MIRACLE ON THE WESTERN BIAREZINA: A LITTLE-KNOWN HOLY PLACE IN THE IŬJE DISTRICT OF THE HRODNA REGION

Abstract

In Soviet times, miracles almost always remained outside the framework of official science. Nevertheless, now, during ethnographic expeditions, researchers are able to find data on stories related to miracles, the actors of which were hundreds or even thousands of people. Such resonant incidents influenced the formation of the concept of a miracle, changed the attitude to the miraculous and were firmly embedded in the local cultural and religious code. In the course of working with the archival documents of the NARB, the author managed to find information about one of these almost forgotten post-war miraculous incidents in the Iŭje district of the Hrodna region: the phenomenon on the banks of the Western Biarezina River of the Mother of God, which gave rise to many religious legends
 and legendary tales and led to the formation of the local Holy Place. The material examines various aspects of such stories collected in several villages surrounding the Holy Place. Despite the fact that the appearance of the Virgin on the shore of the Western Biarezina occurred in the memory of the current generation, it turned out to be largely mythologized. In the stories of the informants, all three main loci of the appearance of the Mother of God in Belarus are present: a hill, a stone and a tree. The Saint appears on a certain symbolic border, emphasizing that the character, as it were, does not belong to our world. It is worth noting that the vision of the Virgin Mary to shepherdess children is a fairly common plot of various kinds of legends. Often observers are either already prepared in advance by other people, or are in a holy place with a certain mood «for a miracle». The very phenomena in the water, which are accompanied by miracles, is one of the peculiar markers of increasing religiosity. Comparative studies of such narratives can further reveal the features of the Belarusian traditional culture in the regional and pan-European context, or even in the broader context of the cultures of Christian peoples.