The customs and traditions of the peoples of the Kuban in brief. Alloy of different nations

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Family customs and rituals of the inhabitants of Kuban

Section 1. The system of traditional family folklore

Section 2. Modern family rituals and holidays

Section 3. Historical and genetic connection of calendar, family, household and extra-ritual folklore

Bibliography

Section 1.System of traditional family folklore

The Zaporozhye Sichs were a brotherhood free of family ties. The familyless “orphan” was both in the lower layer of the community and in the commanding elite. There were many of them among the settlers who flocked to Kuban. The priority values of “chivalry” were considered to be military valor, democracy, and commitment to freedom.

In the first decades of colonization of the region, the number of men in the mass of migrants predominated. To ensure population growth, the military administration was forced to take drastic measures: it was forbidden to give brides and widows “to the side.” Economic incentives were also used. Thus, the size of land plots directly depended on the number of men in the family.

Relations in Cossack families were determined by the specifics of the border region and class traditions. The main occupations of the male population, in addition to military service, were agriculture and cattle breeding. Only a few farms made money from waste farming. A characteristic manifestation of the isolation of Cossack life is marriages concluded primarily in their own environment. It was considered shameful to enter into kinship with non-residents. Mixed marriages with representatives of other social and ethnic groups only became common during the Soviet years.

Patriarchal families, for the most part, consisted of 3-4 generations. This picture was observed primarily in linear villages. Incentive to education big family there was a reluctance to split up ownership and property. An undivided family, consisting of parents, married sons and their children, retained the specific features of the age-old way of life: a common economy, collective property, a common treasury, collective labor and consumption. The eldest man supervised the household work, represented the interests of the family at the gathering, and managed the family budget. The preservation of the family depended entirely on him. The younger members of the family meekly obeyed the elders.

According to the regulations on military service, men from 20 to 45 years old were required to serve “in the hundred” for one year and be on benefits for the next. The establishment had its pros and cons. Cossacks who left for service and had no father or brothers left the household in the care of their wife. Without a man, the farm fell into disrepair. The current situation was beneficial for those who lived in a large family. The two brothers were never enlisted at the same time. While one was on duty, the other worked for the benefit of everyone.

In the 70s of the 19th century, this order was abolished. Now a Cossack who had reached the age of twenty was required to serve five years in the border service in order to then go on benefits. In this situation, there was no holding power to preserve the family. After the service, and sometimes before it, the brothers began to divide the property. The father's power was also shaken. If earlier he could punish his son without separating anything from the common household, now the sons, relying on the power of the law, shared with their father on equal terms. After the partition he remained in his father's house younger son. The older brothers chose new estates for themselves or divided their father's yard. All this gradually led to disruption of the way of life.

Events of family significance - weddings, births, christenings, funeral and memorial ceremonies, "entrance" (housewarming), farewell to the service, took place in accordance with established customs, bringing revival to the monotonous rhythm of working life. In the wedding ceremonies of Russian and Ukrainian groups, living in the surveyed territory, as in many other elements folk culture, there are many similarities. This is explained by the fact that in the Kuban tradition many features characteristic of all Eastern Slavs have been preserved.

Marriage ties bound spouses throughout their lives; divorces were practically unknown. For girls, the age of marriage began at sixteen and ended at twenty-two to twenty-three. The guys got married at the age of seventeen or eighteen. During this period, young people were called brides and grooms. The decisive factors when choosing a couple were financial situation, physical health, and only then appearance. The reluctance to start a family was perceived by the community as an attack on the foundations of life and public opinion was condemned.

For a traditional wedding ritual, the unrecognizability of liminal beings is required - the transition of the newlyweds from one social group to another. The idea of newlyweds as chthonic beings and their “impurity” at turning points in life was expressed in dressing in new clothes, and for the bride, also in isolation from others. By the beginning of the 20th century, the moment of isolation appeared in the form of hiding the face, which can be seen as protection from hostile forces and, at the same time, as a temporary stay in the other world.

In the Kuban wedding ceremony there are episodes that require a special talent for improvisation. One of them is matchmaking, the results of which were not always known in advance. Going to the bride's house, the matchmakers were not sure that they would receive the consent of the girl and her parents. To achieve favorable outcome business, it required the ability to manage an improvised performance, set the pace of action, correct the mistakes of the performers, and introduce collective play into the mainstream of tradition. The art of wishful thinking is what, in all likelihood, gave rise to the saying “he makes mistakes like a matchmaker.” The dialogue was conducted allegorically. They retreated only after the third refusal. The sign was the return of the bread brought (in the Black Sea villages there was also a pumpkin). Mutual agreement was sealed with a handshake.

In the Black Sea villages, the initial episode was called zaruchiny (zaruchenye), arranged in the bride’s house. Treating the hosts to drinks was accompanied by offerings of scarves, towels, and money. The pre-wedding acquaintance then took place in the groom’s house and was called “rozglyadyny” among the Black Sea people, “look at the zagnetka” (a shelf at the mouth of the oven where dishes with cooked food were placed) among the linear Cossacks. Thus, the girl's mother and father wanted to make sure that their daughter would not feel the need for someone else's home. At the meeting, the material costs of each party were discussed.

Then the matchmaking moved to a new stage - the future father-in-law asked for a reprimand (drink, snacks, gifts for the bride). The next episode of the traditional wedding - the singing - took place in the bride's house, where relatives and youth were invited. The peculiarity of this component of the wedding complex was the dignification of all those present, starting with the bride’s parents. The verbal texts of the game songs used by young couples are maximally coordinated with the actions of the performers. The songs, apart from the game, lost all meaning. A typical example of a game song: “Soon I’m going to Spread the City for a walk.” A guy portraying the “husband” came out of the circle, bowed to the “wife” while the choir sang and presented a gift. The young couple kissed and left the circle, and the next one took their place. Wedding games served to prepare young people for the transition to fulfill new social roles. For married couples, grandeur was an act of social recognition.

Great songs were sung first to the bride and groom, to the “uncle,” then to single guys and married men. The unmarried were called together with the girls, the married with their wives. The peculiarity of such songs is in exaggeration, idealization of the appearance and actions of the objects of exaltation. When describing the groom and single guys, their beauty was emphasized. The assessment of a married man indicated the richness of his attire. In this case, specific symbolism was used: the groom appeared in the image of a “warrior”, “clear falcon”, the bride - “dove”, “tap dance”.

In wedding celebrations, psychological parallelism is often used when comparing or contrasting images of nature and the main characters. The motif of magnifying the master's house as a mansion is widespread. The songs of greatness reflected such ideals of the common people as physical and moral beauty, prosperity, and a strong family. Most of the songs are of a benevolent nature.

An unkind tone is heard in the words addressed to the father-in-law and the father who “drank” his own daughter

The theme of hostility in the relationship between a young daughter-in-law and mother-in-law is reflected in the song “Daesh mene, my dear, young,” built in the form of a dialogue between father and daughter. Among the traditional songs of greatness there are texts constructed in a question-and-answer form with a detailed description of the character. There are contaminations of several compositional forms. An example of the mosaic method of arranging verse fragments is the variants of the majestic song “What a barrel rolls along a hillock,” performed in one case to a married couple, in another to a guy and a girl. Contamination of motives is carried out on the basis of plot, emotional and lexical relatedness.

By the beginning of the 20th century, such a specific component as “vaults” began to disappear from the wedding complex. Describing a wedding in the village of Kavkazskaya, A.D. Lamonov noticed that vaults were built only in the families of old-timers. The ritual took place in the form of a joke game, during which the groom had to recognize his bride among her friends hidden by headscarves. Hiding faces and sameness indicate a connection with the other world. The game ended with “bargaining”; At the end of it, the “merchant” kissed the bride three times while the girls sang. On the vaults, the bride and groom publicly called their new parents father and mother.

The next episode of a traditional Kuban wedding is the “bachelorette party”, where craftswomen gathered to help collect the dowry. While working, they sang long songs. Farewell songs were almost no different from non-ritual song lyrics. There is a special drama in the wedding song, in which the deceased parent gives the last instructions to his daughter on the eve of the wedding:

Oh, bow down, my dear, stranger of a stranger

Let's give a little bit of raw material

Close to it in its emotional and psychological mood is another ritual lyrical song, “Subbotonka, nedelinka, yak odyn day,” which sets the bride up for a friendly relationship with her husband’s mother:

Oh, I’ll call you “svekrushenka”, ta y ne gozhe,

Oh, I’ll call you “Matinka,” my dear fellow.

In ancient wedding songs there is a motif of a deceased mother returning from the afterlife to send her daughter to the crown.

At the bachelorette party, as in other episodes of the wedding complex, security measures were taken: the bride’s friend (“the luminary”) sat in the red corner throughout the evening, holding a candle in her hands, set in a bunch of cornflowers. The peculiarity of the Kuban party was that the groom came to it with the “boyars” and presented the bride and relatives with gifts. The youth sang and danced to the music.

In the Black Sea villages there was a custom of transporting a dowry, usually even before the wedding. Ritual songs were sung along the way and at the entrance to the courtyard. The groom's father greeted the guests with vodka and snacks and bought every item. The guests greeted the bride and her new relatives. Having no magical meaning, such songs contributed to the implementation of the ritual.

Ritual songs and rituals accompanied the baking of cones and loaves. While kneading the dough, women hid three silver nickels in it (a sign of wealth). The dough birds and three cherry branches that decorated the loaf had a symbolic meaning. They were supposed to bring love and fertility. To make the baked goods “curly” (lush), the women waved a broom three times from bottom to top, kissed, standing crosswise and sang incantatory songs. A curly-haired man or boy was trusted to put the loaf into the oven. (261, pp. 53-54) Dual faith, as a synthesis of pagan and Christian motives, is fixed in the custom of making wishes for the fate of the young. With the help of three wax candles (in the name of the Holy Trinity) lit on a baked loaf, it was determined which of the newlyweds would live longer.

In progress historical development ritual singing was strongly influenced by folk lyrics, which affected the poetic content, composition and artistic style of the works. An example is the song folklore that accompanied the rituals of “wedding” the wedding train with bunches of red viburnum and blessing the bride. (261, p. 69)

An obligatory element of a traditional wedding is the bride's nakedness. According to folklorists, the Russian wedding lament developed in the 14th-15th centuries. (274, pp. 36-59) The long existence of the tradition led to the emergence of diverse forms of lamentation, which is confirmed by records made in the Kuban at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. Their habitat included both Black Sea and linear villages. According to custom, the bride cried early in the morning on the wedding day. The lamentations retained a connection with the spoken language of the area from which the settlers came and, most often, represented rhythmically organized prose. If the bride was an orphan, she was taken to the cemetery to mourn her parents. The wedding could take place on the wedding day or a few days before it. Those who got married were not considered spouses until they got married.

The ritual with hair played an important role in the Kuban wedding. A girl's hairstyle consisted of one braid (sometimes two for Black Sea Cossack women) and personified girlhood, free living in the parental home. While singing, the matchmaker, godmother and birth mother let down the bride's hair and braided her hair. The guests called the bride and her friends.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, the influence of urban fashion affected the bride’s attire. The wreath began to be decorated with a light white veil and wax flowers. The traditional costume, consisting of a homespun shirt, skirt, apron and belt, was replaced by white dresses made of satin and silk. The dressed bride was seated at the table (“on posad” - a pillow), and the girlfriends who were nearby sang sad songs. Father and mother blessed their daughter on a sheepskin coat turned upside down. The bride cried.

On the wedding day, the ritual singing of women announced the groom's preparations. (186, p. 257) In another ritual song, women ask the groom’s mother to roll “seven hundred kvitok, sche chetyre” and decorate the boyars with them. A symbol of well-being and prosperity was the “dezha” - a dough tub around which the mother led her son before sending him for the bride. The guests called the groom.

The dialogue between the boyfriend and the “guards” guarding the approaches to the bride’s house was an actor’s improvisation. The “bargaining” scene for the right to enter the house and take a place next to the bride took place lively only when the improvisers found non-standard ways to solve the problem. The security received money, “varenukha” (alcohol) and “bumps”. The son-in-law brought “chobots” (shoes) to his mother-in-law and “harrow” (cookies) to his father-in-law. Each scene was accompanied by acting and singing.

All necessary protective measures were observed along the route of the wedding train. They avoided driving along the road where there was a whirlwind. In order to protect themselves from damage and the evil eye, at every intersection the bride and groom crossed themselves and recited the prayer “May God rise again.” After the wedding, the wedding train circled the church three times so that the sorcerers would not turn everyone “into Vovkulak” (wolves). A cleansing ritual was obligatory: at the gate, the newlyweds jumped over the fire, holding the ends of the scarf. The ritual of showering grain, hops, coins and glorifying the mother-in-law had magical significance.

The wedding complex of the first day included the rite of “midwife” of the bride, performed by the married relatives of the groom. The newlywed's hair was let down, two braids were braided or twisted into a woman's braid, then covered with a scarf or put on a “shlychka” (cap). According to custom, the bride had to take off her headdress, but ultimately resign herself. During the ritual, a veil was held over her head. The custom of a young wife removing her husband's shoes on their wedding night was also observed. The husband would lightly hit her on the back with a boot or a whip so that she would remember who was boss in the house. The scene of the public demonstration of the bride's virginity was accompanied by shooting from guns, ritual singing, and the offering of a bottle of vodka and a cone with a bunch of red viburnum to the newlywed (a symbol of transition to a new quality). Parents who did not inspect their daughter were subjected to public disgrace: wearing a collar, they were taken through the streets and brought a glass of vodka with a hole drilled in its side.

Most original genre wedding folklore korilny songs or teasers. Ritual laughter is associated with the cult of fertility, with awakening rituals vitality. In the context of a wedding ritual, laughter has a communicative function and can be seen as a message sent from one subject to another. As a signal, it is expressed in speech, gestures, behavior and acts as a code behind which a certain meaning is hidden.

As part of the wedding ceremony, laughing can be done at the expense of an individual or a group. In a Kuban wedding, it is customary to mock the matchmakers, groom, bridesmaids, and boyars for their inability to behave in “society,” and more often for their stinginess. If in grandeur the wedding participants act as goodies, then in reproachful songs they appear as gluttons, drunkards, and beggars. The main principle in creating song images is grotesque, exaggeration.

Wedding songs of a laughter nature probably appeared as a result of the transformation of ancient buffoons, who retained traces of the sexual freedom of the pagans. There is no doubt that they were also influenced by the “sprinkles” (choruses). Teasers were performed during the arrival of the wedding train, during the feast and collective dances of the guests.

The third day of the wedding - Monday - was a carnival spectacle of mummers. Social significance The wedding carnival consists of an inversion of social roles and the lifting of prohibitions. Laughter, symbolizing health and well-being, not only creates a mood, but also mobilizes the creative efforts of carnival participants. Children laugh at the action, adults laugh at its semantic content and subtext. The traditional reception at a wedding carnival is “anti-behavior” in the form of travesty and ritual foul language.

According to tradition, guests dressed as gypsies and armed with clubs walked around the courtyards, stole chickens and took them to the house where the wedding was being held. A ritual involving bathing the young mother's mother was mandatory. The presentation of gifts to the newlyweds and the scene of the young mistress's assumption of rights were accompanied by singing, sentences and the presentation by the mother-in-law of the attributes of female "power" - a wooden shovel, a stag and a poker. The ritual dish is noodles made from other people's chickens and a sweet pie drizzled with honey. On the last day, a stake was driven into the doorstep of the house. In the village of Bekeshevskaya, the wedding ended with “extinguishing the fire”: a bunch of hemp was set on fire by everyone, thrown to the ground, and the guests trampled on it. As in the southern Russian provinces of Russia, this custom was little known in Kuban.

At the beginning of the 20th century, regimental orchestras began to be invited to weddings, which played marching melodies and tunes when welcoming the newlyweds and while congratulating the guests. At the height of the celebrations, rockets were launched.

To summarize, we note that the traditional Kuban wedding in the 19th and early 20th centuries was a massive folk theater with ritual singing, spells, dancing, playing musical instruments, dressing up, ritual drunkenness and laughter. This side of the wedding was directly related to pagan customs. On the other hand, the folk tradition has absorbed the spiritual values of Orthodoxy. The marriage union was sealed by a wedding in the church. An organic combination of folk and Christian culture are the distinctive features of traditional wedding ceremonies that existed among the Cossack population of Kuban. Complex layers were also due to the unique formation of the ethnic composition of the population, the direct interaction of cultures in areas of mixed settlement of peoples.

As a result of long-term historical contacts, under the influence of similar living conditions of the Black Sea people and the Lineians, common features were formed in the wedding rites of the East Slavic population of Kuban. These include the customs of matchmaking, collusion, acquaintance of relatives, pre-wedding evenings, participation of wedding officials in the ransom, midwifery of the bride, preparation of ritual food, marriage bed, etc. The cheerful and cheerful nature of ritual games contributed to the rapprochement of southern Russian and Ukrainian traditions and, at the same time, , differed from the North Russian wedding.

Under the influence of socio-economic and cultural transformations in the first half of the 20th century, there was a gradual simplification, reduction and merging of ritual actions. The ancient religious and magical motives of the ritual were rethought. Weddings became more and more entertaining.

Ideas about the transformation of beings into a qualitatively new state and the need to take measures to ensure this transition are directly related to maternity rites. According to traditional views, a newborn and his mother pose a great danger to others, so childbirth was most often carried out separately from household members or in non-residential outbuildings. They also isolated women in labor because they were afraid of damage and the evil eye. Assistance during childbirth was provided by midwives (in the Black Sea villages, “puporizny baba”), and they also performed the main ritual actions. Unraveling women in labor, untying belts, and unlocking locks had apotropaic significance. On special occasions, they asked the priest to open the royal doors and serve a prayer service, and the husband to step over the legs of the woman in labor three times. The midwife lit a lamp and read prayers. If the newborn showed no signs of life, the grandmother loudly pronounced the father's name. As soon as the child screamed, they said: “Grandma responded.” The midwife called “place” by whistling and smacking her lips. It was worn around the neck as an amulet against fever. By the thickenings on the umbilical cord connecting mother and child, the midwife wondered whether the woman would have more children. Immediately after giving birth, the grandmother performed ritual actions with the placenta: washed it in three waters, rolled it up and buried it in a secret place. If the parents wanted to continue having children, then the end of the umbilical cord was placed on top; if there were enough of them, the umbilical cord was placed at the bottom.

