Culture of the Don Land. Учебное пособие

have great land traditions and specific character. These are the principals, which strengthen the Cossack settlements. Cossacks live friendly with all the people of the Russian villages and Kalmyk auls are situated alternately and this doesn't call forth ethnic conflicts. Today the progress of regional autonomization assumes ugly forms and the Cossacks display persistent will towards unification on regional and not ethnic basis.

Cossacks are ready to protect Russia from the local war waged in the Caucasus. They can solve the problem of conscription in the Russian army.

Questions of the opponents:

1.Will you tell us anything about what the revived Cossacks give Russia?

2.We'd like to know how the problem of conscription can be solved by the Cossacks.

3.Do you think it is right to say that the Cossacks as a militarized class can become the basis for imperial Russia?

Answers:

1.The way we look at it is that the Cossacks can feed and defend Russia. They have always been warriors and landowners. They are very industrious and organized. These qualities will help them to save our Motherland. In our opinion Cossacks are ready for the self-sacrifice for their land. They want to protect their native land from the local wars. We appreciate the actions and behaviour of Cossacks as right.

2.As far as we know the call-up to the army in 1992 was manned only by 50 per cent. Among the least stuffed is the North Caucasian Military District. From our point of view this situation can be changed only by a call-up to the Cossack units, which are able to protect Russia from the Caucasian war and transfer it to its territory. Cossacks make people able to organize themselves into a force. Incidentally Leo Trotsky feared

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Cossacks exactly for that reason. The President's Decree instructs Cossack organizations with the training of youth for the military service to ensure law and order.

3. That's not right. The point that Cossacks arrange their military service by villages. So they know each other very well from their childhood. This principle helps them to organize into a force but exclude those vices which disinterested our army: corruption, theft of weapons, irresponsibility, and loss of discipline. So, we consider Cossack formations as the only remedy for Russia's ailing army. As we have already said, Cossacks unite not on the national but on the regional basis.

It seems to us that they want to help our government to ensure law and order in our country. The Cossacks are brave and faithful to our state! They have a sense of responsibility.

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Module2. DON CULTURE:

ITS BEGINNINGS AND CURRENT STATE

Find the answers to the following questions:

1.Who left to our generation interesting samples of decorative and applied art?

2.What is the culture of the Don Cossacks?

3.Whom did the Cossacks worship?

The Don Land has been abundant in talents from time immemorial. Rather interesting samples of decorative and applied art were left to us by the Scythians. The echoes of their so-called Beast style (these people depicted beasts on their amenities and arms) can be traced in the medieval art of quite a number of other peoples. However the style was in its turn formed not just under the influence of Iranian, Front Asian, and Caucasian art. The Scythian craftsmen also leaned on the achievements of the Don-land art of the previous epoch.

Yet the mass public conscience associates the notion of the Don-land folk culture with that of the Don Cossacks first and foremost.

The culture of the Don Cossacks is unique; the way unique is the social community that gave birth to it. This culture appeared due to the fusion of various elements referred to different cultures: Slavic, Mongolian, Turkic, Greek, Armenian, etc.

The largest gem in the Don Cossacks treasure-trove is Don-land folklore. There never appeared any new genres of speaking. But the general Russian folklore genres received here rather original development.

The folklore of the Don Cossacks is sometimes called the art of soldiery craftsmen. Indeed, it contains many war and marching songs with rather a harsh melody. However numer-

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ous are love, family, party dance, hunter, roundel, calendar and ceremonial, hymeneal songs as well.

The most respected and popular hero of a Cossack song is the Quiet Don. The river is the symbol of free life; it is the father and breadwinner of the people.

The Don Cossacks' culture includes Orthodox rituality having a touch of a local colour in it. In the folk-customs and feasts accompanying it, one can notice some pagan features. In spite of the priests' protests, the girls told fortune both at Epiphany and Christmas-tide.

According to some modern researchers, the Cossacks worshipped Holy Mother more than all the other saints. The 14th of October (new style), the day when Orthodox believers celebrate the festival of the Protection of the Virgin, became an allarmy feast of the Don Cossacks with the passing of the years.

The Don Land presented to the world such men of extraordinary genius as Anton Chekhov and Mikhail Sholokhov, great actress Faina Ranevskaya, prominent actor and stagecraft theoretician Mikhail Chekhov, outstanding contemporary stage director Anatoli Vasilyev; here lived and worked renowned painter Martiros Sarian.

