AAVV
Cossacks - Songs and Dances of the Don and Kuban Cossacks
PAN 2069/71
World Music
713958206928
Pan
Russia
The Cossacks are an ethnic group which is most significant in historical importance of all the Russian traditional military communities.
The Cossacks' substantial training system caused a high fighting efficiency. Every Cossack youth who became a qualified adult was obliged to keep a warrior horse and attend specific military drill camps. Away from battles and training they occupied themselves with agriculture and cattle-breeding. The peculiar, unusual life style of the Don Cossacks naturally influenced their customs – and their traditional music as well.
In the mid-1990s Professor Vyacheslav Shurov from the Moscow Conservatory made three fieldtrips to document the traditions of three Cossack communities in South Russia. This 3-CD set documents the end of an era as the old singers and musicians have died for the most part. Today this music is not sung anymore so well as in the past.