Description of a peasant abode in the patois of the hamlet of Borbushino

Abstract

The article focuses on the description of the rustic dwelling as the basis of material culture in the world view of the inhabitants of Lake Beloye (White Lake) surroundings. Recordings of speech of residents of the hamlet of Borbushino of Kirillov district of Vologda Region serves as research material, Those were obtained by this paper's author in the course of conversations on the programme "Lexical Atlas of the Russian Folkish Patois" in the dialectological expeditions of 1988 – 2021. The subject of the analysis of this paper includes the common names of the space where household outbuildings and crops of one peasant family were located; as well as the living quarters and their parts, fixtures and fittings, stove heating, household outbuildings, religious buildings in the settlement itself and in its surroundings; all mentioned in folkish stories scrupulously precise and yet with elements of self-analysis; that can also give an idea of the features of spiritual world, identification "friend or foe" of the north Russian peasants. Information on the peasant dwelling vocabulary obtained through conversations with the inhabitants of the study area, is systematised on the basis of a similar theme in modern regional linguistics of the consolidated system of Russian dialects, as well as patois of separate territories. The conclusion was made that the change of the character of the villagers' labour activity had inevitably entailed the restructuring of the space of both rural Russia as a whole and an individual peasant homestead.