder» sind also jene Lieder, die in diesen Siedlungen entstanden sind. Im Gegensatz zu den zahlreichen aus Deutschland stammenden
«Volksliedern», die unter den Rußlanddeutschen verbreitet und beliebt waren,
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•
3 Liederheft von Frau Geweiler (1917), Kol. Nikolajewka, Kr. Nowgorod; dort aufgezeichnet
von Viktor Schirmunski im Sommer 1930. Sammlung Schirmunski: M 13, Nr. 1 (L). Hier fehlt im
Vergleich zur oben zitierten Liedquelle die achte Strophe, ansonsten ist der Liedtext weitgehend
deckungsgleich. – Das Lied sei (so Schirmunski) in jenen Jahren «wie man sagt, in einer deutschrussischen Zeitung veröffentlicht» worden; vgl. Viktor Schirmunski, Das kolonistische Lied in
Russland, in: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde 37/38 (1927/28), S. 202. Die dort abgedruckte
Liedfassung entspricht in seinem Archiv der Signatur M 13, Nr. 2: aufgezeichnet in Rybalsk (bei
Jekaterinoslaw, Ukraine) aus dem Liederheft von Helene Faber, im Sommer 1926.
99
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hatten die «kolonistischen Lieder» ihren Ursprung direkt vor Ort in den rußlanddeutschen Dörfern.
Es spricht für den Weitblick von Viktor Schirmunski als Wissenschaftler, dass
er diese «kolonistischen Lieder» mit besonderem Interesse dokumentierte. Überhaupt ist seine – bislang noch kaum bekannte – Volksliedsammlung die wichtigste
Quellenbasis für das populäre und traditionelle Lied der Rußlanddeutschen in der
Zeit vor dem stalinistischen Terror. Hier seien lediglich einige Eckdaten zur Entstehung und Bedeutung dieser Sammlung skizziert: Schirmunski sammelte in den
Jahren 1924–1932 mit seinen Mitarbeiter/innen auf diversen Feldforschungsreisen Volkslieder in rußlanddeutschen Kolonien. Regionaler Schwerpunkt der Expeditionen war die Ukraine, wo die Forschungen größtenteils durch die Ukrainische Akademie der Wissenschaften unterstützt wurden. Methodisch orientierte
sich Schirmunski an der Arbeitsweise des Deutschen Volksliedarchivs (Freiburg
i. Br.), also am seinerzeit modernsten Stand der deutschsprachigen Liedforschung. Ergebnis seiner Feldforschungen waren rund 4.000 Textaufzeichnungen
und ca. 1.000 Tondokumente. Ursprünglich war diese Sammlung als deutsches
Volksliedarchiv für die Ukraine geplant, aber dann realisierte Schirmunski seine
Idee doch als regional weitgreifenderes Archiv in Leningrad und integrierte in die
Sammlung auch Aufzeichnungen aus Transkaukasien, aus der Region um Leningrad und partiell auch aus der Wolgarepublik. Dieses «Deutsche Volksliedarchiv
Leningrad» musste 1933 seine Arbeit einstellen. Die Archivalien überstanden jedoch Krieg und Blockade, blieben allerdings über 60 Jahre weitgehend ungenutzt.
In den Jahren 2000–2003 hat das Deutsche Volksliedarchiv in Kooperation mit
Prof. Dr. Natalia D. Swetosarowa (Staatliche Universität St. Petersburg) und mit
dem Institut für Russische Literatur (Puschkin-Haus) der Russischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften St. Petersburg diese Sammlung wieder rekonstruiert, reaktiviert, gesichert und der Forschung wieder zugänglich gemacht 4.
Innerhalb dieser Volksliedsammlung bilden die «Kolonistischen Lieder» eine
besonders interessante Abteilung. Denn in diesen Liedern teilt sich die Lebenswelt
der Rußlanddeutschen wesentlich unmittelbarer mit als in jenen Liedern, die aus
Deutschland übernommen wurden. Hier findet man etwa regional bezogene Balladen, Zeitungslieder oder Ortsneckereien; man stößt auch auf überregionale
Charakteristika wie z.B. das Phänomen zweisprachiger Mischlieder; und man begegnet Liedern, die sich mit verschiedenen markanten Ereignissen der rußland4 Über diese Sammlung informiert detailliert: Traditionelle Lieder der Russlanddeutschen. Die
Volksliedsammlung von Viktor M. Schirmunski. Ein Quellenhandbuch, hrsg. Eckhard John und Natalia D.
Swetosarowa, Münster: Waxmann (Volksliedstudien, Bd. 8), erscheint voraussichtlich Ende 2009; siehe
auch Eckhard John, Russlanddeutsches «Volkslied». Geschichte und Analyse seiner Konstruktion, in: Lied
und populäre Kultur / Song and Popular Culture 48 (2003), S. 133–161.
100
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deutschen Geschichte beschäftigen, wie etwa dem eingangs beschriebenen Lied
von der zaristischen Deportation der Wolhyniendeutschen in der Zeit des Ersten
Weltkriegs. Überhaupt finden sich in Schirmunskis Sammlung «kolonistischer
Lieder» ziemlich viele Lieder aus der Zeit des Ersten Weltkrieges, auch dies ein
Hinweis auf seine moderne Wissenschaftsauffassung im Sinne einer Offenheit gegenüber einer gegenwartsbezogenen Kulturwissenschaft 5.
Das Spektrum der «kolonistischen Lieder» zu historischen Ereignissen reicht
punktuell von der Zeit des Krimkriegs (1853–1856) über den Russisch-Türkischen Krieg (1877/78) und den Russisch-Japanischen Krieg (1903–1905) bis hin zur
Revolution 1917 und Sowjetzeit (z. B. ein Lied über die große Hungersnot 1921).
Manche dieser Lieder sind auch in unserer Gegenwart noch im Liedgut der Rußlanddeutschen präsent und nehmen dort spezifische Funktionen ein: Anhand der
Geschichte des Liedes Das Manifest der Kaiserin – eine Reaktion auf die Einführung der allgemeinen Wehrpflicht für die Kolonisten (1874) – lässt sich etwa zeigen, wie aus einem generationsgebundenen Lied mit regional begrenzter Verbreitung ein rußlanddeutsches «Volkslied» gemacht wurde. Dieser liedgeschichtliche
Prozess war eng verknüpft mit dem Prozess der Erfindung und Entwicklung der
Diskursfigur vom rußlanddeutschen «Volkslied». Dabei ist folgende Konstellation
charakteristisch: Just zu dem Zeitpunkt, als das Lied in der realen Singpraxis eine
nur noch marginale Rolle spielt, erscheint es in jenen gedruckten Sammlungen,
die im Zeichen des «Volksliedes» Einfluss auf die Repertoirestruktur der Singpraxis nehmen wollen 6.
Gänzlich anders verhält es sich beim eingangs angeführten «Wolhynien-Lied».
Während das Lied vom Manifest der Kaiserin nach seinem Ende als gruppenspezifisches Gebrauchslied und der danach einsetzenden Rezeption als «Volkslied»
hauptsächlich in gedruckter Form anzutreffen ist, findet man das «WolhynienLied» in keiner gedruckten rußlanddeutschen Liedsammlung – obwohl es die Geschichte der Rußlanddeutschen im 20. Jahrhundert kontinuierlich begleitet hat
und dabei verschiedene Varianten ausprägte. Deswegen sei hier die Geschichte
des «Wolhynien-Liedes» noch etwas näher beleuchtet.
Neben Schirmunski hat sich frühzeitig auch der volkskundliche Sprachinselforscher Alfred Karasek der Aufzeichnung und Dokumentation dieses Liedes
angenommen: in seinem 1931 zusammen mit Kurt Lück veröffentlichten Buch
über Die deutschen Siedlungen in Wolhynien ist im volkskundlichen Teil eine Liedfassung abgedruckt, die aus dem polnischen Teil Wolhyniens stammt und sich
5 Dazu ausführlich Eckhard John, «Da amüsiert der Nemez sich». Die «kolonistischen Lieder» der
Russlanddeutschen, in: Lied und populäre Kultur / Song and Popular Culture 48 (2003), S. 163–205.
6 Zur Geschichte des Liedes «Das Manifest der Kaiserin»: John, Russlanddeutsches «Volkslied»
(2003), wie Anm. 4.
101
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von den Aufzeichnungen Schirmunskis partiell unterscheidet. Die hier als erste
Strophe angeführten Verse fehlen in der ukrainischen Fassung ebenso wie die
Strophen 5 und 8 7. Dafür fällt bei Karasek wiederum mehr als die Hälfte des von
Schirmunski dokumentierten Textes weg. Aber Karasek und Lück führen einen
Autor für das Lied ins Feld: den Kantor Mietz aus Kadyszcze, der das Lied nach
eigener Aussage 1916 im sibirischen Turgaigebiet verfasst haben will. In einer späteren Mitteilung an das Deutsche Volksliedarchiv räumte Karasek freilich ein:
«Auch einige andere Kantoren, ja sogar ein Pastor, wurden uns als Dichter des Liedes angegeben, neben Mietz haben noch zwei weitere dies ausdrücklich angegeben» 8.
Wer wirklich der Urheber dieses Liedes war, bleibt also unklar (und wird sich
wohl auch nicht mehr klären lassen). Entscheidender ist ohnehin etwas anderes:
Der Umstand, dass dieses Lied bereits in den zwanziger Jahren in unterschiedlichen Fassungen bekannt war 9, legt die Schlussfolgerung nahe, dass mehrere Autoren an der Textproduktion beteiligt waren.
Auffällig bei der frühen Variantenbildung zu diesem Lied sind zunächst die regionalen Unterschiede: so finden sich etwa die Strophen der religiösen Sinnstiftung
(die Schirmunski in der Ukraine aufgezeichnet hatte) gar nicht in den Liedbelegen,
die Karasek im polnischen Teil Wolhyniens sammelte. Dort kursierten stattdessen
andere Strophen, die sich wiederum in der Ukraine nicht nachweisen lassen, z.B.:
ІМ
Also ist der Mordgedanken
Von der Obrigkeit gestellt,
Aus Wolhynien sollen wanken
Alle Deutschen in die Welt 10.
7 [Alfred] Karasek, [Kurt] Lück: Die deutschen Siedlungen in Wolhynien. Geschichte,
Volkskunde, Lebensfragen. Leipzig 1931 (Deutsche Gaue im Osten 3), S. 64.
8 Alfred Karasek an DVA, 24. März 1953, siehe DVA: B 46.242. – Die Stellung eines Kantors
charakterisiert Karasek wie folgt: «Kantoren waren in Wolhynien die unausgebildeten Lehrkräfte, die
in den vielfach weltabgelegenen Siedlungen auch an Stelle des 1–2mal jährlich zu Besuch weilenden
Pastors die Lesegottesdienste, Taufen, Hochzeiten und Begräbnisse halten mussten». (ebd.)
9 Davon haben sich jedoch nur wenige Liedaufzeichnungen erhalten; vgl. DVA: A 195.222,
B 44.040, B 46.250. – Karasek berichtete 1953, dass er in den Jahren 1924–1939 etwa 25–
35 Aufzeichnungen («mindestens 2–3 Dutzend des wolhynischen Verschickungsliedes»)
zusammengetragen habe, welche sich unter seinem «volkskundlichen Quellenmaterial, das die
Sowjetsoldaten 1945 in unserem Haus verbrannten», befunden hätten; Alfred Karasek an DVA,
24. März 1953, siehe DVA: F 4008. Auch in einem kleinen wolhynischen Liederbüchlein soll das
Lied um 1930 gedruckt worden sein; unbekanntes Liederbüchlein (ca. 1928–1932), gedruckt von
Gustav Hintze aus Markowitz, Kirchspiel Radomysl; laut Mitteilung von Karl Neumann (Žytomir /
Heimatort: Neu Markowitz) im Herbst 1941 gegenüber Alfred Karasek; vgl. DVA: F 4005.
10 Karasek, Lück (1931), wie Anm. 3, Strophe 1.
102
Diese Strophe taucht in allen Aufzeichnungen aus Polnisch-Wolhynien auf,
oft sogar als erste Strophe des Liedes. Auch finden sich in mehreren Belegen zwei
Strophen, die sich mit den Opfern auf dem Transport nach Sibirien genauer beschäftigen:
Е
Keine Christengräber stehen,
Sarglos wird man eingescharrt,
Fremde achtlos weitergehen
Wie es ist so Heidenart.
Ф
Viele fanden ihre Lieben
In der Fremde nimmermehr,
Weil sie unterwegs verblieben,
Irren in der Welt umher 11.
ІМ
Zudem sind noch sieben weitere Strophen aus der Zeit vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg belegt, die in erster Linie ergänzende Details des leidvollen und beschwerlichen Weges nach Sibirien zum Thema haben, z.B.:
Manchmal ging es mit Bewachung,
Wie wenn wir Verbrecher sein,
Doch am meisten war es anders,
Ließ man uns so ganz allein 12.
Auch die Ankunft und Aufnahme in Sibirien wird punktuell anders beschrieben:
Angekommen in Sibirien
Heißt es bald auf Arbeit gehn,
Weil wir sonst verhungert wären,
Niemand hat auf uns gesehn 13.
11 DVA: A 195.222, Strophe 11 und 12. Aufgezeichnet im Sommer 1926 in Alexandrow bei
Torczyn (Polnisch-Wolhynien), Vorsänger: Alfred Jeden (an das DVA 1953 durch Alfred Karasek).
Beide Strophen auch in der Fassung DVA: B 46.250.
12 Ebd. Strophe 9.
13 Ebd. Strophe 13.
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Die Verlässlichkeit von Karaseks Liedbelegen ist angesichts des kriegsbedingten Verlustes seines Originalmaterials nicht ganz unproblematisch, vollends
fragwürdig werden seine Liedaufzeichnungen jedoch für die Zeit des Zweiten
Weltkrieges, als er u.a. als Mitglied der Waffen-SS im Rußlandfeldzug diente und
noch dabei – sozusagen Gewehr bei Fuß – «Volkslieder» sammelte. Dieser Sammelkontext wird beispielhaft deutlich anhand einer Liedaufzeichnung aus dem
Lager Blumental, Rayon Bulin («Sowjetwolhynien»), zu der Karasek im Herbst
1941 nach der 8. Strophe notierte:
Das Lied «hatte noch 4 Strophen, die ich aber nicht mehr [aus dem handschriftlichen Liederbuch der Gewährsperson] abschreiben konnte, weil unsere
Kompagnie weiter ging» 14.
Der Volksliedsammler als Uniformträger des Kriegsgegners und Besatzungssoldat, als «Gebietsbevollmächtigter im Stabe der Umsiedlung» – das ist freilich
eine gänzlich andere Forschungsgrundlage als bei Viktor Schirmunski, der als
seriöser Forscher die verschiedenen rußlanddeutschen Siedlungen aufsuchte.
Jedoch ist dies nur ein Aspekt dieser Liedgeschichte zu Zeiten des zweiten großen
Krieges, denn die Expansionsbestrebungen des Nazi-Reiches hinterließen hier noch
weitere Spuren: im Zuge der nazistischen Umsiedlung der Rußlanddeutschen entstanden verschiedene Umdichtungen des «Wolhynien-Liedes», die diese Zwangsmaßnahmen im Sinne des Hitler-Reiches kommentierten. Da heißt es:
«Aus Wolhynien sind umgesiedelt,
alle Deutschen arm und reich»
«Aus Bessarabien sind wir gezogen
alle Deutschen arm und reich»
«Aus Güldendorf sind wir gezogen,
alle Menschen arm und reich»
«Aus Galizien ziehn wir Deutsche
Heimatwärts nach dem Vaterland» 15
14 Karasek 1953 gegenüber dem DVA; vgl. A 195.226. – Zu Karasek siehe Jan Zimmermann,
Die Kulturpreise der Stiftung FVS 1935–1945. Darstellung und Dokumentation, Hamburg: Christians
2000, S. 550–553.
15 Siehe DVA: A 161.991, A 168.577, A 172.902, A 161.865; Hervorhebungen vom Autor.
104
Und wohin zogen sie? Sie zogen in die Auffanglager im sogenannten «Warthegau», der offiziell als «Reichsgau Wartheland» firmierte und mit dem die NS‑Administration 1940 die westlichen Teile Polens annektierte. Hierhin wurden viele
Russlanddeutsche aus den Gebieten der Sowjetunion, die von der Wehrmacht besetzt waren, umgesiedelt. Alle aus diesem Kontext stammenden Umdichtungen
des «Wolhynien-Liedes» sind geprägt von großspurigem Dank an «den Führer»,
also an Adolf Hitler, z.B.
Herzlich danken wir dem Führer
Gott, er gebe ihm den Lohn,
Daß er endlich uns geführet
Aus dem großen Spott und Hohn 17.
Ф
oder
Е
Unser Führer wills nicht haben,
Daß wir solln zu Grunde gehn,
Denn er will uns heimwärts führen,
Dass es uns soll wohlergehn 16.
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Die Quellen lassen nicht klar erkennen, ob es sich bei diesen Texten um
NS‑Versionen des Liedes handelt, die den rußlanddeutschen (Zwangs-)Umgesiedelten von NS-Seite eingetrichtert wurden, oder ob es sich hierbei um echte
Eigendichtungen aus den Reihen der Umgesiedelten handelte, die in der Option
für Hitler eine hoffnungsvolle Chance gegenüber den bitteren Erfahrungen in den
Jahren des stalinistischen Terrors sahen.
Diese echte oder aufgesetzte Huldigung an «den Führer» hatte sich schon wenige
Jahre später erledigt. Das Lied jedoch begleitete die Rußlanddeutschen weiter: die
Flüchtlinge, die nach dem Krieg nach Deutschland kamen, ebenso wie die in der Sowjetunion Deportierten. Im Herbst 1952 notierte beispielsweise Alfred Karasek eine als
Flüchtlingslied titulierte Umdichtung: «Von der Warthe sind gezogen» heißt es hier.
16 DVA: A 168.577 (Aus Bess‘rabien sind wir gezogen), Strophe 2. – Aufgezeichnet in Hartessenreuth, 8. Dezember 1940, Sängerin: Elsa Adolf (aus Neu-Odessa, Bessarabien), Aufzeichner: A[lfred]
Brosch, Eger.
17 DVA: A 161.991, Strophe 8. «Aus der Bischofteinitzer Zeitung. Im Lager von Bischofteinitz
aufgenommen vom Kreispresseamtsleiter. Gedichtet im [Eisenbahn-Transport-]Waggon von [galizischen] Rückwanderern. Weise: Wolgalied. Gekürzt, ursprünglich 11 Gesätze». Aufgezeichnet von Albert L. Brosch-Eger [um 1940].
105
Gemeint ist damit der schon erwähnte «Reichsgau Wartheland». Auch in dieser Liedversion bildet die Reise, hier freilich als Flucht zu Kriegsende, den zentralen Fokus:
Eilig hieß es fortgefahren,
Denn der Russe war schon nah,
Der mit seinen vielen Waffen
Bald schon konnte sein ganz da 18.
Е
Aber mit der Ankunft in Nachkriegs-Deutschland setzte neue Ernüchterung ein:
Ф
Wer dem Russen ist entkommen,
Bis auf Deutschland fand hinein,
Dem hat neues Leid begonnen:
Heimatlos ein Flüchtling sein 19.
ІМ
Das Lied kursierte in verschiedenen Versionen in den Vertriebenenkreisen
der Nachkriegszeit. Unter Donauschwaben wurde beispielsweise die Variante
«Aus der Batschka mußten wandern» gesungen, u.a. bei Anlässen wie dem «Tag
der Donauschwaben» (Sommer 1952 in Salzburg) 20.
Vermutlich ebenfalls in den fünfziger Jahren entstanden Umdichtungen des
Liedes in der Sowjetunion, die das dortige bedrückende Schicksal der Rußlanddeutschen zum Ausdruck bringen, und die erst in den letzten Jahren ihren Weg
nach Deutschland gefunden haben.
[1.]
Aus der Heimat mussten ziehen,
die Verjagten arm und reich,
fort wo keine Rosen blühen
alle waren wir uns gleich.
18 DVA: A 195.363 (Wieder ist das Leid geschehen), Strophe 5. Aufgezeichnet in Kassel (Hessen), Herbst 1952, Vorsängerin: Frau Arndt, angegeben wird als «Sangesgegend: Leslau (Warthegau)»,
eingesandt durch Alfred Karasek 1953.
19 Ebd. Strophe 9.
20 DVA: A 195.221. Weitere Belege und Kommentar dazu bei Gottfried Habenicht, Leid im Lied.
Südost- und ostdeutsche Lagerlieder und Lieder von Flucht, Vertreibung und Verschleppung, Freiburg
1996, S. 253/54 (Nr. 126), S. 364–366 und S. 369.
106
[2.]
Ach wie traurig, ach wie elend,
Schritt der letzten Tage hinterher,
Von der Heimat Abschied nehmen,
ach wie war es uns so schwer.
Е
[3.]
Es ging fort bei Sturm und Regen,
in der späten Sommernacht,
auf dem weiten finstern Wege
hat Herr Jesus uns bewacht.
Ф
[4.]
Wie viel Arme mussten leiden,
teilten sich das letzte Brot,
niemand konnte sie begleiten
nur allein der liebe Gott.
ІМ
[5.]
Wie viel arme Waisenkinder,
irrten in der Welt umher,
von der Heimat weggerissen,
wo die Häuser standen leer.
[6.]
In der Trudarmee die Männer,
niemand wusste wo sie sind,
gibt es noch ein Wiedersehen,
für den Mann mit Weib und Kind.
[7.]
Auch die Frauen mussten später,
schaffen in der Trudarmee,
weinten viel um ihre Kinder
und das Herz tat ihnen weh.
107
[8.]
Doch wir haben das Vertrauen,
tragen still das schwere Los,
unser Jammer, unser Elend,
legen wir in Jesus Schoss.
Е
[9.]
Wie viel Tränen sind geflossen,
wie viel Seufzer ohne Zahl,
Tage Jahre sind verflossen,
seit dem Unglück dazumal.
Ф
[10.]
Doch wir setzen das Vertrauen,
auf den großen lieben Gott,
der uns niemals wird verlassen,
wird uns helfen aus der Not 21.
ІМ
«Aus der Heimat mussten ziehen» heißt es nun ganz allgemein, denn in der Sowjetunion unter Stalin waren längst nicht nur die Deutschen aus Wolhynien, sondern
alle Rußlanddeutschen von Repressionen, Deportationen, Verbannung oder Zwangsarbeit (Trudarmee) betroffen. Außer der Anfangsstrophe ist wenig vom ursprünglichen Liedtext geblieben, doch zentrale Textmotive bleiben konstant: der Abschied von
der Heimat, das Leid der Verschleppung, das Vertrauen auf Gottes Hilfe.
Wir haben hier also einen Liedtyp, der die Schicksalswege rußlanddeutscher
Menschen im 20. Jahrhundert kontinuierlich begleitete: von der zaristischen Deportation der Wolhynien-Deutschen im Ersten Weltkrieg, über die nazistischen
Zwangsumsiedlungen zu Zeiten des Zweiten Weltkrieges und das spätere Vertriebenendasein in Deutschland, bis hin zur Zwangsarbeit in der «Trudarmee». Immer wieder griffen Rußlanddeutsche auf dieses Lied zurück und passten den Text
der jeweils aktuellen Situation an.
Besonders interessant und einzigartig erscheint mir bei diesem Lied, dass es
sich offenbar ohne nennenswerte Unterstützung durch die modernen Medien der
Liedpopularisierung (Lieddrucke, Liederbücher, Tonträger, u.ä.) verbreitet und im
21 Aufgezeichnet in einem Senioren-Singkreis mit rußlanddeutschen Spätaussiedlerfrauen in
Kaiserslautern; an das DVA im Dezember 2003 von Gisela Fixemer-Reiland (Aussiedlerberatungsstelle
des Caritas-Zentrums Kaiserslautern).
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Ф
Е
Gebrauch erhalten hat. Es ist – wie die herkömmliche Volksliedforschung formulieren würde – ein «mündlich tradiertes» Lied. Natürlich sollte man die Kategorie
der «Mündlichkeit» auch in diesem Fall nicht allzu buchstäblich nehmen. Doch
bleibt festzuhalten, das es ein Lied ist, bei dessen Verbreitung die vielfältigen medialen Möglichkeiten und der mediale Sog des 20. Jahrhunderts offenbar keine Rolle
spielten. Während die Volksliedforschung leitmotivisch den Refrain vom Tod des
«Volksliedes» im 20. Jahrhundert anstimmte, haben wir hier also ein Lied, das nach
traditionellem «Volkslied»-Verständnis umstandslos als ein solches zu bezeichnen
wäre: abseits der dominanten Medien tradiert und mit großem Variantenreichtum
verbreitet, ist es sozusagen ein Paradebeispiel für die zentralen «Volkslied»-Merkmale, die etwa John Meier seiner sogenannten «Rezeptionstheorie» zugrundelegte.
Rund hundert Jahre später, zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts, scheint jedoch
die Frage überfällig, ob für solche Lieder der Begriff «Volkslied» noch eine wissenschaftlich sinnvolle Kategorie ist. Dazu (vom Beispiel dieses Liedes ausgehend)
drei Thesen:
Entgegen der langanhaltenden Rede vom Tod des «echten Volksliedes» gibt
es auch im 20. Jahrhundert das Phänomen, dass Lieder abseits der etablierten Medien eine weitgreifende Verbreitung finden und hierbei eine große Variantenbreite ausbilden. Es sind Lieder, bei denen die Urheberschaft ebenso wenig eine Rolle
spielt wie die Autorität einer Originalfassung. Diesem Phänomen gegenüber hat
die Popularmusikforschung bislang kein überzeugendes terminologisches (und
theoretisches) Konzept.
Der Begriff «Volkslied» ist dafür schon allein aufgrund der irreführenden
Implikationen über die soziale Trägerschaft des Liedes unbrauchbar (von den ideologischen Aufladungen dieser Denkfigur ganz abgesehen). Eher wäre in Hinblick
auf die Liedträger an Ernst Klusens Begriff vom «Gruppenlied» anzuknüpfen,
denn zweifellos ist das Lied von den deportierten Rußlanddeutschen ein gruppenspezifisches Lied – auch wenn in diesem Fall noch zu klären wäre, ob hier «die
Rußlanddeutschen» als Gruppe zu betrachten sind oder ob nicht vielmehr bestimmte Teilgruppen innerhalb der recht heterogen strukturierten Gruppierung der
Rußlanddeutschen dafür in Betracht kommen.
Stellt man stärker den Inhalt unseres Liedbeispiels in den Mittelpunkt, so ergibt
sich, dass der Terminus des «politischen Ereignisliedes», den Karina Kellermann
als Ersatz für den Begriff des «historisch-politischen Volksliedes» vorschlägt, unzureichend ist. Denn im vorliegenden Lied geht es nicht nur um ein singuläres
politisches Ereignis – etwa die Verschleppung aus Wolhynien-, sondern der Liedtyp entwickelt sich zu einem Speichermedium einer weiterreichenden historischen Erfahrung (im vorliegenden Fall der Deportation und Migration). Das Lied
fungiert hier als historisches Gedächtnis und als Medium der Erinnerung.
109
ELOD KOVACS ( BUDAPEST, HUNGARY)
The Ballad of Heartless Mother: The Origins of the Ballad and
its Variations in Eurasia
Abstract: I present here international parallel of a Hungarian ballad «The Heartless Mother»,
and expound opinions on the origin of this ballad. I am also making an attempt to reconstruct the
formation of this Hungarian ballad.
Е
Keywords: Hungarian ballad, Bulgarian ballad, Rumanian ballad, Ukrainian ballad, Belarusian
ballad, Persian chronicle, Greek literature, Middle Turkic folk poetry, Nogai Tatar folk poetry,
Mongolian folk poetry, Russian folk song.
ЕЛОД КОВАЧ (БУДАПЕШТ, УГОРЩИНА)
Балада про жорстокосерду матір: походження балади та її
євразійські варіанти
Ф
Резюме: Автор розглядає зв’язок угорської балади про жорстокосерду матір з євразійськими варіаціями, намагається проаналізувати теорії походження та джерел даного сюжету, а також
характеризує функціонування цієї балади в угорській та інших фольклорних традиціях.
Ключові слова: угорська балада, болгарська балада, український, грецький, турецький
фольклор, російські фольклорні пісні, монгольські епічні пісні.
ІМ
After suggestion of Lajos Vargyas (1983, No. 4), the base-story of the ballad is mostly
used to originate to the Hungarian tradition before 895 A.D. And in the Hungarian folk
culture – by his opinion – it is originated to the Old Turkic tradition (1984, 119). Debating this hypothesis, my opinion is that the earliest transition of the base-story to the Hungarian culture was in the 14–15th centuries, from the tradition of a Turkic population,
exactly from the Nogai Tatars, by prisoners of war. Lajos Vargyas has only evidences to
show the possible background of the transmitting culture. He was not able to show evidences proving the time, location and method of the transition. Below, I will present all
the opinions about the ballad and the outlines of my own conception. I will reconstruct
the forming of the story of the Hungarian ballad, as well.
The title of the Hungarian ballad-type in the scholarly literature is «The Heartless Mother» (Vargyas, 1983, No. 4). Hungarian researchers usually name it as
«Ballad of Budai Ilona». The story is the following:
A woman is escaping from the enemy. She is pursued by Tatars. She is dragging
along her two young children and her treasure-chest. After a while she starts thinking
aloud if she should further carry on her children or the treasures. She decides to leave
her little daughter in the forest, and to keep the treasures. Later she also abandons her
son. However, in a meadow she sees a female buffalo, carrying one of her calves between her horns, calling the other one with her. The woman cried: «My God, my God,
my sweet God! The brute beast does not abandon its calf, and I, a woman, how could
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The Ballad of Heartless Mother : The Origins of the Ballad and its Variations in Eurasia
Е
I have abandoned my child!» She turned around, and found her children, called them,
but they refused and rejected her, not considering her their mother any longer. She was
left alone. In certain Hungarian versions, the children are raised by wolves.
I found an international parallel to the version of the Hungarian ballad in which the
mother who is suffering in slavery takes a forest path carrying her infant daughter in her
arms, and with a certain formula she says a goodbye to her child and abandons her. A similar story there existed in a Moldavian, Bulgarian epic song that was noted down in 1968
(Kaufman ,42/1281). The corresponding parts of the Bulgarian song are the following:
A Turkish man lashing on women in the forest. Ahead there is a young woman called
Tudorka. She sees an enormous tree. She makes a cradle out of grass, hangs the cradle to the
tree, and lays her son into it. Than she says a goodbye to her child as follows:
Ф
When the wind blows, my son, it rocks the cradle
When the pelting rain falls, my son, it washes you
When the hind crossing the road she, my son, feeds you
Grow up, my son, grow up
Go from places to places
Ask about me, my son
And free me from the Turkish captivity
ІМ
The correspondence of the Bulgarian text to the formula that can be found in
the versions of the Hungarian ballad, is evident. The Hungarian equivalent (Ortutay–Kríza 1976, 37):
Nice birds are going by, to feed you
Warm rains are going by, to wash you
Easy winds are going by, to rock you
By the opinion of Natalia Shumada, Ukrainian folklore researcher, the versions of the story were spreading in the Bulgarian folklore (Šumada 17). I found
some Ukrainian and Belarusian parallels to this formula, as well.
To the beginning of the ballad, to the motif of «A mother is going in the forest road, and abandoning her infant child», György Alexics in 1897 and Gyula
Ortutay in 1935, are linked two Romanian parallels.
The parallel suggested by György Alexics (364–66) can be found in the following Romanian ballad-story:
In the road of Brasov, in the rain a young woman goes singing, and carries
her child in her arm. The child is weeping endlessly, and asks her mother why she
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sings. She answers that she is cheerful because she has no a mother-in-law. After
a while the accountant of Brasov threatens the woman: he would kill the child if
she does not abandon him by her own. Then the woman abandons her child. The
crying is heard by a female mavis which grabs the boy, takes him to the forest and
brings up him. Getting old the boy looks for his mother and finds her in the inn of
mountain robbers. She thinks he is a beggar and wants to beat off him. When she
recognises him she dies because of the joy.
The parallel suggested by Gyula Ortutay can be found in the Romanian ballad-story called «The fiddler» (Moldován, 118–24).
Early morning, in the mountains, a young woman goes in the path carrying her
son. The woman is singing and the child is weeping endlessly. He says to her mother
that he is afraid of the near robbers. But his mother answers that the robbers cannot
attack them because the robbers are afraid of the grudge of the Holy Mother. But
when the leader of the robbers shows up she puts her son down and disappears in
the woods. The abandoned child is found by fairies whose bring up him. When he
gets older his fairy stepmother gives him an oak violin with golden strings made of
golden hair. The violin has a great influence to the people whose hear it. The young
man starts his wondering. He found even the place of the robbers where the landlady asks him to sing about his childhood. After hearing the song and the story, the
woman drops down dead because she was the mother of the fiddler.
To the motif «Child taken into the forest to be hidden from the attacking
enemy», Lajos Vargyas found a Mongolian folkloristic equivalent (1960, 509-10).
The Mongolian story is the following:
An elderly khan and his wife are threatened by a foreign warrior. They hide their
new-born child in the forest before they are taken as prisoners together with their people
and livestock. An aged shepherd and his wife are left behind and they bring up the child.
But wolves come and demand that they hand over the child. The child goes among the
wolves and kills them all. (After Potanin No. 109, summarised by Vargyas 1983, No. 4.)
Lajos Vargyas tried to relate this Mongolian story to the Hungarian ballad’s
wolf-motif, and wrote the following: «in this instance, we are close to the Hungarian
text: the child is hidden from the enemy, and he gets among wolves in the forest»
(1960, 510). Opposing Lajos Vargyas’s opinion, I find these two situations quite distant from each other, since in one of them the child kills the wolves, in the other one,
he is raised by them. The Mongolian wolf-motif rather resembles the below mentioned Greek roman’s quasi «wolf attack», but in detail I will write about this theme
at the motif «A child who is abandoned in the forest and raised by the wolves».
Imre Katona (196) found an international parallel to the motif «Abandoned
child and the treasure» in a Greek novel from the Roman era. This novel is titled
Daphnis and Khloe, was written by Longus in the late 2nd century (Longus 1933).
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In the novel, two Greek nobles abandon their children. One of them, Megakles,
left his daughter in a cave, together with golden jewellery and precious clothes. He
left her because he had lost his wealth, and did not want to raise her in poverty.
Nevertheless, as he abandoned her, money started pouring onto him, but he never
had another child. The little girl was first fed by a sheep, then she was raised by a
shepherd. The other Greek noble was called Dionüsophanes. He left his little son in
the forest, under a bush, because he already had three other children, and decided
that three is enough. He left a golden-buckle garment and an ivory-hilt dagger with
the child. The boy was first fed by a goat, later he was raised by a shepherd. Further in
the story, the noble’s two other children died. The two abandoned children – later, as
adults – meet their parents in the end of the novel. The exciting story ends with their
marriage. With regards to international comparison, another detail of the novel may
also be interesting: a shepherd called Dōrkon attempts to conquer the girl by violence (tries to rape her), and disguises himself as a wolf. He hides at the spring to
attack her by surprise, however, dogs find him, bite him, and he fails.
I was first to find a close international parallel to the episode of the ballad in
which the mother sees the careful female buffalo, in a Persian chronicle originating from the early 6th century. The title of the chronicle is Kārnāmag-i Ardaxšīr-i
Pābagān, meaning ’The Book of the Acts of Ardakhshir, Son of Pabag’. This book
is considered a work of literature by the scholarly literature, rather than a historical
source. Certain parts of the Persian chronicle can be found in the Byzantine and
Armenian chronicle literature. The knowledge about this Persian work were last
summarized by O. M. Chunakova in her monograph titled Kniga dejanij Ardašira,
syna Pabaga, published in 1987 (see also Tavadia 135, 137–138).
According to the chronicle, the Persian king Ardakhshir the First, founder of
the Sasanidian Empire, sentenced to death his pregnant wife. (This verdict was not
only «immoral», but was also contradictory to the contemporary Persian laws.)
One day, seven years later, the king went on hunting. He wanted to bring down a
wild donkey. First he tried to shoot a female donkey, but a male stepped in front
of the arrow, sacrificing himself. Then he aimed at a foal, but a female stepped in
front of the arrow, and sacrificed herself for the foal. Ardakhshir, seeing this, became very sorrowful, and regretted killing his own child. (Nyberg 10–12.)
Needless to say that the examplary behaviour of the female and the male
animals is in relation with the behaviour of the female buffalo in the Hungarian
folk ballad. The female wild donkey similarly protected her cub as the ballad’s
female animal. An even more convincing argument proving the relation between
the two stories is the formula-like declaration by king Ardakhshir, regretting the
murder of his child. King Ardakhshir cried out loud: «Woe is the son of man, if
the numb and brute beast is so perfect in its care and kindness, that sacrifices itself
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for its wife and child!» (Nyberg 11.) And what are the words of repentance by
the Hungarian woman? «My God, my God, my sweet God! The brute beast does
not abandon its calf, and I, a woman, how could I have abandoned my child!»
(Vargyas 1983, No. 4.13.) The two sentences are not only corresponding regarding
their logical structure. The two stories have the same continuation: in the Persian
chronicle, the king, repenting in great woe and crying, turned his horse around;
the Hungarian woman «woefully cried», «turned back in the great pinewood, on
the abandoned road». For the moment, I will leave open the question of how the
Persian story noted down in the 6th century is connected to the Hungarian ballad
from the 19–20th centuries.
I would now turn to the other international parallel of this same episode. However, I have to note that the following stories – classified here either by others or
partially by myself – hardly resemble either the ballad, or the chronicle fragment.
I found a similar motif in a Russian folk song. This Russian folk song was
found and collected within the Cossacks of Orenburg, and first published in 1905.
According to the story, a white female deer of golden horns and golden sides
comes out of the wood in the mountains, together with her cubs. A hunter wants
to shoot her, but the deer starts begging for mercy, since her cubs are too small to
feed themselves. The hunter spares her life. (Smirnov 83.) This folk song organically adjusts to other Russian folk songs; according to my opinion, these folk songs
were mainly collected from an area populated also by Turkic peoples.)
Erzsébet Dános attached firstly a Persian parallel to the same Hungarian motif. In the epic, called Book of the Kings (Šāhnāme), written in 1000 A.D. by Firdausi, can be found a story (Zāl) where the cruel parents abandon their child and
in spite of that the «brute beasts» loves their children (Dános 111). It is only a
typological parallel to the Hungarian ballad.
To the motif «Child taken into the forest and raised by wolves», Lajos Vargyas
found a correspondence, from the Mongolian folklore:
The daughter of a khan is expecting a child. The khan fears the arrival of the
child, thinking it will try to kill him. He therefore has his daughter thrown into
prison so that he may destroy the child as soon as it is born. The daughter bears
twins and manages to get them out of the prison in secret and have them put into
a forest. There the twins are adopted by seven wolves who tend them and bring
them up. (After Potanin No. 59, summarised by Vargyas 1983, No. 4.)
But the motif of «Wolf-raised child» can be found not only among the Mongolians, but even in the ancient-Turkic foundation myth an abandoned child is raised
by the wolf as well. Later they became a man and wife. Nevertheless, the founder of
Zoroastrianism, (the child) Zoroaster, when they wanted to destroy him, was protected by a pack of female wolf in their cave. These stories are well known for all.
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Of course, there is no base to assume that this motif can be seen as an «international loan motif or wandering motif». The chronology and the spreading of the
motif neither permit such an assumption. The wolf, as a respectable predator, is
quite useful animal for folks seeking some kind of a relationship with them. Independently of the fact that an other folk is doing the same or not.
The opinion of Lajos Vargyas – saying that this motif in a Hungarian folk ballad
is quite unusual and unnatural phenomenon – is of course acceptable and valuable.
To the conversation of wolves among each other, I found Belarusian and
Western Russian (Ukraine, Lithuania) parallels.
Robert Gragger, in his monograph titled Ungarische Balladen, published in
1926, considered this Hungarian ballad analogous with the Scottish ballad «Child
No. 20» (Gragger 186–187). Based on Gragger’s opinion, several other researchers
agreed with him. Nevertheless, Lajos Vargyas pointed out that the Scottish ballad
is not related to this Hungarian ballad, but it is the precise equivalent of another
Hungarian ballad, titled «Unmarried Mother Who Killed her Child» (Vargyas
1983, No. 24).
Conclusions
ІМ
It is difficult to deduct far-reaching conclusions based on the single Mongolian
motif-parallel introduced by Lajos Vargyas. Still, it is a fact that the motif «Abandoned child being raised by a wolf» is exceptionally peculiar in a Hungarian folk
ballad. By my knowledge, according to the international conformities, we can still
only find indirect relations – and please let me emphasize that only indirect relations – between the Hungarian and the Mongolian versions. We can only reckon
with direct interaction between the Hungarian and Mongolian cultures as of the 13th
century, with the beginning of the Tatar invasion, but at that time, only rather Kipchak Turkic cultural mediation could bring Mongolian elements into the Hungarian
tradition. This chronology is by coincidence well-based on one of the Hungarian
ballad versions, in which Tatars are chasing a fugitive woman. It is a historical fact
that in the 14–15th centuries, thousands of Hungarians were shunned into the captivity of Turkic-language Tatars, and obviously many of them returned from there.
On the other hand, entire villages were populated by Tatars, who fell into Hungarian captivity. (Tardy 19–22.) The earliest close equivalent of the ballad’s «Female
buffalo» motif is known from the Persian story. It could easily be transmitted from
the Persian tradition into the Tatar culture in the 13–15th centuries, since the Tatars
invaded Iran as well in the 13th century. The fact that the episode «Female buffalo»
and the motif «Woman escaping with Treasures» are both present in one story in
the Persian tradition (Nyberg 5–6, 11), serves as a great temptation to deduce the
two Hungarian ballads to one single work of poetry, similar to the Persian one. The
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presence of the «Female buffalo» episode version within the Russian Cossacks – living near Turkic language peoples – also indicates the Tartar origin of the Hungarian
ballad fragment. The spread of the correspondences of some motifs of the Hungarian ballad (see the Bulgarian parallel from Moldavia, and the Ukrainian, Belarusian
and Russian parallels) points to the Nogai Tatar origin of the basis-story of the ballad. The Nogai Tatars had contacts with the population of these territories in the
13–15th centuries (Vásáry 101–10). However, the «Treasure» and «The abandoned
child raised by animals» motifs are presented in close relation only in the 2nd century
Greek novel. It seems to be an accidental coincidence.
Summary
The existing theory claims that the bases of the ballad already existed in the
Hungarian traditions before 895 A.D. This theory has to be rejected. Considering
the plot of the variations, and the historical and geographic spread of the coinciding
details, not one argument is left to support this theory. It is most probable that the
story was transmitted into the Hungarian tradition in the 13–15th centuries, from
the Turkic-Tatar tradition (Nogai Horde), with the exception of the motif «Woman
abandoning her children for the treasure» and the dialogue, in which her children
reject their repenting mother. This later one probably was connected to the end of
the story as a late sequel, by the indirect impact of the Scottish ballad «Child No. 20».
The closest detail correspondences, which are also the earliest ones, can be found in
the Persian chronicle titled Kārnāmag-i Ardaxšīr-i Pābagān.
The original story which entered the Hungarian folklore from the Turkic tradition was presumably the following:
A woman is escaping from the enemy, and she hides her child. Later she sees an
animal which is carefully protecting her calf from getting lost. Thus she turns back for
her own child, but in the meantime the child had already been adopted by wolves.
The moral conflict of deciding between the child or the treasure as well as in
the certain variants the death of the children as punishment, had later to be ad to
the story, and created the ballad. These motifs create a ballad conflict in the story,
based on a moral issue. Later, in the 19th century, due to the indirect influence of
the Scottish ballad «Child No. 20», the Hungarian ballad was supplemented with
the motif «Child refusing his mother».
References
Alexics, György. «Vadrózsapör». [The case of (János Kriza’s) Wild Roses.] Ethnographia 8. (1897): 362–377.
Čunakova, O. M. Kniga dejanij Ardasira syna Papaka. Moskva: Nauka, 1987.
Dános, Erzsébet. A magyar népballada. [The Hungarian Folk Ballad.] Budapest:
A Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetem Néprajzi Intézete, 1938.
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Gragger, Robert. Ungarische Balladen. Berlin–Leipzig: Gruyter, 1926.
Katona, Imre. «Ballada». A magyar folklór. Ed. Vilmos Voigt. Budapest: Osiris,
1998. 184–220.
Kaufman, N. Narodni pesni na balgarskite ot Ukrainska i Moldavska SSR. T.
2. Sofija: Balgarska Akad. na Nauk., 1982.
Kovács, Előd. «A magyar folklór iráni kapcsolataihoz». [To the Iranian Connections of the Hungarian Folklore.] Jászkunság 42. 3–4 (1996): 157–59.
Ardakhsír perzsa nagykirály / A perzsa krónika és a magyar népballadák. [Ardakhshir the Great King / The Persian Chronicle and the Hungarian Folk Ballads.]
Debrecen: Ethnica, 2005.
Kríza, Ildikó. «Sin and Punishment in Folk Ballads». Folk Ballads, Ethics, Moral
Issues. Ed. Gábor Barna and Ildikó Kríza. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2002. 51–59.
Longus. Daphnis and Khloe. Transl. by Jacques Amyot. Chelsee: Askendene
Press, 1933.
Mackenzie, D. N. A concise Pahlavi dictionary. London–New York–Toronto:
Oxford Univ. Press, 1971.
Kriza, János. ed., Vadrózsák / Székely Népköltési Gyűjtemény. [Wild Roses.
Collection of Szekler Folklore.] 2Kolozsvár: Kriterion, 2002.
Moldován, Gergely. Koszorú a román népköltészet virágaiból. Kolozsvár: Magyar Polgár ny., 1884.
Nyberg, H. S. A Manual of Pahlavi. Vol. 1. 1964.
Ortutay, Gyula. Székely népballadák. [Szekler (Transylvanian) Folk Ballads.]
Budapest, 1935. (Repr. ibid.: Magyar Helikon, 1979.)
– and Kríza Ildikó. Magyar népballadák. [Hungarian Folk Ballads.] 2Budapest: Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó, 1976.
Potanin, S. N. Očerki Severo-zapadnoj Mongolii. Sankt-peterburg: Imp. Russk.
Geogr., 1883.
Šumada, Natalia. Vidobražennja vizvol’nogo ruhu v bolgars’kij epičnij pisennosti. In: Vizvol’nij ruh slov”jan u narodnij pisennij tvorčosti (XVII–XIX. st.).
Kiïv: Naukova dumka, 1971.
Smirnov, J. I. Vostočno-slavjanskie ballady i blizkie im formy. Moskva: Nauka,
1988.
Tardy, Lajos. A tatárországi rabszolgakereskedelem és a magyarok a XIII–XV.
században. [Slave-trade in Tatarland and the Hungarians in the 13–15th centuries.]
Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1980.
Tavadia, J. C. Die mittelpersische Sprache und Literatur der Zarathustrier.
Leipzig: Harrasowitz, 1956.
Vargyas, Lajos. Kutatások a népballada középkori történetében. [Researches
on the Medieval History of the Folk Ballad.] Ethnographia 4. (1960): 479–523.
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Keleti hagyomány–nyugati kultúra. [Eastern tradition–Western culture.] Budapest: Szépirodalmi Kiadó, 1984.
Hungarin Ballads and the European Ballad Tradition. Vol. 1–2. Budapest:
Akadémia Kiadó, 1983.
Vásáry, István. Az Arany Horda. [The Golden Orde.] Budapest: Kossuth
Könyvkiadó, 1986.
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* The research work was supported by Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (Postdoctoral
Project, Reg. No. D42229).
I found this text due to Lesja Mushketik’s help.
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BRONĖ STUNDŽIENĖ (VILNIUS, LITHUANIA)
Folk Songs as Ritual Innovation of the Funeral Ceremony
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Abstract: The last decades in Lithuania presented an opportunity for studying the very intense
processes of change in the old traditional folklore nowadays. Not long ago it used to be quite common
to listen to the ritual folk songs, performed during traditional weddings in the village communities,
i.e. in the natural circumstances, while during funerals in some Lithuanian regions (e.g. in Dzūkija)
the authentic folk laments used to be performed. But, as the recent studies of fieldwork revealed, only
meager remnants of the old traditional folk laments, having endured in the course of the whole 20th
century, survive today. It seems that the ancient way of the ritual communication between the living and
the dead, which had been passed on from one generation to another in the course of many centuries,
now has been lost together with the extinct tradition of folk lament. However, in the contemporary
Lithuanian funeral ceremonies, the role of this ritual communication seems to have been inherited
and in a way extended by the folk songs-romances, which have been reshaped and transformed to suit
the occasion. In this paper the author is going to discuss particular modern Lithuanian folk songs,
characterized by typical features of folk romances and ballads, yet performed solely during funerals.
Ф
Key words: ballads, folk romances, funeral ceremony traditions, laments, performers, Lithuanian
folk songs, psalms, village communities.
БPOНЯ СТУнДЖЕНЯ (ВІЛЬНЮС, ЛИТВА)
Фольклорні пісні як ритуальні іновації у поховальних церемоніях
ІМ
Резюме: автор статті аналізує сучасні записи литовських голосінь, що виконуються при
поховальному обряді й доходить висновку, що їх функції та стиль виконання змінилися, хоча
самі тексти і збереглися, але виконуються фрагментарно, а інколи інші пісні виконують функції традиційних голосінь. На матеріалах власних експедицій авторка проводить паралелі між
текстами голосінь, псалмів, балад та фольклорними романсами.
Ключові слова: балади, литовський фольклор, поховальні ритуали, псалми, романси, селянські осередки.
Contemporary funeral ceremony traditions
The Lithuanian funeral ceremony is characterized by its especially conservative traditions. The village communities or those of the small townships are
particularly rigid in preserving their ancient customs: up till the present day, the
deceased is laid out in an open coffin and kept for three nights and days before
burial; special groups of the funeral singers are invited to perform the long ritual
singing during two evenings; there is much praying, and it is customary for the
whole community to gather for the last farewell to its deceased member. There are
many rules of behavior during funerals, especially various taboos, superstitions
and other remnants of the ancient beliefs, which are still strictly upheld: e.g., all
the windows in the room where the deceased is laid out have to be covered by
thick homemade cloths; only the even number of candles has to be lit; also, the
participants of the funeral bring only the even number of flowers; the street at
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the deceased person’s house is marked with strewn fir branches; being late to the
funeral or running after the funeral procession is strictly forbidden, as it is considered to be a particularly bad omen; no funeral flowers, half burnt candles can
be left over in the room, and after the coffin had been carried out, its placement is
rapidly taken down.
The deceased person’s family members and relatives pose for the pictures not
only at the grave, but also previously, at the open coffin still in the room and afterwards, when it is carried outside. The traditional community considers only burial
in the ground acceptable. The modern Lithuanian society has ascribed certain
sacral quality to the place of burial: several years ago, the remains of the former
deportees used to be brought back from Siberia to their native places in order to be
re-buried; while now, the remains of the deceased are brought back from various
places in Europe; the graves are constantly adorned with flowers, huge and expensive grave stones are erected. After the funeral ceremony in the cemetery is over,
all its participants are invited to the mournful dinner, during which an empty seat
is left at the table and a candle is lit in the memory of the deceased (just as it once
used to be done for the soul), and religious psalms are sung. When four weeks
after the funeral have passed, Mass is said at the church again, the grave is visited
and psalms are performed there; afterwards, the deceased person’s family invites
everyone for a meal, although the table is laid much more modestly than during
the funeral. The one year long mourning is usually upheld now, just as it used
to be done traditionally, and in the course of this year the closest relatives of the
deceased (particularly women) are expected to wear only black clothes and to stay
away from merry gatherings, singing and dancing. After the yearlong mourning
period is over, the relatives and kin are again invited to participate at the Mass, after which it is compulsory to visit the grave (it is considered reputable for the family to erect the grave stone during the mourning year), and the mourning ends by
the so-called «anniversary dinner», during which religious psalms are performed
once again. Thus it is reasonable to conclude, that funerals have preserved the
greatest number of the ancient traditional elements and most strongly resist any
innovations among all the Lithuanian community rituals and family ceremonies
and customs. One such innovation, however, is going to be discussed further.
The stratum of old religious psalms
The Christian religious psalms, although constituting a compulsory element
of the traditional Lithuanian funeral, differ according to the region: one kind is
sung in Eastern Lithuania, and quite another in Samogitia (Western Lithuania).
It should be remembered, however, that the entire living Lithuanian folk singing
tradition (except that part, which is spread by the folklore groups and festivals) is
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centered today upon those small groups of funeral singers, existing in each village or community. These groups present certain «mini-ensembles» of volunteers,
most often women, distinguished for their good musical ear and good voices.
Members of these groups are today the principal carriers of the whole Lithuanian
folk singing tradition: e.g., whenever looking for good folk singers in any region,
one should first start from inquiring after those who sing at funerals. The members of these groups, usually without any musical education whatsoever, are invited to participate at the extended, usually three days long funeral ceremonies.
It is interesting to observe, by the way, how the ability to perform this important
ritual function enhances the social prestige of the singer. Not only the inhabitants
of the same village or township know the names of the funeral singers, but also
people living in much more remote places. The singers themselves also appreciate the respect they receive and never refuse an invitation to sing, unless there
are some extraordinary circumstances. They gather to sing even without having
previously discussed the reward, and often receive just thanks and meal for their
performance.
An ancient tradition of laments
ІМ
It is interesting to note, that in southern Lithuania, in Dzūkija region, the ancient female custom of lamenting over the deceased family member has endured
almost up till the present times. True, only scanty remnants of the real traditional
folk laments can be heard today. Elderly women from this region, when questioned by folklore collectors during fieldwork session, could distinctly remember
the way it used to be lamented in their youth or childhood, but could not themselves perform these laments. Just several decades ago, the laments used to fulfill
clearly defined functions, as different laments had been reserved for special moments of the funeral (e.g., for carrying the coffin outside, bidding the last farewell,
lowering the coffin into the grave, etc.). Also, the similarly recited lament texts
used to be improvised in different ways, to suite the individual deceased family
member (the deceased mother, father, daughter, son, brother, sister, husband, and
wife had to be lamented over in different ways). The traditional Lithuanian lament
texts still hide numerous relics of the ancient Baltic worldview, closely related to
the image of the underworld: the deceased person is begged to come back home
from his/her high hill (Lithuanians used to bury their deceased in the elevated
places since time immemorial, even the Other world used to be often imagined as
situated somewhere high above); the deceased is expected to return in the shape of
a green tree, a blooming flower, or the like. The most ancient laments used to contain invocations of the previously deceased relatives, asking them to take care of
the person passing away, e.g. to guide him/her through the souls’ gate, to seat him/
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her on a souls’ bench, i.e. to assist the deceased in finding his/her way in the unfamiliar surroundings of the underworld. Laments from later times, although still
using the poetic folksong formulae, contain more distinctly expressed appeals to
the feelings and grief of the closest relatives, who have lost their beloved one. Today, the folk laments are almost extinct. Quite recently, however, this empty niche
of the funeral ceremony has been clearly, although somewhat unexpectedly, taken
over by a certain kind of the folksong, which could be named a psalm-romance.
Modern repertoirе of psalmes-romances
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In the Lithuanian folksong «treasury», i.e. in Dzūkija region, as also in the rest
of the country, it has quite recently become fashionable to sing (or to «perform»,
as the members of the above-mentioned groups of the funeral singers emphasize)
the romance or ballad type songs, which have never been common in this region
and are exceptionally tearful. These songs should be called romances not only because of their melodies being quite typical for the folk romances, but also because
of their dramatically sentimental contents, differing from folk romances only in
regard to their main theme: while the thematic epicentre of the folk romances is
the tragic love, here, it is death. Interestingly enough, as revealed during the fieldwork session, the performers themselves are also quite well aware of the similarity,
because they tend to skip saying «amen», which is compulsory ending for the religious Christian psalms, and after having performed the romance type song either
forget the ending entirely or attempt saying it in some nonchalant manner.
Thus today, the well-attuned groups of the funeral singers not only perform
the compulsory repertoire of the religious psalms to the numerous mourners, but
also quite often intersperse them with such folk psalms-romances. Such new-fashioned inclusions appearing against the background of the religious chant are truly
looked forward for by all the mourners: their euphonious polyphonic performance
(which itself is quite an innovation for the Dzūkija region) sounds beautiful and
enhances both the dramatic tension and emotional atmosphere of the event, usually culminating by melting to tears not only the family members of the deceased,
but also the whole potentially tearful audience of the mourners. The singers expect to produce such an effect, estimating it as the success of their performance,
because crying is considered fitting for the funerals. Earlier, similar reaction used
to be produced by the above-mentioned traditional female laments.
Yet according to their contents and poetics, laments and psalms-romances
constitute entirely different folksong genres. The ancient image of the underworld has disappeared almost without a trace in these psalms-romances, entirely
centering on particularly sentimental and tearful expressions of sorrow over the
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premature death or just over any death as such. Generally, for the person of the
traditional culture, death now increasingly acquires a sorrowful and dramatic
shape of the ending to the human life, the necessary and tragic disaster, which
awaits everyone. Such aspect of the concept of death becomes pronounced also
in the psalms-romances, otherwise often sentimentally, but quite precisely relating of the essential moments of the modern funeral ceremony, pointing out their
significance and revealing the typical features of bearing of the mourners not only
during funeral itself, but also during its annual anniversary and other commemoration ceremonies. Thus, the discourse of the psalms-romances alone supplies sufficient information regarding the contemporary Lithuanian tradition of funerals
and commemorative ceremonies and its most significant accents, i.e.:
Ф
– collective prayer and singing;
– bringing flowers and lighting candles;
– references to shrouding and lay out of the deceased;
– much crying and mourning;
– bidding farewell and saying thanks in the name of the deceased;
– the special moment of bidding farewell at the coffin;
– the coffin is buried in the sandy ground;
– crosses and grave stones are erected at the burial site.
ІМ
As mentioned above, during funerals in Lithuania, much praying aloud and
singing is performed in the course of several evenings at the coffin, and afterwards, at the graveyard too. Such bearing is distinctly reflected also in the psalmsromances: Parymokit tyliai jūs prie mano kapo, Pasimelskit šiandien liūdesiu tyliu
[‘Let you stay composed at my grave, Let you say prayers quietly and sorrowfully’];
Šiandieną giesmės taip liūdnai girdis, Motin Marija, prašau tavęs, Padėki sielai rast
danguj kelią Ir leisk gyventi jai danguje [‘The singing sounds so sad today, Oh
Mother Mary, I beg you, Help the soul to find the way to Heaven And allow it
to stay in Heaven forever’]. Also, a collective plea keeps being uttered: Pagailėki,
Jėzau, meldžiame visi [‘Oh Jesus, we all pray for your mercy’]. The significance of
flowers is especially emphasized in these poetical texts, as it is customary today
to bring bouquets and wreaths by all the mourners both to the chapel and to the
grave. This is regarded as the necessary honoring of the deceased, at the same time
creating an impression of the prestigious funeral to the outsiders. Probably because of this the psalms-romances abound in flowery motives: Šiandien čia atėjot,
mano numylėti, Ačiū, kad padėjot žydinčių gėlių;[‘You’ve come here today, my beloved ones; Thank you for bringing fresh flowers to me’] Greit kauburėlis supiltas
smėlio, Tvarkys vainikus, statys gėles;[‘The sandy mound will soon be erected, The
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wreaths and flowers placed at its side’] Ant tavo kapo gėlės vis žydės, Tavo artimieji
vis tave minės [‘Flowers will never cease blooming on your grave, Your family will
always remember you’], etc.
