Russkaya Starina

133-145

Authors: Vladimir S. Velikanov

The Russo-Turkish war of 1768–1774 still has a lot of poor explored topics. One of them is the Turkish army. The majority of the documents gives estimate number of the Turkish troop and doesn’t provide any details on its real strength and composition. The article is based on Russian, Turkish and European materials, and gives an attempt to examine the strength and organization of the Turkish army at the beginning of the Russo-Turkish war of 1768–1769. It shows that the role of the classic Turkish troops (like yeniceri and sipahi) had significantly decreased, and they were replaced by numerous mercenary troops like levendi.

159-189

Authors: Leonid L. Smilovitsky

The article is devoted to the study of a rarely examined topic: the role of photography in wartime correspondence between the front and rear as a historical source. The state and citizen have different attitudes to photography. Photographs in wartime could simultaneously act not only as witnesses, but also as prosecutors. Soldiers and commanders and their families gave the photograph an exceptional value. The photograph was more valuable than the letters and must be kept. The photographs were taken on the road even when there was not enough time for the collections, their place was next to documents, money and a modest stock of things and provisions in hand luggage. Soldiers wore photos of relatives and friends in the pocket of their uniform at the heart or in a knapsack behind their backs. The coverage of the circumstances in which soldiers and Red Army commanders made and sent photographs to their homes, relatives, friends and neighbors and comrades in arms draw a true picture of military everyday life, provide the necessary details for understanding the behavior of a person in war, and reveal his inner world. The article is based upon data from letters and diaries of Soviet Jews – soldiers of the Red Army – which were collected in the archives of the Diaspora Research Center at Tel Aviv University over the last five years (2012–2018) and are herein introduced into academic circulation for the first time.

202-217

Authors: Maria A. Andrunina

The article discusses different compounds in the traditional notion of sacrum and typical relations between them on the example of cemetery concerned beliefs and ritual practices, using the data from Polesye region (Ukranian, Belorussian, Western Russian data). The portrait of graveyard as holy place is formed from the religious symbols existing in it (churches, crosses, sanctification of the land for new cemetery); the regarding the dead ancestors as holy forefathers, who always assist their living relatives in all kinds of troubled situations and the consideration of the cemetery as improper place for unclean dead burial (mostly suicidal and others), who habitually were laid on graveyard boundaries. In the other hand, cemetery is the place in between the world of living and the world of dead, where different types of ghosts and demons can be viewed, where all kinds of black magic can be performed, which drives to the place witches and other dangerous persons. The danger of cemetery for people is reflected in great number of taboos and rules concerning the place: for instance, to ask in the gates the spirits for permission to enter, not to visit the place before or after sun, never take anything from the place and so on. So, presented material shows that the notion of sacrum in Slavic traditional culture consists of Christian and pre-Christian layers, contains the ideas of supernatural, death, miracle and horror; the relations between two poles of cognitive field “supernatural” — sacrum and demonic — are formed by the way of turning unholy and demonic place into holy by the means of placing there sacred religious symbols (building of churches, crosses, putting to it “holy” toponymy) and by symbolic exploration of land, which demands finding the center, considered to be sacred; lining the boundaries which divide it from surrounding wild, demonic and thus dangerous land. This structure of sacred is mirrored in the organization of cemetery: it has the central holy place, which is church or main cross with honorable graves of respected forefathers around, it has boundary places there unclean, dangerous, demonic dead are traditionally buried, it distinguished from surrounding lands defied from symbolical meaning.

228-241

Authors: Anastasia V. Gazdanova

It is about almost nothing is known about Zakhariy Petrovich Valaev, the correspondent of the Ethnographic Department of the Russian Museum of Emperor Alexander III (EO RM) in 1906-–1907. This article attempts to reconstruct his biography and his family history. The fact that at the time of cooperation with the EO RM he was a student of the Moscow Imperial Technical School, we know from the correspondence of Z.P. Valaev with the keeper of EO K.A. Inostrantsev. It is preserved in the Archives of the Russian Museum of Ethnography. From this texts we know about Z.P. Valaev, as a collector of ethnographic objects of Ossetians, Kabardians and Balkarians for the acquisition of EO RM funds. The clarification of the biography of Z.P. Valaev is impossible apart from considering the history of his family and its closest associates. Therefore, the presented article discusses the life ways of his parents, brothers and sisters.

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.