Tatiana Ivanovna Kaluzhnikova. Trndtteinnnyi russkii 
muzvkalny* kalendar1 Srednego Urala. Ekaterinburg-
Cheliabinsk (Serija "Biblioteka uralskogo folklora/' 
vol. 1). 208 pp. With music. 

Izaly Zemtsovsky, Ernest Bloch Professor 
University of California, Berkeley 

This book opens a new series and is in a certain sense a sensation. 
Calendar rituals and folklore, which traditionally have been 
connected with western and south-western Russian regions, have 
been practically unpresented by ethnomusicologists of the Urals. 
Eighty-tliree songs attached to calendar holidays and widely 
known to the old- time Russian inhabitants of the Central Urals 
before Soviet power are included in the present collection. The 
author, a well known musicologist and folklorist in the Urals, 
carried out the recording of these rituals and songs in the 1970s 
and 1980s with the assistance of students from the Ural State 
Conservatory named after M. P. Musorgsky and of members of 
the Sverdlovsk District House of Folklore. In the Urals the most 
well known Yuletide, Carnival, Trinity, and Semik rituals, round 
dances, and the basic circle of the songs accompanying them have 
been restored by the author according to recollections of the rural 
performers.and according to archival materials. Description of 
the calendar holidays has been given both in the author s account 
and in the stories of the residents of towns and villages in the 
Urals. Almost all the material is being published for the first 
time and preserves the main features of the Ural dialect. Within 
the calendar sections songs have been grouped by their rhythmic 
structures. In the commentary parallels with the calendar folk­
lore of other regions or Russia are given, first of all the traditions 
closest to those of the Urals, that is, the Russian North, 
Povolzhie, Kama, Zaurale, and Siberia. 

Kaluzhnikova's introductory article and her scholarly 
apparatus are marked by their high level of scholarship and have 
no trace of provincialism. She characterizes the folklore-ethno­
graphic cycle of the calendar tradition in the Central Urals (pp. 7-
25) and the music as one of the "sub codes" in the calendar rituals 
of the Central Urals (pp. 25- 48) in detail. She points out the 
heterogeneity of the local population and the role of inter-ethnic 
contacts with the non-Russian peoples of the Urals, proposes a 
typology of the song structures and their rhythm, distinguishes 

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mono- and polytextual melodies, and discloses their sexual and 
age differentiation. ^ 

The book contains unique variants of platter songs that 
are generally rarely met in publications ("Khodit po poliu Ilia 
prorok1'), of songs for accompanying spring ("Kostroma"), and of 
round dance songs. There also is an entire section of religious 
verses (dukhovnye stikhi) and songs that were performed during 
fasts (pp. 77-83). The stylistic connection of the latter songs with 
Ukrainian "kants" of the eighteenth century have also been 
noted. The author has investigated this genre thoroughly in 
publications from her dissertation in the late 1970s. Master­
pieces of rare beauty and preservation appear among the poetic 
texts. 

On the whole the introduction of materials from the Urals 
into the general Slavic scholarly fund represents a significant 
fact in the present day process of elucidating local folklore 
traditions. Next in line is the preparation of the following 
volume of the undertaken Urals series, which will be dedicated to 
the traditional wedding of the Central Urals. At the present time 
Kaluzhnikova is working on the unique riches of its songs and 
laments. 

Translated by James O. Bailey 

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