E-mail: petel@yandex.ru Tel.: +7 (342) 239-63-74
15, Bukireva str., Perm, 614990, Russian Federation
PhD (Philology), associate professor of the Department of Russian Literature, Perm State University
This paper is fi nancially supported by grant of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Government of Perm Region, project No. 17–14–59009 “Folklore oral stories of Northern Kama the river’s basin: universal, regional, local (based on the texts of the second half of the 20th — the early 21st century)”.
This article deals with a certain type of funeral and commemorative obit rites, which are connected with burial of children outside the functioning common cemeteries, in special loci. These places are: backyards, river bank, roadsides, cellars in peasant’s houses. Data is registered by the author and her colleagues during their fi eldwork trips during the 2010s on the territory of intensive inter-ethnic contacts. Our informants are Komi-Permyak and the Russian people living in Komi-Permyak Circuit of Perm Region. All cases refer to Soviet times, to the 1950s — the 1960s. Variety of cases is divided into two groups — depending on either open, public or closed, secret character of the burial and on the attitude of the local society. In the fi rst case, burials are made into special children’s cemeteries, near gardens, within settlements; all villagers know about this locus, they recognize the practice as permissible and organize commemorative obit rites on this graves. The second group includes burials of newborns at the roadside and under the fl oor in the houses; there are no witnesses of the burial, and therefore such cases may raise suspicion of an infanticide. The author considers fi eld recordings not only as a source of ethnographic information, but also as a texts with marking linguistic features. Narratives about the burial of newborn children under the fl oor are shift ing into the rumor area. Such texts have grammatical signs of the so-called “problematic veracity”. Such stories are based on folkloric models, they are realized as criminal or / and mythological narratives. Th e main heroines of these stories are women who have the stigma of social marginalization.
Bakhmatov A. A., Podyukov I. A., Khorobrykh S. V., Chernykh A. V. (2003). Yurlinskiy kray. Traditsionnaya kul’tura russkikh kontsa XIX–XX vv. [Yurla area. Traditional Russian culture of the late 19th — t he 20th centuries]. Kudymkar. In Russian. Borisova I. N. (2009) Russkiy razgovornyy dialog: struktura i dinamika [Russian oral dialogue: structure and dynamics]. Moscow. In Russian.
Chernykh A. V., Goleva T. G., Shevyrin S. A. (2009) Polyaki v Permskom krae: Ocherki istorii i etnografi i [Polanders in Perm region: Essays on history and ethnography]. St. Petersburg. In Russian.
Chervaneva V. A. (2017) Granitsy dostovernosti mifologicheskogo rasskaza: delal — v idel — slyshal — b yl [Veracity limits of oral mythological narratives: done — seen — heard — happened]. Russkaya rech’ [Russian speech]. 2017. No. 5. Pp. 112–117. In Russian.
Dubin B. V. (2001) Rech’, slukh, rasskaz: transformatsii ustnogo v sovremennoy kul’ture [Speech, rumor, story: the transformation of the oral in contemporary culture]. In: Slovo — p is’mo — l iteratura: Ocherki po sotsiologii sovremennoy kul’tury [Word — w riting — l iterature: Essays on sociol
ogy of contemporary culture]. Moscow. Pp. 70–81. In Russian.
Goleva T. G., Podyukov I. A., Ponomaryova L. G., Chernykh A. V. (2011) Lup’intsy: istoriya, kul’tura, yazyk. Etnolingvisticheskiy sbornik [Lupya residents: history, culture, language. Ethno-linguistic collection]. Perm. In Russian.
Golikova S. V. (2012) Detskaya smertnost’ v Permskoy gubernii (vtoraya polovina XIX — n achalo XX v.): istochnikovedcheskiy i metodicheskiy aspekty [Child mortality in Perm province (second half of the 19th — the early 20th century): source-study and methodological aspects]. Ekaterinburg. In Russian.
Golikova S. V. (2014) Infantitsid i soldatki (po materialam Ekaterinburgskogo uezdnogo suda XIX veka) [Infanticide and soldiers’ wives (based on the materials of the Yekaterinburg county court of 19th century)]. In: Instituty razvitiya demografi cheskoy sistemy obshchestva [Institutes for development of the social demographic system]. Ekaterinburg. Pp. 272–279. In Russian.
Golikova S. V. (2017) Otnoshenie k detskoy smertnosti v traditsionnoy kul’ture russkikh Urala XVIII — n achala XX v. [Attitudes towards child mortality in the traditional culture of the Ural’s Russians in the late 18th — t he early 20th centuries]. Ural’skiy istoricheskiy vestnik [Ural Historical Journal]. 2017. No. 1. Pp. 59–64.
Gorbatov D. S. (2009) Slukhi, spletni, gorodskie legendy: psikhologicheskaya priroda razlichiy [Rumors, gossip, urban legends: psychological diff erences]. Voprosy psikhologii [Questions of psychology]. 2009. No. 4. Pp. 71–79. In Russian.
Kabakova G. I. (1999) Deti nekreshchenye [Unbaptized children]. In: Slavyanskie drevnosti. Etnolingvisticheskiy slovar’ [Slavic antiquities. Ethno-linguistic dictionary]. In 5 vol. Vol. 2. Moscow. Pp. 86–88. In Russian.
