The Chumatski Songs as a Repertoire of Future Artists Theoretical and Instrumental Training

Bukhnieva Olena¹, Bankul Larysa², Ван Ченьсі³

Abstract: The article considers a large layer of Ukrainian song folklore – chumatski songs, which have a prominent place in the system of Ukrainian social lyrics. It is determined that chumatski songs are an essential part of the spiritual culture of the Ukrainian people. These songs reproduce the conceptual positions of representatives of trade and coaching and should be the subject of synthetic interdisciplinary research, including theoretical and instrumental training of future artists. The article emphasizes the role of chumatstvo in the processes of nation-building related to the formation of the sphere of Ukrainian national aesthetics and worldview. The relevance of the study is determined by the need to understand chumatski songs as signs of ethnoculture of the Ukrainian people, the ways of its existence and spiritual revival.

Keywords: chumatstvo; chumatski songs; Ukrainian song folklore; spiritual culture

Introduction

Chumatski songs belong to an essential layer of Ukrainian folklore, the formation and artistic crystallization of which took place during the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries. Due to the development of the dairy industry, chumatstvo – merchant, trade and carriage of Ukrainians in the lands of the Great Steppe from the XV century to the middle of the XIX century. The Chumaks are the successors and heritors of the merchant trade traditions of the West and East, Europe and the Great Steppe, Kievan Rus and the Mongol Empire. Those who engaged in chumatstvo were called the Chumaks, merchants (in the XV-XVI centuries – “salt miners (solenyky)”, sometimes “Kolomyians”.

According to Max Fassmer’s dictionary, most recognized Slavic linguists believe that the word “chumak” originated from the Turkic languages, namely from the Turkish word čomak (mace, long stick) (6). The comparison with the word “plague” only reflects the “folk etymology”, even if the Ukrainian chumaks who went for salt, as it is sometimes claimed, smeared their clothes with tar to prevent the plague.

Ukrainian researcher Hryhoriy Khalymonenko believes that the chumak comes from the Turkic word çomaq “diver: one who dives (into the water)” [7]. This is due to the fact that the main trading of the Chumaks was the extraction and trade of salt, and this involves the process of immersion. The second version of the origin is from the Turkic word tumak – a person in which one of the parents is Turkish or Tatar, and the other – Ukrainian. This is due to the fact that the Chumak Way was from the Crimean Khanate to the Zaporozhian Sich, and therefore, to avoid robbery, they had to take for their own, both the Crimean Tatars and the Zaporozhian Cossacks (7).

Chumatstvo has been a traditional form of merchant organization since ancient times. In 1170, Prince Mstislav Izyaslavych of Kyiv appealed to itinerant merchants and soldiers at the same time to defend the roads from Kyiv to the sea, because “the Greek route, Solyana and Zalozna are being taken away from us. Wouldn’t it be better, brothers, to look for the ways of our grandparents” (Proskurova, 2000). It was already known until the middle of the XIX century chumatski carts. The first mention of the Cossacks (a letter from the burghers of Kyiv in 1499) is first of all the mention of fish merchants, chumaks, and later of the same people as military people (Ivanovska, 2005).

Chumaks traded salt, which was brought to Ukraine from the Crimea, the Black Sea and Azov coasts, from Galicia, Donetsk and the Volga region; at the same time they sold handicrafts, wood, tar, tobacco, vodka, etc.

The constant threat of attack in the southern steppes by Tatar troops forced the Chumaks to carry weapons. During the stops for the night, the ointments were placed in a closed quadrangle, convenient for protection.

Chumatstvo was the most common among the Cossacks and peasants of various categories; in the 15th-18th centuries. It was developed together with the Cossacks, and the life of the Chumaks and Cossacks was similar. The Zaporozhian Cossacks often accompanied the Chumaks and defended them from the Tatars, in particular when crossing the Dnieper; Chumaks often wintered in Cossack settlements (often in the Meadow).

There were many chumak ways in Ukraine that connected the Left Bank and Slobozhanshchina with Zaporizhia and the Crimea, the Don and the Sea of Azov; others led from the Right Bank and the Left Bank to Galicia and Moldova. The main roads were named: Black, Constantinople, Bakaev, Muravsky, Kharkiv.

Chumatski were joined in early spring (of course, left on Sunday), returned in the fall.

