Musical preferences of the nobility of left bank Ukraine as an object of historical research

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to reveal the specifics of the music and theater culture of the nobility of Ukraine in the first half of the ХІХ century. The topicality of the topic is determined by its interdisciplinary and plot dimension and orientation to such important directions for modern Ukrainian historiography as everyday history, «new» history of leisure, musical geography, which allows expanding the idea of the development of Ukrainian culture in a «long» XIX century, through analysis of symbolic practices to reveal the influence of art on the formation of collective and individual modern Ukrainian identity, to determine the place of the social elite in the cultural process. Historical studies from this point of view can contribute to the expansion of ideas about the cultural landscape of Ukraine. An additional argument in favor of the topicality of the topic is also paying attention to the nobility, whose musical preferences have practically not attracted the special attention of scientists. The methodological basis was the principles of science and historicism, which orient to explore of an era and a person of a certain era, taking into account the peculiarities of the contemporary culture, general scientific methods (analysis and synthesis) and methods of historical science (chronological, historical-genetic, historical-comparative, historiographical, source studies), and as well as approaches of such areas as everyday history, history of leisure, musical geography, which allow us to understand the ways in which people mastered the world, to pay attention to the province, to local human communities, to reveal the specifics of new behavior, new leisure practices, especially at the turn of cultural epochs. The main results are presented in features of the musical tastes of the nobility of the first half of the ХІХ century. It preserved the best examples of Ukrainian songs, created original works based on folk melos. Based on the analysis of the source complex, the place of music in everyday nobility is shown, organic combination of Ukrainian folk music and European cultural innovations, as well as the widespread stereotype about its departure from national culture and, accordingly, about the «unification» of the Ukrainian social elite, is refuted.