ISO a definition!

[Edward Dumanis]

Devin P Browne wrote:

> Privet all!  I recently pulled out an old "Russian Birthday Song" that my
> cooperating teacher gave me many years ago.  However, there's a word in it
> that I can't find in the dictionary and I have checked quite a few now.
> The line is (in non-Cyrillic, unfortunately):
>
> Ispekli my karovaj
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Devin/Divan
>
> Devin P Browne
> dpbrowne+ at pitt.edu

It is not actually just a song.  It's a birthday party game where the guests
form a circle (horovod) taking each others' hands and surrounding the person
(who is the karavaj) whose birthday is celebrated (e.g., Yurij Lotoshko).
They walk around the circle singing (the version is slightly different from
Yurij's):

Kak na Yuriny imeniny
Ispekli my karavaj
                                (The motion around the circle stops at this
moment
                                with the guests facing Yurij still holding
each others'
                                hands; they continue to hold each others'
hands all
                                the time during the game)
Vot takoj vyshiny,
                                (the guests are raising their hands while
holding
                                each others' hands as high as possible)
Vot takoj nizhiny,
                                (the guests squat touching the floor with
their hands)
Vot takoj shiriny
                               (the guests stand up and spread out from Yurij
                                trying to make the circle as wide as possible)

Vot takoj uzhiny
                               (The guests move towards Yurij trying to
                                squeeze him in the circle -a kind of hugging,
a lot of fun!)
Karavaj, karavaj,
Kogo hochesh' vybiraj!
                                (The guests form the original circle,
                                and then karavaj-Yurij replies
                                naming one of the guests, e.g., Philippe:)

Ja ljublju konechno vseh,
Tol'ko Philippe bol'she vseh.

                                                (At this time, Philippe joins
Yurij,
                                                and the guests who are left in
the circle
                                                repeat the song with the same
movements
                                                and both Yurij and Philippe at
the center;
                                                the only difference is at the
very end when
                                                only Phillippe is singing for
karavaj and
                                                names the next guest (e.g.,
Irina) to join
                                                them at the center, and so
on.)

The game continues until it is impossible to form a circle around karavaj.

A small correction of some typos in Philippe's translation:

FRISON Philippe meant:

Try Ozhegov latest issue (1992), p. 271) your sentence would mean 'We
baked a (round) loaf of bread.'

18 years ago my wife Nadya Dumanis wrote an English translation of this
Russian song for our son's birthday party to play the game with his first
grade friends.  If I find it, I will post it later.

Edward Dumanis <dumanis at acsu.buffalo.edu>