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DSc in Arts, Docent, Professor, Department of Art History, Arctic State Institute of Culture and Arts
This article provides an overview of the musicological material on the Selkups available in the scholarly literature, including publications of Selkup shamanic music as well as information about unpublished collections. This is needed because of the critical state of the language and culture of the northern and southern Selkups; it is necessary to introduce into circulation all of the available material on their ritual culture, material that should be accessible to both the scholarly and national communities.
Selkup music was first recorded on a phonograph by the Finnish ethnographer Kai Donner in 1912; a collection of his materials is kept in Helsinki. Musical transcriptions of Donner’s recordings were published by the Finnish musicologists A. O. Väisänen (1965) and Ja. Niemi (1994). A. M. Aisenstadt (1982) was the first among Russian researchers to make observations on Selkup music. Field recordings of the musical folklore of the Selkups and Kets were made in 1987 in Turukhansk by the musical and ethnographic expedition of Yu. I. Sheikin and others, and others were made there by the musicologist I. A. Bogdanov in 1988. Unfortunately, the material from these expeditions has not been published. An important source of Selkup musical texts is the collection “Ancient and Modern Selkup Songs” (1999), transcribed by Yu. Junkerov. Other valuable resources include the collections of V. I. Anuchin, N. K. Karger and others, stored in the IRLI Phonogram Archive, which have great cultural and historical value; they await special examination and publication.
Aizenshtadt A. M. (1982). U ketov i sel’kupov [Among Kets and Selkups]. In: Muzyka Sibiri i Dal’nego Vostoka [Music of Siberia and the Far East]. Ed. by I. M. Romashchuk. Moskow: Sov. kompozitor. Pp. 175–204. In Russian.
Dobzhanskaya O. E. (2008) Shamanskaya muzyka samodiiskikh narodov Krasnoyarskogo kraya [Shamanic Music of the Samoyed Peoples of the Krasnoyarsk Region]. Noril’sk: APEKS. In Russian.
Dobzhanskaya O. E. (2014) Muzyka nenetskogo shamanskogo obryada: iz istoricheskikh istochnikov i novykh ekspeditsionnykh materialov [The Music of Nenets Shamanic Ritual: From Historical Sources and New Field Materials]. In: Issledovaniya po kul’ture nentsev [Research on Nenets Culture]. Ed. by E. T. Pushkareva, N. V. Lukina. Sankt-Petersburg: Istoricheskaya illyustratsiya. Pp. 168–189. In Russian.
Donner K. (1979) Siperian Samojedien Keskuudessa Vuosina 1911–13 ja 1914. Keuruu, 1979. In Finnish.
Dorozhkova T. Yu. (1997) Kety i sel’kupy [Kets and Selkups]. In: Muzykal’naya kul’tura Sibiri. Traditsionnaya kul’tura korennykh narodov Sibiri [The Musical Culture of Siberia: The Traditional Culture of Siberian Indigenous Peoples]. Ed. by B. A. Shindin. Vol. 1. Book 1. Novosibirsk: Novosib. gos. konservatoriya. Pp. 103–129. In Russian.
Golovnev A. V. (1995) Govoryashchie kul’tury: Traditsii samodiitsev i ugrov [Speaking Cultures: Traditions of Samoyedic and Ugric Peoples]. Ekaterinburg: Ural’skoe otd-nie RAN. In Russian.
Khelimskii E. A. (1989) Glubinno-fonologicheskii izosillabizm nenetskogo stikha [The Deep Phonological Isosyllabism of Nenets Verse]. Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne. 1989. Vol. 82. Pp. 223–268. In Russian.
Lecomte H. (1997) Voices from the Arctic Land’s End. Nenec. Sel’kup. Rec. 1997. Music from the World. Siberie 7. 1997. Pp. (92743–2). In English.
Niemi Ja. (1994) Kai Donnerin tallentamat Selkuppi-ja Kamassisamojedilaulut A. O. Väjsänen “Samojedische Melodien” — nuottinnosjulkaisussa. In: Ethnomusicologian vuosikirja. Helsinki: Suomen Ethnomusicologinen seura. Pp. 103–134. In English.
Niemi Ja. (2001) A Musical Analysis of Selkup Shamanic Songs. Shaman. 2001. Vol. 9. No. 2. Autumn, 2001. Pp. 153–167. In Finnish.
Sheykin Yu. I. (1996) Muzykal’naya kul’tura narodov Severnoy Azii [The Musical Culture of the Peoples of Northern Asia]. Yakutsk: RDNT. In Russian.
Tuchkova N. A., Kuznetsova A. I., etc. (2004) Mifologiya sel’kupov [Selkup Mythology]. Ed. by V. V. Napol’skikh. Tomsk: Izd-vo Tom. un-ta. In Russian.
Urayev R. A. (1994) Materialy po shamanizmu tymskikh sel’kupov (po dannym ekspeditsii 1956 g.) [Materials on Tym [River] Selkup Shamanism (Based on Field Research of 1956)]. In: Trudy Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo ob’’edinennogo istoriko-arkhitekturnogo muzeya [Publications by Tomsk State United Historical and Architectural Museum]. Vol. 7. Tomsk: TGU. Pp. 73–85. In Russian.
Väisänen A. O. (1965) Samojedische Melodien. MSFOu 136. Helsinki. In Finnish. Yunkerov Yu. (ed., comp.) (1999) Starinnye
i sovremennye sel’kupskie pesni [Ancient and Modern Selkup Songs]. Salekhard: SPEIB. In Russian.
Dobzhanskaya O. E. Selkup’s Shamanic Melodies: A Review of Musicological Material. Traditional Culture. 2024. Vol. 25. No. 3. Pp. 23–37. In Russian.