Notes on the beekeeping tradition in Polesie (based on materials from the Polesie archive)

Abstract

An essay on beekeeping in Polesie, one of the archaic Slavic zones, was written on material collected in the 1970s — 1980s in expeditions of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences under the leadership of N. I. Tolstoy according to the program of the Polesie Ethnolinguistic Atlas and stored in the archives of the Department of Ethnolinguistics and Folklore of the Institute. The Polesie program is focused mainly on traditional spiritual culture: on ritual and magical practices, beliefs, apotropaic magic and prohibitions associated with breeding bees and the extraction of honey and wax, on the symbolism of bees, etc. In the complex of magical actions, customs and beliefs associated with beekeeping in Polesie, honey hunting and pagan beliefs that have survived until recently, Christian symbolism and very late innovations of a commercial and trade, scientific and economic nature collide and intertwine. The pagan and Christian principles coexist peacefully in beekeeping practice, complementing each other (the holiness of the bee and its Mother of God symbolism are consistent with its role as a kind, tireless toiler who benefits people), while the inclusion of beekeeping in the sphere of trade relations sometimes gives rise to mutually exclusive customs and ideas. Beekeeping occupies a special place in the system of folk culture. Due to its corporatism and autonomy, this cultural sphere not only became a repository of ancient traditions and archaic strata of beliefs, but also was distinguished by a special susceptibility to the influence of book culture. All this endowed the figure of the beekeeper with the features of sacredness as a bearer of secret knowledge accessible only to the initiated.