Metadata: Jewish Musical Folklore
Collection
- Country:
- Ukraine
- Holding institution:
- Manuscript Institute of the V. I. Vernads’kyi National Library of Ukraine
- Holding institution (official language):
- Інститут рукопису Національної бібліотеки України ім. В.І. Вернадського
- Postal address:
- Building number 2, 62 Vladimirskaya street, 3rd floor, k.307; 4th floor, k. 403, Kiev 03039, Ukraine
- Phone number:
- 380 (44) 288-1418
- Web address:
- http://www.nbuv.gov.ua/node/1
- Email:
- irnbuv@gmail.com
- Reference number:
- F. 322
- Title:
- Jewish Musical Folklore
- Title (official language):
- Еврейский музыкальный фольклор
- Creator/accumulator:
- Zusman Kiselgof (Sussmann Kisselhof), Moshe Beregovskii et al.
- Date(s):
- 1903/1947
- Language:
- Russian
- Hebrew
- Yiddish
- Extent:
- 3,147 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
-
Materials housed in the fonds include a collection of sound recordings on wax (Edison) cylinders, the fruit of the efforts of several generations of folklorists and researchers in performing a comprehensive survey of everyday Jewish musical culture of Ukraine (and to a lesser extent, Belarus); sheet music for and transcriptions of sound materials; and field recordings of Jewish musical folklore in the form of sheet music and song recordings. Genres represented include religious motets and liturgical melodies; folk and everyday songs; lyric folk songs; instrumental music and wordless melodies; folk theatre; declamations, salutations, and technical demo tapes. The latter category includes recordings of the voices of Sholom Aleichem, V. L. Zuskin, O. F. Bergol’ts, and D. R. Bergel’son. Religious motets feature traditional Hasidic singing, legends of the Bratslav Hasidism, and stories about Hasidic rebbes.
Another corpus housed in the fonds consists of expedition recordings of songs from Jewish ghettos of Transnistria made by Moshe Beregovskii and I. Shaikis in 1945-46. The collection of theatricals (Purimspiels) includes, in particular, “Ahasuerus-spiels” as recorded and transcribed by Zusman Kiselgof (Sussmann Kisselhof) and Moshe Beregovskii in the 1920s-40s. Most of the transcriptions are in roman transliteration.
- Archival history:
- The fonds as presently constituted was formed in 1991-93 at the Manuscript Institute of the V. I. Vernads’kyi National Library of Ukraine from a whole range of collections, each with its own history. Thus, in 1949 the Ukrainian SSR Academy of Sciences’ State Public Library received a collection of Jewish musical folklore from the Ukrainian SSR Academy of Sciences’ Office of Jewish Culture, which had inherited it and other materials from the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Jewish Proletarian Culture, where this collection had been assembled in the Department of Jewish Ethnography and Folklore by Moshe Beregovskii (1892-1961). The collection of Iu. D. Engel’ (1868-1927), some of which the composer assembled during ethnographic expeditions in 1912-14, was presented to the department by his daughter A. Iu. Engel’. Musical folklore collected during Jewish Historical-Ethnographic Society expeditions, recordings of Jewish folklore from southern Ukraine made by Zusman Kiselgof (Sussmann Kisselhof) (1878-1939), and a collection of recordings from Palestine made by I. S. Lur’e in 1913-14 on behalf of the Jewish Folk Music Society and the Jewish Historical-Ethnographic Society were transferred to the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Jewish Culture in 1930 as part of the Jewish Historical-Ethnographic Society archive and museum. A private collection of Jewish musical folklore belonging to Zusman Kiselgof, which he had compiled from 1913-32, was presented to the Ukrainian SSR Academy of Sciences’ Office of Jewish Culture by the folklorist’s daughter in 1940. Documents of the 1920s-40s were collected during expeditions in this period by Moshe Beregovskii. During the Second World War, some of the collection was evacuated to Ufa, and some removed to Germany.
- Access points: locations:
- Transnistria
- Ukraine
- Access points: persons/families:
- Beregovskii, M.
- Bergel’son, D.
- Bergol’ts, O. F.
- Kiselgof, Zusman
- Shaikis, I.
- Sholem Aleichem
- Zuskin, V. L.
- System of arrangement:
-
The fonds includes four inventories grouped according to particular collections, each arranged either according to collectors, or according to the collections of which it consists.
Op. 1 consists of the Office of Jewish Culture’s sound library (phono-cylinders), with recordings of Jewish musical folklore; op. 2 has sheet music and transcriptions pertaining to the Office of Jewish Culture’s sound library, and recordings of Jewish theatricals (Purimspiels); op. 3 includes sheet music of songs, instrumental pieces, and wordless melodies [nigunim] directly recorded in field conditions or sent by collectors and systematised by personnel of the Jewish Folk Music Society (Moscow branch) and the Ukrainian SSR Academy of Sciences’ Office of Jewish Culture; op. 4 consists of sheet music materials from the collection of Zusman Kiselgof (Sussmann Kisselhof), including sheet music, transcriptions, and recordings of Jewish musical folklore performed by Kiselgof himself.
- Finding aids:
- Inventories are available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
