On this site, you will find links to manuscripts, unique images, archival repositories and their finding aids, sound recordings, and more. Explore as much as your time permits. Start with the four “quantitative interrogatives”: who? what? when? where? Use these questions to guide your discovery.
— Dr. Melanie Zeck
To learn more about Russian music and culture, come to the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and explore the archival collections. Despite the word “American” in its title, the American Folklife Center has ethnographical materials in over 500 languages (including Russian), documenting cultural expression around the world. The Center also holds collections featuring performances of Russian-Americans. Learn how to make the most of your visit to the American Folklife Center.
Link: Sergei Zhirkevich Photograph Collection
Citation: Sergei Zhirkevich Photograph Collection (AFC 2000/026), Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Description: Collection consists of 28 black-and-white photographic prints and 46 pages of diary excerpts written in the field by Sergei Zhirkevich, who documented music, dance, religious traditions (processions, Shrovetide customs) and rural life in the Pskov and Leningrad regions of Russia. The city of Leningrad (now: St. Petersburg) was the birthplace of Shostakovich, whose Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 60, is nicknamed the Leningrad Symphony.
Link: Pinelands Folklife Project
Citation: Pinelands Folklife Project collection (AFC 1991/023), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Description: The Pinelands Folklife Project collection represents the culmination of a three-year effort to identify and record the cultural traditions in and around the Pinelands National Reserve in the Pine Barrens region of southern New Jersey in the mid-1980s. The project includes recordings of a Russian Orthodox radio program from Dallas, Pennsylvania, and a Russian Orthodox Mass at Saint Mary’s Russian Orthdox Church in Jackson, New Jersey.
Listen online:
Link: Nicolas G. Schidlovsky collection of music of the Old Believers
Citation: Nicolas G. Schidlovsky collection of music of the Old Believers (AFC 1987/031), Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Description: The collection is divided into recordings of the Old Believers of Moscow and the Baltic Regions and the Old Believers in America. Recordings include worship services, znamenny chant, solo intonation, congregational and choir singing, readings, and experimental performances. Topics for lectures include comparison of Greek and Slavonic (Old Believer) chant and the History of Russian Liturgical Chant and Lection. There are a few performances by the Ivanovo Quartet; Pro Musica Slavica; and Russian Chamber Chorus of New York.
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