Song Heritage of Ukraine: Lemko Songs in Folkloric Studios

The purpose of the article is to outline and summarize the best practices of Ukrainian and foreign scholars in the record creation of Lemko folklore as a crucial part of Ukrainian and European cultural heritage. Research methodology applies systematic and analytical approaches and method of generalization. Altogether, it allows for distinguishing authentic recordings of Lemko songs collected in folklore expeditions from traditional cultural sites. The scientific novelty lies in the study of the Ukrainian and foreign scholars’ best practices in studying Lemko folklore in the context of European cultural heritage. Conclusions. In the 1930s, Lemko songs’ recording as an inseparable and original component of the Ukrainian song heritage was launched, and interest in them has not faded up to this day. We drew a list of Ukrainian and Polish folklorists, ethnologists, ethnographers, linguists who collected and studied Lemko songs is outlined, in particular the work of J. Pauli, Ya. Holovatskyi, O. Kolberg, I. Verkhratsky, F. Kolessa, V. Hnatiuk, O. Toronsky, V. Hoshovskyi, S. Hrytsa, M. Mushynka, M. Baiko, R. Kyrchyv, Ya. Bodak, K. Chaplyk, and others. It is proved that the active appeal of ethnomusicologists to the Lemko folklore gathering, planning and going on the expeditions, recording melodies, their analysis and systematization, musical decoding of song samples of subethnos is explained by subtle and penetrating melodies, their “undoubted affiliation to the Ukrainian parental background…” (F. Kolessa, 1929, p. 55). The article emphasized that the Lemko songs reveal the peculiarities of the worldview, life of this ethnographic group, its incorruptible historical and artistic-emotional memory