Areology of the Birth and Christening Tunes of the West of the Ukrainian Ethnic Territory and Adjacent Lands: the Perspective from Northern Pidlassia
Authors: Lukashenko Larysa 
Published: December 2021

The considerable progress of Ukrainian ethnomusicology in the field of structural and typological researches in the recent decades has generally clarified the melotypology and melogeography of the most ritual genre cycles of ethnic Ukraine and the adjacent areas, except the birth and christening songs. This is due to the small number or complete absence of recordings of this kind of songs in most regions of Ukraine.

However, there are some areas where birth and christening songs exist in more than a few numbers and form a sufficiently integral melotypological complex. These areas are Northern Pidlassiaand Nadsyannia (the Syan river region). Generally, Western Ukraine is represented by a small number of records of birth and christening songs, but this nevertheless dominate over the rest of the territory, which is represented mainly by single samples. In the represented study, an attempt to fill the existing gap in the typological study of birth and christening songs of the western territories of Ukraine is made. The sources are published recordings, the author’s own materials, as well as materials from the Archive of the Laboratory of Music Ethnology at the Lviv National Music Academy named after Mykola Lysenko.

Musical and folklore studies of birth and christening rites are not numerous. Among them it is necessary to mention a sizable monograph of Anatolyi Ivanytsky «Songs are from Birth and Christening» (Ivanytsky, 2013) and also collections of Halyna Sokil, Stephan Copa and others.Iryna Klymenko dedicated a special paragraph to this genre in the monograph «Ritual Melodies of the Ukrainians in the Context of the Slavic-Baltic Early-Traditional Melomassive: Typology and Geography» (2020).

The comparative analysis of the total amount of the birth and christening tunes reveals a significant role in this genre cycle of the melotypological group on the basis of the spondeic seven-component structure, which is the most represented in the western Ukrainian and adjacent territories.

The next melotypological group combines various forms based on the five component structure. Melodic type with a lyric structure V(5+5)2 has two rhythmic versions. Quite often, the same texts can be performed in different rhythmic variants. It has been observed that the tunes of the first rhythmic type are connected mainly with ritual lyrics. Instead, the second type combines mainly with common plots.

A unique type based on a five-component structure, which has no analogues, is a three-part form V(5+5+5)2, which spreads on Nadsianna, less on Opillia territories. These melodies usually are combined with the same poetic lines «Early on Sunday, early on Sunday as a white day» rarely with some slight variants in the first line.

Speaking of five-syllable structures we should mention songs with the so-called «arrow-like» rhythm. Although only a few fixations are known in Western Ukraine, the central and eastern territories of Ukraine and Belarus are represented more richly. Instead, the West part represents a kind of «hybrid» form based on this rhythmic structure.

Perhaps the most widely used ritual melodic type in Eastern Europe with the verse structure V(5+5+7)2 and birth and christening function distribute on the territory of north-western Ukraine with a concentration on Nadsyannia.

Another widespread ritual rhythmical form based on the iambic six-component structure is represented in tirade and strophic compositions, but the records of these songs, unfortunately, are rare.

Summarizing the melotypological and meloareological characteristics of the birth and christening melodic types of the ethnic west of Ukraine, it should be noted that the two densest centers of their existence are Northern Pidlassiaand Nadsyannia. However, Northern Pidlassiais characterized by a richer melotypological set: six melotypes, while in Nadsyannia there are only three ones. In addition, the folk melodic types of these two areas actually differ.

In general, the birth and christening genre cycle of Nadssiannia seems to be separated from the surrounding territories with its «unique» song «Early on Sunday», which partially spread to neighboring territories. Additionally, there is no any recorded sample based on the seven-component structure, as well as no samples of six-syllable melodies were encountered.

The range of melotypes based on the five-component structure is the most numerous and most widespread in the territory of the ethnic west of Ukraine. A group of related seven-components melodic types is spread in the BelarusianUkrainian area. The melodic basis of the vast majority of the birth and christening songs is a system of stable tones at a distance of a fifth with a minor inclination of the scale.