Koroleva S. Yu., Chetina E. M., Kolegova O. A. (2015). Lokusy pamyati v prostranstve traditsii (pochitanie bratskikh mogil v Yurlinskom rayone Permskogo kraya) [Th e loci of memory in the space of tradition (Rituals and narratives related to mass graves in Yurla district of Perm region)]. Sotsio- i psikholingvisticheskie issledovaniya [Socio- and psycholinguistic studies]. 2015. No. 3. Pp. 128–144. URL: http:// splr.psu.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Королева_ Четина_2015.pdf (retrieved: 12.03.2018). In Russian.
Korshunkov V. A. (2018) Lubyanoy grobik, zabytyy v podvale pod kolokol’ney: epizod iz provintsial’noy tserkovnoy zhizni v Rossii kontsa XIX veka [A small bast-fi bered coffi n forgotten in the basement under the bell tower: an episode of provincial church life in Russia in the late 19th century]. In Russian. (Submitted for publication.)
Levkievskaya E. E. (2009) Polesskie pover’ya o nekreshchenykh detyakh [Beliefs about unbaptized children in Polesye]. Zhivaya starina [Alive antiquity]. 2009. No. 4. Pp. 7–11. In Russian.
Levkievskaya E. E. (2009a) Podpol [A cellar]. Slavyanskie drevnosti. Etnolingvisticheskiy slovar’ [Slavic antiquities. Ethno-linguistic dictionary]. In 5 vol. Vol. 4. Moscow. Pp. 103–106. In Russian.
Neklyudov S. Yu. (2003) Fol’klor sovremennogo goroda [Folklore of the contemporary city]. In: Sovremennyi gorodskoi fol’klor [Contemporary urban folklore]. Moscow. Pp. 5–24. In Russian.
Osetrova E. V. (2015) Slukhi v paradigme lingvisticheskoy genristiki [Rumors in the paradigm of linguistic genre studies]. Zhanry rechi [Genres of speech]. 2015. No. 2. Pp. 8089. In Russian.
Pudikov I. V. (2017) Fantomnye perezhivaniya u materey pogibshikh voennosluzhashchikh [Phantom experiences of the mothers of dead soldiers]. In: Illyuzornye miry i mediumicheskie praktiki v prostranstve kul’tury [Imaginary universes and mediumistic practices in the space of culture]. Moscow. Pp. 159–163. URL: http://www. ruthenia.ru/folklore/2017_ImaginaryUnivers
es_Proceedings_th.pdf (retrieved: 12.03.2018). In Russian.
Radenkovich L. (2004) Nazvaniya demonov, vedushchie proiskhozhdenie ot detey, umershikh do kreshcheniya u slavyan [Slavic names of demons originated from children who died before baptizing]. Balcanica. Vol. XXXIV. Belgrade. Pp. 203–221. In Russian.
Ransel D. (1996) «Starye mladentsy» v russkoi derevne [“Old babies” in Russian village]. In: Mentalitet i agrarnoe razvitie Rossii (XIX–XX vv.) [Mentality and agrarian development of Russia (the 19th — t he 20th centuries)]. Moscow. Pp. 106– 114. In Russian.
Samoylova E. (2017) Ogorod — m emorial’nyi kompleks: kommemorativnyi aspekt zhenskikh zemledel’cheskikh praktik kontsa XIX — n achala XXI veka [Backyard as a memorial complex: obit aspect of female agricultural practices of the late 19th — the early 21st centuries]. In: Chelovek i sobytie v istoricheskoi pamiati [Human and event in historical memory]. Syktyvkar. Pp. 221–234. In Russian.
Svidnitsky A. P. (1861) Velikden’ u podolyan [Easter among the Podolyans]. Osnova. Yuzhno-russkiy literaturno-uchenyy vestnik [Bases. South Russian literary and scholarly bulletin]. 1861. No. 11–12. Pp. 26–71. In Russian.
Tolstaya S. M., Tolstaya M. N. (2003). Pogrebeniya v sadu u «goryunov» Sumskoy oblasti [Burials in the garden of the “Goryns” in Sumsky Region]. Zhivaya starina [Alive antiquity]. 2003. No. 2. Pp. 10–13. In Russian.
Vinogradova L. N., Levkievskaya E. E. (comps.) (2012) Narodnaya demonologiya Poles’ya. T. 2: Demonologizatsiya umershikh lyudey [Folk demonology of Polesie. Vol. 2: Demonization of deceased people]. Moscow. In Russian.
Zelenin D. K. (1995) Izbrannye trudy. Ocherki russkoy mifologii: Umershie neestestvennoy smert’yu i rusalki [Selected articles. Essays on Russian mythology: People who died violent death and mermaids]. Moscow. In Russian.
Zhulanova N. I. (1995). Yurlintsy: russkiy “ostrov” ili kontaktnaya zona? (O muzykal’nom fol’klore i traditsionnoy kul’ture russkogo naseleniya Komi-Permyatskogo avtonomnogo okruga) [Yurla residents: a Russian “island” or a contact zone? (About musical folklore and traditional culture of the Russian population in Komi-Permyak Autonomous Circuit)]. In: Russkiy fol’klor v inokul’turnom okruzhenii [Russian folklore in an alien cultural environment]. Moscow. Pp. 77–88. In Russia