Saint Petersburg City Duma Saint Petersburg City Duma Saint Petersburg City Duma was established in 1785 in the course of Catherine the Great's municipal reform. Emperor Paul replaced it by the so-called Ratusha, but his son, Alexander I, had the Duma restored four years later. The next emperor, Nicholas I, expanded the institution from six to twelve members in 1846. Alexander II of Russia reorganized it once again during the Zemstvo reform of the 1870s. In September 1918 the Duma was abolished and its functions devolved on the Petrograd Soviet. The Neoclassical headquarters of the Duma were erected on the main city avenue, Nevsky
Duma (epic) from Poltava, no melodies are played with the voice during the performance of the duma. Melodic instrumental playing is confined to preludes, interludes and postludes. No transcriptions or recordings of authentic duma performance by members of the Chernihiv tradition have come down to us. Discussion regarding other traditions of duma recitations have shown a significant amount of contamination in the 20th century from non-traditional sources which has rendered many of their recordings atypical and unauthentic according to the traditional style in which the kobzari performed dumy. Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 7 (1965): 247-251. Slavic Review 50 (1991): 566-575. Duma (epic)