p






 The roots of Russian folk music date as far back as to the middle of
the first millennium AC, when Slavic tribes settled in the European
part of the present territory of Russia. Those tribes were famous for
their love and mastery of music, singing and dancing, according to
Byzantium and German manuscripts. It is known, that in 591 Avars'
khan sent Slavic singers and gusli players as ambassadors to
Byzantium Emperor. The music of Kievan Rus, the first Russian state
formed in the 10th century, was not homogeneous, just like the
tribes that made up this country. It included Finno-Ugric, Turkic and
other prototypes besides Slavic ones. Very old are guttural singing
traditions of Siberia and the Far East. Till date regional and ethnic
(pre-national) traditions are evident in Russian folklore. Thus, folk
singing traditions of the northern, western, southern and central
regions, as well as settlements in basins of big rivers of Oka, Volga
and Don, have their own distinct features. Majority of still alive folk
songs have pagan roots bearing the impact of Christian rites.
Russian folk songs and dances were formed in two
cycles:
1. associated with calendar rites (sowing, harvest, etc.)
2. family rituals (wedding, birth, burial, etc.). More
individual are lyrical songs.
Special place in song folklore belongs to calendar song
cycle; it consists of smaller cycles definitely timed to
seasons and pagan festivals (often overlaid with Christian
holidays). These songs are peculiar for strict regulation
and rigidity of short tonal and rhythmic formulas in
every cycle; they retain the oldest non-semi-tonal and
narrow scales.
Of no less old origin are epic genres, such as
bylinas, skomorokh songs, spiritual verses (both oral
and written) and historic songs. Authentic epic
tradition has lived till date in the oral peasant
folklore of the Russian North and with Don
Cossacks.
The most complicated genre as to music is lyrical
song and its highest type - drawling song -
supposed to have formed in the 16th - 17th cc in
Moscow Russia. It is associated with the appearance
of the famous folk multivoiced singing of polyphonic
or heterophonic types with participation of solo
voices.
Among the latest genres are chastooshkas (short
comic songs of two or four lines) and town lyrical
songs (romances) that got widely spread in the
19th century.

  
h Mostly spread were string instruments, such as:

gusli (folk wing-shaped gusli date back to the

11th)

gudok (three-string fiddle used from 12th c,

found by archeologists in old Novgorod)
Gusli Gudok
The most famous old wind instruments are:
doudka (or sopel, pishchalka) - end-blown flute
known from the late 11th c, according to
archaeological digging in Novgorod
zhaleika (rozhok) - an instrument with one or
two wooden pipes and a horn bellmouth, dating back
to the 18th c.
kuvikly (or tsevnitsa, Pan pipe) - known from the
18th c., mainly in the Russian south
*haleika Kuvikly