Ancient Russian Folklore Comes Alive With Don Cossacks

Mikhail Tabunkin, featured as the fierce head swordsman in the Don Cossacks Song and Dance Company of the Soviet Union’s “At Maidon” production number, strips off the tunic of his traditional military uniform, sinks into a squat, and shows off the straight-legged kicks with knees held tightly together--called zakladka .

Two dozen onlookers whoop and holler.

These Cossacks, one American thinks to himself, aren’t so frightening after all.

This is just one of the misconceptions about the Cossacks from his native Don River region--situated around the industrial city of Rostov between the Black and Caspian seas--that artistic director Anatoly Kvasov would like to dispel on this trip. The company’s American tour begins with performances in San Francisco and Los Angeles (seven performances at the Pantages Theatre, which began Tuesday, then continues to another 14 American cities, extending from Iowa City to New York.

“Americans have a false impression,” says Kvasov, through an interpreter. “A Cossack, in our understanding, is a freedom-loving man. Cossacks, for example, are extremely hospitable.

“And they are always ready to help. They just happen to be very good warriors too,” he says with a laugh and a shrug.

But the Cossacks have always had a fierce and bloody reputation. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary cites a second meaning: “a member of an armed contingent using force to suppress or break up some activity.”

Kvasov also wants to correct the common notion that the Cossacks are a distinct nationality within the Soviet Union. “We were a class or strata of people,” he says.

But if Kvasov has a top priority, it is to change the impression “that Cossacks only dance and don’t sing.” It’s the one subject that really gets under the skin of this good-natured musician, who has been awarded the title “People’s Artist” by the Soviet government. “The Cossacks do not divide the song and the dance,” he says, his voice rising in volume. “It is a unity. If anything, the song is the priority, because it is how we pass on our oral history.”

Cossack singing, with its intense non-vibrato delivery and closely overlapping harmonies, is similar to the singing of Bulgaria, though it is not as dissonant or piercing as its close cousin. “Sometimes, the folkloric groups try to perform the Don Cossack songs in a smooth manner, like Italian singing,” says Kvasov, miming the wide-mouthed Italian style.

“But it is wrong. The articulation has to be more economical,” he says, narrowing his lips. “We sing as we talk.”

To find songs suitable for presentation on the stage, Kvasov and his folklorist wife, Raisa--who is also a member of the Don Cossack choir--make expeditions to “small and forgotten places” in the Don River region, where they meet with villagers and gently coax them to sing.

“Sometimes, there is only one singer in a village who can sing brilliantly, only one song,” says Kvasov, whose own musical family required him to take up mine engineering (“a practical profession”) before beginning formal music study. “It’s like finding a pearl for me. It is like a fisherman’s happiness, or like winning at cards.”

As slick as the Don Cossacks’ staged performances appear, with countless costume changes and militarily precise formations, Kvasov strives to maintain the sense of a living folk tradition in the gritty blend of singing, dancing and orchestral music he puts on the stage. Some songs, he says, are included because they popular.

The anthem “Yermak,” for instance, which commemorates the exploits of a 16th-Century Cossack commander, is included even though it is not considered to be authentic folklore. “It was composed,” says Kvasov.

The songs Kvasov loves best, however, such as “White Fish” or “ ‘Twixt Forest and Mountain,” were discovered in remote villages and subsequently “restored.”