The article examines the Kazakh childbirth rituals, which includes ritual practices in the prenatal period, during the delivery and in the postnatal period. The semantics and symbolism of prohibitions and regulations related to a pregnant woman are described in detail, special attention is paid to the demonological concepts of spirits and demons that can harm a woman and a child during the border, liminal period. Based on ethnographic records and field materials, the author describes the ritual and social functions of the marked participants in these rituals (the midwife, the “umbilical cord mother” or the one who was assigned to cut the umbilical cord of a newborn, the mother’s brother), as well as the functions of occasional participants – guests visiting a pregnant woman or a woman in labor. The work describes in detail the most important cultural codes of the Kazakh rituals of the childbirth and infant period – spatial (yurt locus), material (functions of the child’s first clothes, cradle, various amulets), animalistic (images of a dog and a horse), nutritional (food that produces the health of mother and child, forbidden food, as well as joint festive meals with the participation of relatives and other guests as an act of ritual return of the mother and child to society). An integrated consideration of the Kazakh rituals related to a child against the background of a broader Turkic context (in comparison with the traditions of the Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Altaians, etc.) allows to trace changes in the structure of certain rituals and their reduced elements and, as a result, gain a more complete understanding of their current state, which is also the subject of the article.
The article discusses the linguistic theory of speech genres and the heuristic possibilities of its application in Folklore studies using the material of fairy tales recorded by professional collectors in interviews. The question is raised about the speech-genre status of a fairy tale and a performer’s commentary, and the question of the relationship between these types of text and the factors that determine these relationships. Using the methodological tools of the theory of speech genres, the tendency characteristic of the “informative dialogue” (make-know discourse, “dialogue-1” according to N.D. Arutyunova) to place the actual folklore narrative in the “capsule” of an autobiographical story about the history of the narrator’s acquaintance with the text is considered. As a result of the analysis, I qualify the storyteller’s “commentary” as an element (microgenre) not of a fairy tale, but of the macrogenre “interview/ conversation”, breaking through into the folklore text. At the same time, I describe conversational discourse as a speech environment in which the folklore text is immersed and within which it exists and is explicated. Thus, theoretical approaches to the concept of speech genres can be useful in the studies of oral tradition texts, allowing folklore texts to be included in a single general field of research.
This article analyzes the problem of studying a particular type of literary gathering, namely poetry readings, which can be formulated using two questions: 1) why do people gather for poetry readings, 2) what methodology would be appropriate in studying these gatherings? Answers to these questions are given from the standpoint of cultural anthropology, using the methodological tools of sociology and folklore studies. Reading practices vary depending on the goals, structure, and composition of participants. The author examines such reading practices as Tsvetaeva’s bonfires (gatherings of readers) and readings of contemporary poetry (gatherings of authors), which, despite all the differences, possess the spirit of communitas (participatory anti-structurality), allowing communities to “reassemble” and reactualize identity in the rituals of readings. Participants adjust their perception differently depending on the type of gathering. Tsvetaeva’s bonfires require “sincerity” – a demonstration of empathy and special emotional intensity, appealing to the main goal – expanding the network of the community, strengthening the cultural status of the event. Contemporary poetry evenings unfold through carnival irony. They are characterized by anti-behavior, that is, a conscious violation of social norms. Both forms of poetry gatherings transmit the spirit of communitas, according to W. Turner.
The article analyzes urban romances united by a motif that can be conditionally called “sweetheart’s wedding”: the character is present at the wedding of his beloved with a rival (or the girl sees the marriage of a loved one). The center of interest is the popular romance “Ah, zachem eta noch’” (“Oh, why this night”), the plot of which has been most developed over the century of its existence. Other popular songs are “V lunnom siyanii sneg serebritsya” (“The snow turns silver in the moonlight”), “Zachem ty, bezumnaya, gubish” (“Why are you ruining, crazy”), “Nad serebryanoi rekoi” (“Over the silver river”), “Ona, kak statuya, stoyala” (“She stood like a statue”). A comparison of recordings, publications in songbooks, and field recordings of these songs shows that plots based on a common central (or nuclear) motif, despite stylistic features and differing descriptions of the exposition, are implemented in a similar way in different songs: they have an invariant plot scheme, and tend to reduce the lyrical part (descriptions of the character’s lamentations) and to increase the lyric epic (tragic ending). The presence of common motifs makes it possible to contaminate songs within and outside the analyzed group of romances, but, with rare exceptions, without going beyond the invariant plot. The songs combine two wedding motivations, which correspond to two points of view on the situation: “forced marriage” and betrayal.
The foundation of American poet Louise Glück’s work is rooted in myth, with each of her collections exploring a new narrative. Drawn to the use of archetypes, Glück’s poetry has inspired extensive research focused on her engagement with myth.
A few studies have analyzed the biblical narrative in her collection The Wild Iris (1992). Scholars often examine the collection through the lens of the biblical myth associated with Eden and the first humans, Adam and Eve, arguing that Glück offers a reinterpretation of the biblical myth.
However, the research problem lies in the fact that “The Wild Iris” lacks explicit elements that can definitively point to specific biblical myths. Thus, what should be understood as a biblical narrative remains an open question. Nevertheless, certain allusions appear in the collection, subtly directing the reader toward biblical imagery.
In “The Wild Iris”, the space of the garden becomes a central image – a unifying element that connects the poems and shapes the collection into a cohesive cycle. The author suggests in the article interpreting this as the topos of the locus amoenus (E.R. Curtius). Curtius’s definition reveals the multidimensionality of this topos, which is characteristic of the garden in “The Wild Iris”, manifesting through its inherent duality. Thus, the article examines the garden ton only as stylistic device, but also as a structural element of the poetic cycle within American poetry of the second half of 20th century.
The article is based on the data of the author’s study of the collective memory of Moscow residents about the 1990s, conducted in 2023–2024 using forty-five in-depth interviews, the purpose of which was to describe and analyze the mechanisms of construction and functioning of the oral narrative about the 1990s in Russia. One of the most important identified patterns is that in almost every oral narrative about the 1990s, a special place is given to the figures of people who, in the informant’s opinion, suffered the most from the social changes of the era. Because of that our informants may devalue their personal experience; in such cases the image of the life of the “real” victims of the era (always representing some external community in relation to informants and their environment, which does not allow them to identify themselves with them), invariably positioned as typical of the 1990s, comes to the forefront. The reason for this phenomenon is probably the semantic load of the image of the Russian nineties created by the media, referring to a set of conventions associated with it and ensuring a gradual shift in the vector of conversation from the informant’s memories of his personal life to a description of the conventionally typical experience of life of the era.
The article examines nine Soviet animated screen adaptations of epic folklore in the context of the influence of state ideology on them. The studied category of animated screenplays is characterized by almost complete preservation of the original folklore plot. To understand the degree of ideological influence on animated screen adaptations of epic folklore in the USSR, it is necessary to look at what versions of the folklore work were not chosen for adaptation, that is, they were not suitable for ideological criteria. Those versions of the story in which the heroes performed feats without regard to the princely power were more preferable for screen adaptation than those in which the heroes’ actions were dictated by a representative of the ruling class. Instead of plots where the heroes are driven by religious motivation, Soviet animation directors chose variants with secular motivation for screen adaptation. Animated bogatyrs are idealized, acting as personifications of the entire Soviet society. Whereas their opponents may refer to real foreign policy opponents of the period of the creation of the screen adaptation.
