Ritual Calendar Research Articles

Culture and Everyday Life of the Village Stovpiahy (Pereiaslav Region): Field Reconnaissance

The basis of the article is the authors’ field materials recorded in 2017 from the words of the residents of the village Stovpiahy (Pereiaslav region). The main topics of the study are Ukrainian women's folk clothing and Ukrainian women's folk jewelry.This material presents facts that were not reflected in the official documents, but they are important as materials of personal origin. They reflect factual material saturated with observations and thoughts of the respondents about described events, details of people's lives and their moods. In addition, these field ethnographic records contain invaluable information about peasant life, customs, rites, calendar rituals, information about the native village from the point of view of children's and youth's observations. All recorded information is divided into separate sections.The study of the cultural phenomena specifics of both past and present generations of Ukrainians is based on the live connection between the recorder and the interviewer. During this reconnaissance methods of search, survey, generalization, and observation were used. The survey method is one of the main methods of collecting certain information about individual structural components of the traditional domestic culture of Ukrainians, their functioning as a certain system, application to persons having direct experience or knowledge of a subject or events.These ethnographic materials can be used for a thorough study of our own land, our own historical region, one's state, and further research of various areas of the material and spiritual culture of Ukrainians.

WINTER CALENDER RITUAL AND ITS VERBALISATION IN PHRASIOLOGICAL POLISH LANGUAGE FUND

In this article we consider a fragment of the phenomenon of the spiritual culture of Slavic people – winter cycle of the calendar ritual of Polish people and its reflection in semantics of ritual phraseology, the archaic basis of which represent mythological notions, prohibitions and beliefs of ancient Slavs. The aim of the work is to objective the symbolic meaning of ritual and festive calendar ceremonies in phraseology of the Polish language, that reflects the pagan and Christians faith of our ancestors. It is established, that despite of significant degree of evolutionary transformations, the rituals are preserved in polish culture genetically related mythological semantic and elements of archaic structures (in particular, the cycle of winter traditions combines a memorial character and transition to forming a new reality), and from the point of view of language expression they are presented by phraseological units, splices, word combinations and paremias. The research proves, that Polish national calendar is tightly connected with the Catholic one, which results in usage Christian lexis in phraseological units (trąbienie na adwent; rózga Mikołaja; obchodzić wigilię; boże drzewko; dzielić się (łamać) opłatkiem; stajenka betlejemska; Kto się zaleca w adwencie, bedzie miał żonę na święta. W wigilię Jędrzeja świętego ujrzymy oblubieńca swojego. Święty Mikołaj wilkom pyski na kłódki zamyka.). The semantics of ritual phraseology of the Polish language confirms the common archaic base in its different ways of expression, the differences we see in names of symbolic actions and ritual objects. We see the perspectives of the research in further studying of calendar rituals in phraseology of Slavic languages.

Farming, festivals, and food cultures among indigenous communities in Telangana, India

ABSTRACT Festivals are an integral part of the rich and varied cultures of indigenous communities in India. Festivals are closely linked to an indigenous group’s occupations, such as cultivation, and mark a ritual calendar that directs the dietary behaviour of the community. This paper examines the festivals and food cultures of indigenous groups living in six villages in Telangana, India, using participatory qualitative methods such as focus group discussions and the mapping of seasonal calendars. There are seventy-nine unique festivals, out of which 40% (32) celebrate farm activities such as sowing and harvesting of crops, or the worship of nature and animals. Differences in dietary behaviours during festivals follow gender, age, and economic status. An examination of the traditional food culture of indigenous communities guided by festivals and traditions can provide insights relevant to the promotion of goals leading to sustainable food security in India.