However the above outstanding names belong to the past. The economic crisis of today has unfortunately effected the state of the Don art as well, its interlinks with the listeners and viewers.

The Don-land history knew such theatrical peaks that one might suppose that by the end of the 20th century there would have been not less theatres here than in Paris. However today the Region has only seven (although rather spacious) professional theatres. These are Don Drama and Comedy Theatre after V.F. Komissarzhevskaya (Cossack Drama Theatre) in Novocherkassk, Memorial Chekhov's Theatre in Taganrog, Drama

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and Comedy Theatre named Plast in Shakhty, Regional Puppet Theatre and Regional Music Theatre in Rostov. The two other Rostov theatres Gorki Drama Theatre and YouthTheatre, both bear the title of Academic.

Vocabulary notes: abundant – богатый

Scythian – скиф

Medieval – средневековый

gem – драгоценный камень, драгоценность

treasure trove – не имеющие владельца драгоценности, найденные в земле

craftsman – мастер, ремесленник, художник pagan – языческий

Epiphany – крещение Christmas-tide – святки

Activities:

1.Read the text and discuss the given information.

2.Make up a group discussion of the Don culture.

3.Express your own opinion on this topic.

4.What do you think of the Don culture nowadays?

MUSEUMS OF THE ROSTOV REGION

Find the answers to the following questions:

1.When was the Museum of Local Lore founded?

2.When was the Azov Museum of Local Lore founded?

3.What Art Gallery is the largest one in the South of Rus-

sia?

4. What is the name of the museum organized in Tagan-

rog?

5. When was the Historical and Architectural museum and Park founded in stanitsa Starocherkasskaya?

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Rostov Regional Museum of Local Lore

The Museum of Local Lore was founded in the year 1937. Today its collections comprise over 200 thous. items representing material and spiritual culture. Palaeontological and numismatic collections, those of Russian art silverware, arms, popular and urban costumes, gold needle and beadwork, are of great scientific and historical significance; they attract permanent interest of those who love old articles and their native land.

The Museum has gained prominence and world fame due to its unique archaeological collections of the gold and silver articles showing exquisite style of craftsmanship. These exhibits are permanently exposed in the room named «The Treasures of the Don Steppes».

The Museum wages serious exhibiting activities. The research workers organize and show more than 30 exhibitions a year. The Museum's collections have been also exhibited in France, Scotland, Japan, and Switzerland.

Azov Museum of Local Lore

The Azov museum of Local Lore was founded in 1917. At present its collection count over 240,000 items, 157,000 out of which number make the main stock. A large part of this are the archaeological items referred to Paleolithic, Mesolithic periods. Catacomb and Pit Cultures of the Bronze Epoch, the complexes of Scythian, Sarmatian, Meotic, Khazar, Polovtsian and other tribes, Medieval Azak and Tan.

The wide-ranging collections of the late 18th – early 19th centuries are represented by pottery, glass and metal ware, old coins, source books, maps, etc. Unique are the collections of ancient coins, the 4th century B.C. – the 5th century A.D. jewellery, the 19th - 20th century samovars, needlework, garments and fabrics. The perspective completion of the collection is un-

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der way in the above directions, since Azov is an archaeological monument with the preserved cultural layer.

The Museum has the following subsidiaries: «Powder Magazine», R.L.Samoylovich's Museum, the Showroom named Metsenat.

Rostov Regional Art Gallery

Rostov Regional Art Gallery, the largest one in the south of Russia, was founded more than 70 years ago. Its collection comprises about 6 thous. pieces of painting, sculpture, drawing, decorative art which have been created since the 16th century. Besides the Old Russian icons and the paintings of the renowned portrayers of the 18th century (A.Antropov, K.Khristinek), the Gallery contains works by such outstanding the 19th century Russian artists as I.Repin, V.Surikov, V.Tropinin, I.Aivazovski, A.Savrasov, I.Levitan. K.Korovin. In the foreign art department visitors can see fine pieces of the 17th -19th century art belonging to large painting schools – Dutch, Flemish, Italian, French, German. The Gallery is replenishing its department of modern Russian art which objectively reflects the evolution of the artistic development in the country in the 20th century's second half.

Taganrog State Museum of Literature,

History and Architecture

The first attempts to form a museum in the city of Taganrog are referred to the first half of the 19 century. In the year 1981 the Museum obtained its present structure. Its collection amounts to 208465 items.

