CHRISTIE'S PROGRESS JOURNAL: MARCH & APRIL 2005

3-9-05 I’ve been reading more from Russell Zguta’s book, Russian Minstrels, so as to acquire enough information to write a short paper on the role of nature theology within Russian folklore. Here are some of the things I have read about the skomorokhi, or Russian minstrels:

-[I]n many instances we find the skomorokhi outnumbering the butchers, bakers, shoemakers, carpenters, and other artisans in towns and villages alike. (p. 36)

-Although the number of skomorokhi traveling together was by no means fixed, it usually ranged from a minimum of two to as many as eight to a troupe. (p. 47)

-[Skomorokhi] were among the poorest members of society, and they could rarely eke out an existence on their meager professional earnings. (p. 48)

-[Ecclesiastical advisers] were mainly interested in eradicating the “pagan” culture that the skomorokhi had typified and disseminated among the people for so long, and they seized their opportunity in 1648. (p. 50)

-Having satisfied some of the more immediate demands of the people, Aleksei took steps to minimize the possibility of future disturbances. One step was the drafting of a gramota in December of 1648 entitled, “On the Righting of Morals and the Abolition of Superstition,” which, while ostensibly nonpolitical in tone and content, was not without political motivation. Its primary target was the skomorokhi, whose reputation for lawlessness had not escaped the tsar’s attention. His close ecclesiastical advisers saw in the crisis of 1648 a splendid opportunity to rid the country of the “pagan menace”; by outlawing the skomorokhi, they counseled, the tsar would also be eliminating a potentially disruptive element in Russian society. (p. 52)

-The final blow was administered by Ivan IV in the early 1570s, during the height of the oprichnina, when Novgorod’s social and cultural elite was decimated and scattered. As for the skomorokhi, they shared a common fate with many other skilled craftsmen and artisans forced to leave Novgorod for Moscow on orders of the tsar. (p. 52)

-[I]ntentionally or not, Ivan IV contributed to the decline of the skomorokhi by his attack on Novgorod in 1570. What Ivan did, in effect, was to precipitate the first great dispersal of the minstrel-entertainers, a dispersal that involved the most talented of the skomorokhi, and one from which they would never recover. (p. 53)

-Although the majority of the Novgorod skomorokhi found themselves impoverished as a result of the political chaos of the early 1570s—many of them being forced to join the ranks of the traditionally poorer itinerant class—some of those taken to Moscow by the tsar ultimately fared quite well. The most talented became virtual court minstrels, or, as they are referred to in some sources, sovereign’s skomorokhi. (p. 54)

-In addition to using the skomorokhi quite regularly for his public and private amusement, on occasion Ivan himself took part in their entertainments. (p. 55)

-Even the church seems to have softened its traditionally strident attacks on the skomorokhi, particularly the bear tamers, as being in part responsible for distracting Muscovite Christians from their spiritual obligations. But aside from this general statement of fact, there is no condemnation of the minstrel-entertainers, nor are the faithful forbidden to patronize their performances. This was, however, only the calm before the storm, for the death of Michael Romanov in 1645 ushered in a new and bleak era for the minstrels.

            Michael’s successor, Aleksei, was by temperament and inclination very different from his father. Early in life he had come under the strong influence of ecclesiastical tutors who provided him with an essentially spiritual Weltanschauung, one accurately reflected in his nickname, Tishaishii (“the Quietest One”). Throughout his long reign (1645-76) he continued to be a dedicated and informed Orthodox Christian, meticulously observing all prescribed fasts and rituals. Piety and sobriety permeated his private life as well. Rather than amuse himself with sundry entertainers in the poteshnaia palata, he preferred the outdoors and, in particular, hunting. In fact, very early in his reign he banned all but the bakhari from the entertainment hall, and even these venerable storytellers (now more accurately referred to as kaleki) were no longer called upon to recite secular folktales, or skazki, but rather religious verse, or dukhovnye stikhi. (p. 56)

-The first years of Aleksei’s reign, plagued with political upheavals such as the Moscow rising of 1648, also witnessed the church’s effort to rejuvenate itself spiritually and to eradicate all vestiges of paganism among the people. (p. 56)

-While the formal proscription of the skomorokhi did not come until December of 1648, it appears that the church, no doubt with the tsar’s explicit or implicit concurrence, had even earlier taken formal steps to curb their influence among the people. In the 1647 version of the Trebnik, which prescribed the liturgical rite for administering certain sacraments, including secret confession, the clergy was charged with asking all penitents a series of questions: “Did you seek out the games of the skomorokhi? Did you seek out Satanic games, look upon these, or yourself take part in them?” If the response to any of these was affirmative, the penitent was required to beg pardon for his sins in the following manner: “I have sinned, I delighted in hearing the sound of the gusli and the organon, of horns, and all manner of skomoroshestvo, of Satanic sayings, and for this I also paid then [that is, the minstrels].” (p. 58)

