E-mail: mary-andr@mail.ru Tel.: +7 (495) 938-08-51
32a, Lenin av., Moscow, 119991, Russian Federation
PhD in Philology, Researcher, N. N. Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences
In the spatial dimension of Slavic funerary-memorial rites, various movements of ritual objects, mythological characters and ritual participants may be observed, but the global coming together of the worlds of the living and the dead stands out. In the complex of these rituals three such moments of coming together take place, expressed in particular beliefs, mythological representations and rituals. First, it was believed that death and the souls of those who were previously deceased gradually approach the house, enter it and take the newly deceased to the
“other world.” Second, at funerals, relatives bring tables with memorial food toward the funeral procession, imitating the future meeting in the “other world” of the newly deceased with their ancestors; these souls crowd toward the procession and mix with it at crossroads and at the gates of the cemetery. Third, the deceased are all invited home for personal and calendar commemorations. Other convergences of the worlds of the dead and the living also occur in other ritual and calendar contexts. These include ancestors’ home visits at Easter and Christmas; the dangerous return of an unsettled soul or the auspicious visit of a benevolent spirit, such as visits to children by deceased mothers; and the final indwelling of the soul in a new baby during reincarnation.
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