https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0951-2590
E-mail: istorik8881@mail.ru Tel.: +7 (3852) 20-54-32
55, Molodezhnaya str., Barnaul, 656031 Russian Federation
PhD in History, Associate Professor, Altai State Pedagogical University
Irina Yu. Aksenova
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7831-7815
E-mail: a_history@mail.ru Tel.: +7 (383) 330-05-37
2, Pirogov str., Novosibirsk, 630090, Russian Federation
Junior Researcher, Novosibirsk State University; 17, Lavrentiev av., Novosibirsk, 630090, Russian Federation Junior Researcher, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences
The research was conducted within the framework of the State Assignment of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation in the Field of Scholarly Activities (project No. FSUS‑2020–0021).
This article examines the use of elements of Shrovetide rituals in creating the “Russian Winter Farewell” holiday in 1953–1985 as a practice of the new Soviet holiday culture in the Soviet village. It considers this process as a communicative act involving the organization and conduct of these celebrations in the region’s villages; the structure and semantics of the new ritual practices; and their connection with traditional East Slavic Maslenitsa rites. There is a need to understand the Soviet practice of constructing public holidays, something which has been poorly studied, because many of them have become part of contemporary culture. The article is based on interviews the authors conducted during many years of work in villages of Altai Krai, mainly among the East Slavic population, as well as on photographs, publications in the regional press, and other documentary sources. The authors conclude that the new holidays have a dual nature, as they incorporate many practices and meanings characteristic of Maslenitsa, such as celebrating the change of seasons, renewal, agricultural fertility, etc., but leaving out things like matrimonial relations and fertility. At the same time, the Seeing Off Winter holiday was not overloaded with explicit ideological meaning such as loyalty to the Party or the achievements of labor. The introduction of a new holiday necessitated a process of communication “from above” to legitimize it; in turn, rural people received a platform for communication “from below” through their participation in it. It is important for further research to take into account that the motives for constructing new holidays were not limited to anti-religious goals, and the creation of the Seeing Off Winter holiday did not lead to the irrevocable loss of Maslenitsa rites.
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Rol’f M. (2009) Sovetskie massovye prazdniki [Soviet Mass Holidays]. Moscow: ROSSPEN. In Russian.
Yavnova L. A. (2016) Rekonstruktsiya sibirskogo karnavala na primere Maslenitsy v teatralizovannom obryadovom prazdnike [Reconstruction of the Siberian Carnival on the Example of Maslenitsa in a Theatrical Ritual Festival]. In: Global’nye problemy i razvitie sovremennogo obshchestva: Mater. Mezhdunar. nauch.-prakt. konf. [Global Problems and the Development of Modern Society: Proc. of the Intern. Scientific-Practical Conf.]. Biisk: AltGTU. Pp. 85–88. In Russian.
Yavnova L. A. (2021) Prezentatsiya prazdnichnogo kalendarya v ustnykh etnograficheskikh istochnikakh i periodicheskoi pechati vo vtoroi polovine XX — nachale XXI vv. [Presentation of the Holiday Calendar in Oral Ethnographic Sources and Periodicals in the Second Half of the Twentieth — Early Twenty-First Centuries]. In: Makar’evskie chteniya. Mater. XVI mezhdunar. nauch. prakt. konf. [Makaryevsky Readings. Proc. of the XVI Intern. Scientific-Practical Conf.]. Ed. by V. G. Babin. Gorno-Altaisk: RIO GAGU. Pp. 346–351. In Russian.
Zolotova T. N. (2003) Maslenichnye obryady sibirskikh kazakov [Shrovetide Rites of the Siberian Cossacks]. In: Etnografiya Altaya i sopredel’nykh territorii [Ethnography of Altai and Adjacent Territories]. Vol. 5. Pp. 101–104. In Russian.
Kolyaskina E. A., Aksenova I. Yu. “Reconstruction” of Maslenitsa Rites Among the Russian Population of Altai Territory in the 1950s–1980s in Light of Communication Between the Authorities and Rural Society. Traditional Culture. 2023. Vol. 24. No. 4. Pp. 47–59. In Russian.