About the Theory of National Music: Towards a Methodology of Comparative Study of Musical and Poetic Folklore Systems

Abstract

The study of folk music in each culture, according to Kliment Kvitka, passes through several stages: from the initial stage of collecting folk songs to the emergence of a “theory of national music” and an overcoming of the stereotypes of an “all-triumphant contemporary musical theory and practice.” In this type of theory Boris Asafiev highlighted the following aims: 1. A scholarly substantiation of the bases of folk songs; 2. Indications of its dissimilarities with the songs of other peoples; 3. The study of “the process of its evolution.” The process of formation of theories of national music took place during the entire 20th century in Russian music theory, including the Near-Volga region, where the most large-numbered of all of Russia’s non-Slavic peoples are concentrated. For the sake of discussing the issues of methodology of disclosing the dissimilarities of the music of this culture from the music of other people’s we have chosen as an example the structural-typological features of the musical-poetical systems of two Finnish-language peoples of the Near-Volga region – the Mari and the Mordvins. A comparison of their musical-poetic systems shows that from the perspective of their song cultures they represent two distinctly different musical worlds, differing, so to speak, on a civilizational level. The features of the examined musical-poetic systems are stipulated by their historically formed intercultural dialogue.