-At that time Avvakum was a priest in the village of Lopatishch, east of Moscow. One day, he tells us, entertainers with dancing bears and various musical instruments came into the village. Avvakum acted swiftly and resolutely: “I, a sinner, being zealous in the service of Christ, drove them out and destroyed their masks and drums, one against many in the open field, and I took two great bears from them—one I killed but he later revived, the other I set free in the open field.” (p. 60)

            Because of their importance to the history of the skomorokhi and the phenomenon of dvoeverie, or residual paganism, in the mid-seventeenth century, Aleksei’s gramoty of December 1648 deserve close scrutiny…The title of this lengthy gramota is brief and to the point: “On the Righting of Morals and the Abolition of Superstition.” In it the tsar lashes out at all the popular pastimes and amusements that he feels are sapping the moral and religious strength of the country. The skomorokhi, not surprisingly, are singled out as perhaps the most nefarious of the evil, pagan influences diverting the Orthodox Christian from the path of virtue.

            Aleksei begins by stating that it has been brought to his attention that attendance at church on Sundays and holydays is poor and that among the chief reasons for this are drunkenness and the devilish amusements of the skomorokhi. The people, he says, have become oblivious of their Orthodox faith and of God and have instead turned to the minstrel-entertainers: they gather with them in the evenings on the streets and in the open fields to watch their all-night performances and listen to their irreverent and scandalous songs; they watch their puppet shows and delight in their trained bears and dogs; they invite them, with their sundry musical instruments and limitless repertoire of devilish songs, to entertain at their weddings; and they frequently imitate them be donning masks and costumes, especially during Christmastide. (p. 60-61)

-The long and colorful history of the Russian minstrels was thus officially brought to an end. The coup de grace came in 1657 when the church added its voice to the official ban by declaring the skomorokhi excommunicated. (p. 63)

-Just how effective was Aleksei’s ban on the skomorokhi? It would be naïve to assume that the tsar could, by official fiat, wipe out a social and cultural institution of several hundred years’ standing; the country was simply too vast and the rural population too dispersed to permit adequate enforcement of such a ban. No doubt in the larger cities and towns the activities of the skomorokhi were sharply curtailed...In the countryside, particularly in the northern and eastern provinces, Aleksei’s ban on the skomorokhi seems to have had little or no immediate effect. (p. 63)

-A host of other allegedly pagan practices enumerated and condemned may be lumped together under the general heading of witchcraft—such customs as the healing of the sick and infants by widowed old women, omen reading, dream analysis, bathing in a river or lake during a thunderstorm, and washing oneself with silver coins. Some popular amusements are also singled out for censure. Boxing, a favorite sport among both town and country folk, is banned, as are the enormous swings, or roundabouts, which, it is said, cause many deaths. Dice, chess, and card playing round out the list of proscribed amusements.

            To curb and ultimately eradicate all these vestiges of paganism, Aleksei proposed drastic measures: all musical instruments connected with skomorokh entertainments were to be confiscated and burned, and all persons engaged in any of these activities, including of course the skomorokhi and their audiences, were henceforth subject to severe penalties. First and second offenders were to be knouted; those apprehended for the third and fourth time were to be exiled to the border regions. (p. 61)

-[S]komorokhi…are described as wandering about with their musical instruments and trained bears and profaning God’s daily bread by roasting and eating all manner of wild and domestic animals and birds. (p. 62)

-The image of the skomorokhi had not changed appreciably in the course of their long history, and consequently their demise appears inevitable—so long as they were closely identified with Russia’s pagan past in the eyes of the people and, more importantly, of the church, they would be hounded and persecuted by the authorities. (p. 62)

-A century or so after Aleksei’s ban went into effect, there were apparently skomorokhi who had not only survived the purges but continued to practice skills that linked them intimately to their own and Russia’s pagan past. (p. 64)

-[T]he designated place of exile for many of the skomorokhi was western Siberia, just beyond the Urals.

            After 1768 there are no further references to skomorokhi in the extant sources. All indications are that the profession simply died out in the latter part of the eighteenth century. The second great dispersal of the skomorokhi, set in motion by Aleksei in 1648, did indeed prove fatal to the Russian minstrels. It was, to be sure, the culmination of the process of disintegration from within begun by Ivan IV in 1571, and no doubt aided by two factors that distinguished eighteenth-century imperial Russia from its medieval Muscovite past…Though the profession died out, the legacy of the skomorokhi endured. To this day one cannot help but note their pervasive influence in many areas of Russian culture, even in an age of radio, television, films, and the like. It is manifest, for example, in the delightful antics of the trained bears of the Moscow Circus and has been carried the world over by Sergei Obraztsov and his celebrated troupe of marionettes. (p. 65)

-[T]hough the skomorokhi as a class had become extinct by the late seventeenth century, much of their art survived intact even to our own day. (p. 103)

-It is generally acknowledged that the skomorokhi have had an impact on four areas of Russian culture—oral literature, secular music, theater, and dance. (p. 81) --> the imprint of the skomorokhi can also be discerned in Russian folk literature, including folktales, incantations, seasonal and wedding songs, and proverbs.