The protection of the life of mother and child was ensured by preventive rituals, which reflected deep-rooted views on the unstable state of the mother and baby, who were on the verge of the real and the transcendental.

The “unclean” were necessarily cleansed with holy water. If the condition of the woman in labor was satisfactory, on the third day “washing of hands” was performed. The ritual began with an offering of bread and salt. The ritual attributes were the stove damper and “bad brush” (raw materials for brooms), on which the woman in labor would place her foot. The grandmother dipped hops into a cup of holy water and, holding a spoon with her left hand, poured it into the hands of the woman in labor three times, while reading a prayer. The woman drank from a handful (so that the milk would come in), and then washed her face and hands. For involvement in childbirth, which according to popular belief was considered a sinful act, the grandmother was also supposed to be cleansed.

An obligatory component of the ritual is three bows to the images and to each other. The midwife received gifts and money for her work. The ceremony ended with kisses and words of gratitude.

The ritual of washing hands had other variations. In Chamlykskaya, the village midwife asked the woman to put her right foot on an ax, poured holy water from a cup, raising her hands above the face of the woman in labor. The water first got into the mouth, then onto the hands and further to the elbow. With an ax, the grandmother made four notches in the form of a cross around the woman in labor. Everything was repeated three times and was accompanied by a cross or a “chop” from a water barrel, accidentally found in the Kuban. In the Kuban there was a custom of twisting a child in the form of a spiral from the neck to the feet, “the chop grew more evenly.” The swaddle was a ribbon made of canvas or cloth. The grandmother twisted first, hence “midwife”, “midwife”.

The priest had the right to name the child. Godparents (fathers) were chosen, as a rule, from among financially secure and pious relatives. If the baby is early age died, then in order to avoid the death of subsequent children, the first people they met were asked to become godfathers. The husband and wife were not invited to be godparents, since according to church regulations, marital relations are not compatible with the concept of spiritual kinship. Folk tradition also extended to the ban on the parents of their child being foster children. Sexual relations between godfathers were considered incest. Receivers were considered second parents, guardians and patrons of newborns. Recipients were given the responsibility to spiritual development godchildren.

Before going to church for baptism, they wondered about the child’s future: the grandmother laid a casing on the floor and hid a scythe, pen, ink, book, etc. under it. The godfather had to pull out one of the objects at random. Taking the child in their arms, the godparents left the midwife money for the fur coat. To find out the fate of the baby, they used hair cut by a priest during a church ceremony. The receiver rolled them into wax and lowered them into the font. There was a belief: if the wax sinks, the baby will soon die; if it remains on the surface, the newly baptized person will live a long time; if it spins like a top, life will be restless. At the end of the sacrament of Baptism, the recipients kissed three times.

According to custom, the godfather bought a pectoral cross for the baby and paid for the performance of the church ceremony. The godmother and the midwife were supposed to give money for the dress. The godmother bought three arshins of linen for a robe, in which she wrapped the baby after the font, and brought a towel to the priest.

At the baptismal dinner, the midwife was given the leading role: she prepared and fed everyone present with ritual porridge. The “couvade” ritual, based on the transferability of actions and states from one person to another, was preserved in Kuban at the beginning of the 20th century. The connection between father and child was represented as a scene in which the father had to outwardly resemble the role of a mother in labor and experience some of the suffering she endured by eating unpleasant-tasting, over-salted and peppered porridge.

The rite of tonsure, performed on the child's anniversary, should strengthen his mind and health. By cutting his hair in the shape of a cross, the godfather seemed to ward off the devil and protect his godson from sins. Hearing his hair and dressing in new clothes was supposed to make him unrecognizable and inaccessible to dark forces. Sacredness manifested itself at a time when the previous status was replaced by a new one.

A child was considered a baby until he was seven years old. According to the people's understanding, until this time his sins lie on the conscience of his mother. Upon reaching conscious age, the godparents had to explain to the godson the basics of the Orthodox faith, take him to confession and communion.

When theoretically understanding the origin of funeral rites, the religious side is most often taken as a basis - the belief in the afterlife, in the existence of a person’s soul after his death. The concept of “ancestor cult” is placed on a par with the concept of “primitive religion”.

Archaeologists associate funerary monuments with the peculiarities of life and culture of ethnic groups that once lived in a particular territory.

Attempts have been made to study burial practices in relation to the human need for integration or reintegration.

As you know, any ethnic community is formed by three age layers: old people, the middle layer (adults) and the younger ones (children, teenagers). The community also includes the dead, existing in the memory of living people, in the products of their labor, creativity, and unborn children. After the death of one of the community members, the social balance in it is disrupted. The higher the status of the deceased, the more unstable the system of relations within the group. As a result, a spontaneous or conscious desire arises for reintegration, for replacing the deceased with a certain symbol. It is assumed that from these ideas arose rituals with the body, things, weapons, and home of the deceased. The primary meaning of burial customs was a semi-instinctive sense of social connection. Rituals are based on relationships between generations. The dynamics of these relations are expressed by the transition (replacement) of one generation by another, the preservation of cultural ties. With this understanding religious beliefs turn out to be secondary. The motivation for the burial ritual is respect for the eldest in the family, while the burial of children expresses parental love and care.

The theme of death is reflected in numerous signs, fortune telling and signs. Among the common people there were numerous interpretations of prophetic dreams. Seeing a bloody tooth in a dream meant that one of your relatives would soon die. Death was foreshadowed by a dream of a dead man calling to follow him. Birds - the raven, the cuckoo and the capercaillie - were considered harbingers of death, and among domestic animals - a dog and a cat. If the deceased's eyes are open, it means he is looking out for a fellow traveler. Death is without a body, invisible and appears before death in the form of a woman or a rider on a white horse. In the common people there were concepts of “difficult” and “easy” death. They wanted to die easily, surrounded by family and friends.

Death on Easter and Ascension was considered good.

The fear of the hostile force of the dead was supported by the idea of the “uncleanness” of his body and everything connected with it. With the onset of death, the deceased was washed so that he would appear before God in purity. Women performed ablution. Water was poured where no one walked, clothes were burned. Having dressed the deceased in a “deadly” shirt, they laid him face up on a table or bench. They tried to destroy its deadly effect by sprinkling it with holy water.

According to traditional folk beliefs, the human soul is immortal. Leaving the mortal remains and remaining invisible to others, she hears the cries and groans of her relatives. Stays on earth for two days and, accompanied by a guardian angel, walks through familiar places. Only on the third day the Lord calls her to heaven. Therefore, the funeral was held no earlier than three days later. Like the living, it needs food, hence the custom of putting a glass of clean water and honey on the table so that the soul of the deceased can bathe and eat sweets for forty days. Afterlife food helped the deceased to join the host of the dead. The meals of relatives during night vigils can be considered as a way of facilitating the transition of the deceased to a new state, as a symbol of the inevitable transition to another world.

Kuban folklore of the East Slavic population illustrates beliefs in magical power words and chants in preventing the harmful power of the dead. Traditionally, women did the lamentation. The content of the laments is heterogeneous, but, as a rule, the texts began with an extended appeal: “Who did you hope for, my dear? And who did you rely on? This is what the wife said to her late husband, concerned about his intention to leave his home and leave her without protection. When the body was taken out of the house, the relatives cried loudly, which was regarded by others as a tribute of respect and love for the deceased.

According to the ethical standards of the common people, participation in the funeral was mandatory for the entire adult population, then the deceased would meet in the next world everyone who saw him off on his last journey.

According to Christian ideas about the afterlife, after burial, the soul, accompanied by a guardian angel given by God to every person at birth, flies to heaven and travels for forty days. After long ordeals, she appears before God, who decides where to send her - to heaven or hell. Paradise was imagined as a beautiful garden in heaven, hell was associated with the “lower world.” Protective measures included bans on burials on the first day of Easter and on Christmas Day until evening.

The purpose of the funeral meal among the East Slavic pagans was to protect the living from the influence of evil forces and as a posthumous sacrifice to the dead. Ethnographic materials from the second half of the 19th century indicated that its order was strictly regulated. The meal began with a ritual kutya and included alcohol. The ritual “feeding” of the dead remained stable during the wake on the day of the funeral and on other memorial days.

Family customs and rituals include those that accompanied the choice of a place to build housing, its construction and habitation. Thanks to ethnographic descriptions, it is known that when laying a house, by analogy with a construction sacrifice, copper coins in denominations of 3 kopecks were buried under the corners, and black wool was placed on the upper corners. To lay the floors, the owner called together relatives and neighbors and brought a glass to everyone. Matitsa was laid down while singing. When moving to new house They took the brownie with them. Abandoning him in the old house was considered unforgivable ingratitude.

The farewell to the service followed the same pattern as the pre-wedding preparations. Rituals with Cossack equipment and feasts had a sacred meaning. The father expressed his parental blessing by touching his son's head with the icon. The mother put on the consecrated cross and amulet. The young wife, according to custom, saddled her husband’s horse with her own hands and cried out, bowing at his feet. The Cossack bowed in all directions, mounted his horse and rode to the village government. After the prayer service, the priest sprinkled the recruits with holy water, and the column set off.

The study of regional material shows that traditional family folklore had a rather complex genre composition. Conventionally, it can be divided into two groups - verbal and musical. Verbal genres include incantations and spells. They made childbirth easier and protected mother and child from illness. Conspiracies and sentences (wedding allegories) were used by wedding groomsmen, matchmakers, newlyweds and their parents. Prayers were performed over the deceased, women in labor and in the wedding ceremony.

Musical genres included ritual, majestic, game and reproach songs, spell songs, wedding lamentations, and lyrical songs with a wedding theme. Each genre has its own characteristics. Ritual songs accompanied the ceremonies. Majesty praised the wedding participants. Game songs brought the bride and groom closer together. The teasers were amusing with their unpredictability. Spell songs ensured success in business. Lyrical ritual folklore reflected the feelings and moods of the main participants in the wedding - the groom, the bride and their relatives. Wedding lamentations ensured a happy family life. The entire complex of family rituals was a complex dramatic action, where everyone performed their own role prescribed by customs and traditions.

Family ritual complexes were formed over a long period of time and served as a form of embodiment of the people's worldview. In the process of historical development, some elements of rituals were rethought, others were forgotten.

family household folklore ritual

Chapter2. Modern family rituals and holidays

The formation of Soviet state rituals took place in the 20s of the 20th century and coincided with the beginning of the cultural revolution. The decrees “On civil marriage and maintaining civil registers” and “On divorce” proclaimed the principle of independence of family relations from religion and their transfer to the disposal of state bodies. Since that time, the religious rites of baptism, wedding and burial have lost their legal force.

A historical analysis of the family and everyday folklore of the East Slavic population of Kuban indicates that its content and genre composition have undergone changes during the years of Soviet power. Some leaving subsystems were preserved, others were transformed, new customs and rituals appeared.

As before, matchmaking takes place with the participation of wedding officials. The groom's mother bakes round shaped bread. The match is made by the groom's relatives or matchmaker - a middle-aged, experienced married woman: aunt, eldest daughter-in-law, godmother. They woo the whole family.

The symbolic meaning of a sheepskin coat during the blessing of a son and the tying of matchmakers with towels have been preserved. The protective meaning is contained in the prohibition of going anywhere on the way to the bride’s house and telling strangers about your intentions. Ritual bread, in the matchmaking ritual, is used to wish for the fate of the newlyweds: if the bride cuts the loaf evenly and smoothly, family life will be fine.

The symbolic meaning of happiness and fertility is still attached to poultry. The daughter-in-law’s character is judged by the behavior of the chicken that is given to the future mother-in-law during matchmaking. If a chicken behaves calmly in someone else’s house, it means that the daughter-in-law will be flexible and, conversely, a restless chicken portends trouble in the relationship between the mother-in-law and the young daughter-in-law.

In a modern wedding there are no such episodes as collusion, singing, or a bachelorette party. The ritual songs that were used to call the newlyweds, parents, girlfriends and friends of the bride and groom disappeared from everyday life. The ritual songs that accompanied the transport of the dowry have been forgotten. They invite people to the wedding with postcards, and close relatives and the elderly with pine cones.

Two days before the wedding, a loaf of bread is baked in the groom's house. The “Giltse” (branch) is decorated with ribbons, bunches of viburnum and sweets. According to informants, ribbons are tied to make the lives of young people beautiful and rich, viburnum is a symbol of longevity and procreation, sweets are promised sweet life. The bride's relatives bake a round kalach with patterns - "melon" - for the newlyweds. On the wedding table, this symbol of fertility stands in front of the newlyweds. A sign of unity are two wooden spoons and “bugai” (vodka bottles), tied with red ribbons.

It is becoming a custom to organize a “bachelor party” at which the groom bids farewell to his bachelor life. Bachelorette parties in the form they used to be, as well as the bride's nakedness, have fallen out of use everywhere.

According to modern informants, the groom should dress the bride, because if married women touch her, the troubles and failures of their family life will be transferred to the young.

A custom is observed according to which newlyweds must hold each other through a headscarf. If earlier a scarf and a towel were considered as a means of transition to a new quality, now, according to the informant, the bride, as it were, “ties” the chosen one to herself. Hiding the face with a veil is regarded by us as traces of the belief in the need to temporarily isolate the bride from the outside world in order to protect her from the evil eye (evil spirits).

In the Black Sea villages, preparations for the wedding train have remained virtually unchanged. The ritual uses towels, casings, scarves, and ritual treats for the residents.

Approaches to the bride’s house, as before, are met by “security.” You can set foot on the threshold only after the ransom. In an effort to make the meeting of the newlyweds more spectacular, the girlfriends arrange tests for the groom, for example, they offer to write the name of their chosen one with grains of wheat, put gifts in the basket, answer a number of questions, etc. If among the guests there are older people or amateur performers, praises are sung to the hosts. The bride's relatives also enter into the dialogue. In the village of Novonikolaevskaya, the bride is taken out of the yard by her father. The symbol of fertility and wealth, as before, are hops, grain and small coins.

It has become a tradition to lay flowers at memorials and cemeteries after the official ceremony. The custom of jumping over a fire lit at the entrance to the house has been preserved. It has become a tradition to place a plate along the path of the young couple. Whoever breaks it first will rule. The number of fragments determines how many children the young people will have.

Wedding planners practice presenting a loaf of bread with seven candles to the newlyweds, signifying a family hearth. Giltse occupies a central place on the wedding table. The cult of the plant power of the earth, embodied in the tree, has the meaning of a creative principle.

In a modern ritual, the search for a bride can be interpreted as an outdated belief in the need for her to be isolated from others. Girlfriends and friends of the young people participate in the joke game. The action ends with the ransom and return of the bride to the groom.

To this day, imitative games of farcical “marriage” with elements of travesty, the performance of comic songs of an erotic nature, accompanied by mischief, whistling and laughter, continue to exist. The climax of the impromptu carnival is the bathing of parents and erotic games. Symbolic marriages and orgies, planting a “vegetable garden” can be regarded as a means of strengthening the productive power of nature and man.

In the modern wedding complex, the ritual of “midwife” for a young wife is absent. Its relict roots are reminiscent of the newlyweds changing into new clothes on the second day of their wedding. In our opinion, the driving of a stake at the entrance to the house where the last wedding is taking place has an apotropaic meaning.

Currently, the roles of wedding officials have changed, and some have lost their importance completely. In a modern wedding, matchmakers are often replaced by a toastmaster (manager). Toastmaster is a professional who leads the ceremony according to a standard or specially written script. Typical scenarios are distributed by the cultural departments and methodological offices of the RDC. In a civil wedding ceremony, the bride's friend is called a witness, and the groom's groom is called a witness. The main participants in the ritual learn their roles in advance. There is a lot of officialdom in a modern wedding. It is increasingly acquiring the character of an organized event.

Rural folklore groups are making attempts to preserve wedding rituals on stage. The genre composition of songs performed by participants in amateur performances is quite diverse. The largest array consists of lyrical songs. The ritual serves as a backdrop against which the images of the main characters are revealed. The most typical stories include the experiences of the bride and her mother on the eve of the wedding. Another group consists of lyrical works about mutual love. The groom appears in the image of a gallant Cossack, the bride - as a flying bird.

When comparing wedding and non-ritual lyrics, common themes with similar vocabulary are revealed. There are sharp contrasts, for example, between dance and wedding songs, which have similar verbal texts in meaning, but different musical sounds. The moving tempo and syncopated musical melody of the dance create a feeling of unbridled fun. In a wedding song, the melodic pattern consists of successively alternating smooth rises and falls. The minor sound evokes a feeling of anxiety and hopelessness.

Ritual songs performed while the bride is dressing on the first day of the wedding are usually in a minor key. The pine tree serves as a symbol of the bride's humility. Ritual songs, organically woven into the course of the wedding action, precede and accompany it, creating an atmosphere of either sadness or joy. The content of the poems corresponds to the nature of the musical melody. Thus, the ritual of parents driving a wheelbarrow is a fun game, which is why the singing is imbued with a major mood.

The glorifications of the bride and groom have disappeared from living existence and today they can only be heard in stage performances. The same is the fate of corral songs. At the same time, this genre is dynamically developing on stage within the framework of folklore tradition. An important role here was played by the fact that teases are aimed at public performance and are designed for an immediate reaction from listeners. Their execution is addressed to a specific addressee. Most often, couplets have four lines, which gives them a resemblance to ditties. Corial songs are completely devoid of symbolic conventions and reflect life in real images.

