THE PROBLEM OF TUNES IN THE COLLECTION OF KIRSHA DANILOV: VSEVOLOD KORGUZALOV’S APPROACH TO THE MANUSCRIPT

Abstract

The manuscript known as Sbornik Kirshi Danilova (Collection of Kirsha Danilov), which was compiled in the 18th century and published at the beginning of the 19th century under the title Drevnie rossiiske stikhotvoreniia, sobrannye Kirshei Danilovym (Ancient Russian poems collected by Kirsha Danilov), is the first large collection of Russian folklore. It includes the most complete corpus of epic texts for that time, as well as songs of other genres. The manuscript preserved the repertoire of one performer, a bearer of the tradition, and it is unique because it presents both texts and tunes. The problem, however, is that the manuscript presents melodies and texts separately: the text does not accompany the corresponding notes but is written after the tune and is not divided into verses. The article describes the scholarly approach to this problem, which was developed and applied by Vsevolod Korguzalov, an employee of the Phonogram Archive of the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkinskii Dom) in St. Petersburg, in the 1960s–1990s. This approach permits the reading and the performance of the repertoire of the manuscript in modern transcription.