In the 18th century – the first half of the 19th century, chumatstvo became one of the most significant non-agricultural occupations of peasants and Cossacks. In the second half of the 18th century – the first half of the 19th century, it was also the main mode of transport in the Dnieper region. The main cargo was bread exported abroad through the Odessa and other ports of the Black and Azov Seas, then leather, honey, wax; brought salt, dried fish.

In the 18th century the Chumaks had a monopoly on the salt trade, in 1830-1840 pp. only 50-60%. Then 2.5-4 million poods of salt and 600-900 thousand poods of fish were brought annually. In total, the Chumaks transported 60-80 million poods of various goods a year, including 25-40 million poods of bread. They served fairs, delivered goods to Moscow and other cities in Russia, the North Caucasus, Belarus, Poland and Moldova (Ivanovska, 2005).

Chumatstvo has declined since the middle of the XIX century and completely disappeared with the development of rail and water transport. However, back in the 1880s pp. numbered 200,000 chumaks.

Chumatstvo was reflected in everyday life and way of life (chumatski villages), material culture and vocabulary, folklore (chumatski songs), literature (Ivan Kotlyarevsky, Taras Shevchenko, Hryhoriy Kvitka-Osnovyanenko, Marko Vovchok, O. Rudykovsky and others), in drama (Ivan Karpenko-Kary and others), fine arts (Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Aivazovsky, S. Trutovsky, V. Orlovsky, Sergei Vasylkivsky, etc.) (Ivanovska, 2005). Chumatski songs provide rich cognitive material on the social and psychological characteristics of chumatstvo itself, the peculiarities of its craft. According to I. Rudchenko, the songs of the Chumaks “... tell about what no ancient tomes are able to express ... They so vividly and fully reflected not only the spirit of the Chumaks, but also the composition of his life with the character of life, manners, customs and rites that these songs should become the basis for the study of the original figure of the Ukrainian merchant” (5).

The image of the path became the leading one in the songs of the analyzed thematic group: it is felt by wills and chumaks are afraid; The “path” has become for many the last chance to get out of a difficult economic situation; it is also an open unprotected space that opposes the house; opportunity to learn destiny or earn money. Members of chumak families consider the departure of the chumakman a departure to the afterlife, so they say goodbye to him as to the deceased. Chumak songs about the departure of the Chumak on the road use a figurative system, artistic means, poetic formulas of Cossack songs (5).

And here are chumak carts on the road:

The carts squeak, the yoke rumbles,

Gray oxen wink,

They are followed by young chumaks,

Whip are waved.

The hard work of the involved people, the frequent loss of property due to attacks by nomads and other robbers, often deaths and diseases, the long journey and the vastness of the southern steppes – all these factors are widely reflected in the poetic images and melodies of chumak songs. They are characterized by features found in almost all lyrical and everyday songs: the completeness of stanzas, broad melody, richness and variety of rhythms. In these songs there are also three directions of typification of musical images – due to the peculiarities of singing, recitative and motor melodies.

These trends occupy a different place in chumak songs. Most of the melody, which combines the traditions of solo and group singing, belongs to the singing type. Melodies of this composition, in contrast to recitative and dance, are also called song. Singing melody conveys the feeling of infinity of the road, the slow movement of the chumatski carts, the width of the steppe spaces (Proskurova, 2000). Motor and recitative types of melodies took much less place in chumatski songs. There is a small circle of images, limited to several variant groups. The closeness of variants most often appears in the text, as a rule, in the beginnings there are common images, vocabulary, syntactic inversions. The content and poetics determine certain musical forms and types of melody.

Among the milky songs of the motor composition there are samples that are close to the dance forms of kolomyyka, kozachka, hopak.

The second direction of the musical embodiment of the image in milk songs is connected with recitative melody. The impression of recitative is formed under the influence of asymmetric metrorhythmics, a certain “eloquence” of phrases (especially their beginnings), as well as long poems.

The poetics of songs of recitative composition is marked by peculiar features: plot, detail of descriptions, moralizing moments, aggravation of situations. All this belongs to the features of not so much song as ballad or epic style.

Thus, the melodic recitative also acts as a means of typification in the field of chumak epics.

The third, main direction of creating musical images in chumak songs is associated with singing melodies. Here we have a number of variant groups. Some of them are quite numerous. For example, “Oh, woe the seagull” has several hundred verbal and about fifty melodic variants. This is one of the most common chumak songs, the long life of which is explained by the sincerity of the melodies, the refined musical and poetic form, and most importantly. The fact that it has a meaning that is truly associated with human destiny. Songs of this group are one of the bright colors of folk lyrics.

