EVERY GENRE PROJECT - September 4 - Ukrainian Folk Music

Genre of the Day - Ukrainian Folk Music

Album of the Day - На межі by ДахаБраха (DakhaBrakha) (2009)

September 4, 2024

In one of my classes, titled Weapons of Mass Destruction—and yes, the litmus test of having seen Oppenheimer or not was one of my professor’s first orders of business—we discussed a reading today by George Orwell excoriating the “abuse” of the English language in politics. The novel criticizes all those who dress up language that should be wholly straightforward, whether the purpose is to deceive, put on airs, or no purpose is present—only confusion and misuse. It occasionally felt like an attack on the entire world of music writing—flowery language and creative word choice is often the only way to transcribe sound waves into words that capture the distinctiveness of the millions of sounds we can produce—but more importantly, its discussion of war and art resonates highly in the context of today’s genre and Ukraine’s last few years grappling with survival and its identity amidst militaristic and cultural assaults by Russia. 

I apologize if it seems like I’ve made today’s blog into a discussion post, though I wish it counted. Onto the music. Though the act of creating music has become even more resonant during actual wartime, the centuries-long attempt to erase Ukraine and subduct its culture under another’s lends folk music a particular intensity and gratification. The country is massive, though, and its musical styles span an appropriate breadth. One key pillar of Ukrainian traditional music is their ritual nature: songs accompany each major Orthodox holiday, weddings, and harvests. As a country long defined by its agrarian peasant population, centuries-old Pagan traditions have persisted even after the Christianizaiton of the Kyiv Rus in 988; Rusalia was one such event, a summer feast filled with fertility and ancestor-honoring rituals, that survived into the 20th century. The sacredness of nature’s abundance reverberated through rusalka songs, that often literally heralded the birch tree, alongside the friendship in collecting materials and river nymphs. Ukraine also has a wealth of pre-Christian winter carols that now slot in just as nicely for Christmas—in Pagan tradition, the winter equinox marks the sun being born from the god Kolyada.

Sonically speaking, Ukraine harbors otherworldly singing traditions in a similar vein to many eastern European brethren. Like Poland, Ukraine is versed in the tradition of ‘white voice,’ an open-throated, vehement manner of singing noted for its clarity and intensity of sound. The bandura has firmly sealed its place as the national instrument for its sheer size and beauty; it’s a lute near the size of the harp, boasting no less than 65 strings. It was traditionally played by blind minstrels known as komzars—similar to Vietnam’s xẩm—and the grand nature of the instrument allows for a range of playing styles and structural ornamentation that befits a near-ceremonial role in national identity building. Affirming identity through music has become even more relevant for the country since Russia’s invasion in 2021. Some musicians have mobilized beyond art and rose to the occasion by joining the army, and in a stroke of genre-creation out of the necessity to lift people through miserable circumstances, some artists have created a sound known as Bayraktar-core, which shockingly incorporates the sounds of sirens and explosions to reclaim a counterintuitive, post-ironic optimism amidst brutal circumstances.

Before the current war, DakhaBrakha became a folk sensation through their unconventional rhythmic approaches to traditional Ukrainian folk. A look at their Instagram also reveals the number of initiatives in Ukrainian public and creative life that have come about to support the country’s efforts and speaks to the initiative at all levels of society to resist. Circling back to the music, the conviction of their sound reflects the cultural potency of Ukrainian traditions. The quartet’s lilting sopranos (Iryna Kovalenko, Olena Tsybulska, Nina Garenetska) swirl around the declarations of Marko Halanevych as an accordion grooves purposefully; strings collapse in a fit of frenzy as the drums speed to a gallop, a riveting musical storyline in “Ой за лісочком” (“Behind the Wood”). “Весна” (“Spring”) builds similarly; strings begin to slowly loom with their wild sung cries that gradually reach a fever pitch. “Заїнька” takes minutes to emerge from the ground, slowly rumbling from the earth until their meditative, polymorphous white-voice harmonies envelop you completely. Music inherently acts as a mechanism of cultural survival, but when stakes are as high as war, it becomes essential for morale and persistence.