Wedding Speeches and Rhymes of Perm Province in Archival Collections and Publications of the 19th —First Third of the 20th Centuries

Abstract

The issue of exploring wedding rites and their poetic component of different local traditions and folklore regions of Russia is a relevant sphere of Russian folklore studies. The consideration of the issue in each new study brings researchers closer to a complex description of a very intricate phenomenon of traditional culture, i.e. the Russian wedding rite in its regional / local versions. The aim of this work is to present and analyse published and archival materials of wedding speeches and rhymes recorded in the territory of Perm province between the nineteenth and the first third of the twentieth centuries. Analysing the materials, the author identifies “typical” elements of poetic texts which are characteristic of the “common Russian” fund of the genre or recorded only in certain local traditions of Russia, as well as specific poetic and stylistic details of the Perm tradition. Comparison with records of other territories makes it possible to include Perm materials into a wider cultural and geographical context, demonstrate their convergence with the “common Russian” fund of the genre and the textual proximity of Perm records to texts of local traditions of the Russian North and the Volga region. The author points out processes characteristic of the genre as a whole, i.e. its creative ability to adopt and use folklore and literary works, use the poetic means and the artistic and stylistic methods of ritual lyrics and incantation and charm poetry. Additionally, the article focuses on issues of correlation between general and local folklore repertoire, the similarity of folklore material of different regions which arose as a result of population migration and intercultural exchange.

Keywords

• свадебный обряд
• свадебные приговоры
• пермская губерния
• специфика региональной фольклорной традиции
• систематизация
• xix — первая треть xx в.