Notes to biography of Clyment Kvitka: So when Clyment Kvitka visited Cucavets?
Authors:   Mykola Lysenko Lviv National Music Academy, Lukaniuk Bohdan 
Published: February 2021

The second part of the proposed papers (the first part was published in the previous issue of “Ethnomusic”) covers detailed history of the ethnographic and folk music col- lection activity of ethnomusicologist Clyment Kvitka and dialectologist Olena Kurylo in 1924th–1926th based on historical information from printed and archival sources. In 1924 the geographical orientation of the corporate expeditions of K. Kvitka and O. Kurylo changed from the Polissya to the Podillya region. In the spring of 1924 they traveled to the Vinnytsia oblast by train to observe live performance of the Easter rituals. Apparently, having done this task, K. Kvitka suggested O. Kurylo visiting the 92 final train’s stop village Kamyanka on the river Dnister. From here, they went to the nearby villages, where Moldavians and German colonists lived, thanks to which they were able to study folklore of national minorities. Generally in the expedition they spent three weeks and collected 65 songs. The next trip to Volyn and Podillya was scheduled for summer 1924 to collect materials on the history of culture and historical documents. In early August, Kvitka took a train to Vinnytsia and returned to Kyiv in three weeks, but there is no informa- tion about the collection work done there. Just two weeks later, K. Kvitka (together with M. Hayday) set off again – this time to the Middle Polissya – in Korosten, Zhytomyr and Berdychiv districts, where he recorded 20 melodies. O. Kurylo obviously did not take part in this expedition. O. Kurylo and K. Kvitka returned to the joint expeditions in the following year, going in the summer on their second Podillya “excursion” for a two-week period. They planned to visit Zhytomyr, Berdychiv, Shepetivka, Proskuriv, Kamyanets and Vinnyt- sia districts, and especially towns Slavuta, Teofipol and others. In his list of records for 1925 K. Kvitka mentioned thirty-five recordings of folk melodies from Vinnytsia and Kamyanets-Podilsky regions, but only one of them is known – ballads about a seduced girl in Polish performed by O. Pototska from the Russian Filvarki settlement. In their expeditionary sessions O. Kurylo recorded poetic texts and it allowed K. Kvitka to concentrate on writing down musical notes, in particular, to trace possible performing melodic “variations”, which was one of the most characteristic features of his tran- scriptions of that period. In return, dialectologist O. Kurylo professionally wrote folk songs poetic texts, noting semi-phonological features. It is worth quoting the whole transcription made by Kvitka and Kurylo with the author’s notes to give a clear idea of the unprecedentedly high scientific level of fixation of folklore material. Collectors continued to explore Podillya in the following 1926, going there to- gether for the third time. Again, K. Kvitka wanted like earlier to watch live Easter rituals for which the time and place were chosen in advance. It was village Kukavka. Such details of K. Kvitka's work with singers as the creation of an atmosphere of respect and friendliness with some encouragement the performers with small treat or small payment seem to be interesting. In general, the expedition lasted a month and a half and was finished at the end of the first decade of June. Apparently, immediately after returning to Kyiv, O. Kurylo moved to Vinnytsia in August. After 1926 O. Ku- rylo no longer took part in joint expeditions as well as K. Kvitka. Apparently, the plan of field research (primarily dialectological) was succeeded, at least in general, and sci- entists focused entirely on the study of the obtained materials, primarily from Podillia. Thus, we only know about the materials collected by O. Kurylo and K. Kvitka in the expeditions of 1922–1926, which were published largely on occasion. The rest of the hard work in five years seems to have disappeared.