Lessja Farrow and Lyudmyla Koziy, Tasmania
Miklós Both, founder of the Polyphony Project, is on a mission: to collect folk music in Ukraine. In the last four years, the project has visited over 100 different villages and recorded 2000 songs sung by the women in each village. All these folk songs are then compiled into a digital archive, as a way to preserve the long-standing musical folklore tradition of each Ukrainian village. You can see and hear some of his work here.
Rob and Olya Willis have made many recordings of Ukrainian traditions throughout Australia, a couple of which are available online through the National Library of Australia:
https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-962022982/listen
https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-686884528/listen
In the current circumstances, these ‘intangible’ traditions, like much of Ukraine’s other rich cultural treasures are under threat. Tony Smith writes about this below …
THE DESTRUCTION OF CULTURAL ARTEFACTS IN UKRAINE BORDERS ON GENOCIDE
Amid the destruction of life and infrastructure during the invasion of Iraq by Australia, the USA and the UK, one unnecessary consequence was the bomb damage and looting of cultural treasures in Baghdad and other centres. The barbaric invasion of Ukraine by Russia will likely target cultural treasures as the invasion is based on an ideological conviction that Ukraine has no right to exist.
The ‘looting’ of Baghdad’s National Museum of Iraq was one of history’s worst acts of cultural vandalism. https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2018/04/10/iraq-museum-looting--15-years-on.html. The lost treasures belonged to the world’s heritage.
Ukraine’s cultural treasures include visual artworks, sculptures and important public buildings. Already in the military barbarity in Ukraine, some artworks by Maria Primochenko have been destroyed in the burning of Ivankiv’s Museum of Local History. The artist’s style is in the folk art form.
Folklore societies in both England and the USA have condemned the potential vandalism and have planned co-operation with folklorists in Ukraine to rescue and archive electronic resources where possible. Rare and irreplaceable films for example, cross numerous genres. See for example https://folklore-society.com/blog-post/a-message-in-support-of-the-people-of-ukraine/
Archives in Ukraine are also under threat. These include repositories of the records of music, dance and folk arts and crafts. There is no way that the invading Russian military will show sufficient restraint to preserve cultural treasures. It is more likely to wilfully destroy these important bases of Ukrainian identity. In its efforts to spread disinformation about the war, Russia is proving that truth is an early casualty and that it will be ruthless in destroying the historical records of its victims. The only sure way to guarantee the safety of Ukrainian folk life is to stop the invasion now.
The UN Convention defines genocide as an ‘intentional effort to completely or partially destroy a group based on its nationality, ethnicity, race or religion’. https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide-convention.shtml It is difficult to interpret the Russian invasion as anything other than an attempt to obliterate Ukrainian identity, which is the basis for an independent state.
Several of the regular visitors to www.melodeon.net have produced renditions of the Ukrainian National Anthem https://forum.melodeon.net/index.php?topic=28031.0;topicseen while pondering what else they might be able to do. People in the folk music community always show compassion for people less fortunate than themselves. Ukraine is far distant from Australia and it is difficult to feel we are doing something either for the victims of the war or for ourselves. Perhaps taking an interest in Ukrainian culture and valuing it would be a way of showing solidarity. Sting has certainly done so. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW0Wq-t4kSQ.
Dr Tony Smith is a folk musician based in the Central West of New South Wales.