Shadows of a Forgotten World

Last month, Smithsonian Folkways released an album of ancient songs from the Chornobyl region, songs all but forgotten due to the nuclear disaster that wiped out the nearby villages. Fortunately, some of these songs have been preserved thanks to ethnomusicologist Yevhen Yefremov and Ensemble Hilka: "Under the musical direction of Yevhen Yefremov, an ethnomusicologist and singer whose field expeditions into Kyivan Polissia (“the Chornobyl Zone”) began in the 1970s and have continued to the present day, Ensemble Hilka presents the sketch of a ritual year as a song cycle that may have been performed in a typical Polissian village for centuries leading up to the Chornobyl nuclear disaster in 1986." The project is called "Chornobyl Songs Project: Living Culture from a Lost World." More information can be found on the Smithsonian Folkways  website . In Studio: Ensemble Hilka  article from 2011: "It’s the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disa...

Ballada o Św. Mikołaju is beautiful song about the sad fate of the Lemkos (a Carpathian ethnic sub-group), who were forcibly resettled from their ancestral homeland in 1944-46 to the Soviet Union, and in 1947 under  Operation Vistula  to western and northern Poland. Remnants of their homes, churches, and cemeteries still remain in south-east  Poland , as can be seen in this video. Ballada o Sw. Mikołaju W rozstrzelanej chacie Rozpaliłem ogień, Z rozwalonych pieców Pieśni wyniosłem węgle. Naciagnałem na drzazgi gontów Błękitną płachtę nieba Będę malować od nowa wioskę w dolinie. Święty Mikołaju, opowiedz jak tu było, jakie pieśni śpiewano Gdzie się pasły konie. A on nie chce gadać ze mną po polsku Z wypalonych źrenic tylko deszcze płyną. Hej ślepcze Nauczę swoje dziecko po łemkowsku Będziecie razem żebrać w malowanych wioskach. Święty Mikołaju, opowiedz jak tu było, jakie pieśni śpiewano Gdzie się p...

An album of authentic Ukrainian folk songs from the central region of Ukraine : Forgotten Songs of Ukrainians (“ Й а вже років двісті, як козак в неволі ” Забуті пісні украінців) . “This music is vanishing away. Unique authentic music recordings made at the end of the last century during folklore research expeditions on both banks of Dneper River in Kiev District of Ukraine…Many of these songs are forgotten and vanishing.” You can preview some songs through this webpage .

In Chicago when I was looking through a record store’s folk collection, the title of this album caught my eye: Voices of Forgotten Worlds. It’s a collection of authentic music of indigenous people around the world. You can listen to samples of the songs here .