There are also numerous other references to the funeral customs, the attitude
of the family members, e.g.: Galva papuošta jau juodu šydu Ir apstatyta ji gėlėmis,
Gėlių gražiausių čia pristatyta, Bet nieks nemiela, verkia širdis;[‘The head has been
shrouded in black already And surrounded by flowers, Although there are lots
of beautiful flowers here today, Nothing seems welcome, as the heart cries’] Jau
susirinko daug kaimynėlių, Liūdi giminės, verkia vaikai; [‘A lot of dear neighbors
have gathered already, The relatives are sad, and children cry’] Prie karsto verkia
mieli vaikeliai, Ašaras lieja liūdnai, liūdnai [‘Your dear children cry at the coffin, shedding their tears – so sad, so sad’]. When the moment of the last farewell
comes close, and the family members surround the still open coffin, the women
start singing the psalms-romances especially reserved for this very moment. This
evokes the collective weeping aloud from the whole audience of the mourners,
especially females, as some motives in these psalms-romances indeed sound quite
dramatically. As intimated by the folksong discourse, both the deceased person
expresses the final farewell to the dear ones, and vice versa: Užsimerkė mielos tavo
akys, Užmigai tu amžinu miegu, Išėjai sudie tu nepasakius, Jau negrįši tėviškės taku;
[‘Your dear eyes have closed forever, You sleep the last eternal sleep, You left without saying goodbye And will never step back on the path that leads home’] Sudievu, brangi mamyte, Ačiū, kad užauginai, Lenkiam prieš tave mes galvas, Ilsėkis
kapuos ramiai; [‘Farewell, dear mother, Thank you for raising us up, We bow our
heads for you today, Rest in peace in the grave’] Mano mylimieji, labai jus prašau,
Visi dovanokit, jei nusikaltau, Jei jūs man atleisit iš visos širdies, Atleis man ir Dievas, liksiu be kaltės; [‘My beloved ones, I beg you heartily, Please forgive me, if I
have wronged you, If you forgive me sincerely, God will also forgive me my sins’]
Jau mano akys regėt nenori, Kūnas negali nei pajudėt, – Sudie, vaikeliai, sudie,
nameliai, Jau ruošias mane kapuos lydėt. Sudie, keleliai, sudie, dulkėti, Lydėsit mane
jau į kapus, Sudie, takeliai, kuriais vaikščiojau, Nebemindžiosiu daugiau aš jūs(ų);
[‘My eyes cannot see anymore, And my body can not move, – Goodbye, dear children, good bye, sweet home, I am already on my way to the grave. Goodbye, you
dusty roads, You will take me to the graveyard, Goodbye my well-trodden paths,
I will never step on you again’] O dabar tariu jau sudie jums visiems, Giminėms,
kaimynams, visiems artimiems, Sudievu tariu aš lūpomis kitų, Likit jūs laimingi, o
aš išeinu; [‘And now I say goodbye to you all, My relatives, neighbors, my beloved
ones, I utter goodbye through the strange lips, Wishing you to stay well, while I
am leaving now’] O kaip norėčiau nors minutėlę Savo užmerktas akis atmerkt Ir
padėkoti visiems už viską Ir paskutinį žodį ištart [‘Oh how I wish I could Open my
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closed eyes if only for a minute And thank you all for everything, And utter my
last word’].
The psalms-romances also contain references to the typical scenery of the
contemporary cemeteries, with their numerous crosses and gravestones, while the
graves themselves are no longer necessarily situated on the hills, cf. a typical motive
from a psalm-romance sung during the funeral anniversary: Į pakalnę veda baltas smėlio takas, Saugomas aplinkui kryžių nebylių. Čia parimęs tyli liūdnas mano
kapas, Prieš metus užmigus viena aš guliu. [‘The white sandy path leads downhill,
Guarded by the silently standing crosses. Here my sad grave lies voiceless, I lie
here alone, having fallen asleep a year ago’].
The poetical texts frequently emphasize that burial site should be in the sandy
(light, white) ground, where trees are growing; just at it was customary in the
distant Baltic past:
Geltonas smėlis užbers akis;[‘The yellow sand will cover your eyes’] Ims
byrėti liūdnai gelsvas smėlis Ant tavosios, mamyte, širdies, Verks prie kapo beržai
svyruonėliai, Ašarėlės raselėm žibės. [‘The yellow sand will start dropping sadly,
Dear mother, onto your heart, The weeping birches will cry at the grave, And their
tears will sparkle like dew’]. At the same time, being buried in the grave is reflected
upon as existence in the dark, cold and gloomy place, where a person is separated
from this world and condemned to the eternal loneliness. The psalm-romance
performed during the funeral anniversary refers to this directly: O kaip slegia širdį
šaltas kapo smėlis, O kad jūs žinotut, kaip čionai tamsu, O kaip pasiilgau saulės
motinėlės, O kaip pasiilgau artimų balsų [‘Oh, how heavily the cold sand weighs
upon my heart, Oh, if only you could imagine how dark it is here, Oh, how I miss
the Sun, our mother, Oh, how I crave hearing voices of my dear ones’]. Such song
is performed while the family members gather at the grave to pray or just to communicate with each other.
The assumption asserting that in the contemporary funeral ceremony, the
psalms-romances have indeed taken over the place formerly occupied by the
laments is proved by the similar function they both perform during the deathrelated rituals. Just like laments, the compositions in question also are shaped according to the status of the deceased family member, i.e. they have different variants performed in the event of death of the father, mother, son, daughter, etc. The
texts speak both in the name of the deceased and of the mourner. Such psalms
are regarded as certain analogues of the laments, as if an essentially similar, although formally differing ritual communication would be taking place. It is also
noteworthy, that such psalms, precisely as the formerly used laments, have clearly
defined places in the funeral ceremony. Thus, the creative female singers adjust
different psalms-romances to suit bidding farewell to the deceased at home and at
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the graveyard, to carrying of the coffin outside, to the farewell at the open grave,
for the funeral anniversaries or other moments of the funeral ceremonies.
However, only the functional similarity unites the traditional laments and the
psalms-romances; according to all the other parameters, the psalms-romances
constitute an entirely new element of the Lithuanian funeral traditions. Moreover, the sentimental poetic verses of the psalms-romances are disseminated in
quite different ways from the improvised ancient laments. Texts of the psalmsromances are copied by hand and exchanged among the singers, who read them
while singing. The singing women have to memorize only the melodies, but this
is usually considered a prerogative of the leading singer. Such folkloric singing
seems aesthetically appealing both to the taste of the listeners and the singers.
There is strongly felt request to produce new, previously unheard psalms, therefore they get constantly changed and their existence is short; some of them are one
time compositions, although in general, as mentioned above, their repertoire is
inclined to migrate.
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JURGITA ŪSAITYTĖ (VILNIUS, LITHUANIA)
The Folk Singing Situation in Samogitia (Western Lithuania) Today
Abstract: Folklorists from the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore performed a field
work in Samogitia – the Western Lithuanian region, were they spent ten days in the township of
Salantai, Kretinga district, and its surrounding localities with the goal to observe and record modern
folklore processes. As a result of this work was accumulated various data regarding songs, e.g. statistics
of the once known and now only scantily remembered songs, memoirs, recordings of the songs’ role
in the local community’s life as well as the descriptions of the cultural and social circumstances,
influencing the oral tradition.
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Key words: comparative approach, data, folk songs, field trip, Lithuanian region, Samogitia.
ЮРГІТА УСАйТИТЕ (ВІЛЬНЮС, ЛИТВА)
Фольклорна пісенна ситуація в сучасній західній Литві.
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Резюме: Стаття присвячена фольклорній пісенній традиції західного регіону Литви, де
фольклористи з Інституту Литовської Літератури працювали влітку 2004 року. Автор статті
порівнює матеріали, зафіксовані у сучасних осередках, із записами ХІХ‑го та середини ХХ‑го
століть. Цікаві висновки щодо побутування пісенної фольклорної традиції зроблені на підставі
порівняльного аналізу окремих текстів, виконавців, та жанрових особливостей текстів.
Ключові слова: виконавець, литовський фольклор, осередок, порівняльний аналіз, сучасна пісенна традиція,
ІМ
In July of 2004, right before the last year’s International Ballad Conference in
Riga, a group of nine folklorists from the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and
Folklore set out for Samogitia – the Western Lithuanian region. We spent ten days
in the township of Salantai, Kretinga district, and its surrounding localities. This
fieldwork session was an ordinary one; such sessions are organized every year and
aim at observing and recording the modern folklore processes.
Against the general background of Lithuanian folklore, Samogitia is up till
now reasonably characterized as a region predominated by folk narratives. The
folksong repertoire used always to comprise the smaller portion of the folklore
material recorded here, besides being generically poorer, if compared to the folksong treasuries of the other Lithuanian regions. However, the Samogitian songs,
especially the oldest ones, are characterized by peculiar melodic features, «the stylistic and emotional textual singularity, which may not be easily defined at first,
and predisposition towards greater openness, roughness», straightforwardness,
humor, naturalism and rather clearly developed fabula. When setting out to this
region, we expected to find still rather palpable original traces of the regional oral
tradition. Our expectations were enhanced by the results of the earlier fieldwork
session, taking place here 40 years ago, which collected ample folklore material,
recorded in almost 3000 pages of manuscripts, and comprising, among other
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things, 1150 folk songs. It ought to be emphasized at once, that most of the recorded songs were old, traditional ones. We expected the reticent and undemonstrative Samogitians, usually characterized by their rather conservative temper, to
have preserved at least part of this folksong heritage. Unfortunately, contrary to
our brave expectations, already during the first days we experienced huge disappointment, which made us to draw a rather straightforward conclusion, resuming
that neither songs nor the natural inclination to sing no longer exist in this area.
But quite shortly afterwards, though, our personal and rather aesthetical intentions were replaced by realistic goals: i.e. armed with stoicism and professional
objectivity, we started accumulating various data regarding songs, e.g. statistics of
the once known and now only scantily remembered songs, memoirs, recordings
of the songs’ role in the local community’s life as well as the descriptions of the cultural and social circumstances, influencing the oral tradition. However, collection
of this kind of information assumed a rather chaotic character, because we were
not ourselves mentally prepared to such shift of our activities. On the other hand,
our personal experience and observations, the accumulated quantitative data and
its comparison with folklore materials collected 60 or even 160 years ago, allowed
us to draw certain generalizations.
What exactly was there possible for us to accumulate a year ago? We recorded
almost 500 songs, which is quite a big number, if estimated quantitatively. Generically, these songs also demonstrate quite sufficient variety: old songs still keep
being performed in the Salantai locality along with the new ones. A number of
whole, integral variants were recorded, although a big part consists of fragments,
as many informants had to dig deep for the songs in their passive memory. During
interviews, people would quite frequently confess having sung long ago in their
youth and having known a lot of songs then, but they were no longer able to remember them now, blaming this fact on the failing memory, poor health, various
troubles, bad living conditions and various social problems.
Folk songs recorded during the fieldwork session in 2004 seemed to have
hardly much in common with the typical Samogitian repertoire. True, we still
were able to trace several songs resident in this region exclusively. However, the
lion’s share of the recorded songs, especially the new ones, is now popular across
the whole Lithuania. Therefore comparison of the materials collected during this
session with the earlier folklore recordings from the same area reveals some aspects related to changes taking place not only in the folksong tradition, but also in
the folklore scholarship as well.
Thus, our disappointment and confusion was caused by the contrast between
expectations, based on leafing through materials collected in the course of the
Salantai fieldwork session in 1961, and the real situation that we ourselves en-
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countered. Later, when coming back home, we started doubting, whether such
violent contrast could have formed so rapidly? What determined the uniqueness
of this material in terms of the broader historical perspective? In order to answer
such questions, we had to turn back to the 40 years old collections of folklore
and scrutinize them more closely. At first sight, these collections indeed rather
unambiguously testified to the old songs of the classical poetical style being abundant and thriving in the Salantai locality in the early 1960s, as if inherited straight
from the patriarchal village community of the 18th – 19th centuries, wherein they
were naturally related to various kinds of agricultural work and family rites. Just 1
per cent of these collections comprise later songs of literary origins! Nevertheless,
closer scrutiny of the collections revealed the explanation that we were seeking,
hidden in fragmentary notes written by the folklore collectors and placed between
spare life descriptions of the informants and short commentaries on their repertoire. These too sparing, but nevertheless rather outspoken remarks elucidate the
attitude adopted by the folklore researchers of the time regarding the value of the
folk songs. In this period, when recording the folk songs, priority was given to the
so-called classical, ancient songs, whereas the later songs of the literary nature,
composed in the 19th and 20th centuries, were considered of less value, while folk
romances and other «modern» folk songs, amply flowering in the second half of
the 20th century, were referred to only in such kind of commentaries:
«[A 73 years old female informant] knows a lot of songs, but mostly likes singing the new ones of literary origin and romances. She asserts having learned many
of these songs from the radio. She does not particularly like singing the old songs
with traditional Samogitian melodies, as they seem to her not beautiful enough».
«[A 79 years old female informant] is known as a good singer, but her repertoire
mostly consists of the modern kind of songs, i. e. romances, Schlagers. She was not
able to learn <proper songs>, though, having served as a maid in the manors of
nobles for most of her life. Whenever hearing <the old songs> she scorned them
as ugly». «[A 48 years old female informant] knows also a number of other songs,
especially modern romances, which we did not record».
Moreover, folklorists employed similar tactics in the folksong recording process already since the 1930s. Such attitude enabled them to accumulate great quantity of recordings of the rapidly disappearing ancient traditional songs. Therefore
such method was partly justified considering the fact that systematic and organized collection of Lithuanian folksongs started comparatively late. But such attitude significantly distorted the general picture of the real situation of Lithuanian
folksongs, because the recorded number of the modern folksongs, which were indeed popular during the whole 20th century, is comparatively rather small. Therefore the Lithuanian folksong index, which is compiled and keeps being constantly
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updated in the Institute of the Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, does not reflect
either the real popularity of the songs or the true proportions of their different,
simultaneously existing genres.
Folklore scholarship also distinctly testifies to the heightened interest that
folklorists displayed in the archaic layer of the folksongs, as e.g. until the very end
of the 20th century, the «modern» folksongs remained practically unpublished by
the researchers, nor were they in the focus of any exhaustive theoretical studies or
reviews.
It may also be assumed, that such “grading” of songs resulted in a certain
conflict taking place between folklorists and their informants. The fact that the
modern songs, particularly enjoyed by the common people, were underrated and
disregarded by the learned strangers from the town, clearly made informants disappointed and discontented. Therefore recently it became quite common for the
fieldworkers to hear such reproaches from the informants: «You do not like our
songs, you only seek the old ones…»
By the way, remarks regarding difficulties experienced by the people when
asked to remember the old songs are quite frequent already in the collections from
the 1960s. These remarks straightforwardly reveal the disappointment of folklore
collectors. It seems that gaps of the informants’ memory, or rather, dwindling
away of the ancient folk singing tradition, could hardly be regarded as solely our
contemporary problem. Thus it becomes fairly evident, that already 40 years ago
folklorists just skimmed the cream off the pot of the Salantai folk singers’ repertoire. For us, however, this fact signified once again the authenticity and certain
rehabilitation of the oral tradition.
Analysis of the songs collected during fieldwork in 1961 points out to a certain similarity inherent in the repertoire of the different singers. It seems that frequently, when requested to perform the old songs, people were able to remember
just the most popular compositions typical to this area. Whereas the old songs
recorded here in the first half of the 20th century display much greater generic variety. Besides, it is fairly evident, that already then, i. e. in the 1910s–1940s, the old
and new kinds of songs perfectly «co-existed» in the repertoire of both individual
singers and the whole villages or communities. As indicated by the statistical analysis of the songs collected in the first half of the 20th century, the modern songs
even prevail in some collections. Thus, it seems reasonable to assume, that recordings from this period reflect the true folksong repertoire of the Kretinga district.
The repertoire is wide and varied, while the full and exhaustive texts testify to the
living folk singing tradition of this period. Such picture is the result of activities
of numerous folklore collectors in the beginning of the 20th century, who were not
professional folklorists, but just common people, and paid no attention to the al-
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legedly greater or smaller value of the folklore they recorded; or school students
attempting to record as many folksongs as they possibly could.
From the contemporary perspective, it is worth looking back to the still earlier
times as well, and examining one of the earliest and biggest manuscript collections
of Lithuanian songs, dated approximately 1834–1845. The collection was compiled
by a prominent Lithuanian cultural figure of the 19th century, the famous historian
Simonas Daukantas. Almost two thirds of songs accumulated in this collection
(550 variants out of 850) consist of Samogitian texts, while in terms of origin most
of them are the ancient classical songs. Still, this collection clearly testifies to the
natural and quite intensive process of the new songs of literary origin replenishing
the traditional old song repertoire already during the 19th century and making up
as many as 20 per cent of it. The 19th century could be characterized by fusion of
the elements from the written and oral traditions, entrenchment of the individual
poetic creativity, and by active adoption by folksong composers of the individual
poetical style and the new literary thematic. Innovations then became inherent
part of tradition. By the way, continuity of this tradition can be felt until the present day, and none of the multiple historical eruptions were able to conceal it.
So, what is there typical for the nowadays folklore informants in Salantai, and
how does their individual repertoire differ? Three rather prominent types of informants could be discerned:
the folklore ensembles and their separate members;
the groups of the funeral singers; and
the individual folklore informants, not belonging to the previous two.
The folklore ensembles exist practically in every bigger community of this
region. As a rule, their members are people with higher education, retaining the
personal urge to sing and a rather strong inclination towards the amateur artistic
activity. The folklore ensembles have become certain cultural centers in the contemporary Lithuanian periphery, experiencing significant social and economical
hardships. Along with fostering ethnic traditions they also become centers of pastime cultural activities, thus channeling the attitude of the community towards
its traditional culture. The leaders of these ensembles usually are professional
musicians and specialists of the ethnic culture. They shape the repertoire of the
ensembles by purposefully learning songs from the prominent local folk singers,
and also consulting numerous folksong publications appearing nowadays. Part of
the songs is directly inherited from the members of the ensembles. It is noteworthy, though, that the repertoire of the folklore ensembles is predominated by the
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ancient folksongs, besides, not only the typical local repertoire gets preserved. On
the other hand, according to our direct experience, most of the members of these
ensembles particularly like the late, or «modern» songs. And although the leaders
of the ensembles tend to avoid performing such songs onstage, they are nevertheless eagerly sung during rehearsal breaks or at home.
Another clear type of performers consists of the funeral singers. Such groups
of the funeral singers exist in the whole Lithuania, uniting sociable men and
women who have good voices, and usually are well respected by their neighbors.
These singers perform a clearly defined role during the several days-long funeral
ceremonies. By the way, one should be reminded, that in the contemporary senescent and rapidly thinning out Lithuanian countryside, funerals now are the
factor, necessarily and most frequently uniting the whole community. While conducting fieldwork, we were especially interested in the traditional folk songs that
these singers perform along with the compulsory funeral repertoire, comprising
Christian psalms and the modern funeral songs. Still, the folksongs repertoire,
performed by these groups, is quite modest, if compared to that of the folklore
ensembles, and the singers themselves regard singing as incidental activity. Their
folksong repertoire is mainly based on the personal or family tradition; it is not
purposefully enriched or consciously refreshed.
The third group consists of the individual informants, not taking part in the
activities of the above-mentioned ensembles or groups. The quality and quantity
of the repertoire of these individual performers depends on the frequency of their
practicing and may be vastly different. From some of these informants we could
record only several exhaustive, perfect song samples, from others – several dozens
of song fragments, yet others performed songs recorded in their notebooks, and
there were also such people, who could hardly remember one or two songs. Quite
a number of these individual informants, contrary to the members of the abovementioned groups, lacked self-confidence or had doubts about themselves as good
singers or the value of their songs.
In the course of the last year’s fieldwork session, it became absolutely evident that the community regards the members of the folklore ensembles and the
funeral singers’ groups as the true representatives of the local folk singing tradition. Whenever folklorists inquired about the folk singers of this region, the local
people would first name members of these groups. The social respect and popularity that such singers receive enhances their self-esteem and self-confidence. They
are eagerly handed the right and privilege to sing. Such tendency clearly reveals
the narrowing positions of singing. This impression is further strengthened by
yet another typically Samogitian tendency: frequently the informants whom we
encountered would start from the usual «ritual» excuses, e. g. stating that singing
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without any obvious reason could be considered strange, and the neighbors would
start wondering if the singer was tipsy… Singing for oneself, without reason, has
already become a rare and exceptional phenomenon. The majority of people became quite used to the fact that song is being transferred onstage and made inherent part of the public events. Singing increasingly becomes the consciously
selected form of the cultural pastime activity.
It seems that the ancient folk singing tradition, to which part of the Lithuanian
folklorists and specialists of the ethnic culture still ardently adheres, is practically extinct. Yet in spite of such prevailing nostalgic mood one has to admit that conscious
processes of bringing the song back to its former natural surroundings already take
place for several decades. However, when communicating to the people from Salantai, we formed an impression that such situation does not seem hopeless to them; on
the contrary, they regard it as inspiring admiration and satisfaction. It should also
inspire much more exhaustive scholarly investigation as well.
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Agnieszka Czajkowska (CZESTOCHOVA, POLAND)
Ballade in der modernen polnischen Lyrik – Tradition und
Modernität
Е
Abstract: Die Gattung der Ballade erscheint in der polnischen Literatur im Jahre 1822 zusammen
mit dem die Romantik inaugurierenden Band «Balladen und Romanzen» von Adam Mickiewicz.
Schon damals erkennt man die Struktur, die Tradition (die Vergangenheit der europäischen Literatur) und Modernität (die aus der Sicht der volkskundlichen Entdeckungen von Herder gesehene
Gegenwart) verbindet.
In derselben Zeit führt die Vervielfältigung (albo das Nachahmen – nasladowanie) des Mickiewiczschen Ballademusters zur Erschöpfung der Möglichkeiten der Gattung.
Das Phänomen der verbreiteten «Manie der Ballade» bedeutet den Tod der Ballade.
Erst die polnische Dichtung des 20. Jahrhunderts nimmt erneut diese literarische Tradition in
den originellen künstlerischen Werken von Leśmian, Herberta, Przyboś, Białoszewski, Broniewski,
Grochowiak, Szymborska auf.
Ф
Key word: Gattiungsgeschichte, Romantismus, Modernismus, kulturelles Erbe
Чайковська, Агнєшка
Балада в сучасній польській ліриці – традиція та новаторство
ІМ
Резюме: Жанр балади з’являється в польській літературі 1822 року разом із впровадженим романтизмом томом «Балад та романсів» Адама Міцкевича. Вже тоді упізнаються структура, традиція (минувшина європейської літератури) та новації (сучасність, бачена з точки
зору народознавчих відкриттів Гердера) у їх поєднанні. На той же час урізноманітнення (або
наслідування) баладних взірців Міцкевича веде до вичерпання можливостей жанру. Феномен
ширення «баладної манії» означає смерть балади.
Лише польська поезія ХХ ст. відновлює цю літературну традицію в оригінальних художніх творах Лесьмяна, Герберта, Пшибося, Бялошевського, Бронєвського, Гроховяка, Шимборської та ін.
Ключові слова: історія жанру, романтизм, модернізм, культурна спадщина
Das Erscheinen der Ballade in der polnischen Literatur wird einer zweifachen
Semantik unterordnet – als Element der historisch-literarischen Kontinuität und
als Faktor der revolutionären Veränderungen. Für die eine neue Strömung inaugurierende Gattung besaß die Ballade eine solide Basis in Form von Klagegesang,
von dem Zgorzelski als von ihrem direkten Vorgänger schrieb.
Dadurch gewinnt die Ballade ihre Protagonisten in Form der historischen, literarischen Reflexion von J. U. Niemcewicz (Śpiewy historyczne), von Fr. Karpiński
(Żale Sarmaty) von dem Prinzen A. Czartoryski (Bard polski). Sie wird auch zugleich zu dem Gebiet, auf dem man den Einfluss der englischen Ballade auf die sentimentale Emfindsamkeit der damaligen literarischen Helden beobachten kann 1.
In der klasizistischen Literaturtheorie befand sich der Klagegesang unter den
1 Siehe Cz. Zgorzelski, Duma poprzedniczka ballady, Toruń 1949, S. 72.
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«niedrigeren» Gattungen. Er wurde jedoch von der damaligen theoretisch – literarischen Reflexion bemerkt. In seinem Kurs der Poesie weist Józef Korzeniowski
auf die Balladen von Schiller und die schottischen Balladen hin, er kommentiert
sie in dem Kapitel über Klagegesänge. Er erwähnt auch das balladische Schaffen
der «jungen Dichter», wie er die Romantiker zu nennen pflegte.
Korzeniowski fehlte es jedoch an Methoden, die die neuen, die Grenzen der
klasizistischen Poetik überschreitenenden Erscheinungen beschreiben ließen. Von
K. Brodziński wurde Klagegesang als geeigneter Träger des nationalen Charakters
der Slawen bezeichnet und als solcher wurde er von dem Theoretiker «der Klassizität und des Romantischen» für die bedeutende Rolle bei der Erneuerung der polnischen Literatur bestimmt. Es war sicherlich die Folge 2 der Lektüre der Schriften
von J. G. Herdera, unter denen auch des XVI. (czytaj sechzehnten) Buches Myśli o
filozofii dziejów (Gedanken über die Philosophie der Zeiten), in dem der Historiker
die slawischen Nationen von seinem historiographischen Gesichtspunkt aus einer
Beurteilung unterzieht. Sanfmut, Gefälligkeit, Gastfreundschaft, Folgsamkeit, Gehorsam sind Eigenschaften, mit denen Brodziński, Herder folgend, in seinen Briefen über polnische Literatur (Listy o polskiej literaturze) die Polen ausstattete.
Vom Beginn ihres offizielen Bestehens, das heißt seitdem sie in dem literarischen Bewusstsein der Schöpfer und der Empfänger existierte, wurde die Ballade mit einem lesbaren Signal der Konventionalität, das heißt, im Grunde genommen, mit einem Signal des Todes der Gattung ausgestattet, oder, um Bachtin herbeizurufen, mit Elementen, die die parodistische Stilisation 3 fördern. Es war die
Welle der Manie der Ballade, mit den 1823 herausgegebenen Werken von Witwicki, die selbst die Klassiker zum Lachen brachten und ihnen als Argument bei
der Verteidigung eigener estetischen Thesen dienten.
Das Schaffen des erwähnten Witwicki oder Odyniec sowie Kamiński bewies jedoch nicht die Tatsache der Erschöpfung der Möglichkeiten der Ballade als
literarischer Gattung, sondern es wurde eher zu dem Argument zugunsten des
dominierenden Einflusses von Mickiewicz auf die Dichter – die Gleichaltrigen.
Wir haben hier nämlich mit dem Nachahmen nicht «der Methode» einer poetischen Verarbeitung des volkstümlichen Rohstoffes zu einer literarischen Gestalt zu tun, sondern mit dem Phänomen der Identifikation mit einem bestimmten Resultat, mit der bereits fertigen Welt der balladischen Fiktion.
2 Siehe A. Witkowska, Słowiański mit początku, w: Sławianie, my lubim sielanki…, Warszawa
1972, s. 42–45.
3 M. Bachtin, Epos a powieść, przeł. J. Baluch, «Pamiętnik Literacki», 1970, z. 3, przedr. w: Studia
z teorii literatury. Archiwum przekładów «Pamiętnika Literackiego», cz. 1, pod red. J. Sławińskiego i
H. Markiewicza, Wrocław 1977, s. 187.
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In seiner Theorie der Dichtung, die in der Arbeit Lęk przed wpływem (Angst
vor dem Einfluss) enthalten ist, erklärt Harold Bloom die literarische Evolution
gerade auf diese Art. und Weise – durch den Zusammenstoß unterschiedlicher
poetischer Persönlichkeiten. «Missdeuten» des Werkes des großen Vorgängers,
(der übrigens in den Freudischen Kategorien des Vaters eines neurotischen Familie aufgefasst wird), Konflikt und die unbewusste Angst vor dem Einfluss sind
entwicklungsfördernde Elemente. Das Mickiewiczsche Muster wurde, das die
polnische Romantik beherrschte, wurde in dem «treuen» Ablesen der Nachahmer
zu dem Element, das die Entwicklung der von ihm im 19. (neunzehnten) Jahrhundert angebahnten Gattung hemmte.
Nach K. Cysewski 4 besteht die epochale Bedeutung der Ballade in der polnischen Literatur darin, dass się eine neue Wahrnehmungsart der Welt bestimmte
und ein von dem klassischen unterschiedliches Model der literarischen Kommunikation anbot. Der Mickiewiczsche Band von dem Jahre 1822, im Kontekst der
heimatlichen, historisch-literarischen Wirklichkeit gesehen, zeigt deutlich die
Koexistenz andersartiger literarischer Strömungen – des Sentimentalismus und
der Romantik, ihre gegenseitge Kommentare im Umkreis einzelner Werke. Die
Modernität, wie man es den Bemerkungen von H. R. Jauss 5 entnehmen kann,
muss nämlich den bestehenden Horizont der Lesererwartungen berücksichtigen
und einen Kompromiß, der der unvermeindliche Preis der litararischen Evolution
ist, mit ihnen eingehen.
Trotz der bedeutenden Basis, sowohl in der populären Literatur (das heißt
der Traditon des Klagegesanges) als auch in der klassischen Schule, für die das
Bewusssein für «hohe» Gattungen und epistomologische Ansprüche bezeichnend
ist, wurde gerade den Balladen und Romanzen der Moment der Inauguration
der neuen Epoche in der Geschichte der polnischen Literatur zuteil. Es war eine
besondere Inauguration, weil sie ihr Gepräge den Generationen verlieh, die der
Reihe nach ihr literarisches Bewusstsein manifestierten. Die innere Verwickeltheit des Wendepunktes hat ihre Folgen in den späteren Anknüpfungen an die
Romantik, auch in denen im Zeichen der Gattungszugehörigkeit. Ein Beispiel
für das kreative Nichtablesen der Mickiewiczschen Balladen und Romanzen sind
die Gedichte jener Dichter, die als avantgardistisch gelten und sich – wenn man
die Programmtätigkeit oder die kritischen Deklarationen berücksichtigt – auf
der «antiromantischen» Seite plazieren. Eines von den Manifesten der Karakauer
Avantgarde, der 1925 von Tadeusz Peiper geschriebene Artikel Nowe usta (Neue
4 Zob. K. Cysewski, Romantyczne nowatorstwo i tradycja. O «Balladach i romansach»
Mickiewicza, Słupsk 1994.
5 Zob. H. R. Jauss, Historia literatury jako prowokacja dla nauki o literaturze, w: Historia
literatury jako prowokacja, przełożyła M. Łukasiewicz, posłowie K. Bartoszyński, Warszawa 1999.
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Lippen, Neuer Mund, situiert die romantische Dichtung auf den Antipoden des
postulativen Bildes des aktuellen Schaffens, das dem realen Bedarf der modernen
Zeiten entspricht. Empfindsamkeit, Direktheit, Volkstümlichkeit und Zugänglichkeit des poetischen Angebots der Romantiker werden angegriffen. In dem
1938 von dem Vertreter der Avantgarde, Julian Przyboś, herausgegebenen Gedichteband Równanie serca (Gleichung des Herzens), befand sich das Werk unter
dem Titel Ballada zimowa (Winterballade), das man als Spiel aber nicht mit dem
Schaffen von Mickiewicz, sondern eher mit der formulierten Poetik der Krakauer Gruppe betrachten kann. «Die Erfahrung belehrt übrigens – schreibt Danuta
Zamącińska – dass die Kluft zwischen der poetischen Theorien und der schriftstellerischen Praxis immer ziemlich groß ist, es gibt keinen Grund, zu vermuten,
dass die Avantgardisten konsequenter als z.B. (zum Beispiel) die aufklärerischen
Klassizisten sind» 6.
Was noch mehr, wie die bereits zitierte Zamącińska bemerkt, weisen die späteren metapoetischen Äußerungen des Krakauer Dichters dutlich auf die Beständigkeit des romantischen Idioms, das zu der Geburt des in den Gedichten formulierten Bewusstseins von Przyboś als Dichter führt.
In der Situation des eigenartigen Mangels an genologischen Qualifikationen
in der Poesie des 20. (zwanzigsten) Jahrhunderts, die an seiner Wende von S. Balbus als «Untergang der Gattungen» bezeichnet wurde und, worüber Bożena Witosz 7 schreibt, Ordnung im Kontekst der Beziehungen zu dem Text forderte, ist die
deutliche, Titeldeklaration der Ballade ein Zeichen für die projiezierte Kommunikationssituation. Ihr konstitutives Element, neben dem «einfachen» Verhältnis
Sender des Textes – Empfänger, das Verhältnis des in dem Text bestimmten Senders als Dichter und des Lesers. Wir haben hier nämlich mit der Vervielfachung
der aktualisierten literarischen Tradition – der romantischen und avantgardistischen zugleich, und auch mit dem Spiel mit dem Horizont der Lesererwartungen,
der sich immer weiter von den steifen literarischen Distinktionen entfernt.
Ballada zimowa (Winterballade) ist Emanation der avantgardistischen Poetik – in ihrer Versifikations-, Wortbildungs-, Klang- sowie apellativen Charakteristik. Das Gedicht von Przyboś bildet ein Bild eines winterlichen, zugefrorenen
Gebietes, das dem Rhytmus des Schneegestöber anwehenden Windes unterliegt.
Das Rhythmische, die Wiederholbarkeit ist die charakteristische Eigenschaft der
Gestltung des Gedichtes, das sich, dank der Syntaxanalogien, in eigenartige Teile
6 D. Zamącińska, «Widzę naprzód o wiek?», w: Studia z teorii i historii poezji, seria 2. pod redakcją
Michała Słowińskiego, Wrocław 1970, s. 268.
7 Zob. B. Witosz, Gatunek – sporny(?) problem współczesnej refleksji tekstologicznej, w: Sporne
i bezsporne problemy współczesnej wiedzy o literaturze, praca zbiorowa pod redakcją Włodzimierza
Boleckiego i Ryszarda Bycza, Warszawa 2002, s. 283.
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formt. Elemente der technischen Zivilisation – Röhren, Pumpen, Schornsteine,
Zug, Lokomotive – schöpfen die Atmosphäre der Traurigkeit, der Trauer mit, die
sowohl durch die schwarz – weiße Koloristik der Welt, als auch durch die Unbeweglichkeit der von Verben gebildeten Substantive (przewał, Staudamm) sowie
durch das Feld der bildhaften Konnotationen bestimmt wird. Die auf diese Art
und Weise motivierte Landschaft erweist sich jedoch als ein Gebiet der beinahe
explodierenden Freude, Vitalität und Mobilität des Subjekts – des Erzählenden,
des deutlich abgesonderten Erzähler. Sein Blick – von der Bewegung, bei der Skiabfahrt – bewirkt das Beleben der Winterlandschaft.
Das den Band Ballady i romanse (Balladen und Romanzen) eröffnende Gedicht,
Pierwiosnek (Die Primel), schrieb die Einschränkungen der alten, sentimentalen
Empfindungsart in die meteorologische Wirklichkeit der Winter-, Frühlingssommerwende. Viel kompliziertere, als nur durch die Opposition der Jahreszeiten signalisierte Beziehungen des «Alten» und des «Neuen» in der Literatur, scheinen
jedoch bedeutend zu sein. Es ist nämlich nicht das einzige «Winterwerk», in dem
Mickiewicz die Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten der alten Konvention im Kontekst des
neuen, romantischen Bewusstseins untersucht. Ähnlich auch die frühere, 1918 im
«Tygodnik Wileński» (Wilnaer Tegesblatt) gedruckte Zima miejska (Der städische
Winter) reaktivierte die Poetik des Klassizismus mit «der Tradition der aufklärerischen Satire, der Konvention der “Beschreibungen“ der vier Jahreszeiten, der idillischen Tradition»8 – die jedoch völlig zu Diensten des ironischen und autoironischen
romantischen lyrischen Subjekts stand. Von daher wäre die ostentativ winterliche
Landschaft aus dem Gedicht von Przyboś ein Beispiel für das analoge Spiel mit der
Konvention, aber nicht mit der sentimentalen – wie bei Mickiewicy, sondern mit
der romantischen Konvention? Wäre die Kreation der Fremdheit, die das Subjekt
der Winterballade charakterisiert, ein Angriff auf die Dominanz der Romantik in
der Lyrik, ein umso bedeutender Angriff, dass er 16 Jahre nach dem avantgardistischen Gedichtdebüt erfolgte? Ähnlich auch «bediente sich» Słowacki des Winters
in seiner Fortsetzug des Mickiewiczschen Werkes Pan Tadeusz. Die Ballade von
Przyboś ist also ein Beispiel für die «negierte Poetik», eine Art des intertextuellen
Spieles, dessen Preis nicht die Konfrontation des «Alten» mit dem «Neuen» im Rahmen der restituierten genologischen Formel ist, sondern wo es eher zu einem Versuch der Selbstbestimmung des Subjekts kommt – des Kenners und des Benutzers
der kanonischen Tradition. Der Gest der Negation betrifft sowohl die volkstümliche
Verwandschaft der polnischen Ballade, als auch das Streben danach, das Subjekt
der Äußerung in dem von den Wurzeln abgeleiteten, moralischen Universum zu
8 Zob. D. Seweryn, Zimowe gry literackie, w: „…jak tam zaszedłeś”. Mickiewicz w szkole klasycznej,
Lublin 1997, s. 30.
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plazieren sowie das Erkenntnisengagement des Erzählers. Ballada zimowa (Winterballade) konstituiert das Aubjekt der Äußerung in den Kategorien des Dichters
und als solche stellt sie ein Argument für die betriebene avantgardistische Kunst
und auch eine Art der Prolegomena zu der in den 50er Jahren begonnen, scharfsinnigen, an die Werkstatt orientierten Lektüre der Gedichte von Mickiewicz dar.
Dieses Bewusstsein beinhaltet auch den Dialog mit der Synchronie – die bevorzugten genologischen Formen in der Praxis der Krakauer Avantgarde waren doch die
Hymne und die Ode 9. Das Schaffen von dem 1922 geborenen Miron Białoszewski,
dem Vertreter der linquistischen Dichtung bildet die Fortsetzung der Strömung
der Umgestaltungen und der Untersuchung der semantischen Möglichkeiten der
Ballade als literarischer Gattung. Der 1956 herausgegebene Debütband seiner Gedichte – Obroty rzeczy – beinhaltet zwei Gattungszyklen, die das Erbe der Romantik
zurückrufen – Ballady rzeszowskie, Ballady peryferyjne, und auch einzelne Werke,
wie z.B. (zum Beispiel) Ballada o zejściu do sklepu.
Das spätere Schaffen bezieht sich auch auf dieses Gattungsmuster, obwohl es
kein einziges Muster ist – Ballada od rymu aus dem Band Rachunek zaściankowy
soll eher unter den in der Zeit zwischen den beiden Kriegen (Weimarer Republik)
populären «Hofballaden» plaziert werden. Das aus dem 20. Jahrhundert stammende Muster wird für Białoszewski sowohl zu dem Gebiet komplizierter Wortspiele als
auch zu der Ebene, auf der das Modell der «unvollkommenen Sprache» vorgestellt
werden kann. Dieses Modell lässt den Schein der kommunikativen Funktionen der
Sprache und der Konvention der sprachlichen Praxis entlarven 10. Die Erinnerung
an Mickiewicz bleibt jedoch der wichtigste Aspekt der poetischen Kreation des Subjekts der Gedichte von Białoszewski, der in seinem Rozkurz schreibt:
«Jede Generation messt sich (mierzy sie?) von Anfang an mit der Romantik,
mit Mickiewicz. Umso mehr der Schreibende. Sich neben die großen Dichter zu
stellen, neben Kochanowski, neben Jesaja».
«Każde pokolenie od początku tołkuje się z romantyzmem, Mickiewiczem. A tym
bardziej piszący. Ustawić się do wieszczów, do Kochanowskiego, do Izajasza» 11.
Die Ballade ist also ein Element der Selbstidentifikation – im Angesicht des
niederdrückenden Musters des romantischen Dichters. Als solche kann sie keinen
Mechanismen der Stilisierung unterliegen, aber sie muss – im Namen der Authentizität der Äußerung des 20. Jahrhunderts – modernisiert werden. M. Łukaszuk –
Piekara schreibt:
9 Zob. J. Sławiński, Koncepcja języka poetyckiego awangardy krakowskiej, Wrocław – Warszawa –
Kraków 1965, s. 20–24, 104–105.
10 Zob. J. Sławiński, Miron Białoszewski. Ballada od rymu, w: Liryka polska. Interpretacje, pod
redakcją Jana Prokopa i Janusza Sławińskiego, Gdańsk 2001, s. 544–558.
11 Cyt. za: Małgorzata Łukaszuk – Piekara, «niby ja». O poezji Białoszewskiego, Lublin 1997, s. 45.
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«Das so deutliche Herbeirufen des romantischen Modells soll alle Ähnlichkeiten, aber vor allem die Andersartigkeiten entdecken, es ist gleichzeitig die
Kompromitation des historischen Urmusters sowie des sich dieses Musters bedienenden modernen Autoporträts.
Es ändert natürlich nicht die Generalregel: die Maske eben und die Rolle der authentischen Gestalt bildet das Urmuster, die Sphäre der romantischen
Zerrissenheiten und Handlungen ist für Białoszewski Gebiet, das der Erkenntnis
und der Aktualisation wert ist. Der Wählende ist jedoch der Gewählte und die
Entscheidung, fremde Kleidung anzuziehen, kann zu einem Befehl werden. Der
Skeptizismus des modernen Dichters bewirkt, dass die Folge einer Maskarde Ellipse und Groteske sein werden» 12.
Das literarische Kostüm des 20. Jahrhunderts erfordert eine Nichtanpassung. In
der Poesie von Białoszewski bilden eine solche Nichtanpassung die Poetik der Abkürzung, die zu der Oberflächligkeit führt, die Kreation des Dichters als Verneinung
des Modells eines großen Dichters, eine zwiespältige Welt, die durch die Notwendigkeit der Selbständigkeit des von einer stärkeren Konvention «Gewählten» bestimmt wird. Wenn schon eine Ballade – dann über ein gewöhnliches «Runtergehen
in ein Geschäft», worüber wie über das Mickiewiczsche Traktat über Gegenstand
und Instrumente der Erkenntnis berichtet wird. Białoszewski versorgt es übrigens
mit deutlichen Signalen «des Sichablösens» von dem geheimnisvollen und unheimlichen Muster. Wenn Volkstümlichkeit – dann über das teologische System und
seine kulturelle, plastische und musische Interpretation vermittelt. Wenn Naivität
des Erzählers – dann eine solche, hinter der die antropologische Edukation steckt.
Wenn das Wunderbare – dann in der mißtrauischen, verweltlichten Wirklichkeit
der Gegenwart, das Wunderbare, das durch die Poetik des Traumes. Zu guter Letzt –
statt Euphonie und Eurythmie – Sprache, die Ungeschicklichkeit der belauschter
Performanz imitiert. Die Kritik an der Konvention erfolgt durch eine andere Art
der zugelegten Ordnung – durch Stilisation für Oberflächlichkeit, Alltäglichkeit und
Gewöhnlichkeit. Charakteristisch ist, dass die Nichtanpassung in den Werken, die
keinen Gattungshinweis besitzen aber Merkmale der Ballade erkennen lassen, nicht
auf einer einfachen Übertragung in die gegenwärtige Wirklichkeit beruht. In solchen Werken wie Autobiografia oder Z kolejowych przypadków wird die Schöpfung
des Erzählers mit einem romantischen Personalausweis ausgestattet, und die Umwelt bedarf der Erkundung ihres zweiten Bodens:
Ale jakże tu wyjść
na pękające pod nogami lustra ulic,
12 M. Łukaszuk – Piekara, op. cit. s. 49–50.
140
deptać kałuże
z rozlanym okiem opatrzności,
wpaść w sobowtór nieba,
w dno, które odpada
od pudła miasta? 13
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Das als Metapher dargestellte Weltbild lässt seine literarische Herkunft erkennen, die lirysche Schöpfung des Subjekts wird jedoch mit einem Aführungszeichen versehen – romantische Begeisterungen finden in der besonderen, «dem
Leben entnommenen» Zeit, wie bei Słowacki in «der Stunde der Gedanken»,
außerdem bedürfen sie einer ziemlich großen Anstrengung und komplizierter
Vorbereitungstätigkeiten. Die obigen Experimente zeugen vor allem von der Vitalität der literarischen Gattung, in die Heterogenität, Flexibilität, Möglichkeit,
neue Themen, Helden, Landschaftsbilder zu tragen, eingeschrieben sind – in Gegenwart desselben vor einer höheren Ereignisfolge stehenden, sich wundernden,
kennen lernenden Erzählers. Wie in der von Szymborska «umgedrehten» Ballade von Mickiewicz, Lilie. Das romantische Werk bleibt ein Beispiel einer solchen
Umwandlung des Volksliedes Stała się nam nowina. In dieser Umwandlung diente
das Original als Anregung für die Phantasie des Schöpfers und als Feld der komplizierten Maßnahmen, die bei der Stilisation erforderlich sind. Die beabsichtigte
Einfachheit der Äußerungen des Erzählers von Mickiewicz verbirgt vervielfachte
Kommunikationsverhältnisse, die die Gestalten der Helden, des Erzählers und
letztendlich des romantischen, nach einer höheren ethischen Ordnung suchenden
Dichters in die dargestellte Welt des volkstümlichen Erzählers einbeziehen. Nur
scheinbar nimmt Szymborska die volkstümliche Urfassung in ihrer Stilistik auf.
Sie verzichtet auf die Sender – Empfänger – Komplikationen, sie vereinfacht auf
eine kennzeichnende Art und Weise – ihre Ballade ist:
Ułożona w dobrej wierze,
napisana na papierze 14.
Nur der volkstümliche, «mündliche» Erzähler räumt den Vorrang dem Vertreter der Schriftkultur, die Kompliziertheit des Mickiewiczschen Werkes wird
durch die Deklaration der direkten, naiven Äußerung ersetzt. Beibehalten werden
die Berichtform sowie die Möglichkeit, die erzählte Geschichte augenscheinlich
13 M. Białoszewski, Autobiografia, w: Utwory zebrane, T. 1,Obroty rzeczy. Rachunek zachciankowy. Mylne wzruszenia. Było i było, Warszawa 1987, s. 98.
14 W. Szymborska, Ballada, w: Wybór wierszy, Warszawa1979, s. 64.
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zu überprüfen. Der Erzähler täuscht die Naivität vor und macht seine Äußerung
glaubwürdig. Sie ist übrigens so phantasievoll, das die Identifikation Äußerungsgegenstand – Äußerungssubjekt unerlässlich ist. Nur eine Einzelheit bleibt nicht
übereinstimmend – Szymborska, im Gegensatz zu Mickiewicz, verteilt die Rollen.
In ihrem Werk ist Räuber ein «Herr», der Tod ist symbolisch und bezieht sich
auf das Gefühlsleben. Deswegen «bewegt» die Heldin des Mordes «den Kopf»,
sie «trippelt» und führt verschiedene Tätigkeiten aus, wie «der sprechende Leichnam» aus einem anderen Gedicht von Mickiewicz.
Ballada der gegenwärtigen Dichterin täuscht Naivität vor, glaubt an die Einfachheit des romantischen Werkes. Mit der Gattungskonvention spielend, beruft
sie sich auf Mickiewicz als Dichter und Verfasser von Lilie. Sie schreibt ihm das
Schema der dichterischen Tätigkeiten, die in der etnographischen Aufzeichnung
und dem biographischen Filter bestehen sollen. Von daher der erklärte Glauben,
Direktheit und der den weiblichen Standpunkt einnehmende Erzähler. Der Schein
der wortwörtlichen Lektüre von Szymborska ermöglicht die Gattungsansätze der
literarischen Ballade zu artikulieren. Wenn hier etwas erhalten bleibt, dann ist es
«die Freude am Schreiben», die auch den Titel eines der Gedichte von Szymborska
sowie einen der wichtigsten Stoffe ihres Schaffens darstellt. Auf dem Pol der Lektüre von Szymborska, die das Poetische der Balladen von Mickiewicz artikuliert,
soll man auch die von H. Poświatowska i R. Wojaczek geschriebene Werke plazieren. Die 1935 geborene Dichterin und den 10 Jahre jüngeren Dichter verbindet
man gewöhnlich im Namen der eigenartigen Kategorie des Autobiographismus.
Im Fall des Schaffens von den beiden bedeuete die Autobiographie die wörtliche
Treue der Byronschen Regel «leben, wie man schreibt und schreiben, wie man
lebt», das heißt die Tätigkeit der Aufzeichnung der Existenz und ihre Umwandlung in die literarische Legende. Die sowohl von Poświatowska (Ballada), als auch
von Wojaczka (Ballada bezbożna, Ballada o prawdziwej krwi) geschriebenen Balladen verstärken die autobiographische Spur der Werke von Mickiewicz. Von dieser Spur kann man zum Beispiel in Bezug auf Kurhanek Maryli sprechen, obwohl
sie, ähnlich wie im Fall der Volkskunst, nicht im «reinen Zustand», sondern in
einer stark konventionalisierten Form auftritt. In dem Gedicht von Poświatowska
kommt es zu der Verschmelzung des Biographismus mit der literarischen Schöpfung Karusias, der Heldin von Mickiewiczs Romantyczność. Auf diese Weise erfolgt eine eigenartige Konkretisierung, Vervollständigung der «Plätze der Unbestimmtheit», die in der romantischen Ballade Träger des Weltbildes – des Buches
der Bedeutungen waren. Das von der Fabel unbegründete Benehmen von Karusia
bekommt in dem Gedicht Poświatowskas die psychologische Sanktion, die mit der
Biographie der Autorin begründet wird. In dem Band von Mickiewicz kann man
auch ein Werk finden, das die psychologische Wahrheit der menschlichen Erleb-
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nisse zum Ausdruck bringt. Problematisch ist nur die Tatsache, dass der Autor von
Romantyczność auch hier Dichter bleibt – der emotionale Realismus wird durch
das Werk eines anderen Dichters, F. Schiller, vermittelt, dessen Ballade Handschuh
Mickiewicz einfach überträgt. Die existentionale Spur wird in den Balladen von
R. Wojaczek in die Richtung Somatismus gelenkt. Der Somatismus soll – in den
60er Jahren – den Vertrauensmangel im Verhältnis zu Autoritäten und den trostlosen Aufruhr des einsamen Bekenner der romantischen Kunstideale.
In den Kontekst der Werke, die die Poetik der romantischen Ballade «aktiv fortsetzen» 15, obwohl sie den Dialog mit der Vergangenheit nur selektiv aufnehmen, soll
man das Schaffen von W. Broniewski einbeziehen. Nicht nur wegen der von dem
Autor betriebenen «Erneuerung der Bedeutungen» 16 oder des «Anachronismus» in
der Art des Gedichttitel Romantyczność, das doch keine Ballade ist.
Es bestehen jedoch Werke, die ohne Gattungsmerkmale ihre Hauptdeterminanten restituieren. Zu solchen gehört zum Beispiel Kasztan – die Ballade, die die
Naivität des Erzählers und das von ihm erklärte Unwissen angesichts der Autozensur ausnutzt.
Das Lvover Gefängnis, Zamarstynów, das nach der Biographie des Autors und
des Hautheldes, Offizier Tadeusz Cynkin, muss zumindest bis 1997 im Bereich des
Unwissens bleiben. Damals nämlich konnte in dem offiziellen Verlag die unter
dem Gedicht notierte Adresse von Broniewski erscheinen. Das Werk selbst, in den
JAhren 1940 1943 geschrieben, wurde für Leute, die ähnliche Biographien, mit
der Episode des sowjetischen Gefängnisses bestimmt. Unter den Soldaten der Anders – Armee war die genaue Adresse nicht notwendig – sie war in dem Horizont
der Lesererwartungen enthalten.
Der augenfällig klassische gegenwärtige polnische Dichter, Zbigniew Herbert, plazierte in seinem 1956 herausgegebenen Debütsband, Struna światła, das
Werk unter dem Titel Ballada o tym że nie giniemy (Ballade darüber, dass wir
nicht untergehen). Er stand neben anderen Gedichte, die die poetische Genealogie Herberts gestalteten – das Erbe der griechisch – römischen Antik, verbunden
mit der Erinnerung an Apokalypse und mit dem Versuch, die Welt im Rahmen
der stoischen Philosophie zu ordnen. Die Titelerklärung ermöglicht jedoch das
Gedicht im Zusammenhang mit dem Schaffen von Mickiewicz, un nicht nur im
Rahmen der Gattungsrekonstruktion. Ballada o tym że nie giniemy schreibt sich
in das in den Nachkriegsdebüten dominierende Bewusstsein der «Rettung» (der
Gedichtsband von Cz. Miłosza Ocalenie, das Gedicht von T. Różewicz Ocalony).
Das Problem, die Katastrophe zu vermeiden, überträgt sich auf die Ebene des
15 Termin S. Balbusa, zob. tenże, Między stylami, Kraków 1996.
16 Zob. M. Janion, Odnawianie znaczeń, Kraków 1980.
143
Schaffensbewusstseins – das Treffen mit der Geschichte bringt die Überzeugung,
die Mickiewicz in Konrad Wallenrod äußerte:
Płomień rozgryzie malowane dzieje,
Skarby mieczowi spustoszą złodzieje,
Pieśń ujdzie cało […] 17.
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Das Einschreiben der von Halban ausgedrückten Überzeugung in die Gattungsrahmen der Ballade ist seitens des gegenwärtigen Dichters ein Versuch, sich
im Rahmen der Tradition zurechtzufinden, aber vor allen ist es die Kundgebung
der aufmerksamen Lektüre von Mickiewicz. Die eingeschränkte Heterogenität der
Form ermöglicht die Apoteose des romantischen Heroismus und des Horacischen
non omnis moriar – was hier eher in den balladischen Glauben an die Existenz der
außersinnlichen Seite der Wirklichkeit miteinbezogen ist, zu fassen. Die klassische Ordnung der Welt findet in dem Gedicht von Herbert den Berührungspunkt
mit dem romantischen Historismus. Der in dem Gedicht auftretende «Engel des
Windes» nimmt die Form des Engels der Geschichte ein, der zu der Erfahrung
eines Einwohners Osteuropas wurde. Dichtung, Geschichte, Existenz erfuhren in
dem Gedicht von Herbert eine neue balladische Formel.
Der missverstandene Mickiewicz, verkehrt benutzte Konvention wurde die
Formel der nächsten poetischen Initiation und ermöglichte den im Moment des
Debüts ausgesprochene Lob der Literatur:
z powietrza wody wapna ziemi
zrobiono raj ich anioł wiatru
rozetrze ciało w dłoni
będą
po łąkach nieść się tego świata 18.
17 A. Mickiewicz, Konrad Wallenrod, w: Dzieła, t. 2, oprac. Władysław Florian przy współpracy
Konrada Górskiego i Czesława Zgorzelskiego, Warszawa 1997, s. 101.
18 Z. Herbert, Ballada o tym że nie giniemy, w: Wiersze zebrane, Warszawa 1982, s. 40.
144
J. J. DIAS MARQUES (FARO, PORTUGAL)
The Oral Ballad as a Model for Written Poetry in the Portuguese
Romantic Movement: The Case of Garrett’s Adozinda
Е
Abstract: This article is an attempt to determine how Garrett’s Adozinda followed the model
of the Romantic literary ballads by British and German authors, who, in turn, had been ultimately
influenced by Herder’s theories. Author concludes that Garrett used very little from the oral ballad
collected by a friend of his, limiting his borrowing to the general features of the story, above all the
theme of incest between father and daughter, a theme that had never been treated in Portuguese
literature before. Garrett’s poem is mostly of his own invention, although he also uses themes that
Romantic writers in general have in common – themes which he repeats in later works. Garrett himself
followed just moderately the example he proposed, since he only wrote six ballads inspired by texts
taken from the oral tradition.
Key words: Garrett, literary ballads, model, oral ballads, Portuguese romantic literature.
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ДЖ.ДЖ. ДІАС МАРКЕС (ФАРО, ПОРТУГАЛІЯ)
Усна балада як модель для літературної поезії у португальському
романтичному русі: на прикладі «Адосінди» Гарретта
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Резюме: Автор статті намагається проаналізувати, як усна народна балада впливала на
літературну поезію епохи романтизму (на прикладі «Адосінди» Гаррета). Автор доходить висновку, що Гаррет використовував досить незначні елементи фольклорних балад, переважно –
загальну тему та певні сюжетні елементи.
Ключові слова: Гаррет, літературна балада, португальський епос, романтизм, усний
текст.
In memoriam Maria da Conceição Contreiras
One of the most interesting features of romantic theories on literature lies in
the enormous importance that they give to oral literature, and to oral poetry in
particular. As Ruth Finnegan indicates,
In the Romantic view, the quintessence of emotional expression and
natural spontaneity is found in «primitive» language and culture. Poetry
originates in primaeval expressions of emotion which are by nature expressed in rhythmic and figurative form. Further, «unlettered» folk as well
as far-off «primitive» peoples are thought to represent the essence of the
natural and instinctive poetic expression so valued by romantic writers.
(1992: 32)
Romantic theorists believed that emotional essence varied according to different nations and that every nation had its own essence, expressed in its traditional
culture, and especially so in oral poetry. During the Middle Ages, the culture of
each nation was simultaneously shared by the people and the ruling classes, but
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the latter strayed from this towards the end of the Middle Ages when, influenced
by the Renaissance, they gradually adopted a culture of Greco-Latin origin, which
was replaced by French culture during the eighteenth century. Because of these
foreign cultural influences, the ruling classes became like exotic, underdeveloped
plants in alien soil. Romantic theorists believed that, ultimately, this explained the
lack of vitality and decadence of the ruling classes towards the end of the eighteenth century. Fortunately, the common people, and the country folk in particular, remained untouched by the foreign cultures adopted by the aristocracy and
the bourgeoisie, thus preserving a vitality that the other classes had lost. According to Romantic thought – especially Rousseau – peasants could contribute considerably to the renewal of society and the effort to regain a long lost vitality. Those
peasants, who had been previously regarded as strange and uncultured beasts,
were now deemed to possess a culture worthy of study. Since oral poetry was seen
as the quintessential, most spontaneous part of peasant culture, it became particularly important to those who wished to regain the vitality lost in the past centuries. These theories were developed especially by the German philosopher Herder,
whose ideas came to have an enormous influence across Romantic Europe.
