Any populated area is interesting in its own way, regardless of its size and administrative status (e.g., city, town, township, village). This time my story is about Bohuslav, a village in Pavlohrad raion, Dnipropetrovsk oblast. I asked Illia Fetysov, founder and artistic director of Kyiv’s folk rock band Bozhychi and frequent visitor to the region, to share his knowledge.
Illia, how did you end up in Bohuslav in the first place?
“Well, it’s a long story. We took part in a music fest in Rivne. Among the participants there was a folk rock band from Kocherezhky, a village in Pavlohrad raion, Dnipropetrovsk oblast. Up until then we believed that Pavlohrad raion was off-limits territory, destined for industrial output, ballistic missiles and solid propellant. We hardly expected it to produce a rock group of any kind. But after listening to the Kocherezhky band we found ourselves fascinated by their renditions. In 2000 we sailed down the river Vovcha in kayaks, all the way to the place where it smoothly merges into the river Samara and where this village is located. Our voyage was quite eventful as we found ourselves stranded amongst all kinds of obstacles uncharacteristic of the quiet local waters, such as factory pipes, reed, rapids, and rocks. Once in Kocherezhky, we discovered a real treasure of traditional art unspoiled by folklorists. That period made us fall in love with Dnipropetrovsk oblast; we visited every village in Pavlohrad raion and recorded lots of old Cossack songs. We returned to Bohuslav in 2004.”
What did the village look like?
“It stretches out over six kilometers (3.7 miles) of steppe. Considering that Kocherezhky is the highest area in Dnipropetrovsk oblast, Bohuslav is a boundless plain, save for ancient Scythian burial mounds. The river Samara which flows by Bohuslav is a natural boundary, and you can find burial mounds (which are rather tall) on both banks.”
What were the results of your ethnographic expedition?
“We met local babushkas and asked them to sing old songs. They did, leaving us stunned by their diversity. The lyrics seemed endless and surpassed all my expectations, with each couplet merging into the next, changing, following its own course. Another thing that impressed me was the polyphony. It was a rare occurrence, considering that folk songs usually have two or three voices. There we heard ones that had up to five voices! There was also a very original rendition where women sang like men. We could sense that it was initially a male choir that eventually turned into a female one but which had retained many of its earlier characteristics. Their performance was very impressive. In 2005 our folk rock band was a co-organizer of Oleh Skrypka’s Dreamland Festival, so we brought the babushkas to Kyiv.”
Judging by your impression, it was a real vocal bonanza, wasn’t it?
“We visited a neighboring raion and were told about a parish priest, a graduate of a Moscow seminary who was posted to Bohuslav in the 1970s, and who had sung with the Moscow Patriarchate Choir. He arrived and wanted to know who had vocal talent [in Bohuslav]. The local female church choirmaster told him that the Moscow Patriarchate Choir was no match for hers: ’No one can sing the way they do in Bohuslav.’ It transpired that most singers in her ensemble also sang with the church choir. I visited them on Easter Eve in 2006. I wanted to tape their All-night Vigil (the Eastern Orthodox Church’s aggregation of the three canonical hours of Vespers, Matins, and the First Hour). Prior to that occasion I had heard church choirs only in Kyiv and found them lacking. But in Bohuslav I was listening to those women who knew nothing about sheet music and who were singing in six to seven voices! How could they accomplish this mind-boggling polyphony without using sheet music? Theirs was not the typical canonical, detached church choir but a heartfelt, impassioned performance, very much down to the earth, which made it all the more interesting to listen to. Let me stress that this is innate to the Bohuslav vocal style. This singularity was confirmed by numerous visits to villages in Donetsk oblast, which is a true folkways encyclopedia, where we found that virtually every village boasted its own tradition.”
Could you please enlarge on this?
“This is Cossack territory. The populace is a mix of refugees who fled to the Zaporozhian Sich from all parts of Ukraine [Poland, and Russia]. In Dnipropetrovsk oblast every village (popularly known as sloboda, literally a free settlement) has its distinctions. You won’t find two villages with the same kind of folk songs. Their folk vocal heritage is real bonanza for researchers, unlike Polissia where you find the same kind of songs over all that vast area. Let me restate that you won’t hear the kind of songs you can hear in Bohuslav anywhere else. Also, there are other traditions typical of Bohuslav, including their borsch which isn’t red but yellow and a bit sour because they use beet kvass rather than roots. They call their borsch svekolnik [from the Russian svekla instead of the Ukrainian buriak beetroot].”
Any other interesting aspects about Bohuslav folkways?
“Their wedding songs are very long, with many varying parts. In fact, I felt like a filmmaker when listening to them; they could be easily made into a rapid movie or a series of freeze frames. The singers would stop, as if posing for a picture, and then continue singing, in accordance with tradition.”
How would you explain such long folk songs?
“I think the reason lies entirely in their environment. It comes from what you feel when having to walk for endless miles in the steppe. This steppe looks boundless for the casual traveler, and that’s exactly the kind of terrain you find in the vicinity of Bohuslav. By comparison, Carpathian folk music has the same kind of pitch and sharp edge, except that the Ukrainian highland music and singing is short and precise, while that of the steppe has brief lyrics but lots of couplets.”
What makes Bohuslav special, apart from its songs?
“Every village is different from the next, on account of its inhabitants. The first thing I noticed when walking down Bohuslav streets was a huge riverboat on the left bank. It was Kafka-like setting: a village in the Ukrainian steppe, and then all of a sudden a sailboat looking as good as new: get aboard, pay, and tell the captain to cast off. I asked if it was a local nouveau riche’s project and was told that the whole thing was an ordinary local resident’s idea. It so happened that I could visit the man only in 2008. Hennadii Tanchik is a coal miner at the Samarska Pit, with no education to spur creativity. Yet what we saw in his courtyard would honor any prestigious museum, anywhere across the globe. There was the wrought iron gate, a piece of fine work for sure. The man lived in an antique ramshackle village home even after building a real mansion with wrought iron towers on the corners. There was the oval outhouse made of empty bottles with thatched roofing and a wrought iron drinking well. In fact, there were two wells: one where you had to draw water by lowering and then lifting a bucket on a chain, and another with a giant wrought iron and fantastically designed well sweep. And there was the riverboat-cum-bathing-house. A huge rivercraft right there on his garden plot, with the life-size masts and sails, and with electrical garlands that shine during the night. Whatever this man does, he goes about it with skill and talent. His talent defies the imagination!”
Where do you think this talent comes from?
“We asked and he answered jokingly that he had served in the [Soviet] army and that he was standing close to an artillery piece when it misfired. But from what we learned the man was a bit of a nut even before he was conscripted. On one occasion he brought a pig’s head to a movie theater clad in a coat, with a hat, and placed it in the next seat. Eventually someone in the audience spotted it while watching the movie and then all hell broke loose. Imagine a pig watching a movie! And there he was, a respected coal miner with his wife and children. Well, different strokes for different folks.”
The Holy Bible offers a very good metaphor for the blessed city of Jerusalem. Does Bohuslav have such a metaphor?
“Of course it does, and I think that every Ukrainian village has one.”
What about the cities?
“They are anything but blessed. The city grows and destroys the countryside. The cities are black holes where everything is annihilated. By contrast, every village is blessed by the Lord, its people are carriers of the Ukrainian tradition; they are bestowed their residence by the Lord and help preserve national culture. God willing, we will revive this culture on a national scale.”
