Holiday as a cultural phenomenon. Tayirbekov N.T., Romanova E.S. The role of religious holidays in the spiritual and moral education of the individual
Pramzdnik is a day of celebration established in honor or in memory of someone or something. Including, a day or a series of days celebrated by the church in memory of a religious event or a saint. Weekend, non-working day. A day of joy and celebration. Day of games and entertainment.
Social time can be divided into three types: everyday life (weekdays), weekends and holidays. Everyday life is a series of practices that are repeated from day to day. Weekends are regular breaks in the running of everyday life. Everyday life and weekends tend to become routinized. Most often, the main content of everyday life is work. Weekends dominate. free time. In this free time, the schedule and content of nutrition can change, the individual can choose his own environment. It is believed that on weekends a person should restore his strength after working days.
The surviving rare literature, documentary sources testify that our ancestors, who lived hard, harshly, knew how to take their souls away in the festivities. Holidays were a time of necessary and meaningful rest, hours of explosive joy, a meeting with the unique Russian nature, its unforgettable beauty. Each month of this year gave people a reason to admire the meaning of life, to remember with respect the depths and old traditions.
Due to the fact that the holiday affirms the principle of rhythm (more precisely, the correspondence of the rhythms of man, society and the cosmos), its formation as a special cultural phenomenon is inextricably linked with the formation of the idea of time and, thus, with the advent of the calendar. As noted, in particular, by the famous Polish scientist K. Zhigulsky, “time counting, one of the greatest achievements of human culture, the calendar, everywhere in its origins acts as a form of streamlining, fixing, and advance calculation of holidays and periods.”
National holidays are such a state when every minute you are in the epicenter of a hurricane: shows, competitions, draws, entertainment holiday programs based on the traditions of the country, its national customs, rituals.
The meaning of the holiday
A holiday is a special element in the structure of social time. The main function of the holiday is the socio-cultural integration of a particular community of people. Different holidays carry out different types of integration.
A festive performance of any level is built in the image of a family holiday, while attempts are made to strengthen the integration of sociocultural fields, to bring the rulers closer to the ruled, the head of state to the people. In general, to unite this or that social community.
The purpose of public holidays is to rally citizens around official leaders. Public holidays are of two levels: organized by the authorities themselves and individual. The second level is when a public holiday merges with an individual one and people arrange feasts. In the case of the first level, the holiday simply becomes an additional day off.
Religious holidays ensure the integration of all members of a given church around its leadership.
Holidays are also used by businesses that have the same goal as the government: to rally consumers around their brand. (e.g. Beer Festival)
Family holidays perform the function of uniting family members and relatives.
Consumption plays an important role in holiday rituals. It is expressed in a feast, gifts and special festive clothes. The formation of a consumer society turns business into a key participant in the festive discourse. A holiday is a marketing tool.
In addition, the holiday performs an important function of relaxation. The holiday makes a break in the routine life of a person.
The functions of the holiday as an integrator and stabilizer of the social system are directly related to the fact that it is the most important element of the mechanism of tradition, plays a huge role in the preservation and transmission from generation to generation of socially significant information regarding the main value orientations and norms of behavior. Because of this, a holiday always acts as an extremely important factor in socialization: it is through participation in festive ceremonies and rituals in all cultures that the primary familiarization with the norms and values accepted in a particular society takes place.
Holiday and culture
MM. Bakhtin once said that the holiday is the most important primary form of human culture. The specifics of a holiday as a cultural phenomenon: it reflects to the maximum extent both universal features, and features of various types of civilizations, and the unique specificity of a particular socio-cultural community. The significance of the holiday as the most important element of any civilizational system is determined primarily by the fact that it is one of the main mechanisms through which the action of such a key social integrator as the system of values is carried out. The basis of the system of value orientations and preferences formed in a particular cultural and civilizational context is the method chosen by a certain socio-cultural macro-community for solving fundamental problems - the contradictions of human existence: between the secular and sacred spheres of being, man and nature, the individual and society, traditional and innovative aspects of culture. . The central place is occupied by the problem of the relationship between the secular and sacred spheres of human existence. A holiday is a very special period of direct intense contact of these spheres, opposite in this sense to weekdays, when such direct contact is not observed. Moreover, this applies to any holiday, including, it would seem, a purely secular or even family holiday, limited by an intimate circle of close people. Many thinkers and researchers paid attention to this feature of the holiday as a cultural phenomenon.
The idea that the “affirmation of life” is one of the most significant moments of the “festive event” (H. Cox) was emphasized by many prominent researchers, both foreign and Russian (M. Eliade, H. Cox, A.I. Mazaev and etc.).
In a word, festive culture is one of the components of the national culture, its roots go back to traditional culture, which remains its core and breeding ground for development. It is part of a common culture, located on the border of the sacred and profane worlds, the primary stage in the adoption of cultural innovations. It is an open system, although it exists as a separate cultural institution, where a whole set of its components is implemented.
The holiday as a phenomenon of spiritual life, as a factor of family, friendly, professional, religious and social integration, as a form of expression of national and cultural traditions for centuries attracted the attention of specialists in the field of history, ethnography, philosophy, religious studies, social psychology, art history, directing, pedagogy and others. areas of humanitarian knowledge. The scientific literature has formed a rather huge defining base of this cultural phenomenon.
The original name of the holiday in Hebrew was "chag" from the verb "hagag" - to dance. Experts associate its origin with a festive ceremony performed in a dance rhythm around the altar. The subsequent Hebrew name of the holiday sounded "mo ed" - the appointed hour; only later was the name of the holiday “yom-tov” used today and included in the canonical books of Judaism.
In Latin, two terms are important for us: "feriae", which in classical texts is usually found in the plural form and means holidays, days of rest, holidays, and also "festum" - a holiday, a celebration, a holiday. Modern linguists derive the term "feriare" from the word "fanum", meaning a consecrated place, and the term "festum" from the Sanskrit root "bhas" - to shine. It is assumed that this term is associated with the custom of arranging a solemn reception on holidays.
From popular Latin, from the word "festa", which is an abbreviation of the term "festa dies", the French term "fete" in turn originated. In modern French, this word has three meanings: a special day dedicated to the cult of religious ceremonies that are performed on this day; public entertainments arranged on some extraordinary occasion, not at all having a religious character, such as national holidays; pleasures, worldly joys, happiness.
In the "Sociological Dictionary", published in Germany in the late 60s of the XX century, two terms correspond to the holiday - "Fest" (the holiday itself) and "Feier" (the celebration). The “New Lexicon”, published in Germany in 1969, gives such a definition of a holiday - these are public events of a solemn nature, removed from everyday life, established according to the rules in their free time, initially closely associated with a cult; part and expression of the organized and institutionalized life of society, classes, groups and strata, depending on the mode of production.
The French "Dictionary of the Humanities" (1972) gives the following interpretation of the term "holiday": "A moment of sociocultural dynamics when the community confirms its social and cultural relations in an entertaining (playful) way. The holiday is mainly a symbolic game that reorients the practice in the direction of the myth that gives it meaning. The holiday is valuable insofar as the group has value, the symbolism used in this case and the myth caused by it.
Consider the definition of a holiday in explanatory dictionaries.
The encyclopedic dictionary of the Russian bibliographic society "Garanat" (1897) gives a definition only in connection with religious motives. F. Brockhaus and A.I. Efron already distinguished between religious and secular holidays (1898). V.I. Dahl's etymological sequence is as follows: "idle, about the place, space, unoccupied, empty; celebrate, to be idle, or not to do, not to work." Dal interprets the holiday itself as “a day devoted to rest, not business, not work, the opposite of weekdays, a day celebrated according to the charter of the church or on an occasion related to the area, to the face.” A.V. Semenov believes that etymologically the word "holiday" itself is borrowed from the original ancient Slavic "holiday", meaning idleness, rest. But in modern language, the semantic meaning of the concept of "holiday" has separated from the concept of "idle", which many authors interpret as aimless, meaningless. Thus the word "holiday" means certain period time when they are not doing business. It characterizes such free time when something is celebrated, for example, a certain event that needs to be distinguished from the stream of other events.
SI. Ozhegov and N.Yu. Shvedova understand the functioning of holidays much more widely, however, they also associate holidays with certain days. L.V. Uspensky in the etymological dictionary “Why not otherwise” defines the holiday in accordance with the Old Slavonic “idle” in the meaning of empty, “empty” from work, filled with nothing but rest. Encyclopedia "Myths of the peoples of the world" - as a time period that has a special connection with the sphere of the sacred, suggesting the maximum involvement in this sphere of all those participating in the holiday and celebrated as a kind of institutionalized action ".
In Russian science, this interpretation of the holiday goes back to Snegirev. “The very word holiday,” he wrote, “expresses abolition, freedom from everyday work, combined with fun and joy. A holiday is free time, a rite is a significant action, an accepted way of performing solemn actions. The holiday is the antithesis of everyday life with their work and worries; this is a manifestation of a special, festively free life, different from everyday, everyday life ... ".
MM. Bakhtin (1965) gives the most capacious concept of a holiday. “Celebration (everything) is a very important primary form of human culture. It cannot be derived and explained from the practical conditions and goals of social labor, or even more vulgar form of explanation - from the biological (physiological) need for periodic rest. The festival has always had a significant and deep semantic worldview content. D.M. Genkin says that "A holiday is a flexible pedagogical system that allows you to observe the process of pedagogical influence." L.S. Lapteva: “A holiday is a traditional folk form of recreation; it is the satisfaction of the natural need for a person in mass communication, and in an environment whose hallmark is major; this is a kind of folk art in which all types and genres of art echo and combine in a new artistic and semantic quality. A.I. Mazaev: “The holiday is a free life activity that takes place within the sensually visible boundaries of place and time and through live contact of people who have gathered voluntarily” .
According to the famous Polish researcher of the holiday as a social institution K. Zhigulsky (1985): “... the holiday is always organized around a certain value, goodness, only expressed with the help of a symbol, and sometimes - with the help of a game or myth, but, nevertheless less, not identical with them. The dual nature of the holiday is also emphasized in its definition by the researcher of Russian traditional culture A.F. Nekrylova: “The holiday is a social and cultural phenomenon, it combines two trends: return, immobility and renewal, dynamics. This is its primordial connection with tradition. Approving social orders, norms, artistic and moral ideals, the holiday thereby introduces society to tradition. A.V. Benifand: “The holiday is associated with society as a whole, with its social, political and spiritual processes... A certain historical type of holiday corresponds to the type of production mode in society. A change in the type of holiday is determined by a change in the mode of production. L.N. Lazareva (2003): “A holiday is a spiritual and practical activity based on a system of values tested by intergenerational communication of people and proceeding in sacred time and space, freely, in accordance with the regulations of the holiday code” .
Thus, it can be stated that a holiday is a multifaceted social phenomenon that reflects the life of every person and society as a whole. For each person, a holiday is associated with a special festive state that encourages him to participate in a particular action. The feeling of festivity is a feeling of joy, cheerfulness, high spirits.
Holidays are always associated with turning points in the life of nature, society, and man. The more significant the event underlying the holiday, the greater the need for a person to feel his involvement in it, to express his attitude, to unite his feelings with the feelings of other people, his people.
Any holiday is a social phenomenon, it is a peculiar, specific life activity of people, designed to provide, in a broad sense, one of the directions for the development of culture. Holidays are not a useless pastime, as many people believe, but an original form of cultural development. The universality of holidays, starting from the Stone Age, allows us to consider them a constant element of human culture, and their observance is one of the main forms of collective behavior of people. This has been the case throughout history. A holiday is a universal and constant phenomenon precisely in the socio-cultural life of the people, since it occurs only where there are spiritual ties between people, and, generated by them, in turn strengthens these ties, demonstrating its universal social and cultural qualities.
Years, centuries pass, but the role of the Russian folk holiday to this day is of great importance in the life of the people. Everything primordially old, Russian passes through the boundaries of centuries and remains in a rich treasury of baggage of spiritual values.
A holiday is a multifunctional and rather complex socio-artistic phenomenon that actively influences the education of aesthetic culture at all stages of its development in many categories and strata of modern society. This definition was given to the holiday by I.G. Sharoev.
“Festive communication is the highest degree in the culture of communication.
A festive mood relieves past grievances and sorrows, because on a holiday the consciousness of the individual is opened for perception and positive emotions ”- such a definition is given by A.A. Konovich. Konovich A.A. Theatrical holidays and rituals of the USSR. - M .: "Higher School", 1990. S. 126.
This is how K. Rairberti presents idleness. “Idleness is not the mother of all vices, as walking morality claims, no, idleness is the daughter of all virtues, a reward for respectable labors, as well as for not quite respectable, the incessant desire and dream of the poor, the hopes and aspirations of all those who work in the sweat of their brows” . Golitsyn F. A holiday is a time for celebration. //Knowledge is power. - 2004. - No. 12.
You can also find many sayings about the holiday. Each of them puts forward their requirements, interprets their concepts. These are A. Shabalkov, V. Belov, P.M. Kerzhentsev, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Romain Rolland.
“It is not known what a person will be like in a thousand years, but if this acquired and inherited belongings of holidays, rituals are taken away from a modern person, then he will forget everything, unlearn everything, and will have to start all over again.” IN. Klyuchevsky.
The holiday itself, most likely, exists as long as a person, if not longer. As V.N. Toporov, Shangina I.I. Russian people. Weekdays and holidays. - St. Petersburg: Azbuka-Klassika, 2003. P. 220. The very concept of Homo feriens, a person "celebrating" marks an important stage in the development of human culture and raises the problem of reconstructing a holiday in the Paleolithic and searching for something that could correspond to a holiday for even more early stages. In any case, the prerequisites for the most ancient holiday can be seen in some of the mass rituals observed in monkey communities. Be that as it may, the holiday, apparently, was present in the life of human groups even before it received one or another cultural interpretation. In addition, the energy model of the holiday as an emotional discharge of the tension accumulated in the community makes it possible to push it back to fairly ancient times. The holiday is not introduced, but is present from the very beginning, which is why it often serves as the basis for interpreting the beginning.
Thus, during the holiday we are visited by guests from the beginning of the century, - the holiday itself turns out to be a guest from even more ancient, pre-primal times.
Worship of higher powers
The pagan religion of the Slavs is not an integral, harmonious formation. It breaks up into layers of varying degrees of antiquity, which are intricately intertwined. The ancient layer is the cult of Women in Childbirth, Mother and Daughter, who gave birth to all life on Earth. In some places they were depicted as moose cows (archaic images of this kind can still be seen in the motifs of Russian embroidery). Later, they were joined by a clan, personifying the inhabited Universe. Rod is not the supreme deity. The supreme deity rules the world, and Rod is the world.
The third layer is the supreme deity. It was triune among the Slavs. The supreme deity was called Triglav, and personifies the ancient triad: Creation - Life - Destruction. Each of the three faces of Triglav was an independent god.
Svorog - Creator. The god of heavenly fire, just like Svarozhich is the god of earthly fire. Depicted as a gray-haired old man with a staff and a bowl with unquenchable fire. One of his incarnations is Stribog, the lord of the wind. According to legend, he forged the vault of heaven in a forge along with the stars. The patron saint of blacksmiths and artisans in general.
Dazhdbog - God of life and light. Depicted as a middle-aged man with a round bowl - a shield, symbolizing the sun and rain. The Slavs called the face of Dazhdbog the sun, they prayed to him for the sending of the harvest. He is the patron saint of farmers.
Perun - God of thunder. Destroyer. He was depicted as a man with black hair, a thick beard and a fiery mustache or silver color, with a beam of lightning in his hand. The weapons of Perun were the sword and the axe. Warrior patron.
Veles stands somewhat apart from Triglav. He is an earthly god, so to speak, and is not always at odds with the heavenly trinity. God of the dead, master of beasts, patron of wisdom, magic, arts and commerce. The least "certain" being. It often represented a winged serpent with a human face, or a mixture of a man and a bear. Moiseenko N.A. Living antiquity: Weekdays and holidays of the Siberian village in the 18th - first half of the 19th century. - Novosibirsk: Science. Sib. Department, 1989. S. 45.
Pagan holidays are tightly intertwined with Christian holidays, but people still know pagan gods and glorify them at their holidays. An example of this is the "New Year", Maslenitsa, "Ivan Kupala", "Ilyin's Day".
Connection with nature
The plowman lives on the earth, feeds on the earth, his every breath merges with her breath. He thinks - he wonders about bread - a harvest in a warm spring, and in a sultry summer, and in a rainy autumn, he has no rest from this thought even in the icy winter season, when chilly grain dozes in the earth chained by frost.
The peasant’s thought about the harvest is eternal, so he looked closely at nature, at its fading and awakening, followed the movement of the sun, the appearance of the moon, the shining of the stars - after all, the weather, a fruitful or lean year, largely depended on this. This is how the agricultural calendar arose, which absorbed the signs, observations, discoveries of the working farmer.
The grain grower calls the “nurse” the land, a hundredfold returning to him the grain sown in a good hour. She also calls the earth "mother dear". He speaks about her in his proverbs: “A mother is kind to her children, and the earth is to all people”, “Mother - the earth feeds everyone, waters everyone, clothes everyone, warms everyone with its warmth.” “Bread is a gift from Mother Earth,” says the Russian people, and treats with reverence this priceless gift, its main wealth. Zhigulsky. Holiday and history. Holiday and culture. - M., 1985.
Growing bread on earth, the farmer thinks about the heavenly world. The sky in folk tales is the bright great god, the father and sovereign ruler of the universe, and the earth is the foremother. This is their great connection. The heavenly bodies - the sun, the moon, the sparkling starry scattering - were considered their children.
The bright sun, warming all living things with its rays, connecting the earth to heavenly light, the Russian people called by the most native names. It is for him kind and many-merciful, righteous. Sending warmth and light, showering the world with generous gifts, fertilizing not only the earth, but also the bowels of the earth, he is at the same time a formidable judge and punisher of all dark forces - evil spirits.
The biggest holidays in the calendar are still associated with the movement of the sun. The winter solstice is celebrated first - these are the days of the awakening of the sun. This time is popularly called "rewinter", it is celebrated in late December and early January. On the "winter period" there is a custom of winter rounds of yards - "carols". The second is the spring equinox - the time of the predominance of day over night, the approach of spring field work; the first holiday that fell at this time was Maslenitsa.
The next holiday is the summer solstice - these days are called "green Christmas time". They fall at the end of May and the beginning of June, celebrating the revival of the land, which by this time was covered with lush vegetation. This holiday is now called "Yarilin Day".
And finally, the autumn equinox is a harvest festival, the first fruits. On this holiday, people are honored who worked fruitfully in the fields in order to get a rich harvest for the well-being of their lives and homeland.
The close connection of folk holidays with nature, with the agricultural and pastoral calendar, in general with the history and culture of peoples, influenced the viability of these holidays, gave them a special attraction as holidays that reflected the living conditions and life of peoples, and formed part of the national culture.
Love for nature, the never fading feeling of the native land - these are eternally living moral values that have developed in the depths of the national spirit, folk psychology, primordial ideas about moral duty, about love for the Fatherland. And, as a skilled craftswoman, who took out a canvas from needlework, a pattern began to play with colors, so for centuries, outdated magic-religious threads from old holidays, and what remains is the rational that forms the fund of the spiritual culture of the people. And already the work of our hands - how to enrich the old holiday.
Unity and group cohesion
In the era of feudalism, the work of an individual peasant family on its land was, as a rule, isolated in nature, which gave rise to the isolation of rural family life, the economic disunity of households. At the same time, life itself imperiously dictated the need to unite peasant families in a family organization called a community.
The distribution of "amusements" in time was determined, first of all, by the calendar of agricultural work. In mid-September, harvesting was mostly completed in Siberia, and it was then that the “fun season” opened. They began to arrange evening parties, which were one of the favorite forms of leisure. There were no territorial or class restrictions on the circle of those present at the party: invited and uninvited could come to it. Usually, such gatherings of young people were timed to coincide with the holidays, but they also took place on weekdays. Young guys did not always come to weekday evenings: the girls went to them “with work, most often with a whorl or sewing.” Soviet traditions, holidays and rituals: experience, problems. - M .: Profizdat, 1986. S. 104. Having gathered, they sang drawn-out, vocal songs, containing for the most part the story of a girl, woman or young man about the bitter lot of his life. The motives of the vocal songs are just as sad.
