Dumy, the oral epic songs of Ukraine, like other heroic poetries, have a military subject matter. One duma cycle tells of battles with the Turks and Tatars in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries; another sings of the Khmel'nyts'kyi uprising against the Poles that began in 1648. In addition to the expected narratives about armed conflict, the duma tradition also contains a group of songs, usually called the cycle about everyday life, that deals with topics only tenuously connected to war. These songs tell of such problems as filial ingratitude and sibling disloyalty. The popularity of this "unheroic" body of dumy relative to the other cycles suggests a powerful nonmilitary influence on the Ukrainian epic tradition at some point in its development. Other content features, some unusual elements in duma form, and many unique characteristics of duma performers likewise indicate such influence.
