A Duma is a sung epic

Epic poetry

An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...

 poem which originated in Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 during the Hetmanate

Cossack Hetmanate

The Hetmanate or Zaporizhian Host was the Ruthenian Cossack state in the Central Ukraine between 1649 and 1782.The Hetmanate was founded by first Ukrainian hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky during the Khmelnytsky Uprising . In 1654 it pledged its allegiance to Muscovy during the Council of Pereyaslav,...

 Era in the sixteenth century (possibly based on earlier Kievan epic forms). Historically, dumy were performed by itinerant Cossack

Cossack

Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...

 bards called kobzar

Kobzar

A Kobzar was an itinerant Ukrainian bard who sang to his own accompaniment.-Tradition:Kobzars were often blind, and became predominantly so by the 1800s...

i, who accompanied themselves on a kobza

Kobza

The kobza is a Ukrainian folk music instrument of the lute family , a relative of the Central European mandora...

 or a torban

Torban

The torban is a Ukrainian musical instrument that combines the features of the Baroque Lute with those of the psaltery. The Тorban differs from the more common European Bass lute known as the Theorbo in that it had additional short treble strings strung along the treble side of the soundboard. It...

, but after the abolition of Hetmanate by the Empress Catherine of Russia the epic singing became the domain of blind itinerant musicians who retained the kobzar

Kobzar

A Kobzar was an itinerant Ukrainian bard who sang to his own accompaniment.-Tradition:Kobzars were often blind, and became predominantly so by the 1800s...

 appellation and accompanied their singing by playing a bandura

Bandura

Bandura refers to a Ukrainian plucked string folk instrument. It combines elements of a box zither and lute, as well as its lute-like predecessor, the kobza...

 (rarely a kobza

Kobza

The kobza is a Ukrainian folk music instrument of the lute family , a relative of the Central European mandora...

) or a relya/lira (a Ukrainian variety of hurdy-gurdy).
Dumas are sung in recitative, in the so-called "duma mode

Ukrainian Dorian scale

In music, the Ukrainian Dorian scale or altered Dorian scale is a musical scale or mode, "similar to the dorian mode, but with a tritone and variable sixth and seventh degrees"...

", a variety of the Dorian mode

Dorian mode

Due to historical confusion, Dorian mode or Doric mode can refer to three very different musical modes or diatonic scales, the Greek, the medieval, and the modern.- Greek Dorian mode :...

 with raised fourth degree.

Dumy were songs built around historical events, many dealing with the military actions in some form. Embedded in these historical events were religious and moralistic elements. There are themes of the struggle of the Cossacks against enemies of different faiths or events occurring on religious feast-days. Although the narratives of the dumy mainly revolve around war - the dumy themselves do not promote courage in battle. The dumy impart a moral message in which one should conduct oneself properly in the relationships with the family, the community, and the church. However, the kobzari did not play only religious songs and dumy. They also played “satirical songs (sometimes openly scabrous); dance melodies; either with or without words; lyric songs; and historical songs”.

The origin

The relationship between the military and the religion with dumy originated in the Cossack rebellion of 1648. Ukraine fell under the control of the Catholic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, that imposed discriminatory measures on the Eastern Orthodox Church. This rebellion was followed by “partition and eventual subjugation of the Ukrainian lands and the Ukrainian church. The Cossacks rebelled against the religious oppression and their lands were eventually lost to the oppressor. This causes a great dilemma in the church because the Cossacks were defenders of the faith, and since they lost, and the faith is infallible, the Cossacks themselves must have done something sinful. This is why dumy has a great religious undertone and is a song that tells of death and defeat, not of victory..

Textual characteristic

Dumy, as an epic, in comparison to other epic forms do not contain elements of fantasy.

Linguistic characteristics

The dominant element of dumy is language. Rhythm is rhetorical, often falling on a verb placed at the end. The use of parallelisms is widespread, epithets are standard, the use of specific numbers is also widespread. The use of archaic forms of language are also popular as is the use of retardation.