A festive evening could be preceded by lengthy preparations. The organizers, especially lively and dexterous fellows, from noon went around the huts, in which there were unmarried daughters, and invited them to the upcoming "entertainment". After that, the invitees harnessed a horse to a sleigh and rode around the village “singing and playing the accordion”, thus informing the rest of the villagers about their undertaking. Sometimes the organizers of the festivities were girls. Just like in our time, young people loved to play games. Observers were struck by the variety of peasant games at the party.
For married women specific social forms of leisure in their free time from field work were skits, supryadki, beaters and gatherings. They gathered at these events at the initiative of some housewife who needed the working help of her fellow villagers. Meetings necessarily ended with refreshments for all those invited.
The most populous were the supryadki, up to 50 people were invited to one house. The hostess distributed raw materials for yarn to the maids in advance, and then called them to her place one autumn day for a treat, where the guests appeared in their best outfits with ready-made skeins of yarn.
A guest on holidays - from October to early March - was the most important entertainment for all residents, and especially for people of middle and older age.
“Big” holidays within the volost were celebrated in turn in all villages: a lot of people from the surrounding area came to the “next” village “for fun” (hence the name - a congregational holiday).
In the Burlinskaya volost in Altai, congregational holidays took place on Nikolin's Day, Mikhailov's Day, Filippov's Incantation, at Christmas, baptism and protection.
In the Yalutorovsky district in the 40s of the XIX century, visiting guests were met on the porch or at the gate. They greeted us with a low bow, saying: “You are welcome to eat bread and salt to our squalor!” Those who met thanked. And in response they heard from the owners: “Do not sin, please!” With these words, the guests were led into the room and seated at the table. The youth immediately after the treat in the first house left the guest meetings. Since the congress of peasants was often accompanied by a fair, the boys and girls first attended it, and then, if the weather was favorable, they walked “on the streets” until late, or attended evening parties. At this time, intimate ties were established between young people, ending in marriage. Meanwhile, the elders in their companies "amused themselves" with conversations, songs, dances, games. Ivanov Yu. - 2005. - No. 2.
The wide representativeness of the festive gatherings contributed to the fact that they were an active exchange of information, knowledge, rumors, socially significant experience. Both books and periodicals could be a source of information.
Disguise and costumed scenes played at Christmas holidays were the most important elements of the folk "carnival" culture. During Christmas time in all Siberian villages there was a “mountain feast”, “a cheerful movement was observed in houses and streets: the most ancient old women got down from stoves and beds and circles formed around them, where people amused themselves with old women's stories. The youth played "imals" or "blinds and blinds", then mummers appeared.
The celebration of Christmas and New Year included other amusements. Eight people gathered and arranged a large multi-colored star, which had a arshin and a half in diameter. They went after matins until lunch throughout the village and glorified Christ, and rotated the star around its axis. They said: “Az, a little lad, jumped on a chair, played a pipe, glorified Christ; hello host and hostess for many years!”
Especially a lot different kind"amusement" was in the Siberian village on Maslenitsa. Beyond the usual holiday entertainment- conversations, treats, etc. - a street carnival was organized, the central event of which was the appearance of "Mrs. Shrovetide".
The scenario of the Shrovetide procession itself was carefully developed in its main features - some of its elements came from former times, some turned out to be an invention of the first half of the 19th century. In this scenario, the dramatic talent of several generations was realized. At the same time, he left ample opportunities for improvisation, for the participation of everyone in the creative artistic action.
The program of the holiday included the capture of the Snow Town. Its walls were decorated with figures of a dog, a cat, a hare, etc., fashioned from snow.
The carnival pastimes also included horseback riding in the village and sledding from the icy mountains. Festive "tomfoolery" and "pranks", festive laughter were necessary for the people. This was a manifestation of protest against the oppressive ascetic morality and lack of freedom imposed by the church and the entirety of the social order.
With the onset of spring warmth, young people set up rope swings on goats or garden gates for Easter. It was one of the favorite pastimes of the youth. On Easter week they carry icons of Sunday, the crucifixion and the mother of God in their homes. At the same time, the icons are set in grain bread, poured into a sieve, and the table is replete with various kinds of cakes and eggs. Everyone in the house is christened, from young to old.
On Palm Sunday, willows are prepared in every house and icons are decorated.
Trinity was celebrated by everyone. In some villages there were congregational holidays. Having “cheered up” with beer and wine, men and boys turned to “gymnastic fun”: they fought, pulled on sticks. Round dances were a common form of youth festivities. They were found either outside the village - in the field, in the meadows, outside the outskirts, or in a special "free" place. There were many round dance games: they were distinguished by sincere fun, lack of compulsion, stiffness and stiffness.
During the summer holidays, young people also found other entertainment. Jumping horses, leapfrog, pile and other games were common.
At present, folk festivals have not lost their significance; they still delight us with the variety of their forms. The content of the holidays remains the same. Soviet holidays and rituals are not just “materialized symbols” reflecting the life of people of our era, they are important components of the socio-cultural life of society. The specificity of traditions, customs and rituals is a natural reflection of the characteristics of the spiritual life, national psychology and culture of each people. Therefore, without an attentive attitude to the ritual and festive experience of previous generations, it is difficult to count on the vitality of new holidays and rituals.
Introduction
2 Russian holidays: history and modernity
2.2 Christmas
2.3 New Year
2.4 Victory Day
2.5 Family holidays
2.6 The influence of the holiday on the personality of a person
Conclusion
Bibliographic list
Introduction
The relevance of research. In the life of every person, a holiday plays a special role that cannot be denied, and the significance of holidays is very great for both the older and younger generations.
The development of culture not only does not remove, but even more actualizes the question of the meaning of the holiday and its essence. Modern holiday culture is a bizarre symbiosis of various types and genres of the holiday. Festive text arbitrarily composed of layers of various semiotic systems: the ideas of both masquerade and carnival cultures are widely used, as well as the tradition of mummers, ditties, balalaika, etc. The festive element combines elements of both Christian (Christmas, Easter, etc.) and pre-Christian pagan holidays (Maslenitsa, Iv. Kupala Day), fragments of "Soviet" customs and rituals (May 1, November 7) and fundamentally new forms (film festivals, presentations, shows, etc.).
Along with this, contacts with previously unfamiliar customs and traditions are expanding, which has found expression in the celebration of Tatyana's Day, St. Valentine's Day, Halloween, and Catholic Christmas. The variety in the "holiday offer" market indicates that the holiday is looking for new mechanisms for its implementation and can be considered as the next stage of its evolution, and, consequently, as new era in his understanding.
The degree of scientific development of the problem. The holiday problem is not new. The multidimensionality of the content of this phenomenon reflects the degree of its study. The holiday has repeatedly been the object of study of such sciences as sociology, ethnography, folklore, philosophy, art history. In the studies of philosophers and theorists of culture, the holiday was considered on the following issues: holiday and culture (M. M. Bakhtin, A. Ya. Gurevich, V. V. Ivanov); holiday and game (J. Huizinga); holiday and laughter culture (M. M. Bakhtin, D. S. Likhachev, Yu. M. Lotman, A. M. Panchenko, V. Ya. Propp, B. A. Uspensky). In addition to the problems under study, these works contain a number of methodological conclusions and generalizations, from the standpoint of which the holiday is being studied. An extensive layer of sociological literature stands out from theoretical works, where a holiday is defined as public institution, reflecting the way of life, the sphere of ideals, traditions (Ya. P. Belousov, A. V. Benifand, K. Zhigulsky, A. A. Rudnev, D. M. Ugrinovich, etc.). As part of this direction we can highlight the work of A. I. Mazaev
"Holiday as a socio-artistic phenomenon. The experience of historical and theoretical research", which is the most comprehensive study of the phenomenon. In social pedagogy, a holiday is considered as a type of social connection, with the aim of effectively influencing a person (D. M. Genkin, A. A. Konovich, L. S. Lapteva, E. V. Rudensky, V. G. Shabalin). The study of the sociology of cultural forms, the reconstruction of various types of holidays in urban culture are reflected in the works of A. M. Konechny, A. G. Levinson, A. F. Nekrylova, O. V. Nemiro. In ethnographic science, a holiday, on the one hand, appears as a repeater and accumulator of national traditions, rituals, customs (A. K. Baiburin, T. Ya. Bernshtam, M. M. Gromyko, V. I. Chicherov, etc.), with On the other hand, researchers focus on the archaic features of the holiday (A. S. Abramyan, V. Ya. Propp, S. Tokarev, V. N. Toporov).
In cultural studies, the number of which has been rapidly increasing in recent years, the development of holiday problems is carried out in the following areas: carnival culture (on the example of the Western European Middle Ages) M. M. Bakhtin, V. P. Darkevich, M. Yu. Reutin; typology of carnival and masquerade cultures in literary texts (A. L. and A. S. Grinshtein); the role of the festive tradition in the moral and aesthetic formation of personality (V. P. Isaenko, I. V. Kolinko); a holiday in noble culture, where a holiday appears as a part of everyday or entertaining (leisure) culture (B. R. Egorov, Yu. M. Lotman, V. S. Turchin, N. A. Khrenov). It should be noted some particular problems that are being studied: a totalitarian holiday (A. V. Zakharov, A. I. Shcherbinin); primitive holiday (A.F. Eremeev); an attempt at a philosophical analysis of Christian holidays (E. B. Rashkovsky).
Various cultural refractions of the holiday were studied in the problematic field of provincial culture (E. Ya. Burlina, N. I. Voronina, I. V. Chvanov). Certain aspects of the holiday are touched upon in connection with the problem of mentality both in the works of philosophers (V. K. Kantor) and psychologists (K. Kasyanov).
Thus, extensive research material has been accumulated, however, the versatility of this problem allows us to highlight new aspects of studying the holiday. In cultural studies, scientific research is carried out mainly on particular problems, which does not remove the question of the relevance of theoretical research. The problem of the holiday in the Russian historical and cultural space has not been sufficiently developed, the specifics of its mental features have not been traced.
The purpose of the thesis is to consider the phenomenon of the holiday in the space of national culture, both at the general theoretical and historically specific levels.
Consider the origin and essence of holidays;
To study the classification and typology of holidays;
Find out the role and place of the holiday in the dynamics of social and cultural life;
Analyze Russian holidays: Easter, Christmas, New Year, Victory Day and family holidays;
Conduct a study of the place and role of the holiday in the life of the people of Tambov;
Find out the prospects for the development of holidays in Russia.
The object of the study is the holiday as a cultural phenomenon.
The subject is the dialectics of the historical dynamics of the holiday in Russian culture.
Methodological basis of the study. To understand the problem under consideration, the theoretical and methodological basis was the works of M. M. Bakhtin, A. Ya. Gurevich, D. S. Likhachev, Yu.
The general theoretical studies of N. A. Berdyaev, N. I. Voronina, G. D. Gachev, I. A. Ilyin, V. K. Kantor, K. Kasyanova, I. V. Kondakov, N. O. Lossky, X. O. Ortega - and - Gasset, V. V. Rozanova, E. V. Sokolov, G. P. Fedotov.
In the thesis work, the following methods were used, due to the specifics of this work: the structural-functional method, on the basis of which the essential content of the holiday, its constituent components, mechanisms of functioning are determined; a comparative historical method that allows you to present a holiday in specific historical forms; an integrative method that allows you to apply the knowledge gained by various sciences to the tasks posed in this study.
Scientific novelty of the research. The comprehension of the phenomenon of the holiday in the culturological space made it possible to present a typology of holidays, which is dictated by the historical development of society.
There are such functional features of the holiday, which manifest themselves in different ways, both in different historical periods and in different sociocultural situations.
1 History and origin of holidays
1.1 Origin and essence of holidays
Traces of holidays can be found in the oldest written sources that have come down to us, which are known to modern science: in Egyptian and Sumerian texts. There is no doubt that the celebration took place even in prehistoric times: this is indicated by both the content of ancient myths and the data collected by archaeologists, evidence of ceremonies, rituals, celebrations that accompanied holidays everywhere. Such very ancient holidays undoubtedly include holidays associated with the cult of animals, dating back to the times of the formation of totemistic ideas. An example of such a cult related to the prehistory of religion is the cult of the bear, traced back to the Late Paleolithic (approximately from 40 to 14 thousand years BC) in the so-called Aurignacian culture. 0 it is evidenced by burials of bones of cave bears modeled on human burials; they were discovered, among other things, in the Polish lands in one of the caves in Silesia. A Paleolithic man, as a modern historian of religion writes, "believes in this way that he contributes in this way to the revival of this valuable game animal, using the technique of animistic incarnation magic and making atonement for killing a bear and eating it."
The cult of the bear was widespread throughout the northern hemisphere. We find it in Scandinavia and Alaska, among the Laplanders and Finns, among the Ainu of the ancient inhabitants of northern Japan, and the North American Indians. Legends that have survived from the time of the Vikings say that marriages were between a bear and a woman; for centuries in Scandinavia there was a taboo for women to eat bear meat. Laplanders back in the 17th and 18th centuries. arranged a solemn funeral for the bears killed on the hunt. Such actions of the Laplanders were explained by the ancient belief that the bear, if properly buried, would resurrect and could be hunted again. Scandinavian scientists, who in the XVII and XVIII centuries. recorded these opinions, regretted the weak adherence of the Laplanders to Christianity, because, not doubting the resurrection of the bear, they at the same time doubted their own resurrection. Studies by Soviet ethnographers show that the cult of the bear and the Bear Holidays still exist among the few indigenous inhabitants of Siberia. Let's take a look at one of those testimonials.
Among the peoples of the North there are also totemic ideas and magical beliefs.
Many superstitious ideas in the North are associated with the cult of the bear. The Nenets, for example, avoid pronouncing the very word "bear" (in Nenets: vark); bear teeth, pieces of his skin, claws are used as amulets. The bear is also revered by other peoples of the North.
Successful hunting for a bear among the Khanty and Mansi is still often celebrated with special ceremonies - bear dances (Bear Holiday). Relatives and acquaintances of the hunter even from neighboring settlements come to this holiday. The head of the beast, together with the skin, is placed in the corner of the room, and a treat for the killed bear is placed near it. The holiday continues for several days, mainly at night. It is accompanied by songs and dances, some of which have a pronounced ritual character. The bear is depicted as the son of a god who fell from the sky and was overgrown with wool. They try to "convince" the bear not to be offended for being killed. Like many other religious holidays, this one, which is also celebrated at an indefinite time, lasts for several days, distracting people from work.
However, not everything about the Bear Festival is religious in nature. Under the religious shell, it also manifests the folk art of the Khanty and Mansi. Along with ritual dances, there are also comic, everyday ones. During the holiday, for example, the female dance "picking bird cherry", one of the most beautiful dances of the peoples of the North, is performed. These elements of the folk art of the peoples of the North must be distinguished from the ritual and treated with care, as a national art.
The description of Soviet ethnographers given here is essential for our conclusions. First of all, it speaks of the undoubted constancy, the tradition of the holiday, which has its origins in the Stone Age, but is still celebrated to this day. Let's try to analyze this holiday from a sociological point of view.
Its origin is associated with the primitive type of organization of society, with a group of hunters engaged in fishing for such a dangerous animal as a bear in the difficult conditions of the North. Such a trade, on the results of which the existence of hunters depends, is associated with risk, its success is not guaranteed. Moreover, even if you manage to kill a bear, it is not known whether the next hunt will be successful. Therefore, successful fishing causes the need to honor, somehow celebrate this always unusual moment, gives rise to the need for a holiday.
The return with booty is a celebration for the whole community; relatives and friends who are notified of the good fortune also take part in the celebration. Successful hunting brings plentiful food - meat and wealth, which is a bearskin. The holiday gives a reason for treats, for joy. But its ceremonial is complicated: it is not only a common joy, but also a joint rite, which should postpone the possible consequences of what has happened, dangerous for the hunter, and help overcome the fear that accompanies a successful hunt. By killing the bear, the order of the universe was violated, and the holiday - through magical techniques - should restore it anew. A bear is a part of the universe, the son of a deity of heavenly origin, only in the form of a beast. Therefore, he must be begged, sacrificed to him, honored with dances at night under the stars from which he, as a supernatural being, arrived: for thousands of years in the northern part of the sky, the constellation called the "Big Dipper" shines brightly.
Dances during the holiday reproduce in the form of an artistic spectacle the event that is the reason for the celebration, they are traditional, have acquired a ritual character, have a magical, religious meaning. During the holiday, hunters rejoice and calm down, they are convinced that thanks to ritual actions, the order of the universe is restored, of which they are a part, on which they depend, but which they can violate with fatal consequences. They asked for forgiveness from the bear - a creature of the natural and at the same time supernatural - and this guarantees another good luck on the hunt.
For Siberian taiga hunters, the holiday analyzed in this case is, in its deepest essence, an institution necessary to maintain order in the universe, such as they face in their daily struggle for existence, and such as they imagine in the form of a religious myth. The magical actions underlying the primitive holiday gave people the conviction that it was possible to have a significant impact on the reality around them, on the forces of nature and supernatural forces, on which, as they believed, their fate depended. This belief and peculiar knowledge in the field of magical procedures, which were often interpreted as a mysterious joint participation in festive rites, always also played the role of an integrating factor for the group. But at the same time, in the descriptions of ethnographers, it is easy to find undoubtedly later elements of the holiday: dances that are not connected with the bear hunt, cheerful in content and figurative, having no ritual significance. With such a gradual enrichment of the holiday custom with elements that are far from its original meaning, we will repeatedly meet in the course of our reasoning, especially when it comes to historical changes in holidays.
The bear holiday in Siberia is not timed to a fixed date: this is due to the fact that it is impossible to foresee the time when the main event will occur - a successful hunt for an animal. But since the hunters have to hunt for their livelihood, such a festival is, in fact, periodic, although it is celebrated irregularly; every bear killed must be honored, at any rate as long as these primitive beliefs persist among the hunters. Such beliefs and holidays give rise to conflict situations in our time; when groups of people who continue to observe long-standing customs become part of a social organism subject to a single labor discipline, then festivities lasting several days inevitably violate this discipline. Here we are again faced with a fact that we will encounter many times in the course of our analysis - with the contradiction between the requirements of modern rationally planned management, based on a rationalistic worldview and utilitarian prerequisites for activity, and holiday traditions that violate this rationality.
But as long as a group of people (in this case, practicing the cult of a bear) considers their beliefs as the highest value, as the basis of their ideas about the world, the need for a holiday continues to exist and be satisfied.
Of course, the ritual of the holiday, ceremonies, rites in this case become secondary values, satisfy the emotional and intellectual needs associated with the celebration: they create a mood, give the participants the opportunity to express themselves, reproduce in a dramatized spectacular form an important event and its consequences, meaning.
The Siberian Bear Festival is, as already emphasized, an irregular holiday, celebrated depending on the hunt and its successful outcome, and the bear is hunted both in summer and in winter, when hunters drive the beast out of its winter lair that they tracked down in advance.
The next example, which we will focus on, will be holidays, or rather, entire periods of festive time, which are associated with seasonal changes due to the change of seasons, that is, the cycle of rotation of the Earth around the Sun. And this time we will use data from the life of the peoples of the North, whose existence is based on hunting and fishing. The description that we will give concerns the life of the Eskimos and is the result of scientific observations made in the 19th century. M. Moss and used by him in an essay published in 1905 on seasonal changes in Eskimo societies. The Eskimos at that time used primitive hunting and fishing techniques, which forced them to adapt to the lifestyle of the corresponding animal; in the summer they dispersed from the settlement, and for the winter they again gathered in one place. Thus, the whole life of the Eskimos fits into two sharply different phases: summer and winter. In a word, writes Moss, if summer expands the territory open to hunting and trapping to an almost unlimited extent, winter limits it to a minimum. It is this alternation that appears in the rhythm of the gathering and scattering of the Eskimos, which governs this morphological organization. The population gathers and disperses like beasts. The movement by which society is enlivened is synchronized with the movement of the surrounding life.
Seasonal changes in life are reflected in the religion of the Eskimos and are most fully expressed in the holidays. Let us give a more extensive fragment of that part of the description, which clearly demonstrates the origin of seasonal cyclic holidays, which constitute an extremely common, ancient and important category of holidays: the religion of the Eskimos is subject to the same rhythm as their organization. They have, so to speak, a summer religion and a winter religion, or rather, no religion at all in the summer. The only cult practiced at this time is the private, domestic cult: it all comes down to the rites associated with birth and death, as well as the observance of several prohibitions. All the myths, which, as we shall see later, fill the consciousness of the Eskimos in winter, seem to be forgotten in summer. Life seems to be subject to secularization. Even magic, which is usually considered a purely private occupation, appears only as rather primitive medical knowledge; all her rituals are reduced to a minimum.
