Customs and life of the Little Russians, ritual poetry. Ritual poetry

14.09.2020

All folklore, from the point of view of its existence, can be divided into ritual and non-ritual. Ritual folklore includes works of folk poetry that are performed during the performance of any ritual; they accompany this ritual, are its integral part. Non-ritual folklore refers to oral folk works, the performance of which is not associated with any ritual: they exist outside the ritual, in a wide variety of living conditions.

A ritual is certain actions strictly defined by customs: baking larks from dough in the spring, curling wreaths from birch branches in the summer, lighting fires in winter and jumping over them, sprinkling the bride and groom with hops, grain, etc. The purpose of these and many other rituals action - to contribute to the achievement of a goal. The rituals are based on the peasant’s real concerns about greater productivity of his labor, a good harvest, general well-being, harmonious family life etc. Since rituals and the folklore works accompanying them performed vital functions, each time at the moment of their performance they were perceived as very necessary, necessary and relevant in their own way. They, to one degree or another, reflected the real everyday life of the people, their worldview. In this sense, rituals and the folk poetry accompanying them have always been modern.

At the same time, it should be noted that rituals are one of the most ancient types of folk culture. Their origin dates back to ancient times. In rituals and accompanying folklore works one can detect such features of the thinking of a person in a pre-class society as animism, anthropomorphism and magism. Animism (from Latin ashta - soul, spirit) - belief in the existence of souls and spirits that supposedly control all phenomena of the world. Anthropomorphism (from the Greek ashbros - Human and then - type, form) - the idea that all natural phenomena, animals and plants possess human qualities (will, reason, etc.), that death, illness, etc. exist in the form of a person. Magism (from the Greek ta§e!a - witchcraft, sorcery) - a person’s belief that through certain actions and verbal expressions he can influence the course of events: get rid of diseases, cause a good harvest, a large offspring of livestock, etc. All this is a manifestation of the ancient pagan religion.;

To what has been said, it should also be added that over the last millennium, the Christian religion has had a certain influence on rituals and ritual poetry. With the introduction of Christianity in Rus' (10th century), the church, on the one hand, fought against pagan culture, eradicated ancient folk rituals from life in every possible way, and on the other hand, it sought to adapt many of these rituals to its goals, to fill them with Christian content. As a result, Christian motifs and images penetrated into folk rituals and poetry; a phenomenon arose that was called “dual faith” (a mixture of pagan and Christian elements).

From what has been said, it is quite obvious that rituals and the verbal art that accompanies them have great importance both for studying the life and worldview of the people during the period when these rituals were recorded (mainly the 19th century), and for understanding the characteristics of the people’s worldview at earlier stages of history.

Collection and publication of ritual poetry. The ancient customs of marriage are reported already in the earliest Russian chronicle - in the Tale of Bygone Years (beginning of the 12th century). 33 In the Ipatiev Chronicle, under 1178, the funeral rite of Prince Mstislav Rostislavovich is described and a funeral lament about him is given. We find evidence of calendar and family rituals in many historical documents and literary works XIII-XVII centuries Individual calendar and family songs were published in small quantities in the 18th century. in the collections of M. D. Chulkov “Collection of different songs” (parts 1-4, 1770-1773) and Lvov-Prach “Collection of folk songs with their voices” (1790). Samples of recruit lamentations were first given by A. N. Radishchev in the chapter “Gorodnya” in his book “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” (1795). Some ritual songs are published in songbooks of the first third of the 19th century.

Serious work on collecting ritual poetry began in the mid-30s of the 19th century. As a result, such large collections are published; “Tales of the Russian people about the family life of their ancestors” (1836-1837) and “Songs of the Russian people” (1838-1839) by I. P. Sakharov, “Russian common holidays and superstitious rituals” by I. M. Snegirev (1838-1839) . Samples of ritual poetry are published in the ethnographic work of A. Tereshchenko “Life of the Russian People (1848). Particularly valuable materials on ritual poetry are contained in the song collection of P. V. Kireevsky and his numerous correspondents, dating back to the 30-50s of the 19th century, but published only at the beginning of the 20th century.

Significant materials on ritual poetry were published in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. And we still haven’t lost it. Of great scientific value are the collections of E. V. Barsov “Lamentations of the Northern Territory” (vol. 1, 1872; vol. 2, 1882; vol. 3, 1886) and P. V. Shein “The Great Russian in their songs, rituals, customs, beliefs , fairy tales, legends, etc.” (vol. 1, 1898: vol. 2, 1900).

Ritual poetry was also collected and published during the Soviet years. The most significant collections of ritual poetry published by Soviet folklorists are the books of V. G. Bazanov. and A.P. Razumova “Russian folk poetry” (1962), I.I. Zemtsovsky “Poetry of peasant holidays” (1970) and N.P. Kolpakova “Russian wedding lyrics” (1973).

Study of ritual poetry. Issues of the content and form of Russian ritual poetry are addressed in one way or another in various articles already at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries. (N. A. Lvov, A. X. Vostokov, N. A. Tsertelev, M. A. Maksimovich). However, its special study begins only in the 30s of the 19th century, when the Slavophiles I.M. Snegirev and I.P. The Sakharovs turn to the publication of ritual songs. These songs, in their opinion, wonderfully expressed the national traits of the Russian people. Promoting the ideas of “official nationality,” they argued that such national traits of the Russian people as religiosity, humility and obedience were vividly expressed in ritual songs. V. G. Belinsky spoke out against the Slavophiles, pointing out that Russian people are characterized not by religiosity and obedience, but by sobriety of mind, atheism and practical prudence.

In 1848, A. Tereshchenko’s solid work “The Life of the Russian People” was published in 7 parts, which describes folk rituals in detail.

Mythologists F. I. Buslaev, A. N. Afanasyev and A. A. Potebnya in the 50-60s of the 19th century. directed their efforts towards revealing the original meaning of various rituals, determining the origin of images, plots and poetic style of ritual poetry. Their mistake was that they saw the genetic roots of all rituals in ancient mythology.

Representatives of the Russian school of borrowing, followers of A.N. Veselovsky V.F. Miller and E.V. Anichkov undertook comparative comparisons of Russian calendar rituals with the rituals of other European peoples [see, for example, V. F. Miller. Russian Maslenitsa and Western European carnival, 1884; E. V. Anichkov. Spring ritual poetry in the West and among the Slavs, part I-P, 1903-1904]. The works of these scientists underestimated the national identity of Russian ritual poetry.

The works of pre-revolutionary scientists, outdated in methodological terms, nevertheless contain valuable factual material. Interesting articles describing calendar and family rituals were published in the last quarter of the 19th - early 20th centuries. in the magazines “Ethnographic Review” (1889-1916) and “Living Antiquity” (1890-1917).

Soviet folkloristics, having subjected scientific criticism to the erroneous theories of pre-revolutionary academic science, solves many important problems associated with the study of folk ritual poetry from new methodological positions.

First of all, Soviet scientists convincingly prove the position about the labor origin of folk rituals and the poetry accompanying them, revealing the predominantly materialistic nature of the worldview they express. Valuable in this regard are the works of V.I. Chicherov “Winter period of the Russian agricultural calendar by V.Ya. Propp “Russian agrarian holidays” (1963) and V.K. Sokolov “Spring-summer calendar rituals of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. XIX - early XX centuries." (19"79).

In a number of studies, the historical and ethnographic description of rituals is supplemented by an analysis of the poetry accompanying them (see, for example, Propp V.Ya. “Russian Agrarian Holidays”, 1963; Anikin V.P.. Calendar and wedding poetry, 1970; Krugloe Yu.G. Russian wedding songs, 1978.) Many works examine the life of old rituals and ritual poetry in historically new conditions. All rituals are divided into two groups - calendar or family rituals. And accordingly, the folklore works accompanying them belong to calendar or family-everyday ritual poetry.

dova poetry.

Let us dwell on calendar ritual poetry. Many folk holidays were celebrated on strictly defined days of the year. On these holidays, various rituals were performed, which in science are called “calendar” 1.

Calendar rituals were accompanied by special songs, which were called carols, Maslenitsa songs, vesnyankas, Semitic songs, etc.

Carols. The circle of annual - (calendar) rituals opened with New Year's Yuletide rituals. Yuletide was celebrated during the winter solstice (from December 24 to January 6). At the core Yuletide rituals lay the magic of the first day of the year; the rituals performed at this time, according to their performers, were supposed to act in a certain direction throughout the new year.

During Christmas time, various games, disguises and other actions were played that had a magical meaning. One of the most remarkable phenomena of the Yuletide holidays was caroling - walking to the Lvors with the singing of New Year's songs, which were called carols.

Young people (mainly teenagers), gathered in small groups, walked along the street from one courtyard to another and sang carols under the windows - a kind of New Year's greetings. For these song congratulations, Kolyalovshiki were rewarded with gifts, holiday treats (pies, boiled meat, etc.). Caroling became especially widespread in Ukraine and southern Russia.

A wonderful description of it is given in N.V. Gogol’s story “The Night Before Christmas.”

The term “carol” to denote congratulatory New Year’s songs was used by all Slavic peoples, including Russians.

Carols are New Year's songs, which usually have paired rhymes. After each pair of rhymed verses there is a chorus-cry, in which the word “carol”, “ov-sen” or “grape” is mentioned. The songs are named after these cries. The carols are very varied in length (from four to twenty, and sometimes more verses).

Often carols begin directly with an exclamation chorus. In its most extensive forms, the refrain-exclamation includes a description of the ritual of caroling itself, a message that the carolers walked for a long time, looking for a house whose owner they wanted to congratulate with a song. Then comes the glorification itself, which is the main meaning of the carol. First of all, carolers give an ideal description of the house of the person being celebrated. It turns out that in front of them is not an ordinary peasant hut, but a real tower. Around this mansion “there is an iron tyn”, “on each stamen there is a crown”, and on each crown there is “a golden crown”. The people living in it match this tower. A typical formula for characterizing a dignified family is the following: the owner of the house is the “bright month,” the hostess is the “red sun,” and the small children are “frequent stars.”

The carol also describes the peasant attire in the same idealized way. It is said about the peasant that he “put on a caftan worth a hundred rubles”, “belted a sash worth a thousand”

All this, of course, is pure fiction, a fantasy, the reality of which no one believed. But this fantasy had a deeply vital, definite social meaning. Fantastic pictures of national wealth depicted not the real, but the desired. Referring to this issue, Engels wrote: “The people's book is designed to entertain the peasant when he, tired, returns in the evening from his hard work, to amuse him, to revive him, to make him forget his painful work, to turn his rocky field into a fragrant garden; it is called upon to turn the artisan’s workshop and the miserable attic of an exhausted student into the world of poetry, into a golden palace, and present his stalwart beauty in the form of a beautiful princess...”

We also find fantastic pictures of wealth in other genres of folklore (for example, in fairy tales). However, they have a special meaning in carols, which to some extent perform the functions of a magic spell.

The next important motive of the carol is specific wishes to the person to whom the carol is sung. A distinctive feature of these wishes is sobriety and realism. V.Ya. Propp writes about this: “If the glorification in somewhat abstract and conventional forms painted the image of a rich boyar, then the final part of the singing directly and directly su yayla the peasant has what is most important and necessary for him: not gold, silver and furs, but crops, livestock, health, satiety, contentment.” For example, one carol expresses the wish that

At the owner's house

If only the boys would behave

If only the calves would be killed

There would be lambs

There would be foals

The carol ends, as a rule, with a demand for a reward for caroling, for a good wish.. The carolers demand pies, home-made sausage (“guts”), pork knives, etc.. To those who do not give gifts, the carolers express bad wishes, sometimes even jokingly threaten reprisal.