The transfer of wedding folklore to the concert stage leads to a change in the conditions of its natural existence. What lives a full-blooded life in folk life must meet the requirements of stage presence on stage. Only individual episodes of the wedding are selected, the number of rituals is reduced. Verbal texts and musical melodies are processed, as a result of which the performance loses its improvisation. From the entire volume of folklore material, those works are selected that meet the tastes and expectations of the audience. The leading role in the concert group belongs to the leader. Having received special training in higher and secondary educational institutions, they contribute to folk art professional vocal culture, modernizing style. Since the 70s of the 20th century, a pop trend has emerged in the promotion of ritual folklore. Despite the imitation of the folk style of singing, such groups remain purely stage.

The main contingent of amateur folklore artists are older people born in the first third of the 20th century. An indispensable condition for the existence of veteran groups is the presence of performers from one village, farm or village. The defining feature of the repertoire is the works that exist in a particular area. In groups where there is no professional leader, the participants gravitate toward authentic folklore.

The numerous children's and youth ensembles that exist, to a certain extent, imitate adult performers. The main form of work is mastering vocal and choral technique. The selection of the repertoire is carried out taking into account the degree of complexity of musical works and performing culture participants. A general trend is characteristic of amateur folklore performances: the rejuvenation of the composition of performers, the departure of older people, as a result of which skill is lost and the continuity of traditions is disrupted.

The rudiments of archaic ideas about a newborn still find expression in superstitious signs and behavioral stereotypes, the main meaning of which is determined by concern for his health. Mothers, for example, are not recommended to cut their hair or take photographs before giving birth, otherwise the child will be stillborn. You cannot step over root vegetables, comb your hair on Fridays, or sew, knit, or cut during Christmastide and Easter week, otherwise the child will be born with a birthmark in the form of a patch, or his way into this world will be “sewn up.” Before birth, the baby is not sewn or bought anything, and until six weeks old is not shown to strangers (they can jinx it). It is dangerous to leave a baby stroller under the eaves of a house, as evil spirits may descend along the eaves. The belief in the protective power of sharp objects has remained.

To ensure that the child grows strong, at the baptismal dinner one glass is poured into the ceiling. Until he learns to speak, you should not kiss him on the lips or feed him fish (he may become dumb as a fish). The baby should not be weaned on the days of remembrance of the holy martyrs. As soon as he takes his first independent steps, the mother should run a knife between the legs (cut the bonds).

With the development of the obstetric system in the USSR, the rituals of midwives disappeared. Pregnancy and childbirth are supervised by medical professionals. IN Soviet time the custom of naming a name by name has lost its meaning Orthodox calendar. The choice of name depends on the desires and tastes of the parents, and often on fashion. Celebrating birthdays has become a practice.

Registration of the birth of a child is ensured by the civil registry office (registry office). In populated areas where they are absent, civil ceremonies are carried out by local administration bodies. The basis of the Soviet ritual was the honoring of the newborn as a citizen of the USSR and congratulations to the family. The ceremony was led by the director and his assistants. IN Soviet era many parents were wary of baptizing their children in the church, fearing persecution from ideological authorities. Baptismal ceremonies were performed, for the most part, secretly. With the revival of the Orthodox faith, more and more people are seeking to baptize newborns, thereby introducing them to religion, to the church.

In the family-domestic complex, funeral and memorial rites are more conservative and therefore preserved quite well. As before, the theme of death is found in folk predictions, omens, and fatal signs. The onset of the hour of death is recognized by the appearance of dark spots and by the smell of the dying person’s body (“smells like earth”). Interpretation of dreams is also common. So, if one of the deceased calls to you in a dream, they say that this means imminent death. A bird flying into a window is a sign of someone's demise. A hen suddenly crowing as a rooster foretells misfortune.

Unrecognizability of the dead is achieved by changing clothes: old people in dark clothes, young people in light clothes. The traditions of night vigil and ritual feeding are preserved. Currently, it is believed that the deceased must “spend the night” in his home for at least one night.

To bury ahead of time means to be condemned by public opinion for disrespect for the memory of the deceased. In tradition, there is a custom of ritual sacrifice in the form of money, which is used to buy candles and order a memorial service. Unction and funeral services for deceased relatives in church or at home again became a practice.

They don't bury you until noon. Precautionary measures include the custom of carrying the body forward with your feet, trying not to touch the threshold or doorway, in order to prevent the dead from returning home. Relatives cry loudly, openly expressing their grief. Before the funeral procession, it is customary to throw fresh flowers and evergreen branches of boxwood and thuja. The relatives follow the coffin first, then the rest of the mourners. The attributes of the funeral rite are scarves and towels - pagan symbols of an easy road to the afterlife.

Modern civil ritual includes funeral music performed by a brass band, carrying a portrait of the deceased, pillows with orders and medals, as well as farewell speeches. There is still a custom of saying goodbye to the deceased by relatives and throwing three handfuls of earth into the grave with the words: “may the earth rest in peace.” Often an Orthodox cross and a portrait are placed on a grave at the same time.

“Feeding” the deceased during the wake and “breakfast” on the second day after the funeral are remnants of ancient beliefs in the harmful force of those who have passed on to another world. The traditional “food” of the deceased is bread, kutia, vodka. If clergy are present at the wake, then lunch begins with prayer. The grave is “sealed” shortly after the funeral, but no later than the eighth day. They commemorate, as before, on the ninth, fortieth days, six months and a year later.

To this day, the observance of mourning has not lost its importance, however, its duration has been reduced. For up to a year or more, mourning clothes are worn by mothers who have untimely lost their children. Widows observe annual mourning. Men often wear dark clothes only on the day of the funeral.

In the modern civil funeral ritual, the religious component is optional. In the process of secularization of everyday life, religious traditions recede into the background.

Funerals, like other family rituals, have the inherent function of uniting family and friends, and in rural areas, the entire community. Rituals create a sense of integrity of the family, clan, and work collective. Participation in them represents one of the traditional forms of communication and at the same time, a means of transmitting traditions.

In the 20th century, there was a tendency towards individualization of family life. The modern Russian family consists mainly of parents and their minor children. Separation of adult children has become commonplace. The initiative comes from both sides. The incentive to intensify the process of family separation is the active migration of rural youth to the city. Neither economic nor housing problems that young people face when starting an independent life are holding them back.

While maintaining a certain economic, cultural and everyday autonomy, parents and children combine their efforts in achieving common material and economic goals. Parental family acts as a link between members of the clan. The unity of relatives manifests itself at important moments - the birth of children, death or marriage.

Multinational Krasnodar region

The multi-ethnic composition of the population of Kuban is confirmed by dry figures. The results of the 2017 population census provide a complete picture of what peoples inhabit the Krasnodar Territory.

The main part, more than 80%, are Russians. About 4.5 million Russians live in both cities and rural areas.

Among the peoples inhabiting the Krasnodar region, there are almost 200 thousand Ukrainians and 40 thousand Belarusians.

Since ancient times, a large diaspora of Armenians has lived in Kuban, mainly in cities on the coast: about 250 thousand people.

They prefer compact settlement based on ethnicity:

Germans - about 20 thousand;
Greeks - more than 30 thousand;
Adyghe - more than 19 thousand.

Representatives of Circassians, Moldovans, Czechs, Georgians, Bulgarians, Turks, Crimean Tatars, and Estonians live and work in the Krasnodar Territory. There are even isolated representatives of the small peoples of the Far North and other states, for example, Eskimos and Assyrians.

A powerful flow of labor arrived in the Krasnodar region from Central Asia. Now Turkmens, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, as well as Koreans have found a second home in the Krasnodar Territory.

What other peoples inhabit the Krasnodar region? These are Mordovians, Ossetians, Maris, Finns, Lithuanians, Poles, Romanians, Lezgins. There are Arabs, Tabasarans, Udins, Laks, Yezidis, Kurds, Gypsies, Shapsugs, Jews and representatives of other nationalities in the Kuban.

History of the settlement of Kuban

You will not find such a diverse multi-ethnic composition anywhere else except in the Krasnodar Territory. Why did this happen?

Archaeological data claim that people began to live on the fertile lands of the Kuban River more than 10 thousand years ago.

In the second millennium BC, the Adygs settled. Then the ancient Greeks created city-policies on the Black Sea coast of Kuban.

In the 10th century, the Slavs appeared and founded the principality of Tmutarakan.

In the Middle Ages, resourceful Genoese merchants built fortresses to secure trade routes.

The war with Turkey became a decisive factor: the Kuban region became Russian citizenship, and Empress Catherine II settled the Cossacks on the fertile lands - let them guard the borders.

After the abolition of serfdom in the mid-19th century, a stream of Russian and Ukrainian peasantry poured into Kuban.

The phenomenon of a subethnic group - the Kuban Cossacks

Among the peoples of the Krasnodar region, the Cossacks stand out clearly, having no analogues in the world.

Don and Zaporozhye Cossacks, sent to guard the borders of Russia, peasants who came voluntarily or by force to develop free rich lands - all of them became the basis for the unique emergence of a subethnic group - Kuban Cossacks.

Linguistic traditions of the Kuban Cossacks

Coming from the South Russian and Ukrainian dialect with the addition of paramilitary expressions, this language amazes with the richness and richness of its expressions. The Cossacks “gek”, stretching out the sound “g”, and the sound “f” turned into “khf”. The neuter gender is not popular in the Cossack dialect; it is often replaced by masculine or feminine.

To fully immerse yourself in the style of the Cossack language, it is worth re-reading “Quiet Don”. A traditional dialect that has survived to this day Kuban Cossacks distinguishes them from other residents of the region.

Everyday Cossack customs and traditions

Cossacks hold tightly to their traditions. And one of them is adherence to Orthodoxy, observance of religious customs. Cossacks all over the world celebrate Easter and Christmas, Savior and other church holidays.

Another good tradition among the Cossacks that has survived to this day is a respectful attitude towards elders and guests.

From childhood, boys in Cossack families learn to hold a bladed weapon - a saber. Handle weapons skillfully, ride a horse - such skills are traditionally passed down from generation to generation in Cossack families.

Adyghe people are the original population of the region

Until the 18th century, mainly Adyghe people lived in the Kuban. The Ubykhs, Shapsugs, Bzhedugs and representatives of other tribes were called Adyghe. Another name for the Circassians is Circassians.

Traditionally, the Adyghe people were engaged in cattle breeding, especially horses. Kabardian horses are still considered an excellent breed, receiving awards at various competitions and races.

Men forged weapons, women decorated scabbards with silver embroidery. The special attitude of the Circassians towards family has been preserved to this day - family ties are revered more than others.

Today, in the tradition of such peoples of the Krasnodar region as the Adygeis, the fashion for national clothing is returning again. Most often it is sewn for festive events, such as weddings. On the bride in a long velvet dress decorated with embroidery, the parents put on a beautiful belt forged from silver or with gold stripes. Such an expensive belt is part of a girl's dowry. A small cap is put on the head, and the hair is covered with a light veil. In such a dress, the bride looks incredibly elegant.

Modern Adyghe grooms also happily wear a traditional costume that emphasizes their masculine appearance: Circassian coat, burka, papakha.

A wedding in folk costumes always evokes admiring glances, so young people in Kuban are increasingly holding wedding celebrations in the national style, and even a casual passer-by can enjoy the magnificent spectacle.

Greeks in the Krasnodar region

What other peoples of the Krasnodar region have preserved their national traditions? Of course they are Greeks.

Many Greeks live in cities, but approximately a third of the community is located in the villages of Kabardinka, Vityazevo, Gaverdovskoye, and Pshada. Most often in rural areas, Greeks are engaged in serving tourists and growing tobacco and grapes.

Over the past centuries, the Greeks of Kuban have not lost their national customs.

For example, at a wedding it is customary to dance the Vineman. This is a beautiful dance involving 6 newly married couples. They hold lighted candles in their hands and dance around the newlyweds, finally accepting them into their circle. Such an interesting and colorful ritual is becoming popular among other peoples of the Krasnodar region, who willingly adopt the Greek tradition.

Armenians are residents of Kuban

There are about 70 thousand Armenians in Krasnodar alone. Krasnodar is also the center of the southern branch of the Armenian Apostolic Church. About 30% of Armenians live in Sochi.

The Armenians have preserved an interesting tradition - the Vardavar holiday. Glad summer holiday allows you to pour water on everyone, regardless of status, and you cannot be offended.

Interesting traditions of the peoples of the Krasnodar region - a mixture of national dishes. Borsch and lavash, khash and zapenka - all this can be served on the table in any Kuban home. However, Armenians often prepare national dishes, remaining faithful to culinary customs. For example, arganakka combines deer and chicken meat. Armenians cook river trout excellently. Tourists are definitely advised to try meat nastypery and kusuchi.

The multinationality of Kuban allows each people to preserve their identity and at the same time take the best and most useful from others. Perhaps, in many years, a new universal nationality will appear in the Krasnodar region - the Kuban.

Traditions are something generally accepted, familiar, worthy. Traditions are then accepted by law when they become a way of life and are passed on from generation to generation. “It’s hard to imagine what life would be like without holidays. Undoubtedly, something very dull, monotonous... But the soul cannot stand depressing monotony: it requires bright, flowery spots, a burning sun, a laughing sky, the song of a lark, the joy of life. All this gives a holiday,” said St. Basil (1878-1945), Bishop of Kineshma, canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000.

The basis of all folk traditional (spiritual) culture is rituals. A ritual is a set of customs and rituals in which any ideas or everyday traditions are embodied. A ritual is a traditional order of performing any actions - New Year's Eve, wedding, funeral. Ritualism united people and formed a single and inviolable way of life. It reflected the centuries-old experience of the people, its unique ethics and aesthetics.

It is customary to divide rituals into calendar ones, associated with certain days of the year - driving cattle to the field, harvesting - and everyday ones - weddings, christenings, funerals, housewarmings 1. Compliance by the Cossacks with their religious faith was a prerequisite for acceptance into the Cossack brotherhood 2 .

A holiday is a day especially celebrated by custom or church. Calendar holidays and rituals are identified that are fixed in time and associated with special, turning-point events in the life of nature and society. Special group constitute life cycle rituals, or family (household) rituals associated with the life of an individual. Military holidays are also typical for the Cossacks. All these holidays and rituals developed over the centuries, accumulating the most important events in human life.

Calendar holidays, marking the change of seasons, were concentrated around the winter (Nativity of Christ) and summer (Ivan Kupala) solstices, spring (Maslenitsa) and autumn (Nativity of the Virgin Mary) equinoxes. All great holidays (Christmas, Easter, Trinity) were accompanied by a special ritual and lasted several days. The traditional calendar rituals of the Don Cossacks were formed during the 18th-19th centuries 3. During the period of early history, when the Cossacks were paramilitary male communities, there were practically no agrarian rituals on the Don, since the economic sphere of life itself was absent, there was a strict ban on arable land, and livelihoods were obtained exclusively from war.

As the Cossacks transitioned to a sedentary lifestyle and farming, along with the formation of a patriarchal family and a rural land community, a complex of traditional calendar rituals took shape, complementing the previously existing military rituals.

In the gradually emerging cycle of calendar holidays, ancient pagan and Christian views were closely intertwined; rituals associated with the period of male paramilitary communities and later ones - brought to the Don by new waves of settlers. Closely intertwined and complementing each other, these customs and rituals reflected folk ideas about the relationship between the world of people and nature, living and dead, and performed the most important functions of socialization of youth and solidarity of the entire Cossack community.

The calendar holidays of the Don Cossacks have many features, since in the 18th-19th centuries. the Cossack remained both a professional warrior and a plowman-farmer. In almost every calendar holiday on the Don, the main organizing role was given to men's groups.

The role of the Orthodox Church was very significant in the Cossack tradition. Orthodox priests took part in Maslenitsa memorial services in old towns, in the so-called. “royal holidays”, in rituals of praying for rain, in seeing off and welcoming Cossacks from service. Priests walked around the courtyards at Christmas, Epiphany and Easter. Big role In the life of Cossack villages and farms, patronal (temple) holidays played a role, which were celebrated very solemnly and magnificently. It was the Orthodox (primarily the Twelfth) holidays that structured the national calendar year and either crushed with their power many elements of the former pagan tradition, or were closely intertwined with them, enriching the holidays with new elements and meanings.

The very concept of “folk holiday” absorbed both ancient (pre-Christian) ideas and the experience of the Orthodox Church. Moreover, over time, Christian traditions on the Don increasingly replaced pagan ones, highlighting and elevating the concept of the holiday.

The Orthodox Church calls holidays days dedicated to the remembrance of some sacred event or sacred person in the history of the Church in order to encourage believers to understand the meaning of the remembered event, or to imitate the lives of saints.

family traditions and foundations

Until the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. The existence of a large family is typical, says A.P. Kashkarov 4. Its long-term preservation was facilitated by the special social position of the Cossacks and their specific way of life: the need to cultivate large plots of land, the impossibility of separating a young family during service or before it began, and the relative isolation of family life. The Cossacks of the Don, Ural, Terek, Kuban troops had 3-4 generation families, the number reached 25-30 people. Along with large ones, small families were known, consisting of parents and unmarried children. The head of the family (grandfather, father or older brother) was the sovereign leader of the entire family and had sole power. This position was occupied by the mother in the absence of the owner.

The everyday life of the Cossacks is characterized by traditions of spending leisure time together: meals after finishing fishing work, seeing off and meeting Cossacks from service. Almost all holidays were accompanied by competitions in cutting, shooting, and horse riding. A characteristic feature were “gulebnye” games, which staged military battles or Cossack “freedom”. Games and competitions were held on the initiative of the military Cossack foreman (the leadership of the farm, village).

Among the Don Cossacks there was a custom of “walking with a banner” at Maslenitsa, when the chosen “vatazhny ataman” walked around the houses of the village residents with a banner, accepting treats from them. At the christening, the boy was “initiated as a Cossack”: they put a saber on him and put him on a horse. Guests brought arrows, cartridges, and a gun as gifts for the newborn (to eat) and hung them on the wall. Just as today, the most significant Orthodox holidays were Christmas and Easter. Patronal holidays were widely celebrated. The day of the patron saint of the army was considered a general military holiday.

