Upcoming Trip This June

This June, I hope to make a trip to Uzhgorod, Ukraine for the 100th anniversary of the publication of Bokshay's "Prostopinije". It will mark my first major trip abroad, so I am hoping that all will go reasonably well.

"Prostopinije" was published in 1906 as a compilation of plain chant music for the Byzantine-Rusyn (Ruthenian) church. There are earlier texts that are sinilar to this, though not as well circulated as this text became. In 1925 Joachim Racsin published his collection of "Prostopionije" which followed Bokshay, and added more material form various sources. The 1944 "Plain Chant" and later the "Basic Chant" by Fr Andrew Sokol provided a transliterated text of Boshay's "Prostopinije" into Latin text (OCS pronunciation). Still later in 1969 Fr. Stefan Papp publlished his "Irmologion" which again used Bokshay as a refernce, though he included many particular melodies used in the Presov region that do not appear in the origional 1906 volume.

Interestingly in all three successor volumes some of the same musical typography errors are faithfullly copied. A particular example is the now less-used 'Voshel Jesi' melody for the Bishop's entrance.

I hope the conference is understandable (ie not entirely in Ukrainian) to an eager 'non-academic' like myself.

Steve P