Performing Russia

Folk Revival and Russian Identity

Laura Olson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781134341078
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Eastern European History
• Index: History

This book examines folk music and dance revival movements in Russia, exploring why this folk culture has come to represent Russia, how it has been approached and produced, and why memory and tradition, in these particular forms, have taken on particular significance in different periods. Above all it shows how folk "tradition" in Russia is an artificial cultural construct, which is periodically reinvented, and it demonstrates in particular how the "folk revival" has played a key role in strengthening Russian national consciousness in the post-Soviet period.

1 The Invention and Re-invention of Folk Music in Pre-Revolutionary Russia

Contemporary audiences often accept performances of Russian folk music and dance as representations of ancient rural traditions. However, many aspects of folk performance were drawn directly from nineteenth century productions that musicians consciously constructed to appeal to the tastes of elite and/or middle-class audiences and to further Slavophile and populist agendas. Musical producers not only sought to engender ‘Russian character’ through their performances, but aimed to define and evoke ‘authenticity’ through their manipulation of potent symbols of untouched folk nature. Their actions had direct effects upon the ways that folk music is viewed and constructed today.

For example, the ‘folk orchestra’ – a nearly ubiquitous phenomenon in performances of Russian folk music – was not part of village music-making practice, but was the brainchild of a late-nineteenth-century petty landowner, Vasilii Andreev, who learned to play – and worked on ‘perfecting’ – the balalaika, a folk lute which had appeared in Russian villages in the seventeenth century. Andreev had the instrument’s body enlarged and neck shortened, and added fixed frets, which changed the instrument’s timbre, increased its resonance and made it able to play chromatic scales with secure intonation; later he had balalaikas made in different sizes in order to play different parts.¹ Starting in 1887 he formed an ensemble of 7–8 balalaika players on four different sizes of instruments (piccolo, alto, standard, and bass), which played in St Petersburg halls and later toured Russia. The concept became popular, and similar groups of instrumental musicians began to form and to play at city fairs.²

In the mid-1890s, Andreev added other folk instruments, including the domra (a folk lute) and the gusli (a psaltery), to the ensemble, in order to increase its musical possibilities and make it more attractive to listeners.³ The domra was similar in form to the balalaika, but was more ancient, probably dating back 1000 years on Russian territory; it had been used in ensembles that accompanied the skomorokhs (professional performers), but had apparently died out in the seventeenth century. The story of the ‘discovery’ of the domra illustrates the importance of a stamp of authenticity for revivalists like Andreev: in 1895 a very old, unknown instrument was found in a hut in Viatka province by one of Andreev’s students. Andreev took the instrument to a scholar, A. S. Famitsyn, who had just published a study of the domra. In that work, Famitsyn had stated that the domra no longer existed, and that there remained no image of it. Despite this lack of basic information, Famitsyn identified the instrument as a domra, and Andreev ordered a series of new instruments modeled on it.⁴

Later authors disputed the authenticity of the instrument.⁵ Iurii Boiko wrote in 1984 that Andreev had invented the domra simply because he was seeking ‘new shades of timbre for his orchestra, under the obvious influence of the mandolin.’ Indeed, ‘the domras were created based upon the mandolin.’ One of the most characteristic and widely copied features of the Russian folk orchestra – its rendering of the song’s melody in the form of a sustained tremolo on one string (usually played using a plectrum on a group of domras, but also on gusli and balalaikas) – is in fact not a Russian manner of playing at all. According to Boiko it was borrowed by Andreev from the Neapolitan mandolin orchestra.⁶

In addition to the domra and gusli, two kinds of folk flute, the svireli and the brelka, were appended: the new orchestra now had its wind section, and could render classical orchestral compositions; later ‘brass’ (in the form of rozhki, wooden horns) and percussion (using a mix of Russian and Western instruments, such as timpani and tambourines) sections were added.⁷ As the ‘Great Russian Orchestra’ it had great success for several years playing compositions and arrangements of folk tunes by Andreev and professional musicians with whom he consulted, as well as ‘Russian classics’ by composers like Glinka and Tchaikovsky. Singers such as the famous bass soloist Fyodor Shaliapin and quartets of professionals were often featured as special guests at the orchestra’s concerts, and the renowned Russian dancers from the ballet troupe of the Mariinsky Theater performed with them occasionally. The seeds of the Soviet folk choruses with their choral, instrumental, and dance troupes were sown.

