Taxing Ukrainian Folk Songs

Interesting news from Ukraine lately about their need to fill the government treasury is puzzling and perhaps troubling - not sure yet.  It seems that with the rising popularity of Ukrainian folk songs, their government is eyeing opportunities to cash in.

Ukrainian folk songs express the accumulated wisdom of a people.  The rhythms of folksongs accurately represent syllabic stress in the language, subtle inflections in phrase, and the syntax is clearly expressed.  Over the years, the melodies of Ukrainian folksongs have evolved from a small range, with many repeated simple motifs, to a grander use of diatonic and altered scales.  The more "native" the melody, the more authentic it may be.  And authentic folk songs travel through the generations with ease, taking on the transitions of language, and subtle melodic influences in its vicinity. When you "straighten out" a folk song, you are messing with antiquity. 

Ukraine's young people are beginning to recognize the powerful truths jam packed into the folk songs of their ancestral memory, and enjoying their ancestral identity.  With available technology for recording, manipulation and marketing of their native folk music, Ukrainian folk songs are taking their place in the modern culture.  Their government has recently opined their desire to cash in on this national treasure chest - and I am a bit concerned, if not bewildered. 

There are international laws protecting authorship, composers, performers, etc.  Music over 50 years old is generally considered "in the public domain".  Copywrited music requires licensing, and the list goes on.   Even composed songs with authored lyrics can fall into the public domain but this is more touchy, again I am not an expert.  But Ukrainian folk songs are way older than that!  They belong to the people, shared from generation to generation,  primarily through an oral tradition.  So very much of the Ukrainian language, spirit and lifestyle is revealed in its folksongs - there is a song for every moment of one's life. 

Conceptually, the Ukrainian government taxing Ukrainian folk songs concerns me.  In conversation with a person far more versed than I, the question was - is this an attempt to limit permission or to censor the folk culture of Ukraine?   One can only wonder whether this is a truly benevolent attempt to honor and protect the cultural identity and ancestral treasury wantonly usurped by manipulators of history! On the other hand, is this another way of preventing wide consumption and access to tradition, culture and the place where authentic language has evolved as a descriptor of the people and her dreams?  Or, on the other hand is this a way to validate and champion, bringing recognition, legal support, and financial recompense to the keepers of the hearth, the keepers of ancestral culture?  The ancestral babas and didos who continue to live close to the land, authentically engaged in lifestyle practices foreign to city dwellers may be both a target and recipients of attention - gotta watch out for the tax man.

This is a bizarre attempt to fill the government treasury with the lifeblood of a nation in my eyes.  Can you imagine the government trying to license a community choir performance of Taras Shevchenko's The Last Testament?, and where do you draw the line between folk songs and communal singing at a liturgy?  Really?! Wouldn't it be better for Ukraine to tax real estate? or use some muscle to collect income tax first, especially from those who have hidden their billions in off shore banks? 

 

The Spirits of our Ancestors

Driving Alberta's prairie roads you can see how summer's sun is giving everything a lovely toasted hue.  You-pick gardens everywhere are hosting families looking for a healthy, fresh and sometimes organic harvest bounty.  And you cannot miss that some of the fields are beginning to turn color and will soon be ripe.
Just thinking how long these fields and farms have been planted is sometimes a surprise.  Many fields have been farmed for possibly up to 120 years, but this is not long compared with the many years of stewardship by Canada's aboriginal people.  Though Alberta's First Nations do not have an ancestral tradition of farming, or gardening, still their medicines, their rituals, their folk wisdom is rooted in nature.  The ancestral memory of a relationship between the land and mankind is in every cultural community.

The Iroquois wisdom rings true for me. And seven generations ago, much of what is Ukraine was stuck in serfdom.  Serfdom is like white slavery.  In a time long past, some Ukrainian ancestors were bound by duty and debt to a landlord who owned all of one's waking hours, labour, and any product produced.  That type of "human slavery" was abolished over a century and a half ago - seven generations ago! Americans of African ancestry who experienced slavery suffered a debilitating psychological damage, a sense of less worth than others.  Many Canadians of immigrant origins also know the stories, because of similar experiences in their historic ancestry. That may be one of the factors in Canadian's being so involved in advocacy for human rights!

So seven generations ago Ukraine's Great Bard - Taras Shevchenko was "purchased", rescued from a life of serfdom, and wrote the most empowering literature full of folkwisdom, dreams and possibilities!  Eventually serfdom was abolished, and people resolved to heal and thrive, in freedom. That may in part explain why the Ukrainian nation has such a scattered diaspora - it makes me think of the farmer of old times, broadcasting seeds onto the fertile soil by hand.......

So when you are driving on the prairie roads late this summer, look at the farmers fields and consider that the August sunshine will ripen the wheat, and make it ready for harvest. It is probably time to gather a sheaf of wheat! 

In the ancestral teachings, the Spirit of our Grandfathers lives in the kernels. Each seed sacrifices itself to give life to the next generation.  It is so, from time immemorial.

Remember to ask permission of some generous farmer before you harvest the wheat. Take long stalks and make a tightly bound bundle.  Bind it well, as it is said the tigher the bind, the closer the family.  The souls of the family (past, present and future) are thought to be in the sheaf, and it represents both the Christian belief in an afterlife and the bountiful fertility of the land. Display the Didukh in a place of honor and celebrate its wisdom!