The Musical heritage of Lithuania's Karaims
EN[...] This article is specifically intended to introduce the musical heritage of Lithuania's Karaims. It discusses three principal parts of this heritage: liturgical, para-liturgical, and secular-both in a parochial, as well as a broader liturgical and social context. The broader context facilitates the comparison of the Lithuanian musical features with analogous features in other Karaim musical traditions (of the Crimea or Egypt), as well as with the Judaic and Eastern Christian traditions. The music of Lithuania's Karaims is exclusively vocal and monodic; its repertoire is handed down orally, and to this day it continues not to be inscribed by musical notation. The seventy-five-year-olds of today learned to sing from their grandparents, who learned from theirs, etc. This transmission across generations suggests that the presently documented oral tradition in Lithuania may have been in existence since the Karaim community first appeared in these territories. The material on which this study is based includes Lithuanian Karaim chants tape-recorded during 1960-1970 and 1993-2000. The principal performers of the chants include former spiritual leaders, such as Simon Firkovich (1897-1982), Mykolas Firkovičius (1924-2000), and other community members, the active "bearers" of this tradition, as well as the former secretary of the Polish Karaim religious community, Aleksander Dubinski (1924-2002). The recordings of melodies chanted in Ramie in 1992 by immigrant Karaim communities from Egypt were borrowed from Dubinski; Crimean Karaim religious songs are sung by the former spiritual leader Boris Yelyashevich (1881-1971). [...]. [Extract, p. 855-856]
- Lietuvos karaimų liturginė muzika : disertacija / Karina Firkavičiūtė. Vilnius, 2001. 170 lap.
- The Musical heritage of Lithuanian Karaims in the context of the development of their national self-consciousness in the 20th century / Karina Firkavičiūtė. Tiltai. 2000, Nr. 3 (12), p. 73-76.