Andreev promoted his constructed notion of Russian folk music by organizing orchestras of folk instruments in schools and the army – hoping that the tradition would spread and take root as soldiers, having learned to play the balalaika in the army, brought the instrument home to their villages.⁸ Andreev gave a speech before each concert, and also wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper explaining his goal of ‘resurrecting these instruments’ in order to ‘give the people a musical instrument which corresponds to their way of life and character, and at the same time satisfies the demands of contemporary musical culture as much as possible.’⁹

Of course, Russian rural practice had its own instrumental traditions, which Andreev did not so much resurrect as change. The Andreev principle of organization – where specific instruments were assigned specific functions, and were modified so that they could better perform those functions in the ensemble – was borrowed from Western classical music, and was unknown in Russian village music-making. In ancient Russian villages, instruments had been used as part of ritual music-making to accompany dancing and/or singing, and by professional entertainers, the skomorokhs, to accompany their humoristic theatrical spectacles. By the nineteenth century, villagers used instruments both within and outside of ritual contexts. In any of these situations, when players formed ensembles they combined instruments spontaneously, according to what was at hand. Instruments could play the melody heterophonically, like the voices in a folk chorus, or their functions could be delineated as to melody, rhythm, or harmony – but any instrument could be called on to perform any of these functions.¹⁰ As Boiko pointed out, ‘in distinction to the Andreev orchestras, the differentiation of function in a Russian folk instrumental ensemble is not at all dependent upon the differentiation of the types of instruments.’¹¹

Because playing in the orchestra required specialized training, Andreev created a network of schools to produce the musicians to staff such orchestras. As a result, the gulf between rural folk musicians and trained folk musicians, and in general between rural folk music and folk music produced for the stage, increased. The Soviets intensified this situation, in part by mass-producing instruments that were better suited to playing in the orchestral style, and by broadening the educational network.¹²

The effects of the revisions that Andreev made in Russian folk instrumental practice were so widespread that they changed the nature of folk ensemble playing not only in Russia but internationally. During Andreev’s lifetime, musicians formed Russian-style folk orchestras and ensembles not only in Russia, but abroad, for example in the US and France. Andreev hoped that the success of his orchestra abroad would improve public opinion toward Russia and also increase the export of balalaikas.¹³ During the Soviet period, not the instruments themselves but the method of standardizing and combining instruments was imported to Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where native instruments were brought together to form ensembles – even in cultures where no tradition of ensemble playing existed.

Andreev’s modifications to folk playing changed what Russian, Western and Asian audiences identified as folk music. As Boiko pointed out, the Andreev-style orchestras’ promotion of folk music affirmed ‘the false impression of their art as “folk” music.’ Audiences, including many Russian ones, had no idea that the music they were hearing was not what self-taught musicians in Russian villages played. Russian newspaper reviews regularly hailed Andreev’s performances as saving Russian folk music from extinction. One reviewer wrote that while the accordion and the ‘factory romance’ were crowding out Russian music in the countryside, St Petersburg was preserving it through Andreev’s concerts: ‘Our Petersburg was more countrified than the countryside itself. Here the folk song and poetry have been preserved. One only had to see the general ecstasy in the hall during the performance of Russian songs by the Andreev orchestra, to be convinced how warmly the heart responds to them.’¹⁴ Of course, the songs, instruments, and manner of playing were not preserved but were constructed specifically to convey to audiences used to classical music what one critic called a ‘pure Russian character.’¹⁵

Andreev’s work was part of a widespread burgeoning of interest and activity in Russian folk music revival during the period 1860–1917. Although Andreev’s approach was new, musicians had been incorporating Russian folk music into the art of the gentry since the reign of Catherine the Great; it was at that time that many of the conventions of ‘folk’ singing and playing in an art context were established. Choruses of serfs kept by landowners on their estates began to sing not only Italian songs but what were called Russian folk songs; later, in the nineteenth century, some of these choruses became professional and traveled all over Russia. In home theaters, nobles had their serfs put on scenes imitating Russian village holidays; sometimes the nobles themselves composed the scripts.¹⁶ Comic opera imported from France and Italy introduced folk life to the art theater, and Russian composers wrote operas that imitated Russian folk speech and songs.¹⁷

The divertissements between acts of operas initiated a tradition of ‘folk’ music performance on stage. Initially, divertissements consisted of arias from operas, but at the end of the eighteenth century performers began to include Russian folk songs and songs composed in the folk manner as well as romances. These songs consisted of melodies sung solo by trained singers (sometimes of serf origin), accompanied by guitar or piano. The manner of singing was frequently very sweet and sentimental, according to the fashion of the time; the singers tried to convey emotion and drama through their renditions of the songs. Not only solos, but duets and trios (accompanied by instruments) and choruses became fashionable acts. Often, the songs performed at divertissements grew popular, and were sung by people of all social strata.¹⁸

