Traces of Cultural Relations of Peoples of Eastern Europe in Music
If we speak about cultural relations particularly in music, it should be noted that borrowing in the field takes place very easily and spread quickly over a large area, because the music is connected with specific objects, the use of which is not too difficult for people endowed with an ear for music and a desire to show their talent.
The first musical instruments occurred on the basis of targeted modernization of household goods and tools. For example, using a bow like a musical instrument was initiated when it was noticed that stretched bowstring may make a listenable sound, and hollow pots, in certain cases, may enhance a sound driving resonance with it. Besides tapping the empty bowl also makes it possible to obtain pleasant sounds.
We find the oldest elementary music terminology at the ancient Bulgars, a people of Turkish origin, living wide expanses of Ukraine, and for some time known in history as the Scythians. For several centuries, the Scythians were in close contact with the ancestors of the Hungarians, which we here call the Magyars. Their homeland was in the south of the common Finno-Ugric territory bounded by the Volga and the Don Rivers. In the days of yore, the Magyars were neighbors of the ancestors of the Mari. Between these nations existed language and cultural exchange, including music, as can be seen below. Now many known names of musical instruments have one source of origin in the Bulgarish language, which has a continuation in the modern Chuvash. Of course, the first musical instrument of the Bulgars, whose name in izmenennіh forms spread in many nations, is very different from many of its later modifications.
Just the names of the bandura and mandolin, as well as many other musical instruments go back to one source. Relation of these names has no doubt, but it is not clear where and why bandura turned into a mandola, a smaller model which was the mandolin. Thus the word "bandura" is primary, and its origin is associated with the Lat pandura and Gr. πανδουρα "cittern" and its source are looked for in Lydia. (VASMER MAX. 1964. Volume 1, p. 120). Obviously not found, as the roots of words are in the language of the ancient Bulgars, as it is evidenced by Chuv. păntăr-păntăr – imitation of strumming strings, păntărtat – 1. to strum, produce strumming sounds (of a stringed instrument), 2. pop, rattle (on drums) and like. What Chuvash words have a more common sense, means that the stringed musical instrument was borrowed by Indo-Europeans (Greeks and / or Italians) from Bulgars, and not vice versa. At the same time, they also borrowed its name. This happened about four thousand years ago when the Bulgars from their ancestral home in the Lower Dniester switched on the Right Bank of Ukraine and came into contact with the Indo-European tribes (see the section Türks as Carriers of the Corded Ware Cultures ).
At left A Scythian musician on Sakhnovska plate
The Scythians-Bulgars held music in high esteem, as evidenced by the image of the musician on the so-called Sakhnovska plate, which is part of the headdress, and finding remnants of musical instruments during archaeological excavations.
There is scant historical evidence that the Scythians had their own five-string musical instrument. This information, analysis of Sakhnovsky musician's posture and musical instrument in his hands, its comparison with the ancient and modern folk ones allow restoration of the appearance of the instrument (see. on the right). Inherent design features have numerous counterparts in the Eastern tradition, so they can not be imported (OLIZNZK O.G.. 2004: 42. Fig. 2).
The peoples of the Caucasus have names for musical instruments like the Latin word pandura [(Osset. fændyr "violin", "balalaika", "accordion", "lira", Georg. panduri (ფანდური) "stringed musical instrument similar to a lute"and others], but the source of the borrowing, just as words bandura, difficult to define. Musical instruments with a similar name – Fr. tambourin (long drum), Tat. dumbra "balalaika", Cr.Tat. dambura "guitar", Tur. tambura "guitar", Kazakh. dombra (a type of balalaika), Mong. dombura are used by many Asian and European peoples. It is believed that their names have Arab origin (Ar. tanbūr "stringed musical instrument"). However Chuv. tĕmpĕr-tĕmpĕr "imitation of drumbeat", tĕmpĕrtet "to rattle" (of drum) cast doubt on this, since the similarity of words păntăr and tĕmpĕr speaks to their common Türkic origin.Одновременно ими было позаимствовано также его название. Это произошло приблизительно четыре тысячелетия назад, когда булгары со своей прародины в низовьях Днестра перешли на Правобережную Украины и вступили в контакт с индоевропейскими племенами (об этом см. раздел Тюрки как носители культур шнуровой керамики).
