# Empires, Multiculturalisms and Borrowed Heartsongs: What Does it Mean to Sing Russian/Mennonite Songs?

Jonathan Dueck presented "Empires, Multiculturalisms and Borrowed Heartsongs: What Does It Mean to Sing Russian/Mennonite Songs?" as part of the Benjamin Botkin lecture series sponsored by the American Folklife Center. As "colonists" in 19th-century Russia, Mennonites sang German diasporic choral musics and borrowed Russian choral musics; when war drove many to North America, Mennonites drew on this repertoire and borrowed new repertoires to forge links to a new elite: North American classical choral singing circles. This webcast traces this story not as linear narrative, but as genealogical fragments, beginning with the resonances of particular songs for present-day Mennonite writers, historians and singers; and then exploring past moments of the production and reception of these songs in Russia and North America.

- Kind: Talk
- Year: 2008
- By: Library Of Congress
- Genres: Education, History, Music, Religion
- Archive: [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2021688027/)
- Licence or status: Rights statement at the Library of Congress (as the archive states it)
- Credit: Library of Congress
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/loc/2021688027?play=1)