Orest,
Your research points out one of the problems we have in discussing the
instruments. When we talk about them we tend to want to put labels on
them for where they come from. Those labels tend to be based on modern
concepts of geopolitics and ethnicity, but categories like Polish and
Ukrainian, as useful as the may be, are abstractions that actual
people tended to ignore. So if the lira korbowa and lyra don't
correspond exactly to political constructs, we shouldn't be surprised:
after all the region you are talking about was known for years as
Galicia and people moved freely through it. Trying to determine
whether a type is "Polish" or "Ukrainian" in that region is really
impossible and historically inaccurate. (I know you're not trying to
do that, and your mail shows exactly why it can't be done.) Especially
in Eastern/Central Europe, borders in the past were much more porous
than today and culture and ideas blended and swirled pretty freely.
If we take the "Hungarian" instrument as an example, it's really
Austrian in origin and was imported to Hungary in the 1800s, probably
displacing a lyra-type instrument already in use (there is some
evidence of that type in modern-day Hungary prior to the 17th
century). So is it Hungarian or is is Austrian? The answer, perhaps,
is just "yes". Some changes were made in ethnic Hungarian areas and
the instrument found a home in what is today considered "Hungarian"
music, but it was also found in areas with a some people we'd now call
Serbs and Croats, so is it a Serbian or Croatian instrument? It
depends on definitions that are harder to make the closer you look at
them. There is even a fellow in a "Hungarian" area of Serbia (modern
nation-state) who builds Hungarian-type instruments...
I write this not to pick on anything you wrote at all, but rather to
emphasize that calling something "Polish", "Ukrainian", "Hungarian",
or "Austrian" is an action that conceals as much as it reveals and
that, to some extent, trying to make hurdy-gurdies fit in these
categories is like trying to pound a round peg into the proverbial
square hole.
Best,
Arle