It can be assumed that during the period of its fullest flowering, carols had a composition in which its individual motives followed the sequence we have considered: a description of the search for a house for caroling, the aggrandizement of the owner and his family, the expression of wishes for the new year and the demand for a gift. However, in the carols that have come down to us, this composition is not always maintained. Most often there are carols in which one or two of the named motifs are lost. There are carols consisting of just one motive - the requirement of a gift.

Underwater songs.WITH Christmastide is associated with the New Year's holiday also all kinds of fortune telling, including girls fortune telling with the singing of so-called subbowl songs. In the evening, the girls gathered in some hut, covered the table with a white tablecloth, and placed a dish of clean water on it. Each girl put something into the water, most often a ring, earrings or other jewelry, and the dish was covered with a scarf. Then the girls sat down near the dish and began to sing songs.

In while singing sub-dish songs, one of the girls (most often not taking part in fortune-telling) with her eyes closed, took out the objects placed in the dish one by one. The content of the song being performed at that time was related to the one whose object was given.

Podblyudnye songs were very small in volume - from four to ten verses. The basis of their content was one image that had a magical-symbolic meaning. This image in the sub-dish song received everyday development. Thus, based on the everyday development of the image of a ring, which is a symbol of love and marriage, the following sub-dish song was created:

Okay, okay, okay

Who do we sing to?

We give honor to him.

Subdish songs were songs performed during fortune telling using a dish.

The girl whose item was taken out of the dish during the performance of this song, according to legend, should get married in the coming year.

The meaning of the sub-dish songs for fortune-tellers was quite transparent. Everyone, for example, knew that songs that mentioned bread and everything associated with it (field, sheaves, stacks, grain, loaf, pancakes, pies, etc.) predicted a good harvest, wealth, and general well-being. Conversely, a song that depicted a portrait of a ragged old woman meant poverty; a song that mentioned a crow croaking meant death, etc.

Fortune telling with the performance of daddy songs had the character not of a spell (as was observed in some carols), but of predictions. But those before them deeply believed in this. That is why many sub-songs ended with such a stable formula:

Whoever gets it, it will come true

It will come true, it will not pass.

Podblyudnye songs in most cases are created on the basis of folk beliefs. They often use images and motifs of other genres of folklore. So, for example, based on the riddle “a girl is sitting in a dungeon, and her scythe is on the street,” a sub-crystal song arose:

The girl is sitting in a cage, who will succeed,

Scythe on a branch. The truth will come true

Okay, okay! Good for you!

This song foreshadowed happiness.

From the songs below they used to guess about a happy or unlucky fate. Especially a lot of sub-bread songs were composed on the topic of marriage. And this is quite natural, since it was mostly girls who guessed! In girls' wedding songs, the symbolism of wedding songs is widely used: a symbol of marriage they feature a ring, a ring, a crown, a pillow, etc.

The specificity of the figurative content of sub-bowl songs is that they intricately combine the real world and the ideal world. On the one hand, these are ideal images of folk poetry; “good fellow,” “fair maiden,” etc., and on the other hand, on the contrary, as if deliberately mundane images of the real world: a cow, a cat, a beetle, a barrel, a collar, a bridle, an arc, etc. This is also reflected in the poetic style of sublime songs. Thus, ideally sublime “two little doves,” “a falcon and a little darling,” “a sable and a marten,” and the reduced-real “two little balls,” “a rooster and a hen,” “a milkweed and a white baby.” The epithets, on the one hand, reflect the peasant’s keen observation of objects and lifestyles surrounding him (“puffing bear”, “little bunny”, “pickled chicken”, “gray cabbage”, “green cabbage”), and on the other hand, his dreams of an ideal life and fabulous wealth are reflected. So, for example, the heroine of the sub-bowl songs, a simple peasant girl, lives in a “high mansion”, she has “golden brocade”, a “golden ring”, the groom-“milk-cup” is called a “boyar’s son”, and the bride-“white-haired girl” - “ hawthorn."

Maslenitsa songs. The next big annual holiday after Christmastide was Maslenitsa. Researchers believe that in ancient times Maslenitsa was a spring holiday.

With the introduction of Christianity and the ban on various entertainments during the spring seven-week pre-Easter fast, its celebration was pushed back to an earlier date. Maslenitsa began to be celebrated at the very end of winter, from late January to early March.

Maslenitsa is the funniest, most riotous national holiday - lasting a whole week - from Monday to Sunday). Moreover, this celebration included both community and family motives and was carried out according to a strictly prescribed order, which was reflected in the names of the days of Maslenitsa week. Monday was called “meeting” - this is the beginning of the holiday; Tuesday - “flirts”; from this day began all sorts of entertainment, dressing up, skating, Wednesday - the “gourmet”: she opened treats in all houses with pancakes and other dishes; Thursday was called "revelry" "turning point", "broad Thursday", on this day was the middle of fun and revelry: Friday - “mother-in-law's evening”: sons-in-law treated mothers-in-law; Saturday - “sisters-in-law’s get-togethers”: young daughters-in-law received their relatives for a visit. Sunday is “farewell”, “tselovnik”, “farewell day”, the end of Maslenitsa fun.

Pancakes were an obligatory item of Maslenitsa treats. Maslenitsa food had a ceremonial and ritual character: it was assumed that the more plentiful the food on this holiday, the richer the whole year would be.

Maslenitsa games were primarily of an entertaining nature: horse riding, sledding down the mountains, snowball fights, wrestling, fist fights, etc. In all these games, the daring character of the Russian man was manifested with particular force.

Few Maslenitsa songs have reached us. All of them, according to their themes, are divided into two groups: one of them is associated with the rite of meeting, and the other with the rite of seeing off (“funeral”) of Maslenitsa.

The ceremony for celebrating Maslenitsa was as follows. They made a scarecrow out of straw, gave it the appearance of a woman using old clothes, put this scarecrow on a pole and, singing, carried it on a sleigh around the village. Then the stuffed animal - Maslenitsa. They placed it on a snowy mountain, where games and sledding took place.

The songs accompanying the ceremony of Maslenitsa are distinguished by a major, cheerful tone. This is, first of all, a majestic song in honor of Maslenitsa, which received its anthropomorphic expression in the image of a straw effigy:

Dear our guest Maslenitsa

Avdotyushka Izotievna,

Dunya is white, Dunya is rosy,

The braid is long, three arshins long,

Scarlet ribbon, two-and-a-half pieces,

White scarf, new-fashioned

Eyebrows black, pointed,

Blue fur coat, red swallows,

Sandals are frequent, big-headed,

Foot wraps are white, whitewashed.

Before us is an ideal portrait of a Russian beauty, in the creation of which features of realism are also noticeable (“thick, big-headed bast shoes, white, whitewashed foot wraps”).

In songs dedicated to Maslenitsa, the motive of abundant food is developed. They say that Maslenitsa is joyfully celebrated “with pancakes, loaves, dumplings,” “with cheese, butter, kalach and a baked egg.” Emphasizing wealth and festive abundance in Maslenitsa songs had a magical meaning.

On the last day of the holiday we celebrated Maslenitsa. The straw effigy of Maslenitsa was taken out of the village, and there it was either burned or torn into pieces and buried in the snow. Burning wheels rolled down from the mountains, a symbol of the sun. This ritual is reflected in Maslenitsa songs.

The ritual of seeing off Maslenitsa and the songs accompanying it are distinguished by a completely different, minor key. If the songs that greeted Maslenitsa were reminiscent of wedding songs, then the songs accompanying the ceremony of seeing off Maslenitsa were similar to wedding “coril” songs. In them, Maslenitsa is reproached for deceiving people: she ruined them, ate them all and put them on Lent.

In ancient times, the rituals of welcoming and seeing off Maslenitsa had an agrarian-magical meaning: the farewell (“funeral”) of Maslenitsa meant farewell to winter and a spell, a greeting to the coming spring. This is especially clearly expressed in the Maslenitsa song given by A. N. Ostrovsky in the fairy tale play “The Snow Maiden”. Thinking about spring, the Berendey peasants sang:

Wettail Maslenitsa!

Get out of the yard

Your time has come!

However, gradually the agrarian nature of Maslenitsa rituals was forgotten, and they began to be perceived simply as festive entertainment. During these entertainments, “songs that had no ritual significance began to be used. Some of them, in their rhythm and emotions, resembled dance ditties.

Stoneflies. After Maslenitsa came a seven-week period, the so-called “Great Lent.” At this time, of course, there were no celebrations, all kinds of youth entertainment (“gatherings”, “parties”, etc.) stopped. All the thoughts of the peasants were focused on the new economic year, preparation for spring field work. It is very important for the peasants that warm spring days come as early as possible, and that weather conditions develop in such a way that there is a good harvest, with which the entire well-being of the peasants is connected.

However, they did not passively wait for spring, but sought to actively influence not its fastest coming.

With this For example, the custom of baking larks from the gesta and playing with them was associated. Children sat these larks on fences and fences, ran with them along the street, calling for the arrival of birds - symbols and harbingers of spring. Special short songs - spring songs, which were not sung, but shouted out by girls gathered in small groups, also served the same purpose of calling on spring.

In stoneflies, girls turned to larks (and sometimes to waders or bees, so that they would quickly fly in and bring with them “red spring”, “warm summer”).

With the arrival of a good spring, a “good”, “grain-bearing”, “thick”, “ear-bearing” year was expected.

Stoneflies uniquely combine the characteristics of song magnifications and spells.

Their heightened emotionality brings them closer to the greatness of the stonefly. They, like greatness, often begin with appeals. These are appeals to spring, larks, bees, etc. Their style is distinguished by a light, joyful tonality, which is manifested in the corresponding epithets (“red spring”, “warm summer”, “silk grass”, “grainy rye”, “golden wheat”) ") and the widespread use of words with diminutive suffixes ("freckle", "letechko", "lark", "bird", "swallow", "killer whale"). Stonefly spells are related primarily to their imagery. In them, as in conspiracies, images of a lock and keys are widely used. The most common motive of stoneflies is to appeal to spring (or larks) with a request to bring keys in order to close the “cold winter” and unlock the “warm summer”. Stoneflies are characterized by addresses in the imperative mood. So, for example, one of them begins with the following imperative wish-demand:

Come to us, spring,

With joy

With a great one to us

With mercy!

Yegoryevsky songs. Spring Yegoriev Day was celebrated on April 23. On this day, as a rule, the herd was driven out into the field for the first time. The peasants celebrated this important event with rituals. On the eve of Yegoryev's Day, young people, as during Christmas caroling, walked around the courtyards and sang songs that expressed wishes to the owner and his livestock. One of these songs, for example, conjured:

Calfs, calf!

Pigs, piggies!

Chickens, run away!

These songs, like carols, usually ended with a demand for a gift.

If the owners gave good gifts to the performers of Yegoryev’s “carols,” then they expressed their best wishes, for example: “two hundred cows, one and a half hundred bulls, seventy heifers.” If they were not given gifts, they spoke with resentment; “No stake, no yard, no chicken feather!”, “God grant you cockroaches and bedbugs!”

