Back to the journal2018 year №4

The Earliest Prominent Women’s Contribution to Ethnography: Sofiya Cherniavska

Read the articleRead the articleDownload the article
The authors of the publication:
Ivannikova Liudmyla
p.:
56-64
UDC:
39(092)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15407/nte2018.03.056
Bibliographic description:
Ivannikova, L. (2018) The Earliest Prominent Women’s Contribution to Ethnography: Sofiya Cherniavska. Folk Art and Ethnology, 3 (373), 56–64.

Author

IVANNIKOVA LIUDMYLA

a Ph.D. in Philology, a senior research fellow at Ukrainian and Foreign Folklore Studies Department of the NASU M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology

 

The Earliest Prominent Women’s Contribution to Ethnography: Sofiya Cherniavska

 

Abstract

This is the first paper in modern historiography dealt with the scientific heritage of Sofiya Cherniavska, a little-known collector of folklore from Khersonshchyna. Her personality remains to be unknown, as there is no biographical information available. The authoress surmises that she hailed from the village of Bilozerka, where she collected material for her collection. The collection of folklore from the Bilozerka village was highly appreciated by her contemporaries. Mykola Sumtsov has put her name next to the most prominent names of folklore collectors. Lately, Cherniavska’s folkloric heritage was highly appraised by Stepan Myshanych, who called it a singing monograph of a village.

The paper’s authoress reviews the scientific achievements of S. Cherniavska from modern science’s point of view. She primarily gives an assessment to scantily investigated phenomena of traditional culture, recorded by the collector and being at the time virtually disappearing. According to a programme, to which the collector stuck, all the materials were divided into two groups: ceremonies; and beliefs and song. Among the described rites, the following ones are of an interest: Kolodiy, Perepolovennia, 1st of May, dedication holiday, mowing celebration, harvest holiday, and send-off to army. There are original samples of maiden divinations. While considering send-off of a recruiter in more details, the paper’s authoress proves that it belongs to the rites of passage, related to New Year and funeral ceremonies. A particular attention is drawn to the beliefs on the transformation of water into wine during Christmastide: from Christmas through New Year to the Epiphany. They were already disappearing in the late XIXth century, though being popular all over Ukraine back in the XVIIth century. Records of legends made in Kyiv in the 1620s to 1640s evidence this conclusion. The authoress traces the transformation of these beliefs. Among songs, the ritual, Cossack-historical songs have remained the most poetic and conservative in terms of textual study. The authoress parallels records of S. Chernaavska with records of D. Yavornytskyi made at the same time and in the same village, as well as focuses on variants, contaminated texts, and novelties.

 

Keywords

Folklore of Southern Ukraine, song novelties, history of folklore studies.

 

References

  1. Hrinchenko B. (1996) Glossary of Ukrainian Language (Reprint; compiled by the Kyivan Past editorial staff; collated and material-supplemented by B. Hrinchenko) (in Four Volumes) / NAS of Ukraine, Institute of Ukrainian Language. Kyiv: Naukova dumka, Vol. 3: О–П, 516 pp.
  2. D. K. (1896) Modern Little-Russian Ethnography by N. Sumtsov (review). Proceedings of the T. Shevchenko Scientific Society, Vol. 12, Book 4, pp. 18–20.
  3. Kasyanenko O. (1972) The History of Towns and Villages of the Ukrainian SSR: in 26 Volumes (Kasyanenko O. (head of the volume’s editorial board)) (editorial staff of the Ukrainian SSR’s URE), Vol. 21: Kherson Region, 687 pp.
  4. Liatskiy Ye. (1894) Collected Articles of the Kharkov Historical and Philological Society, Vol. 5. The Ethnographic Review, № 1, pp. 163–167.
  5. M. Frits Typography (1876) Little-Russian Folk Legends and Stories / Combined by Mikhaylo Dragomanov (an edition by the South-Western Division of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society). Kiev: M. Frits Typography, 434 pp.
  6. Miloradovich V. (1897) A Recruit’s Leave-Parting and Recruit’s Songs in Lubny Disrict of Poltava Governorate. The Kyivan Past, № 7/8, pp. 80–95.
  7. Myshanych S. (2003) Local Monographic Studies of Folklore. Folkloristic and Philological Papers. Donetsk: DNU, Vol. 1, pp. 67–87.
  8. Mogila P. (1877) Autographic Notes of Petro Mogila. 1) Petro Mogila’s Stories on Miraculous and Wonderful Appearances in the Bosom of the Orthodox Church (of South Russia, Moldova and Wallachia, and Greece). Archives of Southwestern Russia. Kyiv, Part 1, Vol. 7, pp. 49–132.
  9. Sumtsov N. (1897) S. А. Cherniavskaya. Modern Little-Russian Ethnography of N. Sumtsov. Kiev, Part 2, pp. 22–24.
  10. Tolstoy N. (1995) Wine. The Slavonic Ancientry. An Ethno-Linguistic Dictionary: in Five Volumes (ed. N. Tolstoy) (RAS, Institute of Slavonic and Balkan Studies). Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyye otnosheniya, Vol. 1: А–Г, pp. 373–374.
  11. Information and Publishing Centre of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (2011) The Euchology of Metropolitan Petro Mohyla: in Two Vols. (Reprint). Kyiv: Information and Publishing Centre of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Vol. 2, 816 pp.
  12. Cherniavskaya S. (1893) Rituals and Songs of the Village of Belozerki, Kherson Governorate / Recorded by Sofiya Cherniavskaya. Collected Papers of the Kharkov Historical and Philological Society, Vol. 5, pp. 82–166.
  13. Evarnitskiy D. (1906) Little-Russian Folk Songs Gathered through 1878–1905. Yekaterinoslav: Governorate’s Zemstvo, XL + 772 pp.

The texts are available under the terms of the Creative Commons
international license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
© ІМФЕ