UKRAINIAN FOLKLORE

UKRAINIAN FOLKLORE of the Republic of Bashkortostan is represented by a variety of clands, genres and forms. It includes fairytales (about everyday life, magic or animals), lore, legends, historical short stories, bylichkas, minor (aphoristic) genres. The majority of fairytales and songs were created in the historical homeland, they are preserved in Bashkortostan as a result of traditional conservation in a multi-ethnical environment; e.g., historical songs about fighting with the Turks, about heroes of the Zaporozhye Sech and national-liberation movement of 1648–54, Polish oppression (“Bayda”, “About Morozenko” “About Perebiynos”). Bashkortostan U.f. has a wide range of songs and romances about love, family-household, lyrical ballads of social-household, family-household, love of nature. Up to the 1990’s it was possible to register kolyadkas (including religious), vesnyankas as well as songs timed to New Year, Christmas, Epiphany, Maslenitsa and other holidays from calendar-ceremonial folklore. There are ceremonial, giving-a-name, everyday (joke-songs) songs preserved in wedding-ceremonial folklore. Funeral-commemoration ceremony includes lamentations, adages, spiritual anthems, prayers. Living in a multi-ethnic region resulted in borrowing folklore of foreign ethnicities, firstly Russian folklore, which was remade in a number of cases (local plots, Russian lexis and other elements were inserted). Some Ukrainians sing Bashkir, Tatar, Mordovian and other songs. At the same time, Ukrainian songs became a mark of Bashkortostan peoples.

U.f. has been collected in Bashkortostan since 1930’s. Ukrainian ethnic songs were collected during folklore expeditions by N.P. Kolpakova, E.V. Pomerantseva, M.Y. Beregovskiy, V.S. Ilyin, P.S. Lysenko, M.M. Plisetskiy, etc. U.f. was collected by Bashkir state university (headed by L.G. Barag, L.I. Bryantseva) and SSPI (I.Y. Karpukhin) in the 1960–90’s. Wedding ceremonies of the Ukrainians were studied by V.Y. Babenko, their interaction with Russian wedding folklore was studied by Bryantseva, folklore songs – by F.G. Galieva. Ukrainian songs are systematized and published in the “Folklore songs of Ukrainian migrants to Bashkortostan” collection (1995), “Завези од мене поклон в Украiну…: фольклор украiнцiв Башкортостану” (1999). There are folklore collections in the republic: “Kobzar”, “Barvinok” (Sterlitamak), “Red Kalina” (Sanzharovka village, Chishminskiy district), “Dnipro” (Meleuz), “Charivnitsy” (Kazanka village, Alsheyevskiy district), “Khutorok” (Yazykovo village, Blagovarskiy district), “Verbichenka” (Antonovka village, Meleuzovskiy district), “Zoryaniy svit” (Zolotonoshka village, Sterlitamakskiy district), etc.

F.G.Galieva