And among the Ural Cossacks in the 19th century. The festive fun included an entertainment known among the Turkic peoples: without using your hands, you were supposed to get a coin from the bottom of a cauldron with flour stew (oalamyk).

The authorities encouraged the Cossacks' passion for choral singing, creating choirs, organizing the collection of ancient songs and publishing texts with notes. Music literacy taught in village schools, the basis of the song repertoire was made up of ancient historical and heroic songs associated with specific historical events, as well as those that reflected military life. Ritual songs accompanied calendar and family holidays; love and humorous songs were popular.

birth of a Cossack. initiation into the Cossacks

Each newborn Cossack or Cossack woman, in addition to his blood father and mother, had a godfather and a godmother 5. The blood parents took care of the choice of godparents in advance. These did not have to be relatives (as is customary now). The godfather was selected by the father - he must be a reliable person (kunak, one-sum, brother-in-law, etc.) from whom there was something to learn. It was he who primarily shaped the spirit of the Cossack. And an important factor is that both the godfather and godmother must be able to participate in raising the child - living close to the godson (goddaughter). The godmother was looked for by the blood mother from among her friends (preferably at least a little older than her age).

If a Cossack was born into a family, then the main burden fell on the godfather - he made a warrior out of the Cossack. The main task of the godmother in this case was to form in the Cossack an attitude towards the Cossack girl as a wife, mother and mistress. If a Cossack girl was born, then the main role was played by the godmother. She molded the girl into a Cossack woman, as a wife who knew how to wait, a patient mother and a kind housewife. In this case, the godfather formed in the Cossack woman an attitude towards the Cossack as a warrior-defender, as a husband, father and head of the family.

After the birth of the child, there was no particular rush to undress the baby. Teaching him to move his arms and legs quickly was not an end in itself. The child must first see and understand an unknown object, and only then touch it, “take it by heart.” Subsequently, the “saw-realized-did” process accelerated. This is exactly what a Cossack does in a critical situation. And there is no panic and unnecessary movements, because first I appreciated it, and then I did it.

After the christening, a checker (dagger) or a bullet (formerly an arrow) was placed on the Cossack girl, which is called “on the tooth.” And they watched his reaction: if he starts playing with her, he will be a kind Cossack, but if he bursts into tears, there is something to think about. Further, they always tried to surround the boy with exactly those things that were indispensable attributes of the life of the Cossacks.

When the Cossack girl turned one year old, he was led to his first communion. This year the Cossack boy experienced many things for the first time. For the first time, he was put on a horse alone, his father’s saber was put on him, his father took the horse by the bridle and led him around the yard. And another ritual was performed in the year from birth. All the men of the clan gathered and took the boy to the sacred place of their village (or farm). Among the Donets it was called a “tract”, among the Black Sea people it was called a “round”. Actions were taken there that made it possible to transfer the power and knowledge of the family to a new generation on a spiritual level.

The first steps in training and education were taken in the family. The entire system, if you can call it that, was built precisely on the tribal and comradely principles of existence. Until the age of 7-8 years, the Cossack boy lived in the female half of the kuren.

War games outside the city and target shooting were favorite pastimes for young people in their free time. These exercises developed accuracy in shooting; many of the Cossacks could knock out a coin held between their fingers with a bullet at a considerable distance. Three-year-old children were already freely riding a horse around the yard, and at the age of 5 they were galloping across the steppe

At this moment, education came from both the female part of the family and the male part. It was based on visibility. And the main thing here is the personal example of the elders and the immersion of the boy in the appropriate environment. And what exactly did the Cossack habitat include for a Cossack girl? On the wall in the kuren is my father's (or grandfather's) saber. Whips are at the door and in the hands of the Cossacks. Stripes, hats, caps on people close to the boy. Crosses and medals on the chest of a grandfather, father, uncle or godfather. Horses. Horses are everywhere, at home, on the street, with neighbors, in the steppe outside the village. During this period, men watched how the Cossack woman was formed. Women were less and less allowed to coo with him: “Don’t spoil the Cossack, women!” If I hurt myself somewhere and cried, they taught me: “Don’t cry, you’re a Cossack, and a Cossack doesn’t cry!” And then the Cossack girl gradually developed the conviction that what the elders sing about and what the elders say, that’s what they do, and commit the same actions. And it's all real. And he himself will do the same. Well, and, on top of everything else, playing outside with peers. The games have been established for centuries, and are naturally aimed at the development of Cossacks. Almost all of them took place under the supervision of village (farm) elders, who strictly monitored the behavior of each of the Cossack children. And in the event that someone behaved unworthily, the old people inspiredly instructed and corrected the negligent person.

There were many exercise games for the development of Cossacks. Exercises are naturally not in the form in which we understand them. These are more like test exercises. They identified the presence of one or another quality or skill among Cossacks. And the Cossacks did these test games, competing with each other (playing). And the Cossacks played these games almost their entire lives. From the age of 12, Cossack girls began to be taken to circles (gatherings) and other socially significant events. Its main task is to watch and remember. And at the age of 16, when the Cossack was ready, a more serious test awaited him - mainly it was a hunt for a predator (wolf, wild boar, etc.). In addition, the Cossacks were trained under the guidance of experienced Cossacks. They gathered at a specially designated place on their horse and with weapons. Here they improved combat techniques, shot at a target at full gallop, chopped down a vine with a saber, overcame obstacle courses on horseback, picked up objects from the ground while galloping, rode while standing on a horse, learned to jump off a horse while running and fly into the saddle again, chop a candle flame on stand. They learned to swim across rivers with a horse, crawl on their bellies, and hide sentries. With pikes at the ready, the Cossacks on horseback charged with lava, hitting the enemy's reed effigies with their pikes, and with the pike on the move they learned to hit the enemy on the move, throwing the pike like a spear. And when the day of passing the exams came, they were received by the ataman himself and the esauls in the presence of the elderly. The chieftain presented the most distinguished ones with rich weapons, decorated saddles, and elegant bridles. And the Cossacks valued these first awards very much and kept them all their lives.

And after such upbringing and training, the result was a “seasoned Cossack”. True, there is one clarification: the “seasoned” Cossack appeared in the third generation. Naturally, if the first and second generations were carefully prepared and survived battles and battles. Before serving in the army, a Cossack youth had to master at least: horse riding with elements of horseback riding, cutting vines with a saber, rifle shooting (lying, standing, kneeling, from a horse, including at a gallop), wield a pike. All young and adult Cossacks demonstrated their military skills at the general Cossack military festival. The holiday went something like this. First, military formation (by fifty and hundreds). Then the removal from the temple of the banner, icons, centenary flags and liturgy - a church service. After this: speed racing and overcoming an obstacle course on horseback, horse riding, demonstration of weapon possession - saber, dagger, lance. And at the end - a public feast for groups and families, mass celebrations.

You can get acquainted with the Siberian traditions associated with the birth of a Cossack and his initiation into the Cossacks in the “Combat sheet of the Yenisei Cossacks” 6. When a boy was born into a family in the Cossack regions, it was always a great joy. Great hopes were placed on him. He is a warrior, a hard worker, and most importantly, a successor of the family. Therefore, they began to raise the baby according to Cossack traditions almost from the cradle. When the child was nine months old, they checked whether he was really a Cossack. This custom was performed in the presence of the ataman. Various toys were laid out around the boy: girls' and boys'. Cossack objects, such as a bullet, were also placed among them. It was joyful if a child chose a toy for boys or a combat item for the Cossacks.

The second initiation took place when the boy turned three years old. On this day, after communion in the temple, his godfather and mother put the child on a horse and, with the blessing of the priest, led him around the temple. And they said that it was yours, son. This is what you must protect. Then they handed the baby into the arms of his father. As if to draw the line: once he was a mama’s boy, he became a daddy’s boy. Thus, the boy was initiated into the Cossacks. Later, in order to be considered a Cossack, it became necessary to take an oath. The single Cossacks (who had taken a vow of celibacy) nursed the newborn baby, and when his first tooth appeared, everyone certainly came to see him and there was no end to the delight of these battle-hardened warriors.

A Cossack was born a warrior, and with the birth of a baby his military school began. All the father's relatives and friends brought a gun, cartridges, gunpowder, bullets, a bow and arrows as a gift to the newborn. These gifts were hung on the wall where the mother and baby lay. At the end of forty days after the mother, having taken a cleansing prayer, returned home, the father put a sword belt on the child, holding the sword in his hand, put him on a horse and then returned the son to his mother, congratulating her on becoming a Cossack. When the newborn's teeth were cutting through, his father and mother put him back on the horse and took him to church to serve a prayer service to Ivan the Warrior. The baby’s first words were “but” and “poo” - to urge the horse and shoot. War games outside the city and target shooting were favorite pastimes for young people in their free time. These exercises developed accuracy in shooting; many of the Cossacks could knock out a coin held between their fingers with a bullet at a considerable distance. Three-year-old children could already freely ride a horse around the yard, and at the age of 5 they galloped across the steppe.

The process of initiation into the Cossacks is usually described as follows: “This ritual, which exists today, consists in the fact that, having waited for the son’s first tooth to appear, the father, putting a saber on him, puts him on his saddled horse and at that moment for the first time trims his forelock.” Then he returns it to his mother with the words: “Here’s a Cossack for you!” All the father’s friends and acquaintances brought something for the newborn’s teeth. This gift was certainly military: a cartridge of gunpowder, an arrow, a bow, a bullet; the grandfather gave a saber or a gun. With this ritual, the boy was initiated into the Cossacks, his belonging to the community of free sons was recognized Quiet Don: a warrior by birth and upbringing, a Cossack from childhood was taught to think and feel in a military way. The son, grandson and great-grandson of a serving Cossack, he was already a Cossack as a child.

In class culture, infant initiation was transformed into a rite of passage into the Cossacks. Officials, as a rule, participated in the ceremony. Initiation into the Cossacks took place at the age of six. Cossacks gathered in a circle on the Maidan. The boys were put on horses. Each of them had to ride a horse in a circle. Whoever could not stay in the saddle was initiated into the Cossacks after a year. For those boys who rode around the circle and did not fall off the horse, initiation into the Cossacks began. The ceremony took place in a solemn atmosphere on the Maidan. The ataman put on each of them a ribbon of red material with the inscription: “Cossack of the Astakhov family.” But before the ribbon was put on, the boys were mounted on horses by senior Cossacks from their Cossack family. After putting on the ribbon, the ataman walked around everyone with importance, congratulated those initiated into the Cossack, and greeted the old Cossack warriors.

Adolescent initiation occurs at thirteen to fifteen years of age. [...] The three-year-olds themselves drove around the yard, and the five-year-olds fearlessly galloped down the street, shot with a bow, played knucklebones, and went to war. The horse occupied a special place in the life of a Cossack; it was an indispensable companion of the Cossack on all paths of his life - both peaceful and non-peaceful. The very life of a Cossack sometimes depended on knowledge of the habits of horses and skills in handling them. The horse was a kind of intermediary between the Cossack and the Don - i.e. native land, native home, native family. In the Don Army Region, a real cult of the horse developed, associated not only with the traditions of ancient Russian warriors, but also with the way of life of the steppe nomads, from whom the Cossacks adopted many ways of handling horses, who themselves often became Cossacks. Gradually, the scope of boys' education expanded to include elements of tracking, skills in handling weapons, hand-to-hand combat, overcoming water obstacles, etc. As a boy, the Cossack played aidanchiki on the stanitsa street, aiming his eyes, or, jumping and running, chasing the head of his head. As soon as he had enough strength, he would already take a arquebus and go shoot sensitive bustards, or gallop across the steppe, driving a herd that had escaped in a snowstorm. He crawled on his stomach, sneaking up on the beast, he swam across the Don, escaping from the Tatars, he knew that a miss from a gun for him often meant death or captivity. He himself did everything that we now teach a Cossack in case of war, his teacher was cruel, mortal danger, and this is a harsh teacher!...

The finale of teenage initiation can be considered “funny battles” between groups of teenagers in a village or farm. Thus, in the book “Donets” 7 we read: “At times, the entire childish population of Cherkassk spoke out for the city, where, divided into two parties, they built reed towns. In paper hats and boats, with paper banners and firecrackers, riding on sticks, the opponents converged, sent out archers or bully riders and, attacking, fought with such passion that they did not spare their noses; they chopped with popular sabers, stabbed themselves with reed lances, beat back banners, and captured prisoners. The winners, to the music of pipes and combs, with rattles or basins, returned solemnly to the city; the prisoners walked behind, bursting into tears, heads hanging in shame.”

On level ground, near a river, a large camp was set up, where, for a month, young children were trained in military affairs under the guidance of old men, in the presence of the ataman. Some were taught to shoot at full speed; others rushed at full speed, standing on the saddle and waving their sabers, others managed to pick up a coin or a whip from a spread cloak. Fighters go there; here a crowd of horsemen gallops towards a steep bank, suddenly disappears and appears again, but on the other bank

Youthful initiations were intended for seventeen to nineteen-year-old boys, called minors, which corresponds in meaning to the modern word “pre-conscription.” Two main events determine the nature of this initiation: training in summer military camps and a public competition of young Cossacks. The atmosphere of the summer camp of Cossack youths is vividly presented in the following description: “when the census of “youngsters” was introduced, everyone who had reached the age of 19 gathered in a pre-designated place, on the best horses and in full armor. On level ground, near a river, a large camp was set up, where, for a month, young children were trained in military affairs under the guidance of old men, in the presence of the ataman. Some were taught to shoot at full speed; others rushed at full speed, standing on the saddle and waving their sabers, others managed to pick up a coin or a whip from a spread cloak. Fighters go there; here a crowd of horsemen gallops towards a steep bank, suddenly disappears and appears again, but on the other bank.” The atmosphere of public competition is conveyed by the author of “Pictures of the Past Quiet Don”: “from many villages, young Cossacks gather in one place for a review. What to watch? - when no one taught them anything. And so the racing began, shooting at the target, shooting at full gallop, chopping and flanking. Inflamed with courage, entire villages of youngsters rushed into the river at full speed and swam to the other side with horses, ammunition and lances. They crumbled into lava, galloped against each other, embraced each other and fought on horseback.” The ataman summed up the results of the competition: “The ataman gave elegant bridles, decorated saddles, and weapons to the most accurate shooters, the most dashing riders.” Young children in many villages took part in fist fights as instigators at their initial stage. They watched the subsequent course of the battle from the sidelines. This was also a kind of school, because The kulaks developed courage, the courage to march on foot into the enemy’s chest, and the Cossack’s quick ingenuity to figure out who to rescue, who to crush in a dump.”

Among the Orenburg Cossacks, it was customary to announce the birth of a son with a shot from a gun, as a reminder from the first minutes of life of the newborn’s appointment to be a warrior, a defender of the Fatherland. When small children appear in a Cossack family, all Orthodox Christians strive to immediately baptize the child, protecting him from the influence of evil spirits. Before baptism, the child was considered “unclean” and, as it were, “not quite human,” according to the saying: “A kitten, a puppy, a hare, and a Cossack will be born into the light of God.” There was a belief that an unbaptized baby faced various dangers. And if the newborn was very weak, then he was not taken to the priest to be baptized; the ceremony was performed by the midwife, pronouncing the same words as the priest during immersion. According to the canons of Russian Orthodox Church Baptism takes place after the 40th day, when the mother is already physically strong and has the right to enter an Orthodox church after the priest reads a cleansing prayer over her. The Sacrament of Baptism is an event for which the Cossacks carefully prepare. The first step is to collect everything necessary for Baptism: a cross and a cord on which the cross will hang. The white baptismal shirt, of course, is new, which the priest himself will put on the baby during the Sacrament of Baptism and which will be kept in the Cossack’s house as a shrine. In addition, every Orthodox Cossack knows that for Baptism a large diaper or towel is needed, in which the child will be wrapped after baptism and given to the Godparents.

One of the essential conditions of the Sacrament of Baptism is godparents, or successors. According to the rules of the Orthodox Church, a person being baptized requires one successor: for a girl - a woman, for a boy - a man. However, according to the old Russian custom, there are two successors: a godmother and a godfather. Because the successors from the Font must necessarily be Orthodox people, believers who take upon themselves the responsibility not only to raise and educate their godson, but to raise him as a good Orthodox Christian. They had a huge responsibility, because the Russian people knew that godparents would have to answer in court before God for their godchildren. The godparents tried to raise their godson in Orthodoxy, making sure to visit the temple, taking their godsons and daughters with them, patiently explaining to them how to behave in church during services on various days. Thus, the boundaries and differences between classes and peoples were erased. This is how friendship between peoples was nurtured from childhood.

Since the Cossack class included many peoples and nationalities that converted to Orthodoxy, it sometimes happened that one of the godparents became a representative of a different ethnic group, and the other a Russian. They became spiritual relatives. They called each other godfathers. “We had sex.” “Godfather and godfather are one Satan.”

The family life of the Don Cossacks in the 18th century was peculiar. If in the seventeenth century a large number of Cossack marriages were concluded without the mediation of the church, then at the beginning of the eighteenth century Peter I forbade marriage and divorce according to Cossack customs and ordered marriages to be performed according to church statutes, and strictly prohibited concubinage.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Peter's orders began to penetrate the Don: a woman hostess was no longer forbidden to show herself to guests. However, the Cossacks continued to marry and divorce several times, and then Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, with a letter dated September 20, 1745, prohibited the Cossacks from “marrying from living wives and in fourth marriages.” How did the ceremony of matchmaking and marriage take place among the Don people? Usually, first there were bridesmaids, when the groom with two or three relatives, under a plausible pretext, appeared at the bride’s house. They sat and talked about different things, slowly looking at the bride. If the elders liked her, then, when leaving, they said meaningfully: “God willing, she will love us!” A few days after the viewing, matchmakers were sent to the bride’s parents, who, having received their consent, shook hands, exclaiming: “Good hour!” Then, before the wedding, a “conspiracy” took place, during which they had fun, drank wine and danced the “Cossack” and “crane” dances. The day before the wedding, they looked at the dowry, celebrating, as the Cossacks said, pillows. And on the eve there was a “bachelorette party”.