On Yegoryev’s day, several men went out into the field with the herd and “called out” to Yegory, that is, they sang songs of the same content as Yegoryev’s “carols.” In one of these songs they turned to Yegory with a request:

You save our cattle

In the field and beyond the field,

In the forest and beyond the forest,

Under the bright moon

Vyunish songs. Vyunishniki were songs that were used to congratulate young spouses who had gotten married in the previous year on Saturday or Sunday of the first week after Easter. The main content of these songs is to wish the young people a happy family life. The image of a nest - a symbol of family happiness - is central to these songs. So, in one of them, first there is an appeal to the vine and the vine, the “pleasing 45 trees” are mentioned, and then it says:

The bees are making nests,

In the roots of those trees

The ermine was building a nest...

The foundations of the patriarchal peasant family, in which the woman was in the position of a slave, were vividly reflected in the vine songs. So, in one of these songs, the young woman is given the following advice: father-in-law “wash your shirts”, mother-in-law “wash the hut”, brothers-in-law “give handkerchiefs”, sisters-in-law “braid your hair”, and “honor your husband - closer to your chest press."

As with caroling, young people walked around the courtyards singing carol songs and demanded gifts for singing them. And depending on how the performers of these songs gave gifts, the young couple was given good or, on the contrary, bad wishes.

Semitic ritual songs. The seventh week after Easter was called Semitskaya. Thursday of this week was called Semik, and its last day (Sunday) was the holiday of the Trinity. On Semitic week, special rituals were performed, which were accompanied by songs.

The main rite of the Semitic week was the rite of “curling a wreath.” Having dressed in festive outfits, the girls went into the forest. There they took a fancy to young succulent birch trees and performed a ritual with them that had a certain magical meaning. They bent the branches of birch trees to the ground and intertwined them with grass, believing that the plant power of the birch would be transferred to the earth.

Then the girls “curled the wreaths.” At the ends of individual birch branches, without breaking them off, they wove (“curled”) wreaths, singing a song that included the words: “Curl you, birch tree, curl you, curly one.”

The ritual of curling a birch tree in ancient times had an undoubted agrarian-magical significance.

While performing this ritual, the girls sang:

We will curl wreaths

For good years,

The grain is thick,

For eared barley,

Then, after a few days, this birch tree was cut down, carried around the village, then drowned in the river or thrown into rye, which also had an agrarian-magical meaning; The plant power of the green birch seemed to be transferred to the earth and water.

However, the spring ritual with birch subsequently began to have not only agricultural significance. By tilting two nearby birch trees and tying their tops together, they made a kind of green arch, under which the girls walked in pairs and “celebrated,” that is, kissed. In this way, the girls’ desire to be good “gossips” and true friends was expressed.

A few days after “curling the wreaths,” the girls went into the forest, separated these wreaths from the birch trees and walked with them to the river, where they told fortunes about the grooms. They threw wreaths into the water: wherever the wreath floats, the groom will be there.

If the wreath floats well and evenly, then your married life will be calm and happy. But if the wreath floats poorly, clinging to the shore, turning over, etc., then life will be difficult.

These songs that accompany fortune telling on wreaths are distinguished by sincerity, lyricism, and sometimes genuine drama. For example, there is a song that tells how a girl and her friends went “to the Danube River” and threw their wreath into it. The prediction turned out to be very sad, and the girl sings quietly and sadly:

All the wreaths are on top of the water,

And mine sank.

All my friends send gifts,

The theme of marriage and family relations gradually occupies an increasing place in Semitic songs, it is also the main one in round dance songs performed at this time; in particular, in those that were performed by girls while leading a round dance around a “curled” birch tree.

Summer ritual songs. Semitsk songs were the last ritual spring songs. After this came summer, a period of intense field work. There were few rituals at that time. And few songs accompanying these rituals have survived. Among them, songs associated with the funeral ritual of Kostroma and the day of Ivan Kupala stand out.

The Kostroma funeral rite did not have a strict timing and was performed in the period after Trinity and before Peter's Day 1. In ancient times, this ritual had agricultural significance. It is believed that the word “Kostroma” comes from the word “kostra”, which was the name given to the waste obtained after processing flax and hemp. The Kostroma funeral ceremony was performed as follows. A scarecrow made of straw was placed in a wooden trough or log and a funeral scene was acted out. This action was based on the idea of the dying and then resurrecting god of vegetation. Then the meaning of this performance was forgotten. The ritual turned into a celebration. Kostroma began to be interpreted as the image of a once deceased cheerful and boisterous woman. Thus, one song accompanying the “funeral” of Kostroma begins with the words;

Kostroma, Kostroma,

You were smart

She was cheerful

You were loud!

And now, Kostroma,

(The holiday of Ivan Kupala was celebrated on the day of the summer solstice, on the night of June 23-24. On this night, they collected herbs (especially ferns), which supposedly had healing powers. At the same time, they lit fires and jumped over them, pouring water on each other , bathed.All this, according to popular belief, had a cleansing value.

Kupala rituals are reflected in the corresponding songs. So, one of them began with the words;

A little siskin was walking down the street,

Gathered girls for the Bath:

“Well, girls to the Baths,

Come on, girls, off to the Bath!”

In a number of songs, Kupala appears before us in the anthropomorphic image of a woman-mother. So, in one song, when asked where her daughter is, Kupala replies that her daughter is “flying around the beds, pricking her hands,” “plucking flowers, making wreaths,” “on her friend’s head.” 15, 465].

"Autumn ritual songs. In the fall, due to being busy with field and other work, even fewer rituals were held than in the summer. The few rituals that were performed at this time were all associated with concerns about a good harvest. An example would be a ritual<<завивания_б_ор.о.ды>>. This is the name given to the custom of tying together several ears of grain that were specially left unharvested on arable land into one bundle. It was assumed that in this way the land’s “harvest power” was secured and left for the next year. This ritual of “curling the beard” is described in songs.

The first and last sheaves of the harvest were often solemnly brought into the village. The power of these sheaves was considered magically healing. Their the grains were poured into the feed of sick livestock, and sowing of grain crops began with them. These rituals are also reflected in the corresponding songs.

There are also known songs that expressed joy at the end of field work, threshing and harvesting grain into bins. For example:

Oh and thank God

What a living they reaped,

What life have you reaped?

And they put me in the cops,

There are stacks of hay on the threshing floor,

In the cage with bins,

And from the oven with pies.

By now, calendar rituals have almost completely disappeared. However, in the past, both calendar rituals and the songs accompanying them occupied a large place in the spiritual life of the people. They expressed the thoughts of the people about a good harvest, livestock offspring, general well-being and well-being. Their main topics are agricultural and economic. But along with this main theme, family and everyday motifs also appear in them; dreams of a good family are expressed, healthy offspring etc.

Ritual songs are based on the elemental materialistic worldview of the people. The leading images of these songs are taken from the reality surrounding the peasant. However, it should be noted that many images of calendar songs bear traces of ancient animistic ideas (anthropomorphic images of Kolyada, Maslenitsa, Kostroma, etc.).

The main purpose of calendar songs is utilitarian and practical. These songs, together with the rituals that accompanied them, should have^ according to their performers, influence the increase in yield, human and animal health.

“At the same time, it is necessary to emphasize that calendar poetry also performed considerable aesthetic functions: it conveyed an atmosphere of festivity, artistically expressed all kinds of thoughts and feelings. Many calendar songs are characterized by high poetry.

Ritual poetry is a section of oral poetry that is associated with traditional rituals.

A ritual is a set of actions established by custom, in which any religious ideas or everyday traditions are embodied.

Rituals are divided into: calendar (reflecting the characteristics of folk labor) and family (folklore as a ritual phenomenon)

The ritual is closely related to the myth and is its dramatization. Myth is a person’s way of explaining the structure of the world

Totemic (about the origin of man)

Eschocological (about the death of the world)

Etiological (about the origin of things)

Cosmogonic (about the birth of the world)

The myth lives in the human consciousness, is subsequently forgotten and remains in individual elements (rites)
1) The essence of calendar ritual poetry is to get a rich harvest. They were based on magic and spells.
The rituals were accompanied by songs.
Winter rites
- New Year celebrations took place at the end of December and beginning of January. New Year opened with the performance of carol songs.
The carol is a majestic, solemn song, a song that spells well-being in the coming year.
- Christmas time (from Christmas to baptism) - we played a lot, told fortunes, sang special songs.
- Maslenitsa was considered the most fun holiday of the year. The songs that were sung on Maslenitsa were in a major key, they resembled magnificence.
Spring-summer
- Performing stoneflies (from March 25)
Stonefly is a song calling for the early arrival of spring. These songs had a magical character.

Semitskaya Week (7th week after Easter)
The rituals performed this week had an agrarian and economic meaning. With the onset of the holiday, people went to the fields and groves, collected herbs and decorated their houses with them.

Autumn
-Reaping songs
2) Family and everyday rituals are associated with the birth, death, wedding and farewell of recruits.
Lamentations are an ancient genre of folklore. The object of the image in the lament is the tragic in human life.

5. Calendar ritual poetry in the system of oral folk art. Ritual poetry of the winter cycle, its mythological content, genre composition, poetics.

Based on human labor activity, a variety of ritual poetry arose and developed. One of the reasons for its emergence was man’s dependence on nature, which prompted ancient people to idolize and animate it, to seek its protection and help.
Rituals associated with the labor activity of the peasantry and repeated every year with a certain sequence, i.e. according to the calendar, called calendar ritual poetry. Russian calendar poetry personifies the forces of nature, partially reflects the cults of ancestors and animals, and features of the Christian religion.
The annual ritual calendar of the Russian peasantry began with the New Year holiday, the days of the new “awakening” of the sun (from December 25 to January 6). New Year's calendar rituals were supposed to ensure economic well-being for the entire next year. Among the stable customs on the New Year's holiday was the dressing up of animals, which was supposed to ensure a successful hunt and offspring of livestock. Some New Year's rituals included songs. they were “carols”, “shchedrovki” and “ovseni”. The period of New Year's festivities included youth parties, "games" and gatherings. They were filled with folk amusements. . The second calendar holiday after the New Year was Maslenitsa, which was celebrated in February or early March. On Maslenitsa it was customary to have fun and feast especially widely. Maslenitsa rituals included farewell to winter. Usually they made a scarecrow of Maslenitsa from straw, rags or snow (often in the form of a female figure). The first part of Maslenitsa is a meeting and celebration, the second part is songs about the upcoming fast. Maslenitsa was usually interpreted primarily as a celebration of the victory of spring over winter, life over death.

6. Calendar ritual poetry of the spring-summer and autumn cycle, its mythological content, genre composition, poetics.

Calendar rituals got their name from the fact that they accompany the work of the people throughout the year. These rituals were based on the belief in the magical power of words, gestures, and actions, which, according to people, could ensure a good harvest.

Spring and summer cycles - Rituals aimed at preparing and increasing the harvest. The spring-summer cycle includes the beginning of Maslenitsa week after Christmastide, accompanied by ritual gluttony. It was a holiday of the glorification of the Sun. The ritual also included the obligatory commemoration of ancestors. The next main holiday of the summer period, which is also associated with ritual poetry, is Ivan Kupala. On this day, the girls told fortunes. They wove wreaths and sang songs. The ritual of jumping over a fire is traditional. Symbolizes cleansing.

1. Ritual, ritual poetry. The connection between calendar and family rituals and the work and life of peasants.

Folk calendar, classification of the calendar ritual cycle and its content.
New Year's rituals and its genres.
Spring-summer holidays and their poetry.
Autumn rituals and the end of the agricultural cycle.

Ritual- a set of actions established by custom, performed in a certain

Sequences and associated with religious ideas and everyday traditions. The ritual was performed at critical, important moments and had an impact on a person’s well-being and self-awareness, and also passed on accumulated social experience from generation to generation.

