E-mail: vlaskiny@mail.ru Tel.: +7 (863) 250-98-17
41, Chekhova av., Rostov-on-Don, 344006, Russian Federation
Senior Researcher, Laboratory of Philology, Department of Humanities, Federal Research Center of the Southern Scientific Center, Russian Academy of Sciences
The article was prepared as a part of the Project of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research No. 21–09–43097, “Don Cossacks in the USSR.”
This article examines the changes in the traditional transmission of sacred knowledge among the Don Cossacks in the areas of healing and witchcraft. It involves the practice of professional and reproductive magic, for which the sharp opposition of masculine and feminine principles was previously characteristic. The causes of this phenomenon lie in the Russian social context of the first half of the twentieth century, namely the destruction of the estate system and the Soviet modernization of society. In the Don Cossack Region, the situation was aggravated by the marginalization of the Cossacks and the decline of the male population, as a result of which feminization embraced many aspects of everyday life and traditional culture. The research is based on field data from 1998–2008 recorded in several districts of the Rostov and Volgograd regions.
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