Prohibitions in the Festive and Ritual Calendar of the Chuvash: Traditions and Their Transformation

Prohibitions in the Festive and Ritual Calendar of the Chuvash: Traditions and Their Transformation

Традиция с маленькой буквы

May 7th, 2020, the wonderful philosopher Tatyana Borisovna Lyubimova died. Her final monograph “Philosophy and Countertradition” is a multifaceted study of the correlations between traditional culture and the current state of philosophy. This is also the last publication on the life path of Tatyana Borisovna, in her philosophical adventure, where Western sociology and categorical aesthetics, ancient Russian philosophy and metaphysics of a unified tradition became landmarks. Tatiana Borisovna always lacked topos and chronos, she wrote about Peter I and the sociology of Adorno’s music, the ontology of tragedy and the ecology of culture, about the dialogue of civilizations and the philosophy of life of Rozanov; she translated Böhme and Berleant, Sartre and Ricoeur. Particularly noteworthy is the participation of T.B. Lyubimova in grant research on the interaction of cultural models, the modernization of ideology and the globalization of cultures, where she expressed her non-standard opinion outside the ordinary field of consciousness. In short, Lyubimova’s system can be called a ‘strange philosophy’. This is a philosophy where self-discovery of the paradoxes of one’s own world takes place. This is a portrait of culture without its essence, made according to aesthetic guidelines. This is a worldview where a metaphysical thread stretched between unusual reference points: Kepler’s hexagonal snowflakes and the calendar rites of the farmers of Central Asia. Tatyana Borisovna published the largest anthology of the works of René Guénon in Russian in her own translation. The French traditionalist remained for Tatyana Borisovna a transcendental magnet of her late work, he set the course of her inner time, bestowed metaphysical freedom, and clarified the increasingly complex world of quantitative relations.

RITES AND BELIEFS OF SHARKAN UDMURTS IN THE LOCALITY OF SOSNOVKHA

The article is devoted to the description of the traditional rites and beliefs of the Sharkan Udmurts in the Sosnovkha locality. It is based on the materials of the ethnographic expeditions conducted in 1993 and 2001 in the Sharkan district of the Udmurt Republic at the watershed of the Cheptsa and Kama river basins. The work contains the information on the demographic indicators, settlement area, and dialect terms used by this local Udmurt group. The author gives the characteristic of the cult places, family and calendar rites of the following settlements: Lyalshur, Sosnovkha, Tylovyl, Kureggurt, Suronovo, Bygi, and others. The ancient public centers of the locality were the villages of Lyalshur and Old Sharkan (Lonlez Dokya). The large territorial shrine of Dzozo was situated in the surrounding of these villages. Traditional collective prayers were regularly performed in the vicinity of a dozen villages in the Sosnovkha area. There foals and sheep were sacrificed. It was revealed that the population of this area was predominantly the Northern Udmurt tribal groups Purga, Vortcha, Bonya and Kushya. The South Udmurt clans of Dokya and Pudga are also traced in the region.

Slavic elements in the calendar rites of the Romanians of Bukovina

This study is aimed at identifying the most noticeable Slavic elements in the calendar rites of Bukovyna. It analyzes material collected by Romanian researchers in the second half of the 19th – early 20th century (E. Niculiță-Voronca, T. Pamfile, L. Bodnărescu, А. Fochi, A. Zașciuc), documents from the Central Scientific Archive of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Moldova, the New Linguistic Atlas of Romania, Moldova and Bukovyna (1987), as well as personal observations recorded by the authors of the study in Ukraine and Romania during ethnographic expeditions. In the calendar rites of the Romanians of Bukovyna, some clear Slavic elements can be identified, such as some names of calendar holidays, Ukrainian elements in such rites as koliada, the Christmas star, shchedruvannya. Ukrainian motifs of musical folklore in winter rites, as well as the use of the names of Ukrainian opryshky and haidamaky, the adaptation of the “walking with vertep”, the use of the term vidma of Ukrainian origin, the penetration of the name and main text of the Ukrainian Malanka, etc.