The wedding was celebrated on Sunday. The bride was dressed in a rich brocade jacket and a brocade shirt. A tall hat made of black smokka with a red velvet top, decorated with flowers and feathers, was put on the head. The most best jewelry made of gold and silver shone on her. The groom, also dressed in his best, having received his parents' blessing, together with his groomsmen and matchmakers headed to the bride's kuren, who was already modestly sitting under the icons, waiting for her betrothed. From here the young people went to the temple. In its vestibule, the bride was prepared for the crown: after taking off her hat, they unbraided the girl’s braid in two, as married Cossack women usually wore.

After the wedding, the newlyweds' parents met them on the porch of the groom's house. Over their heads they held bread and salt, under which the newlyweds passed, showered with wheat mixed with hops, nuts and small money. The parents, having treated the retinue of the newlyweds, sent the newlyweds themselves to the wedding room, from which they emerged only before serving the roast.

In the second half of the eighteenth century, the position of Cossack women changed: from now on they could freely appear in society not only during major holidays, but also on ordinary days, although it was not approved if they interfered in men’s conversation. Girls could only be in the company of men at weddings; the rest of the time they had to be with friends or alone at home, doing sewing, working in the kitchen, playing flapjacks, blind man's buff, and rounders.

wedding ceremony 9

A wedding is a complex and lengthy ceremony, with its own strict rules. At different times, the Cossacks conducted them in different ways. In the old days, a wedding was never a show of the material wealth of the parents of the bride and groom. Three centuries ago, weddings took place in a simplified manner. The Cossack covered the woman with a hollow outer garment, and then they said publicly one by one: “You, Fedosya, be my wife,” “You, Ivan Semyonovich, be my husband.” After which they became newlyweds and received congratulations from the chieftain and the Cossacks.

A Cossack wedding at the beginning of the 19th century consisted of several separate parts: matchmaking, bridesmaids, vaults, party, wedding. The age of 18-20 years was considered favorable for marriage. Weddings were held, as a rule, after the harvest (after the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos - October 14 or Easter holidays - on Krasnaya Gorka). Usually the young Cossack started a conversation with his parents about how he wanted to get married and asked for their consent. His parents were interested in who his bride was, and if they liked her, they began preparations for matchmaking. First of all, order was restored in the household, house, and yard so that there would be no shame in front of the matchmakers. After this, the mother and father dressed for the holiday, dressed their son and went to the future matchmakers. Each Cossack army had slightly different ones, but in general outline similar matchmaking rituals.

The Terts had this custom: in front of the girl he liked, a Cossack would throw his hat out the window or into the yard, and if the girl did not immediately throw her hat out into the street, in the evening he could come with his father and mother to get married. Guests said:

- Good people, don’t be angry, my guy lost his hat. Didn’t you find it in an hour?

“They found, they found...” answers the bride’s father,

- They hanged him, let him take it and never lose it again.

This meant that the matchmaking did not take place - the bride's parents were against it. To this the matchmaker could object: “ The thing is not ours, we will look for ours" And this meant that there was a conspiracy between the girl and the guy, and the groom would try to steal her. Somewhat frightened by this turn of events, the girl’s father shouted: “ Hey Mariana! Come on, give me the hat, whose is it with us!“If a girl brought a hat and put it bottom down (later it became a “Mortgage” in which money for the wedding was put), this meant that she agreed to marry the guy, and the parents risked disgrace, losing their daughter and offending their future son-in-law. If the hat lay on the table upside down with the cross facing up, this meant that the issue of marriage with the girl had not been agreed upon. These are the unlucky groom's own fantasies.

-Come on, think about it!- the father strictly ordered his son.

- Here you go!- The father of the bride said joyfully.

- Your hat! Wear it, stay healthy and don’t lose it again! The Cossacks are so scattered these days, we’ve lost almost half of our yard to these dads!

In a good situation, guests were asked to undress, snacks and alcohol were placed on the table. During the meal, a conversation took place in which they agreed on the bride's party, but this time in the groom's kuren.

After about a week, the bride's mother and father go to the groom's parents, where they inspect the household, rooms, and meet the family of the future son-in-law. If the guests are happy, they are invited to call themselves matchmakers, to which they respond that it is still early. The father-in-law invites them with the words: “ Well, matchmakers are not matchmakers, good people please come to the table" The guests sit down at the table. They drink one glass, then another. " Well, now we can call ourselves matchmakers", says the bride's father. Here they decide when to do the vaults.

Usually the young Cossack started a conversation with his parents about how he wanted to get married and asked for their consent. His parents were interested in who his bride was, and if they liked her, they began preparations for matchmaking. First of all, order was restored in the household, house, and yard so that there would be no shame in front of the matchmakers. After this, the mother and father dressed for the holiday, dressed their son and went to the future matchmakers. Each Cossack army had broadly similar matchmaking rituals.

During the wedding ceremony, the bride's friends go into a separate room, and in the upper room (large room) they remain and sit on chairs: her grandfather, grandmother, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters and invited relatives. On place of honor The godfather and mother sit under the holy images. On the table are two rolls of bread and a salt shaker. The arriving groom (with friends) is invited into the house alone, the bride is hidden in another room among her friends. They invite the groom with the words: “ Can you guess who and where to look?" The groom goes to the room where a girl’s laughter is heard and there he finds his chosen one, takes her by the hand and stands with her in the upper room in the middle of the room. Parents ask children for consent to marriage. The answers follow: “ We do not leave the will of our parents. We agree" Then the fathers of the bride and groom hit each other's hands. Everyone sits down at the table, eats and agrees on the wedding day. From this time on, the girl is considered a “drunk bride.”

After drinking until the wedding day, “Parties” or “sleepovers” begin in the bride’s house, where the groom, his friends and her girlfriends gather. At parties, various games are played throughout the night. At “sleepovers,” guys and girls vigilantly made sure that no one could fall asleep during the parties. Those who fell asleep were punished in various ways. Often, sleeping people had an old rag sewn onto the back of their outer clothing, and in the morning they were dressed “carefully” so that they would not notice this trick. Walking through the village with the “goods” sewn on, the young Cossack did not imagine that everyone in the village already knew where he was and why he was punished.

In the evening before the wedding day, the bride's dowry (made and colorfully decorated towels and bedspreads by the bride herself) is delivered to the groom's house.

On the wedding day, the bride got up early in the morning before sunrise, walked around her entire yard, and mentally said goodbye to everything that was dear to her. The arriving groom is seated at the table next to the bride. The bride's parents bless and give instructions to the newlyweds. Then the young people go to church on three horses. After the wedding, the bride and groom go to the house of the bride’s parents, where they are congratulated by her father and mother, followed by her godparents, and then, according to the degree of relationship, the rest of those present. Then the matchmaker begins curling - “cutting the braid.” When the matchmaker unravels the braid, the bride's brother takes a knife and cuts the braid with a blunt edge. At this moment my friend says: “ Wait, wait, don’t cut it, we’ll buy this braid" And he gives a few kopecks. " No, that's not enough", says the brother. The bargaining continues until the brother is satisfied. Then the matchmaker braids two braids and the guests again congratulate the newlyweds. In a number of villages of the Caucasian line, young people were given gifts, and they were congratulated with jokes and jokes. One could often hear parting words: “ I give you silver so that there is goodness in the house" At this time, the young people stood and listened carefully to the instructions.

At the end of the gifts, the young people were taken out of the room into the courtyard. The bride's mother handed over the icon (usually the one with which she herself got married) and her parental blessing. Then the whole procession headed to the groom's house. On the threshold of the groom's house, the newlyweds were met by his father and mother, and behind him by his grandfather, grandmother, and godparents. The father usually held the icon, and the mother the bread and salt. The young people crossed themselves three times to the icon, kissed it, and then treated themselves to bread. The mother showered the young with hops, silver coins, sweets, and nuts, wishing the young abundance and happiness. Then the newlyweds enter the house so as not to step on the threshold, so as not to lose their betrothed, and stand on a sheepskin coat, which they first spread with the wool facing up. Hops and a sheepskin coat were a symbol of contentment and prosperity. After this, the newlyweds and guests sat down. The newlyweds began to be congratulated and presented with gifts. Everyone spoke good words and gave from the heart what they could, depending on their financial situation. During the gifts, each of the congratulators asked to sweeten the alcohol with a kiss. This was a hint for a long kiss.

Guests could sit and have fun until the morning, and late in the evening the newlyweds were sent to their room, where the newlyweds were to spend their wedding night. An icon, a glass of honey, a cup of grain were placed in it, where candles were placed without lighting them.

The second day of the wedding began with breakfast: the young wife invited all the guests to the table. Those guests who were late for breakfast were taken off their shoes, doused with water, and given a ride in a wheelbarrow. To avoid this, latecomers paid off with money, alcohol, candy, etc. After parents' breakfast young husband They dressed up the bride and groom, put them on a wheelbarrow and drove them around. Then all the guests went to the wife's parents.

Participants in the wedding procession often changed clothes: women in men's clothes, and men in women's clothing. Among them there were quite a few “gypsies” who pestered passers-by with offers to “tell fortunes” and often came into courtyards to “steal” chickens. In the old days, weddings lasted at least a week, 250-300 rubles were spent on them (late 19th century), which was burdensome for Cossack families, but they had been preparing for them for many years, from the very birth of their children.

Wedding traditions in Kuban 10 had their own characteristics. The main form of marriage was contractual, but in the 18th and even the beginning of the 20th centuries, kidnapping (snatching) and marriage by elopement occurred, despite the fact that young people were given a certain freedom in choosing a marriage partner (on the “streets”, “gatherings”, during holidays). festivities and summer night meetings of boys and girls during field work in the steppe), the will of the parents was decisive.

Matchmaking could consist of one or three visits of matchmakers, and could also include or continue meetings of parents and relatives on both sides: Various kinds of bridesmaids are associated with them: “to look at the stove,” the groom’s household, etc. By the end of the 19th century. the number of shares following matchmaking is reduced to a minimum, including due to their combination. Then came gatherings, evenings or parties. Including the “hot evening” (on the eve of the wedding), “loaf rituals” - the preparation of ritual bread and other object symbols. This part of the wedding also includes the gathering of the bride's retinue (bridegroom, senior groomsman, girlfriend) and the groom's retinue (senior groomsman, boyars, senior boyar).

The forms of invitation also varied. The bride could only invite accompanied by an older groomsman, or she could invite her in the company of her girlfriends and perform street wedding songs. The groom is accompanied by a senior groom (on horseback or on a ruler/cart) or accompanied by horsemen (boyars).

The wedding itself, which usually took place on Sunday, sometimes on Saturday or Wednesday, began with the dressing of the bride and groom. The formation and decoration (“painting the train”) of the wedding “train” took place at the groom’s place. This was followed by separate blessings in their homes by the parents of the bride and groom and the departure of the “train.” Following the arrival of the groom and the “goers” to the bride’s house, a series of ransoms followed: gates, places near the bride, “sale of the braid.” The groom's stay in the bride's house could be accompanied by gifts, the parental blessing of the bride and groom ("prince and princess"), dinner, gifts and the actual farewell to the crown.

For the wedding, the bride and groom rode either together, in the same “carriage”, as a typical fact, but they could also travel separately - the bride in front, and then, sometimes on horseback, the groom. After the crown, the newlyweds went to the groom's house, where they were greeted and blessed by his parents with an icon, bread, and “sprinkling” (hops, candy, money, nuts, and sometimes wheat).

After the arrival of the bride and groom to his parents and the corresponding blessing rituals, a feast began, as a rule, without the participation of the bride, and the young people were sent to the marriage bed.

During the feast, gifts could also be given to the newlyweds, although the “gifts” traditionally took place on the second day of the wedding, after the “examination of the honesty” of the bride, mutual guest visits of the groom’s guests to the relatives of the bride and her relatives in the newlyweds’ house.

The Kuban wedding was given its special flavor by the inclusion of Cossack symbols and paraphernalia in the ritual: a whip, a saber, horsemen when inviting guests and accompanying the groom (sometimes with sabers drawn), a train, shooting at various stages of the wedding: while the “train” was moving ", ransoms, when the bride and groom cross the fire placed in the gate, during the first wedding night, etc.

The second, or in other versions - the third day - is the time of “whims” and the completion of the wedding, although the end could drag on for a week due to the fact that the wedding participants, some “ranks”, could alternately invite guests to their place. The second and third days consisted of the mummers walking in procession (“groom”, “bride”, “bear”, “Turk”, “gypsy”, “crane”, etc.), “gathering chickens”, riding, swimming, hiding , “burning” of parents whom the young ransomed, as well as gifts, as an option, and some other ritual actions.

An orphan’s wedding is also unique: additional (“orphan”) songs, the bride’s voting in some linear villages, visits to her parents’ graves, features in her hairstyle: “unbraided” or half-braided.

The Kuban wedding was given its special flavor by the inclusion of Cossack symbols and paraphernalia in the ritual: a whip, a saber, horsemen when inviting guests and accompanying the groom (sometimes with sabers drawn), a train, shooting at various stages of the wedding: during the movement of the “train”, ransoms, when the bride and groom pass through the fire placed in the gate, during the first wedding night, etc.

The wedding ceremony of those villages that only in the second half of the 19th century had the greatest number of features. were transformed into villages, and the population was assigned to the Cossack class. In them one can find traces of such rituals as the burning of the maiden “bed” (of the bride and bridesmaids), the remains of the bath ritual, “driving the crane”, etc. In general, by the end of the 19th century, the wedding rituals of the Kuban Cossacks were significantly unified.

Marriages of Siberian Cossacks 11 took place mainly within the same village, or they took a bride from neighboring villages located on their line. They were reluctant to become related to representatives of other classes (they rarely married peasant women, and even more rarely were cases when a Cossack woman married a peasant).

Marriage at the will of the parents (“consensual wedding”) was common, but the mutual inclination of the young people was also taken into account. As a rule, the father gathered a council of relatives in the house, where they selected a bride suitable “by breed”. Moreover, the Siberian Cossacks were assessed not only for their health, thriftiness, and external appearance, but also for their ability to ride horses, courage, and “lively disposition.” Sometimes parents agreed among themselves to marry their future children (lullaby agreement). The Siberian Cossacks also encountered secret marriages (kidnapping the bride without her knowledge) and “runaway” marriages (a joint agreement between young people to run away, since the parents were against it).

The pre-wedding ritual cycle began with matchmaking. The groom's relatives and godparents were usually chosen as matchmakers. Entering the house, the matchmakers crossed themselves in the image and sat under the mat, which showed the purpose of their visit and was considered a good omen for successful matchmaking. The matchmakers brought wine and a loaf of bread with them, put the loaf on the table and said: “We will put the loaf on the table for you, and you give us a beautiful girl.” If the girl agreed, then she cut the bread and invited everyone to the table. Cutting bread brought by matchmakers as a sign of consent to marriage also existed in Little Russia, among the Kuban Cossacks and among the Siberian Ukrainians. As a sign of refusal, they could give the matchmakers a watermelon or pumpkin. Pumpkin (“garmelon”) as a symbol of refusal is widely known in Ukraine and among the Kuban Cossacks.

The time remaining before the wedding was called the “bachelorette party.” The bride was considered a guest in her parents' house and was excluded from all work except preparing the dowry. Among the Siberian Cossacks there was a custom of “beating off the dawns”, when the bride was taken out of the gate “to cry at dawn” (the orphan was taken to the lake or to the cemetery).

Back in the first third of the 20th century. Among the Siberian Cossacks there were widespread beliefs about sorcerers who “spoiled the wedding.” It was considered necessary to invite as a friend not only a cheerful, eloquent person who knew the entire course of the wedding, but also someone who could ward off “damage” from the young couple and resist the sorcerer.

The main events of the first day of the wedding were the preparation of the bride to the crown with lamentations, the arrival of the “goers” and redemption ceremonies, the wedding, the transportation of the dowry to the groom’s house, the meeting of the newlyweds from the church, the “wrapping of the newlywed”, and gifts. The young people were usually taken to bed by 12 o'clock at night. In some villages there was a custom of “warming the bed.”

On the second day of the wedding, rituals associated with testing the bride’s virginity (demonstration of a sheet, nightgown) were widely practiced. On this day, the young woman herself looked after the guests, demonstrating her thriftiness. For the same purpose, they forced her to “sweep away the rubbish” into which gifts and small money were thrown. At many Cossack weddings there were mummers (gypsies, Kyrgyz, animals, devils, etc., as well as men dressed as women and vice versa). They smeared their faces with soot, stole chickens from the houses of wedding guests, and cooked them into noodles.

Every day of the wedding they rode horses, sang songs of praise, and scattered candy and gingerbread throughout the streets. From the groom's house, the wedding moved to the bride's house, then they took turns walking with all the relatives. Thus, the wedding could last for two weeks or more. On the last day of the festivities, they heated the bathhouse, “put out the barn” - they made a fire out of straw and forced the young people to jump over it. In some villages of the Siberian Cossacks they made a “wedding record” and burned it.

Farewell to service 12

Among the Kuban Cossacks, a special place among the rituals of the life cycle was occupied by the ritual of seeing off for service, which included several stages:

Preparation for the send-off - preparation of equipment, coordination of regulations with the village administration, material support for the send-off.
The actual farewell was an evening meal, in which relatives took part - necessarily godparents, sometimes young people. The “dinner” could last until the morning, accompanied by parting words from respected Cossacks who had served their time.
This was followed by breakfast, the main rituals of which were the parental blessing with an icon and bread, tying a towel crosswise and dressing the Cossack as a groom: a flower, handkerchiefs that the girls pinned to his clothes, and first of all, the bride.