Rituals are divided into calendar ones, associated with agricultural work, and family ones, associated with the world of an individual family - with a wedding, birth, funeral and later - seeing off recruits to the army.

The essence of calendar ritual poetry was the desire to obtain a rich harvest. The calendar of the ancient Slavs reflected primarily the economic and practical side of their life.

Mythological ideas, permeated with the farmer's concern for the fate of the field that fed him, were associated with the existence of particularly important holidays and calendar rituals that occurred at the time of the revival of the sun (the holiday of Kolyada) and at the time when the sun reaches the heights of its power (the summer holiday of Kupala). Holidays in the second half of the year, especially autumn ones, were much less frequently accompanied by calendar rituals: when the harvest was harvested, the farmer no longer depended on the natural elements.

The rituals were accompanied by songs. Calendar ritual songs are varied, but they also have common features:

spell element;
they show that ancient man believed in his power over nature; accordingly, the function of songs is the impact of man on nature;
calendar ritual songs have the same style.

Yu.G. Kruglov in his work “Russian Ritual Songs” singles out songs ritual, incantatory, majestic, corrugating, playful, lyrical.

Function ritual songs - to form a ritual, to tell that it was completed. Therefore, they have a fixed place in the ritual.

The calendar rituals were based on magic and spells in order to protect against hostile evil spirits (preventive magic) and in order to provide a person with any positive values (producing magic).

The celebration of the New Year in folk life took place at the end of December - beginning of January. The New Year opened with the singing of carol songs or carols(from Latin calendae - the first day of each month). The word carol denotes the time of celebration of Christmastide (from December 24, “forever”, Christmas Eve, until January 6, the church holiday of Epiphany).

Carol- This is a majestic solemn song, a song-spell for prosperity in the coming year. With the arrival of the holiday, carolers, usually teenagers and young people, gathered in groups of several people, walked from hut to hut and sang songs of praise to their owners under the windows. They conveyed wishes for health to all family members, harvest, and wealth for the home. The motifs of the carols are stable.

During Christmas time (from Christmas to Epiphany) we played a lot, told fortunes, and sang sub-scabies songs.

The subject of fortune-telling in sub-dish songs was common to all folk fortune-telling: success and failure in life, harvest, everyday well-being, health. But the favorite theme of fortune-telling in sub-dish songs has always been “betrothed - mummer”, i.e. marriage, marriage, family. Through fortune telling, they wanted to predict what a person’s fate and life depended on.

Fortune telling, mummers, dances, songs - this is the content of festivities and gatherings in the past at Christmas time.

Maslenitsa- a spring holiday, but separated from the spring cycle to the winter one largely due to the church's Great Lent, which prohibited any entertainment for 7 weeks before Easter. Winter supplies were running out. Since ancient times, Maslenitsa has been considered the most joyful holiday of the year. The change of fun and joy during the week is reflected in the names of the days of Maslenitsa week.

Monday was called meeting. They made a scarecrow of Maslenitsa - they dressed him in a caftan, belted with a sash, put him in bast shoes, and brought him up the mountain with the invitation to “come and visit the wide yard, ride in the mountains, roll around in pancakes, amuse your heart.” The song that was sung at the meeting is the first type of Maslenitsa songs. These are songs of a major character, often reminiscent of grandeur:

So that the servants are young.

Tuesday was called "flirts." A variety of entertainments, games, mummers, and skating began in the village.

Maslenitsa is predominantly a holiday for married youth, while Christmastide is for single people.

Wednesday during Maslenitsa week was called " gourmet" She opened treats in all houses with pancakes and other dishes. Yu.M. Sokolov explains the revelry and gluttony at Maslenitsa with similiar magic - the desire to achieve the desired phenomenon with his image.

Thursday was called " revelry", "Broad Thursday", this day was the height of games and fun. Friday - "mother-in-law's evening", the sons-in-law treated their mothers-in-law that day. Saturday – “sister-in-law’s get-togethers.” On this day, the girls were going to parties.

Sunday was called “Forgiveness Sunday”, “seeing off”, “kisser”. The Maslenitsa effigy was put on a pole, raised into the sky, burned, and among the Western Slavs, it was lowered into the water. Maslenitsa was sent to the world from where it came. The border with that world is water, an outskirts.

Songs were sung, which often expressed regret that Maslenitsa ended so soon:

They kissed and made up.

Starting from March 25, spring songs were supposed to be performed. Stonefly- This is a song calling for the early arrival of spring. It was associated with children and youth audiences. These songs had a magical, ritual character.

The singing was supposed to represent the hubbub of birds. Stoneflies are similar in character Egoryevsky songs. Egory, George - saint, patron of livestock. April 23 is the first day when cattle were driven out. These songs contain many spells and images typical of conspiracy songs.

The last spring holiday was Semitic Week, which fell on the seventh week after Easter. She was called semik. This was also the name of Thursday this week. In ancient times the week was called “mermaid”, “green”.

The rituals performed during Semitic week had an agrarian and economic meaning. With the onset of the holiday, people went to the fields and groves, collected various herbs and covered the floors of their homes with them. Houses were decorated with birch branches on Wednesday. The girls went into the forest to curl a birch tree.

On the night of June 24th it was celebrated Ivan Kupala holiday. There is also dual faith here. The pagan ritual took place on the day of St. John the Baptist. At this time the sun was turning towards the winter path. On Kupala night, fires were lit on the shore of the reservoir, receiving fire naturally. This living fire had a symbolic meaning - it acted as a symbol of the sultry June summer. Kupala Day was a holiday of solar fire, its cleansing, creative power.

Kupala songs contain motifs of early going to Zhito, to reservoirs, and also songs point to the cult of the sun.

After the celebration of Ivan Kupala, the fun stopped for a long time, until the fall. It was a busy time.

Field work ended with a harvest festival. Together they brewed beer, slaughtered a sheep, baked pies and, having called their relatives and neighbors, began the fun.

The songs performed at this time were called stubble songs.

Harvest songs often have an incantatory character. Sometimes these are not even songs, but formulas with incantatory content.

Calendar songs convey the mood, thoughts and feelings of the people, always associated with the land that fed them.

Main literature

Russian folk poetry. Reader edited by A.M. Novikova. – M., 1987. – P.8-16.
Russian folk poetry. Reader edited by Yu.G. Kruglov. – L., 1987. – P. 5-15.
Kravtsov N.I., Lazutin S.G. Russian oral folk art. – M., 1983.- P.32-48.
Russian folk poetry. Ed. A.M.Novikova.-M., 1986.- P.53-66.
Anikin V.P. Russian oral folk art. M., 2001.- P.86-162.
Zueva T.V., Kirdan B.P. Russian folklore. Textbook for higher educational institutions. – M., 2002.- P.71-85.
Anikin V.P. Russian folklore. M., 1987.- pp. 94-145.

additional literature

Afanasyev A.N. Living water and prophetic word. – M., 1988.
Kruglov Yu.G. Russian ritual songs. –M., 1982.
Russian folk poetry. Reader on folklore, ed. Yu.G. Kruglova.-M., 1986.-Articles: Afanasyev A.N. National holidays. Chicherov V.I. New Year's songs-spells for the harvest and well-being of the family (Russian carols and their types). Kolpakova N.P. The songs are enchanting.

Topic: Family and everyday ritual poetry. Maternity rite. The wedding ceremony and its poetic complex

general characteristics family ritual poetry.
Birth rites.
Stages of the wedding ceremony and its poetry.

In addition to the calendar rituals performed by the entire peasant community, there were rituals associated with the life of individual families. These are rituals associated with birth, death, wedding and seeing off a recruit into the army. The most famous of these types of rituals is the wedding ceremony.

The concept of “wedding poetry,” according to V.P. Anikin, includes songs, lamentations and magnification. Each of these genres differs from others in execution time, style, ideological and aesthetic content.

Lamentations- in Russian folklore it is customary to call complaints (cries), which were considered traditionally obligatory elements of some family rituals and were performed by women. The texts of lamentations in their verbal expression are of an unstable, one-time nature. The functioning of tradition is ensured by the traditionality of lamentation techniques - “common places” and the rules for their combination. The texts of the lamentations are situational and traditional.

For grandeur This type of storytelling is typical when it is clear that the praise comes from the team. This is why the first person form is so common here plural. It reproduces the attitude of relatives and friends towards those who marry, as well as towards their relatives and acquaintances. The attitude of those singing a majestic song towards the glorified person is manifested in wishing him all everyday well-being, which the song speaks of as having already been achieved.

A different type of storytelling wedding song. The bride, groom, their relatives, the feelings and thoughts that possess them are always spoken about as if from the outside. Here the story is told in the 3rd person singular or plural. They, like great songs, contain assessments of what is happening, but they do not sound in direct expression, but in the nature of the story itself. They made public the progress of the wedding from stage to stage, and also made the new marital status of those entering into marriage a fact. Wedding songs in their form were an objective, impersonal story about a wedding.

In the wedding ceremony, there is a pre-wedding agreement (ceremonies before the wedding eve) - matchmaking, bridesmaids, hand shaking; wedding eve – bathhouse, bachelorette party; wedding day;, wedding feast.

The wedding ceremony was recognized as an everyday norm among all the people. The ensemble of wedding characters consists of: the matchmaker, the matchmaker, the bride, who plays the main role, and the groomsman.

In pre-wedding rituals, the lamentations of the bride come first. The bride begins to lament as soon as she finds out that she has been matched, that is, when the matchmakers leave. Relatively few songs are sung before the chopping, but much more is sung during the chopping and after it. If the bride did not cry or lament, she was showing ingratitude to her parents. If the bride did not know the lamentations or did not know how to perform them, which happened extremely rarely, then a lament or a weeper, often a widow, would act on her behalf, earning her living in this way

After the beating, the main motive of lamentation is the motive of ruined will.

At the same moment of the ritual, songs begin to sound. The song brings to public attention the fact of the conspiracy and introduces an element of poetry into the ritual.

After the wedding, the main role in the ceremony is occupied by songs of praise. Greatnesses praised mother-in-law and father-in-law, mother-in-law and father-in-law as good hosts. The owner was praised for his intelligence and sobriety, the hostess for her kindness and friendliness, the thousand was famous as a governor, a warrior, the leader of the prince’s squad, who managed to take the bride with his head; svaha – sugar lips; friend - courteous, resourceful, with a cheerful disposition; the guests were promised wealth, health, and success in business. After the performance of the greatness, a demand for reward was made:

Just as in calendar rites, corrugating songs were sung. The cork song contained imaginary curses on those who go against the will of the mythical patrons, so they did not cause offense. Later they became humorous songs with elements of condemnation and ridiculed stinginess, swagger, arrogance and other shortcomings.

Main literature

Russian folk poetry. Reader. Comp. Yu.G.Kruglov. - L., 1987.
Kruglov Yu.G. Russian wedding songs. M., 1978.

additional literature

Kolpakova N.P. Russian folk everyday song. M.-L., 1962.
Russian wedding songs from Siberia. Comp. R.P. Potanina. – M., 1979.
Ritual songs of Russian weddings in Siberia. Comp. And note. R.P. Potanina. – Novosibirsk, 1981.
Folk wedding. Collection of articles and materials. - Omsk, 1997.
Lamentations. Comp. K.V.Chistov. - Leningrad, 1960.
Cherdyn wedding. Recorded and compiled by I. Zyryanov. - Perm, 1969.

Knyazeva I.N. Russian wedding in the Irtysh region of Kazakhstan. – Pavlodar, 2002.

