Yes, I agree totally with what both you and Simon are saying. Trying to establish a "national" generalization can be really misleading because you have to take into account ethnic nationality (which in itself if fraught with perils, since the borders between ethnic groups tends to be fuzzy rather than sharp), political nationality (which is also fuzzy because the borders change with time), and limited historical information. Most laymen simply think of nationality as it stands today according to political borders. If I were to guess, I would say that the lira/lirnyk tradition probably stretches on a continuum from Eastern Ukraine through Belarus (and maybe southern Russia) and South Eastern Poland and North Eastern Slovakia with gradual repertoire and style changes as you move from East to West, such that the Polish repertoire is probably significantly different from the repertoire in Poltava and Kharkiv (which typifies the Ukrainian tradition), but likely not so different from the tradition in Galician Ukraine. But, for all intents and purposes, I guess they probably all represent one manifestation of the historic hurdy-gurdy. Its interesting that an oft repeated Ukrainian legend has it that the instrument came to Ukraine from France with mercenary Cossacks returning from foreign campaigns. Supposedly the instrument was imported from France by the Ukrainian Cossacks of colonel Ivan Sirko, who took part in The Thirty Years War (1618-1648). But, the method of construction, and the method of playing is quite different from what is found in France. Yet, according to http://torban.org/torban4.html "... documents of the 14th and 15th centuries record Ukrainian lira (hurdy-gurdy) players at the Polish court ...". (now, I do know the fellow who wrote the information at torban.org, and he is normally quite thorough in his research, which leads me to believe there is a basis for what he has written). On the other hand both the Poles and the Belarussians trace the history of the instrument back to the 16th century, as near as I can tell from web resources. It is all very cloudy. Probably a good topic for a doctoral thesis for somebody:^) Orest
-- Arle Lommel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 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 _____________________________________________________________ Click here for free information on prepaid credit cards from top companies. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2121/fc/Ioyw6i3m15PDSoGFmFfpaeoori98QVA6MvajktVFrMAkFHkqMTebtC/