In his first essay on the subject, «On Ossian and the Songs of Ancient People»,
written in 1773, Herder describes popular poetry in the highest terms:
[...] the more wild people are, that is to say the more alive and free they are
(for that word does not really mean anything else), the more wild, that is to say,
the more alive, the more free, the more sensuous, surely the more lyrical their
songs – should they have songs – also ought to be. The further removed people are
from the artistic and scholarly way of thinking, speaking and writing, the less their
songs should be put to paper, the less their verses should be dead letters.
Herder deems the learned poetry of the elites to be vastly inferior because of
its rationalism and foreign influences:
We have almost stopped seeing and feeling, we only think and brood
about things instead; we no longer make poetry about and in a living world,
in the storm and in the flood of such objects and feelings, instead we turn
into artifice the subject or the treatment of it, or both.
Beginning with literature, the dominant culture had therefore much to learn from
folk poetry and should take it as a model. In Herder’s opinion, folk poetry could
[...] simplify a little [...] our lyrical chants, odes, songs, [...] [it could] make
us familiar with simpler subjects and with a nobler way to treat them, in short,
it could free us from the heaviness of so much ornamentation, which has nearly
turned into law [...]. Look at the kind of artificial Horatian style we have now fallen
into – Ossian, the songs of the savages, of the troubadours, romances, provincial
poems could put us on a better path.
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The Oral Ballad as a Model for Written Poetry in the Portuguese Romantic Movement:
The Case of Garrett’s Adozinda
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In a later article, «On the Similitude Between English and German Artistic Mediaeval Poetry» (1777), Herder addresses himself to the German people and asks:
Is the voice of your ancestors lost and silenced in the dust? People of valiant
traditions, of noble virtues and language, have you no traces of your soul of the
olden times?
Let us have no doubts! Those traces did exist, perhaps they still exist; only they
lie under mud, ignored and despised [...].
We now must tackle this task, collecting, searching quickly, before we are all
taught in the manner of the Classics, sing French songs, dance French minuets, or
write hexameters and Horatian odes.
One of the poets who tried to put Herder’s theories into practice was his countryman Bürger, who wrote many ballads more or less inspired by oral literature.
The most famous was Lenore, which was very well known throughout Romantic
Europe. In 1776, Bürger wrote:
These old folk songs offer the maturing poet a very important study of the
naturally poetic, especially in lyric and epic-lyric art […].
With that in mind my ear listened sometimes, in the dusk, to the magical sound
of ballads and folk songs, under the village linden trees, in the laundry and in the
spinning rooms. […] From that alone it is truly splendid to learn how to perform a
ballad, a romance, or lyric and epic-lyric poetry […].
We are Germans! Germans who should make digestible and nourishing poetry for all people, not Greek, Latin or every country’s poetry, but German poetry
in the German language.
In Portugal, the theory of oral poetry as a model for written poetry is first documented in a letter written in 1824 by J. B. de Almeida Garrett, known as founder of
Portuguese Romantic movement. Exiled from Portugal because of his liberal ideas,
Garrett had spent the end of 1823 and the first months of 1824 in England. In March
1824 he went to live in France and later, in November, he wrote to another Portuguese
exile who was still living in London. That letter includes the following passage:
Do you remember our conversations in London about Portuguese ancient
things and how they could be used by those who would do with our legends and
old stories and traditions what the English and Germans do so well, that is to say,
dress them with poetic adornments, and brush off their dust of centuries with a
good sense of choice and in an appropriate manner? Well, since then (and my
mind was simmering with this before then), I have not done anything except wonder how I could manage to build something that, even if remotely, could look like
so many good things that there are here in these foreign countries and that in our
country, even though we are so rich in traditions, are wasted and scattered away
due to the carelessness of the learned and the barbarism of the ignorant.
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It was during his English exile that the young Garrett, who had began his
literary career as a neoclassical poet, became acquainted with Romanticism, then
virtually unknown in Portugal. As he himself states, one of the aspects of this new
literature that impressed him most were the poems inspired by folk ballads. This
led him to compose Adozinda, a long narrative poem based on a traditional Portuguese ballad, which he published in 1828. In the introduction, Garrett mentions
explicitly the influence he received from «the poems of Walter Scott, or, more
exactly, his poetic novels, the German ballads, and the English [better said: Scottish] ones by Burns» (1828: xxiii). By Scott’s «poetical novels», he means the long
narrative poems that the Scottish author called «metrical romances»; The Lay of
the Last Minstrel (1805) is perhaps the most famous. Garrett quotes some lines
from Marmion (1808), refers to Rokeby (1812), and it is possible that he was also
influenced by the literary ballads written by Scott and some of his friends that appeared in the fourth volume of Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1803), under the
title «Imitations of the Ancient Ballad».
In any case, it would not even have been necessary for Garrett to read this part
of the Minstrelsy; the British literary ballad movement would have sufficed. This
movement, which produced numerous ballads partly inspired by folk models, was
very important in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (Laws 1972
and Yamanaka 2001). By 1828, that is, by the time Garrett published Adozinda,
there had appeared at least 227 literary ballads by renowned authors such as Swift,
Gay, Pope, Goldsmith, Blake, Burns, Wordsworth, Scott, Southey, Lewis, and Byron. In a nutshell, Garrett could not have failed to notice this movement when he
lived in England.
In addition to Scott and Burns, Garrett also refers to the influence of the «German ballads», an expression that, when Adozinda is republished later, becomes
more specific as «Bürger’s German ballads» (Garrett 1843:16). Notwithstanding,
Garrett does not seem to have known much German, and in 1828, when Adozinda
was first published, none of Bürger’s ballads had been translated into Portuguese.
While he lived in England, however, Garrett certainly could have read some of
Bürger’s ballads in English translation. In fact, by 1828 there were six translations
of Lenore, three of Der Wilde Jäger and two of Des Pfarrers Tochter von Taubenhain, just to mention the translations published in book form, living aside those
included in various magazines.
Garrett does not mention Herder in his introduction to Adozinda, and, as far
as I can tell, he does not mention him in later works, either. Nevertheless, Garrett
shows some knowledge of the Romantic theories about the primacy of oral over
written poetry, and of the connection that oral poetry was said to have with the
essence of each nation. Moreover, Garrett is perfectly acquainted with the idea
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that oral poetry should serve as a model in the revitalization of written poetry.
These theories probably did not reach him directly from Herder, but through the
reading of British authors such as Scott’s introduction to Minstrelsy of the Scottish
Border. Besides being acquainted with the theory, Garrett also knew how it was
put into practice through his reading of Scott’s and Bürger’s poems which claimed
to be inspired by folk ballads.
When Garrett mentioned the influence that oral poetry should have on written poetry he only had in mind the narrative genre, and did not seem to take
the oral lyric into account. This preference for narrative poetry probably derived
from Scott and Bürger, who had taken their inspiration from ballads. Furthermore, Garrett thought that ballads were probably the oldest Portuguese poetic
genre (1828: xvi), and, therefore, should serve as a model for Portuguese Romantic
poetry, since it would better express the essence of the nation.
Garrett explains that, after reading the folk-like poems of Scott, Bürger and
Burns, he remembered the traditional ballads he had heard from his housemaids
as a child, and «began to think that those rude and ancient epic excerpts of ours
enclosed a core of excellent and very beautiful national poetry, and that one could
and should avail himself of them» (1828: xxiii). Since he was exiled in England,
he wrote to Portugal asking a friend to collect ballads for him in Lisbon, by interviewing housemaids and other women from the poor classes. And in 1828, when
he published Adozinda, this long narrative poem was loosely inspired by one of
the folk ballads his friend had collected for him. As we know, Adozinda is the first
totally Romantic work in Portuguese literature.
As an appendix to Adozinda, Garrett decided to include the oral ballad that
inspired him. I copied it below in order to illustrate the creative process adopted
by the author, a process that, in his opinion, other Portuguese poets could (better said: should) follow. In his introduction to Adozinda, written in the form of a
letter to a friend, Garrett refers to the traditional version that inspired him in the
following terms: «I am also sending you here a copy of the original ballad for you
to see and compare» (1828: lii; emphasis mine).
Garrett’s enclosure of that original version probably aimed to highlight
what he had done with Adozinda. As he himself states, his task consisted of
expunging from the folk poem the «rudeness of our good ancestors», providing «a new tailoring for the very ancient dress» (1828: 11). By adopting a «less
rude» language, Garrett intended to create a work that would not shock his
readers too much. The Romantic Movement appeared in Portugal much later
than in England and Germany, and in 1828 Portuguese readers were used only
to Neoclassical, or, at most, pre-Romantic literature. Besides, there were no
collections of Portuguese oral poetry.
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The publication of the original folk version as a curiosity or to give a better
idea of what he had done with Adozinda explains why the former was transcribed
so accurately, without any apparent tampering. Garrett respected its imperfections
and, as we shall see, he even left a gap, which he noticed, where the informant
omitted the speech of a character because of forgetfulness. Garrett acted very differently in 1851, when he organized volumes 2 and 3 of his Romanceiro, which,
unlike the first volume, are dedicated exclusively to the edition of ballads collected
from the oral tradition: all the texts are clearly tampered with, so as not to let any
«rude verse» off the net. Paradoxically the consciousness that oral poems possessed a truly literary status did bring along with it the growth of the editors’ disrespect for the wording of those texts and the consequent need to edit them.
Let us now look at the original ballad which served as a model for Garrett’s
Adozinda:
Sylvana was walking
2 Along the corridor;
She carried a golden guitar,
4 Oh! She played it so well!
And if well did she play it,
6 She sang a ballad even better.
With each step she took
8 Her father harassed her:
«Would you dare, Sylvana,
10 For one night to be mine?»
«I would be for one, I would be for two,
12 I would, father, every day,
But the torments of hell
14 Who would suffer them for me?»
«I shall suffer them, Sylvana,
16 For I suffer them every day.”
Sylvana went away,
18 Very troubled she went;
She ran into her mother
20 Between the hall and the kitchen.
“What’s the matter, o my daughter,
22 What’s the matter, o daughter of mine?”
«Go home, daughter, go home,
24 Put on a white nightshirt,
With a collar of gold,
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A Sylvana passeava
2 Por seu corredor acima,
Violla d’ouro levava,
4 Oh! que tam bem a tangia!
E se ella bem a tangia
6 Melhor romance fazia.
A cada passo que dava
8 Seu padre a accomettia:
«Atreveste-te tu, Sylvana,
10 Uma noite a seres minha?»
«Fôra uma, fôra duas,
12 Fôra, meu pae, cada dia,
Ma’ las penas do inferno
14 Quem por mim as penaria?»
«Pená-las-hei eu, Sylvana,
16 Que las peno cada dia.” Foi-se d’alli a Sylvana,
18 Mui agastada que ia;
Foi se encontrar com su’ madre
20 Entre a salla e a cuzinha.
«Que tens tu, ó minha filha,
22 Que tens, ó filha minha?»
«Vai, filha, vai para casa,
24 Veste uma alva camiza,
Que o cabeção seja de ouro,
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26 The sleeves of pure silver.
You will lie down on my bed,
28 For I would lie down on yours.”
Around midnight
30 He tried to make love to her...
«Had I known, Sylvana,
32 That you were so defiled
Oh! the pains of hell
34 I would not have risked for you».
«This is not Sylvana,
36 It is the mother who had her;
She also had Sir Alardo,
38 Lord of chivalry,
She also had Sir Pedro,
40 Lord of infantry,
She also had Sylvana,
42 Who was harassed by you».
«Oh, cursed be the daughter
44 Who tells on her father!»
«Oh, cursed be the father
46 Who harasses his daughter!»
He has her locked up in a tower
48 Where she sees neither sun nor
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26 As mangas de prata fina.
Deitar-te has no meu leito,
28 Que eu no teu me deitaria.”
La juncto da meia noite
30 D’amores a accomettia...
«S’eu soubera, Sylvana,
32 Que estavas tam corrumpida
Oh! las penas do inferno,
34 Por ti as não penaria.”
«Esta não é a Sylvana,
36 É a mãe que a paria;
Tambem pariu Dom Alardo,
38 Senhor da cavalleria,
Também pariu a Dom Pedro,
40 Senhor da infanteria,
Também pariu a Sylvana,
42 Que de ti foi commettida».
«Oh! mal haja, que haja a filha
44 Que a s’u padre descobria!»
«Oh! mal haja, que haja o padre
46 Que sua filha commettia!»
Manda-a metter n’uma tôrre
48 Que nem sol nem lua via:
moon:
Dão-lhe a comida por onça
50E a agua por medida.
No cabo de sette anos,
52 Ves a tôrre que se abria:
Assomou-se a Sylvana
54 A uma ventana mui alta,
Foi-se encontrar com s’u madre
56 Cozendo numa almofada:
«Esteis embora, mi’ madre,
58 Mi’ madre ja da minha alma;
Peço-vos por Deus do ceo
60 Que me deis um jarro d’agua,
Que se me aparta a vida,
62 Que se me arranca a alma.”
«Dera-t’o eu, filha minha,
They give her food by the ounce
50 And very little water.
Seven years later
52 The tower is being unlocked:
Sylvana leaned out
54 Of a very high window,
And she saw her mother
56 Sewing on a cushion.
«Hail, mother of mine,
58 Dear mother of my soul;
I beg you for the sake of God in Heaven
60 To give me a pitcher of water,
For life is parting from me,
62 My soul is being torn away».
«I would give it to you, daughter of mine,
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64 If I had salt water,
Since for seven, almost eight years,
66 I’ve been unhappily married beBesides, your father has sworn
68 By the seals on his sword
That the first one to give you water
70 Would have his head cut off».
Sylvana leaned out
72 Of another, higher window
And she saw her brothers
74 Playing cards.
«Hail, brothers,
76 Dear bothers of my soul;
I beg you for the sake of God in
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64 Se a tivera salgada,
Que ha sette annos para oito
66 Que por ti sou mal casada.
cause of you.
Se t’u padre tem jurado
68 Pelos cunhos da espada
Primeiro que te desse agua
70 Tinha a cabeça cortada».
72 A outra ventana mais alta,
Foi-se encontrar c’os irmãos,
74 Que estavam jogando as cartas:
«Estejaes embora, irmãos,
76 Meus irmãos ja da minha alma;
Peço-vos por Deus do ceo
Heaven
80 Que se me arranca a alma».
«Dera-t’o eu, irman minha,
Se o padre tem jurado
86 Teria a cabeça cortada».
88 A uma ventana mais alta,
Foi-se encontrar com s’u padre
90 A jogar a embocada.
«Peço-vos por Deus do ceo
Heaven
94 Que se me arranca a alma;
E de hoje em adiante
96 Serei sua namorada».
«Alevantem-se, meus moços,
98 Levantem-se, meus creados.
Venham com jarros de ouro,
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80 My soul is being torn away».
«I would give it to you, my sister,
82 If I had salt water;
Besides, father has sworn
86 Would have his head cut off».
Sylvana leaned out
88 Of a higher window,
And she saw her father
90 Playing billiards.
«I beg you for the sake of God in
94 My soul is being torn away;
And from this day onwards
96 I shall be your sweetheart».
«Stand up, my grooms,
98 Stand up, my servants.
Some bring golden pitchers,
100 Outros com jarros de prata.
Os primeiros que chegarem
102 Teem a comenda ganhada,
Os segundos que chegarem
104 Teem a cabeça cortada».
As the servants arrived
106 Little Sylvana was dying
In the arms of the Holy Virgin,
108 And angels shrouded her.
«Good-bye, little Sylvana,
110 Little Sylvana of my soul;
Your soul is on the way to Heaven,
112 Mine remains here in sin».
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Os criados que chegavam,
106Sylvaninha que finava
Nos braços da Virgem sancta,
108Dos anjos amortalhada.
«Vai-te embora, Sylvaninha,
110Sylvaninha da minha alma;
Tua alma vai para o ceo,
112A minha fica culpada».
(Garrett 1828: 107–113)
100 Others bring silver pitchers.
The first ones to arrive
102 Will earn a knighthood;
Those who arrive later
104 Will have their heads cut off».
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Although this traditional ballad has 112 lines, Adozinda comes to no less than
1264 line. Clearly, Garrett altered the oral ballad considerably. Rather than stressing the differences concerning language and versification, I shall concentrate on
some of the alterations in the plot.
In the first place, Garrett introduces a new character, a hermit with prophetic
and magical powers, and there are also plenty of new scenes. Even the scenes that
differ less from the folk poem undergo much change. The scene where the maiden
is shut in the tower goes as follows:
Para ésta tôrre deserta,
No verão ao sol exposta,
Que abrasado a queima e tosta,
No rigor do hinverno aberta
A chuvas, a ventania,
Sisnando – quem tal diria!
Mandou a filhinha linda,
Que alli fechada gemesse;
A virtuosa Adozinda!...
E ai de quem agua lhe desse,
Lhe desse vestido ou cama,
Que da sede á morte crua
—Qual mouro a sua dama—
Alli quer que morra nua,
To this deserted tower,
Exposed to the Summer sun
Which, inflamed, burns and toasts it,
Open in the rigours of Winter
To the rain, to the wind,
Sisnando – who would guess!
Sent his lovely daughter,
For her to moan, locked up.
That virtuous Adozinda!...
And woe to whoever gave her water,
Gave her clothes or a bed,
For a cruel death of thirst
—As the Moor did to his lady—
He wants her to die, naked,
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De todos desamparada,
De seu pae amaldiçoada,
So da triste mãe chorada!
(Garrett 1828: 75–76)
Abandoned by all,
Cursed by her father,
Mourned only by her poor mother!
These verses derive from the combination of two passages of the folk ballad
which are very different from Garrett’s poem as far as the language and the character of the girl’s mother are concerned:
He has her locked up in a tower
48 Where she sees neither sun nor
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Manda-a metter n’uma tôrre
48 Que nem sol nem lua via:
moon:
Dão-lhe a comida por onça
50 E a agua por medida.
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They give her food by the ounce
50 And very little water.
[...]
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«Dera-t’o eu, filha minha,
Que ha sette annos para oito
66 Que por ti sou mal casada.
cause of you.
Se t’u padre tem jurado
70 Tinha a cabeça cortada.”
[...]
«I would give it to you, daughter,
64
If I had salt water,
Since for seven, almost eight years,
66 I’ve been unhappily married be-
Besides, your father has sworn
70 Would have his head cut off.”
In Adozinda, many of the scenes totally made up by Garrett do not have any connection to the oral ballad. It is in those scenes that we find many of the features of Romantic
literature, such as the love for the Middle Ages. The oral ballad never states that the action takes place in that period; only the motif of the maiden in the tower suggests a time
remote from the early nineteenth century, when the ballad was collected. Garrett’s poem,
however, is clearly set in the Middle Ages. One good example is the scene that narrates
the triumphant entry of the army of Sir Sisnando, Adozinda’s father, when he returns to
the castle after fighting the Moors for three years. Given its display of chivalric pageantry,
this episode closely resembles numerous scenes found especially in the historical novels
written throughout Europe during the Romantic period. Garrett’s scene goes as follows:
Que tropel vai nos paços
What tramping of horses in the castle
De Landim ao pé dos rios!
Of Landim, next to the rivers!
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Sounds of feasting and sounds of war
Within its walls and its tall tower!
The drawbridge squeaks, the earth
With the weight of men in armour.
Armour-plated horses
Go at a light trot; running
Is the standard bearer who waves
A red-crossed banner...
Sir Sisnando has arrived.
Among all the knights
His armor shines bright;
And the fluttering crest
Of plumes as white as snow
On his glittering helmet
Can be seen from afar.
«Castle gates, open up,
Run, pages and maidens,
For my lord has arrived;
He is my husband and my love!»
Auzenda shouted and ran.
The gates open, hails resound,
And the old tower echoed
With the festive sound.
«Long live Sir Sisnando!»
The trampling of hoofs increases
And at the gates arrives the band
Of triumphant warriors.
From his proud steed he dismounts
And to the yearning embraces
Of his dear wife he flies.
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Sons de festa e sons de guerra
Em seus muros e alta tôrre!
Geme a ponte, treme a terra
shakes
C’o peso d’homens armados.
Cavallos acobertados
Trotam ligeiros; – e corre
O alferes que tremolando
Vai guião de roxa cruz...
Ja chegado é Dom Sisnando.
Entre os cavalleiros todos
Sua armadura reluz;
E o pennacho flutuante
Das plumas alvas de neve
Sôbre o elmo rutilante
De longe a vista percebe.
«Portas do castelo, abri-vos,
Correi, pagens e donzellas,
Que é chegado meu senhor,
Meu esposo e meu amor!»
Auzenda bradava e corre.
Portas se abrem, soam vivas,
E o echo da antiga tôrre
Com o som festivo acordou.
«Viva, viva Dom Sisnando!»
E o tropel que dobra e cresce.
E as portas que chega o bando
Dos guerreiros triumphantes.
Do corcel suberbo desce
E aos a braços anhelantes
Da cara esposa voou.
(Garrett 1828: 25–27)
Another passage introduced by Garrett in his poem and also absent from the
traditional ballad is a long description of a dark forest during the night. It has lugubrious trees, big rocks, and a cave where spectres are said to appear. This is the
topos of the sublime nature which fails to conform to the conventional rules of the
Beautiful. Garrett clearly acknowledges his use of the topos, which was quite current during Romanticism, at the beginning of the description, where he writes:
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Agreste, não feio é o sítio,
Medonho, horrivel de ver;
Porêm tem a natureza
Horrores que são belleza,
Tristezas que dão prazer.
Wild, not ugly is the place,
Dreadful, horrible to see;
However, nature beholds
Horrors that are beautiful,
Sad things that please the eye.
(Garrett 1828: 42)
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Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Garrett’s innovations is the way he
transforms the character of Sir Sisnando, the incestuous father. In the oral ballad this character is totally one-dimensional, with no psychological shades. He
is completely bad, never hesitates, never regrets his incestuous designs, and does
not have water sent to his daughter until she promises to do as he wills. He only
realises what he has done and recognises that he has sinned in the end, after seeing
her accompanied by the Virgin Mary and the angels. In Garrett’s poem, however,
Sisnando has a much richer and complex personality. He has doubts about his actions and hesitates and changes his mind, regretting his incestuous desires, only to
give in to them again, a process which repeats itself several times throughout the
poem. Sisnando is a truly contradictory character: he struggles with himself and,
although he cannot resist his urges, he is sometimes horrified at what he is doing.
This sort of hero is typical of many Romantic works, and there is a similar one in
Travels in My Homeland, a novel that Garrett wrote a few years later.
A good example of the doubts that disturb Sisnando is the scene in which he
enters the cave where his daughter hides and prays. Upon seeing him, she faints
and falls to the ground:
E o pae ousou levantá-la,
And her father dared to pick her up
E apertar juncto a seu peito
And clasp to his bosom
Aquella morta belleza!
That fainted beauty!
Repugnou a natureza;
It was repugnant to nature
E da paixão a despeito
And, despite his passion,
De si a affasta, vacilla:
He pushes her away, he hesitates.
O anjo da sua guarda
His guardian angel
Inda um momento o resguarda...
Still protects him for a moment...
Mas ha na terra ou no ceoBut is there on earth or in heaven
Fôrça, maior que a paixão,
A power stronger than passion
Que subjugue um coração
In order to tame a heart
Que d’amor endoudeceu?
Maddened by love?
Se a ha, não lhe acudiu Deus,
If there is, God did not come to his rescue,
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Venceram pecados seus.
Lembrou-lhe fugir; – ficou:
stayed.
Sim, lembrou-lhe a salvação...
His sins won.
He thought of taking flight, but he
Yes, he thought of salvation...
E a condemnaçãoBut to damnation
O infeliz se votou.
The poor wretch surrendered.
He moans, he weeps; deep sobs
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Geme, chora; altos soluços
From his heart cry out,
But to flee from Adozinda
Poor Sisnando cannot.
She awakes, and utters feebly:
«For pity’s sake, Milord...»
That’s all she could say; lost
In the echoes of the wilderness
Shakes and murmurs
Her sad, hurting voice.
He hears her, and his heart
Shivers in his breast.
From his hideous plan
He steps back – but he does not give up.
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Do peito lhe véem bradando;
Porêm fugir de Adozinda
Não póde o triste Sisnando.
Ela acorda, e em voz sumida:
«Piedade, senhor, piedade...»
So pôde dizer: perdida
Nos ecos da soledade
Vai soando e murmurando
A voz triste e condoída.
Ouve-a elle; e o coração
No peito lhe estremeceu;
Na execranda pretenção
Recua, – mas não cedeu.
(Garrett 1828: 49–51)
Contrary to what this fragment may lead us to think, the scene does not end in incest,
since Sir Sisnando commands his daughter to leave and join him later in his bedroom.
Then the girl asks her mother for help, and the action proceeds as in the folk ballad.
As we have seen, in Adozinda Garrett followed the model of some Romantic
literary ballads by British and German authors, who, in turn, had been ultimately
influenced by Herder’s theories. In any case, Garrett used very little from the oral
ballad collected by his friend, limiting his borrowing to the general features of the
story, above all the theme of incest between father and daughter, a theme that had
never been treated in Portuguese literature before. Garrett’s poem is mostly of his
own invention, although he also uses themes that Romantic writers in general
have in common – themes which he repeats in later works.
Garrett’s wish to restore Portuguese poetry through the imitation of oral ballads
did not bear much result. While examining numerous books and magazines published
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between 1828 to 1870 (Romantic period in Portugal) I found only 13 literary ballads
inspired by folk ballads (Marques, 2002: 384–390). My research revealed a few more
literary ballads based on oral prose narratives: five ballads inspired by folktales and 21
by legends (Marques, 2002: 392–401). In any case, the number of literary ballads based
on oral texts only came to a total of 39, which is far below the 247 literary ballads which
did not seek their inspiration in the oral tradition during the same period (Marques,
2002: 368, 479–547). Garrett himself followed just moderately the example he proposed, since he only wrote six ballads inspired by texts taken from the oral tradition.
References
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Bürger, Gottfried August. «Aus Daniel Wunderlichs Buch». Deutsches Museum. Vol. 1 (1776): 440–450.
Finnegan, Ruth. Oral Poetry. Its nature, significance and social context. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992.
Garrett, J. B. de Almeida. Adozinda. London: Boosey & Son and V. Salva, 1828.
Garrett, J. B. de Almeida. Romanceiro. Vol. 1: Adozinda e outros. Lisbon: Typ.
da Soc. Propagadora de Conhecim. Úteis, 1843.
Garrett, J. B. de Almeida. Obras. Vol. 1. Porto: Lello & Irmão—Editores, n.d.
Garrett, J. B. de Almeida. A Moira Encantada. Lisbon: n. p., 2004.
Herder, Johann Gottfried. Werke, ed. by Martin Bollacher et al. Vol. 2: Schriften zur Ästhetik und Literatur 1761–1781, ed. by Gunter E. Grimm. Frankfurt a. M.:
Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1993.
Jolles-Neugebauer, Evelyn. «Ein Bestseller auf dem englischen Litteraturmarkt: Bürgers (wiedergänger-) Ballade Lenore (1774)». In Sigrid Rieuwerts and
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Olms Verlag, 2000.
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Ph. D. thesis. Faro: F.C.H.S., Universidade do Algarve, 2002.
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Veiga, S. P. M. Estacio da. «Cantos Populares do Algarve. Recordações». A Nação. 28/6/1859: 1–2.
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Castromarim». A Nação. 18/8/1860: 1–2.
Yamanaka, Mitsuyoshi. The Twilight of the British Literary Ballad in the Eighteenth Century. Fukuoka: Kyushu University Press, 2001.
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SABINA ISPAS (BUKHAREST, ROMANIA)
Trois soeurs parties pour cueillir des fleurs et Le prêtre de Piatra
Abstract: Many exegetists have tried to demonstrate a connection between the origin of the heroic epos or ballad and the funerary song. In Romanian folk culture, for example, there are motives
functioning as ballads, legends, Christmas carols, and funeral songs. In our paper we will examine a
specific motive for the funerary ritual song – the motive of the course gone over by the soul in its passing from life to death.
A similar song is also described in a type of ballad, which initial ritual function, we think, was
connected to the funeral ritual: the ballad of the three sisters, who went to gather flowers. ballad also
attested with a function of Christmas carol.
Е
Key words: ritual, funeral, functional transition, narrative.
САБІНА ІСПАС (БУХАРЕСТ, РУМУНІЯ)
Троє сестер, які вирушили збирати квіти, і проповідник П’ятра
Ф
Резюме: Багато дослідників робили спробу виявити зв’язок між героїчним епосом та
поховальним обрядом. В румунській народній культурі, скажімо, є мотиви, що функціонують у
баладах, легендах, колядках та поховальних піснях. У нашій розвідці ми досліджуємо мотив румунських ритуальних поховальних пісень – дороги, яку проходить душа від життя до смерті.
Подібний мотив зустрічаємо в баладі, яка виконувала ритуальну функцію поховальних пісень, зокрема, це балада про трьох сестер, що вирушили збирати квіти, яка водночас
виконується і як колядка.
ІМ
Ключові слова: ритуал, поховання, функціональний перехід, оповідь.
Pour ceux qui aiment le conte fantastique, la chanson racontant l’histoire d’un
mariage entre un oiseau et une jeune fille n’est qu’une variante des types narratifs
sur le « partenaire surnaturel », « le mari animal ou oiseau ». Un « conte chanté »
constitue encore une expérience esthétique et d’éclaircissement pour les lecteurs
ou les auditeurs du XX‑e siècle, une modalité de recevoir le message poétique, différente par rapport à la fonction rituelle avec laquelle nous le créditerions si nous
nous référions à une variante du même texte attestée, par exemple, au Moyen Age.
Notre conte populaire sur « La fille et le coucou » (Fata şi cucul) ou sur les Trois
sœurs parties pour cueillir des fleurs, consigné dans le catalogue de la « Ballade
familiale roumaine » (Balada familială românească), élaboré par Al. I. Amzulescu,
au no. 4, est largement diffusé avec la fonction de chanson narrative et, en tant que
texte funéraire, connaît une aire d’expression plus restreinte.
Un sous-type de cette ballade, connu sous le titre de Cel popă de piatră (« Le
prêtre de pierre »), n’est attesté qu’en trois variantes, au midi de la Roumanie : la
variante recueillie par N. Păsculescu de Petre Stăncilă dans la localité Orlea, le
département de Olt, et publiée dans le volume Literatură populară românească
(« Littérature populaire roumaine »), 1910 ; ensuite la variante conservée dans
l’Archive de l’Institut d’Ethnographie et Folklore, au magnétophone no. 2360, Vc-d,
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recueillie de Constantin Mustăţea, le 12 novembre 1962, dans le village Malu, le
département d’Ilfov et celle conservée au magnétophone no. 2400 Rb-c, recueillie
de I. Cristache le même jour et dans la même localité.
L’histoire de ces trois sœurs commence au moment où elles se préparent à
partir, le matin, avant le lever du soleil, pour cueillir des fleurs en vue de tresser
des couronnes avec lesquelles elles dervront se parer au jour d’une fête rapprochée
ou d’un événement important dans la vie de la communauté traditionnelle. Leur
statut de jeunes filles célibataires devait être marqué ce jour-là, selon les normes
sociales et rituelles, par la présence de ce signe que les jeunes hommes pouvaient
déchiffrer comme une invitation à se connaître mieux en vue d’un possible mariage.
A l’occasion de la sortie dans l’espace extracommunautaire, naturel, chaque jeune
héroïne de la ballade a une expérience personnelle associée à la position qu’elle occupe au sein de la famille – sœur aînée, deuxième née ou cadette – ou bien aux traits
qui caractérisent sa propre personnalité. La cadette s’égare dans la forêt et arrive dans
un monde où l’on ne sent pas les signes de la vie, où il n’y a pas de traces d’animaux
ou d’hommes et où regne un silence profond ; parfois elle tombe brusquement dans
un sommeil anormal et quand se révéille, le coucou l’accueille et l’aide à retrouver le chemin vers le monde des hommes, dans lequel la vie se fait entendre par
l’aboiement des chiens, le chant des coqs, le son des cloches de l’église. Ici, l’oiseau qui
l’a accompagnée se métamorphose, quelque fois, dans un jeune homme avec lequel
elle pourrait se marier. D’autres fois, l’oiseau n’est qu’un guide qui cache son identité
et sa fonction même après que la sœur cadette, la plus vulnérable d’ailleurs, ait quitté
l’espace incertain de la forêt ou du monde inconnu.
Nous considérons que le sous-type Cel popă de piatră (« Le prêtre de pierre »)
est une création relativement moderne, ayant une aire de diffusion restreinte. Tout
comme supposait Al. Amzulescu, nous pensons que le titre devrait être, en réalité,
Cel popă din Piatră (« Le prêtre de Piatră »), celui-ci se référant à la localité où vit
le prêtre avec sa famille. La ballade racconte aux auditeurs l’histoire d’une famille
dont le pater a une fonction sacerdortale, il est un prêtre qui, à son mécontentement, n’a que trois filles à marier et aucun fils. Puisque dans la religion chrétienne
orthodoxe le sacerdoce est réservé uniquement aux hommes, il ne peut pas avoir
des descendants qui lui succèdent à accomplir cette fonction sacrée. Ses filles se
comportent comme des garçons, ayant des préoccupations et pratiquant des activités spécifiques aux hommes : sur la demande de leur père, elles partent « pour les
champs, à labourer la terre, elles attellent les bœufs, la deuxième née les conduit, et
l’aînée « tient les mancherons de la charrue ». Ensuite, elles achètent à un marchand ambulant des perles et des rubans, des bagues, des bracelets qu’elles posent
autour des cornes des bœufs – signes de leur statut de candidates au mariage,
mais elles sont parfois effrayées par la perspective réelle d’un possible mariage
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et quittent leur village natal; d’autres fois elles sont enlevées par les Turcs. Ultérieurement, elles échappent de la captivité, mais s’égarent dans la forêt, d’où elles
sortiront à l’aide du coucou, qui les guidera vers les contrées habitées par les gens
et, finalement, arriveront chez elles. Ici, la cadette épousera celui qui lui a servi de
guide, le coucou métamorphosé en un jeune homme.
Chaque culture et notamment chaque culture traditionnelle, possède certains
signes, symboles, allégories etc. qui contiennent des messages spécifiques et offrent
des contextes individualisés dans lesquels on exprime des sens particuliers que les
porteurs des cultures en question connaissent et décryptent. Tout cela formait, il
n’y a pas longtemps, des systèmes cohérents dont uniquement certaines unités sont
restées aujourd’hui et dont la liaison n’est pas toujours évidente, ayant les sens cachés ou partiellement actifs. Notre conte chanté en contient quelques uns : temps
incertain, dépourvu de transparence, de visibilité – jeudi, le matin, minuit quand
toutes les eaux dorment/ temps précisé, ensoleillé – le midi ; espace incertain, dangereux, où l’orientation est précaire – la forêt/ espace large, lumineux – la plaine ;
endroit vif, chargé de bruits quotidiens, quelques-uns à connotation sacrée – le
village/ endroit dépouvu de vie, où le silence est absolu – non pas précisé : là-bàs
où les filles se sont égarées ; oiseaux et animaux domestiques – coq, chiens etc./
oiseaux et animaux sauvages – le coucou ; substances à valeur protectrice ou ayant
une force germinative – les fleurs ; signes d’identification du statut d’âge et de celui
social – couronne, perles, rubans ; actions, actes culturels à signification magique,
rituelle, cérémoniale – ramassage des fleurs, tressage de la couronne, fiançailles,
mariage ; activités, occupations quotidiennes – l’attelage des bœufs, le labourage.
Les grandes fêtes, moments de concentration du temps sacré, offrent des
circonstances spéciales pour la pratique du ramassage des fleurs dans des buts
thérapeutiques, curatifs, à l’heure où le temps est « diffus », en transition. Le
temps représente l’une des coordonnées qui réglementent l’existence humaine, qui
mettent en ordre le déploiement des activités quotidiennes, et qui règlent aussi
l’intégration dans le cosmos et la relation avec la divinité. Chaque seuil apporte
un enrichissement de la connaissance par rapport au « geste initial » associé,
d’habitude, à la création qui, au moins pour les sociétés ayant une vision messianique du monde, ne se répète jamais, tout au contraire, se diversifie, s’enrichit, rapprochant l’homme à la divinité et, implicitement, à la rédemption. Dans le premier
type de la ballade, celui qui présente Les trois sœurs parties pour cueillir des fleurs,
l’action est placée, au début, à ce moment de concentration de l’espace et du temps
rituels. Dans Cântecul de zori (« Chanson à l’aube »), appartenant au répertoire
rituel funèbre roumain, le ramassage des fleurs est comme une action qui a lieu
dans l’autre monde et c’est pourquoi ceux qui sont arrivés là-bàs n’en reviennent
que sur le tard. Le deuxième type de ballade place les trois héroïnes dans un cadre
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domestique, déployant une activité totalement dépouvue de toute connotation rituelle, impropre à leur qualité de jeunes filles célibatères.
La couronne est un objet culturel porteur de riches valences rituelles, symboliques et allégoriques. Les couronnes tressées le matin de la fête des Sânziene par
les jeunes filles marquaient leur statut de candidates au mariage, étant le signe de
leur virginité. Dans les textes rituels des cantiques de Noël, la couronne de la jeune
fille devait être volée ou conquise pour que le héros puisse épouser la porteuse de
celle-ci. En conformité avec les pratiques traditionnelles, on tressait des couronnes
de fleurs fleuries, de rameaux d’arbres fruitiers, d’épis de blé et de fleurs de champ
que les jeunes filles portaient le soir avant le mariage et le jour du mariage. C’est ce
que font les héroïnes de la ballade des Trois sœurs qui, délibérément, partent pour
participer aux rituels spécifiques à leur âge et à leur qualité. Les filles du prêtre de
pierre, dont la féminité est dissimulée par les activités masculines qu’elles déploient, font connaître leur statut et leur disponibilité pour le mariage non pas par la
pratique d’un rituel réservé aux jeunes filles, mais en marquant les animaux qui
transportent les outils de travail avec les signes de la féminité : rubans, perles etc.
Dans le premier type on nous présente une communauté traditionnelle, ayant des
rôles et des fonctions précisés, connus et acceptés par ceux qui vivent à l’intérieur
de celle-ci. Le deuxième type présente un groupe familial dont la cohérence et
communication avec l’extérieur semblent être imparfaites. Les jeunes filles accomplissent des tâches propres aux jeunes hommes, mais elles sentent qu’elles sont
aptes pour le mariage et transmettent, allégoriquement, ce message à leurs parents (elles ornent les bœufs), apparemment d’une façon involontaire, car après que
leur mère, la femme du prêtre, a déchiffré le sens de ce geste, les filles s’effrayent
et s’enfuissent. Ce n’est qu’après le moment où le coucou les aide à retrouver le
chemin vers la maison que les aînées se marient. Seule la cadette attend l’arrivée
du coucou qui, vu les circonstances où elle s’est trouvée, semble lui être prédestiné
comme mari. Le texte poétique présente un motif insolite, inouï dans d’autres ballades : « Le coucou descendit, b / Puis se rengorgea, / Et lui dit comme ça : / – Ne
tiens pas compte de mon apparence, / Car je suis un jeune homme. / C’est l’ange
qui m’a guidé / Le bon chemin de vous montré. / Et la jeune fille a accepté / La
compagnie du coucou. / Ensuite l’a épousé / Et ont vécu ensemble parmi leurs
semblables » (Păsculescu, p. 166). Dans les deux types de la ballade (Trois sœurs
parties pour cueillir des fleurs et Le prêtre de pierre), lorsque la cadette se marie, elle
a comme partenaire le coucou, métamorphosé d’habitude en homme.
On considère le coucou comme un oiseau ayant des liaisons avec le monde
mystérieux, de la vie et de la mort. Cette caractéristique de l’oiseau est un véritable
« lieu commun » pour les cultures, antiques, médiévales ou modernes. Dans la tradition roumaine, le coucou a des plumes en or et il est lié, d’une façon mystérieuse,
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à la vie de l’homme, ayant la capacité de passer de ce monde à l’autre monde. Le
coucou ayant la fonction de omen est présent partout. Oiseau prophétique, qui oscille entre les deux mondes, porte avec soi l’image du temps continu qu’il traverse,
étant un émissaire de l’éternité. Il accumule des informations de l’au-delà, liées à la
durée des vies individuelles, du temps historique, qu’il transmet aux gens vivant la
vie de ce monde, par l’intermédiaire d’un code familier à nous tous. Ces qualités
de messager et connaisseur des mystères de la vie et de la mort continuent d’être
attribuées au coucou même à présent : notamment au printemps, les Roumains
aiment quitter la ville et sortir au milieu de la nature pour « écouter le coucou »
chanter. Ils se réjouissent quant l’oiseau chante devant eux, car c’est un bon présage.
Quand ils l’entend, ils doivent avoir toujours de l’argent dans leurs poches ; cela
doit se passer après le petit déjeuner : il n’est pas bien d’écouter le chant du coucou
lorsqu’on a l’estomac creux, car on risque « d’être souillé ». Le coucou chante dans
notre monde seulement entre la fête de l’Annonciation (le 25 mars) et le jour de
Sânziene (le 24 juin), après quoi il se transforme en épervier et part pour l’autre
monde. La délimitation de ces ségments temporels où agit le coucou nous aide à
placer, dans l’espace et le temps rituels, le déroulement de l’action des chansons que
nous analysons. Le premier type de la ballade des trois sœurs parties pour cueillir
des fleurs peut être placé dans la catégorie des anciens rituels pratiqués le jour de
Sânziene, quand on ramassait des fleurs pour les couronnes de mariage, quand le
coucou passait dans l’autre monde et aidait les jeunes filles égarées à retrouver le
chemin vers le monde des vivants, vers la vie ; en même temps, le texte poétique
a des fonctions liées aux rituels funéraires : des variantes du texte sont attestées,
durant tout le XX‑e siècle, même dans le cadre des rituels funèbres. Ici, le coucou
est présenté comme un « sauveur », responsable des destins des trois sœurs, le sort
de la jeune fille égarée dépendant uniquement de la volonté du coucou : c’est lui
qui décidera s’il la ramènera ou non au monde d’où elle est partie.
On connaît très bien les connections que les spécialistes ont faites, dans leurs
études entre le cérémonial du mariage et la symbolique de la mort. Les rites du
passage d’un état à l’autre englobent, en général, par leur caractère d’initiation,
l’idée de la mort et de la rennaissance sous une nouvelle identité. Pour les chrétiens
de rite orthodoxe, le mariage est un mystère par lequel on communie aux époux
la grâce divine qui renforce et érige leur union naturel, tout en la transformant en
une liaison morale achevée, en une unité selon le modèle de la liaison entre JesusChrist et l’Eglise. C’est à cette caractéristique que nous associons le dénouement de
la ballade sur les filles du prêtre de pierre, dont les protagonistes font partie d’une
famille sacerdotale. Le coucou n’est plus l’oiseau omen ayant des dons spéciaux
et surtout il ne peut plus décider le destin, comme il aurait pu arriver dans un
modèle fondé sur une pensée magique. Dans la variante recueillie dans la localité
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Orlea (1910), l’artisan du mariage entre le coucou et la fille cadette est, cette foisci, l’ange, création invisible qui fait la liaison entre le transcendant et le monde
où vivent le prêtre, sa femme, leurs filles ; c’est le messager divin par la médiation
duquel les futurs époux se rapprochent.
Dans le premier volume d’analyses faites sur les textes de la chanson épique
héroïque roumaine (Cântecul epic eroic românesc în context sud-est european,
Bucureşti, 1995 – « La chanson épique héroïque roumaine dans le contexte sudest européen »), nous avons différencié une catégorie thématique que nous avons
dénommée chanson de la demande en mariage. Nous référant surtout à l’épique
héroïque, nous y avons inclus les chansons qui présentaient, à notre opinion, des
histoires dynastiques, des mariages entre des chevaliers vaillants et leurs épouses
provenues d’un espace où vivait l’être non-humain, femmes qui devaient être domptées et dont la féminité et instinct maternel devaient être évéillés. Nous considérons
que les deux sous-types de la ballade familiale (type 4, cf. typologie d’Amzulescu)
sur lequels nous avons fait ces commentaires s’inscrivent dans la même catégorie
des « chansons de la demande en mariage ». Mais celles-ci apportent une note
lyrique dans le paysage guerrier, basé sur la confrontation entre les époux, entre
le principe masculin et celui féminin. Le rapprochement de la valence lyrique des
rituels, en général, dans cette situation spéciale du rite funéraire, confère une note
particulière à la catégories des « chansons de la demande en mariage » appartenant
à l’espèce de la ballade familiale. C’est une modalité d’exprimer la relation amour –
mort sous une forme lyrico-épique à fonction esthétique et d’éclaircissement, tellement spécifique à la chanson narrative traditionnelle. Nous nous rallions aux
analystes qui soutiennent qu’à la base de l’épique narrative chantée se trouvent
les chansons composées et interprétées à l’occasion de la commémoration de la
mort de certaines personnalités militaires, de ceux qui avaient détenu un statut
social particulier ou des morts dramatiques, anormales, avant l’accomplissement
des roles qui revenaient aux héros dans la vie terrestre. De même, on peut voir qu’à
côté de ces noyaux-narratifs, polysémantiques et polyfonctionnels, provenant de
la couche ancienne, se sont développées des structures narratives nouvelles qui,
sans abandonner le modèle antérieur, développent des images et transmettent des
messages plus accessibles au monde contemporain.
Aujourd’hui, quel que soit le type de ballade racontant sur le mariage entre
une jeune fille et un oiseau omen que nous voudrions identifier dans la culture
active populaire des communautés roumaines, rurales et urbaines, nous constaterions qu’ils sont toujours moins demandés par les auditeurs et toujours moins
connus par les interprètes et les créateurs. Mais on ne peut pas ignorer le fait que
ces représentations, personnages des ballades et des contes populaires traditionnels, qui unissent les mondes, celui-ci et celui de l’au-delà, ont continué à garder
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leurs roles et leur position jusqu’à présent. L’un de ces personnages est l’oiseau
omen, le coucou messager et guide, l’autre est l’ange, représentation légendaire qui,
tout comme l’oiseau, plane dans les airs.
A la fin de cette communication qui a concentré une grande quantité d’information,
supposée à être connue, au moins dans ses données communes tenant du modèle anthropologique, nous voudrions faire une courte remarque sur ce que signifie « l’autre
monde » pour la mentalité roumaine. On a souvent commenté l’image du monde de
l’au-delà, telle qu’elle est peinte dans le conte fantastique et moins celle décrite dans
le texte de la légende ou de la chanson funéraire. Et cela puisque nous ne pouvons
pas certifier l’existence de certaines informations provenant des informateurs typiques
pour la pensée populaire. Nous pouvons même soutenir qu’il n’y a pas de description
du « monde des défunts » dans la tradition populaire roumaine mais seulement une
image récente esquissée après l’implication directe et actuelle de l’instruction formalisée. Pour l’homme de la société traditionnelle roumaine, le monde de l’au-delà ne pouvait pas être décrite, ne pouvait pas être connu. On présente seulement le chemin vers ce
monde, celui sur lequel l’homme peut et doit être guidé, la voie de passage. Pour cette
raison, nous croyons que le monde fantastique de la ballade et du conte populaire, qui
se présente d’une manière différente de celui familier à l’homme dans sa vie quotidienne, n’est pas le monde de l’initiation et de la mort, mais un monde parallèle et complémentaire à celui quotidien, placé là où ont autorité des dimensions miraculeuses
de l’espace et du temps en tant que formes matérielles, concrètes, perceptibles, dans
lequel nous acquérons des informations nécessaires à l’existence terrestre, que nous
employons jusqu’au moment de notre mort biologique. C’est pourquoi le coucou se
soumet à la volonté de l’ange, qui apparaît comme une création connue et acceptée par
l’homme moderne de la société traditionnelle et qui, s’éloignant de la pensée magique,
trouve des formules de transfert de l’information et des valeurs très anciennes vers
ce qu’est devenue la pensée religieuse, modelée par la vision dogmatique de l’une ou
l’autre des religions ou confessions.
Le prêtre de pierre
Entendu de la bouche de Petre Stăncilă. Orlea, Romanaţi
Que Dieu punisse
Le prêtre de pierre ;
Il a eu trois fille à marier
Qu’il a envoyé
En plein champ
Pour laburer la terre.
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Et chanturlu, chanturlu….
Elles se sont mises
A atteler les bœufs à la charrue
Pour labourer la terre et semer du maïs.
Le soleil s’est levé
Comme le faisait chaque matin.
Mais la fille aînée,
Regardant le soleil,
A cru que le temps se rembrunissait.
Et dit aux autres :
Je regarde le ciel
Et je vois qu’il se couvre
Et qu’il s’assombrit.
La deuxième née le regarda
Et parla comme ça :
Il n’y a pas de nuages,
Ce sont les vaches qui dévalent.
La cadette redarda elle aussi le ciel
Et vit bien ce qui se passait ;
Alors se mit à pleurer,
Tout en criant :
– Ce ne sont pas des nuages,
Pas même des vaches qui dévalent,
Ce sont les Tatars qui nous entourent.
Elle n’a pas eu le temps de finir ses paroles
Que les Tatars arrivèrent
Et les prirent en captivité.
Elles ont quitté la charrue
Et accroché des perles
Aux cornes de leurs bœufs
Pour que quelqu’un les voie
Et se rende compte
Qu’elles ont été enlevées.
Et chanturlu, chanturlu…..
Les Tatars les ont emmenées
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Toujours plus loin.
Un beau jour toutes les trois
Réussirent à s’échapper.
Suivant les sentiers des collines,
Elles se sont égarées
Et s’enfoncèrent dans les forêts.
Marchant sur des ronces,
Elles se frayaient chemin à travers le maquis
Et pleuraient à chaudes larmes.
Oh ! leurs sanglots
A l’heure où le jour se levait
Et rien ne bougeait.
On n’entendait plus les coqs
Ni l’appel des vachers.
Où étaient-ils les chiens ? Qui le savait ?
On n’entendait que le coucou chanter,
Faisant résonner la forêt.
Et l’aînée criait :
– Mon petit coucou,
Mon petit oiseau,
Mon beau,
Montre-nous le bon chemin
Et nous deviendrons tes sœurs.
Le coucou répondit
En disant ceci :
– Toutes les fleurs poussant sous le soleil
Sont mes sœurs.
Et la deuxième née criait :
Mon petit oiseau,
Et nous deviendrons tes cousines.
Le coucou répondit
En disant ceci :
– Toutes les fleurs d’outres-mer
Sont mes cousines…
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Et la cadette qui écoutait
Se mit à parler :
Mon petit oiseau,
Mon beau,
Et je devriendrai ta petite femme.
Le coucou écouta
Et leur dit comme ça :
– Venez, suivez-moi !
Il a pris le devant
Et s’asseyant sur les branches
Se mit à chanter
Si fort que la forêt résonnait.
Là où le coucou chantait
Elles se frayaient chemin à travers le maquis
Et continuaient de marcher
Jusqu’à ce que le soir tombât
Et de moins en moins épais fût le bois.
Elles sont enfin arrivées dans la plaine
Et le coucou leur montrait le bon chemin.
Tout à coup elles entendirent
L’aboiement des chiens
Et le chant des coqs.
Passant d’un village à l’autre,
Elles demandaient aux villageois
Quelle était la route vers Bârlad.
Arrivées à la maison
Leur père, le prêtre,
Etait heureux de les accueillir.
Il a mis le couvert
Et a porté un verre à leur santé.
Au bout de quelque temps
Les prétendants y venaient
Pour se fiancer.
Les aînées se sont mariées,
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Seule la cadette
Refusait les fiançailles
Et restait dans la maison paternelle.
L’automne et l’hiver ont passé,
Le printemps est arrivé.
Un jour le coucou
Est venu dans leur jardin
Et s’assis sur la petite branche
De l’un des noyers
Et se mit à chanter.
La jeune fille entendait
Le chant et le comprenait ;
Elle est sortie dans le jardin
Et dit au coucou :
Mon petit oiseau,
Mon beau,
Toutes sortes de prétendants
Sont venus me demander en mariage ;
Mon père les a invités
A boire un verre et me fiancer.
Dès que ta voix j’ai entendu
A ta rencontre je suis venue,
Car je veux bien
Uniquement toi épouser.
Le coucou descendit,
Puis se rengorgea,
Et lui dit comme ça :
– Ne tiens pas compte de mon apparence,
Car je suis un jeune homme.
C’est l’ange qui m’a guidé
Le bon chemin de vous montrer.
Et la jeune fille a accepté
La compagnie du coucou,
Ensuite l’a épousé
Et ont vécu ensemble parmi leurs semblables.
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MARJETKA GOLEŽ KAUČIČ
The Orpheus myth and the Slovenian folk ballad ‘Godec pred peklom’
(‘The Musician at Hell’s Gate’)
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Abstract: The article discusses the continuation and transformation of the classical motif of
Orpheus and Eurydice in the Slovene folk ballad tradition. It attempts to trace the path of the myth in
the song’s environment, to determine much of the mythical background remaining in this folk ballad
that replaced a pagan myth with a Christian one, and to investigate whether the Slovene ballad also
contains traces of the Biblical story of King David. An analysis of thirty-one versions of the ballad makes
it possible to trace the extremely varied subjects of the ballad (King Matthias Corvinus, St. Thomas,
the ninth king, the ninth man, Young Francel, Little David, St. Sintilawdeć, St. Vitus, the musician, the
maiden) and thereby discover various story structures. In addition to the Slovene version, three other
European versions are analyzed: one Sorbian and two Moravian. The article also demonstrates that the
ballad «The Musician Before Hell» has a strong presence in contemporary Slovenian poetry, where the
motif of the musician who rescues his beloved from hell occurs as many as seven times.
Ф
Keywords: Orpheus, Eurydice, Slovenian folk ballad tradition, contemporary Slovenian poetry
МАРІЕТКА ГОЛЕЖ КАУЧІЧ
Міф про Орфея та Словенська народна балада ‘Godec pred peklom’
ІМ
Резюме: У статті обговорюється розвиток та трансформація класичного міфу про Орфея у
словенській народній баладі. Авторка намагається простежити міфологічні елементи в піснях та визначити, наскільки міф продовжує своє життя у баладі, яка замінила язичницький мотив на християнський. Автор також аналізує, чи має словенська балада залишки біблійного сюжету про короля
Давида. Крім того, у статті проаналізовано три європейські версії: одна сербська та дві – моравійські.
Ключові слова: Орфей, словенські балади, сучасна словенська поезія, традиція
Tales or legends become myths when they are stripped from their natural environment. In ‘Le Mythe aujourd’hui’ (‘Myth Today’), Ronald Barthes states that
myth does not portray things the way they really are but rather attaches special,
secondary meanings to them. There are countless definitions of myth, but in the
environment of folk song, myth can be understood to begin when the carrier of
a narrative starts to believe that it is true. Although the motifs of the Slovenian
folk ballad ‘Godec pred peklom’ (‘The Musician at Hell’s Gate’) have been adopted
from a foreign source – from ancient tradition and the Bible – the legend has
been adopted, selected, and transformed in a creative way. The adoption of the
story from ancient tradition and its combination with a Biblical tale, or Christian elements, enabled the song to pass from one symbolic system to another – to
combine archaic heritage and Christianity in a symbiotic form in which the tale of
Orpheus meets the story of a folk musician.
What, then, is the Greek myth and what the Slovenian? Does a myth become
simply a tale with time? Does it have any symbolic dimensions and gaps that can
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be filled with new meanings? Does the myth become transformed into motif and
then into new tales? Is the Greek myth different from Western or Slavic myths? By
combining several definitions of myth, it is evident that myth is both a tale that
originates in the traditional beliefs of a certain culture and society, and an interpretation of cosmic questions about the creation of the world, death, and so forth. Walter
Burkert defines myth thus: ‘myth is a traditional tale with secondary, partial reference to something of collective importance’. Alenka Goljevšček offers the following
definition: ‘Wherever the mythos is still alive, it always functions as oral tradition
with rhythm, melodics and movement. Therefore, its inseparable connection to live
speech has to be borne in mind at all times. For the myth is not listened to. It is to be
lived; inseparable from the ritual, it is action. This is why the myth is very direct; it is
participation in the holy tale, an ecstatic exit from oneself into the reality of mythical
events.’ According to Jan Bremmer, myths are ‘traditional tales relevant to society’.
Myths were first passed on orally and only when they were later written down did
they take on a literary form. Collections of myths (mythologies) are common to all
cultures and nations, but the best-known are those belonging to the Norse, Roman,
and Greek mythologies. The legend of Orpheus is one of the best-known Greek
myths, which also entered Slovenian folk tradition.
Orpheus, a renowned musician and poet from Thrace, was the son of Apollo
and Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry. Legend has it that he could play the lyre so
beautifully and enchantingly that wild beasts would become tame, trees would
start to dancing, and rivers would come to a standstill. Orpheus married the
nymph Eurydice, who died from a snake bite. Orpheus then went to seek for her
in the underworld. He arrived in Hades and played his lyre so beautifully that the
gods granted his wish and allowed Eurydice to return to the world of the living,
on one condition: he must hold her hand and take her with him without looking
back. Just at the border between the two worlds, Orpheus looked back and his wife
disappeared for ever. Orpheus was killed by the women of Thrace (maenads), who
tore his body into pieces and threw his remains into the river, which bore them
down to the sea, where his head continued to float, singing all the while.
The form of the myth known today became part of the European collective
consciousness relatively late, when it was given canonical form by the Roman poets Virgil and Ovid. The legend’s primary motifs are Orpheus’s love for his wife,
which enabled him to overcome the obstacles of mortal life; and the power of music and poetry, which made him the supreme poet among poets – a mythical poet
figure. The noble and miraculous power of music is embodied in the mythical figure of Orpheus, who has been presented as an allegory of music (and provided the
theme for Gluck’s opera) ever since the Renaissance. The musician from Thrace
was endowed with magical powers which had a profound impact on humans, ani-
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The Orpheus myth and the Slovenian folk ballad ‘Godec pred peklom’ (‘The Musician at Hell’s Gate’)
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mals, and inanimate nature alike, and caused the dark forces of the underworld
return his wife to him. Possibly even the beginnings of human culture are figured
in his singing and its capacity to reach the soul.
A question remains, however, whether these motifs do in fact originate in
Greek mythology. Graf, for example, argues that they do not, because there are
tales related to the Orpheus legend in the traditions of Native Americans, of Pacific Asia, and of Polynesia. In these tales, a man, or sometimes a woman, goes to
the land of the dead in order to save a beloved wife, husband, sweetheart, brother,
or sister. They overcome all the obstacles in their way and, with the help of inhabitants of the underworld, bring their relative back. The condition imposed varies
slightly – no looking back, no touching, and so forth – but usually it is not fulfilled,
and this is why the mission is unsuccessful. These tales may therefore be part of
a wider collective memory – archetypical (as Jung would have it) and timeless,
as well as spatially unrestricted. Even in cultures that do not recognize the figure
of the enchanting musician, there would have been someone, such as a shaman,
possessing similar special powers. Conceivably the inhabitants of Pacific Asia and
the Mediterranean shared similar ritual traditions, which later diverged due to the
different social and cultural environments: naturally the tale would adopt characteristics from the culture in which is told and would be further shaped by it.
