“THROUGHOUT THE WILD DESERTS OF CHINA” — THE SONG IN THE REPERTOIRE OF TRANSBAIKALIA COSSACKS OF AUSTRALIA: TO THE HISTORY OF TEXT AND MELOS

This paper deals with the history of a Cossack song “Throughout the wild deserts of China”. The authors have recorded oral variants themselves and identified several recordings and publications —  done in Altai, Omsk region, Buryatia of Russia and in Kazakhstan, Australia and the USA abroad. Creation of the song is associated with the flight of the Cossacks, who participated in the Civil war on the side of the White movement, to China. The authors demonstrate variation of its content depending on the historical context the performers of the song came across and lived in. For the first time, musical notation of available audio recordings, including those published on audio CD, was carried out. Analysis of the specific voice leading in solo singing, as well as in the variants recorded from single performers with elements of reconstruction of twovoice texture, male, female and two gender-mixed ensembles, leads to the conclusion that it is the male ensemble of the descendants of Transbaikalia Cossacks in Sydney (Australia) demonstrates the most interesting development of multi-voice melodic texture of the song. For Russian Australians folk song has functioned an important factor for their consolidation in an alien land. A deeply emotional Cossack song is a top manifestation of creative skills of the Transbaikalia natives. Composed by one of the Siberian Cossacks who had fled to Xinjiang, the song “Throughout the wild deserts of China” landed in Manchuria, in the Trekhrechie, the interfluve of three rivers, and inseminated the fertile soil of the Transbaikalia Cossack tradition. For natives of the Trekhrechie, who had immigrated to Australia, it recalls not only about the great homeland of their ancestors, but of their minor homeland in China.