The house of the dead in the village of Deads

Igor Permnikov - about the book of UNLEMA CONCKA “Eternal Sorrow. Karelian ritual cries "

Why in any coffin the windows at the eye level will be useful and why the deceased to ask for forgiveness at the roof, arable land and beautiful shallows? Any traditional folk culture is bizarre by definition, but Karelian funeral rites based on ritual crying, even on the general background stand out in their strange poetry. Recently, Igor Pernikov, Igor Permnikov, has a dedicated study of UNLEMA KONKA dedicated to them in the Publishing House of Comon Place -, at the request of Gorky, about this remarkable book.

Starting from February 24, 2022, we were all in the face of the advancing barbarism, violence and lies. In this situation, it is extremely important to preserve at least the remnants of culture and support the values ​​of humanism - including for the sake of the future of Russia. Therefore, the editorial office of Gorky will continue to talk about books, reminding our readers that the world remains in the world and fiction.

UNELMA KONKA. Eternal sadness. Karelian ritual cries. Petrozavodsk; M.: Common Place, 2022. Content . Fragment

Monograph of the folklorist of UNLEMA CONCACE “Poetry of sorrow. Karelian ritual cries ”, written and prepared for printing back in the mid-1970s, was never published in a timely manner due to the decision of the leadership of the Petrozavodsk Institute of Language, Literature and the History of the Karel branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which considered it ideologically unrestrained and not corresponded to the then party line. In particular, the author reproached the absence of references to the founders of Marxism-Leninism, reasoning about the impact on traditional Karelian rites and cries of socialist reality, as well as the praise of Finnish scientists. The absurdity of such accusations was that it was Finnish scientists who were engaged in the Karelian ritual crying most fruitfully, so Kondka referred to their work, but the director of the institute who fell into managers from party workers raised the questions: “What is it possible? We will disgrace this book: in Finland, so much is written, but we have nothing. ” Kirill Vasilievich Chistov, Doctor of Historical Sciences and the outstanding Soviet and Russian folklorist, who praised the “Poetry of Sorrow” and trying to convince the boss, wrote to him: “If we print the book of Konkka, then we immediately have issues related to Karelian lamentations, will be more serious and more seriously than in Finland, and if we do not print the book, then we will not print the book, then we will not print the book We will stomp in the spot, and Finnish scientists will go forward and forward. ”

But, alas, the comments of a prominent scientist did not have the proper effect, the Conkka herself refused to rewrite the work, and the book was eventually discontinued, after which Unelma Semenovna, disappointed in the institute order and deciding that “with these people is not on the way,” retired at the age of 55. Fortunately, this did not affect the interest in her work on the part of the international scientific community: in 1985, the monograph was published in Finland in Finnish called Karjalaiset Riitti -itkut (“Eternal Sorrow. Crowned Rotive cries”). “The book was highly appreciated by the Finnish humanities, not to mention those researchers who were engaged in similar topics and knew the author personally,” recalls the son of the researcher Alexei Kondka, who followed in the footsteps of his mother and also became a folklorist. In Russia, the book was published only in 1992 and had long become a bibliographic rarity, but recently, thirty years after the first Russian -speaking publication, its second edition finally saw.

The book was originally conceived as a philological analysis of the poetic style and figurative system of Karelian ritual cries. But, as the author notes in the preface, as it deepens into the material, it became obvious that without identifying the function of crying in the rites it is impossible to understand their artistic nature (now this approach seems self-evident, but in the mid-1970s it was not like that).

The function of rituals in a highly simplified form can be described as follows: they are designed to protect a person and his family at the most difficult and responsible moments of their existence. An important part of the rite was the performance of ritual poetic works - lamentations and crying, allowing, using a special expressive language, to establish contact between the world of living and the dead, to protect a person who goes from one world to another, as well as establish “loyal” relations between these worlds. Such exceptional in their emotional filling and significance of the event as death, marriage or departure to the war, when a person forever leaves the usual world, so that after the transition to become a part of a completely different reality, many special rituals and crying that have never been performed outside these rituals.

Perhaps one of the most curious features of “eternal sadness” is that, due to the analysis of Karelian crying in the framework of the corresponding rites, the author manages to demonstrate not only the poetic beauty of the folklore of an individual people, not only the fullness and intricacy of the traditional view of the world, but also point out the fragility of any human life. As rightly notes in the preface to the second edition of the book, Svetlana Adonyev, the picture developing as a result is surprisingly universal.

As a rule, the entire rite of transition is divided into three parts: alienation, transition and familiarization. For the first time, such a classification was proposed by the French folklorist Arnold Van Gennep in the 1909 book “Transition Rites”. The scientist wrote that at first a person is alienated from his former position, state, social group, then follows the transition period when a person is between two conditions (already broke away from the previous one, but has not yet moved to the new one, only prepares for this), and then the turn of familiarization with the new position comes, when a person assimilates his new duties and rights.

It is this classification that Unelma Semenovna uses to describe the Karelian ritual cries. The researcher also notes that the ritual of three -stageness is not everywhere carried out with the same completeness: in some rites, elements of alienation (funeral ceremony) prevail, in others - elements of familiarization (wedding). In addition, these elements can change places, interspers and form complex combinations. When the rite comes to an end, ritual cries stop.

