Деревенские святыни: обетные кресты Мезени

Abstract

Wooden architecture is a special, independent direction of The Russian traditional construction. Its unique quality and diversity are represented in Russia, which has always been a “forest, taiga” country. This truly is a national architecture, that had absorbed the mythopoetic and Christian worldview of the people. The history of Russian wooden architecture is largely the history of wooden architecture in the Russian North. The subject of this study is the peasant rural sacral objects: votive crosses of the Mezen`, one of the most severe regions of the Russian North. The author relies on several sources: field materials (architectural-ethnographic expeditions), with measurements, photographic recording, and the preparation of scientific passports. As well as work with informants: collecting local narratives and legends related to the history of specific crosses, the experience of practical museumification and setting up the votive cross and the village foundation pillar in the Mezen` sector of the Museum “Malye Korely”. The paper analyzes crosses as historical, ethnographic, stavrographic sources, works of wooden architecture and woodcarving, Pomors pilot signs. The aim of the study is to determine the meaning of the cross as one of the main symbols of the Orthodoxy in the cultural landscape of the Northern and Arctic territories.