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Skomorokhi
A skomorokh (, Ukrainian language, Ukrainian and Russian language, Russian: , , . Compare with the Old Polish , ) was a medieval East Slavic harlequin or actor, who could also sing, dance, play musical instruments and compose for oral/musical and dramatic performances. Etymology The etymology of the word is not completely clear. There are hypotheses that the word is derived from the Greek language, Greek (cf. , 'joke'); from the Italian language, Italian ('joker', cf. English language, English ''scaramouch''); from the Arabic language, Arabic ; and many others. History The skomorokhs appeared in Kievan Rus' no later than the mid-11th century, but fresco depictions of skomorokh musicians in the Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv, Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv (Ukraine) date to the 11th century. The ''Primary Chronicle'' on skomorokhs concurs with the period. The monk chronicler denounced them as devil servants. Furthermore, the Eastern Orthodox Church often railed against them ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Puppet Theatre
Russian puppet theater appears to have originated either in migrations from the Byzantine Empire in the sixth century or possibly by Mongols travelling from China. Itinerant Slavic minstrels were presenting puppet shows in western Russia by the thirteenth century, arriving in Moscow in the mid-sixteenth century. Although Russian traditions were increasingly influenced by puppeteers from western Europe in the eighteenth century, Petrushka continued to be one of the principal figures. In addition to Glove puppetry, glove puppets and marionettes, rod puppets and flat puppets were introduced for a time but disappeared in the late nineteenth century. Today's puppet theaters owe much of their popularity to Nina Simonovich-Efimova and her husband who received support from the Russian authorities shortly after the October Revolution to set up a puppet theater in Moscow. They introduced a number of innovative designs and presented a range of performances for both children and adults. Sergey ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Primary Chronicle
The ''Primary Chronicle'', shortened from the common ''Russian Primary Chronicle'' (, commonly transcribed ''Povest' vremennykh let'' (PVL), ), is a Rus' chronicle, chronicle of Kievan Rus' from about 850 to 1110. It is believed to have been originally compiled in or near Kiev in the 1110s. Tradition ascribed its compilation to the monk Nestor the Chronicler, Nestor (''Nestor's Chronicle'') beginning in the 12th century, but this is no longer believed to have been the case. The title of the work, ("Tale of Bygone Years") comes from the opening sentence of the Laurentian Codex, ''Laurentian'' text: "These are the narratives of bygone years regarding the origin of the land of Rus', the first princes of Kiev, and from what source the land of Rus' had its beginning". The work is considered a fundamental source for the earliest history of the East Slavs. The content of the chronicle is known today from the several surviving versions and codices, revised over the years, slightly var ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tsar
Tsar (; also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar''; ; ; sr-Cyrl-Latn, цар, car) is a title historically used by Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word '' caesar'', which was intended to mean ''emperor'' in the European medieval sense of the term—a ruler with the same rank as a Roman emperor, holding it by the approval of another emperor or a supreme ecclesiastical official—but was usually considered by Western Europeans to be equivalent to "king". Tsar and its variants were the official titles in the First Bulgarian Empire (681–1018), Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396), the Kingdom of Bulgaria (1908–1946), the Serbian Empire (1346–1371), and the Tsardom of Russia (1547–1721). The first ruler to adopt the title ''tsar'' was Simeon I of Bulgaria. Simeon II, the last tsar of Bulgaria, is the last person to have held this title. Meaning in Slavic languages The title tsar is derived from the Latin title for the Roman emperors, ''c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), primate of the ROC is the patriarch of Moscow and all Rus'. The History of the Russian Orthodox Church, history of the ROC begins with the Christianization of Kievan Rus', which commenced in 988 with the baptism of Vladimir the Great and his subjects by the clergy of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople. Starting in the 14th century, Moscow served as the primary residence of the Russian List of metropolitans and patriarchs of Moscow, metropolitan. The ROC declared autocephaly in 1448 when it elected its own metropolitan. In 1589, the metropolitan was elevated to the position of patriarch with the consent of Constantinople. In the mid-17th century, a series of reforms led to Schism of the Russian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tambourine
The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head. Tambourines are often used with regular percussion sets. They can be mounted, for example on a stand as part of a drum kit (and played with drum sticks), or they can be held in the hand and played by tapping, hitting, or shaking the instrument. Tambourines come in many shapes with the most common being circular. It is found in many forms of music: Albanian folk music, Arabic folk music, Israeli folk music, Turkish folk music, Greek folk music, Italian folk music, French folk music, classical music, Galician traditional music, Asturian traditional music, Persian music, samba, gospel music, pop music, country music, and rock music. History The origin of the tambourine is unknown, but it appea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buben
