Interaction of the Russian and Ukrainian Traditional Cultures in the Sudzhan District of the Kursk Region

The singularity of the traditional musical culture of the Sudzhan District of the Kursk Region is defined by the cohabitation on its territory of two ethnical groups – Russians and Ukrainians, between whom there occurred processes of both ethnic differentiation and integration. Each of these groups formed its own musical culture and system of musical genres demonstrating a great degree of difference from one another. At the same time, the musical language remained an important means of cultural self-identification. The system of musical genres of the Russian villages pertains to the local tradition of the bordering areas between the Kursk and the Belgorod Regions, where the centralizing component is provided by the round khorovod song. It affects such genres of the traditional stratum as tanochnye and the wedding songs, forming a special repertoire of instrumental-choreographic types – the karagodny refrain tunes. The genre system of Ukrainian villages is comprised of a strata of traditional genres inconspicuous in its scope – glorification of winter and congratulatory songs and wedding ritual refrain tunes, whereas the main song array of the Ukrainians is comprised of lyrical songs. The interaction between the cultures is actively displayed in the late stratum of folk music. It is the existence of late-traditional lyricism, of general Russian chastushka tunes and dances of urban origin in both the Russian and the Ukrainian ethnic milieus. Such a rapprochement of traditional cultures is stipulated by the change of the ethnical self-determination of Ukrainians and the overcoming of cultural insularity, which at an earlier period provided the condition of independent development of two separate musical traditions. Keywords: the Kursk Region, the Sudzhan District, Russian and Ukrainian folklore, traditional culture, ethnomusicology.