Moldova, Ocniţa district, Clocuşna and nearby villages | January 2019

In parts of rural Moldova, the old calendar Christmas season is vigorously celebrated with a mix of masquerades, caroling, music and folk theater. Several villages in the Ocniţa district carry on the old tradition of “Malanca” — a short folk-drama originally performed door-to-door to bring good luck to the householders in the following year. Nowadays the play is also performed in school auditoriums and cultural centers. It is performed in Moldovan, with plot, songs and dialog handed down from older generations. Costumes and props are made anew as the need arises.

Zima District, Batama village | June 2008

During July 2008, American Friends of Russian Folklore led an expedition to record songs and folklore of Siberian villages.  Click on the link below to hear a song from Siberia, sung by immigrants whose ancestors left Ukraine 100 years ago. Enter your findings here. Feel free to use a gallery, file, video, audio, or whatever deem fit! Don’t forget to add an associated expedition in the side bar(select ‘Document’ and scroll to the bottom). If you don’t select an expedition, you may associate this with a location by adding that location as a tag.

Pruzhany and Byarozava districts, Kabaki and Soshitsy villages | August 11-22, 2011

Our 2011 expedition to southwest Belarus reflected the lasting impact of a bloody and turbulent 20th century. Polish rule, Soviet rule, German invasion, massive wartime destruction and loss of life —  their effects are visible today in the local singing tradition.  For example, while we could find elderly, lifelong residents of the region, we could not find even two or three informants who had grown up in the same village, or who had any history of singing together. Singers who are now neighbors each have repertoires of songs they learned in childhood, but since they grew up in different villages, the repertoires do not overlap. This makes it difficult to sing together and to keep the songs alive. Thus the older songs we recorded were performed by individual singers, not by the groups of singers one would expect in this tradition.