http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2784-8090
E-mail: yagafova@yandex.ru Tel.: +7 (846) 207-88-77
59, M. Gorky str., Samara, 443099, Russian Federation
DSc in History, Professor, Head of the Department of Philosophy, History and Theory of World Culture and Art, Samara State University of Social Sciences and Education
Igor G. Petrov
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8664-3004
E-mail: ipetrov62@yandex.ru Tel.: +7 (347) 272-29-79
6, K. Marx str., Ufa, 450077, Russian Federation
PhD in History, Leading Researcher, R. G. Kuzeev Institute for Ethnological Studies, Ufa Federal Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences
The research was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research in the framework of project No. 20–09–00127, “Religious Practices of the Chuvash: Traditions and Their Transformation (Late Twentieth — First Decades of the Twenty First Century).”
This article examines the transformation of the Chuvash ritual practice of Uchuk — a field prayer, held in the summer during the ripening of the harvest — in the conditions of social modernization and under the influence of globalization. The purpose of the study is to determine the precise nature, forms and reasons for this transformation of the ritual, and to examine its local manifestations in different regions of the unbaptized Chuvash, and the role of the Uchuk ritual in the religious life of the community. The research approaches the ritual as a socially conditioned phenomenon subject to changes caused by social transformations. The work is based on the authors’ field materials collected in 2001–2022 in the villages of unbaptized Chuvash in the Samara region, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan.
The results of the study show a significant transformation of the ritual (its reduction, festivalization, memorialzation) over the past twenty years due to changes in the conditions of its functioning and the religious identity of its participants. This period has seen the preservation and further development of Uchuk; its revitalization has turned out to be possible because the meaning of the ritual is significant for its participants. The revived Uchuk has shown its relevance in modern conditions; here traditions and innovations have converged as interpenetrating aspects of culture. Traditions are maintained in their verbal, actional, and numerical codes, and in the space and time of the ritual. The new aspect of Uchuk is as a ritual-festival which serves both the purpose of consolidating the rural community and presenting it in a multicultural environment.
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