The American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress collects and documents folklife and traditional culture from the United States and around the world. Originally concentrating on folk music in the 1920s, the American Folklife Center now collects ethnographic materials in many formats. Some of those collections and materials are Russian in origin or content. Below we feature a few relevant collections.
To locate Russian material in the Folklife Center you can use a filter in an advanced search of the Library's catalog. For example, use the search terms "Russia," "Russian," or "Siberian" and limit your location to the American Folklife Center for archival collections and to the American Folklife Reference Collection for books in the AFC reference collection. For further information about the Russian content held by the American Folklife Center, contact them directly.
The W.P.A. California Folk Music Project Collection, 1938-1940 is a rich source of folk music from various American ethnic groups including Russian. Comprised of 239 discs and 115 folders of accompanying materials, twenty-six of the recordings are Russian and freely available on the Library of Congress website, with some other materials accessible only onsite at the American Folklife Center.
The American Folklife Center frequently sponsors lectures and performances on folk culture. For example, in 2019 in the Whittall Pavilion the Library of Congress recorded the "Alash Ensemble" from the Republic of Tuva in Russia. In addition to the recording of the performance, the AFC also conducted an oral history interview about the Tuvan throat singing tradition.
Other collections containing Russian content are the Gordon Bok recordings of Khalmyk music with 3 sound reels of folk music and notes on the music, and the Nicolas G. Schidlovsky collection of music of the Old Believers, containing lectures and field recordings of znamenny chant, solo intonation, congregational and choir singing, and other related content.
Besides the selected special collections in the American Folklife Center mentioned above, the Library of Congress collects in depth published books and periodicals on the folk ways of other countries, including Russia. Those materials are part of the vast general collections and may be identified using the Library of Congress online catalog. Staff of the European Reading Room are happy to help researchers locate published materials on Russian folklife.
Below is a featured recording from the singer and recordist John Panamarkoff (1892-1964) of a ballad about the journey of Russian settlers from Arkhangel'sk to Alaska in about 1808. Part of the John Panamarkoff Alaskan Promyshlenniki Recordings in the American Folklife Center.
The American Folklife Center was created in 1976 by the U.S. Congress to "preserve and present American folklife" through programs of research, documentation, archival preservation, reference service, live performance, exhibitions, publications, and training. Designated by the U.S. Congress as the national center for folklife documentation and research, the American Folklife Center continues to collect and document living traditional culture, while preserving for the future its unparalleled collections in the state-of-the-art preservation facilities of the Library of Congress.
