Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/454

 430 Modern Russian Popular Songs.

celebrated. It is also interesting to notice that some old Byliny and historical songs are adapted in several parts of the country to ceremonies and games. In wedding songs, connected with numerous ceremonies, the ancient poetical creative faculty exhibits great force and lucidity. In collec- tions of folk-songs the section of wedding songs is one of the richest. Up to the present time the wedding ceremonial poetry supplies in itself a deep, clear, and fresh source of highly poetical images and lucid expressions of the people's tastes, emotions, and aspirations. So mutually supporting each other, ceremonies and songs connected with them found conditions strongly favourable to their survival in the people's conservatism, which jealously guards old ritual traditions.

The assertion of the decadence of the ancient poetry in Russia, made by several observers, is particularly true in regard to the lyrical songs about the moments and events of the daily life of the people. They are more sensitive to historical changes than the ritual songs, and suffer corrup- tions and die out with the decline of the old social environ- ment, with the influx of new phenomena and impressions into the national life. As to the gradual disappearance of choruses and dancing songs, it is easily explained by the introduction of new plays and dances among the Russian peasantry. Lastly, historical songs are usually dismissed from memory with those historical events which have brought them forth. The historical events of recent times have found but little expression in song, which also points to the fact that the popular poetical genius is being exhausted.

From what has been said above, the present state of the popular repertory may be marked as that of transition : some sections of the old folk-songs are in a state of gradual decadence, while others have been forgotten and died out, but a pretty large store of the old songs has still survived and continues to live along with newer songs. The latter fact is also emphasised by the people who are engaged in