The journal KANT has published the first Russian-language scholarly article on virsikannel – Virsikannel: Practical Importance for the Lutherans and the place in the Lutheran Semioshere. The author is Darya Shkurlyateva, postgraduate student, Kazan Federal University; cantor of the Evangelical Lutheran Parish of St. Peter and Paul in Vyborg (Leningrad region). The Mikael Agricola’s Vyborg choir is reviving the tradition of singing accompanied by the virsikannel.
The purpose of the research is to reveal one of the sides of the Lutheran religiosity related to the peculiarities of the Lutheran musical life. Lutheran parishes are subjects of interconfessional dialogue in the modern multiconfessional and multi-ethnic Russian state. Lutheran churches often host interconfessional musical festivals. It’s the basis for the actuality of this theme. The article focuses on a virsikannel (also known as a psalmodicon) — a Lutheran musical instrument for learning spiritual songs. The instrument was widespread among Lutherans of the Russian Empire in the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. The research was carried out within the framework of the semiotic paradigm of Yuri Lotman, according to which an artefact can be considered as a text and, being placed in different contexts, becomes a generator of meanings. This is the first Russian-language scientific study about this Lutheran musical instrument. Besides that, the scientific novelty is that the materials of newspapers published in the Russian Empire have been introduced for the first time in the scientific turnover. Those materials on the context of virsikannel usage were translated by the author of this article from Finnish into Russian. As a result, identified that the virsikannel is indeed a part of the hermeneutic circle, a generator of meanings. Both the material object as a part of the non-verbal semiotic system and its name as a part of the verbal semiotic system are bearers of cultural memory. This is an evidence of the importance of musical literacy and common singing for the Lutherans.
You can find the article in the attachment to this post.
The first photo shows an instrument built according to historical blueprints.
