balalajka

plural balalajkas

1. alternativeAlternative form of balalaika.

   The Bayans and Balalajkas of the BERYOZKA FOLK DANCERS

   1956, Friendship: Travel, Trade, Cultural Exchange, volume 1, number 4, page 28

   5 more examples

   Every Cossack is a born dancer, and the merry tinkle of a “balalajka” band eventually proved too much for the colonel (a grey-haired veteran of over six feet), who suddenly rose from his seat, hurriedly left the messroom, and the next moment was wildly “pirouetting” amongst his men with, notwithstanding a flowing robe and spurs, the grace and agility of a ballet-girl.

   1917, Harry de Windt, Russia as I Know It, J. B. Lippincott Company, page 57

   Praising the “play of thought” in Dostoevskij’s work since Crime and Punishment he exclaims: “Well, what sort of playing was there in Poor Folk? One string, and even that on a balalajka.”

   1963, Vsevolod Setchkarev, Studies in the Life and Work of Innokentij Annenskij, Mouton & Co., page 238

   My deceased aunts and uncles, / Playing “Balalajkas”, / Sipping glasses of wine?

   1975, The Polish Review, volume 20, Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, page 84

   In the Novgorod uezd (Gruzinskaja volost’), for example, whole groups of ‘gypsy’ girls dressed in brightly coloured frocks and shawls would appear in the village streets going from house to house, dancing and singing gypsy songs to a balalajka and accordion accompaniment.

   1977, Elizabeth A. Warner, The Russian Folk Theatre (Slavistic Printings and Reprintings), Mouton, →ISBN, page 17

   […] kruglolitsa” with an accompaniment by balalajkas, domras and a bajan.

   1992, Report from the […] International Meeting of the International Council for Traditional Music’s Study Group on Folk Musical Instruments, Musikmuseet, page 94