Re: BELARUS JEWISH MUSIC -Reply

[Paul M. Gifford <PGIFFORD...>]

Peter Rushefsky" <rushefsky_p (at) healthcareplan(dot)com> wrote:
> 
> Not sure about the non-Jewish folk music of Belarus (how it relates to
> other non-Jewish folk musics of E. Europe).  I think that Belorussian
> culture has generally been dominated by Russian culture (not many
> Byelorussians even speak Belorussian, they speak Russian), so I'm
> guessing that the music may be similar as well.  Are there differences 
> in instrumentation-- are hammer dulcimers as prevalent in what is today
> Russia as they are in Belarus and the Ukraine?  What about the bagpipe
> that was shown in the picture?  Accordions?
> 
    The diatonic button accordion is considered the typical old-time 
village instrument in Belarus.  Typical ensemble might be violin, 
tsimbaly (dulcimer), bass drum with cymbal (baraban), and diatonic 
accordion.  There are ensembles with several tsimbaly, plus maybe a 
couple of accordions.  Clarinet and basetlya (cello-sized bass) are 
also used.  The tsimbaly is quite common in Belarus, but the 
traditional range follows the Pale of Settlement quite closely----it 
(according to Russian writers) extends only into northwest Smolensk 
district and a bit over the Belarus border in Pskov district.  In 
Tsarist times there were also Jewish tsimblers in St. Petersburg.  I 
feel quite sure that peasants adopted the violin and tsimbaly from 
Jewish musicians after the end of serfdom in 1861.  It would be 
interesting to know whether they preserve any "Jewish" tunes among 
the polkas, wedding marches, quadrilles, etc., they play.

    There are some "revivalist" Belarusian groups, like one I heard, 
"Litviny," (in Mogilev a couple of years ago), which use the duda 
(bagpipes) with instruments named above, but that is not a 
traditional thing apparently.  These groups are consciously rejecting 
the tsimbaly ensemble developed in the Soviet era (1930s-1940s), 
which used a newly designed tsimbaly, plus accordions and other 
instruments, and reading original compositions and arrangements.  Yet 
this style, ironically, had its origins in both Jewish and 
Byelorussian tradition.  The Lepyanskys (Jewish, father and three 
sons), of Vitebsk, playing four parts on four tsymbaly, were doing it 
in the 1910s and 1920s.  Iosif Zhinovich's family (Belarusian) had 
such a group in the 1920s, and he and two others (including a Jew, H. 
Shmelkin), were responsible for developing the first such ensembles 
in 1928 and later.  Now there is even a tsymbaly ensemble of the 
Soviet type which exists as a Jewish ensemble (I think in Lida). 
During most of the Soviet period, the Jewish associations with the 
instrument were purged in order for it to be accepted as a 
"Belarusian national instrument."  A. Famintsyn's book "Gusli" 
(1890), which talks of these associations, was not reprinted until 
1995.

Paul Gifford





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