-[S]komorokhi were indeed directly involved in the composition of folktales… (p. 99)

-[A] far stronger link between the skomorokhi and the folktales can be established by going back to the origins of the Russian minstrels, which reach far back into the pagan past of the Eastern Slavs, to an age when myth and reality merged in the minds of the people; when the phenomena and mysteries of nature were personified as malevolent beings that had to be appeased lest they wreak havoc on mankind; when the people turned to their spiritual leaders, the skomorokhi-priests, for an explanation of what was beyond their ken. It seems logical to assume, as many scholars have, that in these explanations lie the roots of the Russian folktale, and, by extension, that the skomorokhi, as spiritual leaders of the people, may have played some role in the creation of the folktale. (p. 100)

-In Ukrainian folk tradition Iurij is the keeper of the key that unlocks the regenerative forces of the earth and makes it fruitful. (p. 86)

-[T]hey were hard pressed by both church and state. One of the more interesting features of the second bylina is the fusion in the person of the skomorokhi of Christian and pagan elements, making Russian minstrels living examples of dvoeverie, or ditheism, that unique feature of early Muscovite culture and religion. (p. 94)

-In an agricultural society the sun and the seasons are the focus of the economic, social, and spiritual life of the people. In spring they plant and sow; in summer they watch over and rejoice in their forthcoming harvest; in fall they reap; in winter they rest and await the return of the sun’s warming rays. With their very survival dependent on the bene-ficence of nature and the success of the harvest, nothing could be left to chance. (p. 108)

-How ironic that the tsar [Aleksei] who tried to suppress not only the skomorokhi, but all popular secular entertainment, should be hailed as one of the first official patrons of the Russian performing arts. (p. 109)

-Any discussion of the contribution of the skomorokhi to Russian theater must include the trained bear act and the puppet theater. Both were once an integral part of the skomorokh entertainment… (p. 111)

-Perhaps the single most unique contribution of the skomorokhi to Russian culture—one, however, for which they have never received just credit—is the puppet theater, kukol’nyi teatr, or Petrushka. This delightful, highly refined form of Russian non-legitimate theater is not well known in the West. There are passing references to it in popular histories of puppetry and the like, but unfortunately these are more often confusing than enlightening. Perhaps even more unfortunately, Petrushka has been neglected by native scholars as well. Their failure to deal seriously with the origins of the Russian puppet theater has been particularly glaring, and they have also largely ignored its early history; most have, in fact, been content to view as a terra incognita the entire period prior to the 1630s, when Adam Olearius’s famous illustrated description of a performing Russian puppeteer appeared. (p. 112)

-The masks and anthropocentric images that once constituted the essential trappings of many primitive religions were, with time and the impact of civilization and Christianity, gradually cast aside, becoming the tools of the trade for the early puppeteer. (p. 114)

-The early history of the Russian puppet theater is bound up with the history of the skomorokhi. By the early seventeenth century the puppet show was already an established tradition among the skomorokhi and an integral part of their entertainment. (p. 118)

-Aleksei’s gramota of 1648 outlawed the skomorokhi and their entertainments as well, and the skomorokhi never recovered from this blow. The Russian puppet theater, on the other hand, not only survived but found new life in Aleksei’s own lifetime, and prospered even more in the reigns of Peter the Great and his successors. (p. 119)

-To fully appreciate the cultural heritage of the Russian people one must first come to know the skomorokhi. Not only did they exert a preponderant influence on secular folk culture, but they also played a vital role in the religious life of the people. Their close ties to Russian paganism made the skomorokhi a ready target when the church and the state launched their vigorous campaign against superstition in the seventeenth century; yet, those ties also made them in a very real sense the embodiment of dvoeverie, that unique fusion of pagan and Christian elements that gave Russian spirituality its distinctive character. (p. 122)

3-17-05 Today we had our first puppet show rehearsal. Four of the five puppeteers were able to make it. We rehearsed in Dittman Dance Studio 3. I had them practice various movements and gestures in front of the large mirrors to get a feel for the way their puppets move. The puppeteers also did some improvisation work with each other. (Click here to see pictures of our first rehearsal.)

3-31-05 Today was our second puppet show rehearsal. All the puppeteers were present today. We read through the lines in Mellby Hall lounge and then proceeded to go through blocking outside. It was a windy day. ( I sure hope it's not too windy on performance day.)