On the Question of the Relationship of Collective and Individual Principles in the Flamenco Culture (mid-XVIII — first quarter of the XX century)

The flamenco culture, an original composition of music, poetry, dance and costume, was born in Andalusia, over time has become one of Spain’s «brands», and has now spread well beyond the Iberian Peninsula. Flamenco is full of contradictions that’s why flamenco studies and cultural studies researchers have been working on it for centuries, both in its homeland and abroad. The purpose of this article is to study the relationship between individual and collective elements in the flamenco culture and to analyze various aspects of its formation and existence basing on the literary and historical sources, works on the history of culture, in general, and flamenco, in particular. The Russian segment of flamenco studies research is dominated by works devoted to individual components of flamenco culture — dance, music, history and mythology or particular styles. At the same time, there are no works that attempt to understand the functioning of internal mechanisms and their role in the formation and development of this art. It seems relevant to conduct research from these positions, and the possibility of identifying objective patterns of interaction between the individual and the collective elements determines the scientific novelty of the proposed article. The authors come to the conclusion that, combining elements of rural and urban folklore, flamenco is a popular culture that performs a communicative function both within one social layer and between different layers of urban society. The collective and individual principles in this culture find expression at different levels of social interaction, historical ties, and interpersonal communication; they are not parallel, but interconnected and mutually intertwined. At the level of the text, the collective principle serves as a source of topics, each of which a particular author gives an individual interpretation. At the level of performance and perception, the author transmits to the listener a message containing information about the collective (the memory and experience of previous generations or the current situation for a certain part of society); shares his own experiences or assessments. The listener, perceiving information, on the one hand, joins the collective, and on the other, individualizes it by relating it to his own picture of the world. The presence of contrasts in the flamenco culture is due to the social environment of its formation and existence, the presence of a commercial component and the focus of the performer on the tastes and needs of the audience. The need to attract, surprise and interest the audience at different stages of the development of flamenco influenced all components of this art, and the competition factor encouraged performers to look for new forms and develop new styles. And in general, the presence of opposite vectors provided this culture with the potential that allowed it to go beyond the narrow social stratum, to develop and gain popularity not only in Spain, but also far beyond its borders.