The power of Orpheus’s song to cast a spell over animals, trees, and rivers
can signify the close connection between human beings and nature that can be
achieved through the exercise of supernatural power, the source of which is music
or poetry. The divine nature of music or poetry provided the foundation for the
Greek myth of Orpheus. The Greeks believed Orpheus to be a highly talented
musician and singer, who was skilful enough to defeat the Sirens and the lords of
the underworld, and to connect humanity with the Creation at large. The motif
of the special power of music, outdoing the rulers of Hades (or, in the Christian
context, the Devil), is also found in Slovenian folk tradition. However, it should
be borne in mind that poets since prehistoric times have typically sung religious
songs at sacrifices and rituals distanced from everyday life. Thus Orphean singing
can be understood as a ‘ritualization’ – characteristic of folk creativity in ritual and
customary contexts.
The Greek Hades, or the world of the dead, combined the Elysian fields, accessible only to the elite, and the plain of Asphodel. Other details added by the
Virgil in the first century BCE, in the course of his description of Aeneas’s visit to
the underworld, include a neutral area where reside the souls of children, suicides,
and those wrongly convicted of crimes, as well as plains where the victims of love
and soldiers killed in battle were mourned. Hades was separated from the mortal
world by the rivers Styx (the river of hatred) and Acheron (the river of suffering),
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tributaries of the river Oceanos. The idea of an underground river separating the
worlds of the living and the dead was a common one. Later, under Christian influence, the underworld was transformed into Hell; the ethical implications of the
otherworld – sin, guilt, and penitence – were relatively late introductions under
the influence of Christianity. Hell came to represent a place of eternal penitence,
its name originating from an old Slavic word for a kind of pitch that was produced
in special kilns from the ninth century onwards and was used in battle, for punishment, or for protection against the forces of darkness. Later, Christianity consolidated the image of Hell as a place for doomed souls.
The relationship between life and death is portrayed in the Orpheus legend
through the intertwining and overlapping of the worlds of the living and the dead,
with their borders being almost indistinguishable. The dead return to the world
of the living, either as creatures that are benevolent and give advice and help to
the living, or else as creatures that are vindictive and destructive. As Christianity
came to prevail, this archaic substratum was replaced with the image of devout
souls who repent of their sins in Purgatory, while the living can help relieve their
suffering either by action or by prayer. The merging of archaic and Christian views
of the dead in Slovenian folk tradition can be observed in several folk ballads; for
example, in ‘Zapuščene sirote’ (‘Abandoned Orphans’), in ‘Mrtvaška kost’ (‘The
Dead Man’s Bone’), and, above all, in the ballad of ‘Godec pred peklom’ (‘The
Musician at Hell’s Gate’).
How, then, has the Orpheus legend been transformed in Slovenian folk tradition? From thirty-one versions of the ballad ‘Godec pred peklom’, three distinct
subtypes emerge, distinguished by the identity of their protagonists:
Variants in which the hero is a musician. The hero is given the name Kralj
Matjaž or Deveti mož (King Matthias or Ninth Man), Ninth King or Francel,
St Thomas, St Vitus, or St David (versions from Gorenjsko).
The name day of St Vitus falls close to the summer solstice (15 June) and his
pagan roots seem to have been replaced by the image of a Christian saint. His
characteristic companion is a black cock. Until very recently, it was still forbidden
in many places to work or to climb trees, especially cherry trees, on St Vitus’s day.
These were typical observances for the most important holidays. St Vitus takes
care of the well-being of people, cattle, and the harvest.
St Thomas’s day falls at the beginning of winter, nature is beginning to rest. St
Thomas has special powers, which are portrayed in the ballad ‘Smrt zaprta v sod’
(‘Death in the Barrel’) where St Thomas shuts Death inside a barrel so that he cannot
take any more lives. It seems that the figure of St Thomas combines cults of death and
fertility. He is a Dionysiac character who represents prosperity, and he employs music
as an element of life so as to conquer death and to enter the world of the dead.
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Variants from Rezija (the Resia valley, on the border of Slovenia and Italy,
where a Slovenian minority now lives in Italy). Here, the hero is St David (King
David), called Lavdić or Sintilawdić (Figure 1).
In a version in which the souls of the dead hold the musician’s coat, the musician is named as Ninth King, but he could also be King David. This song recalls a
painting of the Virgin Mary from the altar in a pilgrimage church at Ptujska Gora,
in which Mary safeguards eighty souls under her coat (Figure 2). The iconography
here may be confused, depicting Mary as a queen in a long coat. While versions in
which the hero is Ninth King come from Gorenjsko, and not from Štajersko where
Ptujska Gora is located, the church has long been a pilgrimage site, and it could be
inferred that this image spread all over Slovenia.
It is even more probable that it is King David, the psalmist who played the lyre
and sang beautifully, who is depicted in a long coat on a beehive panel (Figure 3).
In the Bible, King David – or later St David – chases away the Devil through the
power of music. 1 Samuel 16 states: ‘David took his harp and played with his hand.
Saul was relieved and felt better as the evil spirit went away.’ Some anonymous
verses to the same effect read thus: ‘In Saul, King David calmed the demon’s anger,
/ And proved the power of the harp with his song.’ King David may provide the
connection between the Bible and the St Sintilawdić of the ballad, who plays the
fiddle or trumpet at Hell’s gate.
Variants in which the musician is not male but female. Here, the music-making
motif must have been combined with a song of another type, because the song
ends with Mary knocking down the door of Hell and rescuing the souls imprisoned there.
The plot of the ballad runs as follows: the hero (mostly but not always male),
sad or angry, is walking down the road, where he meets with God, husband (in
variants where the protagonist is female), Mary, or sometimes even the Devil. God
asks the hero why he is sad and he replies that his relative(s) – mother, father,
brothers or sisters, but never his sweetheart or wife – are in Hell. God, or another
supernatural being, advises that he buy a fiddle, zither, or some other musical
instrument, and play at Hell’s door. He follows this advice and plays so beautifully – or, in some versions, so terribly – either day and night or for an entire year,
that the Devil asks him what he would demand in order to stop playing. He wishes
his mother, or other relative(s), to be returned from hell. The Devil grants this
wish, and in some versions the hero gets to take his relative(s) home safely; mostly,
however, he fails.
In some versions, the hero rescues his relatives by pulling them out of Hell with
his coat. The mother usually turns back or else does not want to leave Hell, where she
resides because she has sinned by tricking people (for example, by mixing wine with
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water in the pub), or because she has a big mouth, and so on. She is evidently comfortable in Hell, and she even says in some versions that she used to be a beggar at home
but that now she holds the keys to the gates of Hell. In some versions the hero pulls his
mother out by her hand, but when he hears what she did he grabs her heel and pushes
her back into Hell. In others, the mother looks back and consequently has to remain
in Hell. Other relatives have sinned as well. In a version from Rezija, the mother is
hanged by her hair because she mixed wine with water and drank blood from the
poor; the father is hanged by his tongue because he cheated the poor and made the
rich even richer through his work as notary and land surveyor; and the brothers dance
in Hell because they mocked at people, called them names, and gossiped.
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The first stanza runs as follows:
Ф
Melody
‘Oh, kod s pa hodu, Davdek ti?
Oh, kod s pa hodu, Davdek ti?’
‘Vse sem obhodu, povsod sem biw,
sam v sveteh nebeseh še nisem biw!’
ІМ
(‘Where were you, little David?
Where were you, little David?’
‘I’ve been everywhere, seen everything,
but have never been to Heaven.’)
In this song, the living enter the world of the dead and darkness in order to
save their relatives from suffering for their sins, even though not all the relatives
wish to be saved. As previously stated, the song continues as well as transforms
the archaic Orpheus legend. The visit to the underworld, home of the souls of the
dead, is a common element in the myth, related to rites of passage (initiation) or
renewal. For example, Gilgamesh goes to Hell, Heracles visits the garden of the
Hesperides, Odysseus visits the shadows in the underworld, Christ goes to Hell’s
gate. This visit to the underworld usually represents symbolically either death or
the gaining of an insight into the destiny of an individual or of the world.
The remnants of the Orpheus legend and the transformations it has undergone in the Slovene folk ballad are as follows:
beautiful music (on fiddle, zither, or wind instrument) which enchants or
scares the ruler of the underworld so that he promises the hero a reward
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the reward, which is that a relative can be rescued from Hell
failure to rescue the mother, either because her sins were too great or because
she looked back.
The prohibition on looking back was a common feature in the cult of the
dead and magical contacts with the forces of the underworld. Looking back can be
fatal, as depicted in a song? from Rož (Rosental, a valley in present-day Austrian
Carinthia with a Slovenian minority). A girl who wants to find out what her future
husband will look like must place a loaf of bread and a knife on the table, and
then sweep the floor naked, without looking back. When she comes to the door,
she must look between her legs towards the table where she will see the image of
her future husband, and then must run quickly away. If she does not, she will be
stabbed in the back with the knife and will die within the same year. The suggestion is that Death is threatening and terrible; no one can be allowed to see Death
and live. Thus when she looked upon Death, Orpheus lost Eurydice.
In the Slovenian ballad, then, these mythical elements are combined with Christian and secular elements, and are drastically transformed. Eurydice is transformed
into a mother or another relative. The ballad was sung at wakes (vahtanje), where the
entire neighbourhood gathered in order to accompany the deceased to the otherworld with music, singing, games, food, and laughter. Both this funeral custom and
the ballad demonstrate how, on the one hand, the deceased have to leave the world
of the living and are not allowed to return; while, on the other, the living continue
to wish for their return. Although the mythological structure of the ballad remains
very strong, it nonetheless reflects both the conditions of everyday life, and traditional and Christian perspectives on the worlds of the living and the dead.
Two further occurrences of this song within the European ballad heritage bear
consideration here. These are two variants from Moravia and one from Sorbia. The
Moravian versions were recorded in Bêlé and in Horni Bečvy, and can be found
under the title of ‘St David’ in František Sušil’s collection of Moravian Folk Songs,
which were written down before 1859. The variants from Slovenia and Sorbia are
both titled ‘David’. We can only guess how the song spread only to three national
traditions and why the most versions have been preserved in Slovenia. However,
the fact that the Biblical character David should be present in all the versions from
Rezija and Gorenjsko, as well as in those from Moravia and Sorbia, indicates that
the transformation of archaic myth with an admixture of Christian elements has
left a distinct mark on folk ballad tradition.
Comparison of these three variant traditions reveals both similarities and differences. The hero in all three is David (Slovenian Davdek, Moravian David kral,
Sorbian Dawiće). In all three his relatives are in Hell: the mother, the father, and a
younger brother in the Slovenian tradition; the mother in the Moravian tradition;
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and the mother and the father in the Sorbian tradition. In all three, the hero plays
a stringed instrument before Hell. In the Slovenian ballad, the Devil ignores him
until David starts playing a song about Virgin Mary, when, because he cannot bear
to listen to the song any longer, the Devil grants David’s wish. In the Moravian ballad, David is sad. Mary approaches him and promises to rescue his mother from
Hell if he plays well. David is sad in the Sorbian ballad too, and is granted his wish
after playing a song about the Virgin Mary.
In the Slovenian ballad, the song ends with David finding out that his mother
was a waitress and sold expensive drinks and that his father was a thief and gambler, which suggests that their souls remain in Hell. At the end of the Moravian
ballad, David is asked to remain at Hell’s gate and continue playing. The Sorbian ballad lacks a proper ending and David just continues playing; it is not clear
whether or not his mother returns from Hell. These similarities and differences
demonstrate that the core of the Orpheus legend has been preserved while its
exposition has changed in all three ballad traditions. Unlike the Sorbian, a melody
has been preserved for the Slovenian and Moravian ballads; no doubt a thorough
analysis of verse structure and melody would reveal even more similarities and
differences.
Since there is no shortage of gaps in meaning to be explored and decoded, the
Orpheus myth has continued to serve as a foundation for new tales. This is evident
throughout European literature as well as in painting. Orpheus motifs are found in
the Kalevala; Guillaume Apollinaire wrote the Orpheus Suite, Rainer Maria Rilke
published ‘Sonnets to Orpheus’ in his Duino Elegies; the Oprheus motif is present
in Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, Valery’s Album de vers anciens, as well as
in works by Anouilh and Cocteau. In painting, the legend inspired both Gustave
Moreau and Auguste Rodin.
In Slovenian literature, the Orpheus legend is employed in Prešeren’s seventh sonnet, entitled ‘Obdajale so utrjene jih skale’ (‘Above them savage peaks the
mountains raise’) in the collection Sonetni venec (Wreath of Sonnets, 1834). Here,
Orpheus turns savage peoples into cultured nations through song. Prešeren then
calls upon Heaven to be kind to Slovenians and to give them their Orpheus, a poet
who will awaken his nation and national consciousness, and make the people care
for their land. His wish is to unite Slovenians in freedom and culture, and marks
the beginning of the idea of a united Slovenia. Orpheus is depicted as a musician
at Hell’s gate, but rather than saving souls from Hell he is portrayed as a poet, a
creator with a cultural and political role – a herald of the nation’s unity.
In contemporary Slovenian poetry, the Orpheus legend and the folk ballad
‘Godec pred peklom’ (‘The Musician at Hell’s Gate’) have taken on new dimensions of meaning within an ‘intertextual set’ which can be denoted by a single title.
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The intertextual set designated by ‘Godec pred peklom’ (‘The Musician at Hell’s
Gate’) has at its centre the Orpheus motif – that of the musician who rescues relatives from Hell through the power of music – and also includes musical elements
of the folk song. Thus the main text and a set of its variants – prototext/archetext,
text, melodies, myth, music – comprise a kind of multimedial form and form a
syncretic whole. The intertextual set can be traced through a number of occurrences in contemporary Slovenian poetry:
Intertextual set
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Template or prototext: folk ballad ‘Godec pred peklom’ (‘The Musician at Hell’s
Gate’)
→
metatext 1: Gregor Strniša, ‘Orfejeva pesem’ (‘Orpheus’s Song’) (1963)
and metatext 2: Veno Taufer, ‘Orfej’ (‘Orpheus’) (1963)
→
metatext 3: Svetlana Makarovič, ‘Deveti mož’ (‘Ninth Man’) (1974)
→
metatext 4: Veno Taufer, ‘Godec pred peklom’ (‘The Musician at Hell’s Gate’)
(1975)
→
metatext 5: Ivo Svetina, ‘Sneg pobelil je vrhove Krete’ (‘Snow has whitened the
peaks of Crete’) (2005)
The metatext by Gregor Strniša entitled ‘Orfejeva pesem’ (‘Orpheus’s Song’)
completely transforms the folk song and situates the Orpheus motif in the present day. Orpheus becomes a symbol for a poet praising the vastness of life: ‘Pridi.
Pôtopi roko v strune / in les glasbila bo vzcvetel v temen zven. / Čez veliko noči bo
težki ščit lune / vrnil šepetajoč odmev’ (‘Come. Dive in the strings with your hand
/ and the wood of the instrument will blossom into dark sounds. / Many nights
from today the heavy shield of the Moon / will return the whispering echo’). This
part emphasizes the timelessness of music and poetry which never die but rather
echo in eternity. Thus metatext 1 includes folk musicality. When a folk song is reborn in the form of contemporary poetry, it brings along with it musical elements
which can be felt through the sound image, rhythm, and assonance of the poem.
The poem by Strniša, however, is no more than an allusion to the folk song and is
therefore only marginally intertextual.
In ‘Orfej’ (‘Orpheus’) by Veno Taufer, Orpheus ‘holds the music upside down
in angelic hands’. This metatext 2 is only marginally intertextual; and it is very
different from Taufer’s four poems titled ‘Godec pred peklom’ (‘The Musician at
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Hell’s Gate’), which comprise metatext 4. These belong with metatext 1 because
they contain musical elements and transform the folk text; but they also include
elements of metatext 2 because they refer to the template in a manner that reflects their new environment of meaning within contemporary poetry. Apart from
employing the same title, there are few direct references to the folk poem, and
Taufer’s highly condensed style (including the complete omission of punctuation)
speeds up the rhythm of the poems. In place of the mute Orpheus, Taufer introduces a new musician at Hell’s gate who possesses artistic talent – ‘duša da igra . . .’
(‘a soul to play . . .’) – and who uses his powers to rescue lost souls from the ‘hell’ of
modern life. If the musician in the folk song rescues people from Hell with music,
Taufer as musician had first to be silent and then to find a different language – the
special music and rhythm of the poem – that would awaken people and rescue
them from the hell of their empty lives. His own words are attached to the folk
song. By singing, reciting, whispering, whistling, and screaming his poem four
times over, Taufer attempts to rouse the world with the help of folk song. His first
poem wonders where the sound would come from that everyone could hear. In
the second poem, the musician is Ninth King. In the third, the rapid pace is suspended, because music can only be heard when a drop touches the string: ‘onkraj
morja kaplje / nobena struna . . .’ (‘beyond the sea of drops / no string . . .’). The
fourth poem focuses on ambiguous words and waves of words in a single long
stanza: ‘za dušo . . . čez dušo / igra na eno na tri / na štiri in manj / in manj . . .’
(‘for the soul . . . beyond the soul / plays on one on three / on four and less / and
less . . .’).
Taufer ‘circles around the core of the motif ’, using different means and different poetic instruments. His poems seem to have more in common with folk incantations than with folk ballads. Consonants, especially the hissing sh sound, abound
in his linguistic expression. Panting speech replaces the soothing folk melody, and
the meanings of words clash together, creating a particular sound effect. When we
read and listen to his poems, we get a feeling that the meanings of words really do
have their own sounds. Folk-like musicality in Taufer’s poems is used as a kind of
recitative, or recited singing, which can also be found in folk songs. Objects possess their own sound and together they build up a melody. The meanings of some
Taufer’s words actually ‘sing’ or ‘play’: ‘igra / duša na štiri na tri / na eno in več /
in več’ (‘play / soul on four and three / on one and more / and more’), invoking
the one- and three-part singing style of Slovenian folk song;. The poem goes on:
‘. . . noter v kost / piska skoz in skoz / naprej nazaj / deveti kralj’ (‘. . . into the bone /
whistling through and through / back and forth / the ninth king’). The Ninth King
is a direct quote from the folk song and Taufer depicts him whistling on a flute in
order to save souls from Hell. The sound effect and rhythm in the second poem are
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emphasized and also resemble folk incantations: ‘kdo kreše kdo poka . . . trden kot
kost / zvodnik glásu . . .’ (‘he who strikes who cracks . . . firm as bone / procurer of
sound . . .’). As the poet himself puts it: ‘when it is not Orpheus but things, beings
and he, a being among beings and things equal to everything singing equally different song of other different beings and things’.
Elements in the poem that refer to the folk ballad are: Ninth King; he who
strikes (cries); far-away land; whistling; soul; play. Otherwise, though, the sound
image and melody of the folk song are combined with new words. These words,
which concern a musician and his music – or the poet and his poetry – employ
modern linguistic means to create a contemporary, dispersed, and amelodic ‘music’ to the poem – a deconstructing of the melody. According to Lotman, this
unveils an ‘aesthetics of opposition’, where the artist’s originality in deviating from
the expectations invoked by the title of the poem becomes the ideal.
Even more closely related to folk musicality is metatext 3, ‘Deveti mož’ (‘Ninth
Man’), by Svetlana Makarovič, which is a kind of stylization of the genre and an
imitation of the style, and is related to the template in content, form, and music. The
first stanza, which is an adapted citation of lines from the folk song – ‘Po morju se
vozi deveti mož, / deveti mož, žalostni mož, / kaj pa je tebi, deveti mož / da si tako
hudo žalosten . . .’ (‘Ninth Man is sailing on the sea / Ninth Man, sad man / what is
wrong, Ninth Man / that you are so sad . . .’) – imitates the folk song in form and style
but shatters its atmosphere with a shift in meaning. The Ninth Man is sad because
there are so many selfish people, because he has met no one willing to ‘offer water
to a thirsty man’. He does not rescue crying children; he is merely a passive and
sad observer of the cruel world. The denotational context of the poem ‘Deveti mož’
contains ‘double signs’; that is, signs that belong at the same time both to the poem
and to the folk song, in the form of textual and musical discursive context, which is
why they are coded twice. The folk song’s melodic dimension is also implicitly present in the text. While folk elements serve as the backbone of the poem, its content is
entirely different, so it is possible to conclude that folk melody and rhythm serve as a
means of inversion, while intertextuality and intermediality? describe the interactive
effect of the template on the new text.
Metatext 5 of this series is a poem by Ivo Svetina. ‘Sneg pobelil je vrhove Krete’
(‘Snow has whitened the peaks of Crete’). The line ‘ko se z Orfejevo glavo igraš
med nogami’ (‘when you play with Orpehus’s head between your legs’) is directly
connected to the Orpehus myth; however, the text is only marginally connected to
the structure of the folk song.
Even though the Slovenian ballad ‘Godec pred peklom’ (‘The Musician at
Hell’s Gate’) continues the Orpheus tradition, the transformation of the content
and its mythological core is extensive and is adapted to the Slovenian cognitive
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horizons and socio-historical realities. Elements of the mythological world are
complemented with Christian characteristics, which are often in contradiction
with their older counterparts; in variants from Rezija, where St David (King David) is the protagonist and the most important musician, the modification of the
pre-Christian tradition with a biblical tale is quite evident. Nevertheless, music
continues to have a special, and sometimes even destructive, power to protect
against the forces of the underworld or the Devil. The ballad traces people’s attitudes towards the world of the dead and towards transcendence, depicted in
the dichotomy between Heaven and Hell, sin and punishment. The wide range
of characters that appear in versions of the ballad suggests that the legend was
geographically widely spread and that it was adopted and altered differently in
different regions. The ballad ‘Godec pred peklom’ thus develops and transforms
the well-known legend, adds to it the biblical story of David the psalmist, and at
the same time creates a new narrative, independent of the templates, in which old
meanings are combined with new ones related to its local environment. In this
manner, certain texts, like the Orpheus legend, serve either as accumulators or
as generators of meaning, so that literary works from the past provide a starting
point for new cultural productions.
Figure 1. Severina Longhino, vulgo Kuražina, who sang the ballad ‘Godec
pred peklom’ (‘The Musician at Hell’s Gate’), under the title ‘Sveti Sintilawdić’
(St Sintilawdić), recorded in Bila, Rezija, 2 June 1963. From the archives of the
SRC SASA Institute of Ethnomusicology.
Figure 2. The sculpture of the Virgin Mary in the church at Ptujska Gora.
From the Enciklopedija Slovenije.
Figure 3. King David as depicted on a beehive panel. From Gorazd Makarovič
and Bojana Škafar, Poslikane panjske končnice [Painted Beehive Panels] (Ljubljana:
Knjižnica Slovenskega etnografskega muzeja, 2000).
Notes
Roland Barthes, ‘Le Mythe aujourd’hui’, in Mythologies (Paris: Seuil, 1957),
pp. xxx. See also Roland Barthes, Mythologies, trans. by Annette Lavers (New
York: Noonday, 1972).
Slovenske narodne pesmi [Slovenian Folk Songs], ed. by Karel Štrekelj, 4 vols
(Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba, 1895–1923), no. 65; Slovenske ljudske pesmi [Slovenian Folk Songs], ed. by Boris Merhar et al., Vol. I (Ljubljana: Slovenska matica,
1970), 48 (3).
Alenka Goljevšček, Mit in slovenska ljudska pesem [Myth and Slovenian Folk
Song] (Ljubljana: Slovenska matica, 1982), pp. 8, 9.
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Walter Burkert, ‘Mythos and Mythologie’, in Propyläen geschihte der Literatur,
I (Berlin: publisher, 1981): 11–35
Goljevšček, Mit in slovenska ljudska pesem, p. 33.
Jan Bremmer, ‘What Is a Greek Myth’, in Interpretations of Greek Mythology,
ed. by Jan Bremmer (London: Routledge, 1988), pp. 1–9 (p. 7).
Fritz Graf, ‘Orpehus: A Poet Among Men’, in Interpretations of Greek Mythology, pp. 80–106 (p. 80).
Graf, p. 84.
Zmago Šmitek, Mitološko izročilo Slovencev [Slovenian Mythological Heritage]
(Ljubljana: Študentska založba, 2004), p. 37.
Šmitek, p. 36.
Goljevšček, Mit in slovenska ljudska pesem, pp. 167–70.
Niko Kuret, Praznično leto Slovencev [Festive Year of Slovenians], II (Celje:
Mohorjeva družba, 1967), p. 81.
Slovenske ljudske pesmi, I, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27. See also Rezija: Pesmi
in glasba rezijanske doline / Canti e musiche della Val Resia / Folk Songs and Instrumental Music in Resia Valley, ed. by Julijan Strajnar and Drago Kunej (Nota,
1997), track 1.
Th. A. Schmid, ‘Der Complexus effectuum musices des Johanes Tinctoris’
Basler Jahrbuch für historische Musikpraxis, 10 (1986), 121–60 (p. no.).
‘Godec pred peklom’ [‘The Musician at Hell’s Gate’], sung by Katarina
Zupančič (1860–1918), recorded by Franc Kramar in Vinje, Gorenjsko region,
near Ljubljana, 1910 (archive no. GNI O 8914) (SLP I/ 9).
Goljevšček, Mit in slovenska ljudska pesem, pp. 170–71.
Alenka Goljevšček, ‘Kult mrtvih v slovenski ljudski pesmi’ [‘Cult of the Dead
in Slovenian Folk Song’], Traditiones ,7–9 ( 1978–80), 159–168 (p. 162); Kuret,
p. 122.
Apart from the Slovenian variants, the ballad with St David as protagonist has
only been preserved in Moravia and Sorbia. The Orpheus story, however, appears
in ballads from southern Ossetia, as well as Britain (‘King Orfeo’, Child 19) and
Denmark (‘Harpens Kraft’ [‘The Power of the Harp’]). I am very grateful to Larry
Syndergard and Elod Kovacs for information concerning these ballads.
František Sušil, Moravské národní pisnĕ [Moravian Folk Songs] (Brno: Karel
Winiker, 1859), vol. and p. nos.; Leopold Haupt and Johan Ernst Schmaler, Volkslieder der Sorben in der Ober- und Nieder-Lausitz [Sorbian Folk Songs in Upper
and Lower Lausitz] (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1953), p. nos.
Pierre Brunel, ed., Le mythe d’Orphée au XIXe et au Xxe siecle: Actes du colloque
de la Sorbonne, Revue de literature compare, 4 (Paris: Didier, 1999), pp. 499–601.
Strniša, Gregor. Odisej. [Ulysess]. Ljubljana: DZS, 1963), p. 24.
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Taufer, Veno. Jetnik prostosti [Prisoner of Liberty]. Ljubljana: Cankarjeva
založba, 1963
Taufer, Veno. Pesmarica rabljenih besed [ Songbook of used words ]. Ljubljana:
DZS, 1975, pp. 5–9.
Taufer, Pesmarica rabljenih besed, p. 43.
Taufer, Pesmarica rabljenih besed, p. 65.
Lotman, Jurij. Struktura umetničkog teksta [The Structure of the Artistic Text].
Prev. Novica Petković. Beograd: Nolit, 1976 p. no.
Makarovič, Svetlana. Vojskin čas – Pesniški list [Army Time – Poetry Newsletter]. Trst, Koper: Založništvo Tržaškega tiska, Lipa, 1974, p. 14.
Slovenske ljudske pesmi, I, 48 (3).
Riffaterre, Michel. Semiotics of Poetry. London / Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978, pp. 81–104.
Lachmann, Renate. Intertextualitat als Sinnkonstituiton, Andrej Belys Petersburg und die «freuden» Texte [Intertextuality as Sense Construction, Andrej Belys
Petersburg and «merry» Texts]. Poetica 15/1‑2 (1983): 66–107 (pp. 76–77).
Ivo Svetina. ‘Sneg pobelil je vrhove Krete’ (‘Snow has whitened the peaks of
Crete’) (Lesbos 2005).
Juvan, Marko. Intertekstualnost. Literarni leksikon 40. [Intertextuality. Literary Lexikon Vol. 40] Ljubljana: DZS, 2000, p. 29.
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F. GÜLAY MIRZAOĞLU-SIVACI (ANKARA, TURKEY)
Some Mythological Elements in Turkish Folk Songs
Abstract: One of the features of the folk song is that it is based on a symbolic expression. In
Turkish folk songs many symbols are used, as in other cultures, and some of them have mythological
character. In this paper, Turkish folk songs will be analyzed in terms of mythological elements and the
relationships between these symbols and mythological stories, motifs and symbols.
Key words: Turkish folk songs, symbolic expression, mythological elements
МІрЗАоГЛУ-СІВАЧІ Ф. ГюЛаЙ (АНКАРА, ТУРЕЧЧИНА)
Е
Деякі міфологічні елементи в турецьких народних піснях
Резюме: Особливістю турецької народної пісні є символіка вираження. Як і в інших культурах, у турецьких народних піснях існує багато символів, деякі з них носять міфологічний характер. У цій доповіді аналізуються міфологічні елементи турецьких народних пісень, а також
їх відношення до міфологічних оповідей, символів та мотивів.
Ф
Ключові слова: турецькі народні пісні, символічне вираження, міфологічні елементи
ІМ
I. Introduction
The folk song is the most common poetical and musical form of expression in a
culture. This commonness is true for both its time and place. The folk song is a form
of folklore which has been able to maintain its existence throughout ages, shared by
great portions of the societies and is always popular. These qualities of the folk song
have made it both substantially functional and attractive for researchers.
Folk songs, which contain a rich source of culture and accumulation of information, as Toelken has pointed out, can be examined within cultural, historical, musical and poetical contexts or within a context of performance (Toelken 1995: 50). It
is also accepted that music in general and folk songs in particular provide us with an
important source of information concerning cultural history (Merriam 1964: 278–
302). We, furthermore, know from various studies that the ballad texts are used as
historic documents in both societies based on oral traditions and cultures that rely
heavily on writing (Merriam 1964; Propp 1998; Yıldırım 1998; Mirzaoğlu 2000).
A form resistant to changes in time, the folk song (ballad) gives us such cross
sections from the ways people, ages ago, understood universe, nature and life that
thanks to this quality it includes many mythological elements as well. While it is
true that the modern man no longer explains his existence through myths, it is
possible to see the extensions of myths in various forms in our cultural life. Apart
from many beliefs and customs that stemmed from myths and still exist in transformed forms, it is possible to notice the traces of myths in folk songs.
A general outlook on Turkish folk songs reveal that the mythological elements
appear in two types: The first is the narrative song. The ballad texts with legendary
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plots belonging to this group are, to a great extent, composed of mythological elements. In these cases, the ballad texts are based on the plot of a known legend in
that culture. In the second type, a mythological motif takes place within the ballad
text, with or without meaningful relation to the subject matter of the ballad. In
Turkish folk songs, the second type is comparatively much more common.
In the first type, a legend which is related to a place or region also forms the
subject matter of the ballad. The lyrics of the two well-known ballads in Anatolian culture, «the Deer Hunt» and «Kervankıran», are cases in point (Özbek 1981:
309–310; Sakaoğlu 2004: 146–147). The story and lyrics of the ballad «the Deer
Hunt» will be analyzed here as an example of the first type (Özbek 1981: 309–310).
Following the example, an analysis of the mythological elements taking place in
the second type ballad lyrics will be presented. Needless to say, we are fully aware
that it is not possible to present all the examples that reflect Turkish mythology
and mythological elements. Therefore, we will limit our presentation to the mythological elements and motifs frequently seen in the ballad lyrics.
II. Folksongs’ texts and mythological motifs
ІМ
The Story of the Ballad the Deer Hunt and the Lyrics
One day, several young men go deerhunting. During the hunt, one of the
young men begins to chase a deer, loses his path. The deer tricks the young man
and leads him to sharp and high cliffs. While he wants to go back, the young
hunter realizes that it is now too late. His friends search for him and eventually
they find him in a horrible situation on top of the rocks, yet they are unable to save
him. Upon this sad incident the following ballad is composed.
The Ballad of the Deer Hunt
And I too went deerhunting . . . aman aman (my oh my)
The deer tricked me to his hills . . . aman aman
Never ever deerhunting-never again … aman aman
You go away brothers, I’m stuck up here … aman aman on the rocks
When I was climbing, the tops of rocks were covered with
snow . . . aman aman
The wind hit them, they melted one after another . . . aman aman
Those white ankles got bruised on the rocks . . . aman aman
My rope got tangled among the rocks . . . aman aman
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My apparel got locked up in a chest . . . aman aman
My fiancée got heartbroken far far away . . . aman aman
Tell them to build a tent at the foot of the rocks . . . aman aman
Tell them to play double drums and horns . . . aman aman
Tell them to give my fiancée to my brother . . . aman aman
You go away o hunters, I’m stuck up here … aman aman on the rocks
Е
Geyik Avı Türküsü
Ф
Ben de gittim bir geyiğin avına... aman aman
Geyik çekti beni kendi dağına... aman aman
Tövbeler tövbesi de geyik avına... aman aman
Siz gidin kardaşlar kaldım burada... aman aman kayada
Ben giderken kaya başı kar idi... aman aman
Yel vurdu da erim erim eridi... aman aman eridi
Ak bilekler taş üstünde çürüdü... aman aman
ІМ
Urganım kayada asılı kaldı... aman aman
Esvabım sandıkta basılı kaldı... aman aman basılı kaldı
Sılada nişanlım küsülü kaldı... aman aman
Kayanın dibine çadır kursunlar... aman aman
Çifte davul çifte zurna vursunlar... aman aman vursunlar
Nişanlımı kardaşıma versinler... aman aman
Siz gidin avcılar kaldım burada... aman aman kayada
In the text, the young hunter chasing the deer is engaged to a girl and he goes
deerhunting on the eve of his wedding. According to the text, he deserts his friends
during the hunt and gets stuck on top of a sharp cliff and cannot be rescued. Upon
realizing the fact that his fate is sealed and he will die, he asks his friends to hold a
wedding playing «double drums and horns» and tells them to marry his fiancée to
his brother as a last wish. In Anatolia, double drums and horns are played in the
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traditional wedding ceremonies and in cases when the bridegroom dies suddenly,
in some regions, the brother of the bridegroom marries the bride. The deer in this
ballad is presented as a game animal which tricks and lures the hunter but itself
cannot be caught. As in mythology, those wishing to catch it will suffer.
The Motif of the Deer
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The deer, one of the oldest figures in Turkish mythology, is considered sacred;
it is the agent of the God. It is a goddess or female spirit represented as a mother or
female deer 1. Furthermore, in shamanistic rituals, the deer is one of the animals
people disguise in (Ögel 1998: 29–40; Çoruhlu 2000: 142–143; Roux 2005: 100–101,
187, 265). Geyikli Baba (The Father with Deer), one of the famous Turkish dervishes
goes through a transformation and assumes the shape of a deer (Ögel 1998: 29).
The deer was caught and offered as sacrifice in the Göktürk era as well. The
Yakut Turks that live in northerly latitudes set their most important vehicle of
transportation, the deer, free as ıdık 2 to the holy spirits (İnan 1995: 107). The
white deer is generally associated with the sky, whereas the red and brown deer
are associated with themes concerning underground. There are various legends
in Turkish mythology that depict deer that lure a hunter and take him to death
(underground) (Ögel 1998: 25, 307, 569–570). The widely-known Anatolian legend of «the Variegated Deer» is based on this theme. A similar legend or story is
expressed within the structure of a narrative song in the above quoted ballad too.
In other words, in this ballad the meaning of the deer symbol is kept unchanged.
Because of their beauty, the deer and similar animals that belong to the same
family, such as gazelle, fawn and chamois, which are generally depicted in the
female form in mythology, are animals which are used as impersonators of the beloved in the contemporary folk poetry and ballads. Among the various Anatolian
folk dances of imitation 3 are Ceylani, a folk dance, and a folk play titled The Deer
Dance (And 1964: 40; Gazimihal 1999:108).
1 According to Gokturk legends, one of their forefathers made love to the sea goddess in a cave.
While they are in love, one day this Gokturk lord organized a hunting party with his army and they
surround the animals and start hunting them. One of his archers shoots a white deer. From that day on,
the Gokturk lord cannot find his lover back in the cave once more and realizes that that deer was his
lover. In deep sorrow, he punishes the clan of the archer that shot the deer (Ögel 1998: 569–570).
2 Idık: Any animal dedicated to the holy spirits and hence set free for their sake. A kind of
unslaughtered sacrifice (İnan 1995:97). For more information on slaughtered and unslaughtered
sacrifices in Turkish culture, see İnan 1995: 48–65; 97–119).
3 «Animal-Imitation Dances in Anatolian Culture» is a topic currently under research with
the contribution of the graduate students at Hacettepe University, Department of Turkish Folklore.
A detailed study on this subject has been carried out by the graduate student Candan Işıl Sakarya
(Sakarya 2005).
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B. The Mythological Motifs that are distributed among the Ballad
Texts
In a majority of cases, the second type of the mythological elements do not
appear in relation to the general meaning of the subject matter of the ballad texts
and only in certain cases these elements are seen in direct relation to the subject
matter. There are numerous examples for this second case. The primary mythological motifs in Turkish mythology (the cosmological elements hold as sacred,
sacred animals and plants or sacred numbers) appear in the ballad lyrics generally
in the form of mythological symbols. Thus, it is possible to call these «traces of
mythology in folk songs».
If one takes the relations of the Ural-Altai tribes with the Sumerian civilization into account, it is possible to deduce that the Turkish mythology spans a
period of seven thousand years (Balkan 1990). In this period, Turks have created
numerous myths and beliefs on various subjects. Some of these have been put
down into written form and survived and some others have survived through oral
narration. These elements can be frequently seen in many legends, tales, stories,
ballads and various belief and practices. In more recent times, the real and original mythological meanings of these myths have been forgotten in social life and
only some connotations have in memories. Despite drastic changes taking place
in the belief structure of the society, some have remained adapted to changes and
survived. Tree, deer, crane and other similar mythological elements are such examples that have survived to modern times.
It is known that in the Central Asian shamanistic Turkish culture, the SkyGod Cult, Earth-Water Cult and its derivatives such as Mountain Cult, Forest and
Tree Cults, were influential not only in the formation of the daily and ceremonial
life but also in the formation of the oral literary elements such as myth, tales and
legends. The most common mythological elements that were present in the shamanistic Central Asian culture and survived in the ballads are: The sacred trees
and plants: Tree of Sky/Tree of Life; beech, pine, poplar, juniper, oleaster, apple,
pomegranate, fig; sacred birds: eagle, falcon, hawk, crane; other sacred animals:
horse, camel, deer; cosmological elements (heavenly bodies): the sun, the moon
and stars; and sacred numbers. Now, we will give certain examples of some of
these abovementioned mythological elements from various ballad texts.
a. The Cosmological Elements in Ballad Texts: The Moon, Stars and
The Sun
It has long been known that the Central Asian tribes had the sun and the moon
cults. The shamans of the Altai took their oaths in the name of the sun. According
to them the sun was the mother and the moon was the father. This phenomenon
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was repeated in certain Anatolian folk tales as well. The sun is represented by fire on
earth. In the Yakut folk tales, the great heroes are under the protectorate of the sun
and the moon. According to the shamanistic beliefs, the evil spirits are in constant
battle with the sun and the moon and sometimes drive them to darkness. This is the
reason of the eclipses of the sun and the moon. That’s why, when there is an eclipse,
the shamanists used to play drums and cry out loud so that the evil spirits set the
captured body free (İnan 1995: 29). Some Turkic communities used to salute the sun
with great respect every morning. Even today, it is believed in Anatolia that sleeping
after the sunrise will bring bad luck and cause the loss of fertility of the house.
Among the stars, Venus (Tr: Zühre yıldızı, Çoban yıldızı, Çolpan, Solbon, Seher
yıldızı) is the most hallowed and consecrated. The hymns of Abakan Turks, a Central
Asiatic clan, refer to Solbon (Venus) as a god (İnan 1995: 29). There are other certain
important stars, constellations and planets, which are believed to have either good or
bad influence over worldly affairs. J. P. Roux asserts that Venus and Mars, the 7th and 9th
planets, are the sources of inspiration for many rites and maintains that the numbers 7
and 9 have extraordinary importance in Turkish culture as they are directly related to
a system of planets composed of 7 or 9 bodies (Roux 1994: 101–106, 195).
In the famous Turkish legend, the Oghuz Legend, Oghuz Kagan marries twice:
the first one is to a God-sent beautiful girl who has descended from the heavens in
an aura of light with the North Star shining above her head. The children she gives
birth to are named after three objects of the heavens (three cosmological elements);
Gün-Han (named after the Sun or Daylight), Ay-Han (named after the Moon), and
Yıldız-Han (named after the Star). Oghuz Kagan’s second wife is a beautiful daughter
of a god he has seen in the hollow of a tree located in the middle of a stream (Ögel
1998: 115–144). She also gives birth to three sons Gök-Han (named after the sky),
Dağ-Han (named after the mountains), and Deniz-Han (named after the sea). Hence,
Oghuz Kagan marries the daughters of the heavens and the earth and thus assuming
the powers of the heavens and the earth, he also acquires the strength and the support
that will assist him in achieving his dream of conquering the whole world.
(1) The Moon rises and wants to cross over
My petite darling wants a veil
This furious heart of mine
Wants to reach my beloved
(2) The Moon rises round and full
My heart belongs to someone
Even if they hanged me
I cannot tell the truth (Eyüboğlu 1998: 138).
190
(3) The morning star put us apart
O friend, and ruined all of us (refrain)
(4) You rose like the sun and blew like the wind
Did you put out with me because I said something wrong? (Özbek 1981: 250).
(5) Look at the Moon, look at the Star
And look at the sweetie going for the water
ІМ
Ф
Е
(1) Ay doğar aşmak ister
Ufağum yaşmak ister
Habu divane göğnum
Yara gavuşmak ister
(2) Ay doğar sini sini
Severum birisini
İplan assalar beni
Deyemem doğrisini (Eyüboğlu 1998:138).
Seher yıldızı ayırdı bizi
Perişan eyledi dost hepimizi (nakarat)
Gün gibi doğdun yel gibi estin
Kötü söz mü dedim ki sen bana küstün? (Özbek 1981:250).
Aya bak, yıldıza bak
Suya giden kıza bak
The Moon, light (the Sun) and stars generally take place in the opening
lines of the ballads that deal with themes of love, affection, the beloved and
separation. The Sun and the Moon designate the beauty and the glory of the
beloved either as a simile or a metaphor. Sometimes, as is the case in the 5th
example above, these give a reference to the following line. Especially, the star
is one of the most frequently used motifs in Turkish handicrafts. The motif is
widely used in weaving, and especially in carpets and rugs, in woodcarving
and on pieces of furniture. In Turkish culture, the star generally symbolizes
happiness and fertility.
b. The Mountain Cult and Examples of Ballad Texts
The mountain, water (streams, lakes, springs), tree-forest and rock cults are
referred to as «yer-sub» (named after the earth) in the old Turkish inscriptions.
191
ІМ
Ф
Е
Among these the most important one is the mountain cult and it is the most significant representative of the earth-water spirits. In Turkish culture, the mountain
cult is related with the Sky-God cult. The Central Asiatic Turkic tribes would offer
their sacrifices in ceremonial rituals to Sky-God on the tops of high mountains.
These ceremonial rituals were called ‘tengere tayıg” (the god-sky sacrifice). The
old Turks used to believe that the mountains were the dwelling place of the gods.
The names of the most of the Central Asia mountains mean holy, sacred, the great
ancestor, the great hakan (lord) in Turkish and Mongolian languages: Han Tanrı,
Bayan-ula, Buztağ-ata, Kayrakan, Erdene Ula, etc. (İnan 1995: 48–49).
Each clan and tribe had its own sacred mountain and the greater units composed of individual clans and tribes had their common sacred mountain as well.
It is known that in the 7th century, Mount Ötüken and its forests were considered as a cult for all the Turkic clans. The sacred earth-water spirits of the Mount
Ötüken and its forests were governing the fate of the first Turkish state of the
Gokturks. Following the Gokturks, the Uyghurs also had their mountain which
provided them with happiness and abundance; Mount Kuttag. The spirits and shamans took their inspiration from the Altai Mountains. These spirits and shamans
were addressed as «those named after the Altais». As understood from the shaman
prayers, not only the spirits that dwell on the mountains but also the mountains
themselves were worshipped. Shamanistic Turks used to recognize the mountain
as an omniscient and living being that hears and sees everything (İnan 1995: 50).
When we move from the old shamanistic prayers to the ballads of our day,
striking similarities can be observed. It seems as if the mountains have become
a source of inspiration for the ballad itself. The mountains are seen as living beings in the ballads too. Sometimes they are an obstacle between the lover and the
beloved and hence the lover addresses them directly and begs them to help him.
Sometimes they are seen as a friend and confidant who shares the pain and sorrows of separation and longing. In the following examples, the mountain motif is
used in different meanings and connotations.
O great mountains, why art thou frowning and sulked?
They say the beloved has crossed over the peaks of thine
And dost thou add burden over my burdens?
The whole world has been flooded with tears of mine (Cunbur
1973: 231).
(2) The mountains are my mountains
They are my confidant
Don’t say much, or else I’ll cry
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Ф
Е
This is a furious age of mine
O mountains, mountains
Mountains with smoky tops
Mountains with grassy chests (Abacı 2000: 102).
(3) Let the snow of the mountains melt away
Let their stream flood the plains beneath
Let it reach the Turkomans’ highlands
Let us go when the white sheep bleat (Cunbur 1973: 33).
(4) The mountains have become white of snow
No news have arrived from the beloved
Either come yourself or send a letter
Put an end to my misery (Abacı 2000: 103).
(5) The brave is the mountain, the castle
Don’t mention the evil, it gives you trouble (Karacaoğlan)
ІМ
Yüce dağlar ne kararıp pusarsın?
Aştı derler nazlı yâri başından
Oturmuş derdime dert mi katarsın?
Alem sele gitti didem yaşından (Cunbur 1973: 231).
Dağlar dağımdır benim
Dert ortağımdır benim
Çok söyletme ağlarım
Yaman çağımdır benim
Uy dağlar dağlar
Başı dumanlı dağlar
Göğsü çimenli dağlar (Abacı 2000: 102).
Erisin dağların karı erisin;
İniş seli düz ovayı bürüsün.
Türkmen ili yaylasına yürüsün,
Ak kuzular melesin de gidelim (Cunbur 1973: 33).
Dağlar ağardı kardan
Haber gelmedi yardan
Ya gel ya mektup gönder
Kurtar beni bu dardan (Abacı 2000: 103).
Yiğit olan yiğit dağdır kal’adır
Anmayın kötüyü başa beladır (Karacaoğlan)
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In the 1st and 2nd examples, the narrator addresses the mountain and confides
in it and tries to shares his sorrow of longing for the beloved. The mountain, in
these examples, is directly related to the meaning of the ballad. In the 2nd example,
as the refrains show, the subject matter of the ballad is the mountain itself. In the
3rd and 4th examples, the snow falling on the mountains is an indicator of the passage of time. In the life of the semi-nomadic Turkomans who subsist on herding
animals the melting of the snow is an indicator of the arrival of the spring and
hence migrating to the highlands. The 3rd ballad depicts the Turkomans’ joy of the
migration to the highlands 4. In the 5th example, the mountain is the compared to
a brave man, a hero with its indomitability, invulnerability and glory. There are
other ballads in which the mountain is used in similar metaphors. In the ballads,
the motif of the mountain is sometimes used as a phrase or formula 5 only, such as
in «On the mountains, on the oaks/Rose oil in bottles».
Ф
c. Sacred Trees: Tree of Life/Tree of Sky and other trees and examples
from ballad texts
ІМ
The Tree of Life is the symbol of eternity and immortality. The Tree of Life, one
of the most common motifs in the world mythologies, is a cosmic tree that unites
the earth and the sky. In Yakut and Altai Turks, at the top of this tree which is planted
in front of the yurts (the domed tent) as a tall mast is drawn a figure of two-headed
eagle. This tree is imagined as a cosmic tree that reaches to the level of god and at
this level flies the eagle, the messenger of god and the symbol of power and strength.
Thus, the eagle is the closest to the God and here spirits fly like birds 6.
The Oghuz, Kipcak and Uyghur tribes believed in the reproductive functions
of the tree and its quality of being a mother 7. The tree that Turks associated most
with reproductive functions is the beech and it symbolizes the mother’s lineage.
That’s why, the beech and the beech forest is considered sacred. In the Central
Asia and Siberia, the belief in the existence of a tree goddess/spirit is common.
Altai Turks believed that, when human beings were first created, Umay, the goddess of birth, descended from the sky on two beech trees. It is still possible to see
the traces of this belief in the naming of the relatives and in-laws in Turks. The
term used to designate a mother-in-law in Turkish is still kayın-ana (the beechmother) and similarly brother-in-law is kayın-birader (the beech-brother).
150.
4 For further information on mountains and other shaman prayers, see Inan 1995: 48–58; 120–
5 For further information of formula, the basic unit of the theory of «Oral Composition», see
Lord 1981; Lord 1995.
6 For further information on the tree cult in Turkish culture, see Ergun 2004.
7 For further information on legends depicting descent through trees, see Ögel 1998:78-107.
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Apart from beech, pine, poplar, juniper, oak, cypress, plane tree, oleaster, willow and
elm are considered either sacred or important. Oleaster and elm are still used in Anatolia
to protect from the evil eye. The tree motif is frequently seen in ballads and it generally
takes place in the first line. Sometimes it is related with the subject matter and the main
theme and sometimes it is only an introductory phrase or formula as below.
ІМ
Ф
Е
(1) The branch of juniper is short
An axe in the beloved’s hand
I told her not to weep
All weeping is in vain (Eyüboğlu 1995: 82)
(2) Rain falls on oaks
It falls, making us wet
When two souls unite
We rely on mountains (Eyüboğlu 1995: 82)
(3) There’s a willow in front of their house
Admonished by the ancestors
The brave leaving his beloved
One day returns home (Cunbur 1973: 272).
(1) Arduç dali kısadur
Yarun elinde satır
Dedum ona ağlama
Ağlamalar boşadur (Eyüboğlu 1995: 82)
(2) Yağmur yağar meşeye
Yağar da ıslanuruk
İki can bir olinca
Dağlara yaslanuruk (Eyüboğlu 1995: 82)
Evlerinin önü söğüt
Atalardan almış öğüt
Yarinden ayrılan yiğit
Sılasına döner gelir (Cunbur 1973: 272).
d. The Elements of the Water Cult: Stream, Springs, Brook, Rivulet
and Examples from Ballad Texts
Water, earth, wind and fire played an important part in the creation of man in Persian and Western Asian mythology. These four items are not dominant in Altai and Siberian Turkish mythology. Yet, this phenomenon which is seen starting from the Uyghur
Turks also takes place in the Tasavvuf philosophy (Islamic mysticism and Sufism) (Ögel
195
1998: 487–490). The traces of the earth-water cult in Turkish culture can be observed
more clearly in the texts of legends, epics and folk tales. For instance, in the Book of Dede
Korkut, Salur Kazan the protagonist of the epic converses with the water on his way to
his homeland: «. . . Dost thou know the news of my army?/ For you I would sacrifice my
dark head, O water!» (Ergin 1994:). Many examples could be given for the ballads concerning the water cult which dates back to the old Turks who believed that everything in
nature has a spirit. Several examples will be relevant at this point:
ІМ
Ф
Е
(1) I could not cross the river
Do not fill too much as I could not drink
You gave up on me, yet
I could not give up on you 8
(2) O! Spring, dear spring
Do not ask me about my troubles
If that girl comes to head of water
Give her water, do not talk with her, O spring
(3) I wish I were a head of water
Let me be muddy or not. . .
(4) And I reached the head of water . . .
And waved at the parrot . . .
(5) If I told my troubles to the deep stream
It would fill the stream to the top, making it flush
(6) The brook is mine, the fountain is mine
Oh, please do not ask what my trouble is…
(1) Irmakdan geçemedim
Az doldur içemedim
Sen benden geçtin amma
Ben senden geçemedim
(2) A pınar eşme pınar
Derdimi deşme pınar
O kız suya gelirse
Su ver, söyleşme pınar (Attila 1966: 18).
(3) Pınar başı ben olayım...
Bulanırsam bulanayım...
8 Folk Songs, Publication of Istanbul Conservatory, Defter: 10. Istanbul: Evkaf Publishing House,
1929, s. 5.
196
(4) Çıktım pınarın başına...
El ettim dudu kuşuna...
Derdimi söylesem derin dereye
Doldurur dereyi düz olur gider
(6) Çay benim çeşme benim
Aman derdimi deşme benim...
Ф
Е
These examples form the first lines of the ballad itself or a stanza or quartet inside
the ballad. In many cases the elements are not in direct relation with the subject matter; they enrich the poetic structure of the ballad through creating connotations or
images. In some examples, such as the 2nd, 5th and 6th, the protagonist of the ballad
confides in the body of water. The spring, fountain, brook and streams appear quite
frequently in love ballads. Most of the time, these places are also the places where the
boy and the girl meet in the rural areas of the Eastern societies. Quite possibly this is
the reason why the ballads that depict such places have love as their subject matter 9.
e. The Motif of Eagle in Turkish Mythology and Ballads
ІМ
The eagle symbolizes the sun, power and strength. Especially in Gokturk and Uyghur cultures, the eagle and other birds of prey were considered to be the icons of the
kings and lords and the symbols of the guardian spirit and justice. In Yakut culture, the
eagle is portrayed on top of the Tree of Earth, either as the symbol of the Sky-God or
the shaman spirit. Apart from this fact, the eagle represented the positive concepts in
contrast with negative elements or concepts (Çoruhlu 2000: 133–134).
The colossal work of the Turkish culture, the Book Of Dede Korkut defines the eagle as the bird that lives on the cliffs and close to the God: «Nesting on the tops of darkest rocks/Flying close to the mighty and glorious God . . . /The sultan of all the birds,
the mottled-black-bird» (Ergin 1994: 114). In the ceremony of sacrifice of the ancient
Turks, the shaman plays his drum, chants verses of prayer and summons all the spirits
he has known. Among these spirits is the eagle (bürküt) as well. In this ritual, the eagle
is referred to as «the God-bird eagle, the mighty bird with copper talons, its right wing
covers the sun, the left covers the moon» (İnan 1995: 105). The eagle is an important
symbolic animal which is a rescuer, helper and harbinger in other cultures too 10.
The eagle is also referred to as the blackbird in tongue twisters, rhymes and
ballads. Other birds of prey, such as the falcon and the hawk also take place in bal-
9 For further information on the theme, performance and musical structure of a Western Anatolian Head of the Foundation ballad, see Mirzaoğlu 2005.
10 For instance, it rescues one of the primary characters in the Finnish legend Kalavela from the ocean.
See, Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend. (Ed. M. Leach) New York, 1950. s. 332.
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lads with their qualities of the chasing the prey and having sharp and impressive
eyes. In contemporary Anatolian Turkish culture, these birds of prey are considered as symbols of bravery and manliness. There are metaphors that form comparisons between a brave man and these birds of prey in terms of strength and
mightiness. Kartal (Eagle), Shahin (Falcon) and Doğan (Hawk) are among the
most common first and family names in Turkey. The names of these birds are also
given to three popular car makes. In the poems (ballads) with bravery as the main
theme by the famous 19th century minstrel Dadaloğlu, the fighting brave men were
portrayed as resembling eagles and falcons. Among the Turkish folk dances are
the Central Anatolian «Eagle’s Halay», «The Blackbird» (the eagle), and «Eagle
Dance» (And 1964: 64–74) and among the zeybek folk dance figures with bravery
as the main theme are the figures known as «the eagle position» 11.
Examples:
ІМ
Ф
(1) Osman Bey, the head of the despots of the land
Has a horde, fighting naked
Cuts off heads, crushes bodies
Has open land before him, enough for the eagles to make turns
(Mirzaoğlu 2003: 150).
(2) I join the fight, do not hesitate
The crow’s nail does not scratch the falcon 12
I am after goods, have to go down the Land
I intend to ride along the river.
(3) From castle to castle I sent falcons
I crushed candy and made the beloved drink sorbet
In regret and repentance has passed my life 13
(1) İllerde Osman Bey, zorbalar başı,
Aşireti var, çıplak eder savaşı.
Keser kelleler, basar üleşi,
Kartallar dönecek yer var önünde (Mirzaoğlu 2003: 150).
(2) Girerim kavgaya da etme mahana
Karganın tırnağı da geçmez şahana
Malcıyım enmezsem olmaz Cahan’a
11 For further information on Dances with Animal Imitations, see And 1964, for eagle figure in
the zeybek dances, see Mirzaoğlu 2000: 323–347.
12 Here the falcon stands for the gallant man and the crow stands for the craven.
1929, s. 14.
198
Akarsuyu takip etmek niyetim.
(3) Kaleden kaleye şahin uçurdum
Yare şeker ezdim şerbet içirdim
Ah ile vah ile ömrüm geçirdim
In the 1st text eagle and in the 2nd the falcon is used as metaphors designate
gallant men. In the 3rd text, the falcon is used as the formula in the introductory
line of the ballad.
Е
f. Crane, Goose, Swan and Duck in Turkish Mythology and Ballads
ІМ
Ф
Crane
Yakut Turks believe that some tribes are the descendants of the crane. It is
also known that early Turkish Muslim dervishes are disguised as birds. It is documented in vilayet-names that Ahmet Yesevi assumed the shape of the crane and
Hacı Bektaş Veli that of the pigeon. The flocks of crane come from the warmer
zones in the spring and when it gets colder in the autumn, they migrate back to
warmer climates. In Turkish folk songs the crane brings news from the beloved
and takes greetings and news back to her. The crane is generally depicted in pairs
in the ballads. Among the surviving Turkish folk dances is Turna Barı, which is
generally played by one woman and one man and occasionally by two men or two
women. The female dancer imitates the female crane and the male dancer imitates
the male crane (Demirsipahi 1975: 322; Gazimihal 1999: 146). The subject matter
of the dance is in conformity with the ballads; it depicts the affair between the two
lovers (two cranes).
(1) The two cranes of mine have arrived, road weary,
Falcon struck, wings broken
They are like me, separate from the beloved
O! Cranes. O! Cranes. Streaky cranes.
Take my word to my beloved, O! Cranes
Wherefrom have you come, my crane; from the sky or Maraş?
Your wings are wet from rain or water
Don’t you fear the bird of prey?
Refrain
The wings of my crane is a handful of streaks
I will fight this longing of mine, what else can I do?
I lost the rose just like the poor nightingale…
199
Ф
Е
Refrain
(1) İki turnam gelmiş, yolda yorulmuş,
Şahin vurmuş, kanatları kırılmış,
O da benim gibi yardan ayrılmış.
Turnalar turnalar, telli turnalar,
Benden yare selam edin turnalar.
Turnam nerden gelin arştan Maraş’tan,
Kanadın ıslanmış yağmurdan yaştan.
Turnam korkmaz mısın alıcı kuştan.
