Poetry
Опыт собрания старинных малороссийских песней
Not translated into English
Mykola Tsertelev · 1819
Synopsis
Nine dumy, those epic songs that the kobzars, blind singers accompanied by the bandura, went from place to place to perform, and a few songs, collected from two of these singers. A study of the country's old songs precedes them, comparing the kobzars to the ancient rhapsodes celebrating the exploits of their heroes, and a short glossary follows them, for the reader who does not know the language.
Context
The songs were collected in 1814 in the Poltava region, from two kobzars. The study that opens the volume had first appeared in 1818 in the journal Syn Otechestva; the book came out in Saint Petersburg in 1819, from Karl Kray's press, in sixty-four pages preceded by a dedication and followed by a Ukrainian-Russian glossary. Its preface still saw in it only a means of satisfying curiosity about the past. In 1854, the critic Apollon Grigoriev pointed out the alterations that some of the songs had undergone in it.
Who it is for
A slim volume: a study in Russian, followed by the songs in the language in which they had been collected.
Prizes and reception
The first printed collection of Ukrainian dumy, which left its mark on Maksymovych, Kvitka-Osnovianenko, Sreznevsky and Kostomarov.
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