As can be seen from the above examples, the spread of musical instruments and their names are complex and varied. Now, we limit ourselves to the subject of the influence on the musical culture of the people through the substrate. Let's begin the conversation with a narrow topic of similarity Ukrainian "kolomiyka" and Chuvash folk songs. Note that the basis of the kolomiyka is the rhythm of fast dance, accompanied by singing, shouting, and foot stamping. They have a certain resemblance to the Russian "chastushka" (a ditty), but according to experts, "there is no reason to assume that chastushka and the kolomiyka have any genetic link» (GOSHOVSKIY V. 1971: 178). The searching similarity of the kolomiyka in Chuvash songs is complicated by the fact that music theory still has no formal features that could help to find commonality in musical creativity of different nations, and in particular in the similarity of melodies. The reason lies in the complexity of the study of folk music and just in the establishment of its features mood-building on which one can build a comparison of melodies of folk songs. Give the floor to experts:
We should honestly admit that today the problem of mood-building remains unsolved. Unsolved because – from our perspective – the question itself was repeatedly methodologically incorrect (RUBTSOV F.A. 1973-1: 80)
Melody is one of the most important musical events. However, its studying has been much less developed than other parts of music theory (PAPUSH M. 1973: 135).
From the time of this writing, it took several decades, but the situation has not changed. It seems that after the first attempts to find patterns of mood-building musicologists have recognized the complexity of the problem and now they just do not come to it radical solution. Words known theorist that "musical folklore has no knowledge system, and represents the sum of observations" (RUBTSOV F.A. 1973-2: 10) stay in much so actual, as at the beginning of the last century when musicologists bolder than now, took up the study of folk music, relying more on their own subjective perception of folk tunes, despite the understanding of the unreliability of intuitive inference.
Nevertheless, we can trace some progress in musicology by comparing Carpathian and Hungarian music, as it will be shown below, is also relevant to our topic.
In the 30s of the last century Hungarian composer and musicologist Bela Bartok drew attention to the following fact:
For western Ukrainian folk dance music is the most common so-called kolomiyka… So-called shepherds' Hungarian song material is compared with the Ukrainian kolomiyka and is their more or less modified forms. There are in Hungarian folklore about 30 groups of variants of these songs. Compared with all musical material, they are quite a small amount, so that the influence of the Ukrainian kolomiyka cannot be considered significant (BARTOK BELA. 1966: 27).
While Bela Bartok based on an analysis of assembly Ukrainian songs of F. Kolessa, notes borrowing New-Hungarian sufficiently large number of songs by both Ukrainians and Slovaks. He gives several explanations for this fact, including "a predisposition, spiritual kinship between the inhabitants of the Hungarian villages, on the one hand, and, on the other hand – Slovakian and Ukrainian ones" (Ibid, 29). This fact contrasts with the fact that no connection was between the Hungarian and German (Austrian) music, though the influence of German music on the Czech and Slovak especially was very great. The development path of Hungarian music was by Bela Bartok intuitively defined as follows:
The Ukrainian kolomiyka → Hungarian shepherd song → recruit music → New-Hungarian folk song (Ibid, 29).
As you can see, B. Bartok gave a special role for recruit music that looks a little strange, but it can be explained by the fact that an intensive cultural exchange between soldiers of different nationalities in the multinational Austro-Hungarian state was while serving in the Army. And here is especially important to note that the Ukrainians and Slovaks borrowed only New-Hungarian music, which Ukrainian musicologist, agreeing with Bartok, gives this explanation:
Obviously for mastering the ancient Hungarian pentatonic style, nor Ukrainians and Slovaks had no appropriate basis i.e. those "opposing waves" which would facilitate its adaptation (PRAVDIUK O.A. 1982: 78).
Here we are getting closer to the subject of comparison Ukrainian and Chuvash folklore music. The fact that the Hungarian folk music, as well as the music of many Finno-Ugric and Turkic peoples from the Volga to China, is built on the pentatonic scale, i.e. on a diatonic scale, consisting of five basic tones, while the music of European people had such tones seven. Thus, we have one major trait that unites the Chuvash and Hungarian music, but we can assume that the once pentatonic was characteristic also of Ukrainian music. Observation of Bela Bartok eventually was clarified by another famous Hungarian composer and musicologist of 20th cen. Zoltan Kodaly. Initially, he drew attention to the striking and unexpected fact of certain similarities of a deep reservoir of Hungarian folk music with song material of Mari and Chuvash people, in proof of that he gave musical notations of Hungarian, Mari, and Chuvash songs (KODALY ZOLTAN. 1961). While he notes in one place that a Chuvash version of one of the test melodies is more archaic than Mari and Hungarian ones though certain melodic ends prevail in the Chuvash material (KODALY ZOLTAN. 1961: 49). Just the Chuvash option allowed assuming the presence of pentatonic melodies n the Hungarian. Based on the results of studies Hungarian composer draws the following conclusion:
Already today we can assume that the form of Hungarian folk music, coinciding with Mari and Chuvash material, is likely an influence of the Bulgars, which obliged the Hungarian language about two hundred loanwords (Ibid: 61).
