A román kolindálás szokásrendszeréről
The Folk Custom System of the Romanian Colinda

Summary/Abstract: This paper is essentially the first part of a musical doctoral thesis that covers the issues of the Romanian and Hungarian colinda arrangements – and other compositions inspired by the colindas – in the second half of the 20th century. This part of the dissertation contains the description of the Romanian folk custom “colindat”, popular during Christmas time, but also associated with old pagan rites during the winter solstice and with the antique feasts of greeting the New Year. The description covers the origin of the word “colinda”, the delimitation of the genre, the detailed process of the folk custom and its spreading in the Romanian language area.The next part of the study is about the basic characteristics of the folk texts and the melodies, which also carry archaic dimensions. It is followed by a two-part summary of the research history, from the first historical reports through the great colinda monograph of Béla Bartók to recent Romanian researches. The present work is first of all a synthesis, but it contains some novel reflections on the field, pertaining especially to the musical arrangements of the colindas.

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