E-mail: melek@eu.spb.ru Tel.: +7 (812) 328-41-41
3, University emb., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation
PhD in History, Head of the Department of Eastern Slavs and Peoples of European Russia, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences
This article concerns the history of the Mezen horse, a zoormorphic ornament century it has been used by craftsmen to decorate wooden items, especially spinning and 21st centuries. The spinning wheel, the main bearer from the village Palashchelye in the Mezen Region of Arkhangelsk Province. From the beginning of the 19th wheels. In the beginning of the present century the Mezen horse became the symbol of Palashchelye painting and the main local brand for the city of Mezen and its environs. The article examines the history of Palashchel crafts and discusses the transformation of its social, economic and cultural significance during the 20th of Mezen decoration, has ceased to fulfill a utilitarian role, becoming instead a focus of family memories and cultural value, interpreted both in terms of local identity and artistic significance. As a result of this change, as well as the migration of the population from villages to cities, spinning wheels with Mezen painting began to be associated with one’s abandoned birthplace and the rural world in general. This has given rise to a special kind of sensitivity that entails special skills of interpretation as well as love. Two different modes of such sensibility are discussed in the article — the mode of family memory and the mode of esthetic value — that are interwoven, endowing the Mezen horse with emotional meaning and broad popularity among the modern urban inhabitants of Mezen and its environs.
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