Memory of the World; 2012 - unesdoc - Unesco

4th c. 5th c. 6th c. 7th c. 8th c. 9th c. 10th c. 11th c. 12th c. 13th c. 14th c. 15th c. 16th c. 17th c. 18th c. 19th c. 20th c. 21st c.
Collection of Jewish musical
folklore (1912–1947)
Inscribed 2005
What is it
A collection of Jewish folk music from Ukraine and
Belarus, recorded between 1912 and 1947, on more than
1017 Edison wax cylinders.
Why was it inscribed
This collection recording the art and traditions of early-
20th-century Ashkenazi Jews has no direct equivalent in
the world, in both its content and its recording character.
The unique culture which the cylinders record has now
almost vanished.
Edison wax cylinders, played on a phonograph, were in
use in the 1880s and were one of the earliest commercially
viable means of recording and playing sound.
Where is it
Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine
The Jewish musical folklore collection comprises more than
1017 wax cylinders each containing between two and seven
minutes of music. The recordings were made in Jewish
areas of Ukraine and Belarus in an area known as the Pale of
Settlement outside which few Jews in the pre-revolutionary
Russian empire were allowed to live. There are virtually no
Jewish communities in the area today.
The music which the recordings capture expresses the
life of the Jewish people in an area of financial hardship
but with a strong and rich religious and spiritual life which
finds expression in wordless chants, songs and synagogue
liturgies, instrumental performances, examples of klezmer
music and lesser-known folklore genres, such as Jewish
folk musical performances (purimshpils).
The recordings feature voices of eminent Jewish actors
Solomon Mikhoels, Benjamin Zuskin and Lela Romm,
and famous writers such as Jehieskil Dobrushin and
Notke Lurie. There are instrumental pieces by violinist
and composer Leo Pulver who was also director of the
Jewish instrumental ensemble. Also recorded is the
noted writer Sholem Aleichem (whose stories of Tevye
the milkman were produced for stage and film in Fiddler
on the Roof).
430 Collection of Jewish musical folklore (1912–1947)
The collection was the work of a team of ethnographers
and folklore researchers who undertook expeditions over
several decades in the first half of the 20th century. The
idea of ethnographic expeditions to record the culture
of the people, originated with Jewish folklorist and writer
S. An-sky (1863–1920). In 1912 and 1913, under the auspices
of the St. Petersburg Jewish Historical and Ethnographic
Society, An-sky set out with fellow researchers, musicians
and artists to explore and ethnographically examine areas
within the Pale of Settlement, then bring together and
classify the enormous and invaluable amounts of data
they collected.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917 and especially in the
’20s and ’30s, the opportunity arose for more expeditions,