Then followed a farewell and ritual departure from the parental yard: through the gate, on horseback, which could be led out by the bridle by the mother, the bride, or on foot, accompanied by parents and guests. This could be supplemented by “zavorot” rituals: returning to the house for a short time, returning and biting off a pie, bread, the remainder of which was returned to the holy corner, giving bread outside the gate to the first person you met, throwing a towel or two towels on the road, etc., symbolizing bon voyage and returning home.

After the formation on the village church square, a parting word from the ataman and, as an option, the Cossacks - the Knights of St. George, a prayer service, the Cossacks, accompanied by relatives and village residents, went to their destination with a farewell stop in some remarkable, familiar, “border” place of the village yurt - river, mound, tree. Here, with the offering of the obligatory glass, the final farewell took place.

The farewell, from dinner to the departure of the Cossacks, was accompanied by the performance of historical, military, dance and special “farewell” songs: “Farewell, Umansk Stanytsia”, “The last day of today”, “A tree is blooming in the garden”, “You are Cossacks” , Cossacks”, etc.

During blessings and farewells, grandfather’s and parents’ weapons could be handed over, protective prayers and amulets were used, incl. “native land”, etc.

The second and subsequent farewells, including those to war, had their own characteristics, which were inevitable due to the long Cossack service. But in any version of this ritual, the idea of duty, readiness for death and hope for a safe return to the parental home is clearly visible.

The return itself also had a ritualized character: the village residents met the “servicemen” at the farewell place, word of thanks the village ataman and the elderly, gifts from the village church and prayer service, long guest visits from relatives, to relatives and colleagues.

Funeral

A Cossack girl who died in her maiden years was carried to the cemetery only by girls, not women, and especially not men. This was a way to pay tribute to chastity and purity. The deceased was carried to the cemetery on a stretcher, the coffin was covered with a dark blanket, and the girls with a white one. The graves were dug deep. A niche was dug (equipped) on the side of the grave. Two or even three Cossacks placed the coffin there.

Not all Cossacks' military campaigns and searches ended successfully. The return home of fallen soldiers was a tragedy for many families. I. I. Zheleznov in his 1910 book “The Urals, Sketches of the Life of the Ural Cossacks” describes the return of the Cossacks from the campaign as follows 13. The mother, who does not know about the death of her son, asks the passing Cossacks: “ Podgornov, my dears, where is Markian?"To this, hundreds after hundreds of people passing by answer: " Behind, mother, behind!“And further: “... when the convoy passed, the Cossacks, nodding their heads, said: “ There, behind me dear!“It was only then that the old woman realized that she was orphaned forever...”

According to legend, the Ural Cossacks had such a custom. Before the Novgorod ushkuinik Gugni came to Yaik, when going on a campaign, the Cossacks left their wives and brought new ones from the campaign. Ataman Gugnya saved his wife, but did not bring a new one, and from this very Gugnya permanent wives appeared. The Cossacks call her great-grandmother Gugnikha and, on occasion, raise a glass to her 14.

In this regard, the custom of the Don Cossacks, which is called the “white scarf,” is interesting. Returning to the village from a campaign or after the war, not all Don Cossacks were sure that their wives behaved impeccably in the absence of their husbands, so they stocked up on white scarves. When the Cossacks approached the village, some wives came out from the people meeting them and fell prostrate before them. “A cry burst from a woman’s chest: forgive me, my lord! And the Cossack guessed what was the matter. He shudders and sobs. Jealousy has already crept into the heart... A firm, tanned hand, which has destroyed more than one enemy’s life, places a white scarf on the head of the culprit. The Cossack lightly touched his wife’s head with his foot. No, he says, there is no mention of the past. The shame is covered by my forgiveness! Someone dare remind her of her old sins! - the husband will stand up for his wife, defend her honor, as the valiant Cossacks know how to defend 15.

Funeral rituals in Cossack culture underwent a number of changes: from the burial mound to the gravestone and cross. In folklore, a warrior’s grave is dug with a weapon; perhaps the cause of death and the role of the weapon as an intermediary with the other world are indicated here. In funeral rites, there are no particular differences between male and female burials. Except that a man could have a weapon placed in his coffin if he was a hunter. The departure of a warrior from the world of the living to the world of the dead was accompanied by a funeral feast, military competitions, and a prayer service. The grave in an allegorical image of expression is represented by the wife or bride of the buried person. There is an extremely widespread song in various forms, where a Cossack sends a horse to his parents to convey to them the news about the fate of his son and orders him not to say that he was killed, but orders him to say that he got married and took a grave for himself in the field - a red maiden.

The symbolism of transition from one world to another is associated with weapons, a river, often the Danube, and a bridge. The departure of a warrior requires the destruction of the invisible barrier between worlds. He is carried to the bridge, or more often to the crossing, by a faithful horse, which the Cossack at the crossing gives for crossing to the other side.

In Zaporozhye, when a Cossack reveler died, a bottle of vodka was placed in his coffin, with which he was lowered into the grave, and a white flag was displayed over the grave of a sober comrade, an emblem of the impeccable purity of the outlived knight. In the Starocherkassk Museum-Reserve, the fund contains funeral vials that were placed in the graves of the Cossacks. It is known that weapons were placed in a Cossack’s coffin; during funerals among the Kuban Cossacks, a hat, a dagger and a saber were placed on the deceased, on top of the banner that covered the coffin. Among the Don people, a saber crossed with a scabbard was nailed onto the lid of the coffins.

Weapons, a horse, and a life-giving cross (sprouted cross) were traditional components of military funeral rites. Installing a flag, or a town hall with a flag on a Cossack’s grave, is typical for both the Zaporozhye and Don Cossacks. Similar rituals are also found among the mountaineers of the Caucasus.

In Kuban, the Kuban Cossacks have their own rituals of funeral events 16. Making a coffin, laying and carrying the deceased to the courtyard, accompanying rituals: candles, bread, water, wheat, honey. Ritual sitting of relatives at the coffin. Leaving the yard and tying the gates, wickets/windows. Bandaging and order of movement in the cemetery; ritual of dressing: men - with towels, women - with handkerchiefs. The sequence of movement of the funeral procession: a cross tied with a towel or scarf, a coffin lid with bread on it, a coffin with the deceased, relatives and those taking part in the funeral. Stopping and rituals associated with spreading and folding a towel at thresholds, gates, intersections, etc. Farewell actions at the cemetery.

The memorial part included funeral services (on the first, ninth, fortieth day and on the anniversary), distribution of the deceased’s belongings and visits to “graves on parental days,” incl. to see you off, the first Sunday after Easter.

The funeral and memorial rituals were distinguished by their peculiarities: dead unbaptized children - they could be buried under the threshold, under a fruit tree in the courtyard, without a cross; those who died “not by their own death” were buried outside the cemetery or in the cemetery, but in a special place with commemoration only on Trinity Sunday; special “wedding funerals” - those who died before marriage, etc.

The natural death of a Cossack warrior at home implied burial in a Cossack costume and with a dagger, the hat was placed on the right side near the shoulder. During the war, burial most often took place at the place of death. And in such cases, the horse and belongings of the deceased were returned to the widow. If it was possible to bring the body of a murdered Cossack, then during the funeral his horse, covered with a cloak, was led after the coffin.

Orthodox traditions 17

Cossacks always united around the church, creating their own village parish. The Cossacks have a special attitude towards Orthodoxy; they are distinguished by their special religiosity; it is not for nothing that the Cossacks are called “soldiers of Christ.” In the hour of mortal danger, the understanding that life is given by God, and only God can take it away, makes the Cossack, who prayed fervently to his patron saint, not only a sincere believer, but also fearless. A true saying: “There are no atheists in battle.” The basis of the Cossack worldview, philosophy of life, even if it was a “philosophy of war,” was Orthodoxy. But Orthodoxy is not in an absolutely canonical sense, but in a direct, personal relationship human soul and the Creator, moreover, with an admixture of pagan worldview associated with the Higher forces of nature emanating from water and the steppe. Faith was considered as a perfect spiritual state, standing above consciousness, without comparing it with anything, only saying: “Either there is faith, or there is not!”

The main holidays celebrated by the Don Cossacks are calendar church holidays.

Christmastide began with the celebration of the Nativity of Christ (January 7) and lasted for almost two days until the Epiphany (January 19). Believers prepared for the celebration of the Nativity of Christ by fasting for forty days. The eve of the holiday was spent in a particularly strict fast. The Day of the Nativity of Christ was also called Christmas Eve, because... According to the church charter, on this day it was supposed to eat sochivo (wheat with honey, or sweetened with sugar - “kutia”). Throughout Russia, people did not eat on Christmas Eve until the first star, but preparations for this holiday were slightly different from each other, according to the customs that existed in the area. In the North Caucasus, on the eve of a great holiday, in the red corner, under the icons, on a clean tablecloth, on a bunch of hay or straw, there was a bowl of boiled grains of wheat, poured with honey and sprinkled with raisins (also kutia). With the appearance of the first star in the sky, after prayer they ate kutya, followed by the most modest dinner.

Maslenitsa. Maslenitsa is one of the moving holidays associated with Easter. Maslenitsa is celebrated in the last week before Lent, which lasts 7 weeks and ends with Easter. The name “Maslenitsa” arose because this week, according to Orthodox custom, meat is already excluded from food, and dairy products can still be consumed - so they bake butter pancakes. The celebration of Maslenitsa coincides with the day of the spring equinox. The rituals that were performed at that time were aimed at driving away winter and welcoming spring. “Maslenitsa”, made of hay or straw, elegantly decorated, dressed in Russian women’s costume, was burned on the main square accompanied by songs and dances of the residents of the village. The main celebrations held by the Cossacks during Maslenaya Week took place from Thursday to Sunday. The Cossacks dressed smartly and took part in festive festivities: ice slides and fist fights. Residents near the lying villages, opposite ends of the large village, could fight with each other. They prepared seriously for battle: they steamed in baths, ate bread and meat - in violation of the pre-Lenten prohibition, because they believed that they gave strength and courage.

Easter. Preparations for Easter begin with Lent. After all, this is precisely the period of spiritual and physical cleansing. Great Lent lasted seven weeks, and each week had its own name. The last two were especially important: Verbnaya and Passionate. After them came Easter - a bright and solemn holiday of renewal. On this day we tried to wear everything new. Even the sun, we noticed, rejoices, changes, plays with new colors. The table was also updated, ritual food was prepared in advance. We painted eggs, baked paska, roasted a pig. The eggs were painted in different colors: red - blood; yellow - sun; blue - sky, water; green - grass, vegetation. In some villages, a geometric pattern was applied to the eggs - “pysanka”. The paska ritual bread was a real work of art. They tried to make it tall; the “head” was decorated with cones, flowers, bird figures, crosses, smeared with egg white, and sprinkled with colored millet. According to the legend of our ancestors: the paska is the tree of life, the pig is a symbol of fertility, the egg is the beginning of life, vital energy. Returning from church after the consecration of ritual food, they washed themselves with water containing red dye in order to be beautiful and healthy. We broke our fast with eggs and paska. They were also given to the poor and exchanged with relatives and neighbors.

The playful and entertaining side of the holiday was very intense: round dances, games with paints, swings and carousels were arranged in every village. Riding on a swing had a ritual significance - it was supposed to stimulate the growth of all living things.

Easter is a bright and solemn holiday of renewal. On this day they tried to put on everything new. Even the sun, we noticed, rejoices, changes, plays with new colors. The table was also updated, ritual food was prepared in advance. They painted eggs, baked paska, roasted a pig. The paska ritual bread was a real work of art. They tried to make it tall; the “head” was decorated with pine cones, flowers, bird figures, crosses, smeared with egg white, sprinkled with colored millet

Easter ended with Krasnaya Gorka, or Farewell, a week after Easter Sunday. This is “parents' day”, the remembrance of the dead. Attitude towards ancestors is an indicator of the moral state of society, the conscience of people. Cossacks always treated their ancestors with deep respect. On this day, the whole village went to the cemetery, knitted scarves and towels on crosses, held a funeral feast, and distributed food and sweets at the memorial.

In mid-June the sun reaches its highest point in the sky. This time is called the summer solstice. The sun turns towards winter and the days begin to grow shorter. This day comes on June 24, and it is called Midsummer's Day. The very word “kupala” is consonant with the word “bathe” - immerse in water. According to tradition, this holiday is associated with the ritual of mass bathing in the river and dewy grass. The Cossacks believed that on the night of St. Ivan, the shortest of the year, the main miracles were performed. At this time, horses were not allowed into the field. Burning herbs were placed on the windows to prevent evil spirits from entering the hut. According to legends, you can’t sleep on this night, because the evil spirits are completely unleashed. That night the Cossacks lit a fire and swam in rivers and springs. It was believed that water on this night has the same power as fire, getting rid of everything evil, harmful, unclean. Cossack youth in festive attire gathered near the river, lit bonfires, and held round dances. And then, holding hands, they jumped over the fire in pairs. It was on this day that they had to stock up on medicinal plants. Plants should be picked at the dawn of Midsummer - before the dew dries. On this day, many were looking for the treasured fern flower, which, according to legend, blooms only once a year - precisely on this summer night on the eve of Ivan Kupala. It was believed that if you see him, any wish will come true.

Cossack holidays 18

The book by V.F. helps to see and understand in more detail how Cossack holidays were traditionally held in the Kuban. Nikitin "Traditions of the Cossacks". They sang in almost every house Cossack songs. On patronal feasts, according to ancient custom, a common dinner was held in the village hut after the prayer service. They brought everything that was most delicious to him. The Cossacks loved “varena” - a mixture of vodka, honey, dried fruits, raisins, grapes, pears, apples, boiled with ginger and other spices. In addition to this, vodka, beer, honey, liqueur, and mash went with a bang.

According to one version, they were accepted into the Cossacks only after an initiation ritual: the candidate must drink a glass of vodka (1.23 liters) in one gulp and walk along a long log. They drank from Mikhailiks with a capacity of 3-5 of our glasses. After the meal, the Cossacks started dancing, played cards, smoked nose-warming pipes, bawled songs, fired cannons and, of course, had fun with fist fights.

After another military campaign, the Cossacks walked around the Sich, talking about their exploits. Behind them were carried buckets of “drunk drinks”, which the good fellows treated those they met. Cossacks were prohibited from drinking alcohol during campaigns. Those who violated this law were punished with death. After a common dinner, the Cossacks split into groups and celebrated at home for three days. There was also a custom of inviting old people (from among the most honored) to the house for refreshments.

For Christmas they slaughtered wild boar, lamb, geese, and turkeys. They prepared sausages, jellied meat, pies and pies with meat and fruit filling. The Christmas table was supposed to reflect the idea of prosperity, abundance, and well-being. The main ritual food was kutya / kutya, which was prepared from barley, wheat, later - from rice, and in some villages of Karachay-Cherkessia - from corn, as well as uzvar from dried fruits.

During supper, dinner on the eve of the Nativity of Christ, with the appearance of the first evening star, they broke their fast with kutya. In some villages and families, children were forced to crawl under the table and imitate the cries of domestic animals: clucking, crowing, mecking, scurrying, etc. Supper is a family dinner. Married sons with their children came to their parents' house. Lonely neighbors were invited.

A device for deceased ancestors was placed on the table. In some villages they opened the door and called them to the table. The owner, and if he was not there, the hostess invited Frost, and sometimes the brownie, to the table. The ritual of inviting Moroz is quite variable in form, but the content is the same throughout the entire space of the former Kuban region. The text of the invitation asked not to freeze people, animals, or plants.

Wearing supper (kutya, pies) was carried out by children, teenagers of both sexes, and young married couples on the evening before Christmas. In some villages the supper was brought to grandfathers, grandmothers, parents, incl. godparents. In others, not only to relatives, but to almost all residents in their region. The important point was that, having tasted the brought kutia and pies, the owners added their own in return. This was done in every family, which contributed to renewal and strengthening of social ties cemented by ritual food.

On Christmas Day, January 7, at dawn, alone and in groups, mostly boys, men went from house to house to “glorify Christ.” The ritual could consist only of verbal text (“Your Nativity, Christ our God...”, “Christ was born...”, etc.) or included theatrical biblical scenes associated with the birth of Jesus Christ.

On the evening of January 7, caroling was performed. At first the children walked, and later adults, mostly girls and married women, joined this action. This idea was fully manifested in the decoration of the New Year's table. It had to be abundant and varied so that “the year would be complete.” “Everything was on the table. Be sure to bake special “bread”. In some families they tried to fill the table with food and tall bread so that the owner could not be seen. Or the owner would deliberately sit on a low bench and bend down. In a number of villages they laid straw or hay from under the Christmas kutya under the tablecloth - “so that they could live richly.” Frost could also be invited to the New Year's meal.

As they said goodbye to the old year, they shot, burned bonfires, and told fortunes. IN New Year's Eve could “scare” non-bearing fruit trees with an ax. Associated with New Year's morning is the ritual of arrival, welcoming the first visitor in the new year, and one of the key New Year's rituals - sowing/sprinkling. Most often they were combined, because the walk of sowers, boys, youths, men, began early in the morning, and it was they who turned out to be the first visitors to other people's houses. According to traditional beliefs, a man was supposed to be the first to come to someone else’s house in the coming year, which promised the owners good luck, prosperity, and health.

Sowing could be preceded by the rituals of “pulling the forelock” of the sower, “seating the sower on the threshold on a fur coat”, “sitting the sowers on the bed”, “clucking” so that the chickens would lay eggs, so that matchmakers would come to the house, so that everything would be carried out on the farm. They sown mostly in the holy corner, but they could scatter the grain around the room, on the owners. Cereals or legumes were used: wheat, corn, peas. The winter holidays conclude with Epiphany (January 19).

On the eve of Epiphany, a strict one-day fast was observed, which ended either with the appearance of the evening star, or, in other families, after the first blessing of water, which took place at approximately two o'clock in the morning in the church. The second blessing of water, Jordan/Ordan/Yordan, took place on the river at dawn.

