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1. Rylʹsʹkyĭ Institute Ukrainian cylinder collection, 1908-1930s

   315 items.. 7 linear inches (22 folders).. 37 sound tape reels : analog, 7 1/2 ips, 2 track ; 10 in.. 37 sound cassettes (U-Matic audio) : digital.. 64 photographs : black and white, color ; various sizes.. 2 videocassettes (VHS) : color, sound.. 4 diskettes, 3 1/2 in.. -- American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

   Summary:

   This collection of approximately 400 folk songs, folk music, and oral traditions includes sound recorded by Ukrainian ethnologists on wax cylinders in the Ukraine between 1908 and the early 1930s. In a joint project, 212 of approximately 300-400 cylinders in the collection of the Instytut mystet︠s︡tvoznavstva, folʹkloru ta etnohrafiï im. M.T. Rylʹsʹkoho (Rylʹsʹkyĭ Institute) were copied and preserved on audio tape from 1992-1995 at the Library of Congress. Content includes bardic traditions (secular and religious songs), seasonal ritual folk songs (winter carols, spring songs), music of life-cycle rituals (weddings, funerals, laments), as well as ballads and instrumental and ensemble compositions. Of significant note are recordings of blind minstrels (kobzari, lirnyky) probably made during the late 1920s and early 1930s before Stalinist purges. The collection includes musical transcriptions of some of the recordings made by folklorists of the period, including Volodymir Kharkiv, as well as accompanying ethnographic photographs of performers and their instruments dating from the turn of the 20th century and from the 1960s. Additional documentation includes photocopies of slips of paper that were in the cylinder containers, many of which identify the contents of the cylinder. Other photographs document Library of Congress staff member Joseph Hickerson's trip to Ukraine and the Rylʹsʹkyĭ Institute in March 1994. Two videocassettes, produced in 1994, promote the institutional collaboration between the Rylʹsʹkyĭ Institute and the Library.