Nakarat (Refrain)
Turnamın kanadı bir karış telden,
Çekerim ayrılık ne gelir elden.
Garip bülbül gibi ayrıldım gülden.
ІМ
The crane motif could be the subject matter of a ballad and sometimes
it is seen as a formula or poetic phrase. In the example above, the crane is
associated with the protagonist who is away from his beloved and thus an association is formed.
Goose, Swan and Duck
Goose is another bird that has an important place in the mythology and folklore of many societies. In Fin-Ugor mythology, the hero travels in the shape of a
goose in the age of the flood. Siberian Ostyaks consider the goose one of the three
arch-Gods. It has also been recorded that sacred geese were kept in the Roman
and Greek temples. In China, a pair of geese is given to a newly-wed couple so that
their loyalty for each other could last long (Akalın 1993: 101).
In Turks of the old ages the goose had various meanings and functions.
Among the Altai Turks, the Kuğu Kişi clan (the Swan person tribe) believed
that they descended from the swan/goose. In rituals and ceremonies the shaman ascends into the sky riding on a goose (İnan 1995: 104, 106). It is also
the name of the daughter of the legendary Turkish hakan (king) Efrasiyab or
Alper Tonga and a city was founded after her name; Kazvin 14. In the Dede Korkut Tales, while talking about the beauty of women, Oghuz Beys (lords) use
the expression «my goose-like daughter-bride» (Ergin 1994:58). These semiflying animals, which were referred to as goose, swan, duck, green duck and
suna, have assumed various mythological and figurative meanings in Turkish
14 Kaşgarlı Mahmut, Divanü Lûgat-it-Türk, (Trans. Besim Atalay), Ankara, 1992, C III, s. 149.
200
language and culture and mostly they are used in metaphors or similes for the
beauty and the beloved.
ІМ
Ф
Е
(1) I dove in lakes like a green duck
It was you who made everybody learn about me
I will go away to far away lands
Neither you will forget me, nor will I forget you
(2) The green headed mottled duck
Flies off yonder across the lake
Its back has become fluffy
Drops it streak by streak, when the beloved looks (Cunbur 1973: 307).
(3) The white swans have arrived from their lands
The gallant men cannot suffer from their heartache
After the Morning Prayer, crossing over the Belen ridge
I counted six beauties going down to the spring (Cunbur 1973: 7).
(1) Yeşil ördek gibi daldım göllere
Sen düşürdün beni dilden dillere
Başım alıp gidem gurbet ellere
Ne sen beni unut, ne de ben seni.
(2) Yeşil başlı gövel ördek
Uçar gider göle karşı
Eğricesin tel tel etmiş
Döker, gider yare karşı (Cunbur 1973: 307).
Ak kuğular sökün etti yurdundan,
Koç yiğitler yanamıyor derdinden
Sabah namazında Belen ardından
Saydım, altı güzel indi pınara (Cunbur1973: 7).
In the examples above, the green headed duck and the white swan (woman)
are metaphors used for the beloved. The depiction of the beauty of the duck and
swan are actually indirect references to the beauty of the beloved. Thus, an intense
symbolic narrative style is dominant in these examples.
g. Sacred fruit in Turkish Mythology and Ballads
1. Apple
The apple is considered sacred in monotheistic religions and mythology. In
the holy books it is referred to as the «forbidden fruit». Despite the fact that they
201
Ф
Е
had been warned against easting the fruit of the forbidden tree, Adam and Eve ere
tempted by Satan and eat the fruit. Upon this, they were sent out of the Garden of
Eden and descent to the Earth, becoming mortals 15.
The apple, which has the same symbolic meaning in many different cultures, is
the symbol of fertility in Turkish culture. The apple motif, which is widely used in
Turkish legends, tales, stories and ballads, appears with its miraculous property of
the continuation of the human lineage. In folk narratives, a dervish gives an apple
to a couple who cannot have children and the half of the apple is eaten by the man
and the other half by the woman and they have children after this 16. In the tales, the
apple also has rejuvenating properties. In ballads, the apple is generally the symbol
of offering, engagement, affection and falling in love. The main theme of the ballads
is love. As can be seen in the 2nd example below, to pick up an apple from the branch
is considered on par with being in love with a beauty. The concept of love in these
examples is not a platonic love; on the contrary, what is being referred to is loving
someone physically. Giving an apple to the beloved is a manifestation and expression of love; and if the girl accepts the apple, this means the acceptance of the love.
ІМ
(1) Pick up the red apple from the branch
Don’t take it from the branch but from the hand
I heard that you are going to be somebody’s bride
Let me die and than take it from him 17
Oh Henno Henno Henno
Your hands are in henna Henno
Your eyes are tinged with kohl Henno
Take the four of the apples
Love the gallant among the men
Love a beauty if you are going to love one
Do not put up with an ugly one (Abacı 2000: 109).
(2) I picked up an apple from the branch
I kissed the sweetheart on her lips
If you could be mine
I would not let you go off my lap (Özbek 1981: 100).
15 While it is not directly stated in Koran that the forbidden fruit was the apple, other holy books
refer to it as the apple. See M. Nuri Yılmaz, Kuran-ı Kerim ve Meali, Bakara: 35. Ankara, Kürsü Publications, 1998: Kitab-ı Mukaddes (The Bible), Genesis, 3:5, İstanbul, 1921.
16 Manas Legend, the Story of Bey Börek and the story of Kerem and Aslı are cases in point.
17 This and the second quatrain are widely used in Anatolian folk songs. See Öztelli 1983: 49.
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(3) Does my apple have mate on the branch?
Are they a couple indeed?
Is it hard to love a beauty?
Take the apple, five of them
Step on the branch and take them (Özbek 1981: 187).
One side of the apple is green
Put your arm over my shoulders
I am drunk, I may not speak properly. (Kùnos 1998: 43).
ІМ
Ф
Е
(1) Al almayı daldan al
Daldan alma elden al
Duydum gelin olisin
Ben ölem de ondan al
Uy Henno Henno Henno
Eller kınalı Henno
Gözler sürmeli Henno
Al almanın dördünü
Sev yiğidin merdini
Seversen bir güzel sev
Çekme çirkin derdini (Abacı 2000: 109).
(2) Alma aldım budaktan
Yari öptüm dudaktan
A gız seni alaydım
İndirmezdim gucaktan (Özbek 1981: 100).
(3) Elmam dalinde eş midir
Biribirine eş midir
Güzel sevmesi iş midir
Al elmayı, beş elmayı
Bas daline al elmayı (Özbek 1981: 187).
(4) Elmanın bir yanı yeşil
At kolun boynumdan aşır
Sarhoşum dilim dolaşır (Kùnos 1998: 43).
2. Pomegranate
The pomegranate, known in mythology as the fruit of love, is a symbol of fertility
and abundance. This meaning of pomegranate is also true for some other cultures.
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There are similar meanings associated with this fruit in Greek mythology and in
ancient Greek culture. In Greek mythology, the arch-God Zeus cuts the pomegranate into two and offers one half to the goddess Hera and eats the other half himself.
Thus, a new affair is born. The pomegranate causes the birth of a love affair as rich as
the number of the grains inside the fruit. In line with this mythological meaning, in
the ancient Greek culture, a young man’s offering one half of a pomegranate meant
his willingness to share the rest of his life with the girl and «multiply as the grains
of the fruit». The fruit of pomegranate symbolizes love and the grains symbolize
reproduction and fertility18.
In the holy book Koran, the fruit of the pomegranate itself, its flower and
grains are referred to as the «Fruit of the Paradise» 19. According to Bible, the
pomegranate is «the first fruit created on the Earth» 20. In Turkish culture, the
pomegranate is considered sacred. A newly-wed girl pours and spreads the grains
of the pomegranate on the floor of her house and believes that this will lead to fertility and abundance in the house and a long lasting and fruitful marriage and the
children of the house will live long 21. These symbolic meanings of the pomegranate are reflected on the Anatolian folk songs in various ways. In ballads with the
main theme of love, the pomegranate is frequently used as a symbol and expressions of love, affection and the beloved. In folk songs, a pomegranate tree with no
fruit means a gallant man’s having no lover and is a frequently used imagery.
ІМ
(1) O! Young man, young man
A young man without quince or pomegranate
Resembles a tray without tinglaze
A young man without a lover in the world 22
(2) The tree of pomegranate, pruned and bare
I lost my love dear, where can I find her?
I will recognize her among forty beauties, from her eyes
Come on, come over here and swinging
Fill me a cup of water from the stream
I will one day beg you no more
18 This piece of information is gathered from Anatolian legends. See Bayladı 1995: 134–135.
19 «There are various kinds of fruit, gardens of date and trees of pomegranate in Heaven». Rahman: 68.
20 Kitab-ı Mukaddes (The Bible), the Book of Genesis 3:5.
21 Mutlu Ozgen, «Traces of Mythology in Turkish Folk Songs», Hacettepe University, Department of Turkish Folklore, Seminar Work on Narrative Styles, 10.
1929, s. 17.
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There can be no pomegranate tree without a fruit
My heart cannot survive without the beloved
My beloved cannot live without me
Refrain (Özbek 1981: 127–128).
(3) Can there be a tree of pomegranate without any pomegranates?
Can there be a gallant heart without a lover?
Can my heart go on without you?
Refrain
Ay oğlan oğlan
Ayvasız narsız oğlan
Kalaysız kaba benzer
Dünyada yarsız oğlan
(2) Nar ağacı budam budam,
Yar yitirdim gülüm nerelerde bulam.
Kırk güzel içinde gözlerinden bilem.
Haydi gel yanıma sallanaraktan
Bir su doldur ver ırmaktan
Kurtulurum bir gün sana yalvarmaktan
Nar ağacı narsız olmaz
Benim gönlüm yarsız kalmaz
Benim yarim bensiz olmaz (Özbek 1981: 127–128).
Nakarat (refrain)
(3) Nar ağacı narsız olur mu
Yiğit olan gülüm yarsız olur mu
Benim gönlüm sensiz olur mu
III. Conclusion
Despite the changes and transformations the society has gone under, in the history of Turkish culture, numerous mythological elements and related beliefs that
have existed ever since the prehistoric times have survived to modern times by assuming new functionalities that address the new demands. However, these mythological elements try to maintain some, if not all, of their meaning, belief and explanations by going through changes. Therefore, ballads seem to be the most effective
texts in Turkish culture for the transmission of the mythological motifs to the future.
It is possible to summarize this rather limited study on ballads the following way:
The mythological elements are observed as the motifs most frequently in the
love ballads and secondly in the pastoral ballads that include descriptions of na205
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ture. Apart from this, motifs of the birds of prey such as the eagle and the falcon
take place the music and scenes of fighting.
While these motifs (as in the first type) sometimes give shape to a narration
which is the subject matter of the ballad, most of the time they are used as metaphors 23. Since antiquity, the mythological elements seem to be the most indispensable assisting elements in the efficient and easily-remembered expressions of love
and affection, the most basic concerns of man. The one who suffers from being
separate (generally a man) cannot confide his secrets in anybody, yet converses
with the mountains, streams and they become his confidant. Every motion of the
swans and ducks seem to be a reminiscent of the beloved’s motions. Various metaphors are used; the gallant man becomes snow capped mountains; fighting braves
become eagles who easily catch their prey; the girls who come to the spring to get
some water become green ducks. This phenomenon – the usage of metaphors-is in
conformity with the short but concise narrative style of the ballad.
The cosmological elements (the sun, the moon and stars), mountains, trees,
streams and brooks, birds of prey appear in ballads frequently in the descriptions
of nature which is the setting of the ballads. These elements of nature are also in
conformity with the lifesyle of Turks and the landscape where they lived. From the
Central Asian steppes to Anatolia, it is possible to find a summary of the mythological elements that take place in the cultural history of Turkish clans and tribes.
Another important finding concerning the mythological motifs in ballads is
that, as M. Eliade has maintained 24, just as mythology itself presents a model of
behavior to the next generations for meaningful human activities, so do the mythological elements present ballads a model of structure: the Formulas 25. The first line
of most of the ballads or the first line of stanzas or quartets is formed with the said
motifs. Taking into account the fact that the first lines determine not only the subject
matter but also the rhyme and meter patterns of the whole ballad, it would be much
easy to understand the significance and functionality of these elements. Thus, in ballads the mythological elements which have an important place in our cultural history and their meanings are preserved and they are transformed into formulas and
hence become immortal. In conclusion, it is possible to state that the traces of mythology can be found in the form of formulas and symbols in Turkish folk songs.
References
AND, Metin (1964) Türk Köylü Dansları, İstanbul: İzlem Yayınları.
23 For the usage of metaphors in Turkmenistan ballads, see Blackwell 2001.
24 See Eliade 1993: 9–26.
25 These formulas give a shape to and maintain not only the structure but also the theme.
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ABACI, Tahir (2000) Harput/Elazığ Türküleri, İstanbul: Pan Yayıncılık.
AKALIN, L. Sami (1993) Türk Folklorunda Kuşlar, Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı
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BAYLADI, Derman (1995) Uygarlıklar Kavşağı Anadolu, İstanbul: Say Yayınları.
BLACKWELL, Carol (2001) Tradition and Society in Turkmenistan/Gender,
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CUNBUR, Müjgan (1973) Karacaoğlan, Ankara: Milli Eğitim Basımevi.
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YILDIRIM, Dursun (1998) «Tarih Yazımı ve Sözlü Ortam Kaynakları». Türk
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Yayıncılık
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OLESYA BRITSYNA, INNA
YEFREMOVA (KYIV, UKRAINE)
GOLOVAKHA,
LYUDMYLA
The Dead Fiancé Returns: A Traditional Plot in the Ukrainian Oral
Prose and Ballad Traditions
Е
Abstract: Well known in both the oral and literary European ballad traditions, the plot of
«Lenora» (AT 365) is, surprisingly, not richly reflected in Ukrainian ballads. However, the Ukrainian
ballad tradition includes another traditional plot closely connected to the «dead fiancé» topic and
presented in several versions: the «living dead man» (18 recorded texts with melodies). In this ballad,
the traditional «dead fiancé» tragedy is presented as the means (whether trick or joke) by which a man
marries his beloved despite her wicked mother’s opposition. Its age relative to the «Lenora» plots is
problematic. Traditional plots dealing with the return of the dead are extremely popular in Ukrainian
prose, and more generally in contemporary belief and superstition. The belief that the dead return is
reflected in Ukrainian legends, dreams and tales. The returning dead is also a common personage in
dreams (e.g., the dead returns home to pick up forgotten items). Narratives dealing with such incidents
are also considered folk legends.
Ф
Keywords: demonology, motif, performer, plot, traditional knowledge, Ukrainian folk tradition.
Олеся БРІЦИНА, Інна ГОЛОВАХА, Людина ЄФРЕМОВА
(Київ, Україна)
ІМ
Повернення мертвої нареченої: традиційний сюжет в українській
прозовій та баладній традиціях.
Резюме: Стаття присвячена поширеному в світовому фольклорі сюжету – «повернення
мертвої нареченої», який в українській баладній традиції не набув значної популярності. Автори розглядають мотив «повернення мертвого» в прозовій та пісенній українській фольклорній
традиції, аналізують, як тема зв’язку двох світів, – світу живих і світу мертвих, відображена у
традиційній пісенній (баладній) творчості та у сучасній демонологічній прозі.
Ключові слова: балада, сюжет, мотив, демонологічна проза, виконавець, пісенна традиція, український фольклор.
The plot of the «dead returning» is very popular in contemporary Ukrainian
agricultural and urban communities. Superstitions, beliefs, dream interpretation,
death rituals, funerals and mourning periods help people to deal with death in a
pagan, primitive way. The traditional knowledge of any community has saved, in
the collective memory of the performers, numerous texts of different genres and
plots regarding the topic of the «dead returning».
The «dead fiancé» motif has always existed among bearers of tradition as a part
of the folk narrative tradition (balladic and prosaic), and at the same time it functions as a set of superstitions not only in the minds of traditional community members but also as a part of urban culture. This motif is important evidence of the
traditional, most ancient understanding of the passage between the worlds of the
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OLESYA BRITSYNA, INNA GOLOVAKHA, LYUDMYLA YEFREMOVA (KYIV, UKRAINE)
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dead and the living; it equates a wedding and a death, giving us a picture of the world
created by our ancestors and surviving in atavistic forms. Here is a clear example
of the «dead fiancé», not only as a traditional plot but also as an influential, living
belief widespread among contemporary Ukrainians: the Kyiv newspaper «Facts», in
May 2005, published an article about a 14-year-old girl who drowned in a river. Her
grandmother said in the interview that she heard a voice immediately after the death
of the girl, which told her: «Your granddaughter got married. Her fiancé from the
grave came and took her». Thus we are dealing here, not only with a poetic symbolic
language or simply a literary or folk plot, but with the living belief of our contemporaries (let us recall also the ancient but living ritual of burying an unmarried girl in a
wedding dress). This is why ballads with a «dead fiancé» motif (well known as a part
of European ballad tradition) seems to us to be very attractive for analysis.
Another reason why Plot AT 365 captivated us is related to the fact that this
plot contains fundamentals of the folk’s mythical philosophy, dualistic worldview,
and symbolic meanings of life, death and marriage in a traditional community.
The last reason which made us pay very close attention to this ballad’s type is that,
in Ukrainian folk tradition, this motif is widespread among demonological narratives (which we have collected and analyzed very deeply in the last decade). In
prose, the motif «return of the dead» has different stress marks from ballad tradition. We will try to point out some main differences in balladic and prosaic reflections of the same plot and to analyze the causes for these differences.
The «Lenora» type plot attracted researchers’ attention as one of the most interesting ballads for the last two centuries. I. Franko, the famous Ukrainian folklorist of
the 19th century, mentioned that «Lenora» is one of the most widespread, influential
and deeply researched ballads. Each generation of folklorists, each scholarly school
of thought, has left its footprint in analyzing those texts (Franko, 410). Ukrainian
folklorists mentioned this ballad very often in their analysis of the epic and lyric
folk traditions. Special attention was paid to the mythological aspect of this ballad and other ballads of this type. And at this point Ukrainian folklorists were in
great disagreement. For instance, some well known scholars of the late 20th century
(O. Dei, S. Myshanych) classified such ballads as related to family manners without
a considerable degree of mythology; and in O. Dei’s anthology, such text is placed
among family-related (not mythological) ballads (Dei, 1986: 61). At the same time,
the highly respected contemporary scholar S. Hrytsa classifies them as mythological (anthropomorphical) text (Hrytsa, 12). It is important for us to understand that
the mythological element in the «Lenora» type is fundamental. Mythological beliefs
in the possibility of the dead to come and take a living person to the grave makes
this ballad related to contemporary beliefs. (Often, when a person dies soon before
the death of a parent or spouse, people will later say that the first «took» the sec-
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ond «to the world of the dead».) That is a common belief for both rural and urban
communities in contemporary Ukraine. Different understandings of such ballads
correlate not only to the fact that scientists represented different schools but also
to the genre nature of the ballads itself. Within the ballad texts, mythological elements are remolded through artistic forms much more strongly than in prose with
the same motifs. This is partly related to the traditional functions of those genres in
contemporary communities. In contemporary communities, ballads serve the purpose of satisfying a need for artistic expression, while demonological prose serves as
a «book of knowledge». One belongs to the sphere of spiritual life; the other to the
sphere of everyday life. Prose, to this day, corresponds to actual beliefs about three
worlds: life, demons and the dead.
It is worth mentioning that the AT 365 «Dead fiancé» ballad, famous in European literary and oral traditions, is not widely spread in Ukrainian tradition and was
recorded only in Western Ukraine. The editors of the volume «Ballads: Love and
Premarital Relations» from the academic anthology «Ukrainian Folklore» pointed
out that this ballad was recorded only in «lemki» communities and does not have
many variants. At the same time, in all villages where recordings were done by folklorists during the last century, numerous prosaic narrations were collected related
to the «return of the dead» relative plot. A much wider area of functioning, and
larger number of bearers, is found in the case of the Ukrainian lyric tradition ballad
with the plot type «living dead man» which can be considered an original thematic
inversion of the AT 365. This ballad is also well known in the Serbian, Macedonian,
Bulgarian, and Hungarian traditions. There is a theory, among others, that it has
Balkan roots and was borrowed by Ukrainians from the Hungarian tradition (this
theory is based on the fact that most variants were recorded in southwest Ukraine).
On the other hand, there are many texts from Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Vinnytsya and
other areas. A lengthier description of this ballad follows, for two reasons. First, it
is well known by contemporary performers and has been recorded repeatedly by
our predecessors. Second, it is connected to all the other plots about the «return of
the dead»: it has the symbolic elements of the traditional worldview (connections
between life and death, marriage and death, passages between two worlds). But the
foundation for this ballad is not a traditional tragedy but a trick which helps two
lovers to get married. The unique correspondence in this text between mythical,
archaic elements (the kiss of the dead, the church and the well as symbols of the
grave, and others) and trickery in the plot, as well as the correspondence between
the ancient ending and contemporary melodies, make this ballad very interesting.
This plot raises many questions about its origins and age, yet still helps us to see one
more time that the «dead fiancé» plot has been used in folk narratives in diverse
forms, genres and plots. In our archives we have 18 versions of this ballad, and three
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in published sources (16 come with melodies) (Yefremova, 1994). In Ukrainian tradition, this ballad does not have a single melody for all versions. Due, however, to
the (more-or-less steady) rhythmic types of the six-syllable singing (together with
the complex of accord-melodic characteristics), musicologists resolved the two most
common melodic types of the ballad «Living Dead Man». The first has a marching,
fast, energetic major-type melody; the other has a lyric, slow tempo, in minor tones.
Both of these types, though, seem to be more modern than ancient, and could have
been added to the texts in the later period of the ballad’s life (the musical part of this
ballad was analyzed by L. Yefremova).
So, even if «Lenora» itself is not widespread in the Ukrainian ballad tradition, we
have many texts where the motif of the return of the dead is presented very actively,
and in various versions as well: the dead fiancé’s returning, the marriage-death allegory (there are some texts where a girl who attends a wedding, and meets a boy there,
later comes home and dies; we meet such a plot, for instance, in the ballad «Where
have you been, my girl»), texts which make frequent mention of the dead person’s
behavior in the world of the living (not eating, not drinking, not crossing the doorway,
etc.), texts in which a dead girl comes back as a bird, etc. These texts are bursting with
the same archaic elements, beliefs and superstitions that are present in prosaic texts as
well. A close scholarly reading of the dramatic love story of the ballad discovers traditional, mythical elements and semantics hidden behind simple images. In such cases,
mythical elements become a basis for artistic form, and artistic elements are filled with
the archaic semantics. In the anthology «Ballads: Love and Premarital Relations» (Ed.
by Dei O., 1987) we have the text «Dead Fiance», in which a girl is calling for a loved
one who went off to war. She pours water over a dead tree, over and over again, as he
requested; and he comes at night (as the dead always do):
В четвер вечір по вечері
Мила шати вишивала.
Де ся взяло, там ся взяло,
Під облавком заклопкало:
«Ци спиш, мила, а ци чуєш,
Ци ня вірно обчікуєш?»
He also refuses to eat (as the dead always do). Strange attitudes toward food
(not eating, overeating, or eating strange things) all scholars recognize as signs of
a dead man.
Милий, що робити,
212
Чи вечерю готовити,
Чи челядку й обудити?
Ні вечерю готовити,
Ні челядку й обудити <…>
His house is under the tree (correlation to the grave) in a forest (the world of
the dead):
Е
Мила волю уробила,
Ко Дунаю спровадила,
Ко Дунаю, ко тихому,
Ко лісові, ко темному.
Ф
And finally we have a strong mythological element in this ballad: the mix of
the dead and demonic force, when the dead boy admits to be «did’ko» (devil):
Бо я ж не є твой милий,
Лем я дідько справедливий!
ІМ
This meeting was fatal for the girl. She died as soon as she came back:
Скоро вона ся повернула,
На порох ся розсипала.
Mythological semantics appear throughout the entire plot. But it is difficult
not to notice that, in ballads, archaic elements are not subject to actual belief as
they are in prose, where, even in the absence of certainty in the return of the dead,
we still see the desperate wish to solve the mystery of life and death (and, based on
the experiences of others and oneself, to learn more about the world of the dead).
Now let us see how prosaic demonological legends deal with this issue. Traditional
plots dealing with the return of the dead are extremely popular in Ukrainian prose, and
more generally in contemporary belief and superstition. The belief that the dead can
return and ask for forgotten items, give advice, threaten, and protect is reflected in Ukrainian legends, dreams and tales. Clearly, in Ukrainian demonological narrative, the dead
are closely connected to demonological creatures, e.g. «chort» (devil), «upyr» (vampire),
«domovyk» (host), «vohnyanyi zmiy» (fiery serpent), and «vyhor» (whirlwind). In leg213
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ends, the dead one returns to his or her relatives in the guise of a mythical lover, mother,
mother-in-law, etc. There are very important differences between the Ukrainian lyric
and prose folk traditions concerning the topic of the return of the dead. Ballads present a fact in literary form, while prose texts confront us with the fact: the dead returned
and took a living person to the grave, and nothing can be done about it. It is also the
case that, in Ukrainian ballads, the return of the dead is usually a matter between a man
and a woman, typically engaged to be married. Which means that, in the ballad, the
death-marriage identification is deeper than in prose. (The attributes and details of the
text show this too: a mother’s permission for the death, wedding towels, a kiss, etc.) In
legends that mention the return of the dead, we deal with certain characters more frequently than in ballads: mother, neighbor, husband, mother-in-law. Prosaic texts are very
different in their nature as well. They do not talk about an accomplished fact; rather, they
are didactical and teach the audience how to protect against the world of the dead. Even
in prose that reflects the «dead fiancé» plot, we find didactical endings. For instance, in
the village Ploske, we recorded a legend from an elderly performer (Sherenkova Domakha) where the text corresponds to the «Lenora» plot with the exception that in the
end she says: «He took her because she cried too much after him. Girls should not cry
too much for the boys» (Britsyna, Golovakha, 251). We have a certain duality here: first,
the pagan belief in a passage between two worlds and the wish to maintain relations with
dead ancestors (at least, through dreams or traditional rituals); second, fear of the dead
and a wish to protect the living from the dead (traditional knowledge tells us that those
who come back are not the dead but, rather, demons in the form of dead relatives, and
we must fear and avoid them).
Thus, when analyzing texts of different genres we must remember that, while
prose texts might have the same motifs as ballads, they deal with fundamentally
different matters: they separate the actual dead, the demonic and the living very
sharply, helping people to treat the dead with respect and to guard against demonic creatures like the chort, upyr, domovyk, vohnyanyi zmiy, and vyhor, all
of which have the power to appear to people in the guise of dead loved ones.
The absolutely necessary element of the prosaic text would be a part were the
dead one is revealed as a demonic being, and listeners are given advice about the
correct behavior toward him. For instance, in the story where the dead mother
returns to her daughter, the daughter at first is happy, but then starts to sicken and
become listless; knowledgeable people tell the daughter that it is not her mother
who comes, and that (in order to survive and get rid of her) she should wash the
floor. The «dead mother» actively protests against the daughter’s washing of the
floor (Ploske, Sherenkova, 251; Yarosh, 247–249), after which the dead will never
return. (Here we see some atavism from the pagan tradition of disposing of a
body by floating it down the river. We collected this text in Ploske in 1997, but all
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Ukrainian folklorists who have studied demonological legends mention this way
of frightening away the dead.) Another way to confirm that one is dealing with demonic forces is to observe the back of the dead person. If it is empty, with only the
face present, then it is a demon trying to take your soul. (Ploske, Vashenok, 250:
in this text, the dead mother came to her three children for four years and told
them not to look at her back. But a neighbor, after seeing that the so-called mother
flew out through the chimney, advised the daughter to look at the mother’s back.
The back was hollow. The mother never returned. Here we see a good example of
the belief that the vikhor or zmiy can take the form of a dead relative. In our field
trips we collected numerous legends about the return of dead relatives, and much
practical advice about protecting against such returns.
Ukrainian folklorists, at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century (e.g. Hnatiuk, Miloradovich, Nechuy-Levitskiy), pointed out that
in traditional communities people have numerous ways of protecting themselves
against the dead returning. When analyzing demonological folk prose, we must
remember that the wish to continue relations with dead ancestors, and belief in
the possibility of «keeping in touch», is as strong as the fear of them. Dead relatives need not be frightening, and can protect one from harm; they sometimes are
given the protective power of the angels, but under the restriction that they must
not come back (which would be against nature). Instead, they send one a signal.
How exactly do they do this? One of the traditional ways is through one’s dreams.
It is the «safest» way to be in contact with one’s dead relative. Neither party has any
power at the moment of the «meeting», and warnings come indirectly, through
symbolic images. The bearers of tradition can interpret the dream or use the help
of a «professional interpreter» in the community. Being rich in symbols, dreams
can be interpreted in many ways. At the same time, all doubts about the possibility of such contact (between the dead and the living) can be addressed through
dream interpretation as well. This is why the last part of this report will be devoted
to dream interpretation in the context of the «return of the dead» plot. First, it is
worth mentioning that in texts based on dream interpretation, just as in ballads
and legends, we see tight connections between death and marriage. Recall that in
Ukrainian tradition to dream of a woman in a wedding dress means that someone
will become very sick or will die. We see a strong correspondence in traditional
belief in two unrelated cultures. In most dreams dead relatives, friends or neighbors come to help you or to warn you about something. In some cases they protect
you or ask for a favor. In various stories dead relatives (mother, mother-in-law or
husband) appear quite frequently in dreams. These stories are not dramatic like
ballads, or frightening and didactical like demonological legends; they can even
be humorous. But at the same time they are full of traditional belief, mythology
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and archaic elements. The symbolic language of such dream interpretation shows
very clearly that the most ancient pagan understanding of the world of the dead is
still active in the minds of our contemporaries.
Thus, analyzing the motif of the «dead returning» in Ukrainian narrative tradition, we come to following conclusions:
The «dead fiancé» motif, in its most common plot development (popular in
European written and oral traditions) is not and was not a part of actively functioning Ukrainian narrative tradition. More generally, in Ukrainian ballads the
motif of the «dead taking the living to the grave» is uncommon.
Despite the relative unpopularity of the «Lenora» plot among Ukrainian bearers
of epic tradition, other motifs concerning the «return of the dead» are very popular
and varied. They show, through their poetic futures, ancient beliefs of the Ukrainian
folk, which later turned into the superstitions of our contemporaries. Archaic ballad
elements express the pagan, ancient worldview, where birth, marriage and death exist in unity and the world of the dead is open for entering and returning at any given
time. In this sense, ballads are more archaic than prose because, behind artistic language, they hide beliefs and understandings of life and death from very old times.
Demonological prose deals with the «return of the dead» in a very practical
manner. It separates the dead from demonic forces, teaches listeners how to distinguish between them, and how to behave in order to protect against their power.
Compared to ballads, it is more didactical and less artistic. Demonological texts
are straighter and less symbolic than ballads with the same motifs. The functions
of demonological texts in contemporary communities are different: they do not
influence emotions, but rather provide certain rules for certain situations.
Among prosaic texts we must distinguish those based on dream interpretation.
They serve as a «passage» to the world of dead ancestors in contemporary communities. It is crucial to understand their traditional symbolic meaning. Usually, one needs
the help of the respectful «dream interpreter». Through dreams, one’s dead relatives
can give warnings or help. In ballads the motif of the «return of the dead» is an artistic
and dramatic symbol; in demonological legends it is a frightening and didactical element related to everyday beliefs; in texts based on dream interpretation it is reassuring,
with hope of the possibility of communicating with the world of the dead.
References
Britsyna, O., Golovakha, I. 2004. Prosovyi Folklore Sela Ploske na Chernihivshyni: Teksty ta Rozvidky. [The Prosaic Folklore of Ploske Village in Cernihivshyna: Texts and Research]. Kyiv: Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Dei O. 1986. Ukrainska Narodna Ballada [Ukrainian Folk Ballad]. Kyiv: Naukova Dumka.
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Hrytsa S. 1990. Ukrainskaya Pesennaya Epika [Ukrainian Song Epic]. Moskva: Sovetskyi kompositor.
Ed. by Dei O. 1987. Ballady: Kohannya ta Doshlyubni vzayemyny [Ballads:
Love and Premarital Relations]. Kyiv.
Franko, I. 1984. «Desho pro «Marusyu» V. Borovikovskho ta ii osnovu» in Zibrannya Tv. u 50 t. [Collected works in 50 vols] Vol. 37. Kyiv: Naukova Dumka.
Yefremova L. 1994. «Katalog Ukrainskoho Pisennoho Folkloru. SyuzetnoTematychnyi Pokazchyk (Lyubovna, Rodynno-Pobutova Liryka ta Epika)». Narodoznavstvo, 2.
217
OLENA CHEBANYUK (KYIV, UKRAINE)
Ballads in the folklore of Ukrainian calendar customs
Abstract: There are many texts in the folklore of Ukrainian calendar customs that have ballad
motifs and plots. In research on ballads, customs, and calendar folklore, the following problems may
arise: (1) intrinsic ties between ballads and the folklore of calendar customs; (2) the place and role of
the ballad in the area of calendar customs; and (3) a reflection of calendar customs in ballads. Customs
are a plot-creating element in ballads, and an analysis of this problem is crucial for such topics as ballad
genesis and the origins of certain balladic types and motifs.
Key words: calendar rituals, motif, folk customs, type, Ukrainian ballads.
Е
ОЛЕНА ЧЕБАНЮК (КИЇВ, УКРАЇНА)
Балади в календарно-обрядовому українському фольклорі.
Ф
Резюме: В українському календарно-обрядовому фольклорі значна кількість сюжетів та
мотивів співпадає з баладними сюжетами та мотивами (наприклад, мотив інцесту між братом
та сестрою, поширений у баладній традиції багатьох народів). Вивчення та аналіз даних текстів
сприяє кращому розумінню походження певних баладних мотивів та образів, а також розумінню ролі й місця балади в календарно-ритуальних традиціях українського народу.
Ключові слова: календарно-обрядовий фольклор, українські балади, мотив, сюжет.
ІМ
For a long time, folklorists have paid close attention to the genetic connection between ballads and ritual poetry, as well as to the ring and key dances, in
order to see the connections between ancient mythology, rituals and customs
and later ballad texts. Among the most popular are ballads containing a motif of
incest between brother and sister, which are performed with dancing elements.
Such ballads could be related to the range of the oldest texts. In modern Ukraine
they could be heard on Kupala's holiday and, less frequently, during water-nymph
week. Rusalii (water-nymph holidays), that people celebrate after Whitsun (Trinity), are connected with a cult of verdure and dead forefathers. Rusalii are more
ancient holidays then Kupala related to solstice and sun cult. Our own field research proved that in villages where they celebrate Russalii they do not celebrate
Kupala; and where Kupala present, Rusalii are absent. But ballads with motifs of
incest, sisters killed by brothers for sinful relations, or a sister’s suicide with the
purpose of avoiding incest with a brother or brothers are constantly found in Kupala and Rusalii repertories.
At the centre of Kupala holidays, the ritual tree symbolized the World Tree. It
was decorated by verdure, flowers and cherry fruits. At the top of the ritual tree a
doll named Ivan or a doll named Maryna was placed. In the Kiev region on the left
bank of the Dnipro, the two dolls were named Marynka and Vasyl'. On the right
bank of the Dnipro, a tree (such as pussywillow, pear, or cherry) was often mount-
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ed with female figures named Marynka/Marena. On the left bank, a pole would
commonly be mounted and decorated by flowers, with a wheel or sunflower on
the top. This pole was named Ivan-Golovan (Big Headed Ivan).
After the end of the celebration dolls were set on fire with the trees and then
were sunk in the river. During Ivan Kupala holidays the main actions taken are:
singing Kupala songs, jumping above the fire, and bathing in the river. Kupala’s
bonfire, water, relations between lovers – are the main motives of Kupala`s poetry.
Traditional topics of the songs are love of the brother to the sister, brother’s killing
of the sister, drowning of Marynka (sister) in the sea,brother and sister are dying
and then becoming flowers: for instance, he becomes a Basilic and she becomes
red mint (brother flourishes by yellow color and sister by blue). Russians call the
wild violet Ivan-da-Maria (Ivan-and-Maria). This flower is half yellow and half
blue. Ukrainians call it Bratky (brothers).
Russian reseachers of the mythology Ivanov and Toporov connect this motif in Kupala’s ballad with an ancient myth of twin’s theogamy, the marriage of
two forefathers. It is interesting that accordingly to Kupala`s ballads sister’s tears
became water, hands became pike-fishes, legs became sheat-fishes, eyes became
blackthorn, hair became grass. Here we have an example of an ancient beliefs
about correspondence between human body parts and parts of the world. The
name of the main female character Marina or Morena scholars often explain as a
sea, water, or water element related. The brother’s name is not reconstructed, but
symbolic connection of his image with the sky and Earth are very clear.
The motif of the marriage between a brother and a sister is widely spread in
folklore of many nations of the world. It is interesting, that in Kupala`s repertoire
there were ballads with an incest topic with absence of names of personages, as
well as girl’s suicide motifs (drowning herself in the sea) to avoid incest or undesirable marriage. Such songs are not necessarily connected to calendar customs.
In Western regions of Ukraine (Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk regions) ballads are performed at the time when the folk aqre playing spring games. For instance: during Easter week near the church, people sing and dance in a ring, and
play games with the pantomime elements. The name of these games is gajivky.
Often they sing ballads with choreographic figures. We would like to mention
two of them. The first has the topic of the charming and fascinating of a faithless
lover by a girl. It is famous all over Ukraine, but only in Western territories does it
preserve its connection to ritual calendar folklore. This topic was first mentioned
in the poem «Roxolania», devoted to Ukrainians, by the sixteenth-century Polish
writer S. F. Klionovich. In the poem of the sixteenth century, after making a magic
drink, the demonic assistant of a sorceress, a black-woolled goat, brings the faithless lover on its back. In the variations of this ballad in nineteenth century, the
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lover was brought by a horse. The functions and actions of magic animals in both
ballads are the same, but the black-woolled goat is a more ancient figure not only
in Ukrainian folklore, but in ancient rituals.
In the territory of the North-West Polissya located on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border even today it is possible to observe archaic rituals, religious beliefs, folklore creations, prejudices. During the Lent singing of any songs is forbidden, except for so called postovi (Lent songs). Such songs have church plots (for example
describing Christ’s tortures, his meeting with an orphan, an orphan’s complaints at
her mother’s grave, etc). People also sing ballads, in which tragic events are treated
like terrible acts: about widow and her nine brothers, about killing of wife by the
husband. Such ballads are widely spread and well known by modern performers.
Among Lent ballads one special ballad is distinguished. It has the following plot:
a step-mother sends a girl to bring water from the river, near the river she is attacked by wolves, then a falcon appears, the girl asks the falcon to put his wing into
her blood, in order to let her father know about her misfortune, the father is very
sorrowful, the step-mother is happy. Scholars discovered an echo of the incest motif in this ballad and a similarity with the fairy tale «Sleeping Beauty». This ballad
is known only in Ratne and Kamin-Kashyrske districts on the Volyn. We recorded
nine variants of this ballad from different performers (ranging in age from twenty
to ninety). In general, more then twenty recordings of this ballad are known.
We would like to attract the reader’s attention to one more ballad, traditionally performed on Easter Sunday in Pokuttia, West Ukraine (East Carpathian region). In Chortivets village on Easter Sunday, the women sing gaivky showing in
pantomime and displaying content of the songs by ring dancing. At the same time,
the men of the village also move in a ring dance. This dance named Arkan is similar to the Balkan dance Horo. Men also sing the ballad named «Serbyn» with the
following plot: by the persuasion of her lover, a Serbian girl poisoned her brother;
but the lover then refused to marry her, explaining that if she could poison her
brother then she might poison her lover. Men repeat the ballad many times, while
moving around an Orthodox (Pravoslavian) church, because it is a sacramental
center of Easter Sunday. Later, in the same manner, they move through the entire
village to a Catholic church, singing and dancing around it as well. This ritual was
described by the outstanding Polish ethnographer Oskar Kolberg at the end of
the nineteenth century. Expeditions of 2000–2007 had shown that the quantity of
songs with a ballad plot in the modern folklore of calendar customs is decreasing.
They have lost connections with the calendar, while songs of independent ballad
genre have become more numerous.
The following conclusions are made: There are many texts in the folklore of
Ukrainian calendar customs that have ballad motifs and plots. In research on bal-
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lads, customs, and calendar folklore, the following problems may arise: (1) intrinsic ties between ballads and the folklore of calendar customs; (2) the place and
role of the ballad in the area of calendar customs; and (3) a reflection of calendar
customs in ballads. Customs are a plot-creating element in ballads, and an analysis
of this problem is crucial for such topics as ballad genesis and the origins of certain balladic types and motifs.
221
OKSANA MYKYTENKO (KYIV, UKRAINE)
The Ethnic Stranger in Ukrainian Ballads of the Sister-the-Poisoner
Motif
Е
Abstract: This paper deals with Ukrainian folk ballads possessing the motif Sister-the-Poisoner,
one widely found in Ukraine. The purpose of this research is to draw attention to those texts (in
Ukrainian recordings) in which the tempter is named with the ethnonym Serbin. In ballads with the
sister-the-poisoner motif, the ethnonym is used in two cases (the Serb and the Armenian) in order to
present an ethnic stranger. In a folk ballad genetically connected with traditional wedding poetry, this
occasion is unsurprising, and shows the syncretism of traditional folk genres. The traditional wedding
rite stresses the semantics of a foreigner, including ethnic ones. While ballads of this motif are known
in all folk Slavonic traditions, the ethnonym «Serbin» (the Serb) appears only in Ukrainian versions,
depicting the processes of mutual Ukrainian and Serbian ethnic contact.
Key words: folk ballad, ethnonym, motif, Ukrainian tradition.
ОКСАНА МИКИТЕНКО (КИЇВ, УКРАЇНА)
Ф
Етнічний чужинець в українських баладах з мотивом “Сестра
отруйниця”.
ІМ
Резюме: У статті розглядається народна балада з мотивом «сестра отруїла брата за намовою
спокусника», яка широко побутує на усій українській етнічній території. Метою статті є зосередити увагу на тих текстах, у яких спокусник подається з етнонімом сербин. У баладі про сеструотруйницю етнонім зустрічаємо у двох випадках (сербин та вірменин) із наголошенням етнічного чужого. У народній баладі, генетично спорідненій з традиційною весільною поезією, це є
цілком зрозумілим, підтверджуючи синкретизм традиційних фольклорних жанрів. Традиційний
весільний обряд дуже широко залучає семантику чужого, зокрема етнічного. Водночас варто зазначити, що, хоча мотив відомий в усіх слов’янських традиціях, етнонім «сербин» з’являється
лише в українських варіантах, відбиваючи процеси українсько-сербських етнічних контактів.
Ключові слова: етнонім, мотив, народна балада, славістика, українська традиція.
1. The stranger stereotype in traditional culture
The topic of «ours – aliens» is widely considered to be inexhaustible. «The opposition ‘ours – aliens’ in its different aspects», writes Y. Stepanov, «runs through
the whole culture, being one of the main concepts of the collective, popular folk,
national attitude» (Степанов, 126).
Notions about ethnic or confessional «aliens» in Slavonic traditional folk culture,
as a rule, correlate with Germans, Poles, Roma, Jews and Turks. The main characteristics that refer to the image of «alien» in the traditional consciousness are: the appearance, the smell, the lack of soul, supernatural affinities (abilities of reincarnation,
magic and witchcraft), the «wrong» – from the point of view of the local tradition – behaviour, the language (Белова, 71). These characteristics give the most sufficient and
complete folklore and mythological image of the «alien» in the traditional culture.
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The Ethnic Stranger in Ukrainian Ballads of the Sister-the-Poisoner Motif
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Wandering people are symbolized by ethnic foreigners, first of all by Jews and
Roma, or those whose trade is connected with travelling and journey: merchants,
potters, beggars, pilgrims, rag-pickers (Виноградова, 354–356).
On the other side, some «aliens» can be considered only as «others» by the fact
of religious confession. And what is more, this factor in some situations turns the
«aliens» into «others» and practically into «ours». Nevertheless «aliens» exactly are
usualy involved in ritual practice as characters of magic. This is caused by the traditional positive semantics of the folklore image of the stranger/heterodox as those
who bear the blessing, health, fertility. The «alien» becomes the most marked and
significant element in a whole number of situations in the limits of the system that is
interpreted by the representatives of this tradition as their «own». For instance, Jews
in all cases are considered in the folk Slavonic tradition as «aliens», that’s why we
very often encounter the image of Jews in the ritual practice of Slavs.
As the most marked situations that attract the notion of «alien» one can mention:
rituals de passage (marriage, birth, calendar rituals that mention «polaznik»);
crisis situations (drought, epidemic, plague), as well as those cases of hard
disease or drinking, women’s barrenness, etc.
The image of the foreigner or heterodox has common mythological features, but
at the same time it reveals tangible local distinctions of this stereotype caused by every
concrete historical and cultural situation or condition in different regions of Slavia.
ІМ
2. The modern tradition of folklore existence
The folklore epic song in its variety, which includes ballad, romance, historical
song and song of everyday life etc., takes an important place in the genre diversity
of the traditional folk culture in Ukraine. All these genres of poetry are widely
presented on the whole ethnic Ukrainian territory. Observation of the modern
existence of different genres of epic songs is of great interest for the investigators of the folklore process, because it is known that the folk epic culture in West
European countries has been forgotten long ago, and from the second part of the
twentieth century one can observe all features of the gradual fading away of folk
tradition also in the countries of Central and Southeast Europe.
The program of research expeditions of the Rylsky Institute for Art Studies, Folklore and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine always takes into
account the urgent problems of study of the modern existence of traditional folklore,
including observations of lyrical-epic poetry. As the result of gradual investigation of
the folklore in different regions of Ukraine, as well as the accumulation of considerable amount of text material, there appeared the publication of two books of ballads
in the academic multi-volume edition «Українська народна творчість» («Ukrainian Folklore»), «Балади: Кохання та дошлюбні взаємини» («Ballads: Love and
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pre-marital relations», Kyiv, 1987) «Балади: Родинно-побутові стосунки» («Ballads: Family-life relations», Kyiv, 1988). The edition consists of the most appropriate
variants, chosen from the great account of accumulated texts, moreover attention
was paid to those records which combined both elements (verbal text together with
melody). The editors included into the volumes the previous fixations of various
periods, as well as many new recordings, which prove the vitality of folk ballad tradition and represent a process of development of the living folklore.
In different Ukrainian ballads, with the majority of the plots connected with
the depicting of tragic events in one’s personal and social life, we can observe a
vivid motif: «a sister poisoned a brother as tempted by her seducer», which is also
represented in folk texts of most European nations.
The Ukrainian ballad about «sister-the-poisoner» has been drawing attention
of many national scholars since the beginning of the nineteenth century. During the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries more than 200 versions have apeared in print; at
the same time, the great part of the fixations from different regions of Ukraine are
still buried in archives. The records of the named variants are known from the collections by: P. Chubinsky (Чубинский, 432–434, 915), Y. Holovatsky (Головацкий,
206–210, 582–583), O. Kolberg (Kolberg, 44–46), F. Kolessa (Колесса, 559), D. Zador
and P. Myloslavsky (Задор, Костьо, Милославский, 22), J. Tsimbora (Цимбора,
408–409), P. Lintur (Лінтур, 22–25) and others. As P. Lintur writes, a ballad is one
of the most popular genres of folklore in the Transcarpatian region, where he has
recorded fifty variants from performers of different ages (Линтур, 61). This allows
the scientist to study the existence of the epic song as performed by three generations of folk singers: the older (over 60 years), the middle (under 50 years) and the
youngest (under 30) – both women and men. At the same time the total number of
records could be much bigger, as far as the song is known and sung in every village.
While analysing the repertoire of Transcarpatian singers, we should note the
fact that singers of older generations mostly perform the songs on traditional plot,
whereas the younger ones combine traditional and contemporary texts, giving
preference to the later. However, the most talented representatives of the young
singers are well aware of classical plots.
Wide popularity of ancient ballads and some historical songs among the
younger generation proves that the folk tradition here is being preserved. Epic
songs, including the ballad about «sister-the-poisoner» is known not only by older
people, but also by young girls and boys. It is notable, that in Eastern Slovakia in
Prjashivshchina, where Mikhailo Shmajda once wrote down seven varians of the
text of this very plot, the performers were people only of the older generation.
The stability of the local epic tradition in the Carpathian region contradicts
neither the unity of Ukrainian tradition as such, nor certain text variability, which
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is represented by the recordings made in Naddnyprjanska Ukraine (former Poltavska, Kyiv, and Podyl provinces) and in some contemporary recordings, including those from Southeast Ukraine. However, all ballad texts of the plot «sister-thepoisoner», which are conditionally subdivided by P. Lintur into Naddnyprjansky,
Halytsky, Transcarpathian and Prjashiv types, nevertheless fall into the one and
the same genetic and organic unit (Ibid, 64).
3. The characteristics of the Ukrainian texts’ variants
The plot line of the main variant of the Ukrainian ballad presents a wide choice of
bright episodes, moreover the text is constructed in the form of the dialog of a girl and
her loved one, a girl and her brother. The ballad starts with a girl’s appeal to the loved one
to take her as a wife; he convinces her to poison her brother first, the girl refuses saying
that she does not know the magic; the young man suggests her to go to the woods where
she can find a snake (two or three snakes) hanging on a tree; because of the sun the snake
gets warm and produces the poison; the girl should use it to make deathly potion for the
brother; the brother returns from a trip and the girl offers him the potion; the brother
falls down from a horse begging her to save him, but the girl remains firm in her decision; after poisoning her brother the girl once more asks the loved one to marry her, but
he refuses on the condition that if she could poison her brother, she would poison him
as well. The last lines present the scene, when the brother is buried and the girl punished;
otherwise she gets married to a street-beggar etc., e.g.:
Neither brother, nor Armenian
The girl has chosen a beggar
He asks for bread
She is carrying the bags
What he gets he puts
In the bag
And he hits her
In the face
Та й ні брата, ні вермана,
Пішла дівка за жебрана.
Жебран ходить хліба просить,
А дівчина торби носить;
Жебран хліба що випросить,
То все в торбу,
А дівчину та все в морду
225
(Чубинский, 433).
Е
As a result of additional motif to the main narration there appear numerous
variants of the plot.
The purpose of our research is to draw attention mainly to those texts in
Ukrainian recordings, where the tempter is named with the ethnonym Serbin,
taking into consideration also when it varies according to its position in the text.
Most often, the ethnonym is first presented in the very beginning of the ballad, in
the girl’s address to the young man:
Ф
Serbian, serbian
Get me a girl for marriage
Ой сербине, сербиночку,
Сватай мене, дівчиночку
(Балади, 78–82).
There is a certain variant of this address, connected with the phonemic reception of the ethnonym in common parlance (from свербіти, ukr., «to itch»):
ІМ
Oh, sverbyne, sverbynochky
Get me a girl for marriage
Ой свербине, свербиночку,
Сватай мене дівчиночку.
M. Sumtsov gives the variant: Oh, Serdene, Serdenochky/
Get me a girl for marriage Ой Сердене, Серденочку,/Сватай мене
дівчиночку, saying that «Сердене» (Serdene) is a national ethnological conception of the ethnonym (Сумцов, 260), however we should rather speak about
the substitution of the ethnonym by the diminutive form of the lexeme «серце»
(«heart»), which is absolutely justified in folk love lyrics.
It is not at all questionable, that in the primary address formula we find a lexeme «kosak», often in connection with a proper name, ex.:
Ой козаче, козаченьку (kosak, kozache)
Сватай мене молоденьку;
226
– Ой ти Йваня-козаченьку (Ivan-kozachen’ko)
Бери мене, дівчиночку;
Ти козаче-барвіночку (kozache-flower)
Сватай мене дівчиночку;
Юрме, Юрме, Юрманочку (Yurme, Yurme, Yurmanochku)
Сватай мене, дівчиночку;
Е
Ой ти верми-верминятко (Armenian, Armenyatko)
Сватай мене, сизенятко!
(Балади, 80, 83, 88, 89).
ІМ
Ф
Therefore, the ethnonim is used in two cases (the Serb and the Armenian)
in order to present an ethnic foreigner. In a folk ballad, which is genetically connected with ritual wedding poetry, this occasion does not come as a surprise but
rather shows the syncretism of traditional folk genres. As is known, the traditional
wedding rite stresses the semantics of a foreigner, including also ethnic ones. We
should also mention that in Ukrainian ballads based on other plots the tempter is usually a foreigner. Most often he is «kosak» or just a «foreigner», or also
«zhovnir», «three voloshins», a Turk, a Polish, three youngsters, soldiers, sailor in
the Black Sea, burlaks, Ljahs etc. If he is local, the ballad uses his personal name –
Vasylechko, Yas’, Marko, Yanichok etc. In their majority they are fire-tempered,
witty males from faraway regions: «from Ukraine, Zaporizhya».
At the same time the ethnic territory of Ukraine can also be specified in the
text. As an example, in recordings from Podyllya, both the girl and the boy are, as
a rule, characterized as locals – podolyanci. At the same time, as far as the Polish
text of the ballad has the same beginning, this feature can be concidered common
in Ukrainian and Polish variants of the ballad.
На Подолю білий камінь,
Подолянка сидить на нім,
Сидить, сидить, вінці віє
З дрібной ружі-розмарії.
Прийшов до ней подолянець
Подолянко, дай мі вінець!
(Ibid, 90).
227
To compare in a Polish recording:
Na podolu biały kamień
podolanka siedzi na nim.
przyszedł do nij podoleniec
«podolanko daj mi wieniec»
(Kolberg, 123).
ІМ
Ф
Е
In the Western Ukrainian recordings the social and property status of the
tempter is more often depicted, that can be considered as the possible influence of
the Polish folk tradition. In other cases only the age of the male is indicated.
As an example of modern records of the Ukrainian text one can observe certain
regularities of the ballad genre development. In a number of variants the main part of the
text is forestalled by the (typical for the folk love lyrics) exposition. As a rule the Ukrainian text in this case uses the spatial landscape metaphor, decreasing to the symbol of the
well from which the girl takes the water and where she meets her loved one.
As the striking illustration of the typical development of love lyrics towards
the dramatization of the ballad’s plot, one can mention a variant that was written
down in the central part of Ukraine – Sumy district in 1954, in which as opposed
to the girl’s space that is the wide field where she grazes oxen and horses, appears a
symbol of alien space – the pot-house where the Serb drinks horilka (Балади, 85).
Here the contraposition of two topoi becomes the basis for the future dramatic
development of the plot.
Finally, as an example of the later text contamination which consists of a main
part and exposition that are obviously diachronically different, we find the variant
with the critical trend which is expressed at the very beginning of the song. An
exposition ironically stresses the Serb’s unawareness of the main peasants’ chores,
quoting that «he mows barley with an axe» (Дмитренко, 12).
Thus, the ballad that is widely known in the European folk cultures, in the
Ukrainian folk tradition belongs to the circle of most famous topics. Investigators of folklore still observe variants of this ballad among folklore creative works
that continue their active existence in modern folklore processes, as well as in
amateur performances.
4. The international paradigm of the folklore ballad with the motif
«sister-the poisoner»
Comparative analyses of the Slavic versions of the ballad text convincingly
prove its subject and topical similarity, and sometimes show the textual coinci-
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dence of the variants conditioned by historical-typological and genetic relations
of Slavonic folklore, first of all of those in the Carpatian region.
The ballad about «sister-the-poisoner» has been the subject of the scientific analyses of folklorists in different Slavonic countries. The eminent Czech scientist Jiři Horák
wrote about it in the introductory article to his collection «Slovenské ľudové balady»
(1956), where he stressed its integral ties with ritual folk poetry, pointing out such
features as performance in chorus. Czech texts of these ballads were also known in
recordings by K. Erben (Erben, 391–392). F. Sušil has written down the variants of
the ballad in Moravia and characterised the ballad as one of the best known and most
ancient folklore songs known to all Slavonic peoples (Sušil, 156–158).
Among the first fixations of the ballad there is a Serbian text written down by
Vuk Karadžić and published in his first volume of «Serbian folk songs» (Караџић,
222–223). The ballad that is widely presented in its numerous variants on the
whole Serbo-Croatian lingual-cultural territory is characterised by the features of
the plot and stylistics, which show the mythological background of the plot and its
connection with the most ancient ritual genres of the folklore.
Among the characteristic features of South Slav texts are the motif of злаћени
прстен and the absence of moralizing conclusion, which is necessary due to the influence of Christian tradition and is usual in Western Slav texts, including the Polish ones.
Stanislav Chernik (Czernik) dedicated one chapter of his book «Polska epika
ludova» (1958) to the analyses of the main motives in the Polish ballad text, where
he dwelled on a reconstruction of a text as an archetype. Polish tradition is to
produce a great variety of versions in the borders of a certain composition and
content wholeness of the main text. There are 31 variants of the ballad in the digest «Pieśni ludu polskiego» by O. Kolberg (Kolberg, 115–133). Other variants are
published in the digests by Ž. Pauli (Pauli, 81), K. Wójcicki (Wójcicki, 72–73, 246,
332), J. Konopka (Konopka, 125–126) and others. Usaully a broad Polish text contains motives that are not found in other Slavonic variants, for example, address of
the dying brother to the sister, asking her to take care of his children, final motives
of the sister’s wedding with a beggar or the sister’s brutal punishment. Not without ground is the view that it was the expansion of the Polish text that influenced
neighbouring Belorussian and Ukrainian variants of the ballad.
The ballad about «sister-the-poisoner» that is widely represented in every Slav folk
tradition also has many non-Slav parallels and is included in the European traditional
cultural heritage. Already, at the end of the nineteenth century, the Ukrainian folklorist
N. Sumtsov, while comparing Slavonic, New-Greek, Roman, German, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian and other texts, concluded that «we should speak of one and the same
song». Lingual-stylistic, composition and topic features of the Slav text prove that the
ballad belongs to the common layer of folk songs, that are characterized by the syncre229
tism of epic, lyrical, and dramatical origins and by the chorus performance. Observation
of the text’s existence in different regions of Europe that is of current interest and the
comparative study of its national versions still remains an issue in modern folkloristics.
5. Integrative processes in Europe and methodological aspects of
Slav philology
ІМ
Ф
Е
Contemporary integrational processes make it necessary for the comparative study, including Slavonic study, to obey the basis of national, together
with international, principles of study. However, as a result of the disintegration of the Slavonic community, there appears a danger of the existence of
Slavonic study merely as a complex of scientific disciplines, that study the life
of Slav nations, where we include linguistics, literature studies, folkloristics
and ethnology, history of art, history and culture study: that is to say, such
fields where there is «the deepest reflection of traditional ties between Slav
peoples and ethnonational features of their development» (Прокофьева, 39).
Modern cultural similarity in an integrated world urgently demands some differences. Living in Europe, we would like to see it, in a future without borders, not as
something unified and monotonous, but with identities of individual cultures and
communities. The world culture, first of all the traditional one, is distinguished by its
diversity and ability for dialogue. This real treasure must not be lost.
