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He, Who Discovered Cossacks-Nekrasovists for the World

On the 2^nd of May it is the 100^th anniversary of Fyodor Viktorovich Tumilevich (1910-1979). He was the well-known folklorist and a talented literary critic, who devoted his life to the study of the folk literature. Owing to Tumilevich we have got acquainted with the poetic heritage of the Cossacks-Nekrasovists.

A brave Cossack, colonel Ignat Nekrasov, fought in the rebellious troops of Kondrat Bulavin. The rebellion having been defeated, Ignat gathered all the Cossacks unwilling to submit to the tsar, and led them to the Kuban.

After their ataman’s death the Don Cossacks-Nekrasovists, escaping from the tsar reprisal, left for Turkey. For about 250 years they had lived in the foreign land according to their Cossack laws, handing down their rites from generation to generation, carefully preserving in their memory the songs and Cossack dialect peculiarities.

After the Great October revolution, in the 20-s, the nekrasovists applied to the Soviet government for a permission to return back to their homeland. The last 990 nekrasovists came to the USSR from Turkey in 1962.

F.V. Tumilevich got interested in the history of “the Cossacks from Turkey” late in the 30-s, and in 1946 he defended his thesis for a Candidate Degree of Philological Sciences. For many years he had been studying the Don folklore, annually he went on folklore expeditions. Teaching students in the Rostov Pedagogical Institute and University, Fyodor Viktorovich made his students-philologists fascinated with the Don folklore.

Many times Tumilevich went on folklore expeditions to our place and to the Upper Don. He is remembered by the song-men of Shumilinskaya, Kazanskaya, Migulinskaya and Vyoshenskaya stanitsas. Fyodor Viktorovich especially marked the performers of Mrykhovskiy Village of the Upper Don District, and of Kruzhilin and Antipovskiy villages of the then Vyoshenskiy District.

At the all-Union contest of folklorists in 1947 F.V. Tumilevich was rewarded with the First Prize and the title of the People’s Laureate.

The books by a scientists, writer-folklorist, have become a bibliographic rarity now. Especially popular are his “Songs of the Cossacks-Nekrasovists” (1947) and “Tales and Legends of the Cossacks-Nekrasovists” (1961) of the Rostov book publishing house. Most of the works by Tumilevich are devoted to the folklore of the Cossacks- Nekrasovists, but he was a fine expert in the folk poetry of Rus and the Don.

Tamara Ivanovna, the wife of Fyodor Viktorovich, was his devoted friend and associate, being also a philology scientist and a folklorist. She lectured in the Rostov university. The couple often went on expeditions together. In 1992 Tamara Ivanovna listened to the folklore group “Zarnitsa” of the State M.A. Sholokhov Museum-Reserve in Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya.

Marking the 100^th anniversary of Fyodor Viktorovich Tumilevich, we pay honour and great respect to this wonderful and devoted man, who discovered the folk poetic literature of the nekrasovists, “the Don Cossacks from Turkey” for the world.

S. Gribanov