Генезис и ритуальный смысл белорусских волочебных песен

The article is devoted to the problems of the origin and ritual meaning of the spring «volochobnye» rituals of the Belarusian people. Those rituals have been analyzed through the mythological and ritual meaning of the «volochobnye» songs and in the comparison with the winter «Kolyada» rituals. The purpose of the article is discovering the common genre and mythological roots of the «volochobnye» and «kolyadnye» songs with attention to the reasons for different actualization of Christian motives. Based on the historical-genetic method, the origin of Belarusian «volochobnye» songs is associated with a chronomyth common to calendar rituals. Their ritual meaning is in magical recreation of the chronomyth through actualization of certain chrono-images, chronomotives, plot chronosituations in the songs. It has been revealed that the «kolyadnye» and «volochobnye» songs, which differ in the time of performance, look like the heirs of the hymnic archegenre, which arose from the most ancient magical exclamations through the development of a meaningful text. Both cycles retain common archaic features, but the genetic connection with the Christian ideology in the «volochobnye» songs is clearly higher due to the ritual integration of different calendars – natural, labor, and Christian. «Kolyadnye» and «volochobnye» songs correlate with parallel calendar systems, which is a consequence of the former dialectic nature of the ritual culture of the ancestors of the Belarusians. It has been concluded that with a certain coincidence of the areas of «kolyadnye» and «volochobnye» songs, the core of the latter is in Polesye, which can be considered as a result of the former dialectic nature of the calendar and ritual culture of the proto-Belarusian tribes, the parallel existence of different calendar systems and thereby close the problem of the historical primogeniture of either «volochobnye» songs or «kolyadnye» songs as scientifically irrelevant.

Governing against the tide: Populism, power and the party conference

In this article we argue that a tendency to treat populism as a ubiquitous, mechanistic characteristic of contemporary penality has impeded systematic theoretical discussion of how populist ideologies find contingent expression within national penal systems. Drawing upon an agonistic perspective we seek to show that the intersection between populism and punishment must be understood as a structured process that is shaped by struggle between actors with different types, and amounts, of political power. We illustrate these claims with reference to a historical case study of the 1981 British Conservative Party Conference; a political calendar ritual that facilitated symbolic conflict and provided an institutional point of entry for populist movements seeking to disrupt the prevailing liberal consensus on crime and secure substantive policy concessions from government.

Календарные обряды и праздники алтайцев и телеутов: классификация и общая характеристика

The paper is devoted to the classification and general characteristics of the calendar rituals and holidays of the Altaians and Teleuts. The research material covers published and unpublished archival and field material of the ritual folklore of the Altaians and Teleuts. For the first time, a general classification of the calendar rites of the annual cycle is given, taking into account the lunar calendar: winter, spring-summer and autumn rites. Winter calendar rituals and holidays of the Altaians are connected with the New Year celebrations (Chaga Bairam) according to the Eastern calendar when a pagan ritual of feeding the fire (san salar) is performed. The ritual actions typical of other rites appear in Dyilgayak ritual for welcoming spring. The spring-summer and autumn calendar rites performed by the Altaians, both southern and northern, are associated with the rite of sacrifice to the earth (Dyazhyl Byur and Sary Byur, Kocho-Khan). In well-wishing, the glorification of the earth (Jer-suu), Altai, deities of the highest pantheon is a cross-cutting theme. Altai songs (jangar kozhong) performed during these rituals are also aimed at praising Altai, the forces of light. The main motifs of game ritual well-wishes and tabyr songs during the autumn ritual of fertility, Kocha-Khan, are the motifs of fertility and increasing wealth. A distinctive feature of the Teleuts’ winter calendar rituals is such ritual genres as Christmas carols yurei and tabyr performed in spring and autumn rites of worship of the earth.

ФОЛЬКЛОРНЫЙ МОТИВ "ОЖИВЛЕННЫЙ ИЗ КОСТОЧЕК": ПРОБЛЕМА МЕЖЖАНРОВОГО ПОДХОДА К ОПИСАНИЮ И ИНТЕРПРЕТАЦИИ

The article deals with the problem of a cross-genre approach to studying the structure, semantics and pragmatics of the folklore motif. The interpretation of the relations between the “deep” and “surface” levels of the traditional text is based on the postulates of the Russian structural-semiotic school. Three main functions of the folklore motif are classification, narration and indexation. The author discusses the thesis that concrete pragmatic models and stylistic shapes of the folklore texts are formed on the basis of the dominant function of the motif and thereby are preserved by the genre system of a particular tradition and exploited by its users. The question of the correlation between archetypal and culturally related levels of the traditional text is discussed on the material of the motif “Animated from the bones” represented by the world wide folklore traditions. The article summarizes the results of various studies based on different methods, obviously tied by limitations of genre, ethnocultural or regional nature. The cross-genre and cross-cultural study of proverbs, demonological narratives, etiological, eschatological and hagiographic legends, fairy tales, calendar rituals, medical charms – with a common motif of “collecting bones” – promotes the effective approach for integrating achievements of particular methods as well as for solving complex folkloristics problems.

