Kolomyjka

The kolomyika (Ukrainian: кoлoмийкa, Polish: kołomyjka; also spelled kolomeyka or kolomeike) is a Hutsul (Ukrainian) music genre that combines a fast-paced folk dance and comedic rhymed verses (танець-приспівка). It includes a type of performance dance developed by the Ukrainian diaspora in North America. It is named after the town of Kolomyia, in the Hutsul region of east Galicia, in what is now part of western Ukraine. It was historically popular among the Ukrainians and Poles, and is also known (as the kalamajka) in north-eastern Slovakia where some Ukrainians settled in Austro-Hungarian times. Kolomyikas are still danced in Ukraine and Poland as a tradition on certain holidays, during festivities, or simply for fun. In Ukraine's west, they are popular dances for weddings. The kolomyika can be a combination of tune, song, and dance with some recordings having a line of singing alternating with a line of instrumental melody, whilst others are purely instrumental. The text tends to be in rhyming couplets and is a humorous commentary on everyday life. Its simple 2/4 rhythm and structures make the kolomyika very adaptable, and the text and melodies of thousands of different versions have been annotated. One collection done by Volodymyr Shukhevych in 1905, contains more than 8,000.¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Kolomyika”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

Kolomyjka is music genre and type of dance, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition.¹¶

The source record links this tradition to 3 external registers, which can be verified through the citation.¹¶