Vikár László: Votyak folksongs (Budapest, 1989)

VOTYAK FOLKSONGS by László Vikár and Gábor Bereczki In 1957 Zoltán Kodály called up the Soviet cultural attaché accredited in Budapest. "Well, are we friends or are we not?"—asked Kodály. "Of course we are!"—"If so, will you please make it possible for a young pupil of mine to conduct study tours in the Volga-Kama-Belaya region. He wishes to collect folksongs there.” Consequently, Dr. László Vikár, associated with the competent linguist Professor Gábor Bereczki on the field trips, has published, beside many papers both in Hungarian and foreign periodicals, the Cheremis and Chuvash volumes, and what the reader now holds in hand: the Votyak Folksongs. This volume containing some 330 data allows insight into the musical traditions of the Votyaks living in the territories of the Tartar and Bashkir ASSRs, offering at the same time possibilities for comparison with the music of the neighbouring Finno-Ugrian and Turkic-speaking nations, as well as with the oldest layers of Hungarian folk-music. The strophic structure and the poetic quality of the song-texts provide abundant material for linguistic and literary research. Beyond all this, the book has an international significance in as much as it exposes such ethnomusicological and folkloristic properties which promote the examination of interconnections and transitions between "primitive”- and folk­­poetry. As to construction, the volume agrees with that of the former volumes. Finally, the lessons that can be drawn from it are profitable for several branches of humanities. AKADÉMIAI KIADÓ, BUDAPEST

Next