E-mail: olgabelova.inslav@gmail.com Tel.: +7 (495) 938-17-80
32a, Leninsky av., Moscow, 119334, Russian Federation
DSc in Philology, Principal Research Fellow, Department of Ethnolinguistics and Folklore, Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
This article examines variants of Russian and Belarusian historical legends about the struggle against military opponents including Lithuanians, Swedes, Tatars, Turks, and Frenchmen. In one story recorded in the Smolensk region, there is the surprising statement that the invaders were afraid of cannabis, and that this provided residents with the opportunity to escape from them by hiding among these plants. This article analyzes this folklore motif from an ethnolinguistic perspective. It considers the stereotypical image of an ethnic “alien” as a demonic character; ideas about cannabis as a talismanic plant; and the dialect associated with agrarian rituals and magical apotropaic rituals. This suggests possible ways the motif originated, as well as how it was conditioned by the local system of folk beliefs and reinforced by dialect and phraseology (paremiology). The main body of folklore, linguistic and ethnographic data which served as the basis for the study consists of archival materials from the early twentieth century and field records of the late twentieth century. The article also presents textual analysis of several literary sources that contain information about the folkloric “cannabis text,” and shows how, during the process of borrowing and interpretation, mythologems related to a culture’s linguistic symbols may be generated.
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