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THE HISTORY OF THE STUDY OF YUKAGHIR MUSICAL CULTURE // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2019. Issue 4 (26). P. 149-159

Yukaghirs are a very small Northern people, their number is only 1603 people (according to the all-Russian census of 2010). The article describes the process of studying the musical folklore of two preserved local groups of Yukaghirs: Oduls (Upper Kolyma Yukaghirs) and Vaduls (Lower Kolyma Yukaghirs). The first account of the musical culture of the Yukaghirs appear in the works of travelers and missionaries, participants of expeditions of the 18–19 centuries, who studied the Kolyma region (F. F. Matyushkin, S. I. Mickiewicz, M. S. Vrutsevich, A. E. Dyachkov, V. G. Bogoraz). The works by V.I. Iohelson contain extensive ethnographic, linguistic and folklore materials on Oduls, which have a significant importance for researching the Yukaghirs musical culture. V.I. Iochelson described pictographic inscriptions on birch bark which are called changar shorile and related to the song tradition. In the 20th century, the works of E. A. Kreinovich were significant for the study of Yukaghir culture. A. N. Laptev published a number of folklore texts collected in 1959 by the expedition of USSR’s Academy of Science. Choreographer M. Ya. Zhornitskaya describing circular and imitative dances based on the field materials collected in 1959 and 1964. Yukaghir music became an object of research from 1960s, when composers and musicologists G. A. Grigoryan, E. Ye. Alekseev, G. N. Komrakov began to record examples of musical folklore and study them. In 1973, I. A. Brodsky recorded melodies of musical and dance folklore, gathered several musical instruments and instrumental tunes, made a primary theoretical analysis of intonation practice. T. S. Shentalinskaya in 1982 collected samples of song and lyrical improvisations (andylschina), characteristic for Russian old inhabitants and Yukaghirs of the Lower Kolyma. Since 1980s, T. I. Ignatieva and Yu. I. Sheykin have been working on the collection and publication of musical folklore of Yukaghirs. In the 1980s and 1990s, recordings of Yukaghir folklore were made by K. Tanimoto and T. Miller. Linguist S. Ode using their own field materials 1990–2000s studied recitative melodies in the tales of Yukaghir. The unique musical culture of the Yukaghirs belongs to the disappearing musical and folklore traditions and needs to be studied urgently.

Keywords: Indigenous Northern peoples, Yukaghirs, Oduls, Vaduls, music, musical folklore