Information on the thesis

The spiritual song in the Ukrainian oral tradition is a large group of poetry-
musical works, united primarily by religious Christian themes, endowed with the
ability to acquire a special spiritual meaning in the life of a believer, exercise an
important function of satisfying his/her spiritual religious needs. Also, the defining
feature of these songs is lack of a clear attachment to a certain rite, time, occasion, i.e.
their prevailing perception unrelated to the rite. Episodic, local attachment of
individual texts to the rite immediately reveals their polyfunctionality, since, as a
rule, it is possible to notice the presence of one and the same work in various rituals
and in the repertoire of professional singers, as well as its other functions, at the same 20
time. Essential for the differentiation of the spiritual song phenomenon in the folklore
milieu is the fact of distinguishing this group of works and perceiving it as integrity
on the part of the bearers of tradition until now, existence of special folk concepts for
its designation (“God’s songs”, “psaľmas”). Nevertheless, this large stratum of folk
repertoire falls down into two sub-groups, viz. folklorized songs of book origin and
those of folkloric origin. Thus, the phenomenon of a spiritual song in the Ukrainian
oral tradition is characterized by a considerable wealth, breadth, variety of texts in
terms of character, by the time of appearance, nature, form, style, genre features.
The tasks of the dissertation were subordinated to the major goal – study of the
multifaceted process of functioning and interpretation of spiritual songs in the
Ukrainian oral tradition, interpreting the period of the late 18 th c. – mid-19 th c. as “the
continuing start”, i.e. it serves as the basis for observing the constant and variable
hallmarks of this process.
The scientific novelty of the work follows from the fact of pioneering a number of
issues given below: 1) The paper attempts at a special research into the spiritual song
in Ukrainian Folklore Studies; it accentuates some historical moments of the edition
practice as incipient in the studies of the Ukrainian spiritual song from the folk
repertoire; 2) The research presents the history of recording, printing, and studying
the texts of spiritual songs of the Ukrainian oral tradition in the earliest period of its
history; 3) Systematization is made of the material containing information on the
distribution of individual samples of spiritual songs in the Ukrainian oral tradition,
their content, popularity, attitudes towards them by listeners and interpreters, as well
as information about the bearers of the religious repertoire, circumstances of its
reproduction, ways of passing down in the cultural and historical context of the
period of Romanticism; 4) Some theoretical generalizations on genre features,
terminology, genesis, periodization, classification are attempted; 5) The work
emphasizes the expediency of parallel study of folklore and book folklorized
specimens caused by their close convergence due to the common conditions of
functioning, and, simultaneously, their distinct differentiation; 6) Certain problems of
research into the Ukrainian spiritual song as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon
of the oral tradition are determined; 7) Observation was conducted as to the process
of transformation of the book work in the folkloric milieu on a large number of texts
of spiritual songs; 8) Approach to the material is oriented primarily to a deeper
systematic study of specific works, most of which have not yet been the subject of
special studies; 9) The investigation generalizes the scientific experience of studies
into Samarianka [The Samaritan Woman] and proposes a number of new aspects in
its research; 10) Recordings of the present-day oral tradition spiritual songs, made for
the most part by the author of this work, unpublished hitherto, have been introduced
into scholarly circulation.
Key words: spiritual song, psaľma, folklorization, transformation, lirnyks’
repertoire, variant, motive, interpretation.