Russkaya Starina

5-16

Authors: Olga V. Semenova

This article studies the origin and development of the protection procedures for historical and cultural heritage of the Don region in the 20th century. This process began in the XIX century. The tragedy of the Revolution and the Civil War nearly led to disappearance of the cultural heritage. From the second half of the XX century the Soviet State carried out a set of measures aimed at the formation of people’s historical consciousness and the construction of a “new past”. For this purpose were used traditional institutions (such as museums, archives, scientific institutions) and new ones were created (VOOPIK society, “Znanie” society). Thanks to the enthusiasm of the scientific and creative intelligentsia and the mass character of social initiatives, many monuments of history and culture were saved. However, the same resource was used for ideological and political propaganda.

36-52

Authors: Konstantin V. Voronin

Since 1979, there is a special kind of creative activity of people, fascinated by the romance of medieval battles, battles with the army of Napoleon Bonaparte, the battles of the Civil and Great Patriotic Wars. The ardor for historical and military historical reconstructions, recreating or imitating various scenarios of the past, arose in the South of Russia in 1986. Since then, more and more people have become involved in the world of role-playing games of different historical epochs, participating in tournaments, festivals or staging battles. Everywhere there are military-historical clubs where amateurs are united to reincarnate into heroes of different times and test themselves in combat craft or combat art. Participation in military-historical festivals allows people to become a participant in the significant events of the past for the time being. The romance of such events is estimated already by many thousands of adherents. Therefore, the number of military historical festivals is rapidly growing in Russia, among which there are reconstructions of the battles of the Great Patriotic, First and Second World War, as well as medieval knight tournaments. This article is devoted to the analysis of the origin and formation of military-historical reconstruction in the South of Russia. It also considers the positive process of development of the movement for military historical reconstruction, military historical festivals and similar events.

65-80

Authors: Maria A. Andrunina

Semantic and mythological opposition between the place of living and the place of dead is not final and definite in folk worldview reflected in the cycle of funeral and remembrance rites and corresponding beliefs, as shows the following article. The worlds of spirits and alive connect, separate, they come toward each other, depart and cross in different ritual and calendar times. The omens of death show how otherworld comes forward and breaks the safe boundaries of house, causing death in it, really destroying its limits as the customs of making apertures in roofs, ceilings, and walls take place to facilitate the agony. From this period, house became the habitual place of the death incarnated (corpse) and haunted by the loose human soul never departing for long from its forlorn body. The normal place turns into the house of the dead, the house in the hedge between two worlds — terrains of life and death, the notion is highly commonly reflected in number of omens, taboos and customs. For instance, in the house there death occurred is forbidden to close the doors and windows for the soul to come and go, to cook and clean because the soul could be in oven or in trash, to close the mirrors is recommended to prevent the soul to inhabit them, food and water are placed in special places for the spirit, different kinds of activities are forbidden, the house is marked from outside and neighbors are using apotropaic magic to avoid the contagious influence of the death etc. With time, when the funeral is over and the rites of individual remembrance cycle are gradually take place, the soul stops visiting its home, death is banished from it, its boundaries again turn strong and safe, taboos are lifted, the worlds of living and the dead are separated again. Nevertheless, this period of crossing of the worlds is not the only. During the inhumation the new living place for dead is created in cemetery making it symbolically closer to house. In spring, in Easter period, spirits of the ancestors use to return and live in their houses, there special customs and taboos are again held and domains of living and the dead are again close. The same happens then masses of people visit graves in spring and perform there the same remembrance practices as in home usually take place.

88-99

Authors: Olga V. Rvacheva

The Soviet authorities paid great attention to the media as means of formation of the image of the Soviet regime. The Soviet print media, primarily newspapers, had many facilities for propaganda and ideological influence hence they could form the public attitudes. The periodicals created certain images of the State political and economic campaigns, the specific characteristics of various social groups, as well as sent signs to readers as to who were “insiders” to the system and who were not. In the 1930s papers regularly published materials on the Cossacks that, on the one hand, showed how this social group interpreted the social and economic reorganization of the country and, on the other hand, formed a new image of the Cossacks themselves. The author of the article attempted a research on how the Soviet newspapers formed the image of the new Soviet Cossacks.