Traditional Recruitment Rites of Russian Residents of Udmurtia: Ethnographic Parallels with Recruitment Rites of Ural-Volga Region Peoples

Abstract

The article is devoted to the reconstruction of the Russian recruitment rite that existed in the territory of modern Udmurtia in the early and mid-20th century. The source base for the reconstruction was ethnographic stories recorded by the author in the 1990s in folklore and ethnographic expeditions of the Udmurt Institute of History, Language and Literature of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. As a result of preliminary analysis and systematization of the material, the functioning of a single, general structure of the ritual in this region is proved. The article demonstrates the tendency of the Russian traditional culture of the region to unite into two large ethno-cultural areas. The relevance of the work is due to the fact that the recruitment rites of Russian residents of Udmurtia were first considered in the context of traditional recruitment rites of other peoples of the Ural-Volga region. The results of a comparative analysis of Russian recruitment rituals in Udmurtia and traditional recruitment rituals of Bashkirs, Besermyans, Komi-Permyaks, Mari, Tatars, Chuvash, Udmurts living in the Ural-Volga region are presented. The typological similarity of recruitment rites of these peoples is proved. The analysis revealed numerous ethnographic parallels in the conduct of traditional recruitment rites among the peoples of the Ural-Volga region and the Russian population of modern Udmurtia.

Keywords

• recruit
• russian ritual folklore of the udmurt republic
• sendoff
• recruitment rites
• ural-volga region