SMOKE CONCEPT IN THE KALEVALAIC POETIC LANGUAGE: PARALLELS IN RUSSIAN SONG FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH-WEST OF RUSSIA

An oral Kalevalaic image of a bonfire (which can be opposed to wildfire in the boreal forest and to military blazes) is deeply rooted in the intangible culture of Karelians and Finns on the territories adjacent to the border with Russia due to traditional economic activities (slashand-burn agriculture, kindling fires during fishing in the darkness, stove heating). In the poetic word of Kalevalaic songs of different genres and their verbal manifestation, signal dimension of the fire is represented by the smoke (in Finnish and in closely related Karelian language dialects and Izhorian is it named ‘savu’ with possible phonematic variation in declension). Smoke is often characterized by a constant epithet “thick” (‘sakea’ with phonematic variation in Baltic-Fennic languages). Fire and smoke appear in crystallized typical scenes in different genres of oral poetry in Kalevala meter, i.e. in both ballads with plots, in wedding ceremony songs, and in non-ritual poetry. Verbalization is constructed through a two-and three-stage antithesis often. Smoke also serves as a visual referent for a “merged” simile, depicting a rapid movement of an epic character of ballads and heroic-mythic runes, and even fantastic creatures in the spells and incantations. For oral poetry in the Kalevala meter “merged” similes are verbalized through a special Essive case.

Semantic parallels from the North-Russian oral texts of the elderly style are analyzed for the imagery associated with smoke. The conclusion is made about similar position of the concept of smoke in the linguistic world-views of diverse ethnic population, residing in neighboring territories.