Influences of Regional Cultural Breaks and Migration Processes on Children’s and Winter Calendar and Ritual Song Folklore of Kirovohrad Oblast
Authors: Yefremova Liudmyla 
Published: July 2024

Kirovohrad Oblast, founded in 1939, is situated in the central part of Ukraine, on the right bank of the Dnipro. The southern center of Ukraine, in particular the territory of Kirovohrad Oblast, has been settled quite late, in the 17th–18th centuries. The conglomeration of East-Podillian, Central-Ukrainian and Trans-Dnieper singing has formed a specific folklore zone here. Resettlers from the northern and western lands have also brought well-preserved folklore traditions to these lands. They have formed a peculiar marginal culture here, which is defined by a number of distinctive features in the folklore works of the region. We consider them after the sources of children’s and winter calendar-ritual folklore. Only some versions of ancient lullabies have been recorded in the Kirovohrad Oblast. The lullabies of the Eastern type predominate on the rest of the territories, although there are also Western ones, recorded from the resettlers mainly. Ancient lullabies from the Podillian part of Kirovohrad Oblast have a syncopated Western-type chant. Eastern-type lullabies of Kirovohrad Oblast differ in their textual and melodic variety. On the melodic side, lullabies of the Eastern type belong mainly to the song-recitative type. The melody is dominated by the repetition of one chant-formula of the ascending-descending type, which contributes to lulling the child with its monotony. In the recordings of eastern lullabies from a resettled woman from the Chornobyl zone of the Zhytomyr region, we observe a significant melismatic enrichment of formulaic intonations. In the western, Podillian regions of Kirovohrad Oblast, samples of children’s folklore are distinguished by dialectal peculiarities of the language. Published works and modern expeditionary records of children’s koliadky and shchedrivky are the evidence of the distribution of such songs as Koliadnytsia, Koliadnytsia, Shchedrivochka Shchedruvala on the territory of the region. Children’s sowing songs have become especially popular. The motifs of Illia walking on Vasyl, who wears a magical rye peacock (whip) are introduced into them from the northern regions. The historical situation in the Kirovohradshchyna, and partly the cultural policy of the last century, have influenced the existence of winter calendar and ritual song folklore here perniciously. Only a few examples of secular carols and shchedrivky have been recorded in the region. At the same time, winter songs of the Gospel themes are more preserved in church and folk usage. In general, the repertoire of koliadky and shchedrivky of the Kirovohrad region is preserved to a greater extent in the western, Podillian districts, where the koliadky prevail, and only fragmentarily, much more modestly, in the central part of the region, where the shchedrivky predominate. The peculiarities of the folklore tradition of the region consist in the inclination of the bearers of folk songs for numerous contaminations of various types. We have observed this phenomenon by the way of example of recordings of children’s and winter calendar-ritual song folklore because of its border location between the Trans-Dnieper, Steppe and Podillia zones. There is the inclination of the bearers of folk songs to numerous contaminations of various types. The enrichment of the song folklore of the Kirovohrad Oblast is introduced due to the migratory waves of various times, starting from the period of intensive settlement of the region to modern processes of emigration because of the natural causes, man-made disasters and military actions. Thanks to the recordings of the expeditions of the Baba Yelka project during the 2018–2022, it is possible to study the peculiarities of functioning of the song folklore of the region in the latest times.