УКРАЇНСЬКО-ЛИТОВСЬКІ НАУКОВО-ДОСЛІДНІ ПРОЄКТИ З ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ ЕТНОГРАФІЧНОГО ТЕКСТИЛЮ: НАЛАГОДЖЕННЯ МІЖНАРОДНОЇ СПІВПРАЦІ, ВИВЧЕННЯ ДЖЕРЕЛ ТА АРТЕФАКТІВ, ОБМІН ДОСВІДОМ

In the article, the cooperation of scientists from the Ethnology Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Kaunas University of Technology in the study of both countries ethnographic textiles as one of the components of cultural interaction that contributes to the European integration of Ukraine are clarified. The project «Ornamentation of West Ukrainian and Lithuanian Folk Textile: Universal and Unique Parameters» was implemented during 2018–2019, the continuation of which studies became the research & development (R&D) work «Unique Technologies of Ethnographic Textile: Experience of Preservation in Western Ukraine and Lithuania» (2022–2023). The first of them was aimed at establishing scientific contacts between scholars, studying and fixation Ukrainian and Lithuanian sources and artifacts, and researching specialized literature. The second one, however, aims to analyze and summarize the gathered material, as well as to discover how it is possible to preserve and introduce the ancient unique technologies of making and decorating ethnographic textiles in modern production. In the article, the main attention is paid to the prerequisites for the arise of the project, the main tasks that the scientists set before themselves when agreeing on it, the results of the first R&D, and the entry to a qualitatively new level in the second of them. The priority of the 2018–2019 project was the work with textile items for interior use, in particular, bedspreads and towels. Working in the museums of Western Ukraine and Lithuania, scientists have analyzed the universal and unique ornamentation parameters of these typological groups, and on the basis of a comparative analysis have found the artistic features of each of them. Special attention was given to the formation of both countries museum collections, the features of exhibiting ethnographic textiles, and their use in family and calendar rituals. As the most similarities in the items decoration are due to the weaving techniques, their research became the priority of the next project.

“God’s Stone Has Fallen down from the Sky”: Functions of Oral Stories and Contemporary Dynamics of Local Tradition

This article considers folk ideas about boulders as significant objects of the natural landscape. The article mostly refers to the records made by the authors in 2005 and 2021 in the village of Oshib, Kudymkar District, Perm Region. Although the ethno-local tradition of Oshib was formed in a stable community, it has its own internal dynamics. As a result of this process, the plots of oral stories update and their functions change. The article considers the case of the Oshib stone in a broad context, i.e. in comparison with other cult stones. This approach helps highlight significant coincidences and shows the features of Komi-Permyak “vernacular mineralogy”. Folklore narratives and the proper names of stones reveal that the large size of the object becomes an important reason for the mythologisation of the boulder. It is believed that large single stones have a “heavenly” origin. One of the forms of ritual interaction is visiting stones as part of calendar rites. The Oshib boulder is found in a “dangerous” forest, so the inhabitants endow it with an ambivalent character: it is associated with demonic spirits and is used to frighten children. In the middle of the twentieth century, the folklore tradition of Oshib slowly disappears, but in the twenty-first century, its re-actualisation begins. At the same time, the actional code is completely changed, and the plots and motifs of oral stories update. In contemporary stories, there are two lines of mythologisation: one of them continues the theme of the “dangerous” stone, while the other one is a kind of adaptation of natural scientific knowledge. An important factor in the development of the tradition is the inclusion of the cult boulder into school project activities and the villagers’ intention to turn it into a tourist site. Folklore plots become a symbolic resource with the help of which the new “agents of tradition” solve this task.