Famous works of this cycle include such songs as “Oh, Chumaks came from Ukraine”, “Oh, Chumak, Chumak” (Kushpa, 2000).

A number of songs are dedicated to the relationship between a young man and a young woman. They begin with the formula „Oh, because of the mountains and because of the cliffs”.

The lyrical hero of these songs – Chumak – a free-spirited man who patiently accepts all the trials of fate. He is courageous, can stand up for himself in dangerous situations. Poverty often lead him to the risky trade:

Hey! But who knows no trouble,

Then let him ask me, yes gay!

Hey! And that grew in hiring, captivity,

But he did not know happiness or fate, but hey!

Hey! But the tribulation dried me up,

But longing bound me, and hey!

The lyrical hero empathizes with the fate of the chumak, tries to help him. To express sympathy for the hard work of the Chumaks, the songwriters often resort to the use of parallelism (Kushpa, 2000).

Oh, the black young jackdaw

Yes in a dark meadow;

My head hurts, hurts.

Even a heart in an ace.

Considerable attention is also paid to the leader in chumak songs. His image in many ways resembles a Cossack ataman. He is an experienced, brave peasant who wisely manages the people. When enemies attack, he is able to unite the Chumaks and organize resistance to the attackers.

Chumatstvo was not easy, full of trials, on which depended not only well-being but often life. Chumak was especially often ambushed by diseases, and the most terrible of them was the plague. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the theme of illness and death of the chumak on the road took a lot of place in the songs (“Oh, in the field well”, “Oh, and do not lie down, periwinkle”, “It was summer”, “Oh, the chumak walked seven hours on the Don”).

Most records of chumak songs are collected in Central Ukraine – in Kyiv, Poltava, Chernihiv, which coincides with the epicenter of the development of the dairy industry. Slow tempos, singing, soft intonations, singing of the text, breadths of breath are indicative for this region.

Chumak songs seek to convey the place, time of the event, reveal the typical moments of milky rituals, show the attitude of the chumak to death with the help of artistic details. Like Cossack songs, milky lyric works, glorifying the death of the hero, resort to traditional symbols: a red viburnum planted on the grave symbolizes heroic death, and a cuckoo – folk grief for the deceased (6). These symbols emphasize the eternal memory of the glorious chumak, the connection of the living with the representatives of the afterlife.

It is arised the image of a chumak from chumak songs. This person is courageous, enduring, steady, faithful to society, life-loving. He perceives the trade and carriage trade, first of all, as free work, independence, the desire for freedom, liberty, and only then considers it as a decent material life.

Thus, chumatski songs reflect the typical features of character, appearance, behavior of the representatives of the chumatstvo – merchants, Cossacks, peasants, mercenaries, burlaks in different historical stages of development of the industry. Reproducing the multifaceted life of Chumaks and their families, they continue the traditions of Ukrainian epic, lyrical (historical, family, Cossack, mercenary, labor, burlatsky) works.

Genre features of a large layer of Ukrainian national culture – chumak songs are considered both in theoretical research and in the instrumental training of future professionals in the field of art.

References

*** Рудченко, І. Я. Веб-сторінка. https://www.twirpx.com/file/2515741.

*** Фасмер, М. Веб-сторінка. https://ukraineclub.net/etimologicheskiy-slovar-russkogo-yazyka-mfasmera.

Danilevsky, G. P. (1992). Чумаки/Chumaky. Данилевський Г.П. Київ, Веселка, р. 108 -110.

Ivanovska, O. Р. (2005). Український фольклор як функціонально-образна система суб’єктності/ Ukrainian folklore as a functional-figurative system of subjectivity. Івановська О.П. Київ, ТОВ УВПК ЕксОб, pр. 225-227.

Kushpa, M. Z. (2000). Чумацькі пісні: ґенеза, художня своєрідність/ Chumatsky songs: genesis, artistic originality. Кушпа М.З. Київ, pр. 1-16.

Proskurova, S. V. (2000) Чумаки як виразні носії ментальності та етнічного архетипу українців/Chumaki as expressive carriers of the mentality and ethnic archetype of Ukrainians. Проскурова С. В. Київ, Унісерв, рp. 94 – 99.

https://web.archive.org/web/20111226044420/http://www.ukrhistory.narod.ru/texts/halimonenko-1.html.