The Gusle: Serbian Epic Poetry

Documentary on the ancient Gusle instrument (Srpske Gusle, Српске Гусле, Lahuta) and Serbian Epic Poetry (Srpske Epske Narodne Pesme). Gusle was entered into UNESCO in 2018.

Chapters: 2:21 Types of Gusle Songs 2:59 Epic Cycles 3:47 Pre-Kosovo Cycle 4:54 Kosovo Cycle 6:53 Cycle of Marko Kraljevic 8:27 Post-Kosovo Cycle 9:49 Hajduk Cycle 10:24 Uprising Cycle 11:34 Balkan & World Wars 12:14 Modern Cycles 13:12 History of the Gusle 17:07 The Gusle Today

Folk Round by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Artist: http://incompetech.com/

Sources:

"The Serbian Epic Ballads: An Anthology". Geoffrey N.W. Locke. 1997.
"The Oral Epic: Performance and Music". Karl Reichl. 2000.
"Prince Marko: The Hero of South Slavic Epics". Tanya Popovic. 1988.
"Epic Singers and Oral Tradition". Albert Bates Lord. 1991.
"Oral Art Forms and Their Passage Into Writing". Else Mundal. 2008.
"The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians". Stanley Sadie. 1980.
"Music In the Balkans". Jim Samson. 2013.

Quotes on the origins of the Gusle:

"We may conclude that the gusle came from Asia. The word gusle is apparently Slavic, and this fact may indicate that the instrument was adopted by the Slavs, presumably fairly early." Lord, Albert. Epic Singers and Oral Tradition. 1991.

"The gusle, a musical instrument that can be found in several regions of Eurasia, is especially characteristic of the Dinaric region in Balkans." Chall, Leo P. Sociological Abstracts. 2002.

"Often the head of the instrument is decorated with a horse motif, either a roughly carved rider on horseback or merely a horse's head — a motif that some believe is traceable back to the origins of the Slav race in the Far East." International Catalogue of Recorded Folk Music - Volumes 1-2 - Page 64. 1958.

"The frequency of horse imagery found on gusle suggests it originated with Central Asian nomadic riders who invaded Europe from the 200s through the 800s." Forry, Mark. Garland Encyclopedia of World Music v.8: Europe. p.941.

"The gusle is a most unusual looking instrument. The date of its origin is unknown, but it is a much older instrument than the violin. It is a large instrument and of different shape from the instruments of Arabia, China, and India." Cheek, Raymond W. Treasure of Facts for the Violinist. 1955.

"(Bowed instruments) appear to have originated in Mongolia; a legend accounts for the origin of the horse-head fiddle, and this also survives in sung form. Instruments of the horsehead type are widely distributed in Asia; the Yugoslav gusle (single-string fiddle), which accompanies epic singing, is a more distant relative." Sadie, Stanley. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians - Volume 4 - Page 65. 1980.

"The gusle is a prehistoric instrument. It is of old Slavonic origin." New Zealand Slavonic Journal. Victoria University of Wellington. 1986.

"Professor Gazimihal believes that bowed lutes were transported westward to Europe by the Huns. He points out that the correlation between their distribution and that of the horse cult (the bow was, and is, strung with horse hair), and above all he stresses the links between Anatolian dialect words and words in Turkic dialects of other regions. The dialect term for a fiddle current in parts of Asia Minor: 'Iklig' is equivalent to the Uyghur 'oklu', meaning 'with a bow', hence 'bowed'. The turkic terms for bowed instrument: 'Iklig', 'oklu', and 'igil' may well be related to the term gudok in Slav languages; and Magyar hegedü, and gude and gusle, may all be related." Journal of the International Folk Music Council. 1959.

"Beyond the territory of the 'lira' in east and west we find an older fiddle, the shell-shaped body of which is mostly covered with skin. In the west it is the well-known south Slav gusle, and in the Russian-Persian confines the 'tschianuri' of the Tatars. And now we find that among the most eastern groups of the Turkish and Tungus tribes who still sing epic songs this instrument appears once more with the exterior characteristics of the gusle." Hoerburger, Felix. Journal of the International Folk Music Council. 1952.

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