Can subalterns sing? Kalmyk songs about their exile to Siberia
https://doi.org/10.22394/2412-9410-2024-10-1-84-106
Abstract
The article deals with Kalmyk folk songs about the deportation of the Kalmyk people to Siberia (1943–1957). The purpose is to exhibit the Siberian cycle of Kalmyk songs as a special genre, to elucidate its folklore specifics and to show how its pragmatics have changed depending on the political context during the last 80 years. The study is based on a corpus of 80 texts in the Kalmyk language. The songs were collected among folk song performers in Kalmykia, and from archival recordings, social networks and published songs. The tradition of the Siberian song operates with its own fund of various types of constants and formulas. The article provides an analysis of plots, stylistics, reflections of small genres of folklore in song texts. Particular attention is paid to the pragmatics of Siberian songs in connection with the historical policy of the state, to the development of the performing canon and to the role of songs in the process of ethnic identification and collective memory. The songs of the Siberian cycle have a special role: these local voices became a vital source about the life and feelings of the Kalmyks in 1943–1957, as a kind of musical ego-documents reflecting the thoughts and feelings of the exiles: bewilderment, bitterness, resentment, hope. The authors show that the Siberian songs were the only public form of protest and a way to proclaim the suffering of the Kalmyks as a group.
Keywords
Supporting agencies: The article was written in accordance with the research plan of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Introduction, sections “In jail for a song”, “Performing songs after 1957”, conclusion by E.-B. M. Guchinova) and on the basis of the RANEPA state assignment research programme (section “Poetics and stylistics of Siberian songs” by Ts. B. Seleeva).
About the Authors
E.-B. M. Guchinova
N. N. MiklukhoMaklai Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russia Academy of Sciences Russia
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Elza-Bair M. Guchinova, Dr. Sci. (History) Leading Research, Associate Center for Ethnopolitical Research
119334, Moscow, Leninsky Prospekt, 32a
T. B. Seleeva
The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Tsagan B. Seleeva, Cand. Sci. (Philology) Senior Researcher, Center for Theoretical Folklore Studies, School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Institute of Social Sciences
119571, Moscow, Prospekt Vernadskogo, 82
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Review
For citations:
Guchinova E.M., Seleeva T.B. Can subalterns sing? Kalmyk songs about their exile to Siberia. Shagi / Steps. 2024;10(1):84-106. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22394/2412-9410-2024-10-1-84-106
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