Bogatyrs and Rulers: Folklore Characters in the Ethnic Identity and Religious Practices of the Vyatka Mari

Abstract

The author examines the mythological aspect of the entoregional identity of the modern Mari population in the Kirov oblast’ (the Vyatka, the Urzhum-Vyatka Mari) living in the Malmyzhsky and Urzhumsky districts. The author identifies the role of heroic images in modern ethno-cultural activism and the representation of the Vyatka Mari as the main problem of the study. Due to the multidimensional aspect of the problem, the article includes thematic sub-items: Features of the ethnic and religious identity of the Vyatka Mari - Images of folklore rulers in the perception of local residents - Legendary rulers in ethno-cultural activism and commemorative practices - Sacralization of folklore characters. The author considers this problem on the basis of the field materials (interview texts) collected during his expeditions to the Kirov oblast’ in 2015, 2017, 2021, and the regional media. In a multicultural region, inhabited by different ethnic groups, the Mari represent their identity through festive and sacred practices, as well as the veneration of local legendary rulers and heroes: Princes Akpatyr, Akmazik, Boltush (Poltysh) and others. Folklore heroes are objects of the religious cult of the Mari traditional religion, which is manifested in the ethnoregional self-consciousness of the Mari population. Legendary heroes are perceived by the local population as real historical characters. It is revealed that the beliefs in reality of the Mari heroes reflect the idea of the “golden age” of the history of the Vyatka Mari and their heroized past. The images of Boltush, Akpatyr are actively broadcast through the media, the ethnic component in education, local history literature. Thanks to the efforts of local activists, new objects of the cultural landscape emerge in the Malmyzhsky district - monuments at the sites of the symbolic burials of the Mari rulers. The conclusion is formulated that cultural activism, which appeals to the images of Mari folklore, plays a significant role in marking the ethnoregional identity of the Vyatka Mari people. In the text of the article the characters of the Mari folklore of Vyatka are considered in the context of identity. The obtained result allows to apply this theoretical framework for the study of folklore images in relation to the identities of ethnographic groups of the Mari and other peoples of the Volga region. The article is based on the dissertation “The system of mythological characters in the representation of the identities of modern Mari” for the degree of Candidate of Historical Sciences, defended in 2022 in the N.N. Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.