Субрегиональные календарные традиции белорусов-переселенцев: стабильные, мобильные и уникальные компоненты

The article deals with the ritual and song components of the subregional calendar traditions of Belarusian settlers from the Omsk and Novosibirsk regions, Krasnoyarsk and Primorsky territories (records of songs and descriptions of rituals of the 1970s–2010s). It has been established that the subregional traditions of Belarusian settlers differ from each other in the composition of calendar rituals, the presence or absence of a song component in them and the number of song samples. The author comes to the conclusion that the annual calendar cycle of Belarusian migrants includes stable and mobile folklore and ethnographic complexes. Stable ones are developed in all the studied subregional traditions, in them the ratio of “rite-song genres” is balanced. Mobile ones may be present / absent in different sub-regional traditions or have different weight in their ritual-genre systems, the ratio of rituals and songs in such complexes is, as a rule, unequal. In addition, there are a small number of unique elements that distinguish any tradition from a number of others. The most stable is the winter festive folklore-ethnographic complex. It is present in all sub-regional traditions in sufficient completeness and safety. Only the Omsk subregion has a striking difference, where there is also a uniqat – the Christmas ritual game “Tereshka’s marriage”. The second stable component is the stubble ritual-labor complex with song genres related to it, including ritual ones and those dedicated to the season. The features of mobile folklore-ethnographic complexes are considered. The unique features of each subregional tradition are revealed.

Axiological aspects of traditional family education in the Belgorod region

The article is devoted to the axiological aspects of traditional family education in the Belgorod region. The article analyzes and compares the features of family education in Russia and the Belgorod region and provides a historical overview of the problem. The authors come to the conclusion that the basis of traditional family education in different historical periods was: respect for the elders and showing attention to the younger ones; value attitude to the native language in the family; labor education from an early age, based on the division of responsibilities according to gender; careful attitude to the land; morality, consisting of religion and nationality, using family-household and calendar rites. Multiculturalism inherent in the study area: the interaction of Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Belarusian traditions, could not but affect family education, the dynamics of spiritual values of society, values in leisure and cultural institutions of the Belgorod region.

Mari of Udmurtia: Factors of Preserving Traditional Culture in Modern Conditions

The factors of preservation and intergenerational transmission of the traditional culture of the local group of Mari living in the territory of Udmurtia in a different ethnic environment is examined in the article. The source basis of the article was the field ethnographic materials collected in 2007 among the Mari of the Karakulinsky region of the Udmurt Republic and introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The socio-economic situation of the respondents, the established mechanisms of adaptation to market relations, the preservation of traditional rituals and holidays, material and spiritual culture, the use of the native language, ethno-demographic processes, the activities of the Mari community to support ethnic culture are showed in the work. The author notes that the historically formed mechanism for ensuring the viability of the Mari society includes practices of demographic behavior, ethnic socialization of youth, reproduction of elements of spiritual and religious culture (prayers, family and calendar rituals, songs) and the material world (national costume, elements of architecture, musical instruments, national cuisine), the use of the Mari language. It has been proven that the ritual sphere of the Mari is undergoing transformations, but at the same time it continues to remain an inseparable part of the life of the people. In the course of the work, it was also revealed that the local group of Mari in modern conditions for self-preservation needs to constantly generate ethnic markers based on traditional culture. The key role in this is assigned to the village community, educational institutions and public organizations.

Islamic component in calendar rituals and folk medicine of the peoples of Dagestan: traditions and modernity

The article examines the types and forms of manifestation of the Islamic component in the calendar rituals and folk medicine of the peoples of Dagestan that have survived to our time. On the basis of field material and literary sources, the author cites the calendar holidays of the first furrow, the beginning of spring, the collection of edible herbs, medicine. The Islamic component in these holidays and rituals is manifested by the participation of a Muslim clergyman in them, the remembrance of Allah, the recitation of verses from the Koran, the conduct of the mawlid and the ritual of zikr, and the distribution of alms sadaqa. This component has been woven into agrarian holidays; meteorological ceremonies with «binding the rain», the use of a horse’s skull, wooden and stone boards, «overturned stones»; «sacred» trees, springs and stones in the rituals of traditional medicine. Collected in a special sacred period of time (pre-dawn hours before morning prayer) on the day of Eid al-Adha or the holiday of spring, spring water became similar to zamzam water and acquired healing properties. There are no analogues adapted to Muslim holidays, calendar and household rituals, built on the tops of mountains and passes, special religious buildings of Tabasarans – «Prayer houses». According to the author, the cited calendar rituals and methods of traditional medicine belong to the category of syncretic so-called “everyday” or “folk Islam” and can serve as an argument in countering religious extremism. The reasons for the preservation and functioning of traditional rituals and beliefs at the beginning of the XXIst century should be sought in the stability of ancient beliefs and rituals adapted to the requirements of the Sufi form of Islam, the peculiarities of the mentality and ethnic psychology of the Dagestanis adherent to conservatism and traditional way of life.