Looking for separate cultural identity we address the originality of different peoples.
Under the contemporary conditions of necessary processes of Europe and world integration, the elaboration of national originality and identity appears as an important problem
on the level of theoretical and methodological as well as practical and political analyses.
Cultural integration, on the one hand, and ethnic and national differentiation,
on the other: these two diametrically opposite trends mark scientific research today and are reflected in it.
From this point of view, scientific activity in the field of traditional culture and
folklore can be conditionally divided into two trends: (1) on the horizontal level,
meaning synchronous research, and (2) on the vertical line that touches the questions of diachronous analysis.
As the opposition to the former political and ideological dogmatism of the
Slav – socialist – system the main attention is paid to the separate branches of science and to the national Slav research schools that gave the important impulse for
the development of such branches of investigations in Ukrainian, Czech or Polish
philology and history, and also allowed to represent the significance of such scientific centres as Vienna, Graz or Budapest in Slav researches.
At the same time the certain transference of the attention on the national peculiarities without leaving out of account the general tendencies caused the failure
230
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of some fundamental investigations, e.g. the international project «The History of
Slavistics», worked out in the 1980s by the Yugoslav Committee of Slavists, which
was not realized. The fact that the exclusively national approach can blockade the
scientific notion of common importance for all Slav cultures does not deny, of
course, the necessity of analyzing comprehensively the phenomena in each ethnic
culture, as the basis for truly scientific comparative research work.
In this connection, one can mention the urgent tasks of the development of the
comparative method in Slavistics. A number of interesting suggestions were made by
the Slovakian specialist in literature Dionis Djurishin. Considering that Slavistics is in
a serious crisis precisely because of the lack of modern material and modern trends in
literary criticism, the author introduces the idea of «interliterary centrism» (Đurišin,
179–190) that is connected with the «Eurocentrism» and underlines the sense of geography, rather than ethnicity, in the modern processes of differentiation and integration. In his methodological concepts, D. Djurishin points out that the notion of «interliterary centrism» contains a wide integral meaning, allowing for interliterary analyses
of world context. By the same token, the «interliterary centrism» of Balkan literatures,
as well as in Central European and East European literatures, where he includes also
non-Slavonic cultural traditions, are marked out. Actually, the notion of Slav cultural
community is eroded. The author’s attempts to introduce new methodological principles depend on his idea that, today, Slavistics is becoming more and more historical,
and yet is not a modern science, one that in its turn must be the result of «the weakening of the common life of Slav cultures and its literatures».
Without rejecting the constructive proposals dealing with the methodological development of scientific research, we believe that in the present conditions of
predominant divergence among Slav countries and their cultures, the relevant scientific principles (in the sphere of Slav philology, history, ethnology, cultural study
and so forth) continue to be those presenting the culture of distinct and yet related
peoples. In particular, the traditional Slav folklore ballad vividly proves this.
References
Балади. Кохання та дошлюбні взаємини. – К., 1987.
Белова О. В. «Другие» и «чужие»: представления об этнических соседях
в славянской народной культуре // Признаковое пространство культуры. –
М., 2002. – С.71–85.
Czernik S. Polska epika ludowa / Opracowal Stanislaw Czernik. – Krakow, 1958.
Виноградова Л. Н. Народная демонология и мифо-ритуальная традиция
славян. – М., 2000.
Головацкий Я. Народные песни Галицкой и Угорской Руси, собранные
Я. Головацким, – М.,1878.
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Е
Horák J. Slovenské ľudové balady / Zozbieral a štúdiu napísal Jiři Horák. –
Bratislava, 1956.
Erben K. J. Prostonárodní české písnĕ a říkadla / Sebral a vydal K.J.Erben. –
Praha, 1937.
Дмитренко М. К. Українські балади / Упоряд. М. К. Дмитренко. – К., 1993.
Đurišin Dionis. O interliterarnom centrizmu Balkanskih književnosti //
Зборник Матице Српске за славистику. – Нови Сад, 1994. – Кн. 46–47. –
С. 179–190.
Задор Д., Костьо Ю., Милославский П. Народні пісні подкарпатских
русинов. – Унгвар 1944. – Ч. 1.
Караџић Вук Стеф. Српске народне пјесме. І. // Сабрана дела Вука
Караџића. – Београд, 1975. – Т. 4.
Kolberg O. Pokucie, obraz etnograficzny, skreslil Oskar Kolberg. – Kraków,
1889. – T. 2.
Kolberg O. Pieśni ludu polskiego // Dzieła Wszystkie. T. I.
Колесса Ф. Народні пісні Галицької Лемківщини, тексти і мелодії зібрав,
упорядкував і пояснив д-р Филарет Колесса. – Л., 1929.
Konopka Jozef. Piesni ludu Krakowskiego. – Krakow, 1840
Линтур П. Новые записи балладной песни о «сестре-отравительнице».
Проблема происхождения балладной песни // Slavia, T. XXXVII. N 1. – Praha,
1968. – С. 59–82.
Лінтур П. Народні балади Закарпаття / Запис та впорядкування текстів,
вступна стаття П. Лінтура. – Ужгород, 1959.
Pauli Zegota. Piesni ludu polskiego w Galicyi. – Lwow, 1838.
Прокофьева Н. А. Международная комиссия по истории славистики //
Славяноведение и балканистика за рубежом : Сб. статей и материалов. – М.,
1980. – С. 32–43.
Степанов Ю. С. Константы: словарь русской культуры. – М., 2001.
Сумцов Н. Ф. Народные песни об отравлении змеиным ядом // Киев.
старина. – К., 1893. – Т. 43. – № 10–12. – С. 241–261.
Sušil Frant. Moravské národní písně do textu vřaděnými / Sebral a vydal
Frant. Sušil. – Praha, 1941: 3. vyd.
Цимбора Ю. Українські народні пісні Пряшівського краю. – Прешов,
1963. – Кн. 2.
Чубинский П. П. Труды этнографическо-статистической экспедиции
в западнорусский край…, собранные П. П. Чубинским. Песни любовные,
семейные, бытовые и шуточные. – Спб., 1874. – Т. 5.
Wojcicki K. Piesni ludu. – Warszawa, 1836.
232
IGOR YUDKIN-RIPUN (KYIV, UKRAINE)
Balladic Images in Nineteenth Century Piano Music
Е
Abstract: British musicologist N. Marston was the first to examine the theme of ballad images in
piano music during the Romantic epoch. According to his observation of the episode «In the mood of
ballad» from R. Schumann’s fantasy, «it is the sense of disjunction, of fissure between different kinds
of music», namely, of the intrusion of vocal means in the purely instrumental field, that determines
the peculiarity of romantic piano balladry. The evolution of piano balladry can be traced in the works
of F. Chopin, F. Liszt, J. Brahms, E. Grieg, S. Prokofieff, B. Lyatoshinski, and N. Medtner, embracing
the period from the 1830s to the 1930s. It is interesting that at the end of this period one observes a
tendency to designate balladry images as those of legends (first witnessed by F. Liszt) or tales. Such
evolution gives evidence of the development from Romanticism to Retrospective Neostylistics.
Key words: balladry, ballad sonata, folklore, piano music, Romanticism.
ЮДКІН-РІПУН ІГОР (КИЇВ, УКРАЇНА)
Ф
Баладність фортепіанної музики ХІХ століття.
Резюме: Стаття присвячена маловивченому феномену в Європейській музиці ХІХ століття –
баладним фортепіанним концертам. Автор розглядає творчу спадщину українського композитора
Б. Лятошинського, російського композитора М. Медтнера та багатьох інших з метою проаналізувати народження баладності та поняття баладна соната у фортепіанній музиці в епоху романтизму.
Ключові слова: баладні фортепіанні концерти, баладна соната, епоха романтизму.
ІМ
Among the phenomena of twentieth-century music culture in Eastern Europe
which have not obtained sufficient description and explanation, one encounters the
creation of a series of piano works entitled balladic sonata or balladic concerto. Such
works belong to the heritage of such eminent composers as B. Lyatoshinski, N. Medtner or S. Feinberg. The very combination of two such different notions within the
titles of these works implies a conclusion as to the essential transformation of the
sonata form that has taken place in these works. In searching for plausible interpretations of this transformation, it is necessary to trace a short lineage of the idea of
balladry, as such, in the piano music that was born on the eve of the romantic era.
During the nineteenth century there appeared many works of a purely instrumental character (for piano first of all) that had been entitled as ballads. The
earliest and the best-known paragons of the art were represented in the legacy of
F. Chopin, F. Liszt, and J. Brahms. Such works can be regarded as a counterpart
to those created in literature beginning with the poems of Burns and Burger in
the realm of Germanic languages, Hugot and Beranger in French, Mickiewicz,
Slowacki, Zhukowski and many others in Slav languages. Both in literature and in
music these species of balladry belong to artistic reflection that is separated from
folklore, despite all intentions as to approaching it. Nevertheless, the meaning and
importance of literary and music ballads differ essentially.
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This difference will become obvious when we bear in mind that there existed still
another parallel between verbal and music arts, namely between novel and sonata.
While ballad-making in poetry did not exert a palpable influence upon the development
of the prosaic novel, one may observe a much more complicated situation within the
system of genres of instrumental music. The term ballad has been used here to designate
a very special mood of presenting and elaborating music material that entailed essential
consequences in the sphere of all the so-called developmental forms, including those of
sonata. In this respect the romantic piano ballads are to be confronted and compared
with other so-called small instrumental forms. For instance, the form of the so-called exercises (French etudes, German Klavierubung) did exist and was productively developed
just in the same time limits, as well as preludes that correspond to the form of the short
novel or story in literature. The majority of these small forms (especially those such as
scherzoes or elegies in the form of notturnoes) emerged as a result of the disintegration
of former sonata or suite cycles. In contrast to them, the works that bear the title «ballad»
are by no means associated with such minimalistic tendencies (if one may give license
to use this modern term). On the contrary, they are marked with very particular and
recognizable features that played an essential role in the process of the formation of the
so-called absolute music, that became a hallmark of romanticism.
While describing such features it is necessary to remind again that it goes about
artistic conventions concocted by professional composers and by no way about any
kind of authentic folklore. The piano balladry that has appeared due to composers’
creative efforts has nothing to do with «oral» traditions of habitual culture and thus
it does not subdue to usual definitions of ballad as a phenomenon belonging to this
culture. Rather it should be described within another system of notions, that include
the narrative way of presenting music stuff as opposed to those of dramatic or rhetoric traditions respectively. The formation of ballad for piano bears witnesses of the
implementation of narrative style as the realization of the idea of absolute music.
Perhaps the earliest indication concerning such approach towards the use of
balladry titles in instrumental music is to be found in R. Schumann’s Fantasy where
a special episode with the title «Im Legendenton» appears. As N. Marston [p. 236–
237] has put it, «it is the sense of disjunction, of fissure between different kinds of
music» that acquires an outlook of an «unexpectedly sung song» and liberates the
listener from «sonata-form mold». In this particular case it is endowed with such an
effect due to insertion of vocal imitation in the purely instrumental field. The meaning of such disjunction (that has taken place in the latter samples of ballad as well) is
to be regarded as a certain counterbalance to such a peculiarity of all the evolutionary forms (including the mentioned «sonata-form mold») as the so-called thematic
elaboration (in German Motivenarbeit) with the derivative contrast that provided
earlier the continuity of thematic procedures. This counterbalance of confrontation
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as opposed to derivation in its turn reveals a much more generalized validity: it goes
about the opposition to earlier foundations of developmental forms that were associated either with theatre or with old rhetoric prescriptions. The thematic elaboration corresponded to the episodes of so-called peripetia (where struggle took place)
of classical drama or to confutation of a «righteous» rhetorical sermon. It is the well
known fact that even the last works of Beethoven show very strict dependence upon
the rhetorical traditions of music. That is why those means of expression that acquire the designation of balladry are overtly confronted to earlier conventions, and
they conceived as the means of narration being an embodiment of absolute music.
This circumstance should be accepted as an explanatory model while dealing
with the fact that it is still the first eminent example of the romantic piano ballad
(Chopin’s Ballad g‑moll) that is marked with essential shifts indicating the new
treatment of sonata form. As Franz Eibner [S. 108] has put it, «it will become
obvious that the form of Chopin’s ballad g‑moll cannot be read on the basis of
themes and harmonies only, when one becomes aware of the manifold thematic
procedures that take place there». The changes of sonata form that took place in
Chopin’s ballads are connected to the mentioned idea of disjunction, that is of the
confrontation of heterogeneous themes that would estrange the stream of music
ideas. Thus in the 1st and 2nd ballads an insertion of alien theme before the finale
takes place together with the mirroring in reprise (in German Spiegelform), in the
3rd ballad such a confrontation takes place before an abridged reprise, while in the
4th ballad one deals with a kind of derivative contrast dissolving primary theme
in an ornamental stream without using special devices of disjunction. Anyhow
both contrasts of confrontation (that overwhelm here) and those of derivation
serve the mutual goal of the formation of a kind of epic distance. One may say the
confrontations are introduced to be overcome (and so the derivative contrast too),
they both serve to create a playground to reveal and unfold the integrative forces
of a work. Epic distance plays here the role of a prerequisite for artistic synthesis as
an aim of the program of absolute music itself. In difference to a more widespread
monothematic procedures that lead to the formation of the so-called thorough
composition (in German Durchkomponieren) here the compositional continuity
was achieved due to artistic motivation of the integration of heterogeneous stuff.
From the very point of such a role of epic distance within the form building procedures the question arises as to the selection of such a stuff which would be attributed
as a mark of balladic semantics. One can come to a conclusion that a certain system
of such music signs has been coined. Perhaps they can be better demonstrated on the
example of Liszt’s ballads that were written later than those of Chopin and served as a
preparatory attempt for the famous Sonata h-moll. In full accordance with the concept
of epic distance ballad contents is presented as something remote – both spatially and
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temporarily. In this respect the material selected for ballads differs from the previously
dominating in sonatas thematic stuff such as themes of the character of operatic airs
or of a rhetoric mottoes. Thus the formation of narrative style as the vehicle of absolute
music evoked the process of the development of new rhetoric means that soon have
replaced those of old rhetoric tradition. Such a transition corresponds to the essence
of balladic artistic language that is marked with formulaic quality. To these means one
would refer such devices, as for example, the use of the intervals of thirds (and sixths
as their inversions), especially as the intervals for doubling the melody. Such means are
to be found in the inserted theme in Chopin’s 3rd ballad, in Liszt’s 1st ballad, and are
often used by Brahms. It is interesting to note that Debussy’s so-called «Slav Ballad»
contains an intonation of «swaying» thirds. Another device of a «balladic» character
can be regarded as particular rhythmic figures, especially those of anapest that are
already used in the mentioned episode «Im Legendenton» by R. Schumann. One can
include in the number of such devices also the broad use of instrumental declamatory
means that are peculiar especially for Liszt’s style.
The experience of Brahms’ ballads attracts attention to another side of narrative
style that lays beyond the limits of sonata-like integration. Written chiefly in tripartite
forms (with complicated reprises) they represent a kind of idyll comparable to the pages of composer’s contemporary Adalbert Stifter. Here lyric concentration reveals itself
as a counterbalance to epic distance that acts as an integrative force. In other words one
can say about an interplay between centripetal and centrifugal forces represented with
lyrics and epics respectively. The presence of both epic and lyric elements in ballad
genre is reproduced in music through the development of a strain that arises around
the axial force of lyrics that integrates the distanced elements. As far as the late romanticism is concerned such force gains a very particular expression which can be defined
as a nostalgic attitude. The commemorative essence of ballad thus becomes coherent
with the tendency of stylistic development of romanticism towards retrospectivism,
and its traces are firstly witnessed by Brahms. Moreover, such a tendency reveals its
coherency with still another romantic stream: it goes about orientalistic wave. In this
respect it is worth reminding that in Japanese language the word «sabishi» that is used
to signify the concept of «beauty» bears also another sense of «ancient», «antiquity».
Such a worship of nostalgic attitude that resembles also the glorification of melancholy
in European culture can be evaluated as a common denominator of orientalistic and
retrospective rendencies od romanticism represented in artistic ballad.
In their turn, the nostalgic attitude and retrospective tendencies reflected in the
contents of artistic piano balladry are very clearly expressed in Grieg’s Ballad, which
is interesting for many reasons. First of all, this work, being written as a cycle of free
variations to the original Norwegian theme, is remarkable due to a very singular
choice of such a theme. The melody contains two features that betray very old and
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apparent connections between folklore and Baroque style. Melodic line here delineates a very widespread (in the Baroque era) locution – namely, the so-called rhetoric figure of passus duriusculus, known in Ukrainian folklore as well. The rhythmic
structure, in its turn, acquires the outlook of the so-called proportio peritiorum (or
ionicus minor in ancient terms) that coincides with the so-called mazurka rhythm.
Such a choice bears witness of the late romantic retrospective tendency represented
by the composer. As to the formal disposition, these variations are peculiar for the
reason of overcoming the difference between monopartite and polypartite compositions – a problem that would gain sharper focus in the following century. Of special
importance, the circumstance seems to be that the integration of variational cycle is
founded on rhythmical development. It is due to the contrast of rhythmical transformation (the introduction of so-called dotted or cyclical dactyle) that the central section becomes clearly delineated and the next one where the primary rhythm returns
can serve as a reprise. Such formal procedures serve a nostalgic attitude in creating
a kind of music memorial of the inner world of a lyric hero.
All this experience gives grounds to assert that the title balladic sonata appearing in
the nineteenth century is by no means occasional. This concept reflects the invention of
specific narrative devices that were discovered in ballad genre and applied as a particular
tool of absolute music. An equilibrium between epics and lyrics (especially in the form of
nostalgic attitude) as a prerequisite of compositional integration and selection of stuff of
a formulaic character serving for narrative procedures are inherent peculiarities of ballad
that were adopted and specifically reproduced in piano music. In the mentioned work of
B. Lyatoshinski, for instance, one can find the very dynamics of compositional integration where a continuous stream of thematic transformations gives as a result a kind of
mirrored structure that the thorough composition acquires with the middle episode of
declamatory character that resembles the tradition of Liszt. The stuff of the work is easily
to be distinguished due to specific expressionistic combination of semitones with tritones
in the 1st theme, and the aforementioned balladic chain of the third (two major thirds
at the distance of minor one) in the second theme. It is due to narrative style developed
in piano balladry that these and other heterogeneous elements become integrated in a
continuous stream of music speech expressing a lyric world. In such a way the double
mimetic structure of absolute music (according to a well-known statement of Georg Lukacs) acquires its additional substantiation within the narrow space of piano balladry.
References
Eibner, Franz. Ueber die Form der Ballade op. 23 von Fr. Chopin //Annales
Chopin, 1958, 3, S. 107–112
Marston, Norman. «Im Legendenton»: Schumann’s «Unsung voice» //Nineteenth century music, 1993, 3, p. 221–241
237
Larysa Vakhnina (Kyiv, Ukraine)
Polish Folklore in Ukraine
Abstract: The stalinistic period was tragic for the Poles in the former USSR and especially in
Ukraine. Many people that inhabited its land have suffered mass deportations, some of them were
deported almost totally (Crimean Tatars and the Germans). One has not exhaustingly investigated all
the details of the terrible statistics that only in the last years was published for the first time.
Е
even now, under the conditions, when all national minorities owing to the support of the creation
and the formation of the Ukrainian independent state are enjoying processes of revival, it is very difficult to be restored, as a series of generations have suffered assimilation and even lost the knowledge
of the native tongue.
Key word: Poles, polish culture, national minorities, revival
ЛАРИСА ВАХНІНА (КИЇВ, УКРАЇНА)
Ф
Польський фольклор в Україні
Період сталінізму для поляків колишнього СРСР, і зокрема України став трагічним за
масштабами репресій та геноциду. Поляки зазнали в той час масових депортацій, поряд з
кримськими татарами та німцями.
ІМ
Весь комплекс функціонування польської культури було зруйновано, і лише після проголошення незалежної Української Держави 1991 року почався процес відродження національної самосвідомості, яскравим вираженням якої залишився фольклор.
Ключові слова: поляки, польська культура, національна ідентичність, фольклор
The study of the national communities today is tightly connected with the prior
tendencies at almost all the sphere of humanities, first of all among historians, sociologists, politologists. The whole complex of questions related to culture of each
particular ethnos both in the historical aspect and in its current functioning remains
to be very important. Cultural traditions, both the folk and professional, suffered the
most from the ruinous influence of totaliarianism, when the mentality of a nation as
well as its national conciousness and selfidentification had no right to exist.
The Poles of Ukraine have singled out themselves in the history of the Polish
diaspora in the former USSR do to their Polish outochtonism because the majority of them live in the Ukraine for more then a century, and a part of them
is regarded by some researchers as a kind of polonized Ukrainians, them being
transformed during the years when the Right Coast part of the Ukraine was
incorporated within the Rzecz Pospolita. It was the confessional criterium that
prevailed concerning the Polish ethnic group as to the elucidation of linguistic,
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cultural and law questions. It was also the leading one while conducting a census
when the stereotype of the «Catholic Pole» was regarded as a determining one.
The politics conducted towards the Poles in the Tsarist Russia always had
brightly tinted anti-Polish character. Polish diaspora in the Siberia for four centuries old being composed of many generation of the victims of deportations who
participated in the rebellions before the XIXth century, as the Polish historian
Antoni Kuczyński put it [1].
The Stalinistic period was tragic for the Poles of the former USSR and especially of the Ukraine that was then its part as to the scope of repressions and genocide. Many people that inhabited its land have suffered mass deportations, some
of them were deported almost totally (like Crimean Tatars and the Germans). The
Poles were perhaps the first people in this tragic stalinistic experiment. It was in
the districts of Kazakhstan that one has deported 120 thousand persons from the
Zhytomytr district only as a consequence of mass deportations of the Poles that
had begun in the 30es. One has not exhaustingly investigated all the details of the
terrible statistics that only in the last years was published for the first time. Many
a new fact from this horrible statistics has been elucidated at the international
scientific conference «The Poles in the Kazakhstan. History and Current Time»
(Wrocław-Bagno, June, 1994) [2], that was arranged owing to the initiative of the
Centre of Oriental Researches of the Wrocław University and personally of the
enthusiast of such investigations of the fate of the Poles at the postsoviet territory
professor Antoni Kuczyński, and the at the joint Polish-Ukrainian international conference «The Polish way towards Kazakhstan» (Zhytomyr, October 1996)
that was dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the deportationas of the Poles from
Ukraine and supported with the initiative of the Federation of the Polish Organizations of Ukraine. In 1946–47 yy. One has moved from the Western Ukraine to
the Poland 850 thousand Poles [3]. A similar fate was designated for the Ukrainian
as a consequence of the notorious operation «Wisła». Thus the Polish population
has lessened in the Ukraine from more than million to 300 thousand. According
to the definition of the researcher M. Iwanow the Polish people has entered the
history as «the first punished people» [4].
All the complex of the functioning of the Polish culture in the Ukraine in this
connection has been destroyed and suffered irrepairable losses that even now, under the conditions, when all national minorities owing to the support of the creation and the formation of the Ukrainian independent state are enjoying processes
of revival, it is very difficult to be restored, as a series of generations have suffered
assimilation and even lost the knowledge of the native tongue.
The Ukraine has become a firing ground for a series of experiments in the
sphere of national politics in the 20–30s. With the aim of the declaration of the
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so called «proletarian values» one has created in these years autonomous regions
according to the national features. Such regions were the Dzerzhinski region in
Belorussia and the Marchlewski region in the Ukraine. Such an idea had been
propeled by the Polish revolutionists F. Kohn and J. Marchlewski at one of the
Congresses of the Comintern. In the last years a series of publications appeared in
Poland and in the Ukraine that elucidate this problem chiefly as to its historic and
demographic aspects [5].
The creation of the Marchlewski region was inspected personally by F. Dzerzhinski. It had to become the future «Polish Soviet State» and to be simultaneously a counterbalance to the metropoly that was treated then by the former
USSR mass media as the «hostile bourgeois state». The formation of the Polish
authonomy in the Ukraine had also some certain positive consequences despite
its outspoken ideological direction. It contained some positive moments as to the
development of the Polish culture in the Ukraine that has begun to develope on
the basis of certain traditions that had not been researched till nowadays.
In this connections the activity of the Ethnograhic Commission of the UAN
or VUAN demands a new elucidation. This Commision was created in the 20es
within the system of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences that researched not only
the Ukrainian culture but also the culture of other peoples inhabiting the Ukraine.
Its manager was a well-known scientist – the academician A. M. Loboda. There
were within the system of the Academy also the Commission of the Local Lore
with numerous ethnographic sections and the F. Vovk Museum of the Anthropology and Ethnology in Kiev that were founded in 1921.
The questions of the development of the culture and of the education of nonUkrainian population of the republic were also on duty of the Central Committee
of the National Minorities at the VUTsVK (founded 1924) and the Concil of the
National Minorities at the People Commissionnary of the Education (1921).
It was already under the period of the short existence of the Ukrainian People Republic that the Central Council has issued a series of edicts that concerned
the national policy in the sphere of the education and in particular the education of those national minorities inhabiting the Ukraine. One has created even
a responsible ministry that had to deal with the Polish affairs specially with the
attached department of education. In 1917 there were all in all 1265 Polish schools
in Ukraine where 73.053 pupils studied.
From 1921 on one begins to open a bulk of schools both for the Poles and for
other nationalities following the decrees of the Council of Nationalities at the People
Commissionary of Education. In 1928 there are more than 3500 national schools
in the Ukraine, 500 national clubs, national village councils and the juditial institutions [7].
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One does create also the chairs and the departments of similar direction at
the High School institutions, aiming at the preparation of personnel for national
schools. Thus at the Institute of People Education in Zhytomyr there emerged the
Polish seminary led by professor K. Rychlik.
At the Ethnographic Commission there was established the Cabinet for National Minorities where one has created also the Polish section. One prepares scientific works dedicated to the Ukrainian-Polish literary mutualities (prof. V. Hnatiuk), the historical origins of the Poles in the Ukraine (prof. Herynovych), of the
ethnography and law (prof. V. Kamiński), of the cultural demands of the Polish
community (the sociological investigation of G. Zalevski).
One has created the Polish Research Institute in Kiev, but its director as well as
the majority of the Polish intellectuals of the time became a subject to repressions
and the Institute was destroyed. Numerous publications in the Polish language
appear – newspapers, magazines, books, the Polish national theatre also enjoys
popularity although all connected with the culture bore an ideological tint and
performed the political demand of the stalinist regime.
Perhaps it was the activity of the Cabinet for National Minorities that had been
touched with «sovietization» least. This cabinet had been created at the Ethnographic Commission of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in 1929. The chief purpose of its activity was a complex investigation of the ethnic groups of the Ukraine,
the compilation of the historical, demographic, ethnographic and folklore materials
among both the peasant and the urban population of the Ukraine. This is why a
part of the materials of the archives of this institution that has managed to survive
deserves attention and scrutiny. A lot of valuable materials are under custody in
the manuscript funds of the M. Rylski Institute for Art Studies, Folkloristics and
Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The elucidation of them
will be the topic of our separate publication. In the Polish and Czech departments of
the Cabinet of National Minorities professor K. Rychlik worked who led the Polish
section. In the editorial plans of the 1931–32 years one has planned the publication
of his works «The Ukrainian Motives in the Polish Literature» (20 editorial sheets)
and «The Poles in the Ukraine» and «The Czechs in the Ukraine» (6 editorial sheets
each). Unfortunately these plans were not realized.
In the 30s all the institutions and organizations that had any concern towards
national communities were destroyed. The same took place at the educational institutions, schools and the departments at the High School institutions etc. And the
very population, as we have already mentioned, suddered mass persecutions, subjected to repressions and suffered mass deportations to Kazakhstan and Siberia.
The tragic fin of those events was predestined with the very system of the
communist society and the epoch of Stalinism, when the realization of human
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rights was rigorously reglamented, as the rights for the place of settlement, for the
choice of labour, for culture and education, and some rights were even forbidden
as the right for free confeccion etc. Its echo was to be heard still in the 70s and 80s
when the new its reflection was found in the image of the «unite soviet people». in
these times one still continued to destroy some monuments of culture, cult buildings, and there was not even a word as to the reopening of schools for the Polish
minority of the Ukraine. The only school with the Polish language of instruction
existed in these time traditionally in Lviv.
Both the Poles and the other minorities began to express themselves only in
the years of the so called «Gorbachev reconstruction» at the end of 80es. One began then to create first cultural-educational organization according to the national
principle. Such a uniting consolidating centre has begun the Union of the Poles
of Ukraine that has achieved the tenth anniversary of the day of foundation in the
August of 1998 [7]. It was under its auspices and with the support of the state that
the first Ukrainian newspaper in the Polish language «Dziennik Kijowski» began
to be published as a supplement to «The Voice of the Ukraine». Now it is published
as a bimonthly edition. In the last years the magazine «Krynica» appeared, and
in 1997 was the first book from the series «The Library of the Union of the Poles
of Ukraine» appeared. It was the bilingual Ukrainian-Polish edition of the Chief
Specialized edition of the literature of the languages of national minorities of the
Ukraine under the title How difficult is it to be a Pole!. This edition was dedicated
to the memory of the first president of the Union of the Poles of the Ukraine Stanisław Szałacki.
It was owing to his initiative that at the Union of the Poles of Ukraine in
Kiev one has begun to create various circles and courses of the Polish language.
One ought to say that it was the educational activity that has become definitive
for the Union of the Poles, it was not occasional that the primary its name was
the Polish cultural-educational society. the Polish language begins to be studied
at sunday schools by the whole families. Such an educational activity spreads
all over the Ukraine in the places where there are the departments of the Union
of the Poles of the Ukraine or of other Polish organizations that were created
later – the federation of the Polish Organizations with the Polish House in Kiev,
in Lviv, Khmelnitski, Zhytomyr, Wynnytsia, Kamianets-Podilski, Horodok and
other towns of the Ukraine.
A worse situation is observed at the regions of compact and mixed settlement
of the Polish community in the rural locality. There are not all the inhabitants of
villages that have used the Polish language as the active language of communication, but the folklore traditions, prayers are still preserved in their memory. The
texts of the folksongs some informers often rewrite in cyrillic alphabet.
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Some of them were sent to us from the leader of the folk ensemble from the village Susly from the Novohrad-Volynsk region Antonina Szczyrska who asks in her
letter for apologies of not having an opportunity to study Polish language at school.
Such a phenomenon seems to be of a significanti even today in the independent Ukrainian state, where all the nationalities have got their constitutional right
for education.
According to the statistics in the Ukraine today we have all in all three schools
with the Polish language of instruction, one of them is located in the village where
1075 pupils study. There are also 4 schools with the mixed language of instruction
(365 pupils) and 35 facultative of the Polish language where 2063 pupils do their
study [9]. The best situation is in Kiev and in Lviv. With the support from the Polish side one has opened the beginning classes with the Polish language of instruction in Dowbysz – the former capital of the Polish autonomous district.
Now the problems of education are being solved at tha state level. To arrange
the system of education in the Polish language – both facultative and class study
of the native tongue, history, culture – a bilateral covenant between the ministries
of education of the Ukraine and Poland was signed. Within its limits a joint Ukrainian-Polish commission of experts is now elaborating the contents of manuals for
general schools, gymnasiums, liceums with the polish language of instruction.
In this sohere a very essential assistance for the educational institutions and
the teachers of the Polish language has been granted by the Embassy of the Polish
Republic in Kiev and by the General Consulate of the Polish Republic in Kharkiv
and Lviv. The instructive literature and manuals published with the support of the
T. Honevych Foundation of the Assistance for the Polish Schools in the Orient in
Lublin are spread here at big lots, the polish teachers are being sent to Ukraine.
A great assistance is also granted with such an organization as «Wspolnota Polska» that protects the fate of the Poles that are dispersed all over the world.
It was Lublin that has become the centre of the yearly summer courses for the
teachers, the leaders of music ensembles, choreologists where the teachers from the
Ukraine perfectionate their pedagogical and linguistic qualification yearly as well.
To provide the educational institutions of the Ukraine with the qualified
personnel and to promote the study of the Polish language those Ukrainian high
school’s institution’s graduating students who show desire and faculty can continue their study in Poland according to the bilateral covenant cncerning the cooperation in the sphere of the science and education.
Unfortunately the quantity of places does not satisfy all who want them and
whose quantity growa every year. The solution would be the broadening of the net
of schools with the instruction of some subjects in the Polish language as well as of
the schools with the facultative instruction of the Polish language and of the Polish
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departments at the High school institutions. the dynamics of such a growth is to be
observed in the high school institutions. It is only in Kiev that the Polish language is
being studied by the students of the philological department of Kiev State University
(where this language is taught traditionally) and, besides them, by those studying
at the newly opened High Schools – at the Kiev Slavic University, the Kiev Mohyla
Academy and the Institute of Linguistics and Law. Besides them the facultative study of the Polish language has been functioning many years at the M. Drahomaniv
Kiev Pedagogical University. Recently the interest towards the Polish language and
culture is winning a higher rating among the young enterprisers. It is caused with
the circumstance that the good neighbourly relations and cooperation as well as the
contacts in the field of commerce and economy are now being intensely developed.
The same can be said about the Ukrainian student and pupil youth of non-Polish
origin who sees its future in the mutual european homeland.
At the Ministry of Education of Ukraine one has created special department for
the education of the national minorities. An extremely high support for the circles of
the Polish national community has been granted also by the Committee for the Nationalities and Migrations. With the support the Federation of the Polish Organisations of Ukraine was conducted International Scientific Conference «Polish Culture
in the Life of the Ukraine» (November 7–8th, 1997, Kiev).
In 1998 both in Ukraine and in Poland was celebrated the 200th anniversary
of the great Polish poet Adam Mickewicz, and a series of scientific conferences,
and other events were dedicated to him.
The educational work is present also almost at all forms of activity of the Polish
national communities’ organizations. It is not occasional that at the Adam Mickiewicz Library in Kiev one has created the Adam Mickiewicz Cultural Educational
Society which is being led for many a year by the unforgettable Anatol Romeyko.
The very library has become a constant place for the work of the pupils of the gymnasium nr 48 of the city of Kiev with the Polish language of instruction. The students
of the Department of International Relations of the Slavic University accomplished
their referential practice work concerning the Polish periodicals as well.
There were also created the courses of the Polish language at the Polish House
in Kiev.
It was just the Federation of the Polish Organisations of the Ukraine that has
become the initiator of the creation of the Union of the Polish Language teachers
that has already some years worked successfully.
The amateur movement of the Poles of the Ukraine has begun to develope
among those Poles who inhabit the regions of compact settlments. It bears clear
witness of the revival of the Polish language and culture. It is already many a year
that due to the initiative of the Union of the Poles of the Ukraine one conducts
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yearly the festivals «The Rainbow of Polissya» and «The Flowers of Podillya» in
Zhytomyr and in the city of Horodok of the Khmelnitsk district [10]. Last year the
first festival of the Polish culture has taken place in Lviv. All over the Ukraine one
observes the multiplication of the amateur folk collectives, both dance and choir.
The Polish language and the Polish culture are becoming for them the incarnation
of their selfidentification. Unfortunately it is not each of such collectives that promotes building circles for studying the Polish language.
As a model sample of such a linkage between educational and musical activity may the ensemble of the ancient music «Canticles» serve. One of its leaders is
the vice-president of the Union of the Poles of the Ukraine Anelia Yurkowska. As
another model sample as to the education of the school youth in such a mood one
can mention the Kiev ensembles «Jaskółki» (led by the deserved worer of Arts of
the Polish Republic, the soloist of the Kiev Opera Victoria Radik) and «Pierwiosnek» (led by Bolesław Krasnopolski). One ought to notice that the quantity of the
child collectives gets growing steadily. A favourable factor as to the mastering of the
Polish language itself may be the assimilation of the texts of Polish songs as well as
concert tours to Poland or the participation in the festivals and traditional concerts
that traditionally take place on the Day of the Constitution of the 3‑d of May or on
the Holiday of Independence of hte Poland in the House of Teacher of Kiev or in
the Zhytomyr Philharmony. Such events fill the vacuum within the education of the
Polish language for the persons of the Polish nationality or the mixed families that
is still unfortunately at hand in the regions of the compact settlements of the Polish
community. In particular, such a situation takes place in Zhytomyr district which
not only enjoys the revival of the Polish culture but also, according to our opinion,
became the area of the formation of their self-consciousness expressing itself in the
events of the kind.
The Polish-Ukrainian connections enjoy today a particular moment of their
maximal stabilisation in all the spheres. Our cultures find today new forms of
revelation, of the mutual learning and of mutual undersanding.
From February 1999 on the Polish Institute in Kiev has begun to work actively. It is led by the First Secretary of the Embassy of the Polish Republic in the Ukraine mr. Piotr Kozakiewicz. Its activity has already found positive responses both
amopng the Ukrainian intellectuals and the representatives of the Polish community. It will have positive consequences within the development of the UkrainianPolish and Polish-Ukrainian cultural relationships.
The future of our countries and people depends essentially upon the situation
which lives the Polish ethnos of the Ukraine. It depends upon the fact whether all
its representatives (as well as all the other peoples that inhabit the Ukrainian territory) feel themselves as the full right citizens, whether they will be able to enjoy
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their tights and in particular the right for the education in native tongue and for
the development of culture and celfidentification.
The same concerns the rights and contemporary status of the representatives
of the Ukrainian community in Poland.
For the newly independent states that emerged on the territory of the former
USSR the problem of the inter ethnic relations is an essential factor for creating models
of a new democracy where an important place belongs to the ethnic and cultural traditions of various communities. Positive consequences of the building of such models
have been achieved now in Hungary where in the city of Bekescsaba international
scientific conferences on the problems of state building have become a tradition.
For the Ukraine as for the newly independent state that survives the period
of the formation of democratic institutions the realization of the experience of
a multicultural society is possible. The manifold picture of religious, linguistic,
cultural and ethnic traditions is not an obstacle for mutual coexistence of various
national groups within the borders of a mutual area that would be void of contradictions. Vice versa it can be a uniting factor.
The problem of international relations which is immediately connected with the
mentioned topics demands new investigations and new elucidation because until
recently it was misinterpreted being subject to certain political realities.
Special attention should be paid to the problem of the national identification
within the context of the Polish culture and the law questions of each ethnic community with the dependence of social, family and cultural status of their representatives.
All the complex of the interrelations that stretches from the rights of national
communities to their concrete participation in daily and costumary life remains
important in this connection. As a model sample can be regarded the relations of
the state structures and the representatives of various ethnic communities whose
interests must be protected with the corresponding civil organizations created according to the national features as for example the Union of the Poles of Ukraine.
Interethnic marriages can here also play a positive role where family traditions
have to become a warrant of the protection of linguistic and culttural values for
the assimilation and destruction from outwards.
Notes
[1] Kuczyński Antoni: Czterysta lat polskiej diaspory na Syberii. Wrocław, 1996.
[2] Polacy w Kazachstanie. Historia i współczesność. Wrocław, 1996.
[3] Zob. Naulko V. I. et al. Kultura i pobut nasełennia Ukrajiny. Kyjiw, 1993, s. 36
[4] Iwanow M.: Pierwszy naród ukarany. Polacy w Związku Radzieckim. 1921–
1939. Warszawa–Wrocław, 1991
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[5] Jeremenko T. I.: Polśka nacionalna menszyna w Ukrajini v 20–30‑kh rr.
XX stolittia. Kyjiw, 1994. Stroński G.: Zlet i padinnia. Polśky nacionalny rajon w
Ukrajini u 20–30‑ti roky XX st. Ternopil, 1994. Kondracki H., Stroński J.: Polśky
nacionalnyj rajon. Korotki narysy z istorii. Kyjiw, 1992. Ibid: Represje stalinizmu
wobec ludności polskiej na Ukrainie w latach 1929–1939. Warszawa, 1998. Kupczak J.: Polacy na Ukrainie. Wrocław, 1996
[6] Jeremenko T.: Szkolnictwo polskie na Ukrainie radzieckiej (1921–1938).
«Literatura Ludowa», nr 4–5, 1997, s. 29–42
[7] Manuscript fonds of the M. Rylski Institute for Art Studies, Folkloristics
and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. F. 7–6, unit of
preservation 31.
[8] Kupczak J.: Polskie stowarzyszenie kulturalno-oświatowe (stan z 1990 r.).
[w:] Mniejszości polskie i Polonia w ZSSR. Ossolineum, 1992, s. 251–264.
[9] «Jak trudno być Polakiem!» Authour concept by Jerzy Szalacki. Editor in
chief Wiera Aksentiewa. Kiev, 1997.
[10] Statystyczni dani z doshkilnoi, serednioi ta profesiinoi oswity 1997. Geneza, Kyjiw 1998.
[11] See: Vakhnina L.: Polskie festiwale na Żytomierszczyźnie. «Literatura Ludowa», nr 4–5, 1997, s. 112–117; «Pid odnym nebom. Folklor etnosiw Ukrajiny»
Red. L. K. Vakhnina, L. K. Mushketyk, V. A. Yuzvenko. Kyjiw, 1996; Pieśni ludowe
Polaków Ukrainy. Red. L. K. Vakhnina. Kyjiw, 2002.
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MARIA VENGRENIVSKA (KYIV, UKRAINE)
Particularités
ukrainiennes.
de
la
traduction
des
ballades
françaises
et
Ф
Е
Dans notre analyse nous partons du postulat que les limites de ballade comme genre sont vagues
et incertaines et qu’on trouve des ballades en tant qu’une forme épique spéciale aussi bien parmi les
doumas ukrainiens que parmi les chansons et les poèmes religieux.
Or,si la langue des ballades en tant que «poèmes à forme fixe» fut l’objet d’une analyse
traductologique (assez restreinte,bornée par la traduction vers l’ukrainien des ballades de Fr. Villon
par M. Terestchenko et z. Pervomaïsky, v. les articles de M. Vengrenovska et d’A. Gnatiouk), l’analyse
des traductions des ballades populaires en tant qu’un élement relevant du folklore, ne s’était pas encore
vue réaliser.
Nous nous sommes arrêtés surtout sur la reproduction des formules traditionnelles qui participent
non seulement à la formation d’un fond national spécifique, mais aussi à celle de leur rythme, de leur
musique particulière comme «Maroussia de Bohouslav» et autres).
Une place particulière revient à l’analyse comparative des procédés particuliers du même sujet,
présenté sous forme de ballade et d’un conte merveilleux (comme Le Roi Renaud,conte d’H. Pourrat
et poème)
most-clés: ballad ukrainne, françese, chanson épique
МАРІЯ ВЕНГРЕНІВСЬКА (КИЇВ, УКРАЇНА)
Проблеми перекладу українських та французьких балад
ІМ
У нашому дослідженні ми виходимо з тих міркувань, що межі жанру балади є нечіткими
та невизначеними, і що балади як специфічну епічну форму подибуємо як серед українських
дум, так і серед релігійних пісень та поем.
Таким чином, якщо мова балад у розумінні «поем з усталеною формою» становила предмет
перекладознавчих розвідок (досить стислих, обмежених перекладами М. Терещенка та Первомайського на українську мову балад Фр. Війона, див. статті М. Венгреновської та А. Гнатюка),
то аналіз перекладів народних балад як фольклорного елемента і досі не був здійснений.
Здебільшого ми зупинилися на питаннях відтворення традиційних формул, які беруть
участь не тільки у створенні особливого етнокультурного фону, але також і їхнього ритму та
їхньої специфічної музики як напр. «Маруся Богуславка» та ін.).
Особливе місце належить компаративному аналізу окремих процесів одного й того ж самого сюжету, представленого у формі балади та чарівної казки (як напр. казки А. Пурра «Король Рено» та поеми).
Ключові слова: українська балада, французька балада, епічні пісні
Les ballades françaises, allemandes, polonaises, anglaises avaient toujours été
hautement appréciés en Ukraine, ayant considérablement influencé la littérature.
Chez nous on a suffisamment parlé des particularités de la traduction des ballades littéraires (surtout celles de François Villon) en tant que poèmes à forme fixe, de
la reproduction de leur structure, des rimes croisées etc., en citant les vraies perles
248
Particularités de la traduction des ballades françaises et ukrainiennes.
de la traduction ukrainienne (L. Pervomaïskiy, M. Terestchenko), par exеmple avec
le magnifique refrain purement folklorique (Ой леле, де торішній сніг):
Е
Скажіть мені, в яких краях
Архіпна і Таїс, і Флора?
Куди взяла їх ніжний прах
Минулих днів ріка простора?
Де німфа Ехо яснозора,
Що відгукалася до всіх,
І де її краса прозора?..
Ой леле, де торішній сніг?
ІМ
Ф
Де Бланш, біліша від лілей,
Що мала голос, мов сирена?
Аліса? Берта? Лорелей?
Така прекрасна і шалена.
Де Жанна, дівчина з Лоррена,
Що смертю спокутила гріх?
Де кожна з них, благословенна?..
Ой леле, де торішній сніг?
Les liens et les traditions poétiques, littéraires, historiques étant bien proches, le
traducteur ukrainien comme un virtuose arrive à surmonter toutes les difficultés liées
aux allusions aux personnages qui ne disent pas grande chose à un lecteur peu avisé.
Une autre chose – les ballades faisant partie du folklore.
En déterminant la notion du genre, V. Propp avait parlé des traits généraux
du genre tels que système poètique, destination sociale et caractère de l’exécution
communs.
Les sujets de la ballade sont tout simples, développés dans une composition
d’un seul plan, on n’y trouve ni paysage, ni portrait, la nature y revenant en refrain
d’un parallélisme psychologique ou des symboles traditionnels. Ce qui tient, c’est
le sujet dramatique avec la langue sobre, même dans les dialogues qui caractérise
ces chansons épiques populaires:
Elle y resta sept ans passés
Sans que personne put la trouver
Au bout de la septième année
249
Son père vint la visiter.
– Bonjour ma fill’ comm’ vous en va?
– Ma foi, mon pèr’ ça va bien mal;
– J’ai les pieds pourris dans la terre
– Et les côtés mangés par des vers.
Clade Roy (Le Roy Loys, p. 110)
ІМ
Ф
Е
Donc, c’est le concept vie\mort qui se voit réaliser par des oppositions, ainsi
dans une ballade ukrainienne la mère dans un verre apporte du vin vert (symolisant la vie) et dans l’autre du poison vert (de l’absynthe verte) symbolisant
la mort (à comparer «в однім розі у пирозі зелененька рута, в другім розі у
пирозі гадинонька люта» – dans un bout du gâteau il y a de la rue (ruta) verte
et dans l’autre – un serpent vénéneux – ce qui est lié au rituel sorcier d’attirer
l’amour d’un jeune homme). Les Français connaissent la rue (du genre ruta) qui
entre même dans le célèbre vinaigre des quatre voleurs, donc ils peuvent l’envisager comme un composant du philtre d’amour. Les parties des serpents entrent
aussi dans ce philtre en particulier chez les Houtsouls des Carpates, c’est pourquoi parfois, sans le vouloir, on faisait mourir le jeune homme... Donc les herbes
(«у неділю рано зілля копала»...) font partie intégrante de la vie quotidienne
des personnages et des «récepteurs» des ballades.
Dans la ballade française «Le roi a fait battre tambour»
«La reine a fait faire un bouquet
De belles fleurs de lyse
Et la senteur de ce bouquet
A fait mourir marquise.
Les plantes, les fleurs, les herbes ayant bien profondément imprégné la vie des
gens, aussi bien aux villages qu’aux palais de l’époque, elles reviennent souvent en symboles dans les ballades. Peut-être seulement pour les Français, ayant connu la boisson
populaire «absinthe» dans la traduction on devra la remplacer par la boisson amère
(boisson mortelle) l’absinthe n’étant peut-être pas dans ce sens synonyme de mort. La
symbolique des plantes est plus dévéloppée dans les chansons épiques et les ballades
ukrainiennes que dans celles françaises. Si à part les fleurs de lys déjà citées les Français
préfèrent la rose (symbole de la jeune fille, de l’amour, tout comme pour les Ukrainiens, d’ailleurs, dans le Roman de la Rose, dans sa deuxième partie, la rose est remplacée par un animalisme – la panthère), le fleur d’orange (et les pommes d’orange), le
fleur de pommier... Dans les ballades ukrainiennes le spectre est plus large.
250
Ф
Е
A part la rue et l’absinthe déjà citées, on trouve la pervenche qui pousse sur
les tombeaux en Ukraine (à la traduction on peut faire recours au nom populaire
français de cette plante – violette des morts), mais surtout les noms des arbres
(chêne – дубок молоденький pour le jeune gars; ainsi que les autres symboles
de la beauté masculine, de l’audace, de la force tels que frêne (ясен), érable (клен)
etc.), et là à la traduction (à toute interprétation et explication) on se heurte aux
problèmes liés avec le genre grammatical. En français tous les noms des arbres sont
du masculin, en ukrainien les noms arbres déjà cités ci-dessus sont du masculin,
mais les autres qui symbolisent largement la jeune fille, ce qui est féminin,- sont
du féminin (калина, верба, тополя, береза – obier, saule, peuplier, bouleau...), ce
qui pose de très grands problèmes à la traduction. Ainsi à la traduction de la poésie de T. Chevtchenko qui a beaucoup puisé dans le folklore ukrainien, «тополя»
(le peuplier) symbolisant la jeune fille (la femme) est pour la plupart rendue par
l’orme ou par le bouleau:
ІМ
Як тополя стала в полі
При битій дорозі –
Comme un bouleau en plein champ
Elle est près du chemin
(trad. de Casimir Szymanski)
Dans l’exemple cité le nombre des syllabes a fait le traducteur, d’ailleurs très experimenté, inventer un paysage irréel: le «bouleau ne pousse jamais seul en plein
champ», c’est dans les bois du nord de l’Ukraine qu’on retrouve «les rondes» de ces
arbres, n’étant pas d’ailleurs tragiques, qu’on retrouve à la symbolique des Russes, des
Biélorusses et des Ukrainiens pour dénommer les jeunes filles – amies de la jeune
mariée. Parfois le peuplier est rendu dans la traduction par l’orme ou le tremble:
У тумані на могилі,
Як тополя, похилилась
молодиця молодая –
Dans la brume,
Sous la croix,
Telle un tremble dans l’angoisse
La toute belle jeune femme...
Le peuplier – arbre solitaire, ayant de connotations dramatiques, n’a pas tout de
même celles que le tremble, au moins dans la tradition populaire ukrainienne (per251
ІМ
Ф
Е
sonne ne s’y était pendu), de même que dans la tradition française (en tremblant le
tremble doit enlever la fièvre, et on porte l’enfant malade tout autour plusieurs fois –
la jeune femme est penchée, mais elle ne tremble pas. Grotesque devient la tendance
de restituer l’espèce de l’arbre dans la traduction des poèmes aux métaphores individuelles (poème de M.Rylsky «Яблунька-мати» traduit par A.Avril «Le pommier est
enceinte vraiment...» «Le pommier – mère»). Nous avons consacré tout un article
(Eléments folkloriques dans la traduction vers le bulgare et le français ТПП, №5,
1981) à la reproduction du symbole chéri du folklore ukrainien «калина» - obier, A.
Potebnia avait témoigné qu’il ne savait pas pour l’obier (comme symbole) d’exemples
de joie (dans le folklore), mais qu’ils devraient exister (Потебня, О некоторых символах в славянской народной поэзии, Харьков, 1860).
Nous n’avons qu’à rappeler que l’obier – symbole de l’amour (pour la plupart
dramatique), de la jeune fille innocente (dans le phraséologisme ukrainien «калину
губити» - jetter son bonnet par-dessus le moulin), largement présent dans la poésie
de T. Chevtchenko, a été remplacé par le sureau dans les traductions allemandes des
poèmes de T.Chevtchenko, le sureau symbolisant l’amour pour les Allemands.
Dans cet article nous avons rappelé que la tradition du folklore français
connaît un autre symbole de l’amour et du chagrin – la ronce – ожина, тернина
(d’ailleurs au féminin grammatical):
«... pendant la nuit de la tombe de Tristan jaillit une ronce verte et feuillue, aux
forts rameaux, aux fleurs odorantes, qui s’élèvant par-dessus la chapelle, s’enfonça
dans la tombe d’Iseut».
D’ailleurs, «калина» - obier fait écho à la symbolique des couleurs des ballades ukrainiennes noir-blanc-rouge: noir – synonyme de la nuit éternelle; blanc –
couleur de deuil chez les Ukrainiens, bien avant le noir – c’est la couleur de certains objets rituels des funérailles, même jusqu’à présent on porte du tissu blanc
(foulard) et non pas noir au bras lors des funérailles: le rouge (couleur des baies
de l’obier, d’ailleurs amères – comme de l’absinthe dans cette série symbolique?)
symbolise non seulement la joie de vie comme on aurait pu penser, mais aussi
le sang – la mort:
Вона не найшла свого сина й у ліжку.
Лиш вона найшла... кривавую річку;
Куди несли Бондарівну – кривавая стежка...
La couleur rouge est liée au rituel des anciennes sacrifices des humains et des
animaux, substitués depuis par le rituel de couvrir les «sacrifiés» par une couverture rouge, vu le rouge de ses fruits.
252
La pratique traduisante atteste que ces images symboliques, utilisées par les
poètes ukrainiens dans leurs poèmes présentent des difficultés à la traduction,
même sans allusions à la couleur des fruits de l’obier:
Е
О, водо українських рік,
Не раз ти кров’ю зчервонилась,
Не раз від трупів козаків
Ти виступала з берегів
І панським трупом затруїлась!
М. Рильський
Ф
O rivières de mon Ukraine
Tant de fois par le sang rougies.
Tant de fois sorties de leur lit
Par les cadavres qu’elles trainent,
Cosaques ou seigneurs pourris!
ІМ
Dans la traduction on met l’égalité entre les cadavres des cosaques et des seigneurs (les uns et les autres pourris) – entre les amis et les ennemis (le contraire
de ce que dit l’auteur) – le triomphe de la théorie interprétative de la traduction –
l’interprétation tout à fait subjective du sens sans aucun lien avec la tradition orale
ni écrite, ni avec l’histoirе du peuple ukrainien.
Pour en finir avec la symbolique des noms des plantes dans les ballades et les
chansons épiques, signalons un phénomène curieux, des formules initiales dans
les ballades roumaines (des vestiges des anciennes incantations), commençant par
(p.ex.): «Feuille du chêne, feuille verte...» ou «Feuille du pommier, feuille verte...» ou
«Feuille de l’absinthe, feuille verte...» n’ayant ensuite aucun développement (aucune
suite) logique dans le texte qui suit (cette énumération embrasse un nombre considérable des arbres et des plantes, jusqu’à l’ortie (nous en avons compté plus de 15).
L’autre pierre d’achoppement dans la traduction des ballades sont non même
pas les euphémismes pour marquer la mort (lexique et phraséologie euphémistique avec la sémantique de la mort):
Малярчики, столярчики
роблять домовину,
Годі купче, купчувати,
253
Е
Бо вже твою милу нарядили,
На тисовій лавці положили,
Чорним оксамитом ручки вкрили,
У золоте труно уложили;
А твій братчик згонорився,
В чужім краї оженився,
Та взяв собі в царя дочку,
В чистім полі могилочку;
...
На дрібний мак порубали, etc.
On peut comparer avec les réponses évasives de la mère du Roi Renau:
Ф
Et quand ce vint sur la minuit,
Le roi Renaud rendit l’esprit.
- Dites-moi, ma mère, m’ami’,
Que pleurent nos valets ici?
- Ma fille, en baignant nos chevaux
Ont laissé noyer le plus beau.
ІМ
- Dites-moi ma mère, m’ami’,
Pourquoi j’entends cogner ici?
- Ma fille, ce sont les charpentiers
Qui racommodent le plancher.
- Dites-moi, ma mère, m’ami’
Que chantent les prêtres ici?
- Ma fille, c’est la procession
Qui fait le tour de la maison.
- Dites-moi, ma mère, m’ami’
Quel habit prendra-je aujourd’hui
- Prenez le vert, prenez le gris,
Prenez le noir pour mieux choisir
Chez H. Pourrat (Contes du vieux-vieux temps):
- Mettez le rouge, mettez le gris...
Peut-être parce que le vert est la couleur préférée des fées, et dans le conte Pourrat explique le malheur du roi Renaud par sa rencontre avec une fée méchante.
254
ІМ
Ф
Е
Derrière les saules il voit s’ouvrir une caverne. (Chez les Ukrainiens le saule est
aussi un arbre, lié aux fées méchantes – les ondines, les noyées qui sortent la nuit
pour danser sur les rives des rivières et des étangs).
Donc, chez Pourrat:
Quand il a relevé la tête, il a vu devant lui la fée.
Elle tient la peigne d’argent dont elle peignait les blonds cheveux, ses cheveux,
ses cheveux qui trainent jusqu’au sable. Elle est plus belle que la lune des nuits de
mai, plus éclatante que la lueur de l’eau qui tombe.
Elle a seulement les cheveux un peu trop longs, les ongles un peu trop griffus;
et il y a cette lueur, aussi, un peu trop verte au fond de son oeil vert.
Nous n’allons pas nous arrêter sur les sèmes du magnifiques que nous avons
analysé dans notre thèse «Problèmes linguo-stylistiques de la traduction vers le
français du conte russe et ukrainien», notons seulement que cet encadrement de
la ballade doit lui contribuer encore plus de magie et de dramatique, tout comme
les questions, revenant comme dans les complaintes.
L’ukrainien y ajoute encore des formes diminutives-appréciatives (il faut
dire qu’en ukrainien les substantifs ne sont pas les seuls à posséder les suffixes
diminutifs – appréciatifs, les adjectifs, les pronoms, les adverbes, les verbes les sont
à titre égal).
Le français les connaît, bien sûr, mais en use moins, seulloup dans un conte
peut minauder:
Qui est cette petite fillette, toute seulette, dans cette maisonnette?
L’ukrainien les utilise plus souvent aussi bien dans les contes, adressés aux
enfants (v. notre article «Formes diminutives-appréciatives dans les contes et leur
traduction». K. 1975) que dans le bonheur et le chagrin extrêmes. Une veuve ukrainienne en pleurant son mari défunt, dira ротик, очки, язичок, губки... Dans les
ballades ukrainiennes:
Положила головоньку
на залізну шину;
Його жінка Марусенька
Білим покрита;
Ти не вважай, Якимоньку,
що я молоденька...etc.
La tradition est si forte que même les ennemis semblent êtres chéris par les
Ukrainiens dans leur Hymne (згинуть наші вороженьки – d’ailleurs, la syllabe
auxiliaire ajoutée pour pouvoir chanter le texte). Les procédés de la reproduction
255
adéquate de l’impression obtenue par ces formes dans le texte original sont multiples (exposés dans l’article cité ci-dessus, même jusqu’à employer certains adjectifs
dont «petit, cher» qui prennent cette charge stylistique), mais le problème reste.
Même les traductrices jugées avisées de l’Anthologie de la littérature ukrainienne
du XI au XXs. n’arrivent pas à reproduire la forme diminutive des ennemis (вороженьки) dans leurs traductions vers le français de l’Hymne L’Ukraine n’est pas
morte (encore):
Е
Aline Dorosz:
L’Ukraine n’est pas morte, encore, ni sa liberté, ni sa gloire,
Et pour nous tous encore, jeunes frères, le destin sourira.
