Олег Скобелев
Былины Олонецкой губернии. Былина про Добрыню.
About Dobrynya bylina. Ancient epic songs of the Olonets province.
Bylina is a traditional East Slavic oral epic narrative poem. The stories are based on historical stories but become embellished with fantasy. They have origins in the ancient poems and pagan songs (somewhere in the 10th and 11th century).
You can imagine how difficult it was for me to follow such a master in singing bylina. I, Oleg Scobelev, have deeply studied performing of folk songs for about ten years when I became a participant of the Kizhi museum folk theatre. I was born in Perm Region. My grandmother was from the old Urals' city of Cherdyn. I also have deep Tver's and Yaroslavl' roots. Russian epic songs did not attract me immediately. Because of my great respect for this genre and lack of self confidence it was not so easy to realize this idea - to restore bylina. It took me four years to become ready - internally and externally - for this work. My great desire to revive bylina and to show the new generations how bylinas sounded, lived and sung helped me. I'll never forget that wonderful feeling when I was stunned by joy while listening to the recorded bylina performed by I.T Fofanov. I was impressed by the music of the words; I was charmed by the melody streaming like a brook. I hope you will also feel this living link between the times and generations.