Interestingly, the death itself in ritual crying is never called directly. From the point of view of traditional culture, death is a transition from one world to another, from the society of living relatives to the society of “dear ancestors”. That is why the coffin is the “house” of the deceased, where he should be comfortable after his death, and the cemetery is the “village” of the dead. This expresses love for the deceased and the hope of meeting him in the next world. On the other hand, danger comes from the dead in the world of living, so he needs to get to the “that side” as well as possible. Thus, Kondka identifies three key points in relation to the deceased: precautions designed to neutralize his harmfulness, concern for the deceased, expressed in his material support, necessary for other life, and the manifestation of love.

To protect yourself, it was necessary to thoroughly observe all the funeral rites and put the grief in the form of ritual cries - otherwise the deceased can feel the indifference of loved ones and send diseases on people and livestock, appear in a nightmare, begin to make noise at night and the like. In general, the attitude towards the dead in traditional Karelian culture was contradictory, so calls may sound in the cry that the deceased, on the contrary, will quickly return to the world of the living or at least dreams of in a dream.

One of the most frequent motives expressing the bitterness of loss in the North Carelle cryes is associated with the images of birds, in the form of which the deceased can return to those who grieve along it. According to Kondka, the motive of the soul-bird has become a key element of Karelian funeral lyrics. It was believed that the deceased could take the image of a swan, bullets, swallows or any other bird. The researcher gives an example of using this motive in mother's crying about a child:

“Maybe a small berry that I have naked from the wonderful ancestors to twist the little heavenly bird under the windows of their dear good [father and mother] with a joyful childish babble.

I, a sad camp, from the window of your dear good [father] would have looked at my small nourished berry and reduce my longing and sadness when the berry that I, nurtured, chirping with a wonderful heavenly bird, like a child, in the evening court of good good under the bright windows. ”

In addition, the deceased could return in the form of a butterfly, flower or blade of grass. By the way, this surprisingly resembles the motive of the girl’s farewell to her “girlhood” during the wedding, when she, in the form of ritual crying, expresses hope to meet in the future with the fact that she is so expensive, but already in a new, “transformed” form.

And so that the deceased was not sad and lonely lying in the coffin, they did special windows at the eye level, but gradually this practice has come to naught, which many old people with whom Kondka talked during field research regretted. So, Annie Stepanova from the village of Khaikol of the Kaalevalsky district in 1969 told the researcher that, visiting her husband’s grave, she thinks to herself: “Poor, you don’t even see anything, because there is no window.” The desire to equip the life of the deceased found expression in ritual crying, in one of which the weeper, among other things, touchingly asks the deceased at least a small stove in the coffin:

"Do in an eternal house
The window is at least with a cocky eye,
Let him look from his home.
And put for my dear mercy in
a corner of an eternal house cook
At least with Lastochkino nest.
Let after a long track
Though my dear mercy will warm the hands. ”

Another extremely curious motive for Karelian crying is the farewell of the dead man with the world when he asks for forgiveness for all evil, consciously and unintentionally caused to this world. As the author notes, the other side of the relationship between the living and the dead is revealed here: it turns out that not only the deceased can harm the living in the event of an inappropriate relationship, but the world of the living can somehow harm the deceased. To prevent this from happening, the deceased must ask for forgiveness from those places and inanimate (from our point of view) of the entities, among which his life passed. This duty had to fulfill the poster for him:

“Forgive my good good, this is a native dwelling, the last time! As to know, maybe during his stay in the world he went over his dwelling with dissatisfied words. <...>

Forgive my good good, these roofs, dispersed by an ax, the last time!

As to know, maybe during his stay in the useful light, he spoke unkind words when these roofs were Tesal.

Sorry for my good good, native porch, the last time in the world!

As to know, maybe during his stay in the world he praised his porch with unkind words ... "

Further, Kondka writes that on the way to the cemetery, the weeper in the same form turns to the meadows, where the deceased once melted, to the arable land, which he plowed, to all the “God's air”, to the native pier, and if the path to the cemetery lies across the river or the lake, then to the water itself: to the water itself: to the water itself.

“It’s to know, maybe with unkind words he scolded these waterwalks, when he often swam through these waterwalks.

Forgive the beautiful rescue, beautiful my beautiful good flashes the last flashing when they are taken to beautiful ancestors in beautiful shallows on eight -tied floats.

After all, often my handsome good in these beautiful shallows swimmed on eight -knit sheeps, staying in a beautiful light.

As to know, maybe with bitter words he walked through the shallows of a beautiful rescue.

Forgive my glorious good mirrored waters of the glorious rescue of the last flashing, when they are taken to glorious ancestors in mirror waters on six -tied floats. ”

It follows from the quoted that a person for the entire time of his life is never lonely, next to him there is always a certain inanimate entity that can be harmful by negligence. In essence, the deceased is the same essence, but he also requires care, like the whole world around him. And as a person does not happen lonely during his lifetime, it should not be lonely even after his death: when moving to the other side, he will hear a dog barking, as if he was approaching someone's house with a dark winter night, and the weeper, with the help of a ritual cry, will call one of the dead relatives to leave and meet him so that the deceased is not so scary.