But in the winter dwelling, the Eskimos live in a state of constant religious excitement. Winter is the time when myths and legends are passed down from one generation to the next. The most insignificant event requires more or less solemn participation of shamans. The most unimportant prohibition is lifted only in the course of public celebrations and visits paid to the entire community. Spectacular public séances of shamanic incantations are constantly held to stave off the famine that threatens the group, especially from March to May, when food supplies are either low or low and the beast is rare. In a word, the whole winter life can be imagined as one long holiday ... The religious consciousness of the group is brought to such a degree of paroxysm that in many Eskimo communities religious offenses become the subject of unusually strict supervision at this time; all kinds of general disasters, such as, for example, an excessively prolonged snowstorm, the departure of animals, an unexpected ice drift, etc., are attributed to the violation of some ritual prohibition. This violation is subject to public disclosure so that its consequences can be counteracted. The custom of public repentance demonstrates well the sacred character with which the whole life of society is saturated in winter.
Religious life in winter is not only intense, but also reveals, moreover, one very remarkable feature, which speaks of the contrast between it and life in summer: it is exclusively collective. By saying this, we want to express something more than a statement of the fact that the holidays are celebrated together; it is also important for us that in their course, the sense of themselves and their unity inherent in the members of the community manifests itself in different ways. Holidays are collective not only in the sense that many individuals come together to participate in them; they are the property of the group, and it is the group that expresses itself in them. This is already evidenced by the fact that holidays are celebrated in "kashima". It is "kashim" in its various modifications that is always a public place, symbolizing the unity of the group. This unity is so strong that within the "kashima" differences between individual families and houses disappear; they lose their originality and dissolve in the general mass ... The same is expressed in the nature of the situation and the rituals performed during these holidays.
All of the above applies, in particular, to the "bubble holiday" celebrated in Alaska. Its program includes, above all, numerous masked dances in the presence of the entire group that sings. At the end of the holiday, the bubbles of all marine animals killed by the group for whole year. The souls of the animals that allegedly reside in them are sent for a new settlement in female seals and walruses. Thus, the winter camp as an integrity, through one rite, provides itself with a constant supply of livelihood.
Another holiday, which has its analogies throughout the territory inhabited by the Eskimos, is a holiday dedicated to the memory of the dead. It consists of two parts. The holiday begins with a prayer addressed to the souls of the dead so that each of them would wish for a while to incarnate in a person bearing the same name as the deceased; there are such persons in every camp, for, by virtue of custom, every newly born child always receives the name of the last of the dead. Then gifts are presented to those of the living who bear the same name as the dead; all those gathered exchange gifts with each other, after which the souls are released, who leave their "settlements" among the living and return to the world of the dead. Thus, at this moment, the group not only acquires its unity, but also becomes a witness of how, during the ritual, an ideal troupe is formed, which includes all generations that have successively replaced each other since the most ancient times. Ancestors, both immediate and mythical, historical, come to the living to mingle with them, as a result of which a single community is formed through the exchange of gifts.
Holidays have the same meaning. winter solstice. Among the central and eastern Eskimos, the main rite consists (in any case, consisted) in simultaneously extinguishing, and then re-lighting the lamps in the camp. If we take into account the fact that all the lamps were probably lit from the same source - the fire produced by friction, then it turns out that we are talking about a kind of cult of common fire. We add, finally, that all these various holidays are everywhere and always accompanied by very significant manifestations of sexual freedom ...
From the point of view of our analysis, the customs of the Eskimos observed for hundreds of years clearly point to the origin of the cyclic holiday; in its most ancient and widespread form it is the cultural adaptation of the life of a social group to the natural cycle on which it is wholly dependent. The Eskimos look at this dependence with fear, with fear for their existence, which may be threatened if the natural cycle is violated: the winter will be too long and harsh, the beast will disappear. Dependence on nature dooms the Eskimos to forced inactivity in winter; at this time they can hardly indulge in their main occupations - hunting, fishing - and must live on reserves that run out by the beginning of a new trade, they are threatened with starvation if spring does not come at the right time, if the beast does not appear again. The killing of the first walrus means the beginning of a new, summer phase of the cycle, and special messengers carry this good news. The group disperses, changes its way of life and customs. The winter phase, the phase of holidays, is the phase of economic inactivity, temporary abandonment of the main occupations, the period of consumption of stocks. At the same time, it is also a phase of an unusually intense collective cultural life. Its deep meaning is based primarily on the desire to ensure - through rites, rituals - the harmonious course of the natural cycle of life. Rites acquire a magical character, they are designed to ensure the economic well-being of the group, to ensure the abundance of the sea animal.
The meaning of the Eskimo "bubble festival" is similar to the meaning of the Bear Festival in Siberia: the group, through its collective ritual actions, corresponding to its animistic and totemic worldview, protects itself and simultaneously integrates. The holiday is the cultural heritage of the group, a confirmation of its unity both in beliefs and in practice. Finally, the festive customs of the winter, festive phase differ from the customs of the summer phase, the phase of strenuous efforts, the scattering of individual families of hunters and fishermen over the vast expanses of the North. These customs affect all aspects of life, they are associated with worship and entertainment, consumption and sexual life. The latter sometimes acquires special, festive forms, connected both with the natural cycle and with the myths about the past of the group. The custom of turning off the lights during the holiday, and also during each new moon, was combined among the Eskimos with the custom of exchanging women, with an orgy in the "kashima", a winter dwelling. During the so-called festival of masks, a mask depicting the goddess Sedna paired men and women, not taking into account their relationship and being guided only by their names. Festive pairing in the order corresponding to the pairing of the group's mythical ancestors, whose names are given to living people, is a violation of the sexual prohibitions that are obligatory during non-holiday times, but it returns the group to its ancient ancestors, as if transferring it to mythical times.
During the holidays, a group of people is connected not only with the actual phase of the cycle of nature - living and inanimate, earthly and astral - but also with the cycle, and the main one, of one's own, human existence, with its previous phases, with previous generations. The Day of Remembrance of the Dead and the participation of ancestors in the celebration will constantly be the subject of our attention - from antiquity to the present. The celebration, which takes place in the form of an action, ritual, spectacle, gifts, sacrifices, dances, is combined with a strong and universal emotional tension in which we constantly find feelings of horror, fear, guilt and feelings of joy that accompany each other - usually in the next phases of the holiday, liberation, celebrations.
Fast forward now to the territory of Ancient China, which from the beginning of its history to the present day is known to us as an agricultural country. Bone inscriptions and archaeological finds dating back to the 1st millennium BC. e., testify that even then, in the era of the so-called Yin (or Shang) culture, agriculture was intensively developed and its support, organization were one of the main tasks of the then rulers.
The connoisseur of Chinese culture M. Granet describes the place, role and nature of agricultural, peasant holidays in the archaic and classical era: “The daily life of the Chinese peasants was monotonous and difficult, but the great holidays that came in the established rhythm returned to them the joy of life. These holidays took on the character of orgies. Philosophers immediately condemned them. Confucius, however, was able to note their beneficial significance. He was against the fact that the ruler (sovereign), "having appointed the people a hundred days of labor, did not set aside a single day of joy for them," since one should not "hold the bow taut, never loosening the bowstring [and] keep it loose, never pulling the bowstring." Confucius believed that the holidays are the fruit of the wisdom of the ruler (sovereign). In reality, the holidays date back to time immemorial and you can give them a satisfactory explanation based on from the general conditions of life in the countryside."
The holidays of the Chinese peasants - in contrast to the holidays described above of some peoples of Siberia and the Eskimos of Alaska - are celebrated within the framework of the state organization and a distinct division of society into classes; therefore, feudal rulers and philosophers show interest in them. Here, for the first time, we encounter facts of disapproval of holidays, opposition to them and their condemnation. Such condemnation, found in the ancient texts that have come down to us, does not, however, come from the environment, not from the social group that celebrates these holidays, not from the class of peasants; disapproval is expressed by enlightened people of that time. The most prominent representative, Confucius, whose influence on the life of China continues to be felt for two and a half thousand years and who was the theorist of a conservative social order based on a constant balance of rights and duties of power and subjects, realized, however, the need for a holiday and managed to present it as evidence of the political intelligence of the ruling group. His metaphor of a stretched bow and a loosened string is, in essence, nothing more than a thesis about two phases in the life of society: the first is the phase of tension, hard work, the second is the phase of relaxation of tension, the phase of celebration, joy. The first, dictated by natural and social necessity, personified in the person of the ruler, lasts a hundred times longer than the second; power regulates the rhythm of life, establishing the rhythm of work and celebration. From now on, the connection between power, primarily state power, and the holiday will be constantly present as one of the topics in our reasoning; it should, however, be remembered that the holiday - as a necessity and a phase of the life of the collective - arose and developed much earlier than the most ancient state organization.
In connection with the seasonal break in agricultural work, the peasants celebrated two holidays: the beginning and end of the period of forced rest. Initially, these were holidays that really fell on the moments of the onset of frost, and then the spring thaw. Over time, they were already associated with exact astronomical dates - the days of the equinox - and in the everyday sphere they were schematized and impoverished. In the winter festival, which opened this phase in the life of the village, the main role gradually passed to the oldest of the men, who, dressed in mourning clothes and with a staff in hand, invited everyone to indulge in rest, brought the year to its end.
already mentioned spring holidays were holidays of initiation and mass betrothal of young people during large gatherings in open areas, among fields, in the presence of the entire village community. The places where this social and sexual initiation of the young (which, it was believed, alone could renew nature) took place, were constantly used for celebration and sometimes they were recognized as sacred. The sexual initiation of the young took place in the fields, since, according to the beliefs of the time, this contributed to the fertility of the earth. It was preceded by games in which great importance was attached to the passage of boys and girls to wade across the river, where spirits lived in the spring waters, the souls of the dead, who rose there from the underground depths to come into contact with the living during the holidays.
Winter holidays were of a different nature. Many important ceremonies were the property of only men who gathered at the same time in a common house. Hierarchy was observed during feasts, and seats were assigned according to age, starting with the oldest. The emotional atmosphere of these holidays was also different, reminiscent of the atmosphere of holidays among the Eskimos.
Holidays with particular clarity reveal to us the system of values of peasant culture: the place that is occupied among them by productivity, the fertility of the land and the high birth rate among people, as well as the place that belongs to social institutions, the family and the local community, generations, groups united according to gender, and labor groups. Finally, the example of an ancient peasant holiday in China, combined with ritual and customary waste of effort and material resources, points to one of the sources of the negative attitude of urban scientists towards them. The city and its spiritual leaders condemn the peasant holidays as a manifestation of the irrational, mismanaged attitude of the farmer to the fruits of his own labor, due to which the state and the authorities in the city were mainly supported. The hostility towards the holidays was thus of a class-economic character; this is the aspect of the problem which we shall emphasize in our analysis of the feasts up to the present time. In the position of Chinese scientists, we also see the condemnation with which a rationally thinking intellectual refers to outbreaks of collective madness, to ecstasy and orgies.
Let's consider one more example before attempting to summarize our considerations regarding the origin of the holidays. Fast forward this time to Ancient Egypt, whose culture, developed within the framework of the state organization for several millennia, had a strong influence on the culture of many societies, including those societies that laid the foundations of European culture. There were a lot of holidays in Egypt, in certain periods, only twenty-seven holidays dedicated to the memory of the dead were celebrated annually - along with others. Holidays were closely connected with the political destinies of the country, as well as with its social structure. In addition to the folk festivals that have been celebrated since time immemorial, preserved without interruption in the celebration, in Egypt there were local holidays associated with local cults, and general holidays associated with the officially dominant cult. The life of Egypt - both political in general and the private life of its inhabitants - was deeply permeated with religious beliefs, and the holidays were primarily the expression of these beliefs, very heterogeneous and often contradictory, but also united in synthetic forms, especially in the development of theological thoughts.
The holiday in Egypt was celebrated mainly in the temples, which became the centers of worship, the privileged territory of the priestly class. Thus, the holiday got its place, often very luxurious, even now, after millennia, striking both in its size and architecture, the richness of decoration. On the occasion of the holidays, churches were decorated, illuminated, especially solemn services were performed in them, processions were organized, dances, songs, and myths were performed. The largest holidays included celebrations in honor of Osiris. They were opened by the mystery of death and resurrection of this god.
And here is a description of the festival of Opet, associated with the journey of the sun god Amun from the temple in Karnak to the temple in Luxor.
"The celebrations were opened with a divine service, which the pharaoh personally performed in the temple of Karnak. In the sanctuary, the pharaoh offered sacrifices in front of the boat of Amon installed there. Sacrifices were also made in front of the boats of the goddess Mut, the god Khonsu, as well as the pharaoh, who were installed in front of the temple. After the divine service, a solemn procession began "The priests carried four boats to the banks of the Nile, installed them on the ships, and Amon's journey to Luxor began. At the head of the flotilla, the boat of Amon sailed, followed by the boats of Mut, Khonsu, as well as the pharaoh and his wife. The priests walked in procession along the shore, soldiers, musicians, singers and dancers.After the arrival of the sacred boats in Luxor, sacrifices were made to the gods: first on the shore, and after the boats were transferred to the corresponding sanctuary of the local temple, the pharaoh again sacrificed to them.Amon stayed in his temple in Luxor for several days , after which, with the same solemnity, the return journey to Karnak was made.
The holiday described above already has the main acting actor - the pharaoh, equal to the gods and at the same time performing the main cult function - a festive sacrifice. In the festive ritual, an important place is occupied by a procession, a procession that usually demonstrates not only elements of myth, which is displayed in the forms of a song, prayer, recitation, dance or pantomime, but also the rank, hierarchy, and social functions of the persons participating in it. The procession, the festive procession - an extremely ancient way of celebrating - will be practiced in various forms for millennia up to the present.
Initially, the Egyptian holidays were in the nature of agricultural holidays. In ancient times, the pharaoh was the first priest who performed the ceremony of the beginning of the harvest, cutting off the ears with a sickle for the first sheaf. Later, this custom was transferred - already as a symbolic one - to the ritual of the holiday of Ming, the god of fertility; a procession in honor of this phallic deity opened the harvest period. In ancient Egyptian texts, one can come across the designation of the word "holiday" in the form of a hieroglyph, consisting of two connected parts: sacrificial vessels were depicted below, and a primitive sanctuary was depicted above. The surviving inscriptions indicate that Ming festivals were already celebrated during the first five dynasties, that is, during the period of the so-called Old Kingdom (c. 2800 - c. 2250 BC). The same sources, however, point to the existence of holidays associated with historical events. First of all, we are talking about the unification of the kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt into one state: this fact was of fundamental importance for the fate of the country. Finally, we learn from sources that during the time of an unknown king from the 1st dynasty, the “Troglodyte Defeat” festival was celebrated in memory of the victory of the Egyptians over their enemies, the cavemen.
Finally, we have at our disposal numerous sources and extensive scientific literature regarding the holiday on the occasion of the anniversary of the reign of the pharaoh - the holiday of Sed, which, according to many authors, the pharaoh celebrated on the thirtieth anniversary of his reign. The Feast of Sed has been celebrated since ancient times, from the Tinit period (c. 3000 - 2850 BC) to the so-called Late Period (c. 1085 - 332 BC). The ritual of this holiday included a purification ceremony, after which the pharaoh dressed in an ancient outfit made of special fabric, sat on the throne in a white crown for Upper Egypt and a red one for Lower Egypt, and, finally, performed a cult dance, being dressed only in a kind of short skirt with tail attached to it.
Despite the fact that all Egyptian holidays were connected with religious ceremonies - the most important of them were performed by the pharaoh himself - among their abundance one can, however, find holidays that were clearly established in order to mark important dates for the state of those events that in themselves are not are of a religious nature: for example, victory in a war or the political unification of two parts of a country. Thus, a new type of holiday has entered the scope of our analysis, no longer connected with the rhythm of nature, not with the life of the gods personifying it, not with mythological times and heroes, but with the course of history, with political, social, dynastic history.
The above examples give us a fairly clear idea of the origin of the holidays: their antiquity and close connection with the life of the collective, with the ways in which groups of people obtained the main means of subsistence, with the formation of their primitive worldview, beliefs and with their gradual development. They also reveal the peculiar nature of people's behavior during the holidays, show ways of celebrating, forms of ceremonial, rituals, customs, and demonstrate the cultural richness of festive creativity. Finally, they testify to a thousand-year history of a critical, negative attitude to the holiday, and more often to certain types of holidays.
The factors that justified the public need for a holiday are of a permanent nature; Generally speaking, these are the rhythmic phenomena of life, the variability of time intervals, both in those cases when we are dealing with the natural cycle, and when we are talking about the time of human life, mythical, legendary or historical, real. The desire to realize this rhythm, honor it and designate, recall important points past, the desire to merge with this rhythm and attempts to influence it, to prevent its possible violations - these are the motives by virtue of which people have been celebrating holidays for thousands of years. The day of a successful bear hunt was a special day for primitive taiga hunters, different from everyday life. Winter for the Eskimos is a special period, completely different from summer. Spring and autumn in the life of the Chinese peasant were periods of sharp and short-lived tension, experiences other than those that accompany his hard work all summer. The equinox, the new moon are moments that are repeated, but in a certain sense unusual; Observed for thousands of years, they aroused admiration and fear at the same time; the time of their onset stood out especially, became a festive time, when the life of the team and the individual proceeded according to the rules of celebration. The day of the victorious battle, as a result of which the city was saved from destruction, and the moment of political unification, which laid the foundations for the power and security of the people, are special moments in the life of any society, different from many ordinary, everyday days that make up the daily existence of each group of people. . These dates require remembrance and renewal, as well as appropriate ceremonial and celebration. The account of time, one of the greatest achievements of human culture - the calendar everywhere in its origins acts as a form of ordering, fixing, advance calculation of holidays and periods. The universality of the holidays allows us to consider them, starting from the Stone Age, as a constant element of human culture, allows us to consider the observance of holidays as one of the main forms of collective behavior of people.
1.2 Classification and typology of holidays
Historical experience teaches that each constantly existing group of people, whose life is based on an ordered account of time, a calendar, also introduces a certain order into the sphere of holidays and celebrations. This order is always based on the allotment to the festive phases of certain points in time, segments of the annual, monthly or weekly cycle. Usually this is a day or several days, sometimes the festive phase is delayed, but in such cases it itself, as a rule, is divided into parts that are distinctly different in nature, and only one of them is the festive culmination, the peak moment of the holiday. Therefore, in the classification of holidays, carried out for practical or theoretical purposes, it is precisely the time at which they fall is taken into account as their main feature. Although the vast majority of holidays find a place in the calendar according to which a given society lives, there are holidays associated with circumstances unforeseeable, but demanding to be celebrated solemnly, and thus arising depending on the accomplishment of an extraordinary event. Hence the general division of holidays into periodically celebrated and non-periodic, due to the moment.
A classic example of a periodic holiday, very often observed in primitive, archaic societies, is a holiday associated with the cult of the moon, celebrated at the beginning of its two phases - new moon and full moon. Where every new moon or full moon is considered a holiday and the calendar is generally based on lunar month, the periodicity of the holiday is often considered by the celebrating group as a natural periodicity due to the nature of the world around us, the higher mechanics of the cosmos, the will of destiny, which in many religious concepts is called upon to rule even the gods. The fixation of the account of time, the calendar rhythm determine the repetition of the same months and days. Establishing the date of the holiday, which is based on a historical event, for example, the victory of the people in the war, also gives it a rhythm, mostly annual, turns it into a periodically celebrated holiday, a solemn anniversary. Anniversaries of all kinds - both historically reliable events, and events legendary or obviously mythical in the light of modern knowledge - play a large role among the holidays, and we will often encounter them in the course of our analysis.
Looking at the modern Polish calendar, it is easy to see that Poland regularly celebrates festive anniversaries: for example, July 22 is the date of the July Manifesto of 1944. Similar examples can be cited from the calendars of other countries where, say, July 14 is solemnly celebrated - the date of the storming of the Bastille during the Great French Revolution of 1789 or the day of the storming of the Winter Palace, the beginning of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the birth of the Soviet state, falling on November 7 (October 25), 1917. The name and date of this "October" holiday are preserved to this day as a memory of The old account of time, the Julian calendar, according to which tsarist Russia lived for centuries and which was later after the revolution, in 1918, was replaced by the Gregorian calendar. Here it is worth recalling that when switching to the Gregorian calendar (now accepted throughout the world, and introduced in Poland back in the 16th century), the days of the week do not change, that is, if any date in 1917 fell on Friday according to the old calendar, then in terms of the Gregorian calendar, it will also fall on Friday.
