Chumak Song

The chumak song is a thematic group of Ukrainian folk lyric linked to the life of the chumaks — traders who hauled salt and fish by ox-cart from the Crimea and the Don into the heart of Ukraine (15th–19th centuries). Chumak songs reflect the dangers of the long road, separation from family, illness, attacks by brigands, and death on the steppe. They are marked by motifs of the road, the steppe, oxen and carts, and longing for home; in mood they are close to the Cossack and burlak (barge-hauler) songs. Classic examples are 'Oh, a Little Well on the Steppe' and 'Hey, the Chumaks Set Out on the Road.' Chumak songs were gathered by Ivan Rudchenko in the first thematic collection 'Chumak Folk Songs' (1874). The image of the chumak road became a recurring symbol in the work of Taras Shevchenko.