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INTRODUCTION
Investigators of Lithuanian folklore basically
agree that children's songs should be regarded as a separate group, as
far as their genre and theme are concerned; and yet, it is fairly difficult
to draw a clear-cut line between the folklore of adults and the folklore
intended exceptionally for children. The reason is, that the majority of
children's songs, which have been preserved till nowadays, contain a number
of features that obviously can be identified with the ones typical of adults'
folklore, e.g. images and motifs reflecting ancient religions or certain
elements intrinsic to the compositions which once accompanied ancient rituals.
In Lithuanian folklore, children's songs
have always occupied a very special place, and have been performed and
created both by adults and by children.
As compared to other genres of Lithuanian
folklore, children's songs seem not to be outstandingly numerous, which
evidently might be explained by the attitude the collectors and performers
used to demonstrate towards them, as an inferior kind of folklore compositions;
consequently, relatively small numbers of samples were collected and published
for quite a long time. Hence, children's folklore was only scarcely represented
in such classical collections of Lithuanian folk songs as the ones by L.I.
Rhesa, G.H.F. Nesselmann, Ch. Bartsch, O. Kolberg,
etc. In this respect, the collections by A. Juðka, A. R. Niemi and
A. Sabaliauskas seem to be more numerous: A. Juðka in his Lietuviðkos
dainos ("Lithuanian Songs") included 23 songs for children; A.R. Niemi
and A. Sabaliauskas in Lietuviø dainos ir giesmës ðiaurës
rytø Lietuvoje ("Lithuanian Songs and Hymns in North-Eastern
Lithuania") included the verse of 92 children's songs, and A Sabaliauskas
in his Lietuviø dainø ir giesmiø gaidos ("Notes
of Lithuanian Songs and Hymns") included 23 samples of verse and 11 samples
of tune. During the post-war period, a number of collections of popular
songs for children, either with notes or without them, were published.
The most outstanding of them was Lietuviø liaudies dainos vaikams
("Lithuanian
Folk Songs for Children") by J. Èiurlionytë published in 1948,
where the verse as well as the tune of songs representing different genres
were included.
The largest and most comprehensive source
of children's songs ever released in this country is the collection Lietuviø
liaudies dainynas. I t. Vaikø dainos ("The Book of Lithuanian
Folk Songs. Vol. 1. Children's Songs") published by the Institute of Lithuanian
Language and Literature, Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in 1980. The volume
contains about 1 000 samples of verse and about 340 samples of tune, as
well as a comprehensive introductory article on the verse of children's
songs by Pranë Jokimaitienë. The author has suggested the folowing
criteria for the classification of children's songs: the function of the
song, its theme, its origin, who is the composer, who is the performer,
and its structure. As far as these criteria are concerned, children's songs
seem to be heterogenous in most cases. Childern's songs include the songs,
which had been composed for adult performers, but later appeared in children's
repertoire (some of calendar cycle, entertainment, work songs), the songs
originally designed for children and the songs created by children themselves.
In the classification suggested by P. Jokimaitienë, the following
genre groups are distinguished: lullabies, amusement songs, animal descriptions,
formula songs, teasing chants. The songs representing the first two groups
(lullabies and amusement songs) originally were created by adults and were
performed for the smallest children. Animal descriptions and formula songs
were designed for the elder ones, and were performed both by children and
adults. Teasing rhymes - short compositions of a very specific kind - usually
were created by children.
Further, we are going to deal with each
of these genre groups separately.
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