E-mail: sergejluda@mail.ru Tel.: +7 (8212) 20-17-02
26, Kommunisticheskaya str., Syktyvkar, Komi Republic, 167982, Russian Federation
PhD in Philology, Researcher, Folklore Department, Institute of Language, Literature and History, Federal Research Center, Komi Scientific Center, Uralic Division, Russian Academy of Sciences
Research for this article was carried out within the framework of the plan of the folklore sector on the topic of “The Folklore Poetics of the Peoples of the Russian European North in Synchrony and Diachrony” (2021–2025) (No. 121051400044-2).
This article analyzes ethnographic material from the last third of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries which contains information about the rite of animal sacrifice among the Zyryans. This ritual was practiced in the Orthodox rural community of Komi until the 1930s. In Christianity, animal sacrifice has no official, confessional status and is usually excluded from religious rites. We do not have a single record of the practice made by scholars, which has led to the use of documentary and artistic works as sources; these include travel notes and local and ethnographic essays published in separate editions and in periodicals. In addition, accounts appear in manuscripts held in archival collections. The author determines the sources of information using a biographical method and textual analysis. She finds that only three descriptions were based on personal observation. The rest are dominated by compilations of written accounts, oral messages and published materials which tend to present sacrifice as an ancient custom of the Zyryans. The connection with Orthodox culture is ignored, the local features of the rite are passed over, and several types and variants of the ritual are confused. These materials became the main initial source of scholarly information about animal sacrifice in the Komi tradition and on their basis researchers further developed the mistaken idea of the pre-Christian origin of the ritual.
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