“Holkhati as over a Hunted Hare”: Interpreting the shouts over the corpse of Osip Volokhov, killed by crowd in Uglich on the 15th of May 1591

In the Investigative Case on the death of Tsarevich Dmitry in 1591, among the records of oral testimonies of eyewitnesses and participants of the Uglich drama (“interrogatory speeches”), there are accounts by Osip Volokhov’s mother Vasilisa. They record an episode of the crowd’s holkhanije (horkhanie) over her son’s corpse, the meaning of which remains unclear. The paper is dedicated to the analysis of the etymology and symbolism of this word, which designates a shout which either announced a successful hunt or was part of a traditional martial dance, lomanie (‘breaking’), which preceded a wall-to-wall fight. Exclamations and ‘choruses’ mentioned in written sources in relation to ‘breaking’ are analyzed, and a hypothesis is put forward regarding the archetypal connection between martial dancing and hunting in the ritual mockery of a corpse.

1. Bazlov, G.N. (2002), Derevenskaya artel’ kulachnykh boitsov-rukopashnikov: Opyt rekonstruktsii: Po materialam severo-zapadnoi Rossii [Village artel of fist fighters: The experience of reconstruction. Based on the materials of north-western Russia], Ph.D. Thesis (History), Moscow, Russia.

2. Chervinskii, P. (2019), “On the Motivating Relation of Lexical-Semantic Derivatives (One Slavonic Root as an Example). *Choland its Derivatives”, Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia lingvistica Rossica, vol. 18, pp. 39–60.

3. Chistyakova, A.A. (2016), “East Slavic war dance: from fighting to art”, Nauchnye trudy Moskovskogo gumanitarnogo universiteta, vol. 2, pp. 42–44.

4. Efimov, S.V. (2015), Evropeiskaya okhota i okhotnich’e oruzhie ot Srednevekov’ya do kontsa XVIII v. [European hunting and hunting weapons from the Middle Ages to the end of the 18th century], Atlant, Moscow, Russia.

5. Kozlyakov, V.N. (2009), Lzhedmitrii I [False Dmitry I], Molodaya gvardiya, Moscow, Russia.

6. Levkievskaya, E.E. (1996), “Slavic ideas about the ways of communication between this and that light”, in Agapkina, T.A., ed., Kontsept dvizheniya v yazyke i kul’ture: sbornik nauchnykh statei [The concept of movement in language and culture. Collected scientific articles], Indrik, Moscow, Russia, pp. 85–211. (Biblioteka Instituta slavyanovedeniya i balkanistiki RAN)

7. Levkievskaya, E.E. (2004), “Aggression as a form of protective magic in Slavic traditional culture”, in Sharonov, I.A., ed., Agressiya v yazyke i rechi [Verbal aggression], RGGU, Moscow, Russia, pp. 81–105.

8. Levkievskaya, E.E. (2004), “Eastern Slavs have ideas about the ‘other world’ ”, in Slavyanskii al’manakh, 2003 [The Slavic almanac], Moscow, Russia, pp. 342– 367.

9. Maksimov, S.G. (2015), Russkie voinskie traditsii [Russian military traditions], Veche, Moscow, Russia. (Nevedomaya Rus’)

10. Mekhnetsov, A.M. (2014), Narodnaya traditsionnaya kul’tura. Stat’i i materialy: K 150-letiyu Sankt-Peterburgskoi konservatorii [Folk traditional culture. Articles and materials. On the 150th anniversary of the St. Petersburg Conservatory], Nestor-Istoriya, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

11. Morozov, I.A. and Sleptsov, I.S. (2004), Krug igry: Prazdnik i igra v zhizni severnorusskogo krest’yanina (XIX–XX vv.) [The circle of the game. Celebration and play in the life of the North Russian peasant (19th – 20th centuries)], Indrik, Moscow, Russia. (Traditsionnaya dukhovnaya kul’tura slavyan. Sovremennye issledovaniya)

12. Pochebut, L.G. (2005), Sotsial’nye obshchnosti: Psikhologiya tolpy, sotsiuma, etnosa [Social communities. Psychology of crowds, society, and ethnicity], Izdatel’stvo Sankt-Peterburgskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

13. Roshchin, S.K. (1990), “Crowd psychology: An analysis of past research and the challenges of today”, Psikhologicheskii zhurnal, vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 3–16.

14. Sokolova, A.N. (2011), “The Cossack dances as a cultural phenomenon”, Vestnik gosudarstvennogo Adygeiskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriya 2: Filologiya i iskusstvovedenie, iss. 4, pp. 191–196.

15. Stolyarova, L.V. and Belousov, P.V. (2022), “The government of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich in an attempt to overcome the dynastic crisis”, in Kashtanov, S.M., ed., Akroterii: Problemy istorii, iskusstvovedeniya, arkhitektury i restavratsii: Sbornik statei k 70-letiyu A.G. Mel’nika [Acroterium: Problems of history, art history, architecture, and restoration. Collected articles on the 70th anniversary of A.G. Melnik], Moscow, Russia.