They returned home with the blessed water and first of all they sprinkled, baptized, marking crosses with chalk, the courtyard, the house, family members, the entire household. In some villages, at the same time, the outside of the house was surrounded by a solid chalk line - so that the hemp would grow tall, so that nothing would run away from the house, so that the chickens would lay eggs well, etc. Before the blessing of the water in the river, if there was frost, a cross or several crosses were cut out of ice and a throne was made. Crosses could be painted, incl. beet red kvass. As a rule, at the moment the priest lowered the cross into the water, those present released doves, shooting was carried out, and those who wished, in some villages only the sick, swam.

The Epiphany table was not inferior in abundance to the New Year's table. The obligatory dishes were kutia and uzvar, the preparation and transfer of which to the holy corner and then to the table were accompanied by the same actions and words as at Christmas. Hay, straw, and bread from the baptism table were placed in the nests of poultry and fed to domestic animals, mainly cows. The remains of the kutya could be given to the bird.

The spring period of the calendar, compared to the winter holidays, demonstrates an “inverted” model. If the winter cycle began with fasting and ended with strict fasting on the eve of Epiphany, then the central part of the spring block was represented by Great Lent, and the beginning (Maslenitsa) and ending (Easter) were “non-lenten”, “fast”. The term "meat eater" is not used in this case for two reasons. Firstly, it is uncharacteristic for Kuban, excluding a purely church tradition. Secondly, Maslenitsa, while not strictly speaking related to fasting, due to the predominance of dairy foods in it, did not apply to meat-eaters either.

The basis of Maslenitsa was the obligatory ritual food (dumplings and pancakes or, in some villages, only pancakes or only dumplings), knitting pads, mutual guest visits, playful, entertaining moments (including dressing up) and, perhaps most importantly, the rite of “universal forgiveness”, which occurs on the last day of Maslenitsa. The playful, entertaining side of this holiday occupied a significant place, an integral part of which was sliding downhill, on horseback, if the weather permitted, and even “driving a Mare”, “Goat”, with the performance of timed songs. In some villages of Kuban, the settler tradition of burning effigy was preserved.

The most significant socially and spiritually was the final rite before Lent - forgiveness of sins, “forgiven day”, “forgiveness Sunday”: they asked each other for forgiveness for all the obvious and implicit offenses caused to others in the past year.

Lent predetermined strict restrictions on food, and the Cossacks who were in service and even being treated in hospitals sought to observe these restrictions. “Strictness” was also manifested in bans on ordinary youth meetings and celebrations. Moreover, fasting implied not only food and entertainment, but also sexual prohibitions in relations between spouses.

Among the most significant dates were palm week/ Palm Sunday. Whipping willow on people, especially relatives, and domestic animals with wishes for life and health was the main motive of this ritual.

During the period of Lent there was a Meeting/Meeting. According to the popular worldview, this was the meeting of Winter and Summer. When meeting on this day, one of the girls was called Winter, and the other - Spring. A comic fight began between them. Depending on who won, they decided whether there would be a long winter or an early spring.

The Lenten complex also included such a holiday as the Forty Saints / Forty Martyrs / Magpies. On this day, special cookies were baked, as a rule. In some villages, at the same time, crosses were baked from dough. A coin was baked into one of these ritual products, and the one who received it was considered lucky.

The basis of Maslenitsa was the obligatory ritual food, knitting lasts, mutual guest visits, playful, entertaining moments and, perhaps most importantly, the ritual of “universal forgiveness”, which falls on the last day of Maslenitsa. The playful, entertaining side of this holiday occupied a significant place, an integral part of which was downhill and horseback riding, if the weather permitted.

The final week of Lent was called passionate and terrible. It singled out Maundy Thursday, the day when it was necessary to bathe and tidy up, “clean out” the home before dawn, “until the raven bathed its children,” and Good, Terrible Friday. On the passionate day associated with the torment of Christ, his crucifixion, they went to church for the all-night vigil. They came home with a lit candle. Some with a burning candle climbed “to the hill” to look at the ceiling of the house to see the owner of the house. On Friday and Saturday of Holy Week they were preparing for Easter: they baked Easter cakes and painted eggs. The fast could also include one of the most significant holidays in terms of meaning and severity of prohibitions - the Annunciation. On this day, a strict ban was introduced on any work and, especially, on the slaughter of livestock and “shedding of blood.”

The main ideas and rituals were associated with the sun (“the sun is playing”), water (from this day on you could swim, in some villages they blessed the water in the springs, they walked through the fields: “They watered the fields, they watered themselves so that there would be a harvest, so that it would rain "), a cuckoo (begins to crow), a chicken and an egg ("before the sun" hens were removed from the roost with a poker so that they would sit down and "cluck"; an egg laid by a hen on that day could not be placed under the hen - a cripple would be born); with witches (they become active on this holiday and “milk the cows”) and cows, which were especially carefully protected, were closed on this day.

The largest and brightest holiday of the calendar circle is Easter. Easter ended Lent and opened a new period of time. Therefore, a rich table was prepared for this holiday: they slaughtered pigs, made sausages, and baked large holiday pies. However, the central place on the table and in ritual practice was occupied by paska, tall, round, decorated ritual bread, and “krashanki” and “pysanka”. They broke their fast with them, as well as with blessed lard. There are a large number of prohibitions associated with them. They, incl. pieces, Easter crumbs, egg shells, were used in agricultural rituals, folk medicine, etc.

During Easter, there were fist fights, batting and egg rolling, and various games were played. In a number of villages, special Easter round dances were held and swings were installed. The ringing of Easter bells also created a festive mood. A significant part of Easter time was devoted to guest visits. In these days, right up to the Ascension, they greeted each other with the words, “Christ is Risen!” Truly risen!

Easter is also a time of communication between the living and the dead. For the latter, during the breaking of the fast, an Easter cake, an egg, and a special device were placed on the table, and they were invited (by name) to break the fast. In some villages, on the first day of Easter, they practiced visiting graves, “sharing Christ” with the dead, riding on the grave or burying them in it. easter eggs. In other villages, on the contrary, a ban on visiting cemeteries was observed, because it was believed that “the parents are at home at this time,” among the living.

In the mid-19th - early 20th centuries, there was also a military form of celebrating Easter. On the second day of the holiday, the clergy of Yekaterinodar and the Cossacks walked around the military cathedral “with the saints.” The officers carried the banners of all regiments, and the officers carried smoking maces. All military regalia were displayed on the church square.

A significant date in the calendar was Farewell / Farewell - a collective visit to cemeteries and commemoration of parents. In some villages in the past they were performed on Krasnaya Gorka (the first Sunday after Easter). In most - on Monday or, less often, Tuesday after Easter week. The central link of the Farewell is the commemoration of the dead, leaving food at the graves, memories and “conversations” about the dead, with the dead, distribution of food, sweets “for the wake,” a collective meal. Farewell is considered both as a farewell to Easter, and as a farewell to the dead, who return “to themselves” on this day. After returning from the cemetery, in the old villages in the past there were horse races, horse riding, and festivities.

The spring period of the calendar also includes the beginnings of important agricultural activities that had a ritual and ritual design: plowing, sowing, the first drive of livestock into the herd.

Before the first trip to the field, some families held a collective prayer at home. Grain from the previous harvest or those seeds that were used by the “sowers” could be mixed into the seed material. New Year. Only men went into the field. They could also attract girls, but not women, as chasers.

Plowing and sowing began at dawn with a prayer or its short form: “Lord, bless!” In some villages, after the first furrow, they sat down here in the field to have breakfast.

Trinity is full of rites and rituals. Plant symbolism occupies a key place in Trinity rituals. Herbs were also used: thyme, oregano, wheatgrass, “variegated flowers”, which were sprinkled on the floor, paths greased with clay in the yard, and decorated with window sills. Village churches were also decorated with greenery. Vegetation, as a rule, was kept in the house for three days, and then collected and burned, or one branch was saved (from a thunderstorm, for pasturing livestock), fed to thin animals, placed in chickens’ nests, and used in folk medicine and magic. By the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, the obligatory food for Trinity was scrambled eggs, eggs (in some villages they were painted green), and sweet drinks.

On Ivan Kupala, celebrations were limited to church services, work bans, and some beliefs. When going in search of a fern flower, we observed the appropriate norms: do not talk, do not turn around, we walked while reading special prayers, at midnight, etc. In some villages, even in the 20th century, a branch decorated with flowers, wreaths, and ribbons was used as a symbol on Ivan Kupala. The guys made a fire and tried to take the bathing tub from the girls. Having taken the tree, they threw it into the river.

In most villages there was more simple form Kupala: weaving wreaths followed by fortune telling on them about marriage, life and death, with lighting fires and jumping over them. At the end of the holiday, Kupala wreaths were most often placed on cabbage, so that the heads would be large. They could also be used for other purposes. On this day, the ritual of rolling through the beds with onions or trampling onions could also be performed - so that a large one would be born. In this case, the participants, often children, had to hold their heads with their hands. In many villages, the water in the river was blessed on this day, and from this day until Ilya, swimming was officially allowed.

At the end of summer and autumn there were also so-called thunderstorm/formidable/strict holidays. These include St. Day. Ilya. In addition to the prohibitions on work, it was believed that from this day on it was forbidden to swim in water sources.

There were few particularly revered autumn holidays and they had almost no folk ritual expression. During the first Savior, poppy seeds, honey, and salt were blessed. In some villages, on this holiday they blessed water in natural springs, threw flowers into it and bathed. “Apple Savior” was the main one, during which flowers, apples, and honey were also blessed. From that day on, everyone was allowed to eat apples, incl. women whose newborn children died unbaptized. In everyday Orthodoxy, both Saviors were associated with the commemoration of dead, lost ancestors. The owners of apiaries on the honey Spas, displaying treats - honey and rolls, invited the villagers “to the wake”. Formally, “Spasy” was considered as the boundary between autumn and winter.

One of the most significant autumn holidays was Pokrov (Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary). By this day they tried to complete the main tasks - to clean everything up and get their daughters married.

Among the calendar ones, of course, were and are the so-called patronal / temple holidays, dedicated to the Lord and the Virgin Mary or the saints whose name the temple bore. Their fundamentally important feature was the massive participation of residents of the villages both in divine services and in “sharing” - collective participation in the preparation and holding of the altar meal, which took place in the church fence with the gathering of a large number of people, both locals and strangers, including h. "wanderers" and "poor".

As a general Cossack holiday, the day of the “Azov Sitting” was celebrated on the day of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. On this day, races and competitions were held, and a memorial dinner was always organized with drinks and chants in memory of all the fallen Cossacks. Bowls with lit candles were placed on the tent of the bell tower of the military cathedral in Cherkassk.

But each army had its own holidays, dedicated to some important event or dedicated to a particularly revered saint. In the past, due to various events, the dates of military holidays in some troops changed. So, during the reign Alexandra III The Don Army celebrated its holiday on October 17, old style, in memory of the miraculous rescue of the sovereign and his family during the crash of the royal train at Borki station. Under Emperor Nicholas II, after the birth of the heir-cresarevich (1904), the Military Holiday was moved to October 5, the name day of the August Ataman of all Cossack Troops, which, according to established tradition, was the heir. Among the Caucasian Cossacks, the day of the Military Holiday fell on August 26, but then in the Kuban Army it was moved to October 5, and in Tersky to March 1. In the Astrakhan Army, the Military Holiday was the day of August 19 - the day of the patronal holiday of the military cathedral named after the Don Mother of God, built in the village of Kazachebugrovskaya. The people of the Urals celebrate November 8, the day of St. Michael the Archangel, in whose honor a military cathedral was erected in Uralsk. The patron saint of the Orenburg Cossacks was the Holy Great Martyr and Victorious George, in whose memory there was the old St. George Cathedral in Orenburg, on the banks of the Urals, St. George's Day - April 23 and was a military holiday of the Orenburg army. The Siberian Cossacks celebrated the day of their patron Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker - December 6th. The Far Eastern Cossack Troops - Transbaikal, Amur, Ussuri - celebrated their military holidays on March 17 - the day of Saint Alexei the Man of God, and the Semirechensk Cossack Army - April 23, the day of St. George.

The Cossacks mostly did household chores before noon, and then in the evening they gathered on the Maidan to the camp hut to play guitar. Sitting in a men's circle, they knitted snares to catch birds and animals and listened to the stories of elderly veterans about past campaigns and exploits. There was also entertainment and fun here, the elders played chess and checkers. Young people and teenagers played dice and dice. Grandmothers (aidanchiki) were placed at a distance and the bits were knocked down - the one who knocked down the aidanchik took it for himself. This fun developed such accuracy that Cossack children and adult Cossacks killed birds and hares with a stone throw.

Kapitsa F.S. Slavic traditional beliefs, holidays and rituals: Directory. 3rd ed. M.: Flint; Science, 2001. P.9.
Bondar N.I. Traditional spiritual culture of the Kuban Cossacks (late XIX - first half of the XX centuries) // Traditional culture and children. - Krasnodar: Experimental Center for Educational Development, 1994. - 271 p.
Based on materials from the official website of the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in the village of S. Log. hramlog.cerkov.ru
Kashkarov A.P. Cossacks: traditions, customs, culture (a short guide to a real Cossack). Rostov n/d.: Phoenix, 2015. P.35-36.
Combat leaflet of the Yenisei Cossacks. The last outpost. [Electronic resource]. URL: lastforpost.rf
Author of the book “Don People” M.Kh.Senyutkin (1825-1879) - journalist, editor of “Don Military Gazette”
Kuznetsov V.M. - dissertation on family and marriage relations of the peoples of the Southern Urals, 1998. P. 152; Lorgus Andrey, Dudko Mikhail. A book about the Church. M.: Pilgrim, 1997.
Summary of an open lesson: Holidays and rituals of the Cossacks. [Electronic resource]. URL: nsportal.ru
Bondar N.I. Traditional culture of the Kuban Cossacks in the 18th - early 20th centuries. [Electronic resource]. URL: gipanis.ru
[Electronic resource]. URL: ruszizn.ru
Bondar N.I. Decree. op.
As presented by Bakhmet Yu.T. Funeral rite in the Cossack tradition (structural and semantic characteristics) // Problems of study and development Cossack culture. Maykop, 2000. P.89. Quote via electronic resource. URL: dikoepole.com
Right there.
Right there.
Bondar N.I. Decree. op.
Based on materials from the website of the Cossack Information and Analytical Center kazak-center.ru
Based on the book by V.F. Nikitin "Traditions of the Cossacks".

Remember, brother, that among the Cossacks: Friendship is a custom;
Camaraderie is a tradition; Hospitality is the law.

A Cossack cannot consider himself a Cossack if he does not know and observe the traditions and customs of the Cossacks. The basis of the Cossack’s character was some kind of duality: sometimes he is cheerful, playful, funny, sometimes he is unusually sad, silent, inaccessible. On the one hand, this is explained by the fact that the Cossacks, constantly looking into the eyes of death, tried not to miss the joy that befell them. On the other hand, they - philosophers and poets at heart - often thought about the vanity of existence and the inevitable outcome from this life. Therefore, the basis for the formation of the moral foundations of Cossack societies was the 10 Commandments of Christ. Accustoming children to observe the commandments of the Lord, parents, according to popular perception, taught: do not kill, do not steal, do not fornicate, work according to your conscience, do not envy others and forgive offenders, take care of your children and parents, value maiden chastity and female honor, help the poor , do not offend orphans and widows, protect the Fatherland from enemies. But first of all, strengthen the Orthodox faith, go to Church, keep fasts, cleanse your soul - through repentance from sins, pray to the one God Jesus Christ and added: if someone can do something, then we can’t - WE ARE COSSACKS.

Extremely strictly in the Cossack environment, along with the commandments of the Lord, traditions, customs, and beliefs were observed, which were the vital necessity of every Cossack family. Failure to comply with or violate them was condemned by all residents of a farmstead, village or town. There are many customs and traditions: some appear, others disappear. There remain those that best reflect the everyday and cultural characteristics of the Cossacks, which have been preserved in the memory of the people since ancient times. If we briefly formulate them, we get some kind of unwritten Cossack household laws:

Respectful attitude towards elders.
Immense respect for the guest.
Respect for a woman (mother, sister, wife)

Cossacks and parents

Honoring parents, godfathers and godmothers was not just a custom, but an internal need, the care of a son and daughter for them. Filial and daughter's duty to parents was considered fulfilled after the commemoration of the fortieth day after their departure to another world was celebrated. The godmother helped her parents prepare a Cossack girl for a future married life, teaching her to housekeeping, needlework, frugality, and work. The godfather was entrusted with the main responsibility of preparing the Cossack girl for service, and for the military training of the Cossack, the demand from the godfather was greater than from his own father. The authority of father and mother was not only indisputable, but so revered that without the blessing of their parents they did not begin any work or make decisions on the most important matters.

Attitude towards elders

Respect for elders is one of the main customs of the Cossacks. Paying tribute to the years lived, the hardships of the Cossack lot endured, the advancing weakness and inability to stand up for themselves, the Cossacks always remembered the words of the Holy Scripture: “Rise up before the face of the gray-haired one, honor the face of the elder and fear your God - I am the Lord your God.” The custom of respect and veneration for the elder obligated the younger, first of all, to show care, restraint and readiness to help and required adherence to some etiquette (when the old man appeared, everyone had to stand up - Cossacks in uniform put their hand on their headdress, and without uniform - take off hat and bow). In the presence of an elder, it was not allowed to sit, smoke, talk (enter into a conversation without his permission), and especially not to express himself obscenely. In general, among the Cossacks and especially the Kuban people, respect for elders was an internal need; in Kuban, even in address, you can rarely hear “grandfather”, “old”, etc., but it is affectionately pronounced: “batko”, “batki”.

