Academic literature on the topic 'Children's songs, Russian'

This chapter unpacks the sociopolitical atmosphere in which the Russian popular view of its own Orient was born. It discusses how Russian images of eastern and southern “others,” crystallized in maligned form in bylinas, historical, and children’s songs, were promoted through the publication of song collections and how these representations generated hostile attitudes toward Russia’s eastern and southern neighbors. During the time of conflicts within Russia and wars in the east, the folk songs describing “evil Chechens,” monstrous Tatars, and aggressive Turks camouflaged Russia’s own internal problems. The chapter notes the changes in collections of Russian folk songs that occurred at the end of the nineteenth century: some of Russia’s ethnic minorities who embraced Orthodox Christianity and adopted a Russian way of life (e.g., Cheremis) were included in collections of “Russian” (russkii) folk songs. Due to the shift in imperial projects, different ethnic minorities, despite their cultural differences, were embraced as members of the multiethnic empire.

Abstract In the period of Romantic Nationalism when epic received attention across Europe, Russia still had a living oral tradition. Important collections of Russian epic, byliny, were made in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most byliny sing about events in what is now Ukraine, indicating that they likely originated there and were carried northward by professional musicians. The performers in the Russian north were non-professionals and sang without instrumental accompaniment. Their songs were complex, dealing with human struggles and portraying powerful figures, both male and female. Communist authorities seized on byliny and Sovietized them to valorize the Soviet state. Efforts to create noviny, new epics about Soviet accomplishments, failed; but sanitized versions of traditional byliny were successful in popular culture as stories for children. Currently, the heroes Ilia Muromets, Dobrynia Nikitych, and Alesha Popovich represent the essence of Russian folklore and are especially popular in animated film.

The work examines ways and necessary conditions for acquiring the rights by nobles and «boyar children», the transition from nobles and «boyar children» to other classes. The author concludes that the concept of the «collapse of the service city» is part of the Marxist paradigm in the study of Russian history, and at present it can not be considered outside this paradigm. The work notes that the inheritance was not a way of entering the social group of nobles and «boyar children». The key factor, in this case, should be considered a special judicial procedure for «verstaniye» by local and monetary salary. In turn, this means that the sons of the «boyar children» were not «boyar children», but, being the sons of serving fathers, had priority when going through the «verstaniye» procedure. Moreover, not having the duty of serving, the sons of the «boyar children» could become part of any other category of the population. The paper concludes that any society is stable in the presence of social mobility, that is, the possibility of transition from one social category to another.

The article presents the results of a study of the peculiarities of the use of phraseological units in family communication of bilingual families residing in the Sumy region (north-eastern region of Ukraine). It has been established that family phraseology is embodied in a kind of «home» dictionary, which encompasses usual, transformed, occasional stable sayings and precedent phenomena. Typically, these expressions are in Ukrainian, Russian and Surzhyk, marked by an expressive conversational style and emotional content. The most «stable» in the temporal dimension are specific common and occasional phraseological units, as well as precedent «children’s» texts, which largely shape not only a shared family phraseological dictionary but also represent the characteristics of the linguistic and cultural space of the family as a whole. The precedent texts of the Soviet discourse turned out to be the most «movable» in the composition of family phraseology. Following the large-scale invasion, a discernible shift away from Russian-language phrases and quotes from Soviet films, pop songs, and works of Russian literature is evident. In their place, we observe the active incorporation of Ukrainian-language precedent units from works of Ukrainian literature, cartoons, and contemporary Ukrainian variety shows. There is also an intensification of Surzhik language expressions, primarily employed as a stylistic tool. The events in Ukraine after February 24, 2022 led to the active replenishment of the family dictionary and wartime phraseology – Ukrainian and Surzhik-language persistent sayings-memes, which, undergoing structural and semantic changes in casual speech, are primarily used to express the emotions and feelings of Ukrainians, their attitude towards enemies, motivation to action.

Antonina Domańska (1853–1917). Writer’s Domestic Environment The children’s author Antonina Domańska (1853–1917) came from a well-known Kraków middle-class family of German-Austrian descent. Joseph Kremer, the progenitor and grandfather of Antonina, was granted his rights as a citizen of the City of Krakow in 1796. His three sons, Józef, Karol and Aleksander (the father of Antonina) all received a thorough education and in time became accomplished figures of Polish science and arts. Aleksander Kremer (1813–1880) starting in 1842 lived in Kamieniec Podolski and worked there as a doctor. There, he married Modesta Płońska who in 1853 gave birth to their daughter, Antonina. After the fall of the January Uprising of 1863, the family was forced to leave Russian-occupied Poland and return to Krakow. Here Antonina Kremer obtained her education in a boarding school for girls; in 1874 she married Stanisław Domański, a surgeon. She took care of the household and looked after her five children, two of which survived into adulthood. Beginning in 1890, Antonina Domańska took to writing stories for children and young adults. She maintained close contacts with the family of Lucjan Rydel Sr, a medical doctor, whose wife Helena, the daughter of prof. Józef Kremer, was her cousin. But it Isabel Röskau-Rydel was her cousin’s son, the poet and writer Lucjan Rydel Jr (1870–1918), who – as the correspondence between them readily shows – inspired her in her literary endeavours, advised her on publishing her works and was a trustworthy partner for discussions on possible topics for her tales for children and young adults.

M. Gorky and S. Sergeev-Tsensky are two original authors quite different in the artistic manner. Their work (with all the differences) has at the same time some features of similarity. In particular both authors appeal to the theme of merchants, entrepreneurship, to portraying people who are striving to achieve material prosperity, but at the same time enter into complex relationships with others (like Ignat Fomin in Gorky’s novel “Foma Gordeev” and Anton Antonych in Sergeyev-Tsensky’s poem “Movements”). So, Anton Antonych in various ways makes a pretty significant fortune (he was a sutler in the Turkish campaign, was engaged in the purchase of flax, rented a sugar plant). He was extremely purposeful and hardworking, squeezing all the juices from both the ground and his employees, was not restrained and even rude to them. For this reason, he was disliked by others,was charged with deliberate arson of his own straw and had a big trouble. The fate of the hero of the novel by M. Gorky Ignat Gordeev (with all the differences) has some similarities with the fate of Anton Antonych. He “from the simple worker <...> became the master of the big business”, having shown energy and purposefulness for achievement of “the main purpose of existence” — reception of profit. The fate and attitude to the “cause” of the children of these successful business entrepreneurs are more complex: the son of Ignat Matveyevich-Foma-eventually comes to an open revolt against the merchant class, and the sons of Anton Antonich choose a different life path. The theme of “fathers and children”, the gap in generations is one of the most significant in the analyzed works of Gorky and Sergeyev-Tsensky. In general, Sergeev-Tsensky and Gorky, using various artistic means, depict typologically homogeneous phenomena of the Russian reality of the post-reform period, associated with the formation of a special type of merchant-entrepreneur. At the same time, the images created by Sergeyev-Tsensky peculiarly entered into the tradition of depicting the merchant class of Gorky.