Periodical calendar holidays have been acting in the life of society as the main category of holidays for thousands of years, and therefore we will pay close attention to such holidays.
Much less common and usually of lesser importance - especially in terms of the problems of modern culture - are non-periodic holidays determined by the moment. These include, for example, holidays celebrated on the occasion of an extraordinary event in public life: a victory in a war, an end to an epidemic, the start of a major enterprise, construction, an important event at the court of a sovereign, the birth of an heir to the throne or his marriage. In the chronicles of past eras, there are references to such sometimes very solemnly celebrated holidays; only a small part of them got into the calendar in the form of holiday anniversaries.
The political, social and cultural changes taking place in the process of historical development, often very abrupt, which were sometimes accompanied by a change in the chronology, the introduction of a new calendar and new periodic holidays, as before, are, due to certain needs, the rationale for dividing the holidays into old and new. , holidays of the old and new faiths, the old and the new regime, the old and the new system. Such a division, of course, always requires the designation of that moment, the event, which is taken as a milestone dividing the history of a given society into two distinctly different periods. In the modern era, successful examples from this point of view are provided by the history of the decolonization of territories that for a long time were under the rule of European capitalist states; in the countries located in these territories, the holidays that appeared in the calendars of the metropolitan countries, the holidays of the royal courts or republics, were celebrated, at least officially. Separation from the metropolis, the formation of an independent, independent state everywhere also meant a break with this tradition, the abolition of such holidays and the introduction of their own public holidays, often established just to mark the date of gaining independence.
Something similar, however, happened in the history of Poland: the restoration of the country's independence in 1918 led to the establishment of a new holiday - Independence Day, celebrated on November 11th.
When dividing holidays in the order of their priority, which is especially important for analysis religious holidays, distinguish between two classes of holidays - permanent and non-permanent in terms of date, time on which they fall. Permanent holidays have a precisely defined time in the calendar, such as the Christian holiday of the Nativity of Christ, which falls on December 25, or the holiday of solidarity of workers - the First of May. By their nature, this category of holidays includes the anniversaries mentioned above: holidays that commemorate certain events and fall on the same calendar time. Non-permanent holidays do not have a precisely defined time, they fall on different days within a certain interval, according to the principle of their calculation adopted in this calendar. An example would be christian easter, falling in the calendar on different Sundays, depending on the first spring full moon.
Along with time, the main category by which we organize holidays, the spatial scale of the holiday is also important, especially for scientific analysis. We are talking about the connection of the holiday with the territory, more precisely, with the spatial aspect of the life of the community, with the geography of man. The prevalence of the holiday, as well as other phenomena of human culture, can be represented in the form of a map. We will find on it local, local holidays, the prevalence of which is limited, regional, national, state and, finally, international holidays. In addition to a map that gives us an idea of the spatial distribution of holidays, it is also possible to draw up historical maps that recreate a picture of holidays in one or another past era. A number of such maps clearly illustrate the spatial dynamics of the holiday, its movements, often due to the movement of religious cults, rites and customs, but also the result of economic, class and political changes. In a broad historical aspect, the spread of the holiday was combined in the past with a change in the nature of the main occupations of the population, with the transition from a nomadic lifestyle to a settled one, from hunting and shepherding to agriculture, and finally, with the transition from village life to urban life. Above, attention was already drawn to this fundamental conditionality of the evolution of the holiday, when it was about its origin.
Each holiday is associated with a certain value, sometimes with a value of a higher order, which is a shrine (sacrum) for the celebrating group. I give the concept of "sacrum" here the same meaning in which I used it, considering the genesis and forms of existence of cultural goods in the work "Introduction to the problems of culture". This concept is broader than the one usually used by modern historians of religion, following the concepts of M. Eliade, because it also covers cultural goods that are the object of a non-religious, secular cult. It is in relation to the holiday that the attempt to single out the religious sacrum as something completely special and opposed to other cultural phenomena clearly does not justify itself. E. Durkheim was already aware of this, emphasizing that every holiday, even a completely secular one, reveals certain features characteristic of religious events. As we will see later, secular cults and their associated shrines have their holidays of great collective and individual significance, deep emotional impact on their participants, constant and ritualized in ceremonies.
The foregoing does not in the least detract from the scientific and practical need to single out the category of religious holidays directly related to a religious cult; The historical and modern role of these holidays is enormous; without their analysis, many very significant facts and mechanisms of culture cannot be understood at all. Therefore, part of our discussion will be specifically devoted to religious holidays and their various types.
Both religious and non-religious holidays can often be classified according to the rank given to them, depending on the place of the sacrum associated with them in the vast system of values around which the life of the celebrating group is organized. Such ranks, especially in developed and codified systems of religious beliefs, are often also precisely defined and codified. So, for example, at the end of the last century, Orthodox holidays were divided into hierarchical groups, depending on in honor of whom or in honor of what they were established. The most significant were the holidays established to commemorate important events in the life of Christ, as well as signs and images associated with him, the cross and icons; then came feasts in honor of the Mother of God and her icons. They were followed by holidays in honor of "incorporeal forces", angels, first of all - the archangels Michael and Gabriel, finally, holidays in honor of individual saints, as well as their entire categories, for example, the feast of the holy martyrs.
In those published in Russia since 1772. Orthodox calendars Holidays, depending on their religious rank, had appropriate names and were additionally marked with special signs: black and red. There were three levels of holidays: small, medium and large. Small and medium, in turn, were divided into smaller and large.
These ranks, of course, were the product of a long historical development of holidays and underwent various changes depending on the time and place of the existence of the latter. It is also necessary to take into account the fact that the official hierarchy of holidays, established by the highest church authorities, did not reflect the real attitude towards them and their assessments by believers, especially in regions remote from the center. In such regions, the rank of the local holiday in the minds of the observant was usually very high, regardless of its place in the official list; often a local holiday was, in essence, a transformation of a holiday that previously existed in a given territory, associated with the old cult and religious worldview, as a rule, severely condemned by the new faith. We will turn to such phenomena in the second part of this work, where we will talk about the history of holidays.
In existing publications, you can meet with other ways of classifying holidays. Some researchers have tried, in particular, to divide them depending on whether they are:
- remembrance, reminder, evidence of memory of important events of the past, for example, the death of a mythical hero;
- the solemn beginning of a period, for example, a new year;
- the solemn end of any period, such as harvest.
Other researchers took the emotional nature of the holidays as the basis for dividing them, dividing them into joyful and joyless (sad).
The cognitive value of such a division is usually limited. In the analysis of the origin of the holidays, as well as the nature of the rituals associated with them, their various elements often converge and intertwine. The autumn celebration of the end of the harvest is both the beginning of the next period and the memory of the death of a mythical hero who dies in the winter and rises in the spring. True, there are holidays that can be clearly characterized as cheerful, joyful, and holidays are sad, mourning, repentant; however, often joy and sadness are intertwined or follow each other as emotional states accompanying the next phases of the holiday in its dramatic course.
From the point of view of sociological analysis, the most significant division of holidays is connected with the definition of their place in social space. We are most interested in the question of who celebrates, among which human community the holiday is celebrated and how it is connected with its origin, structure, functioning, changes. We touched on this topic, talking about the origin of the holidays and noting their connection with the life of hunters, then with the village and agriculture. One can try to classify holidays according to their social origin, to find a connection between a certain holiday and one or another type of social organization, caste, estate, class, layer, professional group or group of co-religionists, corporation, ethnic group, nation.
Often in practice and in works devoted to these issues, we accept this classification criterion and speak of folk holidays, peasant or shepherd holidays, court or guild holidays. But the movement of the holiday leads to the fact that it passes, often even in a slightly modified form, from one environment to another, from village to city and from cities to village, it moves to the upper and lower rungs of the social ladder. Therefore, the most important, especially when characterizing the modern conditions of cultural life, is the analysis of the celebrating community itself, and only on the basis of this analysis can a classification of holidays be made, and more often only to establish their typology.
1.3 The role and place of the holiday in the dynamics of social and cultural life
The holiday phenomenon is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that cannot be interpreted as a simple mechanical sum of terms. Here, these terms are in interaction and are closely intertwined with each other. It is impossible to penetrate into the essence of the holiday and explain its role in culture and social life, guided by any single principle. Absorbing the experience of culture and art, the holiday appears as a complex synthesis, using various types of artistic activity in its own way. The holiday has been the subject of scientific study more than once. Considerable experience has been accumulated in this, but it is scattered across various branches of knowledge: ethnography, folklore, art history, sociology, cultural theory, as well as in the experience of creative workers - directors of mass theatrical spectacles, theater critics, designers, etc. However, complete and exhaustive answers on such fundamental questions as the essence of the holiday, its place and role in the development of culture and art, its connection with other aspects of public life - not yet. Therefore, the need for theoretical work on the holiday is relevant today. Research interest in the phenomenon of the holiday arises in domestic science in the 30s of the XIX century. I. M. Snegirev was the first to formulate a theoretical definition of the holiday and was able to characterize some of its essential moments. His work "Russian Folk Holidays and Superstitious Rites" (1837) contains relatively accurate and very vivid characteristics of 12 folk holidays, as well as a presentation of their aesthetic and sociological problems. The merit of Snegirev is also that he associated the holiday not with one of the types of labor activity, not with one of the sides of the spiritual world of people, but with the people's worldview and life in general. Work in this direction (let us conditionally designate it as empirical-descriptive) was continued by A. P. Sakharov, A. V. Tereshchenko and others. They created multi-volume works on Russian holidays, but they do not reveal the general theory of the holiday. The weak side of these works is a shallow philosophical level, the priority of the empirical principle, descriptiveness, and the strong side is the detail, rich factual material, clarity, thoroughness in the study of individual festivities. Snegirev and his followers for the first time drew attention to the essential relationship of holidays to free time and time in general. Holidays, named after saints or events of the church calendar, were interpreted by them as designating periods of time calculation in accordance with those calendar cycles that are inherent in nature itself, in the change of seasons. Related to this is the attempt made by Snegirev to periodize holiday types by season, which later formed the basis of the cyclical concept of the holiday. The creation of a general theory of the holiday was first undertaken by a group of scientists representing the mythological trend in folklore. This group included A. N. Afanasiev, F. I. Buslaev, A. A. Potebnya. Supporters of the mythological direction on the basis of the "solar" concept tried to typologize the festivities in their own way in accordance with the theoretical assumption that people view nature as a struggle between summer and winter. According to this typology, the originality of folk holidays and festive rituals is subject to the division of 13 years into summer and winter cycles, with spring appearing as the threshold of summer, and autumn - winter.
The order of holidays throughout the year proceeds in the form of an ascending curve from Christmas to Ivan Kupala and a downward curve from Ivan Kupala to Christmas. These curves form not four, as Snegirev believed, but a two-cycle holiday calendar of the year, in which the summer and winter solstice are the strong points. By this, the supporters of the mythological direction recognized a certain ideological independence of the holiday as a phenomenon of spiritual culture, its relative independence from the labor process. They recorded not only the connection of this phenomenon with the life of nature, but also pointed out the attachment of holidays to turning points, crisis moments of nature. Representatives of the subsequent direction in folklore, the so-called school of borrowing, which was represented by E. V. Anichkov, A. N. Veselovsky, V. F. Miller, brought the study of Russian folk festivals out of the framework of national isolation, showed the similarity of ancient, Byzantine, Slavic and Romanian rituals. - spectacular forms. From this similarity, in our opinion, not entirely correct conclusions are drawn.
Thus, Veselovsky believed that Russian Christmastide is nothing but Roman saturnalia, passed through myths to buffoons and transmitted through them from Byzantium to Romanians and Russians. Supporters of this school also focused on the most general, mainly aesthetic and cultural features of the traditional holiday, expressing a number of interesting ideas and observations on this matter. In polemics with various mythological concepts, the so-called "labor" theory of the holiday, characteristic of Soviet ethnographic science, took shape. It is based on the social and labor activity of a person, considered as the main and only source of the holiday, its calendar and ritual forms. An adherent of this theory is V. I. Chicherov, for whom the connection between the holiday and labor is decisive. In the work "The winter period of the Russian agricultural calendar of the XVI - XIX centuries." the author analyzes many meaningful aspects of the Russian agricultural holiday. The weak point of this concept is that all other types of festivities are outside the scope of this theory.
A variation of the "labor" theory is the concept of V. Ya. Propp, according to which: 1) folk holidays are based on mythology; 2) ritual-spectacular forms of the holiday are characterized by magical content; 3) holiday rituals, entertainment and games are a kind of model of everyday peasant labor, a holiday is a kind of continuation of labor, a free repetition of the skills, customs, and relationships that have developed in labor. The "labor" theory of a holiday is in many respects similar to the recreational concept, which explains the origin, calendar and content of holidays as an alternation of the rhythms of work and rest, as a response to the need for rest (N. O. Mizov, S. T. Tokarev). Conceptually, the theory of M. M. Bakhtin, set forth in the book "The Creativity of Francois Rabelais and the Folk Culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance", is presented most clearly today. According to this theory, the holiday not only duplicates labor, summing up the results of the labor cycle and preparing the participants of the holiday for a new phase of working life, but, most importantly, it constantly proclaims the people's ideal of life, with which it was originally associated.
A holiday, according to Bakhtin, is not just an artistic reproduction or reflection of life, but life itself, designed in a playful way and, therefore, associated with human culture. But the feast represents and embodies it quite differently from the labor that produces material things, or artistic activity focused on creating works of art. Without denying the connection of the holiday with either labor activity or art, this concept draws attention to the special social and artistic specificity of this phenomenon, which is on the border of art and reality. Bakhtin also gives an example of a concrete historical interpretation of the carnival as a holiday: firstly, as a manifestation of the two-world nature of medieval life (official and popular); secondly, as a "second life of the people", as a situation of lifting prohibitions, a temporary exit beyond the normal order of life; thirdly, as a special ideal-real type of communication between people; fourthly, as a moment of temporary, but from this no less significant victory of "laughter and material bodily bottom"; fifthly, "unofficial folk truth"above the official high, sublime, but super-mercenary and one-sided idea of" the top. ", "festive freedom", "festive laughter"). Under the influence of this concept, many interesting works devoted to the study of festive culture were built: A. A. Belkin "Russian buffoons" (1975); D. S. Likhachev, A. M. Panchenko "Laughing World" Ancient Rus'(1976); V. Ya. Propp "Problems of comedy and laughter" (1976) and a number of others. Especially popular in domestic science is the "game" concept of the holiday, set forth by I. Huizinga in the book "The Playing Man" (1938), in which the holiday is considered in connection with the 16th game. According to Huizinga, the historical process in terms of the evolution of culture is a gradual but steady displacement of the game element from it, which began in the 19th century.
Since the holiday has always been associated with the game, the loss of the game element or its transformation into a "false game" affects the content of the holiday in the most detrimental way. The crisis of celebration and festivity, which nevertheless arose in Europe in the 19th century, continues to this day. The considered works and the presented concepts of the holiday allow us to judge the breadth of the ongoing research on holiday culture. And yet, these and other observations, repeatedly recorded in the scientific literature, do not exhaust the whole essence, social significance, place and role of the holiday in the development of culture and people's lives. They can only serve as a basis for posing general questions of the holiday as a cultural phenomenon. The fact that the problem of the holiday was considered within the framework of special sciences led to the absence of a holistic definition of the holiday. Etymologically, the very word "holiday" is borrowed from Church Slavonic and goes back to the Old Russian "empty", which means "empty, that is, free, unoccupied, in other words, idle." V. I. Dahl's etymological sequence is as follows: "idle, about a place, space, unoccupied, empty; to celebrate, to be idle, or not to do, not to work." Dal interprets the holiday itself as "a day devoted to rest, not business, not work, the opposite of everyday life, a day celebrated according to the charter of the church or on an occasion related to the area, to the face."
Thus, the word "holiday" means a certain period of time when one does not do business. It characterizes such free time when something is celebrated, for example, a certain event that needs to be distinguished from the stream of other events. The latter is achieved in festive ceremony, ritual, i.e., in a certain symbolic action. In Russian science, this interpretation of the holiday goes back to Snegirev. “The very word holiday,” he wrote, “expresses abolition, freedom from everyday work, combined with fun and joy. A holiday is free time, a rite is a significant action, an accepted way of performing solemn actions; the latter is contained in the first” (85.5). Bakhtin gives the most capacious concept of a holiday. "Celebration (any) is a very important primary form of human culture. It cannot be derived and explained from the practical conditions and goals of social labor or an even more vulgar form of explanation - from the biological (physiological) need for periodic rest. The celebration has always had a significant and deep semantic No "exercise" in organizing and improving the social process, no "playing at work" and no rest or respite from work can ever become festive in themselves, something from another sphere of being, from the sphere spiritually ideological. They must receive sanction not from the world of means and necessary conditions, but from the world of the highest goals of human existence, i.e., from the world of ideals.
This analysis, carried out from the standpoint of the sociological theory of culture, is based on the thesis of the constant alternation of two phases in social and cultural life: everyday (everyday) and festive. The rhythm of this alternation is characteristic of the life of each specific human community that has its own culture, ranging from small taiga hunting groups to entire classes, groups of co-religionists or peoples of many millions. At the same time, it should be emphasized that culture is associated with both phases: both with everyday life and with the holiday. Any theory that limits the sphere of culture to only one, exclusive, festive sphere, in which the phenomena of culture are manifested, or that ascribes cultural significance only to everyday life, is one-sided and is not capable of embracing and explaining the complex mechanisms of cultural life in its entirety. It is also a mistake to separate one phase from another, because this leads to the assertion of the existence of two cultures: everyday and festive. In reality, however, both of its phases are closely related and form an organic integrity. All this must be emphasized because the festive phase can sometimes look like a typical cultural one, since it develops outside of everyday economic activities, production, labor, duties, it looks colorful, full of cultural events.
Thus, cultural life encompasses both phases of social dynamics, weekdays and holidays. Let us consider in more detail the role of the holiday in culture.
The holiday activates and intensifies cultural life, primarily because at this time, free from everyday duties, the main, at least important for the celebrating group, values that give meaning to human life and are characteristic of a given culture and its stage are manifested, updated and openly affirmed. development, historical existence.
Always updating the values, applying them to the requirements of the time, the holiday is an institution that provides the necessary adaptation of the values of the group, its cultural traditions to the present. Observation of the holiday allows us to assert that prevails in this moment in culture: protective, conservative tendencies or the desire for change; it allows you to judge how the group relates to its traditional, basic values, which it considers the foundation of culture, the most important and indispensable for life.
The holiday usually and more often serves as an occasion for thinking about the future, creating a model of an ideal social state, a model that is an essential part of every developed culture. These ideal examples of the organization of collective life, interpersonal relations, and personality are an important element of culture.
The holiday in its entertainment part contains elements of satire, comedy and serves as an institution that allows you to correct people's shortcomings through their public ridicule. From a social point of view, festive comedy is an important form of cultural coexistence, censure of people and phenomena that do not correspond to generally accepted, at least officially, models and value systems.
A holiday as a phase of cultural life is associated with cultural phenomena that, in principle, have no place outside the holiday. This refers to an unusually wide range of actions, things, customs, signs, symbols, entire complexes that make up a ritual, a festive ceremony. Such phenomena also include certain norms of comradely communication, family, neighborly, public in general. personal life, habits and traditions, verbal formulas and gestures, the ability to operate with holiday symbols, signs and objects, holiday magical actions, divination, games and fun. A special side of the material culture of this group is associated with the holiday, which includes costumes and decorations, decorations and cuisine, special temporary structures and equipment, symbols and forms of donations and gifts.
A significant part of artistic creativity has been associated with the holiday for thousands of years, for which it is a powerful impulse, both ideological and prestigious, creates organizational opportunities and material interest. This work covers:
a) the architecture and festive decoration of theatrical performances, which often took in the past and are currently taking monumental forms;
b) literature: poetry and prose, celebratory drama, celebratory comedy - in forms specially dedicated to this holiday, and in forms intended to create an atmosphere corresponding to the holiday;
c) music and festive dance, vocal and instrumental works, songs, melodies and round dances;
d) festive spectacles, all kinds of processions and processions, mysteries and farces, dramatizations, contests and competitions of artists;
e) plastic art: painting, graphics, sculpture; production of figurines, dolls, masks, costumes.