“I Knew that Messiah Had to Come”: Jewish Festive Rituals in a Soviet City

The ethnic mobilisation that has unfolded throughout post-Soviet territory cannot be understood without a thorough examination of the preservation and transmission of ethnic identity in Soviet times. Despite the vast historiography devoted to studying various aspects of Jewish identity during the Soviet period, religiosity has rarely been an object of research. The purpose of this study is to identify religious practices that continued to exist among the Jewish population of Sverdlovsk until 1961, when the synagogue was closed. The authors refer to reports of the commissioners for Religious Affairs and data obtained during field research. They try to find out the extent and form of preserved calendar rituals, and what went missing from the daily life of the Sverdlovsk Jews. The research demonstrates that the religious community in the 1950s reached 500 people, or about 3 % of the entire Jewish population in the city. In the synagogue, a larger number of parishioners gathered during Passover, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and Sukkot. Fewer believers attended Hanukkah, and Purim generally went unnoticed by the commissioner for Religious Affairs. The recollections of the informants about holidays (mainly Passover and Purim) are peculiarly and uniformly associated with the description of meals. This is due to the post-war hunger and the age of the informants; they were all children, for whom delicious food was the most important component of any holiday. The results obtained make it possible to assert that the festive rituals of Sverdlovsk Jews continued to be preserved even in non-religious families, albeit in a limited form, throughout the 1940s and 1950s, thus reinforcing their identity.

EDUCATION FOR CITIZENSSHIP OF PRIMARY SCHOOLCHILDREN IN INTEGRATED ART LESSONS

The article is devoted to the problem of the development of civic qualities of a junior student personality in the process of studying the integrated course “Art” in primary school. The semantic aspect of the concept of «citizenship» is revealed; its components such as sense of self-worth, inner freedom of the individual, discipline, respect and trust in state power, readiness to perform their civic duties in a harmonious combination of patriotic, national and universal feelings are distinguished. In this context, the substantiation of new content, forms and methods, innovative technologies of education for citizenship, adequate for modern social and pedagogical realities, acquires special importance. Conceptual provisions of civic education have been developed in the domestic pedagogical science. The purpose of this article is to find out the ways of effective educational tasks implementing by a teacher in the process of teaching the integrated course “Art”.Modern Ukrainian scholars-educators attached special importance to this problem and studied its various aspects: conceptual provision was defined by O. Vyshnevskyi and O. Sukhomlynska; psychological and pedagogical principles – I. Bekh, M. Boryshevsky, O. Kyrychuk. The work of O. Dokukina, M. Zaderikhin, U. Ketsyk, V. Rud, L. Korinna, D. Krytska and L. Rekhteta are relevant to the content of our research.Researchers do not pay attention to the problem of using integrated subjects in particular “Art” in the education of students’ citizenship.The article presents a thorough analysis of textbooks for primary school on the integrated course “Art”, which are important means of knowledge and creative skills developing in the art of music, set out in accordance with the purpose of teaching and implementation of educational tasks for the formation of junior schoolchildren citizenship.
 Keywords: civic education; content of education; integrated course; component of citizenship; textbook; folk song; lullaby; calendar rituals; national identity; native language.

Axiological aspects of traditional family education in the Belgorod region

The article is devoted to the axiological aspects of traditional family education in the Belgorod region. The article analyzes and compares the features of family education in Russia and the Belgorod region, and provides a historical overview of the problem. The authors come to the conclusion that the basis of traditional family education in different historical periods was: respect for the elders and showing attention to the younger ones; value attitude to the native language in the family; labor education from an early age, based on the division of responsibilities according to gender; careful attitude to the land; morality, consisting of religion and nationality, using family-household and calendar rites. Multiculturalism inherent in the study area: the interaction of Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Belarusian traditions, could not but affect family education, the dynamics of spiritual values of society. values in leisure and cultural institutions of the Belgorod region.