Melodic characteristics

The melodies of dumy consist of

• repetitive recitative-like passages on one note, changing to a different tone with lingual accent, usually stepwise and occasionally by a 4th
• melodic recitative-like with a falling scallic passages
• melodic closed and semi-closed cadences with characteristic melizma
• a zaplachka based on the word "hey" often very ornate with many melizmatic features paralleling the stylistic features of the melody.
• a slavnoslovia (verbal glorification) at the end of the piece. A summation of the work which in some regions is spoken rather than sung.

Almost all traditional dumy from the Poltava

Poltava

Poltava is a city in located on the Vorskla River in central Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Poltava Oblast , as well as the surrounding Poltava Raion of the oblast. Poltava's estimated population is 298,652 ....

 and Slobozhan traditions use a dorian mode with occasionally raised 4th degrees and subseptatonium. The raised 4th often is used as a secondary leading note to the dominant. The appearance of the augmented 2nd between the 3rd and 4th degrees gives the duma an eastern sounding flavour and is used by the performer to add "zhal'" (pity) to the work.

Accompanment

Dumy are traditionally sung to an instrumental accompaniment, usually that of a bandura

Bandura

Bandura refers to a Ukrainian plucked string folk instrument. It combines elements of a box zither and lute, as well as its lute-like predecessor, the kobza...

, kobza

Kobza

The kobza is a Ukrainian folk music instrument of the lute family , a relative of the Central European mandora...

 or lira

Lira

Lira is the name of the monetary unit of a number of countries, as well as the former currency of Italy, Malta, San Marino and the Vatican City and Israel. The term originates from the value of a Troy pound of high purity silver. The libra was the basis of the monetary system of the Roman Empire...

.

In the Slobozhan tradition the bandura would play most of the notes of the melody with the voice apart from chromatic accidentals and melizma with occasional chords on I, IV and V degrees of the Dorian mode

Dorian mode

Due to historical confusion, Dorian mode or Doric mode can refer to three very different musical modes or diatonic scales, the Greek, the medieval, and the modern.- Greek Dorian mode :...

. The instrument would also be used for instrumental preludes, interludes and postludes.

In the Poltava

Poltava

Poltava is a city in located on the Vorskla River in central Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Poltava Oblast , as well as the surrounding Poltava Raion of the oblast. Poltava's estimated population is 298,652 ....

 tradition the instrumental accompaniment is much sparser with the player not playing the melody but rather occasional chords based on the tonic and dominant of the Dorian.

In lira accompaniment from Poltava, no melodies are played with the voice during the performance of the duma. Melodic instrumental playing is confined to preludes, interludes and postludes.

No transcriptions or recordings of authentic duma performance by members of the Chernihiv

Chernihiv

Chernihiv or Chernigov is a historic city in northern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Chernihiv Oblast , as well as of the surrounding Chernihivskyi Raion within the oblast...

 tradition have come down to us.

Discussion regarding other traditions of duma recitations have shown a significant amount of contamination in the 20th century from non-traditional sources which has rendered many of their recordings atypical and unauthentic according to the traditional style in which the kobzari performed dumy.

See also

• Duma at the Encyclopedia of Ukraine.
• http://www.polyhymnion.org/torban- A "History of Music in Ukraine during the Hetmanate Era" with many audio files.

Print sources

• Clegg, D. “Philaret Kolessa’s Classification of the Ukrainian Recitative Songs” Studia

Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 7 (1965): 247-251.

• Kononenko, Natalie O. “The Influence of the Orthodox Church on Ukrainian Dumy.”

Slavic Review

Slavic Review

Slavic Review is a leading international peer-reviewed academic journal publishing scholarly studies and book reviews in all disciplines concerned with Russia, Central Eurasia, and Eastern and Central Europe...

50 (1991): 566-575.