A holiday is a period of mass public presentation of artistic creativity, dedicated to it and creating the spirit of a holiday, a period of talent competition, winning awards, prestige.
The holiday is a time of particularly intensive cultural initiation and socialization of the individual, which during this period gets the opportunity, which opens up for her even in childhood, to participate both in the preparation and in the celebration.
For the celebrating group and its members, a holiday also means a time of emotional upsurge, a special festive mood, atmosphere; participation in the cultural events of the holiday together with everyone and in front of everyone has a stronger influence on the members of the group and has deeper consequences for them than participation in the cultural events of everyday life.
Historical analysis of the holidays, starting with the most ancient holidays of Egypt, China, Greece and Rome, shows that there is a constant connection between the nature, wealth, intensity of the festive phase in a given culture and its general development. It can be said that a group that has an underdeveloped, poor or primitive festive phase is deprived of one of the most important engines of cultural development. Just as harmful, as historical experience teaches, is the hypertrophy of the festive phase, artificially (especially in the life of the exploiting classes) inflated and therefore empty, superficial, decorative, entertaining, culturally fruitless.
The holiday is a sensitive indicator of cultural changes, whether we are talking about higher, fundamental values for culture or about secondary, derivative values, all kinds of samples. Celebrations establish new cultural elements when they receive clear public approval. Man's change in his habitat also usually leads to the adoption of new patterns of celebration.
The holiday fixes the crisis phenomena in the culture of this group. They are expressed in a departure from old values or their rejection, when a holiday turns into a collection of outdated, archaic customs, empty conventions, rituals that no one needs. During the crisis, the center of gravity of the celebration shifts towards the entertainment, artistic and leisure-filling elements of the holiday, which begin to be interpreted as an autonomous cultural value.
Taking into account both historical experience and the state of modern human culture, a holiday from the moment of its inception can be recognized as a constant and extremely important source of each specific culture, the bearer of which is a stable group. There is every reason to assert that the periodic crises of various forms, types of holidays and celebrations, organically connected with periodic crises of values around which the collective existence of people is organized, do not in the least reduce either the social need for a holiday or its cultural role. This role is huge. Moreover, the culture of the holiday systematically enriches everyday culture with some of its elements, primarily the sphere of material culture. Many items, things that were once used only during the holidays, then entered everyday life; many types of actions, events, spectacles, once exclusively festive, then took root in the phase of everyday life and in their artistic culture.
Some elements of material culture went the other way: from everyday life they were included in the celebration. Many symbolic actions performed during the holidays are just a ceremonial repetition of ordinary actions for the purpose of honoring, giving them special meaning, displaying the values embodied in them.
The phase of the holiday and the phase of everyday life, despite their interpenetration, remain and, it can be argued, will remain culturally different; after all, the holiday is called upon to satisfy special, different from everyday cultural needs, which is done in an exceptional, unique festive atmosphere.
2 Russian holidays: history and modernity
2.1 Easter
"Holidays are a holiday, a triumph of celebrations" - this is how Easter was called in Rus' from ancient times. In our time, it is difficult to imagine how these days rang and shone (Easter is the name of the whole week). Difficult, but possible. There are two sources: the first is biographical materials, memoirs, and the second is one's own spiritual intuition. The reasons for turning to your spiritual intuition are simple and clear - the holiday really happens every year. Every year, many people, both believers and just curious, gather in temples and expect events. The event does not consist in the beauty of decoration, not in beautiful singing, but in that special state captured by spiritual intuition, a special sensation that embraces everyone in experiencing a feeling of unity with each other in the joy of the exclamation repeated to different melodies: "Christ is risen!"...
However, the results of observations made by us in the course of the study revealed that for those of our contemporaries to whom we offered to answer the questions of our questionnaire, some strong impressions are rarely associated with Easter. We met literally only a couple of stories. One of them belongs to a middle-aged woman who first went to the temple on Easter. What she saw and heard shocked her, but she could not explain what exactly. Another memory belongs to an elderly man. He told about his childhood impressions, which included all the moments of preparation for the holiday. He remembered the restrictions in food, clothing, games, and the moment when the restrictions were immediately replaced by an abundance of everything. Lenten food was changed to fast food, a new shirt was put on, it was possible to play. One of the favorite Easter games for children is rolling painted eggs. But modern children, and adults, do not remember such a game.
Each holiday has its own rhythm, its own shade. Easter - the Resurrection of Christ - the focus of all rhythms, all colors. The rhythms of Easter are like a sudden burst of jubilant joy from the other world. This joy is of such strength that without all the preparations preceding the holiday, it is difficult for a person to contain it.
Easter has always been the most beloved holiday in Russia. Easter rhythms largely determined the features of the Russian character in the form in which it has evolved over the centuries: such a quality as the need for loud openness to the world in joy - "to call all Ivanovo". "3a the windows chime merrily, Easter rejoices. It rings at Kazanskaya, at Ivan the Warrior, then somewhere ... - such a thin ringing. Now all over Moscow, everyone is allowed to ring the bell towers, such a custom is to rejoice on Easter. Vasil Vasilich all yesterday he unwound his hands, calling, by the evening he became weak, fell down. In Russian there is an expression "Easter joy". Our ancestors knew, felt what it meant.
The holidays don't go away right away. Easter is the whole week - Holy Week. “On Saturday, the nuns from the Passion Monastery bring a small package in a velvet bag: in white writing paper, sealed with red sealing wax, a slice of the holy Artos. They eat it in illness and get relief. Epiphany and wedding candles. After light mass, with the last Paschal procession, the chime ends - until next year. I go to the vigil and see with sadness that the Royal Doors are closed. "Christ is Risen" they still sing, joy still shines in the heart, but Easter has already passed: the Royal Doors have closed."
Today, the Easter holiday in such depth, colorful shades and length in time (and beyond any time) is not familiar to anyone. The fact that this oblivion did not occur without the influence of causes external to the holiday is obvious. In Soviet times, almost everyone was forbidden to "celebrate" Easter, except for "irresponsible old women." Even the discovery of painted Easter eggs could cost a membership card or a "ban on a profession" (for example, a teacher or an "ideological worker"). Not to mention the impossibility of getting through the ranks of the police fence to the Easter procession. Our correspondents report that even in the mid-80s of the 20th century, they were not allowed to attend the Easter service with a child (the policemen referred to the instructions). Where, then, can children's memories of Easter come from?
The fact that the reasons for the apparent weakening of the presence of the holiday in the minds and experience of people are external is indirectly evidenced by the fact that, for example, in Bulgaria, Easter is still the most revered holiday. True, these modern data were obtained in the Bulgarian "outback".
2.2 Christmas
In Soviet Russia, there were also attempts to crack down on Christmas. But the favorite holiday of the children of the whole baptized world survived. In our country, it has been preserved, of course, in a modified, sometimes hardly recognizable form. As our long-term research shows, it seems that it was the New Year's holiday that contained not only something from the Christmas holiday, but became for a while the prototype (model) of the holiday as such.
However, I would like to see Christmas in an "unchanged" form. How did you experience the Christmas days, the entire period of Christmas time and those times of common festive rhythms for all? What was special, different from others, in the rhythms of Bright Week? What place did the New Year occupy then?
One of the features of the child's perception is the ability to see the same locality, house, street each time as different, in the refraction of the season, mood, etc. So Shmelev's "observer" is most often located, apparently, at one of the windows of his house in Zamoskvorechye. But opposite this window, "Barminikha Garden" is different every time. The sun plays over this garden" on the Annunciation and Easter, the Christmas star rises and the frosty Christmas morning flares up. "The bluish dawn turns white. The snowy lace of trees is as light as air. The church rumble floats, in this frosty rumble the sun rises like a ball. It is fiery, thick, more than usual: the sun at Christmas. Floats out in flames behind the garden. The garden is in deep snow, brightens, turns blue. Here it is, the morning of the Holiday - Christmas. In childhood, it was like that - and remains.
The rhythm that this holiday brings is different - wide, solemn. The hum of the bell carries far in the frosty air. In frost, the sound penetrates further than usual, filling "the whole universe." The rhythm of Christmas is the rhythm of a mighty, all-penetrating, universal triumph: "Christ is born - praise! Christ from heaven - shrug!" (i.e. "meet"!). This is the holiday of the Savior's birthday.
The holiday is preceded by a long, but not as strict as the Great Filippov fast. The eve of Christmas is Christmas Eve. "On Christmas Eve, around Christmas, they didn’t eat until the star. Kutya was boiled from wheat, with honey; broth - from prunes, pears, whispers ... They put it under the image, for hay. Why? .. And as if - a gift to Christ Well ... as if, He is in the manger, in the manger. " Conversational intonations are heard - this is again the adult tells, and the child asks again. The adult Ivan Shmelev tells his little nephew Yves, a half-French who has never been to Russia. Now he can see "Russian Christmas" as it was imprinted in the child's memory: "It used to be that you were waiting for a star, you would wipe all the windows. If you rub it with a fingernail, you can't see the stars? you will hear a ringing. And as if it were stars - a ringing! Frosty, booming, like silver. In the Kremlin they will strike - an ancient ringing, sedate, with a deafness. And then - tight silver, like ringing velvet. And everything sang, a thousand churches are playing. Not Easter, there is no chime, but it spreads with a ringing, covers with silver, like singing, without end or beginning ... rumble and rumble.
Christmas time brought many joys to children. And adults themselves could become like children for a while. Christmas tree, gifts, skating, performances, conjuring. Even divination, usually considered a great sin, was allowed these days. The reason for the “relaxation” is in the words of the wise old man Gorkin: “That’s what Christmas time is for. Today it’s not a sin to guess. And the magicians fortune-tellers were admitted to Christ. the force of the tail is tucked in, spinning to no avail, it cannot hurt. Gorkin himself, however, only "plays" in fortune-telling, using tradition for "pedagogical" purposes - he selects for each of those present a useful saying of "King Solomon" unnoticed by adults (but the child notices everything!).
However, the main thing that the soul of a child is open to is the spiritual side of the holiday. The soul of a child actively seeks the sacred, the light. She must feed on light, so that later, in adulthood, she will be able to distinguish light from darkness, good from evil. And the Savior born on earth is the Light born into the world: "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men; and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."
The word "holy" is one of the most frequently encountered in Shmelev's book. That is the meaning of the “summer of the Lord”, in order to find, see, feel the spiritual face of people, events, phenomena through festive rhythms: “You leave the church. Everything is different. Snow is holy. And the stars are holy, new, Christmas stars "Christmas! Look into the sky. Where is she, that old star that appeared to the Magi? There she is: above Barminikha's garden, low. She is blue, holy. I used to think: "If you go to her, you will come there. Would love to come... and bow with the shepherds to Christmas! He — in a manger, in a small feeder, like in a stable... Do you see, Ivushka? And you close your eyes ... You see - a feeder with hay, a bright, bright boy .... "
Christmas children lived, lost, they participated in this holiday, it became a part of their experience, their life. Children's performances on Christmas stories were ubiquitous. Children (and adults) went from house to house to "praise Christ" - to carol.
2.3 New Year
Prior to Peter I in Rus', the chronology was built "from the creation of the world" and the numbering of years differed significantly from that adopted in the West. The change of year took place on September 1. Until now, according to the church calendar, the New Year is celebrated on September 1 (14 according to the new style). Under Peter I, they began, like the entire Western world, to build a chronology from the Nativity of Christ. The numbering of years has become the same as in Europe. And the order of the holidays was originally the same. First Christmas, and a week later - New Year. With the post-revolutionary change of the calendar, the situation with the New Year became somewhat paradoxical. First, the country celebrated the New Year, and a week later ... Christmas followed. Then, a week later - another New Year, called the Old.
A few decades ago, the celebration of the Old New Year was a sure sign of "backwardness." For example, in one of the popular films of the 50s, the negative characters celebrated the Old New Year, while the positive ones did not.
There was a short period of time when the New Year itself was forbidden to be celebrated. Elderly people told how in the 30s they had to darken the windows at home so that the lights on the Christmas tree would not be noticed from the street. But the ban did not last long. This holiday turned out to be too necessary. What is its strength and amazing vitality?
It seems to us that there are several reasons, the main of which, if we carefully analyze the stories of our correspondents, is that the New Year, as it were, has absorbed the images of all the most real holidays, and above all, Christmas.
IN modern society few holidays have survived that would unite its various layers in a ritual action, the form of which has been relatively stable for decades. Modern rational thinking, urbanization exclude ritual as a scenario of human life. And the New Year actually remained the only calendar holiday that did not lose certain features of the ritual (along with non-calendar weddings and funerals).
The meaning and significance of the New Year's ritual actions by modern man have long been forgotten, so they can be attributed to the "remnants" of our society. "Relics," as Taylor defines it, are mechanical reproductions of once magically significant actions.
So why does a modern urbanized person need "remnants" of the New Year? Many researchers believe that this is characterized by a "lack" of rituals in urban society. Modern urbanized society replaces tradition with fashion. Fashion is not just the priorities of today, these are priorities that are known for sure that tomorrow they will cease to be such. Therefore, fashion must be pursued.
And this constant race for fashion exhausts the city dweller. This in turn leads to psychological crisis. In the city, almost every value is fashionable, i.e. not just changing, but obviously changing. Hence our nostalgia for the ritual, as it has a huge psychotherapeutic impact, being a proven scenario for getting out of a crisis emotional situation for centuries. Thus, the psychological purpose of the ritual is to reproduce the once already experienced emotional upsurge.
So why did the New Year retain its ritual features, and not any other calendar holiday?
In order to answer this question, you need to plunge into the history of this holiday. The tradition of celebrating the beginning of the new year has been going on since ancient times. For an archaic person, the birth of something new must necessarily accompany the death of the old, i.e. for a new year to be born, the old must die. The death of the year is a break in the existence of the universe, i.e. with the end of the year, the world perishes and a new world is born. The annual collapse and creation of the world is what any New Year's ritual is based on. Moreover, strict observance of New Year's rituals for archaic man was the key to maintaining the immutability of the world order (i.e., changes are underway, but according to a constant, already proven cycle). They created an obstacle to the penetration into the world of elemental, chaotic forces that could disrupt the usual rhythm of life.
Based on this, it is not surprising that such an important ritual for our ancestors has not yet lost the power of its traditions to the end.
Consider what the modern ritual of the New Year is. To begin with, we note the main features inherent in this holiday:
Firstly, the New Year, like any ritual, is a mass, collective phenomenon. Moreover, this celebration is both family and universal.
Secondly, it is extended in time: the celebration of the short-term moment of transition from one year to another stretches for two or even more weeks.
Thirdly, the holiday carries a strictly established emotional coloring. The New Year must be rejoiced, only then it will bring you good luck.
And to everything else, the ritual of the New Year absorbs the event itself. It is difficult for most people to imagine this holiday outside of its usual forms. It seems wrong to us if a person at least somehow did not celebrate the New Year.
Let's move on to the very ritual of celebrating the New Year in our country. The New Year celebration itself is quite well regulated. That. most families in the Russian Federation repeat the same actions from year to year (dress up a Christmas tree, drink champagne, set off fireworks, etc.) What is the meaning of these actions? What do they symbolize? And where do the roots of this symbolism come from?
To understand all this, we will sequentially consider the most common traditions that make up the New Year holiday. First comes the preparation for the celebration. The apartment is carefully cleaned, the owner himself washes on New Year's Eve. By the New Year, a Christmas tree must be put up and decorated. The tradition of decorating a Christmas tree for the New Year came to Russia under Peter I from Europe, it is of German origin. However, the veneration of spruce as a sacred tree was not originally Germanic, but Celtic. In Gaulish culture, spruce was the embodiment of the Tree of Life (World Tree) due to its evergreen branches. And in folk Slavic culture, the Christmas tree was associated with the world of the dead, so the custom of putting up a Christmas tree on New Year's Eve took root among the people until the revolution.
Each type of Christmas tree decoration is mythological. But this does not mean that their symbolism has passed through the centuries in an unchanged state. People, creating toys, balls and sequins, unconsciously turned to archetypes and mythologems, as is usually the case with the vast majority of cases.
There is a star at the top of the tree. The deep meaning of this star is the top of the World Axis (World Tree), i.e. the point of contact between the earthly and heavenly worlds, from where the higher powers send us every good.
But in addition to the star, the Christmas tree is also decorated with balls and toys. Balls are a modern version of apples and tangerines, which were used to decorate the Christmas tree. They symbolize the fruits of the Tree of Life, which give health and longevity (recall rejuvenating apples from Russian folk tales). As for toys, having appeared in the Soviet era, they did not stay long in the image of pilots and sailors. Soon they were replaced by the image of various animals and fairy-tale characters. The fabulousness of these creatures is very important for us - it means that we have images of creatures from the other world, and these toys are sacralized, they can only be present on a ritual object (i.e. a New Year tree). All this connects Christmas decorations with figurines of good spirits, to which the archaic man turned for help.
Not a single modern Christmas tree is complete without a garland of light bulbs and sparkles, i.e. many flickering lights: burning or reflected. This is how the presence of somna of spirits (souls of dead ancestors or supernatural beings) is represented in mythology.
The last decoration on the Christmas tree is a silver rain that descends from its crown to its base. In the mythological picture of the world, this is an image of eternally flowing water connecting the heavenly, earthly and underground worlds. It acts as a kind of wall, protecting the universe from external chaos. In addition to the Christmas tree, New Year's "rains" are decorated with doorways, windows - the entire perimeter of the living space.
Santa Claus is often placed under the Christmas tree. There will also be gifts for children on January 1st. Moreover, the children are well aware that under the tree there is only the image of Santa Claus, thus. the figure under the Christmas tree, necessary for the arrival of an otherworldly creature into the house, is an analogue of a pagan idol.
So who is Santa Claus and why is his image inextricably linked with the time of the New Year?
The name Santa Claus contains two of his the most important characteristics: he is old, and therefore wise, and he is associated with the element of cold. Before us is one of the incarnations of the lord of the Lower World, the world of the dead. But for archaic man, the world of the dead is not a hell, and not a nightmare, which modern man imagines it to be. The world of death is the abode of departed relatives, with whom archaic man is in constant contact. Such a world appears to be like the world of the living or the world of abundance. His master rules over countless riches that he gives away in the world of the living (hence the countless gifts of Santa Claus)
And here comes New Year's Eve. The whole family gathers at the table covered with plentiful treats. The final event of the outgoing year is the president's address to the people. Why is it our leader who is addressing us at this moment? In the mythological consciousness, the leader is an intermediary between the world of people and the world of gods. And what do we want to hear from higher powers? What the president will tell us: “This year was hard, but the next one will be better” is a purely ritual speech.
The chimes strike, and after their last blow, the anthem sounds. Everyone raises their glasses of champagne, clinks loudly and shouts “Hurrah!” or "Happy New Year!". It is the sounds that accompany the transition from one year to another. In both myth and ritual, music is a means of opening the gates between worlds. The chimes and the clinking of glasses symbolically open the door to the coming year.
Then everyone goes outside and sets off fireworks. This is also symbolic: in almost all mythological systems, the creation of the world is the creation of light and fire.
Thus, the way to celebrate the coming of the new year is a "modern" ritual. Its traditions are rooted deep in antiquity. But at that time, the actions performed had some meaning for an archaic society. To date, this meaning has been lost. The ritual has become a custom or even a series of actions performed out of habit, by virtue of tradition.
2.4 Victory Day
For many older people, the event itself is remembered , in honor of which the public holiday was established. May 9, 1945 is Victory Day. The war was for everyone a time of suffering and extreme exertion. It was experienced by those who fought directly on the battlefields, and those who were in the rear. The joy of victory was of great strength. The people who experienced it kept the memory of this day for life.
Victory Day is still one of the favorite and common holidays for different regions and even for different age groups. What is the reason for such a significant event?
The Great Patriotic War is almost sixty years behind our time. The popularity of the victory holiday in that war, of course, is also due to the fact that it was celebrated in a special way. In the late 70s, May 9 became a non-working day. There were parades everywhere festivities, meetings of veterans. But this does not explain the popularity of the holiday. In order to become a "real holiday", it had to take root in the people's memory and be passed on from generation to generation as an important event. Now that other wars have taken place, and there are very young veterans of these other wars, we must try to understand what is connected with that old day of May 9, 1945.
The Great Patriotic War was an event that affected the entire people who inhabited the former Soviet Union. In distant Buryatia, thousands of kilometers away from hostilities, they rejoiced at the victory just as in Moscow, and in Kazan, and in Smolensk, destroyed by the war.
