From Refugee Camp into the World’s Concert Halls
This History of the Don Cossack Choir
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Don Cossack Choirs belong to the German concept of Russian folklore just like the balalaika, samovar und matryoshka. Numerous Black Sea, Volga, Ural and Don Cossack ensembles serve the West’s longing for the expanses of the taiga and the depths of the Russian soul. Few fans of these burly, yet melancholy Cossack singers know that they are admirers of epigones. The “real” Don Cossack Choir was formed in the 1920s by members of the White Army in a Turkish refugee camp. The story of their rise to world stardom is at the same time the story of an odyssey of homeless men.
(Osteuropa 5/2007, pp. 57–68)