Comme la rosée au soleil, nos ennemis jusqu’au dernier disparaîtront,
Et nous seront alors, les maîtres de notre pays tout entier.
ІМ
Ф
N.Boyko et Gilles Lepesant:
L’Ukraine n’est pas morte, sa gloire, sa volonté vivent encore
Encore, nos jeunes frères, nous sourira un meilleur sort
Telle la rosée à l’aube, nos chers ennemis se dissiperont (Quel respect envers
les ennemis!)
Et nous aussi, enfin, sur une terre nous régnerons.
(La traductrice refuse aux Ukrainiens aussi leur terre (запануєш... у своїй, et
non pas якійсь сторонці).
Bien que la correspondance la plus directe de ces piteux «вороженьки» soit
sur la surface – le français «nos ennemis jurés» et rien que cela!
Il ne suffit donc pas d’avoir terminé deux facultés en Ukraine comme la dernière traductrice, mais d’avoir des connaissances élémentaires du fond ethno-culturel, du folklore, de la tradition.
Nous nous sommes permis de proposer notre traduction:
Elle n’est pas morte, l’Ukraine,
L’Ukraine libre et glorieuse...
...............................................
On verra s’évapore nos ennemis jurés...
Donc le ballades en tout que composantes bien originales du folklore attendent leur traduction aussi bien en ukrainien, qu’en français.
256
KATHERINE CAMPBELL (EDINBURG, SCOTLAND)
Exploring Christie’s musical choices in Traditional Ballad Airs
Abstract: Traditional Ballad Airs (1876-1881) by William Christie has been castigated by many
for the addition of second strains to what they felt would originally have been one-strain melodies. This
paper will explore Christie’s treatment of his sources and, in the absence of his original manuscripts,
parallel material in collections such as The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection will be examined. The
range of ballad tunes in Bronson will also be discussed.
Key words: Traditional Ballad Airs, William Christie, ballad tunes, one-strain melody, The GreigDuncan Folk Song Collection
Е
Кетрін КЕМПБЕЛЛ (ЕДиНБУРГ, ШОТЛАНДІЯ)
Вивчення музикознавчих уподобань Вілляма Крісті у «Традиційних
баладних мелодіях».
Ф
Резюме: «Традиційні баладні мелодичні типи» Вілляма Крісті (1876–1881) критикувалися
багатьма вченими, оскільки він типологізував двоголосні мелодії там, де всі вважали, що вони
є моноголосними. У статті обговорюється, як саме ставився Крісті до першоджерел, які він
обрав, та, якщо відсутні манускрипти, автор розглядає тексти з колекції Грега Дункана «Збірка
фольклорних пісень».
Ключові слова: Віллям Крісті, баладні мелодії, баладні типи, одноголосся, багатоголосся.
ІМ
In considering historical collections of Scottish ballads and folk songs that contain music, a distinction can often be made between individuals who were specifically collecting from other people and those who were recording their own repertoires.
The latter category, which draws on the individual’s own experience, perhaps from
the distant past, and can be carried out over a long period of time, is very different
from the immediacy of face-to-face collecting from individuals, where the ability
to notate melodic material at speed is necessary. Nineteenth-century examples of
individuals who crated their own song manuscripts include Sophia Scott, Walter
Scott’s daughter, whom Scott loved to hear sing to the accompaniment of the harp 1;
and Amelia and Jane Harris, who wrote down the songs they had learned from their
mother, Grace Harris, in the parish of Fearn in Angus 2.
The subject of this discussion, William Christie (1817–85), also began making
up his own book of ballad music for private use, albeit on a larger scale than those
mentioned above, as he describes in his introduction to Traditional Ballad Airs
(where he writes of himself in the third person):
1 Ailie Munro, ‘«Abbotsford Collection of Border Ballads”: Sophia Scott’s Manuscript Book
with Airs’, Scottish Studies, 20 (1976), 91–108.
2 The Song Repertoire of Amelia and Jane Harris, ed. by Emily Lyle, Kaye McAlpine, and Anne
Dhu McLucas (Edinburgh: The Scottish Text Society, 2002).
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In the year 1844 he began to note down all the inedited ballad Airs he had
heard sung in his boyhood, especially those sung to Mr Buchan’s ‘Ballads of the
North’, till the number amounted to nearly 200, and these he was able to improve
from copies he procured afterwards. His father, who died in 1849, had also a
number of inedited ballad Airs in his possession, and assisted him in arranging
and harmonizing the whole of those they had collected up to that time (about
250), as an album of ballad Music for the Editor’s own private use, without any
view to their publication. The Editor afterwards collected more old unpublished
ballad Airs, many of which are included in this work 3 (1876:viii)
Christie would have thus been around twenty-seven years old when he began
work on the collection, and it is possible that a catalyst was Alexander Whitelaw’s
The Book of Scottish Song which was published in 1844; indeed, Christie mentions
that some of the airs in his collection have been adapted to modern songs (with
no airs) taken from that publication 4. Aspects of the music of Christie’s collection
are considered here, and in particular two factors that impinged on his musical
choices: the audience at which the collection was aimed; and the fiddle tradition
of North-East Scotland, in which he was immersed.
In the following quotation, in which he highlights the need to expurgate unsuitable texts, Christie mentions the drawing room as one of his performance contexts:
The collectors of our old ballads have, with the scrupulous fidelity of literary
antiquaries, preserved and published many things calculated to offend the purer
taste of modern readers and hearers. It cannot then, be considered a work unworthy of the effort of a Christian Clergyman to give to his countrymen their ballads,
accompanied with their beautiful Airs, and so purified that they can be sung in any
company, from the drawing-rooms of the noble and wealthy to the firesides of the
peasantry, without raising a blush on the face of the most modest Christian 5.
A characteristic of music set for the drawing room is the use of harmonic
accompaniment – indeed, this was an expectation at the time, and accordingly
every item in the Christie collection has been arranged and harmonized for
the pianoforte and harmonium (it should be borne in mind that folk singing was not traditionally harmonized in Scotland). The type of harmony used
relates to nineteenth-century church music, with four notes commonly being
played at one time (similar to soprano, alto, tenor, bass). However, I think that
most modern-day folk singers and musicians in Scotland would agree that this
3 William Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, 2 vols (Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas; David
Douglas, 1876, 1881), I, viii.
4 Alexander Whitelaw, The Book of Scottish Song (Glasgow: Blackie, 1844); Christie, Traditional
Ballad Airs, I, viii.
5 Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, I, vii.
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can overburden the melodies of folk songs, especially when many of the passing notes are harmonized.
James Bruce Duncan expressed forthright views about the modification of the
traditional modes in Scottish folk song, and made accusations against Christie in
this regard:
[The] modern minor scale is never found in any true traditional singing . . . I
have noted about a thousand airs, and I have never once had the sharp 7th in the
minor sung to me by a traditional singer . . . It shows how our old airs have been
aided, when we find that the books of Scottish song are full of this modern minor
touch. The characteristics of the old modes were treated simply as inaccurate singing, while they were really the best proof of accuracy; and their old features were
quietly changed into modern forms. The most extraordinary case of this kind is
Christie, who gathered from actual singing, but entirely changed without scruple
in order to arrange the airs according to his fancy 6.
Duncan seems to suggest that Christie altered the modes of many of the airs
he collected. However, the work I have undertaken on the collection thus far does
not bear this out. Indeed, it is the harmonization rather than the melodies themselves that employed the sharp seventh to which Duncan refers. Christie’s harmonizations of the ‘minor’ modes often contain notes that do not belong to the mode
of the tune.
A good example of the use of the sharp seventh in the harmony can be
found in ‘Edom o’ Gordon’ (Child 178) (Figure 1) 7. The tonic is E, and the mode
is really Dorian/Aeolian, although Christie’s addition of a C sharp grace note in
the melody puts it into the Dorian mode. If one were to play a harmonic minor
scale in E minor, the seventh, or leading note, would be D sharp. Christie inserts
this note fairly liberally in the right-hand harmony, and even in the first bar
there is a clash with the D natural that follows the D sharp. The use of the pedal
on a piano certainly would not be advised at this point, since a discord is created
by the juxtaposition of the two notes. Christie’s attempt to produce an aesthetic
for drawing-room performance, then, is sometimes unsuccessful. The texture of
the harmony is too dense, and the harmony is not sufficiently subtle in the case
of the minor modes.
Another aspect of the drawing room was the use of art song, where one
finds literary compositions based on folk song idioms with longer melodies,
by individuals such as Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne (1766–1845). These
6 ‘«Folk-Song in the North-East»: J. B. Duncan’s Lecture to the Aberdeen Wagner Society,
1908’, ed. by Patrick Shuldham-Shaw and Emily B. Lyle, Scottish Studies, 18 (1974), 1–37 (p. 15).
7 Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 56.
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more elaborate compositions often had a keyboard introduction and ending.
In addition, they normally had two strains, the second higher than the first.
This greater length and extended range would present more of a challenge
to singers. No doubt drawing on this influence, Christie’s view was that the
tunes in his collection should have two strains: that is, there are two parts, the
second being generally in a higher register than the first, but the first would
actually sound musically complete if it were played on its own. Thus, Christie’s
melodies are normally sixteen bars long, whereas much of Scottish folk song
consists of melodies of eight bars.
Others, such as James Bruce Duncan, who collaborated with Gavin Greig on
The Greig–Duncan Folk Song Collection in the early years of the twentieth century,
disagreed with this practice, stating:
It has to be added here that our oldest melodies are uniformly in one strain.
That was noticed by the best students of Scottish airs long ago, though strangely
enough Christie’s book is full of airs with two strains, though his statement[s]
indicate that many of them [are] mere arrangements of his own. Our own experience entirely confirms the old inferences: the second strains, when they grow,
are nearly always instrumental airs, and are expansions of the old melody 8.
However, George Riddell, a fiddler from North-East Scotland, makes the
point that, in certain cases, traditional melodies do have two strains. He states:
‘I am of opinion that both «Duke Willie» and «Drumdelgie» have always had
two strains . . . although the folk-singer has, as usual, found one to be quite
enough for his purpose’ 9. Although Riddell goes on to argue that ‘with the
folk-singer the words are the important thing; the music quite a secondary
matter’ 10 – something with which many folk singers would not concur – his
comments on the second strain are interesting. ‘Drumdelgie’ (GD 384), concerning the farm of that name near Huntly, is one of the best-known bothy
ballads in the North-East, and fourteen versions with tunes appear in The
Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection (no. 384). The version most often sung
nowadays has two strains (Figure 2).
8 ‘Folk-Song in the North-East’, p. 11.
9 George Riddell, ‘Five Old Airs, with Notes’, Rymour Club Miscellanea, 2 (1917), 188–92 (pp. 190–
91). Riddell (1852–1942), from Rosehearty near Fraserburgh, was a shoemaker by trade as well as a
violinist; see Mary Anne Alburger, ‘J. Scott Skinner and George Riddell’, in The Greig–Duncan Folk
Song Collection, ed. by Patrick Shuldam-Shaw, Emily B. Lyle, et al., 8 vols (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press; Edinburgh: Mercat Press, for the University of Aberdeen in association with the School of
Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, 1981–2002), VIII, 588–89. His undated manuscript entitled
‘Folk-Song’, which is forty-eight pages in length and contains his writings on the subject, is extant; see
University of Aberdeen Library, Special Libraries and Archives, Historic Collections, MS 3088/22.
10 Riddell, p. 191.
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In Greig–Duncan, eight versions (A, B, C, E, F, G, H, I) have one strain – a
version of the second strain of the tune as it is given in Figure 2. Five versions
(D, K, L, M, N), which have two strains, do not use the familiar ‘Drumdelgie’
tune but instead can be linked variously with ‘The Guise o’ Tough’ (no. 378
B), ‘Jack Munro’ (no. 171 C, D), ‘The Weary Fairmers’ (no. 391), and ‘Fair
Gallowa’’ (no. 949). The remaining two-strain version (J), which does use the
familiar Drumdelgie tune, is from George Riddell, who was immersed in the
instrumental tradition; the tune is among the airs that Riddell heard played
by the fife player ‘Auld Jeck’, John Ritchie, and no words are given for it. It is
noteworthy that only Riddell should have the tune as we know it nowadays
in two strains, and that the first strain of the melody is not found on its own
among any of the Greig–Duncan versions. In my view, the tune is undoubtedly
better with two strains: it is simply a more interesting tune, and this fact goes
some way to explain its current popularity, although it should also be borne
in mind that it was the tune popularized by the great exponent of the bothy
tradition, Willie Kemp 11.
There is a direct relationship to the fiddle tradition in the case of many items
in Christie’s Traditional Ballad Airs. Christie’s father, a teacher of dancing, published his own collection in 1820, the full title of which is A Collection of Strathspeys, Reels, Hornpipes, Waltzes, &c. Arranged as Medleys for the Harp, Piano Forte,
Violin and Violoncello 12, and was involved in the ballad collection until his death
in 1849. The fiddle collection contains 123 tunes, and in its preface he writes: ‘The
Editor has also in his possession a few more Old Scotch Airs, which it is humbly
hoped are all worthy of being preserved from Oblivion, and if the present specimen gives satisfaction, these may also appear at some future period.’ The reference
here is to the material for Traditional Ballad Airs, which includes certain of the
tunes that Christie senior was unable to fit into his fiddle collection; for example,
‘The Duke of Athol’ 13.
Eight items from the 1820 collection were taken directly into Traditional Ballad Airs and, in each case, Christie mentions this in a note. A comparison shows,
however, that the tunes were not copied exactly (Table 1).
11 See Kerr’s ‘Cornkisters’ (Bothy Ballads): As Sung and Recorded by Willie Kemp, ed. by James
S. Kerr (Glasgow: James S. Kerr, 1950), p. 52; and, for a more recent example, Jock Duncan, Ye Shine
Whar Ye Stan!, CD (Springthyme SPRCD 1039, 1996), track 15, where ‘Drumdelgie’ is accompanied
by both melodeon and concertina.
12 William Christie, A Collection of Strathspeys, Reels, Hornpipes, Waltzes, &c. (Edinburgh:
printed for the author, 1820).
13 Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 166.
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Traditional Ballad
Airs (1876, 1881)
p. 2
G major
I, 256
E flat
major
Sarah Williamson’s Lament
p. 12
B flat major
I, 38
G major
Willie’s Drown’d at Gamry
My Bonny Laddie Has my
Heart
p. 15
A minor
I, 66
E minor
p. 16
E minor
II, 120
C minor
Mill o’ Tiftie’s Annie
pp. 20–21
D major
I, 48
D major
p. 24
G major
II, 138
D major
p. 26
A minor
II, 76
D minor
p. 36
G minor
II, 182
E minor
Е
When Will Ye Wed Me with
a Ring
A Collection of Strathspeys, Reels, Hornpipes,
Waltzes, &c. (1820)
Ф
Will Ye Go to the Broom
Pearlin Peggie’s Bonny; or,
The Laird of Foveran
Good Night and Joy Be wi’
You A’ 1
ІМ
Table 1. Comparison of tunes in A Collection of Strathspeys, Reels, Hornpipes, Waltzes, &c. (1820) and Traditional Ballad Airs (1876, 1881) (titles are
from the 1820 publication).
In all but one instance, ‘Mill o’ Tiftie’s Annie’ (Child 233) (Figure 3), the key
for the ballad collection has been lowered by at least a third in order to make the
tune easier to sing and, in common with the other tunes in the fiddle collection,
only a simple bass-line harmony is given. Bronson suggested that Christie, or his
father, followed the version noted down by Andrew Blaikie and published in the
Appendix to Motherwell’s Minstrelsy: Ancient and Modern in 1827, because the
tunes are very similar 14; this is not, however, the case, because the fiddle collection appeared seven years earlier, in 1820. Alburger correctly notes that the fiddle
collection contains probably the earliest printed music for the ballad 15. Bronson
wrote of Christie’s tune for ‘Willie’s Drown’d at Gamry’ (Child 215):
This ‘Gamrie’ tune is out of line with all the others as to mode, but its melodic
contour is close enough for Christie to call the other (the usual tune) a ‘major set’
of this. As I have said before, I do not believe that our tradition often passes from
14 Bronson, Bertrand Harris, The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads, with their Texts,
According to the Extant Records of Great Britain and America, 4 vols (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1959–72), III, 385; William Motherwell Minstrelsy: Ancient and Modern (Glasgow: John
Wylie, 1827), pp. xxx. See also Emily B. Lyle, ‘The Matching of Andrew Blaikie’s Ballad Tunes with
their Texts’, Scottish Studies, 16 (1972), 175–80.
15 Alburger, ‘The Christie Family of Monquhitter’, p. 120.
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minor to relative major (nor vice versa), and the weight of tradition here is anyhow altogether on the major side. If we supposed Christie’s father to have modified the final cadence of the ‘Gamrie’ tune, from an original tonic in G, we should
find it restored to the major without violence to its general cast 16.
Greig, however, correctly identified the tune as a version of ‘The Dowie Dens’,
thus vindicating its traditional status 17.
The work of the Christies highlights the strong relationship between fiddle
and song in Scotland, as well as the fact that the two collections they made need
to be viewed as a whole, since one complements the other. The social context in
which Christie operated involved transferring folk song from the fireside to the
drawing room. He loved the ‘beautiful and plaintive’ airs he recalled from his
childhood 18, but felt that they needed to be mediated for the particular audience
he had in mind, particularly in terms of harmonization and melodic elaboration. Figure 1.
‘Edom o Gordon’. From William Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs (1876).
16 Bronson, III, 328.
17 The Greig–Duncan Folk Song Collection, VI, 579
18 Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, I, viii.
263
Frances J. Fischer (Edinburgh, Scotland, UK)
Roland’s Journey to Faroe: The “Chanson de Roland” as a Faroese
Ballad.
Е
Abstract: “Foroya Kvaedi” (The Ballads of the Faroe Islands) contains a version (the Karlamagnusar
kvaedi) of an 11th century French chanson de geste – the famous “Chanson de Roland” which concerns
the ambush suffered by the army of Charlemagne in 778 at the Pass of Ronceval in the Pyranese
Mountains between France and Spain. Thus the entertainment of legendary proportions provided by
the jongleurs for 12th century French nobility became 18th century ballad texts in far Faroe. This
paper attempts to trace the path of this diffusion from the initial lost French original through the
translations made to Middle High German (“Ruolantsliet”) and Old Norse (“Karlamagnussaga”). A
closer examination is made of one section (“Runsevals strid”, the Battle of Ronceval) and the ways
in which this Faroese presentation might differ from the same scene in versions or translations from
different cultures.
Key words: chanson, Faroese Ballad, ballad art, Roland, transformation, literary art, oral art.
Ф
Франсіс Фішер (Едінбург, Шотландія).
Подорож Роланда: “Пісня про Роланда” як баладний текст
Резюме: Старовинна французська “Пісня про Роланда”, поширена в Європі, Ісландії та
інших країнах світу та вже стала своєрідним міфом. Автор статті подає загальну інформацію
про сюжет та шляхи його розповсюдження та розглядає відомі європейські варіанти даного
сюжету, а також локальні та культурно-етнічні особливості окремих текстів.
ІМ
Ключові слова: європейська балада, шансон, варіант, сюжет, культурно-етнічні особливості.
Ballad scholars expect the best ballad stories to find favour in many quarters and for variants to travel long distances. Few have travelled further in easily
identifiable form than the “Chanson de Roland”. It is found in Mexico and South
America, in Iceland and the Faroe Islands as well as on continental Europe and
it is the raison d’être of the international Société Rencesvals. In the Føroya Kvæi:
Corpus Carminum Færoensium (the complete collection of Faroese Ballads), ballad number 106 is the Karlamagnusar kvæi. This is a lengthy version of the Charlemagne epic cycle and it includes the “Runsivals stríd”, the “Chanson de Roland”
in Faroese form. This paper looks briefly at what the “Chanson de Roland” is, how
it came to the Faroe Islands, and how the style and some of the details in the CCF
version differ from those elsewhere.
The “Chanson de Roland” originated as a French chanson de geste concerning
the invasion of Moorish Spain by the Frankish emperor Charlemagne in the year
778. Charlemagne sought revenge for the Moorish invasion of France some 50 years
previously. In addition, he saw an opportunity to expel the forces of Islam from Iberia by exploiting a dissension within the Moorish ruling classes. The hoped-for support from the Christian minority in Spain did not materialize as those of that faith
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Roland’s Journey to Faroe: The “Chanson de Roland” as a Faroese Ballad.
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assumed, perhaps correctly, that life under a civilized and tolerant Islam was preferable to life with rapacious Christian knights. Failure in Spain plus the intelligence
that there was a Saxon uprising in the north of his realm encouraged Charlemagne
to retreat to France. After subduing Pamplona, the Frankish army crossed the Pyrenees Mountains by the pass at Roncevaux, 40 Kms to the northeast.
It was in the Pass of Roncevaux (Ronseval) that the baggage train under the
leadership of Hruodland (Roland), Warden of the Breton Marches, was caught
and destroyed in a classic ambush. Roland was the nephew of Charlemagne and
a great hero to his people. The whole poem is essentially the story of Roland, the
betrayal by his father-in-law, and the later actions, trials and executions ordered
by Charlemagne. Historically, the battle was a minor action, militarily unimportant and barely mentioned in the chronicles of the time. The imputed actions of
the hero, Roland, and his friend Oliver, however, became the stuff of legend. The
continuing fascination is largely due to the unanswerable question: was Roland’s
behaviour a tragic hero’s honour-bound desire for martyrdom or was it a rash act
of pride in the face of advice from his practical friend Oliver. In either case, the
net result was the preventable disaster. In its time, the “Chanson de Roland” was
offered by the jongleurs as entertainment for the people at the time of the gathering for Crusades to the Holy Land in the 13th and 14th centuries. How it came to
be dance music during the 18th and 19th centuries in far Faeroe is a complicated
story of diffusion and dispersion – the usual history of a ballad.
It is not exactly known when the original poem was written although “William of Malmesbury refers to the ‘cantilena Rollandi’ sung at the Battle of Hastings” [1066] (Bennett, 2004:115). There is also a claim that Pope Urban the second
used it at the Council of Clermont in 1096 in an attempt to raise a French army
against Islam. In the 12th century, the monks at the Monastery of Ronseval were
using the legend to attract passing pilgrim tourists to the Ronseval area (Merwin, 92-3). It is likely that the story existed in many prose and poetic forms. The
original version of what we have today has not survived. What we do have are a
number of different versions, adaptations and translations whose relationship to
the original is not known. These early surviving documents are: A 12th century Middle High German rhymed translation by a Bavarian priest
named Konrad. This is the “Ruolandsliet”.
The Old Norse prose translation from the 13th century known as the “Karlamagnús saga”.
Two Franco-Italian versions from the 13th and 14th centuries that are in the
San Marcos Library in Venice.
Three versions in French, of which one is the assonanced “Oxford” version,
regarded as the oldest and perhaps the closest to the original.
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One rhymed translation in Middle Dutch, the “ Roelantslied.”
One translation with assonance in Middle Welsh, the “ Cân Rolant”
In addition, there are two tellings of the tale in Latin prose – the “PseudoTurpin Chronicle” from the 12th century guide to the Pilgrims of Santiago de
Compostella: and the “Carmen de prodicione Guenonis” which is a possible translation of a lost French poem.
The direct line of transmission runs to the Faroe Islands through the Old Norse
“Karlamagnús saga”, but a number of the other versions have a role to play in the
validation of elements where the Old Norse differs from the better know “Oxford”
version. The Italian and German versions contribute little to this story although
they were important. The Roland story was popular in Germany after Konrad’s
translation. In 1404, a seventeen and a half foot high stone statue of Roland was
erected in Bremen where Charlemagne had established a bishopric. In Italy, there
were romances written concerning “Orlando”. Charlemagne and Roland appear in
Dante’s “Paradiso” (Canto xviii) and as statues on the doorway of the Cathedral in
Verona (Luquiens, xvi).
The Welsh translation, the Cân Rolant, appears in the Red Book of Hergest (end
of the 14th century) and the White Book of Rhydderch. These versions contain long
excerpts from the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle but the section dealing with Ronseval
is a translation from an unknown French source, written in a late 12th or early 13th
century Anglo-Norman dialect and using assonance rather then rhyme (Rejhon,
66). Rejhon, who has done major work on the Welsh texts, suggests a possible link
between Ragnvald (Reginald), King of the Hebrides and Man, and the project of
translating the old French epic (Rejhon, 89). Reginald was also in touch with Hákon
Hákonarson of Norway whose support of such translation is crucially important to
this story. Rejhon also notes this connection to be interesting because a researcher,
Aebischer, had criticized instances where the Norse text varied from the existing
French texts. In these cases, as Rejhon points out, the Norse text often agrees with
the Welsh texts, “an unmistakable indication that the variant did indeed exist in the
archetypes.” (Rejhon, 91) The peculiarity of the “Cân Rolant” is that it ends with
Roland winning and totally omits the ‘horn’ and the ‘death’ scenes.
In many instances, the Norse text is also similar to that in Middle Dutch. This
text is largely a composite pieced together from manuscript fragments and from a
published text “Den droefliken strijt van Roncevale” (1520 and 1576), which appears
to have been based on an original of about 1500. The “Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle” is
included along with a description of the battle in end-rhyming couplets that are not
divided into strophes. This publication in its two closely related versions was aimed
at a literate public. At least one of the fragments, however, appears to belong to a
travelling entertainer who would deliver his version in performance. The relation-
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ship of this Middle Dutch ” Roelantslied” to the so-called “Oxford” version is much
debated. Hans van Dijk, however, is of the opinion that the Dutch is a translation
of one of a number of Old French versions using assonance, closely related to the
original text used by the poet of the Oxford version (Van Dijk, 1:237-38).
The “Oxford” version has become the version by which all others are judged.
This is because of its quality and because some have seen it as possibly the closest
to the “original”, whatever that might have been. The untitled manuscript is catalogued as “Digby 23” in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. Francisque Michel who gave it the name “La Chanson de Roland ou de Roncevaux”
first published it in Paris in 1837 and it is the oldest existing chanson de geste
in French. Burgess has dated the manuscript to the period 1130-1170 because
of “the linguistic features reflecting Anglo-Norman dialect.” (Burgess, 7) On the
same page he also noted, “It contains a number of errors committed by the scribe
and has been touched up in over 60 places by a 12th century reviser. Manuscript
Digby 23 is certainly not the poet’s original but some of the errors suggest that it
represents a copy of a copy of a copy of the original”. Burgess praises the sophistication and poetic density of the text and suggests that the lost original may have
been composed in the period 1098-1100. This date is significant because it was the
date of the first Crusade to the Holy Land – which would give resonance to the
anti-Islamic spirit of the poem. The Franks had moved against Islam in 778, and
the French were repeating the action in the 11th century.
This brings us to the Old Norse version, the “Karlamagnús saga”. This much
more extensive work includes not only the Chanson de Roland but also many
other Carolingian pieces such as “Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne à Jerusalem”, the
“Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle” and a number of other translations of Old French material such as the “Chanson de Saisnes” (“Gvitalin the Saxon”), “La Chevalerie
Ogier de Danemarch” (“Oddgeir the Dane”) etc. The link is the presence of Charlemagne in every unit as it follows his life history.
To find such a work in the far reaches of Scandinavia is impressive. What is
even more impressive, however, is to learn that this is not an isolated event. “Tristrams saga”, a translation of the “Tristan and Isolt” by Thomas of Britain, the lais of
Marie de France and romances by Chretian de Troyes are also found here in this
same period. In a number of cases, the Old Norse texts (or later copies/translations in Swedish or Danish) are the only surviving remains of pieces known to exist but no longer extant in the original language (Hieatt, 1:13-14).
The person generally recognized as responsible for this treasure trove of literature
is the Norwegian king, Hákon 4th, Hákon Hákonarson (1217-1263), with his court in
Bergen. Bergen may now appear to be far from the cultural centres of southern Europe. In the 13th century, however, Bergen was an important trading centre and part
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of a network that extended by land and sea from Greenland to Istanbul. The Bergen
court developed a love of the entertainment customary in Paris and Hákon commissioned numerous translations from French into Old Norse prose. Although the translations were written in Norway, it is not known whom the translators were. It is known
that there was at least one Icelander employed in this capacity and some of the copies
of the original Norse translation show an Icelandic turn of phrase. Halverson believes,
however, that the main translators were Norwegian as they were the more likely to
understand the apparent Norman French of the original source (Halvorsen, 16).
There is no single manuscript of the Saga. What we do have are various extended texts with lacunae (four Icelandic Mss), plus five fragments, one of which
is Norwegian. Manuscripts are known to have existed in medieval monasteries in
Iceland but these are no longer to be found. Other manuscripts were destroyed
in the Copenhagen fire of 1728 (Hieatt, 1:20). At least one of the surviving Mss
is known to be a paper copy of a burned vellum manuscript. Hieatt suggests that
the source of the saga lies in England because: “The saga states explicitly that part
II was translated from Middle English”, (actually it came from Scotland in 1286
with the returning ambassador, Bjarni Erlingson). Other parts, including “The
Song of Roland” are “all closely related to Anglo-Norman manuscripts; and the
Latin sources of various parts are all works known and read in England in the
period” (Hieatt, 1:23). Anglo-Norman forms of proper names predominate. Leach
has shown the close trade connections between England and Scandinavia, and
Halverson goes into Church connections in some depth.
Translations and adaptations of the saga soon appeared; the “Karl Magnus
Krønike” in Danish, and two chapters, including “The Song of Roland” in Swedish
under the title “Karl Magnus”. The style of prose used in the saga as a whole showed a
clear difference from the versions of main continental Europe or of England. “A good
many modifications were made in accordance with the stylistic habits of the saga
writer: elaborations and repetitions of a sort not usually found in saga prose seem
to have been left out, and others more characteristic of saga practice added” (Hieatt,
1:23). This is of interest to ballad scholars who have great love of repetition. Ballads
were spun off from the saga story, as they were believed to have done in France and
elsewhere. In Iceland they are to be found in the rímur cycles. Four cycles written
between 1300-1600 are based on the Saga and one of them, the “Rollantsrímur af
Runsivals Þaetti” was written by Þórur Magnússon á Strúgi in the 1500s. Only one
Norwegian ballad fragment has survived: it concerns the Chanson de Roland and is
called “Roland og Magnus kongen”. Ballads are also recorded in the 16th and 17th
centuries in Denmark and Sweden (Halverson, 49-52). Halverson, indeed, provides
an extremely detailed examination of the Norse version of the “Chanson de Roland”
where text and context minutiae are provided for the specialist researcher.
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What truly distinguishes the Faroese ballad texts of the “Chanson de Roland”,
the “Runsivals stríd”, is that they are the only complete ones taken down from the oral
tradition (although this is also true of the one fragment in Norway). Thus it is possible
for us to see how the story changed in the Faroese milieu. The overwhelming first impression of the Faroese ballad texts (as found in CCF No. 106) is their length. There are
8 versions, collected between 1781 and 1887 plus a version made public in 1928. The
shortest version is a fragment of 20 verses, the earliest version, by Svabo (1781), has 86
while the longest version, from the Fugloyarbók (prior to 1854), has 147. All verses are
four lines with end-rhymes in lines 2 and 4. The length of the texts has to do with their
function as ‘dance music’ in Faroese culture. Here the dance was performed “in the
manner of the Old French caroles with a lead singer singing the stanzas, the company
singing the refrain and dancing in a line or in a round.” It was thus that the Faroese
ballad was performed at the twelfth International Congress of the Société Rencesvals
in Edinburgh in 1991. The recorded singer on that occasion was the Faroese Barur
Jákupsson (Bennett, 2004:110 note 24). Until the 20th century, there was little or no
instrumental dance music and lead singers – the skipari – usually had a memorized
repertoire of more than 5 thousand stanzas. A single dance could last for an extended
period of time. Elaboration was the key so that stories known elsewhere in quite simple form were spun out at considerable length when transformed into Faroese ballads.
The Battle of Ronseval section of the “Karlamagnús saga” may be the shortest of any
literary version but its ballad form is long. The sparer style of the saga is replaced with
the elaboration and repetition consistent with ballad practice. Thus, for purposes of
comparison, I have chosen to concentrate on the most famous, short passage concerning a scene on the battlefield between the hero, Roland, and his friend Oliver. This has
variously been called the “horn” or “trumpet” scene.
In the Oxford version (Merwin, 124-44), we are told that the baggage train,
under the leadership of Roland, has been ambushed in the pass. They halt and
prepare for the expected attack. Oliver sees the size of the approaching army and
urges Roland to blow his famous ivory tusk horn and call Charlemagne back to
help them. Three times Oliver begs Roland to blow the horn and three times Roland declines to do so: his pride will not allow him to ask for assistance. Three
times more, Oliver says Roland should have blown the horn. The battle is lost and
towards the end, Roland thrice says to Oliver that now he will sound his horn –
but Oliver turns the same pride/shame argument back against Roland and the
horn stays silent. Oliver upbraids Roland for his heedlessness, which has resulted
in the slaughter of the Frankish army. Eventually the archbishop persuades Roland
and with his dying breath, Roland blows the horn three times. Charlemagne returns in time to bury the dead. The reason for Roland’s refusal to sound the horn
and save his men from a vastly superior force remains unclear. Is it a question of
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simple personal pride or an example of a code of honour that requires a warrior
and his followers to fight to the last man whatever the odds? Cook has addressed
this from a psychological perspective (Cook, 130).
In the Faroese ballad story, the heroic death of Roland and Oliver is essentially
similar to that of all the literary versions (except the Welsh where the text excludes
this scene). This similarity is hardly surprising since Skårup has suggested that the
ballad was constructed sometime between the mid 14th and the 17th centuries. It
was most likely based on the Icelandic version of the “Karlamagnús saga” (which
clings closely to the line of the “Oxford” version) and then influenced by the Danish “Karl Magnus Krønike” (Skårup, 67). He does not see it related to the Icelandic
rímur – other than by a common origin – but he does mention its similarity to the
Norwegian “Rolandvise”. That has given rise to some claims that the ballad was originally written in Norway (Skårup, 57-8). I have nothing to say regarding this claim.
In a number of details, however, the Faroese do depart from the literary norm.
All the literary texts have Oliver ask Roland 3 times, in vain, to blow his horn.
Only as a last resort does Roland blow his horn 3 times to summon the emperor.
In Faroese version A, Roland refuses the first request, “Rólant, blaes nú í tín lúur”
with the standard reply concerning his being shamed by such an act. He then accedes to the second request and blows his horn 3 times in the standard manner.
Other versions have one request plus refusal, or two requests with two refusals and
then the decision to blow three times without further prompting from Oliver. In
a number of versions, the final three blasts of the horn are widely separated in the
text by recapitulations of various heroic actions. The story does not flow consistently, we turn here and there for a glimpse of the action and the order varies in
different versions although the wording is essentially similar. Particular deeds may
be mentioned more than once if they involve a notable person or action. Mention
of Roland usually calls up 3 or 4 verses, like a leitmotif, describing how he kills
the enemy with his sword Dyrindal. Versions B and D repeat these verse clusters
3 times whereas they only appear once in the earliest version A. Often this cluster
is followed by 2 verses that describe the horses stepping on bodies and up to their
knees in blood. Changed name forms e.g. Angelund for Angulandus, show influence from the Danish text.
Some have viewed the Faroese ballads as of little use in the textual history of the
“Karlamagnús saga”. This is probably true. Ballad scholars, however, can see in them
excellent examples of the ballad art: the localization in cultural terms, for action, blood
and guts ARE more important in Scandinavian texts than are psychological tensions,
soliloquies or romance. We have all the repetitions, the leaping and lingering; we see
the transformation from literary to oral and the various influences that change the
story over time. Everything is there for us to see when Roland arrives in far Faeroe.
270
References
Bennett, Philip E, Anne Elizabeth Cobby and Graham A. Runnals, eds. Charlemagne in the North. Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference of
the Société Rencesvals. Edinburgh, 4th – 11th August 1991. Edinburgh: Société
Rencesvals British Branch, 1993.
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Bennett, Philip E. “The Suppression of a Ballad Culture: the enigma of medieval France.” The Singer and the Scribe: European Ballad Traditions and European Ballad Cultures. Eds. Philip Bennett and Richard Firth Green. Internationale
Forschungen zur allgemeinen und vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft 75. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004. 105-21.
Burgess, Glyn. The Song of Roland. Translated with an introduction and
notes. London: Penguin Books, 1990.
Cook, Robert F. “The Sense of the Song of Roland”. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1987.
Grundtvig, S.V. and J. Bloch et al., eds. Føroya Kvæi: Corpus Carminum
Færoensium. Universitets-Jubilets Danske Samfund. 7 vols. Copenhagen: Reizels
Forlag, 1941-96.
Halvorsen, E.F. The Norse Version of the Chanson de Roland. Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana, Vol. XlX. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1959.
Hieatt, Constance B., trans. Karlamagnús Saga: The Saga of Charlemagne and
his Heroes, 3 vols. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1980.
Kartschoke, Dieter, ed. and trans. Das Rolandslied des Pfaffen Konrad: Mittelhochdeutscher Text mit Übertragung. Bücher des Wissens; Frankfurt am Main:
Fischer Bücherei, 1970.
Leach, Henry. Angevin Britain and Scandinavia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1921.
Luquiens, Frederick Bliss, trans. The Song of Roland. Intro. Nathan A. Smyth.
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1952.
Merwin, W.S., trans. “The Song of Roland.” Modern Epics. The Modern Library, New York: Random House, 1963. 85-203.
Rejhon, Annalee C. Cân Rolant: The Medieval Welsh Version of the Song of
Roland. Modern Philology 113. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
Skårup, Poul. “Kilderne til de færøske viser om Karl den Store.” Frødskaparrit
15 (1966): 31-69.
Van Dijk, Hans. Het Roelantslied. 2 vols. Utrecht: HES Publishers, 1981.
271
DAVID ATKINSON (LONDON, ENGLAND)
What did the people all say? Ballad editing and the problem of
punctuation
Е
Abstract: Modern approaches to ballad editing at least tacitly imply that editors will do their best
to render texts (both verbal and musical) faithfully, and that published ballads can therefore be taken as
a reliable record. Modern editorial theory, however, has established that all texts of works in intangible
media are intrinsically the subject of conjecture. This point is illustrated here by reference to an
ultimately irresolvable crux in a Child ballad text included in the James Madison Carpenter collection.
The matter is set in context by reference to issues in the editing of literary works such as Vanity Fair or
Old English scribal manuscripts. Different ways of punctuating the ballad are considered, illustrating
how the established text is always editorially determined by the imposition of punctuation, as well
as such things as layout, word division, and spelling. The act of reception itself is necessarily one of
attempting to determine what words and punctuation marks comprise the ‘work’ that lies behind the
documentary text.
Key words: ballad editing; punctuation; James Madison Carpenter; Mary Pirie; ‘Lord Lovel’
Ф
ДЕВІД АТКІНСОН (ЛОНДОН, АНГЛІЯ)
Що сказали ці люди? Баладна едиція та проблеми пунктуації.
ІМ
Резюме: Сучасні підходи до едиції балад натякають на те, що редактори, які працюють з
текстам, мають робити все можливе для того, щоб максимально точно подати текст, і, що надрукованим текстам можна довіряти. Але сучасна едиційна теорія показує, що всі тексти, які
знаходяться в процесі едиції стають об’єктом кон’юнктури. Це доводиться у статті на прикладі
Дитячої балади, яка входить до складу баладної колекції Медісона Карпентера. На прикладі
пунктуації даного тексту автор показує, що пунктуація вказує на «роботу» тих, хто «працював»
над текстом, при підготовці до друку.
Ключові слова: едиція балад, колекції Медісона Карпентера, пунктуація.
The scarcely veiled implication behind the almost ritual condemnation by ballad commentators of ‘bad editors’ 19, which has been around at least since Joseph
Ritson’s bad-tempered attacks on Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,
is that there is an alternative ‘scientific’ editorial practice, capable of delivering an
‘authentic’ text, which the likes of Percy deliberately eschewed but which today’s
more enlightened scholars would unhesitatingly – indeed, instinctively – adopt. Yet
a Manichaean view of ballad editing is insidious, because it encourages both arrogance and complacency, not only towards the pioneers of the field but towards the
ballad text itself. For, as the examples considered below will seek to demonstrate,
the ballad text is always, of necessity, an editorial construct. The primary reason for
this lies in what the textual scholar Thomas Tanselle identifies as the intrinsic condi-
19 Albert B. Friedman, The Ballad Revival: Studies in the Influence of Popular on Sophisticated
Poetry (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1961), p. 205.
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What did the people all say? Ballad editing and the problem of punctuation
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tion shared by all artistic works, such as music and literature, that involve sequential
presentation 20. Because of their evanescent nature, such works can be transmitted and preserved only by means of sets of instructions for their repetition. A set
of instructions can in turn be inscribed into a document, and this documentary
text then comprises an artefact that stands for the respective work – a template for
the reconstruction of the work. The most familiar sorts of instructions include arrangements of words and punctuation on the written or printed page, and written
or printed music notation. Others include written instructions for dance, emulsified
images carried on motion picture film, the contoured grooves or etched pits and
lands on sound recording discs, or signals embedded in the physical media used in
computing – all of which purport to contain the instructions for the reconstitution
of the works concerned. But it is in the nature of these sets of instructions that they
are always potentially imprecise, incomplete, or incorrect as representations of the
sequential pattern that constitutes the underlying work.
At first glance, it may be quite readily apparent that the text and music of a
ballad transcribed from a singer and perhaps later printed in a book are not the
ballad as sung, but only an attempted representation thereof. Somewhat similarly, a
document inscribed or printed centuries after the date of the work it is attempting
to transmit – a late witness of a biblical text, for example, or an Old English poem –
is intrinsically likely to be in some respects a faulty witness, and can therefore be
fairly readily recognized as no more than the instructions for the reconstruction
of the original work. But this is not the heart of the matter. Rather, there is always a
fundamental distinction to be drawn between the text of a document, which may
be contained in an artefact such as a manuscript, book, or sound recording, and the
text of a work, the precise constitution of which is inherently subject to conjecture. A
document is a physical, tangible entity and the words it carries have a permanency. A
work, by contrast, is essentially an abstract idea which is subject to differing conceptions, including ‘authorial intention’, the various existing documentary forms, and
the conjectured whole implied by the sum of its possible physical manifestations 21.
This situation pertains whether the work in question be Beowulf, Ulysses, or a ballad,
and it is why there are often many different editions of classic literary works.
However much evidence survives, then, the reconstruction of a work from
a tangible, documentary text, or even a series of such texts, can never be accom-
20 G. Thomas Tanselle, A Rationale of Textual Criticism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1989), p. 22 and ch. 1 passim; G. Thomas Tanselle, ‘The Varieties of Scholarly Editing’,
in Scholarly Editing: A Guide to Research, ed. by D. C. Greetham (New York: Modern Language
Association of America, 1995), pp. 9–32 (pp. 10, 12–13).
21 Peter L. Shillingsburg, Scholarly Editing in the Computer Age: Theory and Practice, 3rd edn
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), pp. 42–44.
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plished with certainty: the process will always demand the critical interrogation
of the documentary text(s). Textual criticism, therefore, is inherent in the very
activity of reading or reception. As Tanselle puts it:
‘However much evidence survives, the production of the texts of works always
involves critical judgment. It is in the nature of works in intangible media that the
very constitution of those works is a matter of conjecture. The questioning of the
texts of documents – the traditional province of textual criticism – is thus part
of the activity of reading. Any attempt to extract meaning from a verbal work is
inseparable from the attempt to determine what words and punctuation the text
of that work should consist of 22.’
Tanselle effectively places the reader or listener, willingly or otherwise, in the
position of editor.
So the problem of the ballad text does not arise just from the practical difficulties of the transcription of words and music – although these do present very
real problems, which have been much more widely recognized in respect to the
notating of tunes than to the equally tricky writing down of words. Moreover, the
possibility of oral transmission does nothing to reduce the difficulty. It may be
that in a purely oral culture the idea of the text of a work has little or no meaning 23. But the rendition of a ballad received and memorized by a listener lacking
notebook and pencil or tape recorder is just as much a set of instructions for the
reconstruction of that work as would have been the pencil marks on paper or the
magnetic impulses on tape. In fact, of course, the ballads in English have inhabited
a text-based environment since early modern times, as the earliest exemplars in
Child, from manuscripts and broadsides, readily testify, and the notion of an oral/
literate divide is not easily tenable under such circumstances. The reception and/
or memorization of a ballad, however it may occur in any particular instance, is
directly analogous to the writing down of the words and punctuation marks or the
notating of the tune. The one single difference with respect to canonical literature
is that accurate, precise reproduction on the basis of the set of instructions received may not be quite the desired end of the ballad recipient – but that remains
the case irrespective of the means of transmission of those instructions.
Much of this should become clearer when a specific example is considered. James
Madison Carpenter collected the ballad ‘Lord Lovel’ (Child 75) from Mrs Mary Pirie,
22 Tanselle, ‘The Varieties of Scholarly Editing’, pp. 12–13. See also Tanselle, A Rationale of
Textual Criticism, pp. 32–37.
23 Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London: Methuen,
1982; repr. London: Routledge, 1988), passim (but e.g. pp. 33–36, 57–68, 141–47).
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of Alvah in the north-east of Scotland, some time between 1928 and 1935 24. In this
instance, as far as is currently known, there is no extant sound recording (although,
as outlined above, the principles at stake would not be affected even if such a recording did exist), so this particular example concerns a set of recited ballad words, taken
down in typescript. Carpenter also made various manuscript additions and alterations
to his typescripts, some of which may have been more or less contemporaneous with
the initial typing while others may have been made later, when he was preparing the
ballad texts with a view to publication. At that time, the earlier, corrected typescripts,
which can be considered as rough copies, were copied into a new, clean set of typescripts, which can be considered as fair copies. The fair copies incorporate most of the
manuscript alterations from the rough copies, and also introduce a number of new
alterations (to the spellings of Scots words, for example).
As far as it is possible to tell, then, for stanza 6 of Mrs Pirie’s version of ‘Lord
Lovel’, Carpenter’s rough copy typescript first read:
Oh fat is the matter, Lord Lovel he said
Fat is the matter, said he,
A Lord’s lady is dead, an the people all said
They called her Lady Nancee.
ІМ
This is just after Lord Lovel has returned to London at the end of a year’s absence and heard the bells of St Pancras ringing and found the people mourning
(‘fat’ and ‘an’ are Scots forms of ‘what’ and ‘and’). Carpenter then appears to have
written in, in ink, a question mark over the comma at the end of line 2:
Fat is the matter, said he?
Clearly this is grammatically incorrect and the question mark should follow
the word ‘matter’.
He also made several further additions and alterations, using a red coloured
pencil, which include making the punctuation grammatically viable in line 2 (suggesting that these changes were indeed made subsequent to the initial writing in of
the question mark), the addition of a full stop at the end of line 1, the insertion of
sets of quotation marks, and the alteration of ‘Nancee’ to ‘Nancy’:
24 Washington, DC, Library of Congress, American Folklife Center, Archive of Folk Culture,
AFC 1972/001, James Madison Carpenter Collection, MS pp. 05587–05588, 07491–07492.
275
«Oh fat is the matter?» Lord Lovel he said.
«Fat is the matter?» said he.
«A Lord’s lady is dead, an the people all said
They called her Lady Nancy.»
Е
With a few further, relatively minor, but still unprecedented changes – changing the full stop at the end of line 1 to a comma, reducing the ‘l’ of ‘lord’ in line 3 to
lower case, and adding an apostrophe to the Scots ‘an’ in the same line – this stanza
then reappears in the fair copy typescript:
Ф
«Oh fat is the matter?» Lord Lovel he said,
«Fat is the matter?» said he.
«A lord’s lady is dead, an’ the people all said
They called her Lady Nancy.»
ІМ
Now, Carpenter’s placing of quotation marks around the whole of lines 3 and
4 is improbable, though not impossible, because it apparently fails to distinguish
quoted from non-quoted matter. How, then, should an editor who does not want
simply to preserve what is most probably an error treat these lines? The following
examples illustrate some of the possible readings:
1 direct speech
(a) The people all said, ‘A lord’s lady is dead and they called her Lady Nancy’:
‘A lord’s lady is dead an’, the people all said,
‘They called her Lady Nancy.’
(b) And the people all said [transposed to the second part of the line], ‘A
lord’s lady is dead; they called her Lady Nancy’:
‘A lord’s lady is dead,’ an the people all said,
(c) The people all said, ‘A lord’s lady is dead and they called her Lady Nancy’
[but with the conjunction given as reported speech]:
‘A lord’s lady is dead’, an the people all said,
276
(d) An unidentified speaker states, ‘A lord’s lady is dead’; and the people all
said, ‘They called her Lady Nancy’:
‘A lord’s lady is dead’; an the people all said,
Е
2 narrative text and reported speech
(a) The narrator relates that the people all said that a lord’s lady is dead and
they called her Lady Nancy:
A lord’s lady is dead an, the people all said,
They called her Lady Nancy.
Ф
(b) The narrator relates that a lord’s lady is dead and that the people all said
that they called her Lady Nancy:
A lord’s lady is dead an the people all said
ІМ
3 narrative text and direct speech
(a) The narrator relates that a lord’s lady is dead; and the people all said,
‘They called her Lady Nancy’:
A lord’s lady is dead, an the people all said,
(b) The narrator relates that a lord’s lady is dead and that the people all said,
‘They called her Lady Nancy’:
A lord’s lady is dead an the people all said,
4 direct and reported speech
(a) An unidentified speaker states, ‘A lord’s lady is dead’; and the narrator
relates that the people all said that they called her Lady Nancy:
‘A lord’s lady is dead’; an the people all said
277
(b) An unidentified speaker states, A lord’s lady is dead and the people all
said that they called her Lady Nancy [this is Carpenter’s rendering]:
‘A lord’s lady is dead an the people all said
They called her Lady Nancy.’
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Note that British English punctuation allows the visual suggestion of a distinction between examples 1(b) and 1(c) that would not have been available from
American English punctuation.
Any of these options is feasible and it might just about be possible to
construct others, though ballad scholars may well have their preferred readings, among which Carpenter’s may well be one of the least favoured. The
crux posed by the troublesome conjunction in mid-line does not appear in
other versions of ‘Lord Lovel’ to hand. The unidentified or generic speaker,
however, is readily paralleled – ‘the people’ in a text collected by Alfred Williams, an ‘old woman’ in one from Cecil Sharp, ‘they aw’ (i. e. the ladies
of the court) in Andrew Crawfurd’s collection, for example – in each case
giving both the fact of the lady’s death and her name 25. Moreover, even the
readings offered above are not altogether unambiguous: the (perfectly acceptable) choice of a comma instead of a semi-colon in 1(d), for instance,
would have rendered it indistinguishable from 1(c). The purpose here is to
emphasize the ambiguity – the conjecture inherent in realizing the ballad
text – not to resolve it.
Now, it might be countered that the semantic differences between these
various options are slight, especially in the context of one of the less intellectually challenging of the Child ballads. But in a sense this is just the point;
because the ambiguity is not immediately apparent, there is every likelihood
that it will not have troubled the contributor and that the collector typed the
reading that first came to mind, perhaps influenced by knowledge of other
printed versions (in Child, for instance). Were the ambiguity to have been
more demanding, the chances are that the collector might have sought clarification or that the difficulty might have been considered intrinsic to the way
the contributor had learned the ballad. The ambiguity in these lines, whether
or not it is held to ‘matter’, means that the precise constitution of the text of
Mrs Pirie’s ‘version’ of ‘Lord Lovel’ remains forever conjectural. This point is
25 Respectively, Folk-Songs of the Upper Thames, ed. by Alfred Williams (London: Duckworth,
1923), pp. 145–46; Cecil J. Sharp, English Folk Songs, Selected Edition, 2 vols (London: Novello,
[1920]), II, 22–23; Andrew Crawfurd’s Collection of Ballads and Songs, ed. by E. B. Lyle, 2 vols
(Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 1975, 1996), I, 54–55.
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particularly well illustrated by ballad texts, which are often sung and therefore
fitted to a tune, since melody tends to mask punctuation. It is very difficult to
sing, with any consistency, the appropriate pauses marked by a comma or a
semi-colon, and (unless deliberately adopting different voices) probably impossible to sing a quotation mark. In line with Tanselle’s account of reception,
the determination of what words and punctuation comprise the text of the
ballad is as much the activity of the listener or reader as of the contributor,
collector, or editor. Nevertheless, however conjectural, something has to be
committed to writing or print.
As this crux in ‘Lord Lovel’ conveniently illustrates, the placing of punctuation
can impose different readings on the same words. Punctuation, though, is not an
altogether scientific or even a mechanical exercise. Conventions and habits vary
substantially with time and geography, and with purpose and personal preference.
Broadly speaking, in English, a general trend over time can be discerned, away from
a rhetorical system of punctuation, which indicates varying lengths of pauses to facilitate vocal delivery, and towards a syntactic system, which employs punctuation
to give visual guidance to the syntactic relations of the sentence in order to facilitate
reading 26. But elements of both systems continued to coexist for a very long time;
indeed, they still do. A few brief historical examples will further illustrate the fluidity of punctuation practice. Thus manuscripts of John Donne’s poems that circulated for recitation among a contemporary literary coterie display a more rhetorical
system of pointing, providing instructions for speaking the poems out loud, when
compared with early printed editions, designed for more personal reading, which
are punctuated to provide guidance to the syntactic relations of the poetry 27. In the
early nineteenth century, W. M. Thackeray was in the habit of writing using a primarily rhetorical system of punctuation, whereas by the 1840s printers had largely
switched to a syntactic system 28. As editor of Vanity Fair, Peter Shillingsburg was
faced with an especially unenviable decision, for while it is possible to argue persuasively in favour of reproducing either the author’s punctuation or that imposed by
the publisher, in this case the author’s manuscript survives for only about one sixth
of the novel. In the end, Shillingsburg chose to retain as much of Thackeray’s writing
style as possible, warning readers that the compositorial style of pointing prevailed
26 E. A. Levenston, The Stuff of Literature: Physical Aspects of Texts and their Relation to Literary
Meaning (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 65–72; M. B. Parkes, Pause and
Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1992).
27 Ted-Larry Pebworth, ‘Manuscript Transmission and the Selection of Copy-Text in Renaissance
Coterie Poetry’, TEXT: Transactions of the Society for Textual Scholarship, 7 (1994), 243–61.
28 Shillingsburg, Scholarly Editing in the Computer Age, pp. 56–70; Peter Shillingsburg,
‘Editing Thackeray: A History’, Studies in the Novel, 27 (1995), 363–74.
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throughout the remaining bulk of the book. The decision may have been controversial, but it certainly foregrounds the inherently conjectural and contested nature of
the text – not only of that particular work, but of all works.
At the beginning of English literature, scholars have struggled to make some
sense of the mostly very light (even to the point of absence), often erratic, and essentially rhetorical pointing of early medieval manuscripts. Although there is some
evidence of systematic punctuation emerging among certain scribes or scriptoria
prior to the invention of printing, it is often assumed that it was largely left to printers to mandate coherent systems of spelling and punctuation 29. Many editors of medieval manuscript texts have simply imposed modern conventions of punctuation,
capitalization, word division, and the like, on such texts, with the needs of the modern reader in mind. However, Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe has argued strenuously
that the punctuation of manuscript texts of Old English verse does make sense 30.
Pointing, she maintains, and other visual characteristics of the written text such
as capitalization, spacing, lineation, paragraphing, and page layout, are visual cues
for decoding and are therefore less important when a text is conceived primarily as
something to be read aloud. In such texts, the little pointing that is present serves
more of an expressive or performative function than an analytical or syntactic function. Accordingly, the extant pointing of much Old English manuscript verse, along
with other visual markers and the presence of lexical variants between manuscripts,
provides evidence of what can be described as an ‘oral’ (though one might prefer
‘rhetorical’) mode of reception on the part of the respective scribes. The contrast
is with the manuscript writing of Latin verse, which was certainly intended to be
read visually, and where scribes were employing a much more systematic method
of pointing and layout from a much earlier date 31. After, perhaps, the late tenth
century, there is a greater appearance of conventional visual graphic cues in Old
English verse and evidence of more coherent pointing practice(s), indicative of a
shift towards the ‘reading’ rather than the ‘speaking’ of verse.
Scribes are envisaged as committing blocks of texts to short-term memory,
and as drawing on their knowledge of the conventions of the verse they were copying, while writing it down; they are also believed to have worked by reading aloud,
or at least sub-vocalizing, and therefore ‘hearing’ at least a part of their texts 32.
29 D. C. Greetham, Textual Scholarship: An Introduction (New York and London: Garland,
1994), pp. 223–24.
30 Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, Visible Song: Transitional Literacy in Old English Verse,
Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
31 O’Keeffe, p. 46, 138–54.
32 Henry John Chaytor, ‘The Medieval Reader and Textual Criticism’, Bulletin of the John
Rylands Library, 26 (1941–42), 49–56; O’Keeffe, pp. 40–41.
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Reading and copying actually became conflated with composition; that is, with
the scribe’s own response to the copy-text as living verse. It is worth emphasizing that this mode of reception was operative quite regardless of the possible oral
or written origins of the works in question. Indeed, O’Keeffe’s study deliberately
examines both works such as Caedmon’s Hymn, which is of ostensibly oral origin,
and Solomon and Saturn I, which is almost certainly a product of writing, as well
as items such as the Metrical Preface to Alfred’s Pastoral Care and the poems of
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the origins of which are less clear. Probably the most
straightforward instance is provided by the two extant manuscripts of Solomon
and Saturn I, a verse dialogue in which Saturn asks Solomon to enlighten him
about the power of the paternoster 33. Here, pointing is used quite sparingly, but
most often to separate independent clauses, either with or without following small
capitals. The pointing of the later of the two extant manuscripts (which may not
be the original work of the scribe) is greater in quantity, reflecting the increasing
use of conventional pointing as visual information in the writing of texts, but not
qualitatively different. In neither manuscript is pointing employed metrically, to
distinguish graphically the verse lines. On the basis of these observations, O’Keeffe
describes the points in Solomon and Saturn I as visual analogues of the speaker’s
drop in voice; they interpret the text expressively rather than analytically.
Thus the scribe, who was, of course, a necessarily literate reader of the copy-text,
was also an active participant in the reception and transmission of the verse. Embodying potentially conflicting roles of active reader and passive copyist, language-producer
and visual-reproducer, as receiver of the text, the scribe can be considered as a special
kind of audience, and as reproducer of the text, as a special kind of performer 34. The
scribe, in short, was an active maker of the text, and the scribal text provides a startling
instance of what is described in the title of O’Keeffe’s book as Visible Song. All of this
has profound implications for the role of the editor. Evidence of scribal participation in
the making of texts on the one hand provides substantive historical and social context
for their reception and (re)production; on the other hand it distances those texts from
any notions of authorial ‘intention’ 35. Idealist editing, for example, which delivers a
remade text, largely purged of scribal intervention, clarified and rendered accessible
to the modern reader – a text that never actually existed but that encapsulates an editor’s conception of the author’s work – may ironically be less historically accurate and
useful than the reproduction of a text that shows traces of the scribe’s own activity 36.