A 70-year-old woman from Tambov recalls: “I was at the field camp in the evening .... And suddenly the foreman came and announced that the war was over .... What a happiness it is to live without war! We were two cooks, and we danced, shouted, hugged .... And this holiday - Victory Day - will remain in our hearts until the end of days.
This event was remembered especially vividly by those people whose age at the time of the victory was either in childhood - 6-8 years old, or at the time of early youth - 16-20 years old. I remember some details, other events of those days. A 70-year-old Muscovite recalls: “On May 8, 1945, in Tbilisi, at the school where I studied, there was a rumor that the war was over. the war is not over, you will have to appear before the "eye" of the school principal. At 4 o'clock in the morning I heard a noise in the street with jubilation at the end of the war, which was a double joy for me. (What do you remember?) - Together with the joy and jubilation of the people at the same time there was a lot of grief. (How old were you?) - 16 ".
The memoirs sometimes use words from popular songs about war and victory, but this does not affect the sincere tone of the narrator. A 76-year-old Muscovite recalls: "The most wonderful holiday was May 9, 1945. The Second World War (that is, the Great Patriotic War) ended with the heroic victory of our people over fascism. Fireworks, national rejoicing, people from young to old, military and civilian, women, men and children congratulated each other, kissed and cried. It is joy with tears in the eyes. This is joy with gray hair at the temples. Among my relatives, my father, two cousins and two uncles defended the Motherland, one of them died. (What do you remember?) - The unity of the people and the belief that the war should not be repeated. Soldiers and officers were greeted very touchingly. (How old were you?) - 20".
A 75-year-old Muscovite is laconic: “The Victory Day is May 9, 1945. Although it is remembered vividly and forever, better and more fully than it has been described in 50 years, I won’t be able to say. How old were you?) - 19".
Sometimes the memory refers to an implausibly early age. But there can be no confusion here, since everything is easy to calculate. A 64-year-old resident of Moscow recalls the time when he believes he was 4 years old (actually 7-8 years old): "Victory Day May 9, 1945. I was with my parents in Tehran. There was an impression that there was more bad never will be in my life. And everyone was happy and beautiful. (What do you remember?) — Simple human happiness."
A 64-year-old Muscovite recalls: “Victory Day, how much joy throughout Russia ... All the joyful ones sang, danced, and my mother cried at the top of her voice, since our father died in 42, and my brother was killed. And I remember it on all my life - both joy and tears. But the war was over, there was joy in the soul, throughout Russia. "
And very short: "Victory Day. (What do you remember?) — My father survived after the war! (m., 66 years old).
We have given only a part of the stories about Victory Day, but even from these small passages it is clear that in their origins real holiday- this is, first of all, the event itself, which could have taken place 50, and 100, and thousands of years ago.
The Great Patriotic War affected not only all citizens of our country - children, the elderly, and soldiers, it was also a world war. In one way or another, it was an event that affected the world - "the world" in two senses of the word. Among us, who have tried to collect testimonies about this holiday and tell about the experience of other people who experienced the joy of Victory Day, there is no one who himself saw with his own eyes the rejoicing in the squares in 1945, when strangers rushed to embrace each other, shouting "Victory! ". But we can refer to the evidence of that time left by the participants. In order to understand and feel the joy of the Victory, one must also touch what that war was for contemporaries.
From the many excellent books about the war, we have chosen memoirs written in simple, almost childish language. They date back to the time of early adolescence, when young girls, who were not even twenty years old, were put on slow-moving and vulnerable plywood planes (PO-2) from all sides and thrown into battle. "Again I had a dream. I often have this dream. After that night, when I first saw the plane burning in the air ... It begins with a picture of horsemen racing furiously. Somewhere far on the horizon. Silhouettes of people and horses are brightly blue, and the background is orange-red. Like a glow. Then I distinguish that this is a fire. Flames dance, red dust swirls. Horses rush in an avalanche. There are many of them, they approach, grow into huge black shapes and, merging, completely cover the bright background I hear loud snoring and the clatter of hooves and wake up in horror .... "The pilots were not given parachutes. These devices, which could save many lives, they saw in their equipment only at the end of the war. And so dozens of them burned down along with the planes in front of their friends. "Fighter! The Nazi fighter went hunting for our Po-2s. So that's why the anti-aircraft guns are silent! They are afraid to hit their plane and give the Po-2 to the fighter for reprisal. And he calmly shoots our slow-moving planes that have fallen into the rays: you can’t imagine a better target ! ". War is also hard work almost beyond the limits of human capabilities. Armed girls bring "hundreds" in their hands. The bombs are heavy, the girls grunt. Hanging a 100-kilogram bomb is not easy. But they got the hang of it: two or three girls, standing on their haunches, on their knees, quickly raise a hundred, bring it to the castle and hang it under the wing, fixing it with screws. Then another. When the bombs are hung, they leave for new ones: the next plane is already taxiing. "So each of them lifts more than two tons of cargo during the night work: "And none of them complain about anything: war .... "
The war broke normal rhythms life, the normal distribution of work. young girls should not lift two tons of cargo and burn in airplanes, children should not run away from their homes and die under bombs. War is the diseased rhythm of the life of the world. However, the meaning of war highlights the victory.
Victory in the Great Patriotic War is an event that for many decades has nourished the feeling of national pride of all the peoples of our country. The celebration of Victory Day preserves the historical memory of the terrible price that it cost, and the memory that it was we who withstood the test, we reached Berlin, destroying the enemy that threatened the whole world and all true human values.
Another military pilot, in another country, felt the meaning of the last world war, when it was just beginning to flare up, turning life upside down in his native France. The pilot's name was Antoine de Saint-Exupery. He left his amazing testimony of this moment of meaning.
France is not as big as Russia. It is not difficult for well-trained enemy troops to pass it all. But the country resists the invasion, although it is doomed to defeat. Long-range aviation pilots, to which the writer belonged, are thrown to perform seemingly meaningless tasks. From one such flight, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry brings awareness of everything that is happening of such depth and power, which can be given, perhaps, only "at the edge of the abyss" (Pushkin).
The most powerful, most modern equipment does not protect against projectile burst. A man flying in an airplane is also a warrior, dangerous to the enemy, and he is especially vulnerable while he is floating in the air. In addition to the war between troops equipped with shells and equipment, there is also a battle between the flesh, which can be deprived of life at any moment, and the spirit, which requires submission to it. “A few words need to be said about the body. Indeed, in everyday life, a person is blind to evidence. For it to become visible, such exceptional circumstances are necessary. for the Last Judgment. That's when you'll understand. Getting ready for the flight, I asked myself: "What will they be, the last moments? "I imagined the test as a test for my flesh. I believed that my flesh was at risk first of all. The point of view that I necessarily took was the point of view of my body. We take care of our body so much! We dress it so diligently, We wash, we groom, we shave, we give water and feed. We identify ourselves with this domestic animal. About him we say: This is me. And suddenly this whole illusion collapses."
In this flight, Antoine de Saint-Exupery gained an understanding of the essence of what is happening with his country and with the world. The despondency of defeat, experienced by him from the spectacle of senseless, at first glance, flows of refugees, from dying villages, trampled fields of ripe wheat, from the destruction of all the foundations of life, is replaced by an awareness of the power of the victim, surpassing the power of the most powerful weapon. "We saw France burning. We saw the sparkling sea. We grew old at high altitude. We leaned over a distant land, as if over a museum showcase. We played in the sun with the dust of enemy fighters. Then we descended again. We threw ourselves into the fire. We sacrificed everything And there we learned more about ourselves than we would have learned in ten years of reflection. This is the knowledge that only the body is afraid of death, and the spirit is immortal, that the essence of man is love.
"But it's about true love: the network of connections that makes you human." This is also a premonition of the real reasons for the enemy invasion: "We all, in France, almost died from a mind devoid of essence." The victorious spirit is the beginning of victory in this war.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry did not return from his flight on 31 July 1944. The events of his book "Military Pilot" date back to a time when in our country there were no thoughts of invasion, bombing, mobilization and funerals. But at the end of that war, the expectation of a future victory united all people - in France, and in Russia, and in England, and in Czechoslovakia ... The world was able to survive and feel this moment of the future joy of victory.
Therefore, Victory Day is a holiday not only for Russia. It turned out to be an amazing coincidence that for many it passed unnoticed. In 1945, May 9 fell in the middle of Bright Week, since Easter was on Sunday, May 6. That is, Victory Day that year coincided with Easter week.
2.5 Family holidays
Among all family holidays, the traditional and most expensive for each family member should be a birthday. It is on this day that the attitude of the whole family to the birthday man is manifested. In turn, he has the opportunity to express his love and gratitude to each member of the family.
Prepare the holiday in advance and everyone should take part in it. Should be considered age features children and what younger child, so the holiday should be brighter and longer - all day, whiter beautiful and fabulous. This day is full of surprises and surprises, gifts. It’s good if there is an opportunity to take a picture, so that later a whole series of photos of different ages is formed. All gift cards must also be saved, then, according to the texts of these congratulations, it is interesting to follow the changes in the character of the child, his hobbies. The text of congratulations is not easy to compose. It is desirable that the congratulations be in verse and refer specifically to this person. It is better to compose such verses yourself and let them be imperfect, but from the heart and practice proves that they have a very beneficial effect on the hero of the occasion.
These days there is a wonderful opportunity to apply the pedagogical principles of Anton Semyonovich Makarenko, especially in families where the child grows up not alone, but surrounded by brothers and sisters, even if they are not relatives, but relatives. Collective creative activity unites kids, teaches mutual understanding, mutual respect. In collective work, everyone can more clearly show their abilities - compose poetry, draw a newspaper, make a collage, make an application and more.
The most exciting moment in the life of every birthday person is receiving gifts. In this case, it is necessary to think especially about the presentation of a gift. The baby will be pleased to see his gift right after waking up, next to his bed.
Opening his eyes, the baby will see his things and realize that he has grown for a whole year. Immediately, these things are put on the birthday man, and the old things are removed.
Gifts can be waiting for the baby everywhere: under the pillow, under the plate, in the toy basket, on his bookshelf. All day long he meets with such surprises, and there is no limit to delight!
Gifts are part of the holiday. The expectation of a miracle begins long ago and the first elements of the holiday are decoration. If the room is not decorated, then the festive mood will be short-lived. The birthday person can also take part in the design. There is so much imagination here! On walls covered with wallpaper, it is good to fix everything with needles, and on the walls of cabinets on the inside, you can fix photos with adhesive tape or adhesive tape. From the chandelier to the cornice, you can stretch garlands of paper flowers, on which the name of the hero of the occasion or “Congratulations” is written in separate letters. The ceiling can be turned into forest clearing fixing on the ceiling, like New Year's snow, individual flowers. it's nice to see a funny face on the mirror on your birthday, which you can draw with tinted toothpaste.
Everyone is waiting for a birthday cake. It can be branded, which is loved in this family, or a novelty. Definitely homemade cake. So much love goes into making this surprise!
The cake must be decorated with candles. This is a birthday ritual - everyone likes extinguishing candles. The more candles, the more difficult it is to extinguish them, and in this case, the growing up of the child is again visible.
Various games can be played during the celebration. It is very easy to hold an auction with the words "Birthday" and others. Whoever is the last to name a song with these words is the winner and is awarded a memorable souvenir. a competition for the best compliment is best done for teenagers. Can be held win-win lottery, for this various small items can come in handy - threads, needles, pens, pencils, etc. wish lottery is also held for teenagers. wishes are written on separate pieces of paper, folded, lowered into a hat, and then everyone takes a wish for himself. Wishes are comic and cause general fun. But the game “What would it mean?” is especially interesting. A photograph is glued on separate sheets of paper (it can be a birthday person, or it can be guests), which captures a funny situation.
Any family event can be turned into a holiday. Even a trip to the forest may not be just another trip. but “meeting a green friend”. For example, trips for snowdrops. It is always a great joy to see the awakening of nature, the powerful force of green sprouts, which, having overcome the density of the earth, reach for the sun.
Encounters with Nature is a trip to the world of beauty and harmony. Expediency in nature is amazing, a person only needs to carefully peer into this world. It is on natural clues that the science of bionics is built. many wonders of technology we find in nature, parents tell us about this during walks.
Family holidays are a wonderful tradition. It must be inherited, it must be developed, it must be taught, especially to young parents. The child should live in a happy family and feel the love of relatives. The school gives knowledge, and education comes from the family, so it is very important to teach the child the principles and morals that are in this family. It depends on the upbringing in the family who and what the child will be, becoming an adult, what his family will be like. There is no need to regret the upbringing of a child of effort, time, money.
This is all for the good of the child, and this is the happiness of the parents. It is not difficult to prepare a holiday in the family, you just need to dream up. Through holidays and traditions, you can instill good manners in your child, develop habits, and teach them how to behave at the table. Getting into another society, the child will not feel embarrassed that he cannot conduct a conversation, participate in games, use devices. If he was not taught this, it is not his fault, he can master all this himself at a more mature age. But it is better if the child consolidates all good habits from childhood. Theoretical knowledge does not make it possible to turn into a habit if they are not fixed in practice.
A holiday is a kind of result of what a child has received in his upbringing. It is good to observe the child at a party, where he should be able to behave with dignity and freedom. and this is achieved through habits. Even bad examples can teach how not to behave. Fine educated son or a daughter is the highest achievement of parents. For the sake of this, it is worth working hard and applying maximum love, patience, time.
2.6 The influence of holidays on a person's personality
So far, we have treated the holiday as a ubiquitous, often regular, phase of collective life, the purpose of which is to honor the group's values in an institutionalized way at a designated time. Now consider the problems of the holiday in connection with the individual, the separate person.
A holiday makes sense for an individual only when it is derived from his belonging to a group that established and observes this holiday and the given forms of its celebration. Thus, the holiday turns out to be, first of all, a kind of connection arising from belonging to a group living in certain rules and according to a specific calendar. Participation in a holiday is included in the set of obligations arising from participation in a group, and therefore often takes the form of a duty to the group - religious, patriotic, national, civil, class or political, as well as professional, corporate, family. As a duty, this participation is usually coercive - an individual who evades it is subject to religious, legal, traditional sanctions. A person who belongs to a group of fellow believers and does not celebrate its holidays is accused of apostasy from the principles of faith; a citizen who ignores the holiday of his state may be condemned for lack of loyalty to him and his ideals; a member of a corporation who evades the duty of the general professional holiday, subject to condemnation in his circle. Similarly, a family member who avoids participating in a family holiday is condemned for neglecting the family and good customs.
The holiday is inherently a form of renewal and affirmation of the values of collective life; an individual may treat them differently, which most obviously affects his attitude to the holiday. If these values are indifferent to the individual, if he only declares or even feigns acceptance in order not to be subjected to sanctions from his environment, one can hardly expect that the holiday experiences will be something deep and significant for him. The stronger and deeper the belief in the values to which the holiday is dedicated, the deeper it is perceived; in religious life, such an experience can reach the point of ecstasy, self-forgetfulness, express itself in joyful excitement or repentant self-abasement. In the national, political and public life, a person, participating in a holiday, demonstrates on this day his affection, loyalty, readiness to defend ideals and, above all, an inextricable connection with the celebrating group, solidarity with it. The holiday is such a phase of collective life in which the individual, much more intensively than in ordinary life, publicly manifests his unity with the group and its values. Participation in celebrations, rituals, processions, putting on festive clothes, festive insignia, decorating an apartment or house is always a demonstration, which under certain conditions, for example, when the celebrating group is persecuted, is associated with a risk for the demonstrator.
A holiday can serve as a powerful stimulus for people involved in it to all kinds of creativity, to actively participate in its artistic design, to give it shine, to create works of plastic art, literature, music, organically associated with the holiday. The history of art knows a huge number of such creators and their works - from modest, obscure to universally recognized brilliant artists. It is this function of the holiday, its role as a stimulus for the specific creativity of the individual, that can also be recognized as a criterion for the social vitality of the holiday and its idea. As long as the holiday inspires people of creativity, it remains alive.
The holiday plays a certain role in the process of socialization of the individual, her awareness of her place and attitude to social groups. With its emotional climate, spectacle, extraordinary, often fun and abundance, the opportunity to take advantage of benefits that are not available in everyday life, gifts, entertainment and deviations from the usual rules that restrict human behavior, the holiday has attracted children and youth for thousands of years, deeply sinks into their memory. First of all, it turns out to be a reason for self-identification - on the days of the holiday, young people often more clearly than in other cases realize themselves, their unity with a social group. The ceremonial, rite, holiday custom serve as an excellent school of cultural tradition, to which young people join in a natural and dignified way - through direct participation in the celebrations. Knowledge of the festive ritual and custom is, on the one hand, a condition for actual participation in the holiday, on the other hand, a feature of belonging to a certain group and its culture. During the holiday in various forms - spectacular, verbal, symbolic, metaphorical or dramatic, realistic - the past of the group, mythical and historical, as well as the present, the current situation is displayed. Therefore, the holiday also serves to orient the youth in the time in which the group lived or lives, including every representative of the younger generation who considers himself to be in this group.
A holiday is a period of performance of special social roles in an open, public, collective way. Regardless of whether the usual, normal social structure with its hierarchy appears publicly, or a different, even reverse structure is temporarily created, the holiday always acts as a period when such roles are emphasized, expressed most clearly and unambiguously. The king, bishop, president or rector appears during the feast in their respective robes and regalia; as a rule, the costume of the host, head of festive entertainment, satirical performances, just like his words, defines and emphasizes his function. On holidays, honored people put on orders, rich people - jewelry, members of corporations, professional associations - specific forms or insignia, artists - tragic or comic masks. Public and cultural roles are exposed at this time in a way that they never are exposed in everyday life. Therefore, the holiday provides an opportunity to see these roles in action (at least some of them).
The above applies to all sociologically important places for holding a holiday from the family hearth, where such roles as host, hostess, guest, find their full expression, to the central square in the capital of a large state, whose leaders appear on anniversaries on an honorary platform, before the eyes of thousands of processions and millions of viewers.
A holiday for the individual is also combined with the expansion of her usual rights, a temporary departure from everyday norms of behavior, even in areas that are usually associated with strict prohibitions (for example, in sexual behavior). The latter especially applies to holidays in line with the tradition of the cult of fertility and erotic cults, which have left strong traces in many cultures.
Often a holiday is combined with characteristic forms of entertainment that give the individual the opportunity to discharge, allow him to participate in the universality of festive laughter, affecting him in a purifying way.
Many aspects and functions of the holiday, various secondary (in relation to the main) values that are updated and become available during the celebration, a whole range of events, each of which can be a source of satisfaction for a person, attract his attention just like the unique mood of the holiday, his atmosphere, colorfulness and dynamism - all this contributes to the fact that during this period a person acquires the possibility of a much fuller life than on weekdays.
But it would be a mistake to see in the feast and celebration some ideal condition, only a happy and joyful fragment of a person's life. In reality, things are much more complicated: the festive period is accompanied by typical difficulties, tensions, conflicts and states of disappointment. A holiday is a time in which collective activity is activated, connections and group affiliations, social roles and positions are revealed. It is the holiday, with its mood and general expectation of the unusual, that especially painfully exposes the failures of human destinies, the difficulty of the situations in which a person finds himself through his own and not through his own fault. Loneliness, feeling abandoned, lack of contact with other people during the holiday hurts a person more than ever, and can even lead to mental breakdown. Exiles, prisoners, the sick, the crippled, the destitute, especially dramatically feel their detachment from the world or the inferiority of their participation in life.
Revealing the true position of the individual in society, his rank, wealth or poverty, his capabilities, the holiday for individuals turns out to be the time of the greatest humiliation, the degree of which increases with the intensification of rivalry between the celebrants, and, as we have already said, it manifests itself in the most diverse forms. Holidays are fraught with the threat of an explosion of conflicts between people who should just forget about them at this time, but in reality it turns out differently: the holiday activates human clashes and dramatizes them.
With the disappearance of the belief in the value of the holiday, both its idea and the celebration itself, with the weakening of the connection with the celebrating group, the individual begins to avoid the holiday in one way or another, move away from it. When sanctions for such behavior on the part of a community of people weaken, at least some representatives of this community use the opportunity for spiritual or physical (and sometimes both) flight, just not to participate in the indicated period in collective life. Sometimes a departure from some type of holiday is the result of a change in a person’s worldview: breaking, for example, with a religious holiday, he can at the same time actively join in the celebration of revolutionary or national anniversaries. Modern people in developed industrial-urban societies, belonging to different social groups, often celebrate according to different calendars: breaking with one, they stick to another.