15. Lamentations. Introductory article and note. K.V.Chistova.-L., 1960.

16. Russian folk poetry. Reader on folklore. Comp. Yu.G.Kruglov.-M., 1986. Articles:. Chistov K.V. Russian whim.

Topic: Funeral rite. Recruitment ceremony, crying and lamentations

Funeral rite.
Basic types of lamentations.
Recruitment rituals and lamentations.

The funeral rite, just like the wedding rite and the motto associated with it, was a pronounced collective ritual action in which all members of the clan or tribe, and later members of the family and territorial community (in the terminology of the motility - “relatives” and “community”) participated "or "sporadic neighbors"). This is precisely why those who lament always assume the presence of “relatives” and “neighbors” to whom they are addressing.

The funeral rite included a whole cycle of lamentations, connected by their themes, content and system of images with its various links.

Immediately after death is confirmed, the first funeral lament sounds - crying-questioning, in which the lamenter, addressing the deceased, asks him why he left his family, asks him to open his eyes and stand up.

The second reason - crying alert. It sounds when relatives and neighbors arrive at the hut and learn about the death. Its main theme is a sad story about how death occurred.

Third biggest lament - crying when the coffin is brought in. In this lamentation there is a fairly stable circle of familiar motives - gratitude to those who made the coffin, comparison of the coffin with a hut in which there are no windows, doors, bed, or table.

The fourth reason - crying as the coffin was carried out. It is based on poetic questions: “Where are you going?”, “Who are you leaving us with?”

The fifth reason - crying on the way to the cemetery, which repeats some of the motifs of crying during removal and crying-notification.

The sixth reason - when lowering the coffin into the grave and graveside. The main thing here is a promise to visit the grave, decorate it with flowers, a request to the deceased to “come and visit.”

Seventh proverb - when returning from the cemetery- is based on a poetic depiction of the ritual of imaginary searches for the deceased in an empty house.

Eighth proverb - funeral. Actually, a funeral lament is a cycle of laments associated either with visiting a grave on ritual days, or with the simple need to express surging memories, to tell the deceased about the difficulties experienced after death.

Ideas about death that are firmly established in the popular consciousness are reflected in “commonplaces” or in traditional motives of lamentation.

^ Poetics of account

The lamentations are performed in a kind of recitative, which is generally characterized by a pronounced declamatory beginning and the absence of extensive development of the melodic side itself. In the northern regions, the lamentations are more melodious, in some southern regions they are simply exclamations, not connected into an elementary sound unity.

Lamentations are characterized by the technique of repetition, stringing together syntactically, intonationally and semantically similar constructions. The lamenter asks question after question, varying with the help of synonyms, similar images, and logically intertwined concepts.

Voplenitsa uses so-called “amplifying particles” - yes, everything, after all, more, how, here, etc.

Lamentations are characterized by the use of diminutive and augmentative suffixes not only of nouns and adjectives, but even adverbs (severely, quietly), pronouns (tebeyushki).

Characteristic is the use of prefixes, those that do not convey a new meaning, but enhance the root meaning of the word (to pronounce, re-young).

Epithets in parables do not indicate a typical sign, but are aimed at identifying a number of signs. Therefore, nouns in lamentations can have 2, 3 or even 4 definitions (secrets, sweet, advised, friendly girlfriends). One noun can have up to 30 definitions in lament. Lamentations are characterized by a variety and abundance of epithets, with the largest number of epithets concentrated around words denoting the person whom the lamenter is mourning.

In an effort to add emotional and semantic content to the words, the performers willingly use compound adjectives (cunning, thin-white) and doubled nouns, which are relatively rare in other genres.

Combinations such as “dead grave”, “troublesome orphans”, etc. also serve as semantic concentration.

The tradition of lamentation has created a unique poetic style capable of expressing the extreme tragic tension of the lamenter’s feelings. It captures the talented, emotional soul of a Russian peasant woman.

Main literature

1. Russian folk poetry. Reader. Comp. Yu.G.Kruglov. - L., 1987.

Kravtsov N.I., Lazutin S.G. Russian oral folk art. – M., M., 1983.
Russian folk poetry. Ed. A.M.Novikova. - M., 1986. – P.67-84.
Anikin V.P. Russian folklore. –M., 1987.- P. 183-219.
Anikin V.P. Russian oral folk art. M., 2001.-P.163-202.
Zueva T.V., Kirdan B.P. Russian folklore. Textbook for higher educational institutions. – M., 2002 – P.86-112.

additional literature

Kruglov Yu.G. Russian ritual songs. M., 1982
Lamentations. Introductory article and note. K.V.Chistova.-L., 1960.
Russian folk poetry. Reader on folklore. Comp. Yu.G.Kruglov.-M., 1986. Articles:. Chistov K.V. Russian whim.

Topic: Conspiracies

1. Definition of conspiracy, its origin, connection with mythological thinking.

2. Main thematic groups of conspiracies.

3. Poetics of conspiracies. Features of composition and plot.

4. Specifics of the existence of conspiracies, publications.

Among other types of oral folk art, conspiracies occupy a unique place. They differ from other genres of folklore (songs, fairy tales, epics, legends, etc.) primarily in that they represent a means to achieve a certain practical goal. Conspiracies are closely related to everyday life; they are utilitarian. However, they also contain undoubted manifestations of an unconsciously artistic reflection of the world.

In a brief definition a spell is a traditional rhythmically organized formula that a person considered a magical means of achieving various practical goals.

We classify the conspiracy as ritual poetry, because the verbal formula of the conspiracy usually coexists with action, and the action and the word turn out to be reciprocal and identical in function. It is assumed that the same goal can be achieved with both words and actions. Often a verbal spell formula is only a verbal expression, a verbal description, an image of the action being performed.

Various points of view have been expressed on the issue of the origin of conspiracies. Thus, mythologists, in particular A.N. Afanasyev, defined conspiracies as fragments of ancient pagan prayers and spells. The most striking examples of such prayers were considered to be texts containing appeals to natural elements - the month, stars, sun, dawn, etc.

The mythological is contrasted with the formalistic definition of conspiracy as a comparison and the psychological definition of comparison as an association.

Potebnya and Zelinsky (late 19th - early 20th centuries) argued that the basis of conspiracies is not a prayerful appeal to pagan elemental deities, but a sign, a simple perception of phenomena, an association as a primary function of consciousness, characteristic of man even at the pre-linguistic stage of his existence.

If you delve into antiquity, you can be convinced that from ancient times the East Slavic tribes carried out fishing and economic conspiracies. According to the general view of conspiracies, characteristic of the primitive communal period, success in hunting and cattle breeding depended on how much a given hunter or herd owner knew the necessary conspiracies.

A particularly large group consists of conspiracies used in the households of peasants and townspeople. We can name them all household conspiracies. These are conspiracies for summoning or driving away evil spirits, against drunkenness, wedding conspiracies, and especially common ones in everyday life - medicinal ones.

Conspiracies against diseases are the most common type of conspiracies. Of the 372 spells included in L.N. Maykov’s collection “Great Russian Spells” (1869), 275 are healing. This is a unique group in terms of the nature of ideas and actions associated with them.

^ Social conspiracies. There is a vast group of conspiracies that regulate the relations of people in society: conspiracies against the malice of dashing people, conspiracies to approach superiors, conspiracies for those going to court, conspiracies for military affairs, for taming cruel masters, etc. A special place among them is occupied by conspiracies concerning family and marriage relations.

V.P. Anikin notes that the composition of the conspiracy before the 10th century was simpler than that known from later conspiracies. A conspiracy that had already experienced Christian influence often began with prayer introduction(1) “in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit” or “Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me.” Conspiracies can also have a non-prayerful beginning. Next part - beginning(2): “I, servant of God (name), will get up, blessing myself, and go, crossing myself, out of the hut through the doors, out of the courtyard through the gates, into the open field.” Essentially, the beginning is a verbal reproduction of the place of ritual action.

Although the speaker crossed himself with a cross and called himself a servant of God, nevertheless, the formula about a slave leaving a hut into a field through a gate retained elements of a pagan ritual. Then there could be words about a fantastic washing, dressing in the morning light. The next part is more abstract – epic(3). In the epic part of the plot, a number of traditional motifs are found: the motif of a wonderful pike, the motif of a red maiden sitting on a stone and sewing with red thread (to stop bleeding), the motif of sweeping away or washing away the disease.

The epic part in conspiracies is followed by a requirement, the so-called imperative part(4) is the main compositional part in the conspiracy, since the verbal requirement has always been the main point in it. For example: “Just as rain does not fall from the blue sky, so the blood of God’s servant (name) would not fall.”

The conspiracy ended with the so-called bartack(5): “My words be the key and the lock”, “My word is strong!” Late phenomena include jamming. (6).

The following elements of the composition of the conspiracy could be original, existing before the adoption of Christianity by Russia: a verbal depiction of the ritual action in the beginning, an epic part, an imperative part listing wishes and demands, as well as a fastening. The conspiracies of the pre-Christian era may have been alien to prayer; the conspiracy demanded and forced the imaginary forces of nature to act in accordance with the will of man. The merging of conspiracy with prayer occurred at a later time.

In the plot one can see the influence of other genres of folklore: fairy tales, images from riddles, borrowings from lyrics. In the conspiracy there are folklore constant epithets: the field is clean, the forests are dense, dark; frequent stars; azure flowers; mountains – high; sands – yellow; the heart is zealous; eyes – clear; body – white; head - violent; Well done - daring, kind.

The conspiracy is characterized by rhythm: “Fierce snake, your house is in a cave, and the servant of God’s is in the village.” In the conspiracy there is a palilogy - each subsequent line repeats the final lines of the previous one: “On the sea, on Okiyan, on the island of Buyan, there is an oak tree.// Under that oak tree there is a broom bush.// Under that bush there lies a white stone.

A conspiracy is characterized by verbal endings of rhythmically proportional syntactic parts, that is, a conspiracy is often a verse:

Yegory the brave rides on a white horse,

Decorated with a golden crown,

propped up with a damask spear,

Meets Tatem at night.

The plot retained numerous lexical repetitions, as well as repetitions of the once chosen syntactic structure.

Main literature

Anikin V.P. Russian folklore. – M., 1987. – P.94-119
Petrov V.P. Conspiracies // From the history of Russian Soviet folklore. –L., 1981. – P. 77-142

additional literature

Russian people. Its customs, rituals, legends, superstitions and poetry. Collection M. Zabylin. – M., 1880 (reprint edition – 1992)
“Hey you are, good fellows.” Russian folk poetry. Comp. P.S. Vykhodtsev and E.P. Kholodova, -M., 1979. – P.343-347
Russian conspiracies and spells. Ed. V.P. Anikina. – M., 1998
Fedorova V.P. Man and word in conspiracies: Southern Trans-Urals. The end of the twentieth century. _ Kurgan, 2003.

Topic: Russian folk prose. Animal Tales

Definition of a fairy tale. The problem of origin. Connection with myth.
Genre composition of the fairy tale.
Tales about animals, their origin, sources of fiction. Poetics.

The entire area of oral folk prose can be divided into 2 large sections: stories that are believed or believed to be true, and stories that are not believed - this includes all types of fairy tales.

The fairy tale is one of the oldest, one of the main genres of oral folk art.

A folk tale is an epic, oral work of fiction, mostly prosaic, of a magical, adventurous or everyday nature.

V.Ya. Propp defines a fairy tale as follows: “A fairy tale is a deliberate and poetic fiction. A fairy tale is never presented as reality.”

