Note 8 — Chapter V · B. Historic and Political Songs

Duma—dumaty means to think, to meditate on some deeds of the times of yore. They are the Ukrainian epopees, epic rhapsodies about heroic deeds, usually of Cossacks in their struggle against the Turks, Tartars, Russians and Poles. Equivalent in meaning to the Bilinas (bylo byti means that which has happened, been done or performed) which though of Ukrainian origin, became known as exclusively Russian epic poetry. One must remember that the “Word of the Armament of Igor” is called the “Ukrainian Duma of the XII Century” by all Ukrainian ethnographers.