Back in the 19th century the French philosopher P. J. Proudhon, in his study of the day off, argued that there is no social equality in relation to the holiday, since for the educated and rich all days are the same, they, in fact, have no days off. Therefore, it can be assumed that the need for a holiday will always decrease where wealth and the level of education increase, where a person does not have to work much and hard, when his ties, especially emotional ones, weaken with the traditional celebrating groups to which he formally belongs, when he does not depend on the rhythm of nature and rationally determines the rhythm of his own life. The need for a holiday decreases with the disappearance of metaphysical interests and a cooling towards ideology, the strengthening of rationalism, pragmatism and the cult of individualism, expressed in the desire to protect personal life from extraneous encroachments and in discretion in this personal life, in the right to intimacy, to isolation in one's own circle of fundamental right modern man.
However, under such conditions, does the need for a holiday disappear altogether? I think not, since the disappearance of the deepest reasons for the establishment of a holiday, the differentiation of human time and the disappearance of the need for public manifestation, renewal and veneration of the collective values associated with this time are far from the same thing. After all, such values are still necessary for such a life of a person that would satisfy him. Therefore, with the disappearance of the holiday, both in public life and in individual life, the longing for celebration and the emergence of various surrogates for the holiday are commonly observed phenomena.
In order to investigate the attitude to the holidays of Tambov residents, we compiled several questions and conducted a survey among 30 residents of Tambov. (Appendix 4).
Among them, we have identified three groups according to age:
1 group - 14-25 years old;
group 2 - 30-55 years;
Group 3 - 60-75 years old. (diagram 1)
Diagram 1
Number of respondents by three age categories
We asked questions on the central streets of Tambov and, having asked the first question, we came to the conclusion that basically the favorite holidays of the inhabitants of Tambov are New Year, Birthday and St. Valentine's Day (for young people), Victory Day (for the older generation ) and Christmas, Easter (in middle-aged people).
It was clear from people's responses that:
Residents of Tambov in the 1st age group 14 people (from 14 to 25 years old) named New Year, Birthday and St. Valentine's Day as their favorite holidays;
2 age group of 7 people (from 30 to 55 years old) named mainly such holidays as Easter and Christmas;
The 3rd age group of 9 people (from 60 to 75 years old) very often named Victory Day among their favorite holidays.
When answering the second question, associations with the word "holiday", there is also a division. In the younger age group, most often it is the word "fun", and in the older one - "joy", in the middle one - both words are equally common.
So, people always associate a holiday with a good mood and positive emotions. What about the eldest age group a very important element of the holiday is communication with relatives and friends, which they lack so much.
Next, we asked to complete the phrase: “For me, a holiday is ...” When answering, we saw that the associations and influence of the holiday on the life of every person are certainly positive, and for each respondent, the holiday is a positive moment in life.
From this study, we can conclude that:
In the course of this thesis, we got acquainted with the origin, functions, social and cultural significance of the holiday, considered as a constant and widespread phase in people's lives from ancient times to the present day. Awareness of the place that the holiday has occupied and occupies in human culture is very important precisely because this institution is in crisis in many countries.
Understanding the essence of the holiday, the diversity of the functions it performs, is necessary, first of all, to preserve the ability to understand the past of one's own social group, one's own society, people, as well as the history of other societies. By ceasing to understand the holiday in all its aspects, we lose the key to understanding previous generations, their lives and culture, so organically associated with the holidays. But it is precisely the problem of preserving continuity, connection with the past, the problem of historical consciousness, especially among young people, that is one of the important problems of modern culture in countries that are undergoing profound changes, oriented towards the future and its creation.
But knowledge and understanding of the holiday as a phenomenon of the past is only part of the problem. The main question is connected with the modern and future role of the holiday, with its place in the culture that we are currently striving to create and develop. Recognizing the holiday as an institution directly related to the values of social life, we must also recognize it as a necessary link in the tireless efforts to preserve and disseminate these values. Culture does not revive itself, the world of human values must be renewed and rebuilt by the constant efforts of people. Therefore, the mechanisms that serve this renewal, reminder, awareness of values, integration of community members around them through collective action are also important. Utopian is the point of view that this goal can be achieved with the same success on ordinary, everyday days. For a holiday is also an expression of people's attitude to time, to its periods, a manifestation of the awareness of differences in time: after all, historical, social, cultural time is always different. One can refuse or renounce one or another way of distinguishing it, discard the meaning of mythical or legendary time - it is difficult to refuse to distinguish time in general. Social life would then be replaced by a monotonous and pragmatic, rationally repeating cycle of production and consumption, periods of work and rest, a cycle in which there would be no place for individual dates and anniversaries, for traditional, key moments. life together, For unusual days. Since ancient times, many of these days are closely associated with cyclical turning points in the life of nature, the world around us. One of the many problems of modern culture is the consequences of pollution of the natural environment as a result of human activity, isolation from nature, of which we are all part. A holiday is often a form of connection with nature, a way of collective awareness of its life, rhythm. By destroying traditions and the need for a holiday, we weaken our ties not only with history and its rhythm, but also with the rhythm of nature.
In the past, the holiday was one of the main sources of creativity, the engine of cultural development. A weekday, even with its best organization, can hardly fully replace this creative function of the holiday. The withering away of the holiday in society impoverishes a significant part of the soil on which culture flourished for thousands of years.
Finally, from the point of view of personal development, the experience of participating in a holiday is something unique, unrepeatable. With the fading of the holidays, the possibility of such an experience is reduced, life is impoverished, and the cultural chances of a person are reduced.
All the data that we currently have indicates that the holiday finds its place in modern culture. The ancient institution adapts to the requirements of the era and its conditions.
What is the perspective of the holiday in Russian culture? It can be concluded that along with traditional holidays, the vitality of which in our country turned out to be greater than in many other societies, religious holidays (Easter, Christmas, etc.) will develop and take root, which are being revived after a long oblivion and from which culture draws its juices. Russian people.
Conclusion
In the course of the thesis, we considered the holiday as a historically emerging and developing element of modern culture and came to the following conclusions:
The holiday activates and intensifies cultural life, primarily because at this time, free from everyday duties, the main, at least important for the celebrating group, values that give meaning to human life and are characteristic of a given culture and stage are manifested, updated and openly affirmed. its development, historical existence.
The holiday, through the renewal of values, a reminder of important events associated with it, plays the role of a powerful mechanism for the transmission of cultural traditions from generation to generation, allows people to exercise their cultural self-identification.
The holiday plays a certain role in the process of socialization of the individual, her awareness of her place and attitude to social groups. With its emotional climate, spectacle, extraordinary, often fun and abundance, the opportunity to take advantage of benefits that are not available in everyday life, gifts, entertainment and deviations from the usual rules that restrict human behavior, the holiday has attracted children and youth for thousands of years, deeply sinks into their memory. First of all, it turns out to be a reason for self-identification - on the days of the holiday, young people are often more clearly aware of themselves, their unity with a social group than on other occasions. The ceremonial, rite, holiday custom serve as an excellent school of cultural tradition, to which young people join in a natural and dignified way - through direct participation in the celebrations. Knowledge of the festive ritual and custom is, on the one hand, a condition for actual participation in the holiday, on the other hand, a feature of belonging to a certain group and its culture. During the holiday in various forms - spectacular, verbal, symbolic, metaphorical or dramatic, realistic - the past of the group, mythical and historical, as well as the present, the current situation is displayed. Therefore, the holiday also serves to orient the youth in the time in which the group lived or lives, including every representative of the younger generation who considers himself to be in this group.
A holiday is a period of performance of special social roles in an open, public, collective way. Regardless of whether the usual, normal social structure with its hierarchy appears publicly, or a different, even reverse structure is temporarily created, the holiday always acts as a period when such roles are emphasized, expressed most clearly and unambiguously. The king, bishop, president or rector appears during the feast in their respective robes and regalia; as a rule, the costume of the host, head of festive entertainment, satirical performances, just like his words, defines and emphasizes his function. On holidays, honored people put on orders, rich people - jewelry, members of corporations, professional associations - specific forms or insignia, artists - tragic or comic masks. Social and cultural roles are exposed at this time in a way that they never are exposed in everyday life.
The need for a holiday and celebration is not only a natural, but also a cultural need, and therefore it must be revived again in each new generation. A person's attitude to the holiday is determined primarily by the early periods of his life and socialization, childhood and adolescence, when in the process of education he perceives the cultural norms, customs and, most importantly, the values of the older generation. The participation of an individual in the celebration is an important evidence of his stable connection with the group celebrating the holiday, an indicator of the assimilation of its cultural values. This argument is especially important when the mechanisms of control and coercion in celebrating are weakening, when celebrating is increasingly becoming - as the modern world testifies - a voluntary act of a person, thus showing his desire to participate in collective life and his attitude to its values.
In the course of this thesis work, we conducted a study of the role of the holiday in the life of Tambov people.
In order to investigate the attitude to the holidays of Tambov residents, we compiled several questions and conducted a survey among 30 residents of Tambov. Among them, we have identified 3 groups according to age:
1 group - 14-25 years old;
group 2 - 30-55 years;
Group 3 - 60-75 years old.
We asked all respondents the following three questions:
- What is your favorite holiday?
- Name the words that come to your mind in connection with the word "holiday".
- Complete the sentence: “For me, a holiday is ...”
From this study, we concluded that:
- Regardless of age, the holiday causes only positive emotions.
- For young people, the holiday is associated with fun, gifts, festivities.
- For older people, the holiday turns into a day of communication with relatives and friends.
- Middle-aged people have different points of view on the holiday, nevertheless, joy, fun and communication are very often called by them as attributes of culture.
So, along with traditional holidays, the vitality of which in our country turned out to be greater than in many other societies, religious holidays (Easter, Christmas, etc.) will develop and take root, which are being revived after a long oblivion and from which the culture of the Russian people draws its juices.
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The holiday phenomenon is one of the most stable elements of the cultural continuum, "the primary form of human culture" (MM Bakhtin). However, the holiday never belonged to any one synchronous section of culture, it always permeated this section vertically, coming from the past and leaving for the future. The existence of a holiday is determined by the semantic field of the culture in which it exists. In festive types of life activity, behavior and consciousness, socially subjective moments of the life of society take shape and acquire relative independence (the holiday accumulates and refracts the philosophical, social searches of the era, reflects the changing relationship between the individual and society, etc.). The development of culture not only does not remove, but even more actualizes the question of the meaning of the holiday.
Modern holiday culture is a bizarre symbiosis of various types and genres of the holiday. The festive text is arbitrarily composed of layers of various semiotic systems: the ideas of both masquerade and carnival cultures, and the tradition of dressing up, etc. are widely used. The festive element combines elements of both Christian (Christmas, Easter, etc.) and pre-Christian pagan holidays (Maslenitsa, Ivan Kupala Day), fragments of "Soviet" customs and rituals (May 1, November 7) and fundamentally new forms (film festivals, presentations, shows, etc.). Along with this, contacts with previously unfamiliar customs and traditions are expanding, which has found expression in the celebration of Tatyana's Day, St. Valentine's Day, Halloween, and Catholic Christmas.
Diversity in the "holiday offer" market indicates that the holiday is looking for new mechanisms for its implementation and can be considered as the next stage of its evolution, and, consequently, as a new era in its comprehension.
MeaningholidayHowgroundsAndformsbeing
The holiday phenomenon is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that cannot be interpreted as a simple mechanical sum of terms. Here, these terms are in interaction and are closely intertwined with each other. It is impossible to penetrate into the essence of the holiday and explain its role in culture and social life, guided by any single principle. Absorbing the experience of culture and art, the holiday appears as a complex synthesis, using various types of artistic activity in its own way.
The holiday has been the subject of scientific study more than once. Considerable experience has been accumulated in this, but it is scattered across various branches of knowledge: ethnography, folklore, art history, sociology, cultural theory, as well as in the experience of creative workers - directors of mass theatrical spectacles, theater critics, designers, etc. However, complete and exhaustive answers on such fundamental questions as the essence of the holiday, its place and role in the development of culture and art, its connection with other aspects of public life - not yet. Therefore, the need for theoretical work on the holiday is relevant today.
Research interest in the phenomenon of the holiday arises in domestic science in the 30s of the 19th century. I. M. Snegirev was the first to formulate a theoretical definition of the holiday and was able to characterize some of its essential moments. His work "Russian Folk Holidays and Superstitious Rites" (1837) contains relatively accurate and very vivid characteristics of folk holidays, as well as a presentation of their aesthetic and sociological problems. The merit of Snegirev is also that he associated the holiday not with one of the types of labor activity, not with one of the sides of the spiritual world of people, but with the people's worldview and life in general.
Work in this direction (let us conditionally designate it as empirical-descriptive) was continued by A. P. Sakharov, A. V. Tereshchenko and others. They created multi-volume works on Russian holidays, but they do not reveal the general theory of the holiday. The weak side of these works is a shallow philosophical level, the priority of the empirical principle, descriptiveness, and the strong side is the detail, rich factual material, clarity, thoroughness in the study of individual festivities. Snegirev and his followers for the first time drew attention to the essential relationship of holidays to free time and time in general. Holidays, named after saints or events of the church calendar, were interpreted by them as designating periods of time calculation in accordance with those calendar cycles that are inherent in nature itself, in the change of seasons. Related to this is the attempt made by Snegirev to periodize holiday types by season, which later formed the basis of the cyclical concept of the holiday. The creation of a general theory of the holiday was first undertaken by a group of scientists representing the mythological trend in folklore. This group included A. N. Afanasiev, F. I. Buslaev, A. A. Potebnya. Supporters of the mythological direction on the basis of the "solar" concept tried to typologize the festivities in their own way in accordance with the theoretical assumption that people view nature as a struggle between summer and winter. According to this typology, the originality of folk holidays and festive rituals is subject to the division of the year into summer and winter cycles, and spring appears as the threshold of summer, and autumn - winter. The order of holidays throughout the year proceeds in the form of an ascending curve from Christmas to Ivan Kupala and a downward curve from Ivan Kupala to Christmas. These curves form not four, as Snegirev believed, but a two-cycle holiday calendar of the year, in which the summer and winter solstice are the strong points. By this, the supporters of the mythological direction recognized a certain ideological independence of the holiday as a phenomenon of spiritual culture, its relative independence from the labor process. They recorded not only the connection of this phenomenon with the life of nature, but also pointed out the attachment of holidays to turning points, crisis moments of nature.
Representatives of the subsequent direction in folklore, the so-called school of borrowing, which was represented by E. V. Anichkov, A. N. Veselovsky, V. F. Miller, brought the study of Russian folk festivals out of the framework of national isolation, showed the similarity of ancient, Byzantine, Slavic and Romanian rituals. - spectacular forms. From this similarity, not entirely correct conclusions are drawn. Thus, Veselovsky believed that Russian Christmastide is nothing but Roman saturnalia, passed through myths to buffoons and transmitted through them from Byzantium to Romanians and Russians. Supporters of this school also focused on the most general, mainly aesthetic and cultural features of the traditional holiday, expressing a number of interesting ideas and observations on this matter.
In polemics with various kinds of mythological concepts, the so-called "labor" theory of the holiday, characteristic of Soviet ethnographic science, took shape. It is based on the social and labor activity of a person, considered as the main and only source of the holiday, its calendar and ritual forms. An adherent of this theory is V. I. Chicherov, for whom the connection between the holiday and labor is decisive. In the work "The winter period of the Russian agricultural calendar of the XVI - XIX centuries." the author analyzes many meaningful aspects of the Russian agricultural holiday. The weak point of this concept is that all other types of festivities are outside the scope of this theory.
A variation of the "labor" theory is the concept of V. Ya. Propp, according to which: 1) folk holidays are based on mythology; 2) ritual-spectacular forms of the holiday are characterized by magical content; 3) holiday rituals, entertainment and games are a kind of model of everyday peasant labor, a holiday is a kind of continuation of labor, a free repetition of the skills, customs, and relationships that have developed in labor.
The "labor" theory of a holiday is in many respects similar to the recreational concept, which explains the origin, calendar and content of holidays as an alternation of the rhythms of work and rest, as a response to the need for rest (N. O. Mizov, S. T. Tokarev).
Conceptually, the theory of M. M. Bakhtin, set forth in the book "The Creativity of Francois Rabelais and the Folk Culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance", is presented most clearly today. According to this theory, the holiday not only duplicates labor, summing up the results of the labor cycle and preparing the participants of the holiday for a new phase of working life, but, most importantly, it constantly proclaims the people's ideal of life, with which it was originally associated. A holiday, according to Bakhtin, is not just an artistic reproduction or reflection of life, but life itself, designed in a playful way and, therefore, associated with human culture. But the holiday represents and embodies it in a very different way than does labor that produces material things, or artistic activity, focused on the creation of works of art. Without denying the connection of the holiday with either labor activity or art, this concept draws attention to the special social and artistic specificity of this phenomenon, which is on the border of art and reality. Bakhtin also gives an example of a concrete historical interpretation of the carnival as a holiday: firstly, as a manifestation of the two-world nature of medieval life (official and popular); secondly, as a "second life of the people", as a situation of lifting prohibitions, a temporary exit beyond the normal order of life; thirdly, as a special ideal-real type of communication between people; fourthly, as a moment of temporary, but from this no less significant victory of "laughter and material bodily bottom"; fifthly, "unofficial popular truth" over the official high, sublime, but super-mercenary and one-sided idea of "above". Bakhtin essentially laid the foundation for considering the holiday as a culturological phenomenon, singled out the most stable features and categories of this many-sided phenomenon ("holiday time", "holiday space", "holiday worldview", "holiday freedom", "holiday laughter").
Etymologically, the word "holiday" itself is borrowed from Church Slavonic and goes back to the Old Russian "empty", which means "empty, that is, free, unoccupied, in other words, idle"
V. I. Dahl's etymological sequence is as follows: "idle, about a place, space, unoccupied, empty; to celebrate, to be idle, or not to do, not to work." Dal interprets the holiday itself as "a day dedicated to rest, not business, not work, the opposite of everyday life, a day celebrated according to the charter of the church or on an occasion related to the area, to the face"
Thus, the word "holiday" means a certain period of time when one does not do business. It characterizes such free time when something is celebrated, for example, a certain event that needs to be distinguished from the stream of other events. The latter is achieved in a festive rite, ritual, that is, in a certain symbolic action.
In Russian science, this interpretation of the holiday goes back to Snegirev. “The very word holiday,” he wrote, “expresses abolition, freedom from everyday work, combined with fun and joy. A holiday is free time, a rite is a significant action, an accepted way of performing solemn actions; the latter is contained in the first”
MainfunctionsholidayVsystemculture
The deep internal inconsistency of the holiday is also reflected in the fact that it performs in the sociocultural system two most important, contradictory and at the same time closely interconnected functions: ritual-participatory (in which the social-integrative potential of the holiday is manifested) and ritual-laughter. (in which the playful, grotesque and laughter beginning of the festive culture is reflected). Different types of holidays in different eras in various cultures are characterized by a different ratio of distinguished functions: the predominance of one or the other determines the historical "face" of the holiday.
In principle, holidays can be classified according to various criteria. Their classification in this special course is based on a functional criterion, namely, the relationship between ritual-participative and ritual-laughter functions. The predominance of one or the other determines belonging to the participatory or ritual-laughter type. A classic example of the first type of holidays are religious ones, ranging from the celebration of the New Year in ancient Babylon to christian christmas, the second - carnival: from the Roman Saturnalia to the Latin American carnival.
A distinctive feature of participatory holidays is the predominance of mood, which can be characterized as "felt seriousness". This kind of psychological attitude is due to the feeling of familiarization with the highest values, belonging to the rhythms of the cosmos. Such an experience is associated with deep joy, however, this is a special "sacred" joy, not at all entertainment. Although the moment of entertainment is present here, it does not determine the main tone of the holiday.
By virtue of its very nature, the participatory type, as a rule, is institutionalized to a much greater extent, while in the ritual-laughter variety, that feature of the festive culture that is associated with the “reversal” of the established order, the temporary violation of accepted norms, freedom from dominant values.
It should be emphasized that we are talking about the predominance of one of the functions: there are almost no holidays that are entirely reduced to either a ritual-participative or ritual-laughter principle. As a rule, even with the dominance of one of the parties, the second still continues to be present. At the same time, the ritual-laughter and ritual-participative functions can either be brought together, or divorced, or they can oppose each other within the framework of one or another variety of festive culture.
