Russkaya Starina

95-107

Authors: Olga V. Bogdanova

In the article on the example of the text of the novel “Captain’s Daughter” by A. Pushkin the author demonstrates how axiological perspectives of classical literary works change in modern conditions, how in a modern school can be more interesting and more deeply interpreted axiomatic material repeatedly studied and subjected to understanding in different years. In particular, the article considers the images of the central characters of Pushkin’s novel – Pyotr Grinev and Alexei Shvabrin. The article shows how two characters – Grinev and Shvabrin – stood out in Pushkin’s manuscripts from the original single and integral image of the main character of the novel. However, in contrast to the existing tradition, which considers these heroes of “Captain’s Daughter” as antagonist heroes, in this work these images are qualified as twin heroes with a common ideological root. The study shows that the image of Grinev undoubtedly bears the features of an autobiographical hero, for example, in those circumstances when the first chapter of the novel tells the story of the childhood of the central character. However, before the researchers did not pay attention to the fact that the image of Shvabrin is also accompanied by portrait details and features that have a connection with the personality of the real Pushkin, the creator of the novel. For example, at the first appearance of the hero Shvabrin in front of Grinev (and the reader) draw attention to the characteristic features of Pushkin’s portrait (curly dark hair, dark skin, short stature, fluent knowledge of French, the vitality of nature). As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that the writer deliberately gives the characters similar features, actually equalizes and likens the characters. Pushkin consciously detects the contradictory nature of each of the characters, placing them in a similar situation, pushing in a conflict – “love triangle”. Thus, Pushkin actually demonstrates the techniques of auto-psychoanalysis. Through the images of paired characters, the author disavows the duality of each person’s nature, discovers dual impulses within the personality of one person, each of us (including himself). Form of narrative in novel is memoirs, diaries, memories. This narrative form prompted the author to ensure that a single and integral image of a complex character broke up in the end into two simplified images that appeared more understandable to the consciousness and perception of the character-narrator Petrusha Grinev. The last statement does not mean that Pushkin was going to whitewash the person or to justify behavior of the hero Alexey Shvabrin. In the end, his image still comes in the text of the memoir to a negative evaluation. However, Pushkin’s ability to maintain the capacity of the character of the individual character, to abandon the primitive classic division into positive and negative characters, the ability to see in different characters antinomic phenomenon properties enriches the perception of the novel (including the image of Shvabrin).

120-130

Authors: Olga A. Shepeleva

The article considers the traditional folk superstitions, omens, rituals, which are actual nowadays in the Upper Don area in the aspect of their interpretation on the pages of local periodicals of the 19th century. The author draws attention to the fact that some folk beliefs in the newspaper are often assessed negatively as primitive. In the periodicals of this time, the poetry of folk life was presented as a consequence of the lack of education and enlightenment. During the research, the traditional notions functioning today were revealed and compared with their newspaper interpretations. The materials for the study are the records of international folklore and ethnographic expeditions to the Upper Don at the beginning of the 21st century, cases from the State Archives of Rostov region, as well as samples from the newspaper “Donskoi golos” (“The Voice of Don”) for two years (1880 and 1881). The results of the work shows that the points of intersection exist in the different spheres of the folklore: superstition and omens, religiosity, folk medicine and disease, causing rain, choice of a place for housebuilding, etc.

138-147

Authors: Tatyana Yu. Vlaskina

The article deals with the consideration of ideas about the disease in the oral tradition of Nekrasov Cossacks. A variety of published and unpublished sources are used as the research information base. Field materials of the Don folklorist F.V. Tumilevich is the subject of close attention along with the data collected later. The image of the disease appears to be a complex and continuously evolving structure in the light of a comprehensive analysis. It combines several semantic layers that appeared in connection with ancient and new circumstances. The archaic ideas about the introduction of the harmful demons into a person are the basis of the concept of disease. Nekrasov Cossacks believed that disease was a challenge or a punishment from God as well. Empirical experience, new knowledge are woven into old ideas and become a part of the image of the disease over time. The image of the disease reflects the features of the historical path of the Nekrasov Cossacks and the complexity of the transition from the mythological way of perceiving the world to the scientific one.

157-172

Authors: Tatyana E. Grevtsova

The article deals with the ritual functions and names of the best man of the wedding ritual on the territory of the Rostov and Volgograd regions, which before the revolution were a part of the Province of the Don Cossack Host. In the Don wedding, the duties of the master of the wedding ceremonies were usually performed by one person, who had to possess certain qualities and could have different social and age characteristics. He differed from the rest of the guests by the formal marking of some attribute (scarf, ribbon, flower, etc.). On the one hand, this participant of the wedding was a rite “double” of the groom and acted on his behalf, and on the other hand, he protected the groom and later the newlyweds both during the real, spatial movement, and during the “transformation” of unmarried young people into a married couple. The actions of the best man on the Don, as well as those of the Slavs in general, are aimed at the successful performance of the ritual and the transition of the newlyweds to a new status, the culmination points of which are focused on the day of the wedding. The names of this person with the root druž- prevail in the Don dialects, which are also widespread in other East Slavic regions. Less used terms and their areas may indicate the peculiarities of the history of settlement of the Don region, in which both natives of different parts of the Russian Empire and Little Russia peasants participated. The lexical map compiled by the author based on unpublished expedition materials and published sources shows the areal distribution of the names of the best man in the Don dialects.