A fairy tale is a genre that signaled the destruction of the mythological consciousness of man. Many researchers tell a tale from a myth. In the monograph “Russian Fairy Tale” V.Ya. Propp says that the genre that precedes the appearance of the fairy tale is a myth. In his other work, “Historical Roots” fairy tale"(1946) Propp argues that a fairy tale and a myth can sometimes coincide so completely with each other that in ethnography and folkloristics such myths can be called fairy tales. However, in the fairy tale there are images and situations that clearly do not go back to any immediate reality.

Pre-story formations, according to Propp, are rituals, myths, forms of primitive thinking, and some social institutions. The fairy tale has absorbed elements of primitive social and cultural life.

How does a fairy tale differ from a myth? 1) In the fairy tale, there is a desacralization of the world. 2) The fairy tale loses its etiological meaning, its function of explaining the world. It is replaced by an ethical, educational function. 3) The fairy tale changes the audience; it is told among the uninitiated also for entertainment purposes. And since the fairy tale serves for entertainment, it has its own poetic characteristics.

All this is reflected in the definition of a fairy tale that Nikiforov gives: “ ^ A fairy tale is an oral story with unusual content, popular among people for the purpose of entertainment. The tale is distinguished by a special compositional and stylistic structure.”

^ About the meaning of the fairy tale: Like all genres of folklore, the fairy tale has cognitive, educational and aesthetic significance, but the educational value surpasses others. There is a lot in fairy tales that can affect an adult even today, but it is no coincidence that it is children who are introduced to fairy tales. Fairy-tale fiction is imprinted on the soul of a child. People have never remained indifferent to what children will become when they grow up.

In terms of thematic, compositional-structural and figurative-style certainty, the fairy tale genre has intra-genre types. The fairy tale is divided into three types. This division was first proposed by A.N. Afanasyev in the mid-19th century, publishing a collection of Russian fairy tales. These are tales about animals, magical and everyday (novelistic - as Anikin calls them).

Among Russian folk tales, tales about animals make up 10%, fairy tales - 30%, social stories - 60%.

It is traditionally believed that the most ancient are tales about animals. They arose at an early stage of the development of society and were initially of a mythological nature, since they reflected people’s ideas about nature and society - animism, anthropomorphism, totemism. Cult stories and stories from hunters about the habits of animals are the sources of tales about animals. At an early stage, stories about animals exist as myths, they cannot be called fairy tales, they do not have the intention of fiction.

Later, these stories are projected onto people's lives; human life is modeled through the behavior of animals. For a long time, magical and totemistic ideas are preserved in them. Gradually, the fairy tale loses its connection with the myth and turns into a social allegory.

Tales about animals also have a special poetics. 1) They are characterized by a simple composition. The action is characterized by increasing tension and complexity. It is based on repeating a situation with a change in some thematic detail. Such tales are called chain or cumulative (“Fox with a rolling pin”). Repetition of the main episode of the story makes the idea clear. The artistic meaning of cumulation is different in each individual case. At the same time, it also has unchanging properties: repetitions contribute to the understanding and memorization of a fairy tale.

2) The next feature of fairy tales about animals is the rapid development of the plot.

3) Tales about animals are dramatized fictional prose. They contain many song and poetic inserts and dialogues. Some fairy tales consist almost entirely of dialogue (“The Fox and the Black Grouse,” “The Bean Seed”).

Most fairy tales make use of the richness of imagery hidden in spoken language. The language of the characters reproduces the everyday speech of people of different classes and different individual appearances. Thus, they have a bright everyday style.

It is in the nature of animal tales to make a sharp distinction between positive and negative. There is never any doubt about how to feel about this or that character.

The composition of family ritual poetry, its connection with ritual and everyday life. General characteristics of each genre.

Introduction

Over hundreds of years, the peoples of Russia have developed common customs, traditions, and a common Russian culture. And at the same time, each nation, like an island in the ocean, lives by its own traditions, national culture, lives by what distinguishes it from other nations. The development of culture contributed to the formation of national self-awareness of the people and a sense of unity. This is the strength of the Russian people, this is what makes Russians Russian. Family and household rituals are predetermined by the cycle of human life.

In a person’s earthly life, the most important events are a birthday, rituals associated with a wedding, and the sad day of a funeral. Rituals associated with the birth of a person usually take place in a close family circle; The grandmother plays a big role in this; it is with her that the ritual of placing the child in the cradle, “grandmother’s porridge,” is associated. Rituals associated with the birth of a child have great magical and educational significance; they must ward off illnesses from the child and ensure his well-being in life. In the lullabies that a mother sang to her child, there are various life wishes, “greatnesses,” spells; these songs are supposed to ward off the “evil eye” from the child. Separate rituals accompany the appearance of a child’s first tooth, the first tonsure, even the boy’s first mounting of a horse, etc. All these songs have one hero - a child to whom a loved one is addressing; all these songs are filled with elements of spells, conspiracies, wishes, greatness, their the content is the same in the folklore of different peoples.

The special attention of rituals and ritual poetry to the family is explained by the fact that it had exclusively important in the life of the people. A characteristic feature of the patriarchal way of life, when family and household rituals received the greatest development, is that in it the family was the main production, economic and spiritual unit.

1. The concept of ritual, family ritual poetry.

Ritual- a set of actions established by custom, performed in a certain sequence and associated with religious ideas and everyday tradition. The ritual was performed at critical, important moments and had an impact on a person’s well-being and self-awareness, and also passed on accumulated social experience from generation to generation.

Ritual poetry arose in connection with human relations on the one hand and in connection with eternal social relations in society. Therefore, all ritual folklore is divided into 2 groups:

Calendar ritual poetry

Family and everyday ritual poetry

Some researchers identify group 3 - conspiracies and spells. This is where disputes arise, because... conspiracies and spells can be associated with the attitude of a person and with the attitude of the community. But they are not included in the ritual itself, so we distinguish a third group, considering the first two groups to be the main ones.

Family and everyday ritual poetry:

1) Maternity and baptismal ritual songs. Genres: lullaby, nursery rhymes, pestushki, korilki, teasers, counting rhymes.

2) Wedding ceremonies. Genres: lamentations (of the bride, girlfriends, relatives), wedding songs (purely ritual), glorification, sentences of the groomsmen.

3)recruitment rituals. Genres: laments, soldiers' songs.

4) funeral rites. Genre: funeral songs.

1.1 The connection between family ritual poetry and ritual and everyday life.

Along with the calendar rituals that were performed by the entire community, practically on the scale of the entire village or hamlet, rituals were also carried out among the peasantry, mainly related to the life of individual families. That's why they are called family-household.

All significant events in the life of peasant families (the birth of a person, marriage, death, and others) were accompanied by special rituals that were greatly developed.

2. Characteristics of the genres of family ritual poetry.

Family ritual poetry is divided into maternity, wedding, recruitment and funeral. Let's take a closer look at each genre.

2.1. Poetry associated with human birth.

A woman acquired special ritual significance during rituals. For a newborn, this ritual symbolized the beginning of his life’s journey. During the ritual, the newborn acquired the status of a human being, and the woman who gave birth acquired the status of a mother, which allowed her to move to another socio-age group - adult women - women, which prescribed her a new type of behavior.

Maternity rites sought to protect the newborn from hostile mystical forces, and also assumed the well-being of the baby in life. A ritual bath of the newborn was performed, and the baby’s health was charmed with various sentences. Our ancestors sincerely believed that not only a child is a carrier of evil spirits, but also his mother poses a danger to the living, since she serves as a conductor between worlds. Through the body of a woman, a child comes into the earthly world. But along with the child, evil spirits can also enter the earthly world. These rites were called “cleansing”, that is, they cleansed from dark forces.

Birth ritesare very ancient in origin. The purpose of these rituals, according to their performers, is to ensure the safety of the newborn, to positively influence the future destiny of a person, to protect him from “damage,” “the evil eye,” and diseases, to make his life prosperous and happy. So, for example, while bathing a newborn in a bathhouse, the midwife said: “Little hands, grow, get fat, become vigorous; legs, walk, carry your body; tongue, speak, feed your head.” It was assumed that this conspiracy would ensure good health and rapid growth for the newborn. Special songs were also dedicated to the newborn. Gradually, maternity rituals die out, and the poetry that accompanies them is forgotten. It can be assumed that their functions to some extent began to be performed by various lullabies. Thus, in one of these songs, a rich life is predicted for a child: “You will walk in gold and wear pure silver.”

2.2. Wedding poetry.

A wedding is a complex ritual, consisting of ritual actions and ritual poetry, expressing the economic, religious, magical and poetic views of the peasants. A wedding is divided into three stages: pre-wedding, wedding and post-wedding.

Pre-wedding activities include matchmaking, bridesmaids, collusion, and bachelorette parties.

For the wedding - the arrival of the wedding train at the bride's house, the ceremony of giving the bride to the groom, departure to the crown, wedding, wedding feast. At the wedding, works of various folklore genres were played: lamentations, songs, sentences, etc. Among the ritual songs, songs of magnificence and corrugations stood out. Great songs glorify the wedding participants: the bride, groom, parents, guests and groomsmen. They include images of appearance, clothing, and wealth. They idealized the world around them and reflected the peasants’ idea of the aesthetic and moral appearance of a person, dreams of a happy, rich life. The main principle of image in these songs is the principle of exaggeration. Great songs give unique portraits of wedding participants.

But a wedding is not only a fact of ethnography, but also a wonderful phenomenon of folk poetry. It was permeated with works of various genres of folklore. It includes proverbs, proverbs, sayings and riddles. However, lamentations, songs and sentences are especially fully represented in wedding rites.

2.2.1. Lamentations of the bride.

Lamentations (wailing, crying, voicing) - recitative song improvisations performed with crying. (If the bride did not know how to lament, then a specially invited mourner did it). Lamentations. performed at a gathering, at a bachelorette party, during the bride’s ritual visit to the bathhouse, before her departure with the groom to the crown. After the wedding, lamentations were not performed. The main content of the lamentations is the difficult experiences, the girl’s sad reflections in connection with her upcoming marriage, farewell to her family, beloved friends, her girlhood, and youth. The lamentations are based on the contrast between the girl’s life in her “native family”, on her “native side”, and her supposed life in a “strange family”, on the “foreign side”. If in the native side there are “green meadows”, “curly birches”, “kind people”, then in the “foreign side” there are “bushy birches”, “humpy” meadows and “cunning” people. If in her own family a girl is treated with love, she is affectionately invited to “oak” tables, “abusive” tablecloths and “sugar” dishes, then in someone else’s family she had to face the unkind attitude of her father-in-law, mother-in-law, and often her husband.

Of course, in the depiction of the family we encounter undoubted features of embellishment and idealization, but in general, wedding lamentations are distinguished by a pronounced realistic orientation. They truthfully depict the experiences of a girl getting married, at every step the features of a specific everyday situation appear, and they talk about ordinary everyday activities in a peasant family.

The lamentations give a fairly complete picture of the everyday life of the peasants. However, this is not their main meaning. Lamentations are one of the brightest genres of folk lyrics. Their main meaning is not detailed description certain phenomena and facts of life (in this case related to the topic of marriage), and in expressing a certain emotional attitude towards them; their main purpose is to express certain feelings.

The main compositional form of lamentation is monologue. Most often, such monologues - the bride's cries - begin with addresses to parents, sisters, brothers and friends. For example: “You, my dear parents!”, My dear sister!”, “Lyuba, dear friend!” etc.

In lamentations, syntactic poaleles are widely used and include all kinds of questions and. exclamations. This enhances their drama and emotional expressiveness.

