https://orcid.org/0009-0007-6727-8233
E-mail: ms.polina1989@mail.ru Tel.: +7 (8212) 20-17-02
26, Kommunisticheskaya str., Syktyvkar, Komi Republic, 167982, Russian Federation
Junior Research Associate, Folklore Sector, Institute of Language, Literature and History, the Federal Research Center “Komi Scientific Center, Uralic Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences”
Yulia A. Krasheninnikova
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2045-4486
E-mail: krasheninnikova@rambler.ru Tel.: +7 (8212) 20-17-02
26, Kommunisticheskaya str., Syktyvkar, Komi Republic, 167982, Russian Federation
PhD in Philology, Head, Folklore Sector, Institute of Language, Literature and History, the Federal Research Center “Komi Scientific Center, Uralic Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences”
The work was carried out within the framework of the planned research topic “Poetics of folklore of the peoples of the European North of Russia in synchrony and diachrony” (reg. No. 121051400044-2).
Spiritualistic rituals initially emerged in Russia in an urban environment, actively penetrating into rural areas only in the beginning of the twentieth century. This article analyzes stories about spiritualistic divination recorded in 2008–2022 from the Russian factory population of the Komi Republic, descendants of immigrants from Vologda, Vyatka, Kostroma and other provinces of Russia. The authors consider the procedure of divination with a saucer and enumerate the spirits that are summoned. Analysis of stories about spiritualistic practices of the factory population shows that despite their urban origin, such divinations, are, in the factory environment, close to Christmas peasant fortune-telling practices, as they are mainly aimed at satisfying the fortune-teller’s desire to know his or her fate. The stories about spiritistic divination, as well as the ritual itself, have a clear structure, and are similar at the level of text construction and stylistic means (including stable linguistic constructions and formulas for addressing a spirit). The article also analyzes some lexical units and linguistic constructions that are found in folklore texts. Of special interest is the group of verbs denoting “action” that characterize movements of the saucer and needle used in divination
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