The literary part of the Museum and Park embraces A.P.Chekhov's Museum, memorial department «Chekflov's Little House», subsidiary «Chekhovs' Store», and the whole com-

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plex of those places associated with Chekhov (24 sites). The historical part is the exposition of the Local Lore Museum housed in Alpheraki Palace; the memorial part comprises A.Durov's Museum, Subsidiary «Town Planning and Everyday Life of Taganrog», and a complex of the historical and architectural sites.

Absolutely unique in the museum collection are the private papers, books and belongings of the Russian writer and playwright A.P.Chekhov, circus performer A.A.Durov, children's writer I.D.Vasilenko, People's Artist of the USSR F.G.Ranevskaya, the incunabula collection, the collection of the 17th-19th century Cyrillic books, the Russian old-print literature of the 18th century, the collection of the West European books and other exhibits.

Starocherkassk Historical and Architectural Museum and Park

There are places on the magnificent vast Don lands that are interesting and glorious due to their historical associations and their monuments of the past. Such is the Cossack stanitsa Starocherkasskaya, the former town of Cherkassk. In the year 1644, after the «Azov besiegement sitting» was over, the Cossacks founded their capital here. From those times and to the year 1805, Cherkassk had been the head Don-land town – the so-called Head Army.

In 1970, on the initiative of great writer Mikhail Sholokhov, the Government of Russia founded in stanitsa Starocherkasskaya a Historical and Architectural Museum and Park which has now become a unique centre for Don-land, Russian and international tourism and has been included in the UNESCO tourist guides.

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Peter the Great, Aleksander Suvorov, Yemelyan Pugachyov and Kondrat Bulavin, Aleksander Pushkin and Vasili Surikov, many other prominent figures of the Russian history, culture and art, had in different times visited Starocherkasskaya. The Army Resurrection Cathedral standing at the public square is unique in its architecture and interior decoration. Founded in 1706 on the initiative of Peter the Great, the Cathedral was sanctified in 1719.

An almost 50-metre high stone tent-roofed bell tower stands beside the Cathedral. This is the only construction of the type in the South of Russia.

All in all, about 100 monuments of history, architecture and culture have been preserved and registered for restoration at the territory of the Starocherkassk Historical and Architectural Museum and Park. Many of these sites are quite unique.

The Regional Folklore Festivals enjoying great popularity among Russian and foreign visitors, are being regularly held at the Museum between the months of May and September. The unique environment of Starocherkassk and the clean local air engender conditions for both seeing the historical sites and the monuments of the past, and taking a rest at the picturesque bank of the Don River.

Activities:

1.Read the texts given above and be able to exchange the information.

2.Imagine you are present at a conference devoted to the museums of the Rostov Region and the development of tourist business. What museum could you introduce? What tourist routs could you offer?

3.Make up a small report about a museum you have ever

visited.

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Module 3. ROSTOV-ON-DON:

QUIET FLOWS THE DON

Pre-reading discussion:

• What interesting facts about Rostov-on-Don do you know?

If you walk around the city center in Rostov-on-Don, one of the most likely things to catch your eye would be groups of Cossacks dressed in traditional dark-blue uniforms and pants with red stripes. The Cossacks, riding chestnut horses, seem to have leaped off the pages of Soviet writer Mikhail Sholokhov's novel "And Quiet Flows the Don," which won him a Nobel Prize for literature in 1965.

The vast Don River, which divides Rostov-on-Don in two, is largely associated with Sholokhov's name, and statues of his most well-known characters are scattered throughout the city. One of the statues, depicting a boy fleeing from geese, is located near the city's main street, Bolshaya Sadovaya, with its mansions of the late 18th century that now house the local administration and the offices of Russian and foreign banks.

City residents take particular pride in the mansions, mostly white or pale yellow and decorated with stucco, which give the street the atmosphere of a bygone era of nobles' receptions and balls. “My great-grandmother worked as a maid for a banker’s wife before the 1917 Revolution, and when we came to one of the mansions, a former Noble Assembly building, several years ago, she suddenly said: ‘I remember this place. I used to accompany my lady to balls here,” said Tina Shaposhnikova, a senior public relations executive with a local company.

Rostov-on-Don has changed significantly since those days, with the Soviets turning it into a huge industrial city and one

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