In lamentations, as in many other genres of folklore, epithets are widely used. However, the lyrical nature of lamentations is especially clearly reflected in the fact that they most often use epithets that are not figurative, but expressive, for example, such as “native side”, “desired parents”, “dear friends”, “dear neighbors”, “stranger” side”, “foreign clan-tribe”, “foreign father-mother”, “great melancholy”, “burning tears”, etc.

A distinctive feature of lamentations is the unusually widespread use of words with diminutive suffixes. Especially often they use such words as “mother”, “father”, “brothers”, “sisters, girlfriends, “neighbors”, “little head”. "burning" "kruchinushka." and etc.

Often all the noted techniques and means of poetic style (syntactic parallelism, words with diminutive suffixes, expressive epithets, appeals and questions) are used simultaneously in lamentations, and then expressiveness of extraordinary power is achieved. An example is a lament in which the girl-bride addresses “darling, auntie” with the following words:

You, my dear, auntie!

Tell me, my dear,

How did you break up?

With my dear father,

With the nurse mother,

With the falcon little brother,

With my dear dear sister,

With aunties, with grandmothers,

With my dear friends,

With souls to the red girls,

With maiden beauty,

With girlish jewelry?

Based on all that has been said, we can conclude that all wedding poetry, all the folklore genres included in it, are closely related to each other in figurative content and purpose. While differing in their poetics, these genres at the same time have features that unite them and represent, in a certain sense, a single artistic system.

Wedding poetry was in the most inextricable connection with its rituals, which had not only great ethnographic, but also a certain aesthetic significance. (Despite the fact that the very fact of marriage was largely approached from a practical point of view, they thought first of all that a good housewife would enter the groom’s family, in general the wedding was perceived not as a practical transaction between the parents of the bride and groom, but as a big and bright holiday. The tone of festivity appeared in everything. Everyone participating in the wedding ceremony looked emphatically festive, dressed for the wedding" in their best outfits. The bride and groom dressed especially elegantly. For the wedding train "they chose the best horses, multi-colored ribbons were woven into their manes, they were harnessed in the best harness; ringing bells were tied to the arches. The groom's chest was decorated with an embroidered towel. There was a lot of singing and dancing at the wedding. All this was done with a clear awareness of the festivity of the wedding ceremony, with a certain focus on entertainment: people specially went out into the street to admire the wedding train ; many came to the wedding just to enjoy the festive decorations and fun.

3. Recruit poetry

Recruitment rites are rites performed among the peasantry in relation to men called up to serve for 25 years in the Russian army during the period of the decree “On Recruitment. The predecessors of recruits in the history of Russia were the so-called “dacha people”. Orders on the number of recruits up to each rural community was informed by the authorities from above. Who exactly to send as a soldier, the communities decided at a general meeting, choosing among persons who had already reached the age of 20. For the entire year remaining before conscription, the recruit candidate was not forced to work, and from the summer they were generally released from all work, so that he would spend more time at conversations and summer games. The recruits (“non-recruits”) were pitied and treated as people whose days of life on earth were already numbered. Before being sent to a medical examination in a provincial or district town, the family guessed by two candles (if he puts out his name - go to the army), a loaf of bread with a pectoral cross baked into it (if it falls over the threshold - to the service), a pectoral cross, which a rooster could choose among other items in fortune-telling at Christmas time, by beans and cards, by rooster crow on the day of departure for conscription, etc. On the day of departure for the commission, the parents blessed the guy in the house and acted out scenes in which the young man allegedly returned from the commission, exempt from conscription. On the morning of the medical examination, recruit candidates washed themselves in the bathhouse with soap from the ablution of the dead, so that the doctor would evaluate them as sick and infirm.

After the medical examination, the remaining 3 to 7 days before conscription, the recruit walked every day with songs at farewell parties, where, among other things, they were chanted as if they were dead. Sometimes recruits competed in horse races. It was believed that the winner would return alive, and those who fell from the horse would certainly die. In the morning on the eve of departure, the recruit went to say goodbye to the dead at the cemetery, and at sunset he said goodbye to his home, to his father’s field and meadow, to the bathhouse, to the bank of his native river or lake. At home, on the eve of departure, the relatives once again wondered from the loaf of bread on the doorstep whether to serve as a recruit in a nearby city or far from home. On the way, the recruit received a blessing from his father and mother, and if he was called up during a war year, then from the village priest. The recruits took with them a supply of food for several days and a handful of native soil in a bag. The mothers of the recruits were escorted to the volost center. At the house and at all important intersections, friends fired blank charges from their guns into the air. Rarely any of the recruits returned home alive after 25 years of service.

After 1868, recruiting rituals were first transformed into rituals of seeing off to the Army or to the active front, but now they are reduced to one farewell party and general customs of seeing off on a long journey. Occasionally, conscripts take with them a piece of paper with the apocryphal “Dream of the Blessed Virgin Mary” or “Prayers of God”, other military prayers, which are believed to protect commanders and colleagues from death and rude attitude towards the conscript. Even less often, on the day of sending to the Army, they are given something to drink water for which similar prayers were said by the healer.

Lamentations have their own area of ideological and artistic interests, their own sphere of emotional impact. The uniqueness of lamentations lies in the fact that the public and social theme in them rarely appears openly; more often, a protest against the existing reality is expressed in the aggravation of personal tragic experiences. Often lamentations (wedding, funeral, recruiting) were performed by special performers: “plakushi”, “cryers”, “cryers”. The performance of laments is facilitated by the fact that the poetic tradition plays a huge role in them, which over the centuries has developed a number of stable formulas, images, compositional techniques, which facilitated the memorization of excerpts of lament and improvisation within the established style, improvisation, which often consisted only of more or less free combination traditional formulas.

4. Funeral poetry

The direct opposite of wedding rituals and the poetry accompanying them in their emotional tonality were funeral rituals with their only poetic genre - lamentations. Funerals and ceremonies dedicated to the most sorrowful, tragic events in a person’s life were filled with crying, screams and sobs from beginning to end.

Funeral rites are very ancient in origin. In them one can note the features of animistic ideas, which was expressed in the cult of veneration of ancestors. It was believed that the souls of the deceased did not die, but moved to another world. It was believed that deceased ancestors could have a certain influence on the fate of the living, so they were afraid of them and tried in every possible way to appease them. This was reflected in funeral rituals. The coffin with the body of the deceased was carried out very carefully, afraid to touch it to the door frame (touch magic), so as not to leave death at home. The veneration of the deceased was reflected in many rituals and customs. During the wake, one place was left unoccupied, as it was believed that the soul of the deceased was present at the wake. And the custom of not saying anything bad about the deceased is still firmly held.

All this was to some extent reflected in the funeral lamentations. No matter what a person was like in life, after death he was called in lamentations only with affectionate words. So, for example, a widow endowed her late husband with the epithets “red “sun”,” “beloved little family,” “breadwinner-family,” “legitimate restrainer,” etc. etc. We find traces of the ancient animistic worldview in lamentations in their anthropomorphic images and methods of personification. In them, for example, one can find anthropomorphic images of death and unfortunate fate.

The connections between funeral lamentations and early forms of thinking “are undeniable. However, it should be recognized that the main value of funeral lamentations for us is not this. Funeral lamentations are especially valuable because they truthfully reflected the life and social and everyday worldview of the Russian peasantry during the 18th-19th centuries centuries, when these lamentations were widely used and when they were written down in large numbers. Expressions of love for the deceased and fear of the future form the main content of all funeral laments. In laments, with enormous poetic power, the tragic situation of a family left without a breadwinner is depicted. Thus, in In one of them, a poor widow says that since the father of the family died, the entire economy has fallen into complete disrepair.

Funeral lamentations are characterized by genuine realism in describing the harsh conditions of peasant life. One such lament about the fate of poor orphans says:

They eat cheeks 2 bread and pieces of leftovers...

How orphaned are the children

They wear frocks

And a shoe, - a shoe,"

The focus of the funeral lamentations is on a peasant family and its plight after the death of its breadwinner. However, over time (especially after the “peasant reform” of 1861, in the era of capitalism), various social motives penetrate more and more into them. Particularly indicative in this regard is the “Lament for the Headman” by the famous Zaonezhsky screamer Irina Andreevna Fedosova (1831-1899). This lament, like all other laments, is based on an absolutely reliable fact.

Funeral lamentations are interesting to us in several respects: 1) traces of ancient ideas about the afterlife; 2) vivid pictures of the real situation of the peasantry, their social and family life; 3) direct emotional attitude towards the deceased. Ideas about the afterlife, associated with the dogmas of Christianity, made it possible in funeral lamentations to address the deceased as alive, but gone, lost, lost. In many songs there are questions to relatives, whether anyone has seen the deceased:

Just think, my beloved, dear matchmaker,

Yes, how I walked along the wide path

Haven't you met a reliable little head there?

The funeral lamentations are very emotional, they directly pour out human grief and depict the hard life of the Russian peasantry. Particularly common are the lamentations of a woman who has lost her husband and understands that she alone cannot cope with the severity of peasant life:

I'm all alone

I'm bitter, I'm bitter

I can't think about it with anyone,

The warm summer has come,

Shit job...

How will I work

My strength is not enough.

The lamentations did not specifically depict social phenomena; there was no social protest in them. The score was actually created anew each time; improvisation is inherent in it.

5. Conclusions

In conclusion, it should be noted that, starting from ancient times, family ritual poetry has been developing, improving and, as a result, simplified.

Poetic works included in the rituals had varied and quite complex functions, as they accompanied various moments of “performance”.

The composition of family ritual folklore is complex. There are four main genres - wedding, valorization, reproach songs and lamentations.

In works of wedding poetry, various artistic means are used: psychological parallelism, appeals, symbols (“green garden” - youth), epithets (“heart friend”), personification, inversion, comparisons, metaphors, sound writing. Techniques of artistic typification are especially clearly manifested when depicting the so-called song heroes and their surrounding life situation. The heroes of the songs are few: “red maiden”, “good fellow”.

Thus, the artistic features of family ritual poetry are so diverse that it will take more than a century to study them. Ritual poetry makes up a huge part of oral folk art.

Anyone who wants to know the past in order to correctly understand the present and future must know folklore, as well as traditional folk art, folk music, and ancient architecture.

6. List of sources used

Russian folk poetry. Reader edited by A.M. Novikova. – M., 2009.

Russian folk poetry. Reader edited by Yu.G. Kruglov. – L., 2009.

Kravtsov N.I., Lazutin S.G. Russian oral folk art. – M., 2010.

Russian folk poetry. Ed. A.M.Novikova.-M., 2010.

Anikin V.P. Russian oral folk art. M., 2008.

Zueva T.V., Kirdan B.P. Russian folklore. Textbook for higher educational institutions. – M., 2009.

Anikin V.P. Russian folklore. M., 2011.

Kruglov Yu.G. Russian ritual songs. M., 2008.

Razumov A. A. Wise word. - M.: Children's Literature Publishing House, 2007.

2. Russian folk poetry. Reader on folklore / Comp. Yu. G. Kruglov. - M.: Higher School, 2011.

3. Russian poetic creativity. Volume II, Book I. / ed. D. S. Likhacheva. M-L.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 2009.

4. Russian folk poetry. Ritual poetry. / Compiled by K. Chistov, B. Chistova. - L.: Fiction, 2009.

1. CONSPIRACY TO FIRE

Father, you are Yar-Fire!

Prince, you are princes of all,

By all lights you are Fire.

Be meek, be merciful!

How hot and ardent you are,

How you burn and scorch

In an open field there are grasses and ants,

Thickets and slums,

The damp oak has underground roots,

In the same way I pray and repent to you,

Father, Yar-Fire,

Burn-sleep from me

All sorts of sorrows and illnesses,

Fears and commotion!