The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head. Tambourines are often used with regular percussion sets. They can be mounted, for example on a stand as part of a drum kit (and played with drum sticks), or they can be held in the hand and played by tapping, hitting, or shaking the instrument. Tambourines come in many shapes with the most common being circular. It is found in many forms of music: Albanian folk music, Arabic folk music, Israeli folk music, Turkish folk music, Greek folk music, Italian folk music, French folk music, classical music, Galician traditional music, Asturian traditional music, Persian music, samba, gospel music, pop music, country music, and rock music. History The origin of the tambourine is unknown, but it appears in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bagpipes
Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, Northern Africa, Western Asia, around the Persian Gulf and northern parts of South Asia. The term ''bagpipe'' is equally correct in the singular or the plural, though pipers usually refer to the bagpipes as "the pipes", "a set of pipes" or "a stand of pipes". Bagpipes are part of the aerophone group because to play the instrument you must blow air into it to produce a sound. Construction A set of bagpipes minimally consists of an air supply, a bag, a chanter, and usually at least one drone. Many bagpipes have more than one drone (and, sometimes, more than one chanter) in various combinations, held in place in stocks—sockets that fasten the various pipes to the bag. Air supply The most common method of supplying air to the b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gudok
The gudok (, ), gudochek (, ) is an ancient Eastern Slavic string musical instrument, played with a bow. A ''gudok'' usually had three strings, two of them tuned in unison and played as a drone, the third tuned a fifth higher. All three strings were in the same plane at the bridge, so that a bow could make them all sound simultaneously. Sometimes the gudok also had several sympathetic strings (up to eight) under the sounding board. These made the gudok's sound warm and rich. The player held the gudok on his lap, like a cello or viola da gamba. It was also possible to play the gudok while standing and even while dancing, which made it popular among skomorokhs. Initially in the 12th century (and probably before), the gudok did not have a neck for pressing strings. This suggests that it was played by stopping the strings from the side with fingernails (similarly to the Byzantine lyra), rather than pressing strings onto the instrument's neck. Later in the 14th century some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Balalaika
The balalaika (, ) is a Russian string instrument, stringed musical instrument with a characteristic triangular wooden, hollow body, fretted neck, and three strings. Two strings are usually tuned to the same note and the third string is a perfect fourth higher. The higher-pitched balalaikas are used to play melodies and chords. The instrument generally has a short sustain, necessitating rapid strumming or plucking when it is used to play melodies. Balalaikas are often used for Russian traditional music, Russian folk music and Russian folk dances, dancing. The balalaika ''family of instruments'' includes instruments of various sizes, from the highest-pitched to the lowest: the piccolo balalaika, prima balalaika, secunda balalaika, alto balalaika, bass balalaika, and contrabass balalaika. There are balalaika orchestras which consist solely of different balalaikas; these ensembles typically play Classical music that has been arranged for balalaikas. The prima balalaika is the most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Domra
The ''domra'' (Cyrillic: до́мра, ) is a long-necked Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian folk string instrument of the lute family with a round body and three or four metal strings. History The first known mention of domra is in ''Admonitions of Metropolitan Daniel'' (1530). This musical instrument gained great popularity in the 16th–17th centuries, replacing gusli. There are numerous mentions of domra in historic documents of this period. In addition, medieval Russian illuminated manuscripts of the Psalter contain images of musicians with necked plucked-string instruments, and some of those miniatures are clearly captioned «depiction of domras». Judging by those images, late medieval Russian domras can be divided into two types: lute-shaped, which had five to six strings, a large body and а pegbox angled back, and tanbur-shaped, which had three to four strings, a small body and a straight pegbox. After the pious Tsar Alexis of Russia issued an edict ordering the per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mongol Yoke
The Mongol Empire invaded and conquered much of Kievan Rus' in the mid-13th century, sacking numerous cities such as Ryazan, Yaroslavl, Pereyaslavl and Vladimir, including the largest: Kiev (50,000 inhabitants) and Chernigov (30,000 inhabitants). The siege of Kiev in 1240 by the Mongols is generally held to mark the end of the state of Kievan Rus', which had already been undergoing fragmentation. Many other principalities and urban centres in the northwest and southwest escaped complete destruction or suffered little to no damage from the Mongol invasion, including Galicia–Volhynia, Pskov, Smolensk, Polotsk, Vitebsk, and probably Rostov and Uglich. The campaign was heralded by the Battle of the Kalka River in May 1223, which resulted in a Mongol victory over the forces of several principalities as well as the remnants of the Cumans under Köten. The Mongols retreated, having gathered their intelligence, which was the purpose of the reconnaissance-in-force ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
