Tatar Ethnomusicology: Development Prospects

Abstract

In the Russian musical culture the term
“musical ethnography” as the name of science
has appeared at the turn of the 19th and 20th
centuries. In the Soviet period, when
the politicization of art began to take place,
the term “musical folklore” became established.
The scientific thought about the Tatar folk
musical creativity developed within
the framework of “musical folklore”. In studies
of the pitch and temporal structure of Tatar folk
songs, a formal (abstract) approach dominated.
Consideration of them in the context
of other disciplines became possible only
in the post-totalitarian period, when there were
ample opportunities for rebirth and the return
of the true artistic values. Only from that time
the science of the musical folklore had
the opportunity to actively use the methods
and techniques of other sciences (history,
literature, sociology, social psychology,
ethnography, linguistics), to give an objective
and in-depth assessment of the peculiarities
of Tatar musical folklore.