“The distribution of pain and fear” in boy’s folk plays of the mid-20th-century (as exemplified of Vitegra and adjacent territories)

The article investigates some specific folk games that helped boys to learn to tolerate pain and fear since early age. The study is based on the records of the author’s own experience, which happened to have occurred in the decade when the folk tradition was actively declining in course of globalization trends. This category of games is rooted in the archaic era, when the ability to tolerate pain and fear since childhood was needed for the initiation rite.