“A BOOK IN THE KRIUKOV FAMILY OF PERFORMERS”: ON THE SOURCES OF THE SPIRITUAL POEM ABOUT JOSEPH THE ALL-COMELY FROM THE WINTER COAST OF THE WHITE SEA

Abstract

Several researchers, including Yurii Alexandrovich Novikov, have noted a strong influence of published texts on the poems that were composed and performed by members of the Kriukov family of the village of Nizhniaia Zimnaia Zolotitsa on the Winter Coast of the White Sea. The book that the Kriukovs used in their creative work was the popular anthology Narodnaia poeziia (Folk poetry), which was published by A. V. Oksenov in 1894. This article reveals texts that served as sources for the poem about Joseph the All-Comely with the incipit “ To whom shall I relate my sorrow…,” which was recorded by the folklorist A. V. Markov from the famous performer Agrafena Matveevna Kriukova at the beginning of the 20th century. The article is accompanied by the publication of the text of a poem about Joseph the All-Comely with the same incipit from an 18th-century manuscript that belonged to the Kriukovs’ collection of books, which is now in the possession of the Library of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg (Collection of current acquisitions, No. 421). The study of these texts led to the conclusion that the poem about Joseph that was performed by Agrafena Kriukova was not based on Oksenov’s anthology. Instead, its source was the spiritual poem that circulated in handwritten copies, one of which belonged to Vasilii L. Kriukov, Agrafena’s father-in-law, and was read to Agrafena by her daughter Pavla. The second part of the poem that Kriukova performed suggests her acquaintance with the Life (or the Story) of Joseph the All-Comely or its folklore renderings.