Mioritsa

The ballad was recorded by writer Alecu Russo in 1846 in the monastery of Sobierz, where he was in exile. Alecu Russo sent the ballad to Vasile Alexandri , who published it in 1850 in the journal Bukovina (No. 11, pp. 51-52). After the death of Rousseau, Alexandri recorded another version of the ballad, told to him in the region of Mount Chahlau . Vasile Alexandri changed the text printed in 1850 and published Mioritsu in two collections of folk poetry (Ballads [Iasi, 1852], pp. 1-6; Folk Poems of the Romanians [Bucharest, 1866], p. 1 –3) ^{[3] [4]} .

In 1930, Ion Diaconu recorded in the Vranchi area and published 91 versions of Mioritsa . The well-known Romanian folklorist published 930 documents, of which 702 texts are full versions of the texts of “Mioritsa”, 123 are fragments and 130 are “distribution data” ^[3] . Later, ballad recordings were carried out in more than 500 points, it was found that the version of “Mioritsa” by Rousseau is the most common in oral folk tradition ^[3] . In terms of the number of entries, Mioritsa surpasses any other work of Romanian folklore. So, in the folio by A. Foki in 1964, “Mioritsa”. Typology, being, genesis, texts ”there is information about 825 records ^[5] .

In Transylvania, in addition to the ballad, there is a carol version of "Mioritsa". It was assumed that the ballad came from the carol, although this version of the origin of the "Mioritsa" was rejected. Also in Transylvania, the ballad verse is seven to eight-syllable, when in the remaining regions of Moldova and Romania it is five to six-syllable ^[3] .

At present, the version of Mioritsa recorded by Alexandri has spread in rural areas through school books and in some areas has completely superseded local versions ^{[3] [4]} .

Origin

The fact of the very wide distribution of the ballad throughout Romania and Moldova led some researchers to think of its sufficiently ancient origin, thanks to which it had enough time to become so widely known in the countryside. However, the fact that Mioritsa did not appear in print until the middle of the 19th century led to the appearance of theories about its rather late appearance. The most widespread version of the emergence of "Mioritsa" in the Middle Ages .

Using linguistic analysis, the writer Duiliu Zamfirescu in 1909 came to the conclusion about the relatively recent origin of the ballad ^[6] . However, this conclusion was made on the basis of the text published by Vasile Alexandri, and did not take into account many other versions of the “Mioritsa”.

The historian Nicolae Jorga , using the method of historical analysis, tried to prove that Mioritsa arose in the 18th century ^[7] . Based on written sources, he tried to connect the ballad with documented shepherd conflicts ^[8] . But this analysis also took into account the relatively new version of Alexandry.

According to philologist and folklorist Ovid Densushianu, the nomadic transitions of shepherds with flocks from Moldova and Ardial through Vranca for the subsequent descent to the southern Danube steppes at the winter hut reached the highest intensity in the 16th – 17th centuries, which was fertile ground for a shepherd ballad, such as the "Mioritsa" ^[9] .

Two researchers concluded that the Mioritsa appeared in the 15th century, based on diametrically opposed premises. In 1861, Alexander Odobesku published a version that the basis of the ballad is ancient Greek folklore. The original story spread from Greece to the Balkans and entered the Danube principalities by the 15th century, where it was entrenched in the folk memory in the form of a ballad, significantly different from the original version ^[10] . Ion Muslia refers Mioritsa to the same period, based on historical events that took place at that time on the territory of modern Romania ^[11] .

The historian and writer Bogdan Petricheiku Hashdeu in 1875 stated that the episode about the “allegory of death” was created in 1350-1450 ^[12] .

The folklorist Adrian Foki, following the evolution of “Mioritsa” over time, and analyzing its various aspects (seasonal migration, economic conflicts, interspersing more ancient folkloric elements, etc.), came to the conclusion that the ballad was born on the Moldavian-Muntian cultural material during the period with economic relations inherent in developed feudalism ^[13] .

In 1927, Dumitru Karakostya undertook a comparative analysis of the Romanian and Aromun variants of “Mioritsa” and came to the conclusion that the ballad appeared during the comparative unity of these Romanesque peoples and still not so significant linguistic differences between them, that is, at the end of the 1st millennium AD ^[14] .

