E-mail: sergejluda@mail.ru Tel.: +7 (8212) 24-55-64
26, Kommunisticheskaya str., Syktyvkar, 167982, Russian Federation
Researcher, Folklore Department, Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Komi Scientific Center, Uralic Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences
Research for this article was carried out within the framework of the plan of the folklore sector on the topic of “The Folklore Poetics of the Peoples of the Russian European North in Synchrony and Diachrony” (2021–2025) (reg. No. 121051400044–2).
This article deals with the problem of defining the genre of oral prose about so-called “local history” on the basis of folkloric and ethnographical materials from the village of Noshul in the Priluzsky district of the Komi Republic which contain information about the slaughter of animals (“grabbing meat”) on Ilyin Day (St. Elijah’s Day). The aim of the present study is to reveal features of the functioning and text formation of stories about animal sacrifice and to define the role of the “meat grabbing / animal slaughtering” motif in these texts. The analysis allows us to conclude that the collective memory does not preserve the story of the sacrifice on Ilyin Day, but the fact of animal slaughtering / grabbing meat, which in the oral tradition is curtailed to a motive / utterance and acts as a plot-forming motive of narratives about Ilyin Day. The texts are quite diverse in size, form, and content, but what unites them is the model of transmission: the text is created at the moment of reproduction on the basis of the “meat grabbing / animal slaughtering” motif and is a confirmation of the fact that animal sacrifice took place on Ilyin Day. The following elements are connected with the content of the text (local history) and its structure (retelling of the events of the past): the indication of the place and time of the events; reference to the source of information; and confirmation of its credibility, which in general corresponds to the genre of legend.
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