Cossacks and guests

Immense respect for the guest was due to the fact that the guest was considered a messenger of God. The most dear and welcome guest was considered a stranger from distant places, in need of shelter, rest and care. In the humorous Cossack drinking ditty song “Ala-verda,” the veneration of the guest is most accurately expressed: “Every guest is given to us by God, no matter what his background, even in poor rags - ala-verda, ala-verda.” Those who did not show respect to the guest were deservedly subjected to contempt. Regardless of the age of the guest, he was given the best place at meals and on vacation. It was considered indecent to ask a guest for 3 days where he was from and what the purpose of his arrival was. Even the old man gave up his seat, although the guest was younger than him. The Cossacks had a rule: wherever he went on business or to visit, he never took food either for himself or for his horse. In any farm, village, town, he always had a distant or close relative, godfather, matchmaker, brother-in-law, or just a colleague, or even just a resident, who would greet him as a guest and feed both him and his horse. Cossacks stopped at inns on rare occasions when visiting fairs in cities.

Attitude towards a woman

Respectful attitude towards a woman - mother, wife, sister - determined the concept of the honor of a Cossack woman, the honor of a daughter, sister, wife. A man's dignity was measured by a woman's honor and behavior. IN family life The relationship between husband and wife was determined according to Christian teaching (Holy Scripture). “The husband is not for the wife, but the wife for the husband,” “Let the wife fear her husband,” while adhering to age-old principles - a man should not interfere in women’s affairs, and a woman should not interfere in men’s affairs. Responsibilities were strictly regulated by life itself. Who should do what in the family is clearly divided. It was considered a shame if a man was involved in women's affairs. They strictly adhered to the rule: no one has the right to interfere in family affairs. No matter who the woman was, she had to be treated with respect and protected - for in a woman is the future of your people. A typical example of protecting a woman is described in the story of the Cossack writer Gariy Nemchenko. In 1914, in the morning, a Cossack with a red flag galloped through the village of Otradnaya, announcing the war. By evening, the Khopersky regiment was already moving in a marching column to the gathering place. Naturally, mourners rode with the regiment - old men and women. One of the women drove a horse harnessed to a chaise and drove one side of the wheels across the landowner's field. One of the officers, known throughout the regiment as the Erdeli surname, drove up to the woman and whipped her for it. A Cossack rode out of the column and cut him down. In Cossack society, a woman enjoyed such reverence and respect that there was no need to give her the rights of a man. Almost in the past, housekeeping was the responsibility of the Cossack mother. The Cossack spent most of his life in the service, in battles, campaigns, at the cordon, and his stay in the family and village was short-lived. However, the leading role, both in the family and in Cossack society, belonged to the man, who had the main responsibility of providing material support for the family and maintaining the strict order of Cossack life in the family. The word of the owner of the family was indisputable for all its members, and an example of this was the Cossack’s wife, the mother of his children.

Cossack's horse

Among the Kuban residents, before leaving home for war, the Cossack’s wife led the horse, holding the reins in the hem of her dress. According to the old custom, she conveyed the reins, saying: “You are leaving on this horse, Cossack; on this horse, return home with victory.” Having accepted the occasion, the Cossack hugged and kissed his wife, children, and often grandchildren, sat in the saddle, took off his hat, crossed himself with the banner of the cross, stood up in his stirrups, looking at the clean and cozy white hut, at the front garden in front of the windows, at the cherry orchard. Then he pulled his hat over his head, warmed his horse with his whip, and left the quarry to the gathering place. In general, among the Cossacks the cult of the horse prevailed in many respects over other traditions and beliefs. Before the Cossack left for war, when the horse was already under the marching pack, the wife first bowed at the horse’s feet to protect the rider, and then to the parents, so that prayers would be constantly read for the warrior’s salvation. The same thing was repeated after the Cossack returned from the war (battle) to his farmstead. When seeing off the Cossack on his final journey, his war horse under a black saddle cloth and a weapon strapped to the saddle walked behind the coffin, and his relatives followed the horse.

Cossack and Cossacks

The Cossacks in their community were tied to each other like brothers, they abhorred theft among themselves, but robbery on the side and, of course, from the enemy, was an ordinary thing among them. Cowards were not tolerated and generally considered chastity and courage to be the primary virtues. They did not recognize eloquence, remembering: “He who loosened his tongue sheathed his saber,” “Extra words make hands weak,” and most of all they revered will.

Soul of a Cossack

Such were the Cossacks of old: terrible, cruel and merciless in battles with the enemies of their faith and persecutors of Christianity, simple and sensitive, like children, in everyday life. They took revenge on the Turks and Crimeans for the inhuman treatment and oppression of Christians, for the suffering of captured brothers, for treachery, for non-compliance with peace treaties. “A Cossack will swear by his Christian soul and stand his ground, a Tatar and a Turk will swear by his Mohammedan soul and lie,” said the Cossacks, standing firmly for each other. “All for one and one for all,” for their ancient Cossack brotherhood. The Cossacks were incorruptible; there were no betrayals among them, among natural Cossacks. Once captured, they did not reveal the secrets of their brotherhood and died under torture as martyrs. History has preserved the unprecedented feat of the ataman of the Zaporozhye Sich, Dmitry Vishnevetsky, who was captured during the Crimean campaigns and the Turkish Sultan ordered his worst enemy to be hanged on a hook. And the Russian hero, hooked under his ribs, hung over the abyss. Despite the terrible torment, he glorified Christ and cursed Mohammed. They say that when he gave up the ghost, the Turks cut out his heart and ate it, in the hope of learning from Vishnevetsky’s fearlessness.

Cossack and wealth

Some historians, not understanding the spirit of the Cossacks - ideological fighters for faith and personal freedom - reproach them for self-interest, greed and a penchant for profit. This is out of ignorance. One day, the Turkish Sultan, driven to the extreme by the terrible raids of the Cossacks, decided to buy their friendship by issuing an annual salary, or rather, an annual tribute. The Sultan's ambassador in 1627-37 made every effort to do this, but the Cossacks remained adamant and only laughed at this idea, even considered these proposals as an insult to the Cossack honor and responded with new raids on Turkish possessions. After that, in order to persuade the Cossacks to be peaceful, the Sultan sent with the same ambassador four golden caftans as a gift to the army, but the Cossacks indignantly rejected this gift, saying that they did not need the Sultan’s gifts.

Disadvantages of a Cossack

There were also shortcomings in the character of the Cossacks, mostly inherited from their ancestors. For example, they couldn’t help but joke around, listen to the stories of others, and even talk about the exploits of their comrades themselves. It happened that in these stories they would boast and add something of their own. The Cossacks, returning from an overseas campaign, loved to show off their outfit and decoration. They were distinguished by carelessness and carelessness, and did not deny themselves drinking. The Frenchman Beauplan wrote about the Cossacks: “In drunkenness and carousing they tried to surpass each other, and in all of Christian Europe there are hardly such carefree heads as the Cossacks, and there is no people in the world who could compare in drunkenness with the Cossacks.” However, during the campaign, “prohibition” was declared; anyone who dared to get drunk was immediately executed.

Seeing off a Cossack to active (urgent) service

Upon reaching conscription (registration) age, youngsters (conscripts) underwent military training at the village for a year under the leadership of the Cossack administration of the village and were sworn in. To take the oath, the Cossacks came to the church for divine services. After its completion, they lined up in the square opposite the altar of the Lord with a banner. The priest, after performing a prayer dedicated to the soldier leaving for service, gave permission to swear in the Cossacks. The Cossack appointed by the ataman from the department in front of the formation clearly read out the text of the oath line by line, and the Cossacks repeated what was read out loud. Having finished taking the oath, each Cossack approached the lectern or table where the Gospel and the Cross lay. Having kissed the Gospel and the Cross, he knelt before the banner and kissed its edge, put his signature in the oath taking book and got into formation.

Elizaveta Harun
Customs, traditions and morals of the Kuban Cossacks. Preliminary work with children for physical education and speech therapy entertainment

Preliminary work with children for physical education and speech therapy entertainment in the senior group

Cossack can't count himself Cossack, if he does not know and does not comply traditions and customs of the Cossacks. Merciless to enemies Cossacks in their midst they were always complacent, generous and hospitable. Based on character Cossack there was some duality: sometimes he is cheerful, playful, funny, then unusually sad, silent, inaccessible. Cossack is a warrior from head to toe, from birth to death.

At the first call he throws Cossack his peaceful pursuits, in two or three days he got ready to go on a campaign, and on the fourth he was already rushing on his steppe horse and was the first to appear on the battlefield.

During the campaign and at the front he is patient, hardy and unpretentious: on the move, eats quickly, sleeps very little, always on the alert, constantly ready to rush at the enemy.

But what the Cossack is strong and strong?

He is strong due to his age-old, unchanging friendship with the horse. There is no stronger friendship in the whole world than this friendship. But he is also capable of lying with his horse for several days in the bushes, in the reeds, without getting bored, without losing vigor, and vigilantly watching the enemy.

Cossack and without a horse, he is quick and agile, like a loach, flexible, like a young stem, like a coastal reed. Looks bold open: the eyes laugh, and there is a lively, but very kind smile on the face.

U Kuban Cossacks before leaving home for the horse war Cossack's wife let him down, holding the reins at the hem of the dress. The old way custom, she passed on the occasion, sentencing: “You’re leaving on this horse, Cossack, on this horse and return home with victory.” Having accepted the occasion, only after that Cossack he hugged and kissed his wife, children, and often his grandchildren, sat in the saddle, took off his hat, made the sign of the cross, stood up in his stirrups, looking at the clean and cozy white hut, at the front garden in front of the windows, at the cherry orchard. Then he pulled his hat over his head, warmed his horse with his whip, and left the quarry to the gathering place.

Extremely strict in traditions were observed among the Cossacks, customs, beliefs that were a vital necessity for every Cossack family, non-compliance or violation of them was condemned by all residents of the farm or village, village. Customs, there are many traditions: some appear, others disappear. Those that most reflect everyday and cultural characteristics remain Cossacks that have been preserved in the memory of the people since ancient times.

1. Respect for elders.

2. Immense respect for the guest.

3. Respect for women (mother, sister, wife).

Disrespect for father and mother was considered a great sin. Without the consent of parents and relatives, as a rule, issues of creating families: parents took a direct part in its creation.

Restraint, politeness and respect were observed in dealing with parents and elders in general. On Kuban turned to their father, mothers only on "You" - "You, mom", "You, tattoo".

Custom respect and veneration for the elder obliges the younger, first of all, to show care, restraint and readiness for providing help and demand adherence to some etiquette (when the old man appeared, everyone had to stand up - Cossacks When in uniform, put your hand on the headdress, and without uniform, take off your hat and bow).

It was not allowed in the presence of an elder sit, smoke, talk (enter without his permission) and even more so - it is obscene to express oneself.

It was considered indecent to overtake an old man (senior in age); it was necessary to ask permission to pass. When entering somewhere, the eldest is allowed to pass first.

It was considered indecent for a younger person to enter into conversations in the presence of an older person.

Old man (senior) the younger one must give way.

The younger one must show patience and restraint, and not argue in any case.

The elder's words were binding on the younger.

At conflict situations, disputes, discord, fights, the word of an old man (senior) was decisive and required immediate execution.

Cossacks and guests

The most dear and welcome guest was considered a stranger from distant places, in need of shelter, rest and care. Regardless of the age of the guest, he was given the best place at meals and on vacation. It was considered indecent to ask a guest for 3 days where he was from and what the purpose of his arrival was. Even the old man gave up his seat, although the guest was younger than him.

On par with hospitality Cossacks were distinguished by extraordinary honesty. In Sich, one could leave money on the street without fear that it might be stolen.

Birth Cossack Cossack was born a warrior, and with the birth of the baby, his military school began. All the father's relatives and friends brought a gun, cartridges, gunpowder, bullets, a bow and arrows as a gift to the newborn. These gifts hung on the wall where the mother and baby were lying. At the end of forty days after the mother, having said a cleansing prayer, returned home, the father put a saber belt on the child, holding the saber in his hand, mounted the horse and then returned the son to the mother, congratulating her on the Cossack. When the newborn’s teeth were cutting through, his father and mother put him back on the horse and took him to church to serve a prayer service to Ivan the Warrior. The baby's first words were "But" And "poo"- urge the horse and shoot. War games outside the city and target shooting were favorite pastimes for young people in their free time. These exercises developed shooting accuracy, many of Cossacks could, at a considerable distance, knock out a coin held between their fingers with a bullet.

Three-year-old children could already freely ride horses around the yard, and at the age of 5 they were galloping across the steppe.

Handicrafts Kuban Artistic art wood processing has a deep tradition in Kuban. Wooden utensils - barrels, buckets, troughs, bowls, spoons, mortars, stirrers and others items were made in all villages rich in timber. Made of wood Cossacks they loved to make furniture, carved mirrors, window frames, wooden carved umbrellas, and painted chests.

Pottery on Kuban was common in places where there was clay suitable for making ceramics. Basically, simple dishes and simple toys for children were made; pottery production was often combined with brick making. On Kuban potters enjoyed great honor and respect; songs, fairy tales, and proverbs were written about them. Forms Kuban ceramics are simple, bright, floral ornament.

One of the oldest folk crafts of the Eastern Slavs is wicker weaving. A significant part of household utensils - from vegetable baskets to wicker fences and outbuildings - residents Kubansky The villages were made from wicker. All kinds of tops, baskets, various wattles, purses (containers for storing grain, sheepfolds) were woven from flexible, golden willow vine. Even the first cordon buildings were made Cossacks made of vines.

Historically on Kuban Forging, the blacksmith's craft, became the most widespread. Blacksmiths were the main craftsmen. In each Kuban village since the end of the 19th century up to five forges worked. Everything necessary for the life of the villagers was made here - horseshoes, locks, grips, chimneys for pipes, as well as interior items.

Kuban people believed that a blacksmith can forge happiness for the young. And if he wants, he will send misfortune. Iron protected the horses' hooves, and the person who found a horseshoe was considered lucky. Blacksmiths forged knives, axes, nails, arrows, and chain mail.

Chain mail was a necessary accessory for any person; wars wore it when going into battle. This metal clothing reliably protected the wearer from enemy blows.

In ancient times, iron and products made from it were highly valued.

Kuban blacksmiths created real works of art from metal: forged roof umbrellas - "visors", grilles for windows, doors, balconies, grand staircases, fences, weather vanes. They even you worked their original ornament and created in the villages and cities Kuban beautiful ensemble of metal lace.

The art of embroidery has always been valued Kuban. Embroidered patterns not only decorated clothes and household items fabric items, but also served as amulets against evil forces. In every family, regardless of social status, women had to own various types handicrafts: weaving and embroidery. In the houses of princes, boyars, rich people in Rus' and wealthy Cossacks of Kuban there were embroidery and weaving workshops where all the women of the house spent their leisure time. As a rule, the creative process was led by the mistress of the house.

Work and rest Cossacks

IN Cossack families worked tirelessly. The field ones were especially difficult work during the holy season It's time to harvest the harvest. We worked from dawn to dusk, the whole family moved to live in the field, the mother-in-law or the eldest daughter-in-law took care of household chores.

In winter, from early morning until late at night, women spun, weaved, and sewed. In winter, men were engaged in all kinds of repairs and repairs of buildings, tools, Vehicle, their responsibility was to care for horses and livestock.

The Cossacks knew how not only to work, but also have a good rest.

On Sunday and holidays working was considered a sin. In the morning the whole family went to church, a kind of place of spiritual communication.

The youth preferred"street" in summer or "gatherings" in winter. On "street" Acquaintances were made, songs were learned and performed, songs and dances were combined with games. "Gatherings" They took place with the onset of cold weather in the houses of girls or young spouses. The same people gathered here "street" companies. On "gatherings" the girls crushed and carded hemp, spun, knitted, and embroidered. Job accompanied by songs. When the boys arrived, dancing and games began.

The villagers spent their free time in “conversations” and at “gatherings”. On "conversations" married and elderly people whiled away the time. Here they discussed current affairs, shared memories, and always sang songs. Special variety in life Cossacks holidays and Sundays were introduced; after the church service there were often fairs, races, and other entertainment. Cossacks were big fans of choral singing and military sports competitions.

Main entertainment for the Cossacks There was archery or gun shooting. On holidays there were horse races and fist fights, Cossacks They showed horse riding. competed Cossacks and in overcoming a water obstacle. Group Cossacks in full gear she raced on horseback to the river. Having thrown themselves into the water, they swam across it on horseback. The winner was the one who came ashore first.

Did you hear them talking to each other Cossacks in the old days?

Not at all like you and I now. Spoken Kuban speech is a valuable and interesting element of folk culture. She combined two language: Russian and Ukrainian. Many Kuban residents easily switched in conversation from one language to another. When asked what language they speak Cossacks, in Russian or Ukrainian, many answered: "On ours, on Cossack, on Kuban» . In Ukrainian "speak" –"to dabble". So they began Kuban dialect due to the large number of Ukrainian words to call « Kuban balachka» .

Interesting to know…

Liman - harbor, bay - a shallow bay where a river flows into the sea. An estuary is formed when lowland rivers are flooded by the sea and can be open (lip) or separated from the sea by a narrow strip of land.

Church is an architectural structure, intended for worship and religious ceremonies (a kind of place of spiritual communication).

Gatherings are a seasonal form of youth leisure in the autumn and winter.

Spinning - twisting (fibers of flax, wool, etc., to make threads.

Stanichniki - a resident of the village.

The sign of the cross is a prayer gesture, representing is an image of a cross with the movement of the hand. The sign of the cross is performed on various occasions, for example, when entering and leaving a temple, before or after saying a prayer.

Disrespect for the swarmers is a negative spiritual moral quality of children, manifested as disrespect, disrespect, inattention, selfishness, disobedience.

Etiquette is the norms and rules of behavior of people in society.

Sich - the name of the administrative centers of Zaporozhye Cossacks.

Wicker weaving is the craft of making wicker products from wicker.

A vine is a shoot of a climbing plant or shrub, mainly grapes or willow.

Craft - small manual production based on the use of hand tools and personal skill employee, allowing the production of high-quality, often highly artistic products.

Utensil - household items, including kitchen and tableware, devices for storing and carrying things, etc.