Goy!

2. ASK FORGIVENESS FROM THE WATER

We have come to you, Mother Water,

With a hanging and a guilty head.

Forgive us

Forgive us too,

Water Grandfathers and Great-grandfathers!

Goy!

3. ASK FORGIVENESS FROM THE EARTH

Goy thou, Mother Earth Raw,

You are our dear mother!

You gave birth to us all.

Sorry, Mother Raw Earth,

If they annoyed you in any way!

Goy-Ma!

Bless, Mother, your brother's fruit!

Your fruit is suitable for everything!

Forgive us, Mother Earth,

If they annoyed you in any way!

Goy-Ma!

4. CONSPIRACY TO EARTH

Mother of Cheese Earth!

Give birth to all souls,

For everyone who comes and goes,

On the crippled and the poor,

For the brethren who have and have not!

Goy-Ma!

5. SPELL TO THE WIND

You are a wild wind!

Blow in a good direction

Don't sink our ships,

Don't drive me away from my home,

And I'll bake pancakes

I'll make some porridge,

I will feed you, Vetra!

Goy!

6. CONSPIRACIES FOR RAIN

May God grant me to ride on thick reins!

Water all day

For our barley,

On woman's rye,

For a man's oats,

On girlish buckwheat,

For millet!

Rain, rain, more,

Give me thicker bread!

Goy!

Rainbow-arc, bring us rain!

Goy!

Rainbow-arc,

Stop the rain!

Give me red sunshine

Number of outskirts!

Goy!

7. KO MAKOSH

You are a goy, Mother,

Makosh-Flax,

Field intercessor,

Helper for a woman's business!

You, Mati, commanded us,

So that brother does not scold brother.

You, Mati, save

Save and command

Lively from ergot,

From thunder, from lightning,

Honest birth

From vow and promise,

Golden crown from the curse,

From reproach and sentence!

Goy-Ma!

8. CONSPIRACY FOR THE FROST

Frost, Frost!

Come and eat jelly with us!

Don't hit, Frost, our oats, our rye,

And hit, Frost, the epic and the wren!

Goy!

Frost, Frost,

Don't hit our oats

Oak, maple and woman's flax.

And in the end - your will!

Goy!

Frost, Frost,

Don't freeze our oats,

Eat jelly and make us sweat!

Wolves, bears,

Foxes, martens,

Hares, ermines,

Come and eat jelly with us!

Goy!

9. TO KOLYADA

Behind the mountain behind the steep,

Beyond the fast river,

The forests are dense.

In those forests the fires are burning,

The fires are burning flammable.

People stand around the lights

People are standing caroling!

Goy!

Behind the river behind the fast one

The forests are dense,

Great fires are burning,

There are benches around the lights,

The benches are made of oak.

On those benches there are good fellows,

Good fellows, beautiful girls

They sing songs - carols.

In the middle of them sits an old man,

He sharpens his damask knife.

The cauldron is boiling flammable,

There is a goat standing near the boiler,

They want to slaughter a goat!

Goy!

Sunshine, turn around

Red, light up,

Red Sun, go on the road,

Forget the winter cold!

Goy!

Kolyada-Solstice

Standing right at the gate

He carries the wheel in his hand,

Leads to Holy Rus'.

Light up, Red Sun,

You haven't gone out in the Light!

Goy!

The wheel rolled from Nova Gorod,

From Nova Gorod to Kyiv,

From Kyiv to the Black Sea,

To the Black Sea to the wide,

Whether wide or deep.

Wheel, burn and roll,

Come back in Red Spring!

Goy!

Oh, Avsen, oh, Kolyada!

Is the owner at home?

He's not at home!

He went to the field

Sow arable land.

Sow, sow, arable land,

The ear is spikey!

spiked ear,

That's right, return a hundred!

Goy!

10. CALLS OF SPRING, SPRING CONSPIRACIES

Spring-Mati, come for a walk with us!

Goy-Ma!

Oh, waders, larks,

Fly to us from the far side!

A sandpiper flew from across the sea,

The sandpiper brought nine locks.

Kulik, kulik, close the winter,

Unlock spring, warm summer!

Goy-Ma!

Yes, help me, God,

Yes, help me, Mati,

Call for spring!

For a quiet summer

Vigorously lively,

Zhito and wheat -

All arable land!

Goy-Ma!

God bless

Bless you, Mati,

Call for spring,

Say goodbye to winter!

Winter - in the cart,

Letichko - into the shuttle!

Goy-Ma!

We pray, Lado,

We pray to the Most High God,

Oh, Lado, oh!

Let it blow, Lado,

Let the quiet wind blow!

Oh, Lado, oh!

Let it hit, Lado,

Let the native rain hit!

Oh, Lado, oh!

Goy-Ma!

Spring is coming, coming

On a golden horse

In the green Sayan,

Sitting on the plow,

Hand over the cheese-earth,

With your right hand!

Goy-Ma!

Spring! Red Spring!

Come and join us with joy!

With joy, with great mercy!

With large flax,

With deep roots,

With great bread!

Goy-Ma!

11. TO PERUN

Perun-Father!

Bless you for throwing seeds into the ground!

Give the Mother Earth a drink

Cold dew

So that she brings grain,

shook him up

She returned it to us in a big spike!

Goy!

12. TO YARIL

Svet-Yarilo!

Three Heavens are walking,

Three Heavens are coming!

Take the keys!

Give back the Earth to Cheese -

Let the dew warm!

Let the dew last all spring,

For a dry summer, for a vigorous life!

Goy!

Yarilo!

Get up early

Unlock the Earth

Release the dew -

For a warm summer,

To a lush life,

To the vigorous,

To the spiky!

Goy!

Yarilo walked all over the world,

He gave birth to a field, and gave birth to children for people.

And where Yarilo is with his foot, there is life with a mine,

And wherever Yarilo looks, the ear of corn will leap!

Goy!

Good morning, honest people!

Here the green Yarilo has come to you

On a green horse;

Green as grass

Dewy like dew;

Brought grain of grain

And good news from Heaven!

Goy!

We lead Green Yarila,

We ask for butter and eggs,

We drive away winter - we scatter spring!

Goy!

Lila, burn, give birth!

Have fun with us Lel came

He brought Spring with him!

Goy!

13. TO KOSTROMA

Kostromushka danced,

Kostromushka played out,

I've drunk some wine and poppy seeds;

Suddenly Kostromushka fell -

Kostromushka died

Kostromushka-Kostroma!

They began to converge on Kostroma,

Clean up Kostromushka

Yes, it’s a steal;

How the relatives began to grieve,

Cry over Kostromushka;

And strangers dance and stamp:

“Kostromushka was cheerful,

Kostromushka was good

Kostroma-Kostromushka,

Our white swan!”

Goy-Ma!

14. TO KUPALA

How the sun plays early on Kupala,

Early the sun plays - on good years,

For good years - for warm dew,

For warm dews - for harvests,

For the harvest of bread!

Goy!

Kupala went - village, village.

She covered her eyes with a feather, a feather.

Vitala lads - brow, brow.

She wove wreaths - with silk, silk.

The light in the night was fire, fire.

Kupala was known as warm, warm.

Glory to Kupala - we sing, we sing!

Goy-Ma!

Today we have Kupala - glory!

The Gods themselves lit the fire - glory!

And they called all the spirits to themselves - glory!

Only Yarila and Kupala are missing - glory!

Yarilo went to lay fire - glory!

I went to Kupala to look at life - glory!

Whose life is the best - glory!

Glory to him for brewing beer and marrying his sons!

Glory to him to drive the burner and give away his daughters!

Goy-Ma!

15. FOR AUTUMN MAKOSHYA

Mother Most Pure,

Get rid of the torment

Take the annoyances away from me,

Sanctify my life!

Goy-Ma!

Mother Field Intercessor,

Come to us, help us sow, reap,

Clean up the bins!

Goy-Ma!

Reaper, reaper, give me my snare,

On the pestle, on the hammer,

On a crooked spindle!

Goy-Ma!

Nyvka, Nyvka, give me your snare!

Let the ear be born,

Like the red girl's hair !

Goy-Ma!

16. ON AUTUMN GRANDFATHERS

Holy Grandfathers, we call you!

Holy Grandfathers, fly to us!

Goy!

Holy Dziady, you came here,

They drank and ate

Lyatsitsa, take care of yourself!

Goy!

Grandfather, go before lunch!

You are also a giver to us!

Accept this sacrifice sacredly!

Goy!

17. TO VELES

Breadwinner! Your holiday has come.

We all gathered to You with bread and salt.

Give us health and a good life.

Let our bread be born and our livestock multiply.

Save our houses from fire

And from all evil spirits.

Glory to You!

Goy!

18. TO THE DEVIL

Master Lesnoy!

Stand before me like a leaf before the grass,

Not black, not green, but just like me!

I brought you a red egg!

Goy!

Master Lesnoy, Mistress Lesnoy!

Give me for the fruit, for the family!

Take it to good health!

Goy!

19. TO THE YARD OWNER

Father Dvorovoy, don’t go,

Don't destroy the yard, don't destroy the cattle,

Show no way to the dashing!

Goy!

20. CONSPIRACY ON KIKIMORA

Oh you goy, brownie Kikimora,

Get out of the house as soon as possible!

Goy!

21. FOR THE DECEASED

The body is in the hole - the soul is with us,

We're heading home - uphill!

Goy!

22. FOR WOUND HEALING

At sea on the island,

On Buyan Island

The white-flammable stone Alatyr lies,

Father of all stones.

On that stone Alatyr

The red maiden sits

Seamstress,

Holds a damask needle,

Threads an ore-yellow silk thread,

He sews up bloody wounds.

I'm talking to [name] for a cut!

Bulat, leave me alone,

And you, blood, stop flowing!

Goy!

23. CHARMS FOR LIVESTOCK

Veles God of beasts!

Don't leave the cattle

On the way and on the road,

Go without any obstacles!

The key and the lock are strong words!

Goy!

Our brave Yarilo,

Veles God of beasts!

You save our cattle

In the field and beyond the field,

In the forest and beyond the forest,

Under the bright moon,

Under the red sun

From a predatory wolf,

From the fierce bear,

From the evil beast!

Goy!

24. SONG OF BREAD

And we sing this song to Bread - glory!

We eat bread, and we give honor to bread - glory!

Glory to old people for amusement!

Glory to good people for listening!

The grain rolled on velvet - glory!

Is that still Burmite grain - glory!

The grain rolled to the yacht - glory!

Large pearls with yakhont - glory!

A good groom and bride - glory!

The Blacksmith is coming from the forge - glory!

The Blacksmith carries three hammers - glory!

Blacksmith, Blacksmith, forge me a crown - glory!

Forge me a crown, both gold and new - glory!

From the remains - a golden ring - glory!

Goy!

25. FOR A WEDDING

I’m walking through the garden, laying out a towel,

I’ll go ahead and spread out the canvases!

Glory, my Lado!

A pike swims from the lake,

She carries her tail from Nova Gorod,

She has silver scales,

What silver, gilded!

Glory, my Lado!

The blacksmith is coming from the forge,

The Blacksmith carries a golden crown,

He carries a wedding ring.

I should be married in that crown,

I should get engaged with that ring!

Glory, my Lado!

Goy-Ma! Glory!

My silver charm,

Delivered on a golden platter!

Who should drink the spell, who should be healthy?

Young people drink for their health,

To your health, to your health!

Goy!

Glory to Rod!

Recorded vlkh. Veleslav

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