However, that's not all. Zoltan Kodaly also found a similarity between the Ukrainian kolomiyka and Mari folk songs through the Hungarian "shepherds' songs", which more accurately describes as "songs swineherds":
Latest Mari materials offer the meantime a new starting point for deciding on the form of "Hungarian kolomiyka". Until now, we, along with Bartok believed that the Hungarian type of "swineherd dance"… descended from a common Carpathian Ukraine form of the kolomiyka. However Mari material presents in large quantities as examples for smaller (Carpathian) and for larger (Hungarian) forms of this type (Ibid: 94).
Further analysis of melodies of these three peoples leads Zoltan Kodaly to the conclusion of insolvency made an earlier assumption "that Carpathian example is the original, and Hungarian one is a borrowed form" (Ibid: 94). Without going into the intricacies of analysis of the musicologist, we can only treat with attention to his words that the Ukrainian melody is a "faded reflection of Hungarian songs." Z. Kodaly says not a word about similarity analyzed melodies to Chuvash one, but in one of the places of his work complains that most part of the Chuvash music still has not been studied, although, as already mentioned, often cites examples of similarity Chuvash and Mari folk music. Taking into account the fact that the Hungarians in their ancestral home were neighbors of Mari in very old times and the fact that no similarity to Hungarian music has not been found in the music of other Finno-Ugric peoples, it can be assumed that in some time Mari, just like the Hungarians, borrowed the melodies from a single source – from the ancient Bulgars. As we can see, the problems are very complex and require extensive research what was understood by Zoltan Kodaly:
To solve this problem it would be necessary, on the one hand, thoroughly investigate all the instrumental and vocal folk music of Eastern Europe, on the other hand, to investigate the possibility Carpathian-Mari touch. It is also natural to further assume Carpathian origin of melodies of another type – not forming fifths structure and having a syllabic structure (Ibid: 95).
An Ukrainian musicologist Volodymyr Goshovskiy tried to refute Zoltan Kodaly's conclusion. He studied a lot of folk music and on the basis of his research wrote a solid monograph "At the root of Slavic folk music". About the kolomiyka he wrote the following:
Kolomiykas are the result of specific "kolomiyic" musical-poetic thinking of people, they are present where a carrier of this thinking lives and together with him he migrates. Kolomiyka as a certain style cannot be borrowed (GOSHOVSKIY V. 1971: 163).
What the kolomiyka did not become general Ukrainian heritage, ie it was not borrowed by the bulk of Ukrainians, and is characteristic only for residents of the Carpathian region may indeed correspond to a different specific spiritual community of Carpathian Ukrainians (Huzuls, Boykos, and Lemkos). Recall that B. Bartok spoke of some spiritual kinship residents of Carpathian, Slovaks, and Hungarian villages. However, Goshovskiy obviously denied such community and found his own explanation of similarities between the kolomiyka and Hungarian "swineherd songs" His conclusions were briefly formulated by another Ukrainian musicologist
he (Goshovskiy – V.S.) specified Bartok's thought about the influence of Carpathian the kolomiyka on New-Hungarian song and found out that the reason for this effect was not the individual songs of swineherds, which carriers were mostly of Transcarpathian origin, but the mass migration of peasants from the Carpathians to Hungary after the defeat of the uprising under the leadership of Rákóczi. (MADIAR-NOVAK VIRA 2006: 123).
This explanation deserves attention but does not clarify the reason for the similarity of the kolomiyka and Mari songs. Taking into account the presence of the ancient Bulgars in the Carpathians, as it is evidenced by numerous Carpathian place names, we can assume that the formation of the folk culture of the modern population of Ukrainian Carpathians occurred by participating ancient Bulgars, who stayed in these places after the departure of the bulk of their relatives in the steppes of Ukraine at Scythian time. Despite the fact that in the future Carpathian Ukrainians suffer from some cultural influence of migrants from Moldavia and Wallachia, they still kept Bulgarish musical legacy. The Mari also borrowed Bulgarish tunes already later when another part of the Bulgars moved from the Azov region to the Middle Volga banks.
Other facts can be found in support of this assumption, though they also require targeted analysis of specialists. For example, as well as Ukrainians, Chuvash prefer choral, polyphonic but not solo singing, how they differ from related Turkic and neighboring Finno-Ugric peoples, which are characterized, according to experts, solo monody of one voice (PRAVDIUK O.A. 1982: 76.) It may be noted also that male Chuvash dances, as well as Ukrainian ones, have such elements as jumping and squats.
