Ossetian Folk Holiday Ichina

Abstract

The article studies one of the most significant Ossetian folk festivals called Ichina (Ich’yna / Ik’ina). This research contributes to a more comprehensive reconstruction of traditional religious and mythological representations of the Ossetians, which determines the relevance of the research topic. The scientific novelty of research lies in the formulation of the problem: Ichina is still one of the least studied traditional holidays of Ossetians, so the question of the ratio of exogenous and endogenous elements in it is being raised for the first time. Also, for the first time, an attempt is being made to identify the archaic mythological basis of traditional ideas associated with this holiday. It is known that the name Ichina is derived from the Greek word Enkenia, which denotes the Christian holiday of the Renewal of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Jerusalem. The aim of the study is to try to identify elements of exogenous religious ideas in the Ossetian holiday of Ichin, as well as the underlying traditional Ossetian beliefs. Analysis of various sources shows that the Ichin holiday, while generally corresponding to the Christian Enkenia, also contains elements that relate it to the Jewish holiday of Renewal. In particular, Ichina discovers a specific connection with the fire-light symbolism, which, however, does not necessarily indicate a direct familiarity with Jewish rites and could be perceived within the Christian tradition. Ethnographic materials refer the time of the holiday to the autumn period of the cattle breeding cycle. At the same time, in folklore texts about this holiday there is an implicit indication of the correlation between the transition to the wintering of livestock and the transition to the wintering of snakes. The use of comparative mythological material makes it possible to clarify this unusual connection. Since the functions of the guardian of livestock in mythology often belong to a serpentine deity, it is concluded that the holiday basically dates back to the ancient pastoral cult of a deity endowed with serpentine features.