So-called ‘Gypsy’ singers and choruses performed Russian songs and romances to great acclaim. These were Romani musicians who made their careers based upon Russians’ fascination for the stereotype of the passionate, bold, mysterious and independent ‘Gypsies.’ Although the manner of singing of the Romani choruses and singers was more intensely emotional than that of the Russian ones, it is probable that the Russian stage-singers and choruses developed at least partially under the influence of the Romani style, and vice versa.¹⁹ The tradition of Romani musicians interpreting Russian folk songs and romances became an important part of Russian music-making, and remains so to this day.

In essence, the Russian concept of estrada (the stage) formed at this time. The notion of presenting various songs on stage as individual ‘numbers,’ unconnected by a story line or any other factor, was new. The term ‘number’ in this case derives from the structure of opera in the eighteenth century, which comprised a succession of several distinct musical movements, many of which could also be performed separately in a different context. The term then came to be used in divertissements and later, the estrada.²⁰ Furthermore, the notions of folk songs sung solo or in duets or trios by professional singers with instrumental accompaniment, and the necessity of performing the songs in an overtly emotional manner, became standard during this period, and remain so to the present.

Russian Village Music-Making

While performers and critics represented the music sung and played on stage as Russian folk music, Russian village music-making practice was quite different. The oldest known pre-Christian folk music was sung in the context of agrarian calendar and life-cycle rituals, presumably by both commoners and elites.²¹ Although this music has been classified as drama, since it was accompanied by theatrical gestures, work, or dance movements, it was never performed in a stage setting but by groups in which there was no delineation between spectator and participant. Its purpose was to bring about a magical result: an increase in harvest, the fertility of a bride, the worship of ancestors. Such holiday songs included winter carols, fortune telling songs, Shrovetide songs, calls to summon springtime, Easter carols, songs for St George’s day and Whitsunday, summer solstice and harvest songs. Work songs accompanied agricultural work and (later) barge-hauling, log rafting, and crafts. Dance songs were associated with particular holidays and included circle dances, game dances, and dances with play-acting. Life cycle songs included christening songs, lullabies, many different kinds of wedding songs, and funeral laments.²²

The style of singing was a cappella group polyphony, in which the text was most important while the relatively simple melody served as a means of conveying it.²³ Texts were characterized by syllabic verse (in which the number of syllables per line and their division by a caesura are the dominant structuring features) with a declamatory musical style: one syllable corresponded to each note. Musical structure varied tremendously from region to region – musical dialects and micro-regions were often as small as a village or cluster of villages – yet in general terms the main style was unison singing with episodic splitting of the voices (in some areas a drone was used); the melody’s range was typically as narrow as a fourth. Remnants of this type of singing have been found in the repertoires of village ensembles throughout the nineteenth century and up to the present day. From these performances it is evident that the manner of singing is not ‘emotional’ in the melodramatic style of stage performance; instead, singers convey meaning through musical techniques such as ornamentation, variation, rests, and repetition.

During the period of Muscovite rule, from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, other kinds of secular traditional singing not directly related to the agrarian calendar or to life-cycle rituals emerged, including what scholars have termed the categories of epic and lyric. Epic songs – including epics or byliny, historical songs, ballads, and religious verses or dukhovnye stikhi – relayed legends or historical stories, while the texts of lyric songs, ranging from simple one-voiced pieces to polyphonic songs and the complex, melismatic drawn-out song or protiazhnaia, expressed the feelings of a protagonist or expounded on a lyric subject. During this period the poetic line acquired accents in fixed places corresponding to the strong beats of the musical meter; the melodies had wider ranges and became more highly developed, with an elaborate musical structure and much splitting of the voices...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The Invention and Re-invention of Folk Music in Pre-Revolutionary Russia
• 2 A Unified National Style: Folklore Performance in the Soviet Context
• 3 The Origins of the Russian Folk Revival Movement
• 4 Revival and Identity after Socialism
• 5 Power and Ritual: Russian Nationalism and Representations of the Folk, Orthodoxy, Imperial Russia, and the Cossackry
• 6 Performing Masculinity: Cossack Myth and Reality in Post-Soviet Revival Movements
• 7 The Village Revives
• 8 Making Memory: How Urban Intellectuals Reinvent Russian Village Traditions
• 9 Conclusion: Folklore and Popular Culture
• Appendix
• Notes