SLFK 215, September 11, 2003
What happened two years ago and the desire for an artistic response
Existing memorial
Planned memorials
Other artistic responses to tragedy
Vietnam War Memorial
Oklahoma City bombing and the memorial to that
Other artistic responses that are of the song and story type:
Vietnam War and films such as Deerhunter, Apocalypse Now
Discussions on NPR, PBS of artistic responses to tragedies, life-changing situations
Some situations get no memorial
Tragedies caused by religious sects:
Waco
Heaven's Gate
Jonestown
Natural disasters
The various hurricanes, as in Camille in VA
What is the difference?
Changes thinking, belief
What about successful wars, as in WWII?
Perhaps memorials to individual battles where there is significant loss
George Bush Sr.'s Gulf War goes unheeded &endash; except perhaps for sick soldiers
The silly response to tragedy &endash; sick jokes
Why in the world would there be a silly response?
Does it trivialize the tragedy?
Or is something else going on?
If the negative event is too disturbing, then a more structuring devices such as the limerick response to John and Lorena Bobbitt
If it is too, too horrid, no response at all
The woman who drowns her 2 sons
What at 9/11?
There are jokes
See the NewFolk website
Epic &endash; today's topic
Last lecture
Did problems with the unquiet dead
Who becomes unquiet dead?
Person who dies at the wrong time
Person who dies in the wrong way
Thus: young person
Unmarried person
Violent death
Suicide
You can see that these categories overlap
Basically, there is something wrong
For unmarried people, there is a regular ritual, called wedding of the dead
For others, you need something more
You worked on songs with Alexis
Minstrels take care of unquiet dead
Minstrels do social healing as well as individual
Set things right
This is a parallel to 9/11 type of healing
Two kinds of minstrels
This is very strange
They may have virtually identical repertories
They may train the same way
They may even learn from each other
But basically VERY different
Play the two instruments again
Why in the world did musicians specializing in such DIFFERENT instruments end up together?
Individual healing is the province of the lira player
This is the more common type of musician
There are lira players in the west
Some a blind and some are beggars
The bandura players are more localized
This is really a unique instrument
The type of instrument they play is a form of lute, though a very strange one
Lutes are associated with epic poetry
What is epic poetry?
Stories of great heroes and conflict in great battles
Stories of courage and valor in battle
Epic poetry exists in the West
Beowulf
Chanson de Roland
Nibelungenlied
Other traditions &endash; Turkic
What do epics talk about?
Stories of death and defeat
True, epics are tales of great courage
But to be truly courageous, you have to keep on fighting when you are losing
A true hero keeps on going when things don't look good
Fighting when you are winning is not courage
Examine
Beowulf
Roland
Nibelungenlied
Turkic epic and attitude toward fighting the Slavs versus fighting Iran
No stories about the former because the Turks win
It is the Slavs who sing about this
Turkic story of the death of Koroglu
Ukrainian examples
3 brothers of Samara
3 brothers fleeing from Azov
Ivan Konovchenko and the death wedding
Russian &endash; less pessimistic, but
Sviatogor
Hero who kicks skull
Dobrynia and the dragon &endash; what happens to the girl
Mikhailo Potyk &endash; again issue of what happens to the wife
Different course, but as Propp speculates, probably the historical events on which Russian epic is based ended the type of marriage patterns that Russia once had
Supposition is that the bandura type of Ukrainian minstrel did social healing
He sang epic poetries, like the epic poetries in other countries
And thus helped people get over those life-altering changes in society
Where you lost in battle, even though you believed God was on your side
Where the world as you knew it changed, as after 9/11
But they may also have done other things
Issue of the dead soldier
Person who dies
Violently
Young
Often unmarried
If epic singer acts as the kind of priest over this dead soldier to make sure that he does not become unquiet
Who helped lament and bury the soldier when there were no family members, esp. women to do it
Then can later be associated with other people who deal with unquiet dead
Like the beggar singers
This is how kobzari become associated with lirnyky
Issue of border
Issue of religion
God should be on your side
Particular need for healing
Particular emphasis on courage &endash; keeping the faith and sticking with the old way of thinking and believing even though everything encourages you to do otherwise.