Some researchers point to the connection of some elements of the "Mioritsa" with the pre-Christian period. Thus, the composer and researcher of folk music Konstantin Brailoy in 1946 published a work in which he put forward a version of the origin of the posthumous marriage rite mentioned in the ballad, until Christianity penetrated into the territory of Romania ^[15] . He also noted the absence of mystical-Christian elements in some versions of the ballad.

Mircea Eliade challenged Braille's arguments and justified the presence in Mioritsa of the so-called “cosmic Christianity”, which he contrasted with Western Christianity, mystical and dogmatic. But Eliade did not exclude the pre-Christian origin of some elements of the ballad and pointed to the archaism of the epic basis of the “Mioritsa” associated with ritual songs ^[16] . Adrian Foki wrote that the text of the ballad contains very ancient, possibly pre-Christian concepts, and the ballad has very deep roots ^[17] .

Thus, despite the presence in the Mioritsa of more ancient elements, the oldest known texts can be attributed to the Middle Ages.

Three shepherds ( Moldavian , Hungarian / Transylvanian (Ungarin) and Vranchanin ) meet with their flocks. Sheep (Mioritsa) warns the young Moldovan shepherd that the other two shepherds envy his flock and dogs and therefore decided to kill him. Instead of somehow protecting himself, the young shepherd turns to the sheep and tells her his last wishes. The shepherd asks the sheep to be buried near his nightmare , where he will be next to his sheep and can hear his dogs barking. He also asks to put the fluers of three shepherds at the head of his grave. The wind will play on the pipes, and the sheep will gather around and shed tears ^[18] .

In addition, the shepherd asks the sheep not to tell anyone about his murder, but says that he married the beautiful princess, “the bride of the world” (“a lumii mireasă”), and during the wedding a star fell from the sky, the moon and the sun held the wedding the crown, they were crowned by gigantic mountains, and beech trees were witnesses. And if suddenly a sheep meets his old mother in tears, asking everyone about the “proud shepherd”, she should only tell her that he married a princess of incomparable beauty in a beautiful country on the edge of paradise. But the fact that a star fell from the sky during the wedding, the lamb should not tell the mother about the sun, moon, mountains and beech trees ^[18] .

During the time of Vasile Alexandri, most researchers supported a pessimistic interpretation of the ballad. The philosopher Lucian Blagoha , who in his work “Mioritic Cosmos” ( rum. “Spațiul mioritic” , 1936), maintained the same point of view, based on the analysis of “Mioritsa” and other works of Romanian folk art, claimed that “love of death” is one of the most important characteristics of Romanian folk spirituality ^[5] . Another option is humility before death and irreversible events, characteristic of the Moldavian and Romanian peoples. Some saw in the ballad a protest against death ^[5] .

This point of view was later refuted by scholars such as H.H. Stahl and Constantin Brăiloiu, who interpreted the “Miorita” in the context of posthumous marriage ceremonies characteristic of many regions of Romania. This rite consisted in the fact that unmarried dead young people were buried by dressing in a groom ^[5] . But this does not reveal an optimistic beginning in the ballad. The shepherd cannot change fate, but he transforms death into a mystical wedding of cosmic proportions, which allows him to triumph over his fate. The symbols present in Mioritsa originate from rituals and beliefs associated with posthumous marriages, and in the ballad they are brought to artistic perfection ^[5] .

It is widely believed among historians that the ballad “Mioritsa” dates from the 12th – 13th centuries and is one of the oldest sources confirming the appearance of the ethnonym “ Moldavian ” ^[19] .

Mioritsa has been translated into several foreign languages. The first translation was made by Jules Mihelet into French and published in 1854 in Paris . Like most masterpieces of folk art, this ballad is very difficult to translate in poetic form, since many images lose their original meaning when translated into a foreign language.

The collection “Miorița străbate lumea” published 123 translations of ballads and colindas, of which 18 were translated into French, 15 into Italian, 14 into German, 9 into English and 8 into Russian. In addition, there are translations into Polish, Slovenian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Greek, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Japanese and Arabic ^[20] .

• Mioritsa in Russian
• Mioritsa in English
• Mioritsa in German

In 2004, the famous Moldavian group Zdob și Zdub recorded the song “Mioritsa”, which was included in the Russian release of the album “ 450 Sheep ” ^[21] ; the text did not include the entire text of the ballad (there is a Russian and Moldavian version, a video clip was shot at the last), it is performed on a remake of the earlier motive Ciobăneasca from the album Tabara Noastra ^[22] .

In the version of the song from the video clip, the song itself is performed in Romanian , but during the chorus the women's choir also uses English .

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