Tunisian women folk songs have not found themselves among those subject matters enjoying a large amount of interest on the part of scholars, although attitudes in academic circles towards this area of folklore differ. Recently, however, a gradual increase of interest in folk songs can be noticed. Researchers have become aware of the importance of exploring folk songs both with respect to their contents and language. Hopefully this will lead to an increase in scholarly research in this field.
In the summer of 1980, following the death of Vladimir Vysotsky, the Taganka Theatre in Moscow received more than 130 mourning telegrams. Their collection (although not all the items have survived) represents an invaluable source for the study of late Soviet culture. The descriptions of Vysotsky contained make it possible to reconstruct a certain collective portrait of the bard – this being one of the purposes of this article. The reasonableness of this task is justified by the fact that a number of the declarations sent testify to the articulation of emotions perceived by the authors as collective ones. The portrait we have created is a picture that perpetuates the personality, in which all the main features of the Russian cultural concept of “the Poet” are fully realized. It is also a portrait of a person who – according to the author of one of the telegrams – “lived ultimate states”, or – according to another – was permanently “standing on the edge.”
The concept of city has got broad analytical perspectives, one of them are: the structural perspective, sociological, psychological, political, cultural, industrial and also the pedagogical perspective. In opposition to the concept of city is the concept of countryside, within which the concept of nature is regarded as an idyllic place, it is the place of childhood, the place of longing, it is the lost place that has been starting to go under the knife of time since the 20s of the last century. The apotheosis of the concept of city, that is being practiced by many artists, embracing the symbolics of the concept of city by mass culture and later by popular culture, causes the necessity to take the initiative of conducting the research that would attempt to establish the identity of the concept of city in modern culture. The article attempts to specify how the concept of city functions in popular culture through the analysis of chosen texts in popular music, starting from the 50s of the XX century until the XXI century.
The use of canticles in liturgical monody goes back to the early Middle Ages when the practice of canonical hours began to be used extensively. The canticles of the Gospel (Benedictus, Magnificat and Nunc dimittis) were successively incorpora- ted into the structure of the canonical hours and became in time the most important chants of the Liturgy of the Hours (Laudes, Vesperae, Completorium).
Some shorter canticles of the Old Testament books were also included in the Divine Office but it was only after the Second Vatican Council that shorter canticles of the New Testament books came into Vespers. They replaced the final (i.e. the third) psalm.
The designation „song" which was used to describe „canticle" in the Polish translation of the revised Liturgy of the Hours appeared to be highly controversial and inadequate. Thus, it was necessery to explain such definitions as: canticle, psalm, hymn, song. Based on the studies it is possible to definitely determine that a return to the original designation (canticle) is necessary and inevitable, in order to avoid confusion in terminology. Benedictus and Magnificat have received the primary thrust of poetic translations of canticles into Polish. In the latter case there are as many as five different Magnificat translations in Polish church song-books; only two versions of the Benedictus have been found. These canticles have a wide liturgical application; their use is not limited to the Divine Office alone.
They have been introduced into the Roman Catholic Order of Mass as the chants after Communion, or as the responsorial psalms, or as the verses sung before Gospel. Some of them have become independent processional chants for Mass, especially the ones intended for Lent. As far as the number of musical settings is concerned, it can be said that the Magnificat canticle seems to be highly favored. Nevertheless the melodies connected to other canticles, including the ones with the texts from „non-Gospel" biblical books, deserve attention as well. The melodies originated either in the Gregorian chant, or in the ecclesiastical songs, or in foreign sources, or, finally, in indigenous pieces of original compositions.
Thus, the repertoire of the New Testament canticles exhibits itself as a rich resource of new chants which have been included in the official liturgy in Poland since the Second Vatican Council. Clearly, further research is required in the aera.