CHUVASH FOLKLORE

CHUVASH FOLKLORE in the Republic of Bashkortostan is represented by diverse genres (excluding epic). A great part of the collected materials is fairytales (about magic, heroes, everyday life, animals). Legends, historical lore, riddles, proverbs and idioms are widely presented. Folklore song set is diverse: there are labor, wedding, commemoration, recruit, guest, historical, love, round dance, game, joke songs, ballads, etc. Chastushkas are very important for C.f., they are sung mostly as a solo. Duets and choirs are developing mostly under the influence of Russian, Mordovian, Ukrainian musical folklore, etc. C.f. preserve many archaic musical folklore phenomena which do not exist in Chuvashia anymore, e.g., ceremonial sets; highlighted pre-Christian (pagan) plot motifs frequently repeated in ceremonial songs, etc. The peculiarity of C.f. is widely presented in songs-bayts (sak-suk), which appeared under Bashkir folklore and Tatar folklore impact. Dancing is an integral part of ethnic art. The songs and dances were accompanied by musical instruments (musette, gusli, violin, pipe, drum etc.)

V.A. Moshkov was the first to describe C.f. in his book called “Materials to characterize musical art of people from the Volga-Cama region” (1893). It contains a musical folklore description of many peoples from Ural and Volga region including Chuvash songs registered from the soldiers of Warsaw military region who were born in Ufimskaya region. N.I. Ashmarin described some samples of Chuvash songs of people from Bashkortostan in his book called “Collection of Chuvash songs registered in Kazanskaya, Simbirskaya and Ufimskaya reiongs” (1900) and “Motifs samples of Chuvash ethnic songs and their lyrics” book (2nd part, 1912; compiled by P.V. Pazukhin). In the early 20th c. G.I. Komissarov was collecting and studying C.f., a part of the materials is kept in the archive of Chuvash institute of humanities (Cheboksary), some of them are published in periodicals. Certain Chuvash songs registered from the soldiers who participated in the First Worlds War are published in the “Songs of Russian prisoners of war” collection (1926, in German). The samples of different genres of Chuvash folklore was accomplished during the expedition of Society of studying Bashkiria Chuvash section (1929). In the 1930’s-1950’s C.f. was being collected by Vukolov-Erlik, S.M. Maksimov, P.A. Petrov-Turinge, I.V. Saltykov, Y. Ukhsay, P.A. Fyedorov-Minuyk, etc. Chuvash Institute of Humanities has been studying the folklore since the 60’s, the materials of the expeditions of 1962, 1987 are included into “Chuvash ethnic art” publication, “Chuvashes of the Ural region” book (1989). M.G. Kondratyev published some folklore samples in the “Songs of the lower Chuvashes” collection (1982). Certain sample of C.f. songs with notes were included into the compiled volume of Chuvash songs by L. Vikar and Bereczki (1979). Sterlitamak branch of BSU (L.V. Korotayeva, L.A. Afanasyeva etc.) and the local historians of Bashkortostan (N.S. Vasilyev, V.V. Danilova, S.G. Danilov, V.A. Ivanova, N.Y. Kobtseva, L.A. Mavlutova, A.P. Mikhaylov, V.Y. Romanov, L.A. Fyedorov, V.G. Tsvetkov, etc.) have been collecting and studying C.f. since the 1990’s. Center of ethnic art holds different holidays, contests and festivals in Bashkortostan. There are Chuvash folklore ensembles, such as “White birch”, “Savni”, “Sarbi”, “Shevlye”, “Tavakh”, etc.

I.G. Petrov