Forum on Music and Christian Scholarship

The Epic Song/Poems of the Sakha in Siberia: Telling the Old Stories in New Ways
Robin Harris, University of Georgia

The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in northeastern Siberia has in the last decade enjoyed increasing recognition of its musical treasures. Sakha creative expressions which were suppressed and marginalized during Soviet times are now finding a renewed voice.

One of their main genres is olonkho, epic poems that combine drama, song, and narrative to tell the stories of the great heroes and legends of the past. Before the period of Soviet power, peripatetic singers entertained Sakha families during the long, dark winters of the Siberian North with riveting performances of olonkho. During the years of Soviet power in Siberia, atheism increasingly replaced the traditional beliefs of the Sakha and cultural expressions of Sakha traditional music greatly declined, including olonkho.

The fall of the Iron Curtain in the early 90s was followed by more than a decade of explosive renewal in Sakha cultural artistic expressions. Although Russian styles of music still dominate in most Siberian churches, there are a few Sakha churches beginning to explore the use of traditional genres for expressing their faith. The recent creation of an olonkho epic song/poem telling the Biblical account of the creation and fall of man was a landmark event in Siberia, and other related Siberian groups are beginning to explore such genres as well.

In this presentation, I will discuss the historical use and structure of this epic song/poem genre and demonstrate its renewal in contemporary contexts, focusing in particular on its emergence in the context of Sakha faith expression.

“Singing Nuns”--The Culture of Music of Contemplative Convents in the Netherlands
Edith Haverkamp-Wesslink, University of Utrecht

If we experience, in our life with art, something transcendental in our existence, what is the position of life with art in convents or monasteries?
Beauty has for centuries been the authentic place to find God. And music has been regarded as the expression of something we cannot find words for. What position does music take within the walls of a convent? How has music developed as a form of art, particularly within the walls of contemplative orders in convents? Is the repertoire being sung only religious? We have all seen shots of singing nuns in films like The Sound of Music, Sister Act, The Singing Nun, etc.

Jubilees, and birthdays must certainly have been celebrated and, surely, there must have been singing. In other words, what place does music have in the contemplative convent and in what way has that changed over the last fifty years? To what extent has the ‘advanced modernity of the long years of the sixties’ had an effect, and led to a different culture of music?

As more often within our cultural heritage it seems to be five to twelve as the population within the convents is declining. Tia DeNora describes in her book Music in Everyday Life how music shapes the identity of people. Music is not only a product of culture. In addition to the intensification or evocation of certain emotions ‘music making’ is a characteristic of a social community. DeNora’s ethnomusicological research of music as a moulding force in the lives of certain groups of people has supplied me with a model.

The secluded culture of the contemplative female convents is my field of research. It concentrates on the value in these convents from the second half of the last century. First that value will be focussed on from a historical perspective and next the evolution of the last fifty years. This period knew immense change: the Latin hymns were translated into the vernacular and given a new setting. The arrival of radio and television demands new reflection; the windows are opened.

“Renewing Ourselves”: Serbian Orthodox Christian Identity, Religious Folk Songs, and Reconstruction of the Djurdjevi Stupovi Monastery Alla Generalow, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary

Founded in 1168, the Serbian monastery Djurdjevi Stupovi, built in honor of St. George, was an endowment of Zupan (grand-duke) Stefan Nemanja. The rule of Nemanja was marked by political unification of the Serbian lands and the height of Serbian medieval ecclesiastical architecture. Heavily damaged by the Turks in the 17th century, the small monastery outside the city of Novi Pazar was abandoned for nearly three hundred years as the site was banned for religious services during Ottoman rule. On the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1979, the monastery has recently been re-inhabited by monastics and services have been held there since 2001.

Renovation of the monastery has been funded by many sources, including the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Serbian Ministry of Culture. However, one of the most popular nationally recognized fundraisers for the project has been the formation (and subsequent audio and video recordings) of the ensemble Stupovi. Musicians of the group perform both traditional folk songs of South Serbia and also new compositions on contemporary religious lyrics using the vocal folk idiom and accompanimental instrumentation (frula, kaval, gajda, sargija, zurla and tapan).
Described by Bishop Artemije of Raska, Prizren, Kosovo and Metohija, as both Serbian Sinai and Serbian Mount Tabor, Djurdjevi Stupovi has become symbolic of the resurrection and transfiguration of Orthodoxy in post-Communist Serbia. As the nation struggles through an economic and identity crisis following the collapse of Yugoslavia and the Kosovo War, religious folksong, both centuries old and newly composed, is being used in the definition of the region’s people returning to and finding strength in the Christian faith of their fathers. Not only is an architectural reconstruction taking place, but there is also a simultaneous auditory revitalization of religious folksong. Though church settings often create musical perception, in this instance musical settings are literally creating the bricks and mortar of the church setting. This paper will explore the mutual aesthetic discourse of Orthodox architecture and folk music by focusing on the case of the Djurdjevi Stupovi monastery.