The Heritage of Yakov Eshpai: A Collection of Mari Folk Songs
- Authors
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Maria Arkadyevna Klyucheva
Vasilyev Mari Research Institute of Language, Literature and History
Author
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- Keywords:
- Mari music, musical folklore, Mari folk songs, Eshpai, Mari folk instruments, publications of the MarSRILLH (MarNIIYALI), Ural-Volga region
- Abstract
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This article is a review of the new sheet music edition of the MarSRILLH (Yoshkar-Ola, 2025) by musicologist Natalia Valeryevna Mushkina in honor of the 135th anniversary of the birth of the Mari composer and musicologist Yakov Eshpai (1890–1963). The review provides an overview of the structure and content of this book. The edition «Mari Folk Songs: Collections of Yakov Eshpai» includes approximately 300 sheet music samples of songs and instrumental tunes from the archival collections of the MarNIIYALI. The songs are accompanied by lyrics in the Mari language with Russian translations. The material in this collection constitutes a gold fund of Mari folk music of the first half of the 20th century. The book is addressed to folklorists, musicians, philologists, and anyone interested in the culture of the Mari people. The purpose of this review is to inform a wide range of the journal’s readers about this remarkable publication, which fully presents the scholarly work of Yakov Eshpai, a collector of Mari musical folklore.
- Author Biography
- References
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Vasil’ev V.M. Mari muro: Pesni naroda mari, sobranny’e V.M. Vasil’evy’m [Songs of the Mari people, collected by V.M. Vasil’ev]. Kazan: Izdaniye Tsentral’nogo otdela mari Narkoma natsional’nostey, 1920. 98 p. (In Mari.)
Vasil’ev V.M. Mari muro [Mari Songs]. Turlo mariy koklashte mutsho-semzhe dene shkeat, molo yen polshymo denat 1920 dene 1923 iy koklashte pogen Upy’mariy (V.M. Vasil’ev). M.: Tsentralnoye Vostochnoye Izdatel’stvo pri N.K.N, 1923. 86 p. (In Mari.)
Mariyskiye narodny’e pesni (Mari kalyk muro) [Mari Folk Songs] / Sost. i komment. V. Koukal’. L.-M.: Gosudarstvennoe muzykal’noe izdatel’stvo, 1951. 340 p. (In Mari.)
Mari kalyk muro = Mariyskiye narodny’e pesni [Mari Folk Songs] / Sostavleniye i zapis Ya. Eshpaya, obshchaya redaktsiya V. Belyayeva. M.: Gosudarstvennoye muzykalnoye izdatelstvo, 1957. 108 p. (In Mari.)
Mariyskiye narodnyye pesni: sobraniya Yakova Eshpaya [Mari folk songs: collections of Yakov Eshpai] / sost. N.V. Mushkina. Yoshkar-Ola: MarNIInstitute for Language, Literature and History, 2025. 266 p. (In Mari.)
Pesni lugovykh mari. Ch. 1. Obryadovy’e pesni [Songs of meadow mari. Part 1. Ritual songs] // Svod mariyskogo folklora / sost. N.V. Mushkina. Yoshkar-Ola: MarNIInstitute for Language, Literature and History , 2011. 592 p. (In Mari.)
Pesni lugovykh mari. Ch. II. Neobryadovy’e pesni [Songs of meadow mari. Part II. Non-ritual songs] // Svod mariyskogo folklora / sost. N.V. Mushkina. Yoshkar-Ola: MarNIInstitute for Language, Literature and History, 2013. 502 p. (In Mari.)
Eshpaj Ya. A. Marij kalyk muro. Marijskie narodny’e pesni i instrumentalny’e melodii. V 2-h tetr. [Mari Folk Songs and Instrumental Melodiep. In 2 Notebooks] // Nauchnyj rukopisnyj fond MarNIIYaLI [Scientific Manuscript Collection of the MarSRILLH]. Op. 4. D. 35. 1955. (In Mari.)
Eshpaj Ya. Marij kalyk muro. Marijskie narodnye pesni. V 4-h tetr. [Mari Folk Songp. In 4 Notebooks] // Nauchnyj rukopisnyj fond MarNIIYaLI [Scientific Manuscript Collection of the MarSRILLH]. Op. 4. D. 53. 1957. (In Mari.)
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- Published
- 2026-06-22
- Issue
- No. 1 (2026)
- Section
- Reviews
- License
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
