E-mail: nik.vik.petrov@gmail.com Tel.: +7 (499) 956-99-99
82, Vernadskogo av., Moscow, 119571, Russian Federation
PhD (Philology), head of the Laboratory of Theoretical Folkloristics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
This storyline has transformed from rumors to the contemporary oral legend. The main plot is based on a presumptive accident told in rumors from Kuibyshev (nowadays Samara) city. In 1956 a young atheist woman named Zoya arranged a New Year night party, her fi ance Nikolay did not come, and she started the dance with the icon of St. Nicholas. Friends tried to stop Zoya, but she said: “If there is a God, let him punish me.” Suddenly all guests heard a thunder and lightning in the room and aft er that they saw Zoya standing in the middle of the room, paralyzed — s tone-like, with the icon still in her hands. The plot about a dancer-blasphemer, who was paralyzed — almost stone-like, is known in Russia from the end of XIX at least. It got actualized in 1919. But “Zoya’s Standing” (1956) appears to be the most stable textualisation of this plot. It was supported by a popular narrative scheme about the punishment of sinners for profaning the sanctities and was kept in folklore tradition from behind circulation in a written (published) form in the 1960s — the 1990s. Probably religious narratives about the punishment of sinners for profaning the sanctities aff ect the text and the idea design, popularity and replication of the legend about Zoya in the USSR. Th ose texts appeared in the peasant’s culture as a reaction to an anti-religious campaign of the Soviet epoch. “The Zoya’s Standing in Kuibyshev” is circulated in orthodox and media discourse in the 1990s and in the 2000s, it has obtained the status of an Orthodox legend (related to the miracles of St. Nickolas) and has become a “folklore brand” of Samara, which was believed to be based on “real historical events”.
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