43rd National Táncház Festival & Fair • 5–7 April 2024
Issue:
Starting page: 30
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Melodies of the Kazaks in Mongolia. Some 100,000 Kazaks live in Bajan Ölgij County in Western Mongolia alongside Mongolians and Tuva peoples. The people in this region live in tents tending their animals in the summer monthes, and move into stable wooden or adobe houses for the winter. The music of Kazak inhabitants from the village of Nalajhra is discussed here. The Kazaks were moved there as part of a Soviet relocation program in the 1950’s and have maintained their Kazak identity. Mongolian Kazaks sing often at celebrational family meals. They sing ’simple songs’ of love for their homeland and ancestors. Like the Hungarians, they also have songs that bid farewell to the bride upon leaving her family and childhood. There is also a form of sung epic poetry these are epics from 200 to 10,000 lines in length and serve as a sort of library on the culture. Their melodies basically move on a ’do-pentatonic scale’. See article in Hungarian for samples of music. By ethnomusicilogist Sipos János – see also his book in English on same subject published by Akadémai Kiadó in Budapest, 2001.