Symbols of Time in Russian Wedding Folklore of Udmurtia

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the system of artistic images of Russian wedding folklore of the modern Udmurt Republic. The relevance of the work is due to the fact that the temporal processes of the wedding ritual itself, as well as family-clan and natural rhythms are first considered on the example of wedding folklore that exists in the territory of the modern republic. Particular attention is paid to the images of heavenly bodies, the kingdom of plants, zooand ornithomorphic images, the symbolism of sound signals. The sun is shown to be the central artistic image associated with the display of time. As a result of the analysis, it was found that semantically, the images of evening dawn, morning dawn and night have significant similarities. The question of the possible division of the night into two time periods is considered — a dark one, which does not correspond to a wedding situation, and a light one, which regulates the course of ritual time. It is shown that the image of the night is a symbol of the first conjugal intercourse. It has been established that the mention of the trumpet and the bell in the songs emphasizes the sacred status of the wedding ceremony. It is noted that in wedding songs, the symbolism of the sound of the bell and trumpet merges with the symbolism of the sun. It was revealed that in the description of emporal processes there may be categories of morality.

Keywords

• russian wedding folklore
• udmurtia
• dawn
• night
• the sun
• temporary processes
• bell
• trumpet