Novye Issledovaniâ Tuvy (Mar 2019)
The folklore of the Old Believers from the taiga villages of the Upper Yenisei in the repertoire of children’s ensemble Oktai
Abstract
The article explores a part of the repertoire of children's folklore and ethnographic ensemble "Oktai" (Tuva), which recreates the folklore of the Old Believers of the upper Yenisei, in particular their spiritual music. The article is based on the communications the author had with the leader of the ensemble, as well as on personal observations and existing publications about the ensemble. Spiritual chants and spiritual poems are not the most popular genre among the mass audience, since their perception requires a particular attitude and special preparation. Nevertheless, this genre is constantly present in the repertoire of the ensemble. One of the aims of the collective is to master both genuine Russian folk singing culture, in general, and specific local folklore traditions. From its very start, the ensemble has been coming to the taiga villages of the upper Small Yenisei every summer for rest and recovery, as well as to experience the life of the Old Believers and record their folklore. Today the repertoire of "Oktay" includes about 200 spiritual verses, a lot of them are recorded from local Old Believers by members of “Oktai”, folklorists G. O. Tudenov, S. E. Nikitina, and the author of this article. It has become a good tradition for the children to give summer performances for the Old Believers of villages Erzhey and Sizim. Under the impact of these concerts, Old Believer girls started to make up modern versions of the stikharniki – notebooks or albums filled with poems. On the whole, the experience of the “Oktai” ensemble , its activity to give new life to the fading tradition of singing spiritual verses among the Old Believers of the upper Yenisei is of great interest to both folklorists and scholars of culture.
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