On the other hand, the impenetrability for the modern reader of Old English pointing
33 O’Keeffe, pp. 74–76.
34 O’Keeffe, pp. 66–67, 76, 192.
35 O’Keeffe, pp. 193–94.
36 O’Keeffe, pp. 115–16, 193.
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could be argued – and in practice is often held, if only by implication – to reduce the
usefulness of such a text in the grand sweep of history. Other solutions, such as various combinations of diplomatic or semi-diplomatic editions with translations and/or
modernized texts, seek to combine the best of both worlds, retaining medieval pointing and other aspects of layout while offering the modern reader a viable text 37.
There is, then, a powerful analogy that suggests itself for the editing of collected ballad texts. Like the scribe of Old English poetry, the collector/editor can
be envisaged as both a special kind of audience and a special kind of performer.
The collector/editor’s documentary text, which represents the moment of reception of the contributor’s song, may well be the most historically precise artefact
that will ever be available. This is a solution that necessarily foregrounds the collector; indeed, it places the collector firmly in the line of transmission. Equally,
though, there is an argument for publishing some kind of edited text that might
be of greater use to the modern user – resolving, or at least addressing, matters
such as the crux in ‘Lord Lovel’ – and which might also more consciously claim to
represent a conception of the contributor’s ‘intention’, unmediated by the collector.
And yet this would just as surely place the editor, who now may or may not be the
same person as the collector, into the line of transmission.
The analogy posed above, however, is not quite an exact one: one reason why
the folk song collector/editor of the nineteenth or twentieth century was not in quite
the same position as the medieval scribe is that s/he will have approached the act
of text-making with much more of a received set of rules or conventions governing
such matters as spelling and punctuation. Thus Carpenter’s own punctuation seems
unremarkable for an early twentieth-century American, with the full legacy of ballad studies at Harvard behind him; his slips tend to be self-evident, and where verbal
ambiguities remain there is no clear evidence that he was using punctuation in an
attempt to resolve them. The real challenge for the editor is to make some sense of
his various additions and alterations to the texts, to determine whether they do really provide evidence of an individual reading of the ballads in a manner analogous
to the Old English scribes, and to alight on a consistent manner of treating them –
laudable aims that are not necessarily going to prove attainable. There would be
nothing inherently unreasonable in reproducing Carpenter’s own punctuation; the
visible signs of the editing hand would certainly be his rather than those of a modern
editor. But it is not clear that the resultant texts would not be more of a witness to
convention and precedent than to a historically situated act of reception, reflecting
the speaker’s own pauses and inflections – remembering that Mrs Pirie’s ‘Lord Lovel’
37 J. R. Hall, ‘Old English Literature’, in Scholarly Editing: A Guide to Research, pp. 149–83
(pp. 170–74).
282
was recited rather than sung (to transcribe from a recording places the onus more
firmly back on the modern transcriber/editor). The probable misreading of the crux
in ‘Lord Lovel’, or the question of how to correct it, would, of course, remain.
So there is certainly another argument to be made, for stripping out the 1930s
American English punctuation from such texts altogether. The lines from ‘Lord
Lovel’ would then read:
Е
They called her Lady Nancy
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Ф
The full scope of the ambiguity in the lines would be retained, unresolved.
The resultant text would go at least some way towards suggesting the raw stream
of evanescent language that lies behind the documentary text, and the necessity of
conjecture – at least so far as punctuation is concerned – on the part of the modern reader. Applied to ballads and folk songs at large, such an approach has the
added advantage that it admits the influence upon phrasing of melody or, in its absence, verse rhythm. The drawback is really only evident when an entire ballad, or
an entire collection of ballads, is represented in this form – for it tends to show the
ballad simply as a conglomerate of discrete lines of verse with relatively little sense
of syntactic continuity and a consequently reduced sense of story-telling. It is an
objection largely from the modern reader/user’s visual perspective, but it seems
a valid one. It arises in part because the verse lineation and stanza divisions of
poetry or song as conventionally displayed on the page, with capital letters at the
beginning of the line and rhyme words at the end, serve in themselves as a form
of visual punctuation which affects the way in which the words are either spoken
or read 38. And while overtly rhetorical, the breaking up of the text into units by
lineation and stanza division is very often implicitly if not explicitly syntactic as
well. Since, however, it will usually address some but not all of the major syntactic relations within a text, it most often demands an additional layer of punctuation to complement it, and even on occasion to overwrite it. In other words, all
the syntactic and rhetorical structures of poetic verse, including that provided by
punctuation, function together and serve to elucidate one another.
An alternative approach, therefore, is to aim at a minimal level of syntactic
punctuation, complementing the verse lineation and stanza divisions. This acknowledges that line endings in themselves signal a pause, most often equivalent
to a comma, but marks the ends of sentences with full stops. Commas are required
38 Parkes, pp. 97–114.
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in a few other instances: to break up verbal repetitions and listed items; to switch
from indirect to direct speech, and vice versa; to precede or to follow the naming (in the vocative case) of persons being directly addressed. Quotation marks,
however, are not needed in addition. The effect is to suppress, but not to eliminate,
the visual rhetoric of punctuation, and again to shift the burden of interpretive
reception and conjecture on to the modern reader. So the visual intrusiveness of
the editing hand is reduced, even while the resultant text still embodies substantial
editorial intervention. This, then, is the approach that the editors of the Carpenter
collection have adopted – yet no more than any other does it resolve the ambiguity in ‘Lord Lovel’, since even without quotation marks a choice has still had to be
made as to whether and where to place a comma within line 3 of stanza 6. We will
never know for certain what the people all said. (A draft of the critical edition text
of Mrs Pirie’s ‘Lord Lovel’ is given in the Appendix below.)
Any option that does not retain the punctuation conventions of 1930s American English represents a substantial intervention on the part of the modern editor. Ballad information is always subsumed by the intangibility of language, upon
which its recipients are obliged to impose word divisions, layout, spelling, punctuation, and so forth. Bothersome as this is, it makes tangible a crucial point, for
the one thing that emerges unequivocally from modern editorial theory is that
there is no such thing as a definitive text or edition 39. And that point would still remain were there no ambiguity in this or any other ballad text. The editing hand –
whether that of the original collector, that of another, later scholar, or just that of
the listener/reader who, as Tanselle has it, is ineluctably placed in the position of
editor – is inescapable. And the ballad editor, like the medieval scribe, stands in
the position of a special kind of audience and a special kind of performer, making
tangible a set of instructions for reconstructing something intangible – a sequential pattern of language – and in the process inscribing the marks of his or her own
presence into the transmitted text – in this case, punctuation marks.
Appendix: Mary Pirie, ‘Lord Lovel’ (Child 75), draft critical edition text.
The base text is provided by Carpenter’s fair copy (T2) and substantive (in the
editor’s opinion, of course) variants in the rough copy (T1) are recorded in the
accompanying critical apparatus, which is considered as integral to the edited text
[del = deleted].
39 D. C. Greetham, ‘Introduction’, in Scholarly Editing: A Guide to Research, pp. 1–7 (pp. 6–7);
D. C. Greetham, Theories of the Text (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 40; Shillingsburg, Scholarly
Editing in the Computer Age, pp. 114, 116; Tanselle, A Rationale of Textual Criticism, p. 74.
284
Mary Pirie
Kirkside, Alvah, Banffshire, Scotland
[1928–35]
sources: Carpenter Collection, MS pp. 05587–05588 (T1),
07491–07492 (T2)
Е
1 Lord Lovel stood at his castle gate
Combing his milk-white steed
An by cam Lady Nancy Bell
To wiss her lover good speed, speed
To wiss her lover good speed.
Ф
2 Oh faur are ye gaun, Lord Lovel? she said
Oh faur are ye gaun? said she.
I’m gaun, my Lady Nancy Bell
Strange countries for to see, see
Strange countries for to see.
ІМ
3 Fan will ye be back, Lord Lovel? she said
Oh fan will ye come back to me?
In a year or twa or three
I’ll return to my Lady Nancy.
4 He had not been a year awa
A year but only ane
Fan fancy thoughts cam in his heid
That Lady Nancy Bell was gane, gane.
5 So he rode an he rode on his milk-white steed
Till he cam tee London toon
Fan he heard Pancras bells ring
An the people a-mournin aroon, roon
An the people a-mournin aroon.
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6 Oh fat is the matter? Lord Lovel he said
Fat is the matter? said he.
Е
7 The lid of the coffin was opened up
The sheets were folded doon
An there he kissed her clay-cold lips
An the tears cam tricklin doon, doon.
Ф
8 Well may I kiss this pale, pale lips
For they will never kiss mine
I’ll mak a vow an keep it true
That they’ll never kiss nane but thine.
ІМ
9 Lady Nancy died as it were today
Lord Lovel he died on the morrow
Lady Nancy she died out of pure, pure grief
Lord Lovel he died out of sorrow.
10 Lady Nancy was buried in the cold churchyard
Lord Lovel was laid down beside her
Out of her bosom there grew a red rose
An out of her lover’s a brier.
11 So they grew an they grew to the steeple-top
Till they could not grow higher
An they twined themselves into a true-lover’s knot
For all true-lovers to admire.
titles ] Lord Lovel
JMC ] From her aunt, Ellen Chalmers, Cairnhill, Alvah, Banffshire. (MS pp. 05587, 07491)
1.1 castle] T2, T1; caste[l?] del T1
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1.2 white] T2, del T1; fite T1
1.4 wiss] T2, T1; wis del T1 speed, speed] T2, T1; speed, speed,
speed del T1
1.5 wiss] T2, T1; wis del T1
2.4 see, see] T2, T1; see, see, see del T1
3.3 three] T2, T1; thre del T1
3.4 Nancy] T2, T1; Nancee del T1
4.3 heid] T2, T1; head del T1
4.4 gane, gane] T2, T1; gane, gane – del T1
5.1 white] T2; fite T1
5.2 tee] T2, T1; tae del T1
6.4 Nancy] T2, T1; Nancee del T1
7.4 doon, doon] T2, T1; doon – del T1; doon, doon – del T1
8.1 this] sic
8.2 mine] T2, T1; me del T1
8–9 between these stanzas]
He threw himself down by the side of the corpse
With a terrible gasp an gurgle (following this line] (gulp) T1)
Gave twa three moans, heaved a heavy sigh
An then he died in the struggle. del T1
11.1 after So they] As[?] they del T1
287
LARRY SYNDERGAARD (KALAMAZOO, USA)
From Song, to Print, to Translation and Pictures: Rewritings of Three
Scandinavian Traditional Ballads
Е
Abstract: For two centuries the traditional Scandinavian ballads and their translation have had
a special cultural import in the English-speaking world. By paying close attention to the series of
collecting, editing, translation, and illustration rewritings of these ballads we can understand some
of the uses to which we outside of the originating cultures have put the products of those cultures.
Rewritings tend to have cultural agendas, which we need to identify and acknowledge. In the present
paper these include, e.g., the spiritual, nationalism, homophobia, and sexual propriety, among others.
A subsidiary purpose of the paper is to draw attention to illustrations of ballad translations as subjects
overdue for scholarly discourse.
Key words: Medieval ballads, Scandinavian folklore, translation, rewritings, traditional ballads.
ЛЕРІ ЗІНДЕРГААРД (Каламазу, США)
Ф
Від співу, до друку, перекладу та малюнків: переробки трьох
скандинавських традиційних балад.
Резюме: Стаття присвячена особливостям перекладу скандинавських традиційних балад.
Автор використовує теорію перекладу для проведення аналізу Датських, Шведських, Норвежських балад у англомовних країнах.
ІМ
Ключові слова: скандинавський фольклор, переклад, традиційні балади, теорія перекладу, середньовіччя.
The Scandinavian medieval ballads and their translation seem to have a special cultural valence in the English-speaking world. For example, the Danish ballads
comprise arguably the most important Danish literature in translation after Hans
Christian Andersen and Kierkegaard. In the present study I discuss translations and
other rewritings, including illustrations, of a Danish, a Swedish, and a Norwegian
ballad, using concepts from within the complex discipline of Translation Studies.
In my book English Translations of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballads I note
that one segment of Translation Studies «[generally] resists the prevailing normative, source-based, language- and aesthetic-based view of translation scholarship,
with its implicit ‘utopian view of reproducing the original . . . .» (1) It aims to
be descriptive and empirical and to pay attention to the receptor culture and its
ideology, poetics, and cultural politics. The concept I will most emphasize from
this field is rewriting, defined as «any writing that claims to represent» another
writing (2). Rewriting thus includes not only translation but also editing, redaction, and the metatextual, such as introductions and apparatus, and even critical
commentary, because these indeed claim to represent other writings. I also claim
that illustration obviously becomes a graphic form of rewriting.
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From Song, to Print, to Translation and Pictures: Rewritings of Three Scandinavian Traditional Ballads
ІМ
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If we agree that any ballad version has both text and context, then with every
major rewriting, context changes, and the ballad as perceived is significantly different even when the text does not change.
In applying this concept here I offer not a thesis but an analysis of these often
problematic rewriting processes that our predecessors, and also we, inevitably apply to ballads, and some of the agendas they serve. I suggest that one virtue of the
concept is the sense of academic self-awareness it encourages.
My second purpose is to encourage further attention to ballad illustration,
which scholarship so generally ignores (except for the Danish ballads).
For each of the three ballads an appendix provides publication data, a narrative summary, a succession of rewritings, and sections of the text associated with
the illustrations. There is not space to discuss every rewriting, nor all the same
kinds of rewritings, for each ballad.
For generally positive and non-problematic examples of successive rewritings
I first turn to DgF ballad Type 183 «Kvindemorderen» (»The Woman-Murderer»).
This is the Danish representative of the «Heer Halewijn» family, widely known
in northern and central Europe and the British Isles and intensively studied (3).
Our version A appears first in a sixteenth-century manuscript from Danish court
circles, which passes to Karen Brahe. This version also represents five variants in
other ballad manuscripts of the landed aristocracy dating from mid-seventeenth
to mid-eighteenth century (4). These present small variations, and we may call
these five decisions within the same social class to seek and copy this ballad a collective first rewriting.
Its second rewriting is in 1869 in the great edition Danmarks gamle Folkeviser
by Svend Grundtvig, which was to become the model for national scholarly ballad
editions to this day. Grundtvig’s principles for text editing, «All that there is, all as
it is», guarantee that the text is faithful to Karen Brahe’s manuscript. In all other
respects this is an enormous rewriting, from archival dormancy into public life
in one of several major nineteenth-century ballad editions in Scandinavia which
both respond to and create national consciousness. It also becomes no longer a
ballad but one version of a national and international ballad type (5). This is an
abstract concept without which we scholarly folk, as opposed to the creating artists, can hardly deal with or perhaps even conceive of the ballad genre. Grundtvig’s
scholarly, comparative introduction (actually an additional rewriting) now dwarfs
version A and the other texts (6).
Our rewriting three comes in Erik Dal’s Danske Viser: Gamle folkeviser, Skæmt,
Efterklang in 1967 (7). The rewriting of the text itself is only a modernized spelling,
but the context is now transformed. This is a popular edition, and while the text is
essentially unchanged, Dal’s metatext now serves the lay reader, who brings different
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questions and preoccupations to the ballad. Dal’s introduction and notes are models:
judicious, brief distillations of the massive scholarship on the Danish ballads and
this ballad family. (The Rasmussen illustrations are discussed below.)
The fifth rewriting is the English translation of Dal’s book, Danish Ballads and
Folk Songs (1968) (8). The metatext itself is little changed in English, but with readers knowing little of the country and the tradition, the context and their experience
of the ballad are again very different. Henry Meyer’s translation rewriting of the
ballad is evaluated as «Close» in my 1995 guide: it is faithful to the narrative and
largely avoids the rhetorical «enhancement» so common in ballad translation (9).
One limitation is that Meyer’s diction is somewhat prosaic and not «balladesque».
The illustration by Marcel Rasmussen in Dal’s book [p. 29] is our final, graphic rewriting. (Fig. 1) He uses the woodcut, an abstracting medium which “distills” all the
bursting detail of a crisis into a few black and white strokes. The background is as stylized
as the action: all vertical and horizontal strokes. The action epitomizes the core malefemale struggle of the master narrative. In all these respects the illustration seems to me
to capture the condensed, elemental quality, the narrative austerity, of the ballad.
Thus we have inescapable and major changes in such a series of rewritings, but
only in certain aspects of the translation would I wish anything different. Again, I
offer the rewritings in Dal as an exemplum, a standard.
Our Swedish ballad, however, follows a more problematic path. In Västergötland in the 1670s someone recorded Ingierd Gunnarsdotter’s ballad, a version of
what came to be called «Herr Olof och Älvorna» («Sir Olof and the Elves»), SMB
Type 29. This first, fundamental rewriting from fluid tradition into concrete manuscript made its way into the Royal Library (10). For Ingierd we assume this was a
single, intense musical narrative. But in the manuscript, as in the editions that follow,
it is a truncation, a text to be read. On the other hand, Ingierd’s name and «peasant
wife» are recorded, so this ballad has now become a representative of a social class.
The next rewriting of the text is minimal, when it appears in Svenska FolkVisor från Forntiden in 1814 (11). The editors readily redact many texts, but they
leave ours essentially as recorded. In many respects this is the same enormous
«edition» rewriting that we saw for «Kvindemorderen», except that this Swedish
edition lacks the comparative introductions.
Thomas Keightley then chooses our ballad to rewrite in translation for his
Fairy Mythology in 1828 (12). He aims to present material on elves, fairies, nixes,
and all kinds of otherworld beings in folk tradition from throughout Europe and
sometimes beyond, and he is also perhaps intrigued by the erotically dangerous
elf-women in this and in the related ballads that he translates.
In his commentary Keightley rewrites Ingierd’s ballad in interesting ways. For
example, it now represents less a ballad type than a being type, i.e., the Scandinavian
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elves. Printed as one within a series of translated elf narratives, it loses some of its
own powerful identity. This «catalogue of creatures» aspect of the book, however,
makes these ballads serve Keightley’s larger theses. He takes such beings as evidence
of «the ancient religion of Scandinavia, and probably of the whole gotho-Germanic
race» (13). His major sections follow what Richard Dorson calls a «racial geography»:
Scandinavia, France, southern Europe, etc. His interpretive rewriting of the material
suggests that cultural transmission of this «fairy mythology» is from the «primitive
Gotho-Germanic religions» to the «weaker Celtic-Cymric peoples», as Dorson puts
it (14). Here we have come a very long way from Ingierd Gunnarsdotter.
Our ballad is rewritten in a different sense as it follows a remarkable publication
history. Richard Dorson judges that this book and Keightley’s Tales and Popular Fictions (1834) «stand out as the two most mature English studies on comparative folklore in the first half of the century» (15). Dorson is thinking of Keightley’s respect
for oral tradition, his essentially modern standards for collectors and informants, his
faithfulness in translation, his acknowledgment of sources, and the range of those
sources. He comes close to «the modern recognition of motif groups» and is the first
Britisher to undertake real comparative study of the folk materials accumulated in
the first great wave of collecting and publishing (16).
So while Ingierd’s ballad has lost its independence, it is nevertheless more than
an item in a compendium. It participates in the pioneering disciplinary stature of
Keightley’s book. This work has unparalleled longevity: reprint 1833, revised edition in Bohn’s Antiquarian Library in 1850, reprints in 1878, 1880, 1910, and in
1968 by Haskell House in our own wave of scholarly reprinting.
The most recent avatar of Keightley’s work, Avenel Publishers’ 1978 re-issue, now
re-titled World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves, and Other Little People, is the first to
add illustrations. These, as well as the title, rewrite Keightley’s book into, now, a compendium, a sort of field guide to «goblins and sprites», in Alison Lurie’s words (17).
The Richard Doyle picture on the dust-jacket promises cute little beings and gives
no hint of the inimical, full-size creatures in the book. (Fig. 2) The publisher simply
bought some of its illustrations from a picture service, and it sent someone to the New
York Public Library who chose «Dark Elves of Old Scandinavia» for the chapter containing our ballad – certainly without reading it (18). (Fig. 3) One could hardly depart
further from the erotically tempting elf-women of «Herr Olof», and thus this attempt
to cash in on the pop-culture «pixieolatry» of the 1970s directly undercuts the essence
of Ingierd’s ballad. I think we have here a rewritten context that will not let us call this
the same ballad as the same translation in the same book of 150 years earlier.
We do not find anything like such a constant text in the rewritings of NMB
Type 54 «Draumkvæde» («Dream Ballad»), Norway’s best-known ballad. This title
refers only rarely to the reality from tradition: that is, an assemblage of probably
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related texts, only a relative few with real narrative continuity or longer than one to
three stanzas. Usually it refers to one or more heavily reconstructed visionary ballads with powerful narrative movement, from the desks of editors and critics wishing to recover the medieval Catholic past or the ancient pagan past, or both (19).
The diagram in the appendix omits some of this activity and applies only to
the multi-lingual path of rewritings from Telemark in southern Norway to Eleanor Merry’s highly programmatic translation and illustrations in England.
The first rewriting reflects the drive during the earliest stage of outside attention to assemble a coherent ballad from the mainly fragmentary texts sung around
Vinje Parish in Telemark. These compilations by Rector Svenungsen in his attempt
to recover old beliefs about the soul help stimulate more collection and will become the longest existing manuscripts (20).
The second rewriting represents the work of many collectors, especially the
pioneers Magnus Landstad and Olea Crøger. Their work may include coaching
informants, «smoothing», filling-in, and combining lines and stanzas as well as
straight recording. The first two rewritings comprise most of the varied material
collectively known as «Draumkvæde» (21).
Our third rewriting includes the extended study and redaction by the scholar
Moltke Moe. His final, «radical reconstruction» (22) has dominated public perception of «Draumkvæde» to the present and, remarkably, is even the basis for
most scholarly discussions through 1958 (23). In fact, the 1993 reference work
Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia still proposes an ur-form much like Moe’s
ballad (24). Moe’s preliminary reconstruction of 40 stanzas in Lammers, rewriting
four, will become the source, via German, for Eleanor Merry (25).
Moe’s ballads have discrete sections and a climactic narrative movement toward
a judgment of souls. These are impressive and moving ballads that deserve high
praise as creative works, much as we admire Elias Lönnrot for the Finnish Kalevala.
However, reflecting tradition is not really Moe’s concern. He has reconstructed a medievalized ballad called «Draumkvæde», attributing it to memories of the
medieval Vision of Thurcill and similar works (26). Moe’s dominance encourages
most who follow him to medievalize as well.
Two influential rewritings fall outside our direct line. Rudolf Steiner is so taken with
our ballad that he rewrites it in paraphrase translation (based on Møller), and he also rewrites it interpretively in his lectures (27). Steiner is founder of the Anthroposophy movement, which emphasizes the spiritual element in human existence and pre-existence.
Since Eleanor Merry is his disciple, and she translates in part from a German translation
by Anthroposophist Erich Trummler (28), Steiner’s strong influence is implicit when we
discuss her work. That work is Merry’s posthumous Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson containing her two rewritings: her translation and her paintings of ballad scenes (29).
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We see Merry’s conceptual program partly in her introduction and more fully
in another book, Art: Its Occult Basis and Healing Value. Six of her tenets especially apply here:
Our most important existence is supernatural, and all aspects of life are driven
by religion in some sense.
– The materialism and blind science of the last two centuries have separated
us from the spiritual essence.
– In the Middle Ages the immortal essence was better integrated into art and
life, and the ancients were yet more integrated and «whole».
– Art still has the healing capacity to mediate between our quotidian world
and higher realities, and ordinary folk can create such art.
– The dream state especially allows the creation of such art.
– Christianity is the highest religion yet developed (30).
Thus it is no surprise that Moe’s intense Christian dream ballad of an arduous
pilgrimage of the soul, rooted in medieval visions, with hints of more ancient survivals, seemingly from folk tradition, should so engage Merry and Steiner (31).
Merry also holds that colors are primal realities as well as symbols, a view she
derives from Goethe and Steiner.
Merry medievalizes her textual rewriting, for example, by translating gudmor,
the female guide in the vision, not as «godmother» but as «God’s Holy Mother».
She «pre-medievalizes» by making the ferd who sweep in from the north before
the judgment of souls not a «host» but a «hunt», invoking the pre-Christian motif
of Odin and the wild hunt. And she follows her Anthroposophical program in
having St. Michael carry «healing» under his arm, not his trumpet (32).
Merry’s illustrations follow similar tendencies. In choosing to illustrate «The
Gjaller Bridge» which the dreamer must cross, with its dangerous creatures, her visual rewriting emphasizes the pre-Christian: Snorri’s gjallerbrù, a bridge to the underworld in the Prose Edda. (Fig. 4) With color I think she adds a rainbow reference
to bifröst, the Old Norse bridge from Midgard to the world of the gods, with its role
in the Last Days. And under her program the combination of colors would express
the complex of moods: passion and intensity (red), the earthbound containment
from which escaping (green, blue), and movement toward a freeing (yellow) (33).
In the painting of St. Michael I suggest that the nimbus-like motif around him
follows the Anthroposophical program by presenting Michael as a precursor of
Christ. (Fig. 5) (Actually, in most of Moltke Moe’s numerous sources there is no Michael at all, and in only one does he have this climactic, Judgment Day placement.)
In «The Hunt from the North» the black of the horses reflects the power of
death and one side of the Anthroposophic cosmic duality of light and dark. (Fig. 6)
The dreamer’s white horse helps place him on the other side of that duality.
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And Merry’s final pastel illustrates the final, invented stanza of Moltke Moe’s reconstruction: the young and the old listening to Olaf the dreamer. (Fig. 7) It thus visually confirms a concluding scene that the Telemark singers never created or sang.
For these three prominent Scandinavian ballads we have seen, first, a more
complex sequence of rewritings, textual, contextual, and visual, than we may hitherto have perceived or expected. More important, we have seen what limited identity may lie beneath the apparent unity of a single ballad title.
Perhaps I have offered a cautionary tale in this study. The rewriters I discuss have
particular agendas – as do we all. In a sense we all want a piece of this ballad genre. After all, those who create this art do not ask us to collect, edit, publish, translate, re-create, and illustrate it – that is, to rewrite it. We will be wise to stay aware of every agenda,
including our own, as we approach these powerful scripts of human meaning.
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1. Larry Syndergaard, English Translations of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballads:
An Analytical Guide and Bibliography (Turku: Nordic Institute of Folklore, 1995) 45.
2. Andre Lefevere, Translating Literature: Practice and Theory in a Comparative
Literature Context (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1992) 138.
3. Svend Grundtvig, ed. Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, vol. 4 (København: Samfundet til den danske Literaturs Fremme, 1883) 1–43.
4. Grundtvig 32.
5. Most recently classified TSB D411 in the most comprehensive resource,
Bengt R. Jonsson, Svale Solheim and Eva Danielson, eds. The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1978).
6. Grundtvig 1–32.
7. Erik Dal, ed. Danske Viser: Gamle Folkeviser, Skæmt, Efterklang (København: Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1962).
8. Erik Dal, ed. Danish Ballads and Folk Songs, trans. Henry Meyer (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger; New York: American-Scandinavian Foundation,
1967) 127–130.
9. Syndergaard 35–37.
10. Bengt Jonsson and Sven-Bertil Jansson, eds. Sveriges Medeltida Ballader,
vol. 1 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1983) 414. Kungeliga Bibliotek Vs 20 (KB:s
visbok i 4:o), s. 1–3.
11. Er. Gust. Geijer and Arv. Aug. Afzelius, eds. Svenska Folk-visor från Forntiden, 3 vols. (Stockholm: Strinnholm och Häggström, 1814–18) No. 94[:II].
12. Thomas Keightley,: The Fairy Mythology: Illustrative of the Romance and
Superstition of Various Countries, vol. 1 (London: Whittaker, Treacher, 1828)
144–47. Rev. and enl. ed. (London: Bohn’s Antiquarian Library, 1850) 84–86.
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13. Keightley (1850) 60.
14. Richard M. Dorson, The British Folklorists: A History (Chicago: UChicagoP, 1968) 54.
15. Dorson 52.
16. Dorson 54, 57.
17. Alison Lurie, rev. of The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves and Other Little
People, by Thomas Keightley, New York Review of Books No. 3 (8 March 1979) 16.
18. Keightley, World Guide ii.
19. Michael Barnes, Draumkvæde: An Edition and a Study (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1974) 1–53. My discussion of «Draumkvæde» scholarship and textual matters depends on Barnes, the most comprehensive treatment available.
20. Barnes 3.
21. Barnes 3–6.
22. Barnes 12. One accessible source for the Moltke Moe reconstruction is Knut Liestøl and Moltke Moe, eds. Norske Folkeviser, vol. 1 (Christiania: J. Dybwad, 1920) 31–39.
23. Barnes 11–48.
24. Phillip Pulsiano, et al, eds. Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia (New
York: Garland, 1993) 142–43.
25. Thorvald Lammers, 1896 pamphlet cited without title in Barnes 66.
26. Barnes 12–13.
27. Rudolf Steiner, Olof Åsteson (1916), cited in Barnes 68, 255n. For other
venues for the translation see Barnes 255n. For an example of Steiner’s exposition
of the ballad, accessible in English, see his «The birth of the Sun Spirit as the Spirit
of the Earth. The Thirteen Holy Nights», The Festivals and Their Meaning: Christmas, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost, Michaelmas (London: Rudolf Steiner Press,
1955) 52–53. Ingeborg Møller, untitled translation of the preliminary Moe version
in Lammers into German, cited in Barnes 34.
28. Erich Trummler, Traumlied von Olav Aasteson (1927), cited in Barnes 34,
68, 255n.
29. Eleanor Merry, The Dream Song of Olav Åsteson (East Grimstead, England: New Knowledge Books, 1961). Merry, 13 acknowledges Trummler and an
unpublished literal translation from Moe’s Norwegian into English by E. M. SmithDampier as her sources.
30. Eleanor Merry, Art: Its Occult Basis and Healing Value (East Grimstead,
England: New Knowledge Books, 1961) 13, 33–102, 135–37.
31. Merry, Art 94, 103–108, 111–117.
32. Merry, Dream Song stanzas 20, 28, 32 respectively.
33. Merry, Art 105–107, 111–113.
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WILLIAM MccARTHY (STATE COLLEGE, USA)
Ballads and the Bible: an Inquiry
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Abstract: The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) attests to the rich oral tradition of the Hebrew
people. It contains a book of traditional religious song in the Psalms, a book of Proverbs, a book of
origin myths called Genesis, and even a book of heroic tales, Judges. But it does not contain a book of
ballads. It does, nevertheless, include two songs that seem to function as historical ballads, the Song
of Moses (Exodus 15) and the Song of Deborah (Judges 5). In each case the song or ballad seems to
be one of the sources for the preceding prose narrative of events also covered in the song. While these
are the only such songs preserved from Hebrew tradition, it seems unlikely that they were the only
such ever sung. The earlier books of the Bible, concerned as they are (at least in part) with preserving
historical and legendary traditions, are full of tags of song used to amplify the narrative. The prophets
also seem to have known a ballad tradition and to have drawn upon it in interesting ways. The poetry
of the prophets contains images and especially rhetorical figures that echo the imagery and rhetoric of
the Song of Deborah in particular, suggesting that ballad diction was one of the resources that prophets
drew upon in fashioning their utterances. In addition to historical ballads the Old Testament also
attests to a second type of narrative song, the ballad fable. The Book of Judges contains one complete
example of a ballad fable (Judges 9; the fable is about trees rather than animals). Both Ezekiel and
Deutero-Isaiah include oracles that indicate that the fable too was one of the resources prophets might
draw upon in fashioning their poetic utterances.
Key words: ancient Israel, ballad singing, Bible, Hebrew people, Old Testimony.
УІЛьЯМ МАККАРТІ (СТЕЙТ КОЛЕДЖ, США).
ІМ
Балади та Біблія
Резюме: Чи євреї співали балади? Чи був давній Ізраїль нацією співців балад? На перший
погляд здається, що безумовно мав би бути, бо балади один з найбільш популярних фольклорних жанрів будь-якої нації. Але аналіз окремих біблійних текстів вказує на те, що балади в
давньому Ізраїлі не співали. Автор статті шляхом текстологічного аналізу біблійних текстів
(псалмів), а також дитячого єврейського фольклору шукає відповіді на ці питання.
Ключові слова: біблійні тексти, баладні тексти, єврейський фольклор, давній Ізраїль.
Did the Hebrew people sing ballads? Was ancient Israel a ballad-singing nation? Perhaps our first impulse will be to say, of course they did. They must have.
To us, ballad singing seems totally natural, as natural as breathing. The many papers presented over the years at meetings of the Ballad Commission testify that
ballads in the sense of short, intense narrative songs (short, anyway, when compared to epics) are a world-wide phenomenon – one is almost tempted to say a
cultural universal. And indeed what could be more human than the impulse to
create songs to tell about and celebrate the events in one’s history, the successes
and failures of one’s own time, the universal experiences of love and loss, and the
heroines and heroes of one’s tradition. Did ancient Israel sing ballads? Of course,
we may be tempted to answer.
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But the more critical mind might say, оf course not. There is no ballad collection in the Old Testament, slipped in somewhere between the Book of Psalms,
which contains the standard Hebrew hymn collection, and the Song of Songs,
which contains the love songs. Without data we are completely unwarranted in
suggesting that the Hebrews sang ballads.
Granted, there is no Book of Child between the Psalms and the Song of Songs.
Nevertheless, scattered through the Bible and parallel literature there is a certain
amount of data to suggest that the Hebrew children did not lack for songs that
evoked a good story. In particular there are songs that are quite balladic and there
are the necessary poetic resources to support a ballad tradition.
My search for ballad material in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament was
sparked by teaching the book of Judges and the Song of Deborah in that book’s
fifth chapter. Here was a song, sung by a woman as so many ballads have been,
recalling an event in a few graphic scenes, as ballads so often do, composed in
formulaic language, as ballads so often are, set into an explanatory prose narrative context, as ballads so often are, and ending with the wry and ironic motif of
the forlorn woman, the same motif that ends two of the finest Scots ballads, Sir
Patrick Spens and The Bonnie Earl of Murray. Surely it was right to call the Song
of Deborah a ballad. And what I have said of this song I could also say, mutatis
mutandis, of the Song of Moses in the Book of Exodus. These are two of the oldest
pieces of poetry in the Old Testament. And they are certainly ballad-like. But are
they evidence of a ballad tradition otherwise largely lost?
The poetic record left us in the Old Testament is remarkable for its size. We
have fairly substantial poetic records from a number of ancient and powerful civilizations, the Assyrian, the Babylonian, the Egyptian, the Greek, and the Roman.
But unlike these great empire builders, the Hebrews were a tiny set of tribes, usually dominated by, if not always subject to, their more powerful neighbors. Their
finest architectural achievement, the temple of Solomon that they were so proud
of, would have been dwarfed if set beside the great structures of Egypt or Babylon.
Yet from this people have survived thousands and thousands of lines of poetry.
Much of that poetry, thoroughly edited by later hands, is contained in the Hebrew Old Testament, in the Deuterocanonical books, and in the Pseudepigraphal
books. And in the twentieth century yet more has surfaced in the treasures found
at Nag Hammadi and Qumran. For the purposes of this survey I have confined my
search to the Hebrew Old Testament and the Deuterocanonical Books (including
a parallel from Qumran). Although my survey did not uncover any other songs
quite as ballad-like as the Song of Deborah and the Song of Moses, it did reveal
further celebratory poems composed on the occasion of a personal or ethnic victory, as well as a variety of other short poetic narratives, more than thirty songs
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WILLIAM McCARTHY (STATE COLLEGE, USA)
altogether. In addition it revealed a repertoire of poetic resources available to any
ancient Hebrew poets who wished to sing of the exploits of their heroes, their enemies, themselves, and their God. The narrative songs I identified can be divided
into five basic categories:
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I. War Narratives
A. Celebratory Victory Ballad:
Exodus 15: 1–18, The Song of Moses
Judges 5:2–31, The Song of Deborah (cf. Psalms 68, 83)
Judith 16:2–12, The Song of Judith
B. Victory Dialogue:
Isaiah 63: 1–6
C. Catalog of Triumphs:
Psalms 78, 105, 106, 114, 136
(Cf. Psalm 68, Habakkuk 3)
D. Battle Songs:
No unambiguous examples, but following may be examples
Joel 2: 1–11
Nahum 1:15–2:9 (or 10?)
II. Fables
A. Well-developed examples:
Judges 9:8–15, Fable of the Trees.
Isaiah 5: 1–7 (1–10?), Fable of the Vineyard
B. Other less developed examples:
Ezekiel 17:3–10, 22–24; 19:2–9; 31:3–9 (3–14?)
Nahum 2: 11–12
(Cf. Fable-like language in Daniel 4:7 ff)
III. Narratives of the Glories of Yahweh-Elohim:
Psalms 18, 29, 104, 114 (Note esp. Psalm 114)
Habakkuk 3
Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 44:1–50:24 (Let us now praise famous men)
IV. Narratives of Love (All from Song of Songs):
A. Night-visiting, or rather, Dawn-visiting song:
Song of Songs 2: 8–15 (and 5: 1–16)
B. Night search for missing love:
Song of Songs 3: 1–5; 5: 1–16
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C. Dialogue Song:
Song of Songs 1: 7–8; 6: 1–3
D. Description of wedding party:
Song of Songs 3: 6–11 (cf. Isaiah 63: 1–6)
V. More Personal Narratives:
A. Lament:
2 Samuel 1:17 ff, David’s story of himself and Jonathan
Psalm 137, The Rivers of Babylon
B. Narrative of «God’s work in my life»:
Jeremiah 1: 4–10
Psalm 151 a, b
(Perhaps the Song of Judith goes here as well)
Ф
Songs of war and songs of love were to be expected,. But the other categories
all contained surprises. Let me discuss each category in turn.
A. Songs of War
ІМ
I found evidence of four subcategories in this category. The songs in the first, Celebratory Victory Ballads, are what this term suggests. They evoke the events in a few
quick strokes. The mood is intense, almost lyrical. And the ballad is not impersonal like
a Scots ballad. The prime examples are the Song of Deborah and the Song of Moses. The
Song of Judith seems placed in the book of Judith in imitation of these two songs. It is
placed in the mouth of Judith but the «I» of the song is Mother Israel, not Judith. Judith’s
role is expounded in third-person narrative framed by an opening section of praise and
a closing section generalizing on the victory. Because the language is formulaic and the
song is only approximately appropriate to its context, it is possible that the song had
an independent existence prior to being incorporated into the book. But it seems more
likely that it was composed for this position using elements traditional as well as nontraditional. The following triad, for instance, suggests a literary hand:
Her sandal ravished his eyes,
her beauty captivated his mind,
and the sword severed his neck.
(Judith 15:9, RSV)
Perhaps what we have in this piece then is a second-century BCE equivalent
of a literary ballad 1.
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For the second subcategory of war narrative, the victory dialogue , I found
only one example, namely Isaiah 63. In this ballad a watcher spies a stranger coming from afar and asks him why he is red from the ground up. The stranger replies
that he has been trampling upon his enemies like a man trampling grapes, and no
one was there to help him. This powerful piece provides the imagery for stanza
one of Julia Ward Howe’s «Battle Hymn of the Republic»:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.
Triumph songs, the third subcategory, are a more common type, and less
ballad-like. They move through the events of Hebrew legendary history, recalling
each event in a few quick strokes, a few sharp images. Songs in the fourth subcategory, battle songs, describe a whole campaign or a whole attack upon a city.
The examples that survive occur within the writings of prophets. It is unclear to
me, thus far, whether the prophets in these cases include an old song, draw upon
an old song to fashion their message, or compose these pieces for the occasion,
using traditional formulaic language. The prophets use this formulaic language
and concrete battle imagery to describe loss to enemies as well as to describe victory. The following edited extract from Joel 2 (2b–10, NRSV) will serve to give the
flavor of this sort of narrative:
ІМ
Like blackness spread upon the mountains,
a great and powerful army comes;
Fire devours in front of them,
and behind them a flame burns.
Before them the land is like the garden of Eden,
but after them a desolate wilderness.
They have the appearance of horses,
and like war-horses they charge.
As with the rumbling of chariots,
they leap on the tops of the mountains.
Like warriors they charge,
Like soldiers they scale the wall.
Each keeps to its own course,
they do not swerve from their paths.
They leap upon the city,
they run upon the walls;
they climb up into the houses,
they enter through the windows like a thief.
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The earth quakes before them,
the heavens tremble.
The sun and moon are darkened,
and the stars withdraw their shining.
II. Fables in verse
Е
In the context it is not entirely clear whether this poem/song describes a host
of enemies or a host of avenging angels, whether the story is literal or, like the story
of the stranger who tramples his foes like grapes, allegorical or figurative. Though
full-scale narratives like this one from Joel are scarce, many of the prophets, especially Jeremiah and some of the minor prophets, abound in poetic passages which
seem to draw upon this sort of intense narrative and concrete imagery.
Ф
In the book of Judges, chapter 9, Jothan, the last surviving of seventy brothers,
wishes to tell the men of Shechem what a mistake they made in giving kingship to
Abimelech. To convey his message he performs for them the fable of the trees who
choose a king and end up choosing the bramble bush. Isaiah includes at least one
verse fable, about a vineyard, which the context interprets allegorically: Israel is
the vineyard of the Lord. And Ezekiel acts out fables as well as proclaiming them.
ІМ
III. Narratives of the Glories of Yahweh-Elohim
Some of the narratives of the glories of Yahweh-Elohim are very like the catalogs of triumphs mentioned among the songs of war. They are catalogs of great
moments from the legendary history of Israel and Judah. They parade a sequence
of individual heroes or a sequence of – ususally – non-military events. Sirach 44ff
seems to be a literary development of this traditional genre. Psalm 114 differs from
the other examples in that it focuses on one event, the Exodus, using simple poetic imagery. In this psalm the singer evokes the story by addressing the hills and
mountains, the river and sea, asking them why they reeled before the face of God,
but assuring them that they did right to do so.
IV. Narratives of Love
All the examples of love narratives that I found come from the Song of Songs.
We can be fairly certain that the Song of Songs, like the book of Psalms, is a collection of distinct items. Because of the way it was edited long ago, however, it is not
always possible to tell where one item ends and another begins. Not all the poems
in the Song of Songs are narrative, but among those that are, I could distinguish
four categories or themes, not all unique to the Song of Songs. Ballads with a nightvisiting theme, in fact, are common throughout the world. But those in The Song of
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Songs are still somewhat different. The song in chapter 2 is rather a dawn-visiting
song, with the lover coming to bring the beloved out into the spring countryside.
Chapter 5 begins like a more conventional night-visiting song, with the lover seeking entrance to the chamber where the beloved is already abed. But when the girl
gets up to let him in, the beloved is no longer at the window and the song segues
then into a second sort of story, one of the night search for the missing lover. There
is another night-search narrative in chapter 3. Ballads in which lovers converse are
also common world-wide. There are at least two clear examples of this type of song
in The Song of Songs. And the fourth theme I have identified is the description
of the wedding party. This song, like the song in Isaiah 63, begins, «Who is this
that . . .» It goes on to describe the groom and his entourage, as that song from Isaiah
goes on to describe the violent stranger and his bloody accoutrements.
V. More Personal Narrative Songs.
ІМ
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Both sub-categories of this category surprised me. The first sub-category is
narrative laments. I was at first reluctant to call David’s lament for Saul and Jonathan a narrative. Events are alluded to and evoked, rather than presented dramatically. But then I thought of «The Bonnie Earl of Murray», that also offers praises
and evokes events in much the same way. I think we can be reasonably certain that
what we call David’s lament was a traditional song whose purpose was to recall
and commemorate the events it alludes to.
Psalm 137, «By the Rivers of Babylon», contains action that expresses the
mood of the song, namely lament for the old country in a land of exile. Like Psalm
114 it occupies a unique position among the psalms.
The second sub-category includes personal narratives of how God has blessed
the supposed speaker of the song. There are many psalms that express this sentiment, but usually they do not narrate the events, they simply praise God for His
goodness. The book of Jeremiah, however, begins with a verse account of the call
of the prophet. Jonah’s song in chapter 2 may also belong to this category.
In some ways the most startling item in this whole list, however, is the last
one: Psalm 151. This psalm is found in all Orthodox bibles after the book of
Psalms. The psalm survives in Hebrew in a remarkably well preserved copy from
Qumran, A number of variants are extant in several ancient languages, including Syriac, Greek, and Latin (probably dependent on the Greek). The present
psalm is probably a conflation of a song describing the anointing of David and
a fragment of one describing the slaying of Goliath. These seem to be rather late
items, deriving from the third century BCE or later. That means that they derive
from a period of intense explicitly literary activity in the Jewish world, a period
in which authors composed freely in the name of biblical heroes. That Psalm 151
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varied so much and attained such currency in several languages, suggests that it
was a popular item.
Let me present my somewhat reconstructive text, based principally upon the
Hebrew 3:
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I was smaller than my brothers,
the least among the sons of my father.
He appointed me shepherd to his flock,
and ruler over his goat-kids.
My hands fashioned a flute, and my fingers a lyre,
and I glorified the Lord: I said to myself:
The mountains cannot bear witness to Him,
nor the hills declare (His glory);
The trees have reckoned my words,
and the flock my deeds.
But who can declare and who can express
and who can number the deeds of the Lord?
Everything God has seen,
everything He has heard and understood.
He sent His prophet to anoint me,
Samuel to magnify me.
My brothers went out to meet him,
handsome in form and appearance,
Although tall in height and comely of hair,
them the Lord God did not choose.
He sent and took me from following the flock
and anointed me with the holy oil.
He appointed me to be a prince for His people,
a ruler over the members of His covenant.
This is apparently one of several similar texts. In these texts a writer creates a
song in which the hero David speaks and tells of his deeds. The present text tells
of his anointing by Samuel and his preferment before all his brothers. Other texts,
now surviving only in fragments, told of David’s exploits against wild animals
that threatened his sheep and of his fight against Goliath. The piece was created
in writing and widely circulated in writing. In other words, we have here a 2300year-old equivalent of a broadside ballad. And it exhibits some traits found in later
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broadside ballads. The first-person narrator is a common feature of such ballads.
The appropriate emotional response is spelled out quite explicitly. And the diction,
though related to traditional diction, is somehow very different: no one would
ever mistake this psalm, for instance, for one of the classic 150.
This set of narratives and of intense lyrics evoking narrative suggests that perhaps the Hebrew tribes of Old Testament times did have an active song tradition
that we might reasonably call balladic.
A second way to address the question of a ballad tradition in the Old Testament is to see if we can find a repertoire of poetic resources apt or suitable for ballad composition. I suggest that if we examine the poetic resources found in these
five types of poetic narratives we will find that Hebrews oral tradition contained
much that could support a ballad tradition.
The first requirement for a ballad tradition is an appropriate medium. In the
Northern European countries this medium was typically the rhymed couplet or
ballad stanza, though in time other stanza forms also were used. In Spain the form
was the laisse, a stanza of arbitrary length, capable of expansion to tell the entire
story, and characterized by a single rhyme-like assonance at the end of every line.
In Hebrew poetry the basic unit seems to be the parallel couplet: two lines of more
or less equal length in which the second in some way echoes the first 2. The passage
from Joel given above can serve to demonstrate.
Frequently these couplets go in pairs, as in this example, to make something
very like a stanza.
Fire devours in front of them,
and behind them a flame burns.
Before them the land is like the garden of Eden,
but after them a desolate wilderness.
They have the appearance of horses,
and like war-horses they charge.
As with the rumbling of chariots,
they leap on the tops of the mountains.
This medium of echoing or parallel couplets is in some ways like
the verse form used by the Karelian Kalevala poets to create their
narrative songs.
In addition to a poetic medium one also needs a vocabulary of formulaic language. No one who reads the Hebrew Bible, even in the modern translations that
try to cover over the formulaic quality of the language, can doubt that Hebrew
304
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poetry is highly formulaic. Some psalms, in fact, are so formulaic that scholars
call them anthological psalms. The thought behind this terminology is that such
psalms as Psalms 116, 118, and 135 are an anthology of phrases from other psalms.
Might we not better say that they are simply more completely formulaic than other
psalms, that they have a higher formulaic density.
Within this formulaic language the narrative poet needs formulas apt for the
type of story he or she seeks to tell. Certainly, as we have already suggested, Hebrew
poetry has a rich repertoire of concise and dramatic images to describe battle. Again,
the passage from Joel 2, above, provides an example. Hebrew poetry can evoke the
mustering of the tribes, the gathering of the army, the onslaught, combat, chariots
and spears, the breaching of a city wall, the wailing of women, rape and slaughter,
dashing of children’s heads against the stones, and the weary anxiety of the women
left at home. This vivid and concise repertoire of images must be distinguished from
a parallel set of more abstract and vague biblical images of war, not really apt for ballad singing. For instance, in Psalm 89 the singer says to God:
ІМ
You have broken through [Israel’s] walls,
you have laid his strongholds in ruins.
All who pass by plunder him. . .
You have made all his enemies rejoice.
Moreover, you have turned back the edge of his sword,
and you have not supported him in battle.
This vaguer, more general language is also poetic, and is also talking about
war, but it is not suitable for a ballad. The Old Testament, however, contains a
rich array of concrete and concise language like that in the passage from Joel 2.
Jeremiah 46 to 51, for example, is replete with it.
Prepare buckler and shield,
and advance for battle!
Harness the horses,
mount the steeds!
Take your stations with your helmets,
whet your lances,
put on your coats of mail.
(Jeremiah 46:3–4, NRSV)
One runner runs to meet another,
305
and one messenger to meet another,
to tell the king of Babylon
that his city is taken from end to end.
(Jeremiah 51:31, NRSV)
Ф
Е
The formulaic vocabulary of ballads often contains standard incipits, standard
ways of beginning ballads. In our sample we have encountered two such beginnings: «Who is this that –» and «Let me sing about –». «Who is this that –» begins
four songs that have survived: Isaiah 63:1, The Song of Songs 3:6, The Song of
Songs 8:5, and Jeremiah 46:7. I suspect that Jeremiah’s ubiquitous «Declare . . and
proclaim» is another such opening formula.
Love is the other great ballad theme, after war, and the Song of Songs demonstrates that ancient Israel’s poetic tradition had an equally vivid, concise, and
concrete poetic vocabulary of love. Ballads often narrate by creating scenes in which characters converse, sometimes without benefit of «he said» and «she said». This same convention is found in
Hebrew poetry. For example, the song from Isaiah 63 creates a single scene between
the watcher and the stranger. The whole song is dialogue. Let me summarize:
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«Who is this that comes from Edom?»
«It is I, announcing vindication».
«Why are your robes red?»
«I have trodden the wine press alone».
In the Song of Songs we have dialogues such as the following
(1:7–8), again abbreviated:
«Tell me, you whom my soul loves,
Where do you pasture your flocks?»
«If you do not know,
O fairest among women,
follow the tracks of the flock».
And the psalms are full of such shifts of speaker – confusing shifts for the
unwary reader.
Appropriate ballad themes, concrete diction, formulaic language, techniques
for getting underway, and techniques for developing scenes: It would seem, then,
that Hebrew oral tradition had the resources it needed to create a ballad tradition.
But when we examine this repertoire of poetic resources we also find some sur306
prising absences. Epithets, for instance, are not so common. God receives many
epithets, but human figures and other narrative elements attract few epithets. Extended repetitions are also uncommon – stories are not developed by that incremental repetition that we have come to look for in ballads. And most surprising
of all, the songs are about events, but not really about characters. Even David’s
lament over Saul and Jonathan does not give us any vivid characterization of Jonathan or present him in vivid action. Of the approximately thirty couplets of the
lament, the following lines describe Jonathan:
Е
From the blood of the slain
from the fat of the mighty,
the bow of Jonathan turned not back
and the sword of Saul returned not empty.
Ф
Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely!
In life and death they were not divided;
they were swifter than eagles,
they were stronger than lions.
ІМ
. . .
Jonathan lies slain upon thy high places.
I am distressed for you, my brother, Jonathan;
very pleasant have you been to me;
your love to me was wonderful,
passing the love of women.
(2 Samuel 1:22–23, 25–26, RSV)
From this it is clear that David loved his friend and his friend is dead. But
what his friend actually did besides shoot a bow is not here indicated. Jonathan
does not emerge from this song as a true character, however well he may be characterized elsewhere in the bible.
In the narrative songs of the Old Testament, then, events are describe, evoked,
celebrated, or mourned, but characters do not emerge. In fact, the only named
character in a song may be Yahweh. The very early Jael with her mallet and tent
peg in the Song of Deborah and the very late and probably literary Judith are the
exceptions, not the rule. This lack of vivid characters is most serious. It is hard
307
to speak of a ballad tradition without those vivid lovers and fighters we know
from so many ballad traditions. And it is this lack that makes me most hesitant
to say, unambiguously, that Israel had a true ballad tradition. It certainly created
narrative poetry and put it to the service of praise, thanksgiving, celebration, lament, and memorial. Like ballad singers everywhere, it sang of love and war. But
it fashioned from this poetry no Barbara Allen, no Sire Halewijn, no Abanemar,
no Bondarivna, none, at least, that has survived. Can we say then that Israel sang
ballads? Alas, I do not know.
Notes
ІМ
Ф
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The poetry in chapter 16 of Judith runs through verse 17. I am here taking
2–12 as a separate, complete narrative song. It seems to me that verse 13, beginning «I will sing to my God a new song», initiates a second song, quite different
in approach. Not all critics agree. Luis Alonso-Schökel, for instance, writing in
the Harper’s Bible Commentary (James L. Mays, gen. ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1988), for example, sees 2–12 and 13–17 as two parts of a single
poem with a «parallelism between historical action and cosmic action [that] is
traditional» and a «unifying dynamism» (814).
2 Variations are also possible – three lines, for example, or even single lines.
The literature on Hebrew poetry and in particular on parallelism is vast and growing . Interest in the subject received a special impetus from the publication of
Albert Lord’s The Singer of Tales (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960)
and the subsequent controversy over the so-called oral-formulaic theory. An
early contribution was Robert C. Culley’s Oral Formulaic Language in the Biblical Psalms (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967), which, however, focused
on formulaic lines rather than on parallelism. James L. Kugel’s The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and its History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981)
has proved somewhat controversial, especially for his denial of meter in Hebrew
poetry. Since then almost every aspect of Hebrew verse has attracted its monographist, and more comprehensive works too have not been lacking. For a review of
research to date a good place to begin is with the work of Wilfred G. E. Watson,
whose Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to its Techniques has recently appeared in
a second edition (London: T and T Clark, 2005).
3
This text is an amalgam based on available English translations.
1 308
Table of Contents
SABINE WIENKER-PIEPHO (GERMANY)
Introductory Notes ............................................................................................................... 3
Е
WILLIAM MccARTHY ( STATE COLLEGE, USA)
The Ballad Commission Meets in Kyiv............................................................................. 9
Ф
HANNA SKRYPNYK (KYIV, UKRAINE)
Preface....................................................................................................................................11
HANS KUHN (CAMBELL, AUSTRALIA)
A country goes to war, singing: Denmark in 1848.... ..................................................20
ANNE CAUFRIEZ (BRUSSELS, BELGIUM)
La ballade portugaise et ses prolongements au Brésil.....................................................27
ІМ
ALEXANDER MOROZOV, TATYANA MOROZOVA (MINSK, BELARUS)
Mental Characteristics of Belarusian Folk Ballads ..........................................................35
Olga Scharaja (Minsk, belarus)
Erscheinungsbesonderheiten des Abstammungsbewußtseins in Balladen .................40
Crossing Genre Boundaries (Examples from Bulgarian Ballads) .................................48
Ukrainian Ballads about the Loss of Virginity and Out-of-Wedlock Pregnancy .......61
Cultures in the Plot of the Mediterranean Ballad About the Noble Shepherdess .......81
ECKHARD JOHN (FREIBURG, GERMANY)
Das Lied als historisches Gedächtnis................................................................................94
309
The Ballad of Heartless Mother: The Origins
of the Ballad and its Variations in Eurasia......................................................................110
Folk Songs as Ritual Innovation of the Funeral Ceremony..........................................119
The Folk Singing Situation in Samogitia (Western Lithuania) Today.........................127
Е
Ballade in der modernen polnischen Lyrik – Tradition und Modernität .................134
Ф
J. J. DIAS MARQUES ARQUES (FARO, PORTUGAL)
The Oral Ballad as a Model for Written Poetry in the Portuguese
Romantic Movement: The Case of Garrett’s Adozinda ................................................145
Trois soeurs parties pour cueillir des fleurs et
Le prêtre de Piatra..............................................................................................................160
ІМ
MARJETKA GOLEŽ-KAUČIČ (Ljubliana, slovenia)
The Orpheus myth and the Slovenian folk ballad
‘Godec pred peklom’ (‘The Musician at Hell’s Gate’) ...................................................171
Some Mythological Elements in Turkish Folk Songs ...................................................185
The Dead Fiancé Returns: A Traditional Plot in the Ukrainian
Oral Prose and Ballad Traditions.....................................................................................209
Ballads in the folklore of Ukrainian calendar customs ..............................................218
The Ethnic Stranger in Ukrainian Ballads of the Sister-the-Poisoner Motif ...........222
Balladic Images in Nineteenth Century Piano Music .................................................234
310
LARYSA VAKHNINA (KYIV, UKRAINE)
Polish folklore in Ukraine ..............................................................................................238
Particularités de la traduction des ballades françaises et ukrainiennes ..................248
KATHERINE CAMPBELL (EDINBURG, SCOTLAND, uk)
Exploring Christie’s musical choices in Traditional Ballad Airs .................................257
Е
FRANCES J. FISCHER (EDINBURG, SCOTLAND, UK)
Roland’s Journey to Faroe: The “Chanson de Roland” as a Faroese Ballad...............264
DAVID ATKINSON (LONDON, ENGLAND, UK)
What did the people all say? Ballad editing and the problem of punctuation ..........272
Ф
From Song, to Print, to Translation and Pictures: Rewritings
of Three Scandinavian Traditional Ballads ....................................................................288
ІМ
WILLIAM MccARTHY ( STATE COLLEGE, USA)
Ballads and the Bible: an Inquiry ....................................................................................296
311
НАУКОВЕ ВИДАННЯ
35 Міжнародна
Баладна Конференція SIEF
Е
Доповіді та матеріали
(6–11 липня, 2005 р. Київ, Україна)
Ф
35th International
Ballad Conference SIEF
Papers and Materials
(2005, july 6–11, KYIV, UKRAINE)
ІМ
Рекомендовано до друку вченою радою Інститут мистецтвознавства, фольклористики та етнології ім. М. Т. Рильського
Компютерний набір: М. Карацуба, О. Ковтун, Ю. Мазепова
Верстка: В. Жигун
Художнє оформлення: Т. тарадай
Підписано до друку 07.07.2009
Формат 60х84/16
Зам 996
Ум. друк. арк. 18,
Обл.-вид. арк. 17.6
тираж 300
ТОВ друкарня “Бізнес-поліграф”

ІМ ФЕ

Transcription

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