E-mail: mvgask@mail.ru Tel.: +7 (4822) 33-15-01
1-1, Smolenskiy side-str., Tver’, 170100, Russian Federation
PhD (Pedagogics), associate professor, Tver’ Branch, State Academy of Slavic Culture
This paper is based on folklore and ethnographic evidences of remaining relicts of sacred attitude to plants in the ritualism of Christmastide in some parts of Tver’ region. These evidences have been received both by the author herself during long-term folklore-ethnographic fi eld-work at Tver’ region and also found out in printed scholarly literature. Due to the stated theme, the article deals with evidences of the winter traditional calendar agricultural customs of Tver’ region equipped with vegetation attributes and symbols.
The article is built consistently in accordance with the calendar festive dates of Christmastide. Evidences of archaic calendar phenomenon of the vegetation cult are selected both for wild-growing and cultivated plants. Presentation of the folklore-ethnographic data is intended to the systematization of the material connected with the ritual-magic and oracular function of plants in the rite. In particular, there are ritual episodes revealed in Christmastide and Shrovetide where trees are fi guring as a ceremonial center and take the role of the ritual tree. The other side of the vegetation cult represented in the article is connected with the sacred status of defi nite plants in the calendar of Tver’. That status allows involving them in the ceremony as a sacred locus or sacred attribute what should provide effi ciency of magic spells and prophecy. Besides that, the article considers mythopoeic echoes of the traditional perception of plants as symbolic substitutes of a human remaining in the rites.
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