HolidayAndlaughter
Despite the importance of other components of this culture, it should still be emphasized that a very special, key role in it is played by such a cultural and psychological phenomenon as laughter. This is directly due to the fact that the "zone of laughter" in the human community becomes a zone of contact. Here the contradictory and incompatible are united, it comes to life as a connection ”(M. Bakhtin). As the experience of history shows, laughter is one of the decisive factors contributing to overcoming huge, often spiritual distances between civilizational traditions that were originally alien to each other. Moreover, the role of laughter is greatest in that kind of holiday, which is characterized by the dominant ritual-laughter function - in the carnival. This circumstance determines the very significant significance of the holiday in general and the carnival in particular in the world dialogue of cultures.
HolidayAndtradition
The functions of the holiday as an integrator and stabilizer of the social system are directly related to the fact that it is the most important element of the mechanism of tradition, plays a huge role in the preservation and transmission from generation to generation of socially significant information regarding the main value orientations and norms of behavior. Because of this, a holiday always acts as an extremely important factor in socialization: it is through participation in festive ceremonies and rituals in all cultures that the primary familiarization with the norms and values accepted in a particular society takes place.
SpecificityratiossocialAndindividualVfestiveculture
The holiday as a special state of the cultural system is characterized by a very definite relationship between the individual and society, the individual and the collective: the social element in the holiday prevails over the individual. Many human activities can be successfully carried out alone, but never celebrated. As K. Zhigulsky wrote, expressing the general point of view of the researchers of this phenomenon, “holiday and celebrations ... always require the presence, participation of other people, they are a joint action, a common experience”
HolidayHowsocio-aestheticphenomenon
Everywhere the holiday also performs a specific socio-aesthetic function. “In the sphere of the holiday, aesthetic consciousness is born with its ability to appreciate the beautiful and cultivate the imagination, as well as a number of other abilities, including the ability to rejoice and laugh, which objectify themselves at first in syncretic actions, where dance, music, dramatic play, sports competition, etc. .P. are soldered to each other and do not yet claim independent significance - as art forms. (A.I. Mazaev). But even later, having stood out from the originally undivided syncretic whole, various types of art continue to influence the holiday and, in turn, are influenced by the festive element.
Mainstageshistoricalevolution « festive» culture. WaysmodelingtimeAndstagesevolution « festive» culture
The holiday is inherent in all human communities - from primitive to modern. At the same time, a certain stage can be traced in the development of the phenomenon of the holiday. There are grounds to talk about one degree or another of the development of festive culture at various stages of social evolution. So, “we can only talk about the appearance of quite definite holidays dedicated to exact dates only starting with the emergence of high cultures,” however, they “contain all the elements of entertainment and entertainment that arose spontaneously in the bowels of primitive society ...” (Yu. Lips ).
Two historical macro-stages can be distinguished in the development of a holiday as a special cultural phenomenon, depending on what type of historical time the holiday reproduced and modeled.
The cyclic model of historical time is the basis of the holiday at the first, longest stage of its evolution. This situation fully corresponded to the dominance of the cyclic form of social movement in the vast majority of traditional societies. The festive culture at this stage is entirely determined by biocosmic cyclicity. All holidays, starting from primitive times and up to the emergence of the religion of the Old Testament prophets of Palestine, were structured according to the same scheme, characteristic of the mythological type of consciousness and attitude to the world. The content and essence of the holiday was to join the sacred time of the myth, the time of the first creation, "primary objects and primary actions" (when the gods or cultural heroes created the universe and all its components. This time is outside the "usual" time of human life, in fact, outside the real time of human stories.
An entirely new type of festive consciousness began to take shape in ancient Palestine and finally took shape with the advent of Christianity on the historical arena. The idea of cyclic time was surpassed, the notion appeared that time had a beginning and would have an end, that is, in other words, a model of linear time arose. In Christianity, this model turned out to be closely connected with the idea of the Incarnation. Proceeding from the fact that God was incarnated, "accepted a historically conditioned human existence ... Christianity, in comparison with other religions, introduced a new content into the concept and the very knowledge of liturgical time, affirming the historicity of the person of Christ." For the believer, the Christian "liturgy unfolds in some historical time, sanctified by the incarnation of the Son of God"
The emergence on the basis of the Christian type of consciousness in the process of secularization in the 18th-19th centuries. the phenomenon of a secular holiday that is not directly related to the church calendar and the institution of the church. A revolutionary holiday is a special kind of secular holiday.
Holidayoncontemporarystagehistoricaldevelopment
The formation of ideas about historical time with its own dynamics and rhythm different from nature, leading to the emergence of a new dimension of festive culture, did not at all lead to the disappearance of the type of holiday that was associated with biocosmic cyclicity: this type (primarily holidays related to the change seasons) continued to exist in the future - up to the present day.
The modern stage of development of the holiday throughout the world is characterized by the contradictory coexistence of its varieties, based respectively on cyclic and linear models of time. The content of the first is determined by the natural and cosmic rhythms that determine the life of those human communities in which the legacy of the archaic plays a significant role. Linear historical time is the time of Christian and modern secular holidays.
Changecharacterratiosritual-participatoryAndritual-comicalfunctionsholidayBymeasurehishistoricalevolution
Different historical stages in the development of festive culture are characterized by different correlations between ritual-comic and ritual-participatory functions. In archaic cultures, they are divorced as much as possible, “sacred seriousness” almost absolutely prevails, since any archaic holiday reproduces the sacred time of the first creation and, therefore, is, first of all, an act of participation in the sacred order of the universe (which, however, does not exclude ritual laughter as an obligatory, albeit not the main element of the holiday in this case). In the course of historical evolution, there was a tendency for the gradual convergence of ritual-participatory and ritual-laughter principles, which reaches its maximum in secular, especially revolutionary holidays of modern and modern times.
Although the holiday as a special cultural phenomenon as a whole is characterized by the predominance of the social principle over the individual, with the onset of the "modern era, a new universal trend begins to be observed:" the bifurcation of the once single festive culture", which is characterized by the inclusion in the content of this culture of "a personal, individualistic principle, earlier than it uncharacteristic, and at the same time the loss of national festivity, the collapse of integral sensuality. As a result, this long process “has ... today, firstly, the complete nationalization of the holiday, turning it into an official parade celebration, and, secondly, the habitation of the holiday, or its intimization, which means that this form of culture goes to the other extreme. , into the sphere of domestic or intimate group life ”(A.I. Mazaev). As J. Duvigno noted, some of the most famous French authors who wrote about the phenomenon of the holiday, technical innovations of the 80s. The twentieth century, especially video, in many ways contributed to the increase in the importance of the "intimate and domestic" sphere in the festive culture.
It must, however, be emphasized that the process of the "bifurcation" of the holiday was fully developed only in the West. In none of the other civilizational areas, one can speak of either complete nationalization, or, even more so, complete intimization in the sphere of festive culture, although both trends can be traced everywhere with varying degrees of clarity.
PeculiaritiesholidayVvarioustypescivilizations. « Festive» cultureV « classical» AndV « border» civilizations. Civilizations « classical» And « border» type:criteriadistinctions
"Festive" culture differs significantly in different types of civilizations. In principle, civilizations can be classified on a variety of grounds. The typology of civilizations used in this special course is based on the criterion of correlation between the principles (beginnings) of unity and diversity.
All civilizations are to some extent heterogeneous, they consist of a variety of elements (cultural, ethnic, linguistic, etc.), and at the same time, any of them is an integrity, unified with all the diversity of its components. But the ratio of unity and diversity, homogeneity and heterogeneity is fundamentally different in the great civilizations of the East and West, which can be conditionally designated as "classical", and in civilizational communities of the "border" type. The appearance of the first determines the beginning of integrity, the One. This includes such social and cultural macrocommunities that have arisen on the basis of world religions (“subecumens” according to the definition of G.S. Pomerants), such as Western Christian, South Asian Indo-Buddhist, East Asian Confucian-Buddhist, Islamic. Subecumens have a solid foundation - a relatively monolithic religious value "foundation". Such integrity of the spiritual foundation does not mean uniformity: it can be represented by various numerous religious and ideological traditions. However, within the framework of each of the sub-ecumens, the diverse traditions belonging to it are united in their approach to solving the key problems of human existence.
The specificity of "border" civilizations, in contrast to the "classical", is determined by the dominant diversity, which prevails over unity. The latter, however, is also quite real. However, in this case, there is no whole, relatively monolithic spiritual foundation; the religious and civilizational foundation consists of several qualitatively different parts, the connection between which is extremely weak or absent altogether. As a result, the entire civilizational structure is extremely unstable. Hellenistic and Byzantine historically belonged to the number of civilizations of the "border" type. Of the really existing to this day, this kind of civilizational communities include the Ibero-European1, Balkan, Russian-Eurasian and Latin American.
The predominance of diversity over unity is directly due to the fact that the reality of "frontier" civilizations is the reality of constant and extremely contradictory interaction of qualitatively different traditions and different-stage layers of the historical existence of the people separated by hermeneutic barriers. In this case, not just one “Big Idea” (which can be presented in a variety of variants), penetrating everything, cementing the diversity of the elements that make up civilization (ethnic, cultural, linguistic), but the very interaction of heterogeneous principles acts as an archetype underlying at the heart of the sociocultural system. An archetype of this kind appears in this case not as the result of interaction, which has become its invariant factor, “cast” into certain stable symbolic forms, but as a process of interaction.
MainmanifestationsspecificscivilizationalbuildingVfestiveculture « classical» And « border» civilizations
In the "classical" civilizations, the historical image of the holiday determines the very beginning of unity, the very "Big Idea" that permeates the entire civilizational system. In civilizations of the "frontier" type, the holiday, like all spheres of the "frontier" reality, is the most complex knot of interaction between heterogeneous traditions. It presents all three main varieties of such interaction: confrontation, symbiosis and synthesis of cultures. Examples (see: Ya.G. Shemyakin. Europe and Latin America: interaction of civilizations in the context of world history M., Nauka, 2001).
The “borderline” and “classical” civilizations are characterized by a fundamentally different correlation of interaction systems (which are subsystems of the civilizational macrosystem) “worldly-sacred”, “man-nature”, “individual-society”, “tradition-innovation”. In the civilizational "borderland" the absence of a monolithic spiritual and value foundation inevitably gives more space than in "classical" civilizations to the natural elements (both inside and outside of man and society). The most vivid illustration here is the riot of the vital elements of the Latin American holiday, especially the carnival, which is a genuine "festival of instincts" (A. Lundqvist).
The specific role of the natural factor in the civilizational systems of the “frontier” type is directly related to the fact that such systems are the “embodied anxiety of the border” (Hegel) not only between civilizational traditions of different character, but also between civilization as a special way of human existence and barbarism. Here there is a direct parallel between the phenomena of civilizational "borderline" and the holiday in its historical incarnation, in which it appears as a "dive into chaos" (O. Paz), is a period of temporary rejection of the foundations of the existing social order. However, if in the conditions of "classical" civilizations of this kind, temporary disorder acts as a means of strengthening and updating the order, the existing normativity, the system of values, i.e. of the One that cements the foundation of civilization, the situation is different in the civilizational “borderland”.
A much more significant (compared to "classical" civilizations) role of chaos in the functioning of "borderline" civilizational systems. “Borderline” reality as “chaocosmos” (V.N. Ilyin). In the conditions of "frontier" civilizations, the common feature of this civilizational type is especially strongly manifested in the phenomenon of the holiday - constant balancing on the verge of barbarism. Moreover, the holiday acts as one of the main forms within which such balancing is carried out.
A direct consequence of the presence of a single religious and value base in every "classical" civilization is an ontological balance, due to which the idea of measure comes to the fore in the system of values. This trend manifested itself with particular force within the framework of the direction of civilizational development, which is represented by the line "antiquity - Europe". The concept of measure in the Western tradition is inextricably linked with the idea of the norm, in which laws are embodied (governing both the natural world and the human world), as well as harmony, which is possible only if the principles of measure and norm are implemented.
In the "borderline" civilizations, a completely different approach to the problem of measure (and, accordingly, to the concepts of norm and harmony) dominates, due to the lack of ontological balance, which, in turn, is due to the absence of a monolithic religious and value foundation. At the heart of the spiritual structure of the "borderline" communities lies the idea of constantly crossing the line of measure as a way of being, going beyond the limits set for a person, the idea of the reality of the "borderline" civilization as something fundamentally opposite to the norm.
Since a holiday is always going beyond the existing norms, and in this case there is a direct structural parallel between the phenomena of a holiday and civilizational "borderline".
Conclusion
holiday culture laughter tradition
The study of the traditions of different countries allows you to better understand and study the living conditions of people, their social status, the historical past of the country as a whole and its individual regions.
The nation becomes more friendly, despite the difference in religion. In some cases, there is an exchange of cultural information, when the culture of another country penetrates into the culture of one country, a holiday is borrowed and acquires modified features and traditions of celebration.
Listusedliterature
1. Pinyagin Yu.N. Great Britain: history, culture, way of life. - Perm: Publishing House of Perm. University, 1996. - 296.
2. Satinova V.M. Reading and talking about Britain and the British. Mn.: Vysh. school, 1997. - 255 p.
3. Traditions, customs and habits. M.: INFRA-M, 2001. - 127 p.
4. Nesterova N.M. Regional Studies: UK. - Rostov n / D .: Phoenix, 2005. - 368 p.
5. Mikhailov N.N. Mikhailov N.M. Linguistic and regional studies of the USA - M.: Publishing center "Academy", 2008. - 228 p.
6. Konstantin Vasiliev History of Great Britain: the Essentials. Ed. Avalon, ABC Classics, 2004 (softback, 128 p.)
7. Radovel V.A. Country Studies: USA Phoenix, 2008, 313 p.
8. Leonovich O.A. Country Studies Great Britain: A Textbook for High Schools Ed. 2nd, corrected, added / 3rd - KD University, 2005, 256 p.
9. Golitsinsky Yu.B. UK - Caro, 2007 - 480 p.
10. Petrukhina M.A. USA - history and modernity: a study guide for regional studies. - Keeper, 2008, 480 p.
11. M. Bakhtin The work of Francois Rabelais and the folk culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance Languages of Slavic cultures 2008. 752 p.
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Folk culture is a truly amazing phenomenon. It was created over thousands of years, by natural selection, by anonymous creators - working people, representatives of the people who do not have a special and professional education. Its main constituent subsystems are religious, moral, domestic, labor, health, gaming, entertainment subsystems.
folk culture – a collective concept that does not have clearly defined boundaries and includes cultural layers of different eras from ancient times to the present.(Chistov K.V. Folk traditions and folklore: Essays on theory. L., 1986;) The formation and functioning of the phenomenon of folk culture in an ethnic community or social groups, or communities of various types is associated with the awareness of their belonging to the people. Self-identification with the people, folk traditions in the stereotypes of social behavior and actions, everyday ideas, the choice of cultural standards and social norms, orientations towards certain forms of leisure, amateur artistic and creative practice are manifestations of folk culture. In our time, its common feature is the non-professional status in the sphere of modern multi-layered culture, the non-specialized nature of cultural activity, which, however, does not exclude a high level of skill, skill, knowledge, which is based on fluency in tradition.
Traditional -an important quality of folk culture, which determines both its holistic normative and semantic content, and the social mechanisms of its transmission, inheritance in direct communication from person to person, from master to student, from generation to generation, bypassing institutional and organizational forms.
Folk culture is characterized by syncretic, undifferentiated forms of relationship with the world, which are transmitted in the process of direct communication. Putilov B.N. Folklore and folk culture. SPb., 1994;
Folk culture is best represented folklore, although it is far from exhausted.
Folklore(English) folk lore- "folk wisdom") - folk art, most often oral. Artistic, collective, creative activity of the people, reflecting their life, views, ideals, principles; created by the people and existing among the masses (Berezkin Yu. E. Thematic classification and distribution of folklore and mythological motifs by area Putilov B.N. Folklore and folk culture. St. Petersburg, 1994;
TO The main aspects of the content of folk culture include: worldview of the people, folk experience, housing, costume, labor activity, leisure, crafts, family relations, folk holidays and rituals, knowledge and skills, artistic creativity.
It should be noted that like any other social phenomenon , folk culture has specific features, among which it is necessary to highlight: an inextricable connection with nature, with the environment; openness, educational nature of the folk culture of Russia, the ability to contact with the culture of other peoples, dialogue, originality, integrity, situationality, the presence of a purposeful emotional charge, the preservation of elements of pagan and Orthodox culture, a sense of humor. its most important characteristic is anonymity, absence of the author. So, there is no author for fairy tales, epics and proverbs, folk songs and laments; the inventors of the ax and wheel, the builders of irrigation facilities of antiquity, etc. are not known. This allows us to talk about folk ethics, folk instruments, folk sports, folk medicine, folk pedagogy, etc. folk culture passed down from generation to generation , constantly replenished, enriched and modified. Afanasiev A.N. The people are the artist: Myth. Folklore. Literature. – M.: Sov. Russia, 1986. - 366 p.
Main and important element folk culture are the holidays with their variety of customs, rituals, ceremonies and rituals.
Holiday in cultural studies, it is customary to define it as: “opposed to weekdays (everyday) period of time, characterized by joy and triumph, singled out in the flow of time in memory, or in honor of someone or something, having an essential connection with the sacred sphere, celebrated in cultural or religious tradition as an institutionalized action that provides it participants max. involvement in this area 1. Cultural studies. Encyclopedia: in 2 volumes / ch. ed. and ed. project S. Ya. Levit. - M. political encyclopedia "(ROSSPEN), 2007. - T. 2. - 1184 p.
Holidays as a phenomenon of folk culture are one of the forms of life of the ethnic group. Over the centuries, the folk festive culture of the Slavs, permeated with archaic beliefs, was constantly transformed, replenished with new elements, mainly under the influence of Orthodoxy. The origins of traditional holidays, customs and rituals lie in ancient times, in a complex interweaving of elements of archaic agrarian-magical ideas and pagan cults.
rite - a chain of symbolic, as a rule, group or mass actions, built in a certain way, designed to mark the events of public or private life in a visual-figurative form. A rite is a set of actions following a strictly established custom in order to formalize events that occupy a special place in the life and work of people. Rites are determined by customs, tradition. Eroshenkov, I.N. Cultural and leisure activities in modern conditions [Text]: / I.N. Eroshenko. - M.: MGIK, 1994. - 43 p.
The history of the study of holidays shows that they have always been closely connected with the living conditions of people, with the ways of obtaining the main means of their existence, with the formation and development of worldview and beliefs. The traditional Slavic holiday is the fate of the people, most closely associated with the earth-breadwinner and the cosmic principle. Therefore, the study of the holiday itself, its current state and transformation processes in it remains relevant and necessary. All this is of no small importance for solving the broader problems of the historical ethnography of the Slavic peoples, since some questions of the formation and preservation of folk culture remain unresolved. In this regard, the appeal to the issues of historical and cultural development, in this case to the issues of festive culture, is relevant, because it retains both the general national and its specific, regional character of many holiday traditions, which in turn can clarify the understanding of the place which is occupied in the cultural history of holidays and festive life of the population of Snegirev IM. Russian folk holidays and superstitious rites. M., 1838. Issue. 1. L The nature of the holiday has long been the object of scientific research. The ancient philosophical system considered the holiday as a phenomenon that had a powerful stabilizing function, contributing to the strengthening of state, moral and religious norms. Aristotle was one of the first to question the significance of festivities. He argued that understanding the nature of a festive existence is as difficult as answering the question "why does a person need life?". For him, a holiday is a time of contact with true spirituality, the meaning of existence. Plato in the Laws shows the significance of the holiday as a meaningful element in the formation of personality: rhythm, harmony and play awaken in people a sense of pleasure and satisfaction, against which physical and moral perfection intensifies. Plato also argued a direct relationship between the preservation of tradition and the inviolability of the state: “If young people shake this uniformity of games, innovate, constantly look for changes, then we have every right to say that there is nothing more disastrous for the state than all this” In the 5th century BC AD Herodotus argued that common Greek holidays were "the third (along with language and race) element that contributed to the consolidation of the Greeks"
In the Middle Ages, the asceticism of philosophical doctrines made a revolution in the assessment of the holiday: the concept of “holiday” was replaced by the concept of “ritual”, which was delayed for a long time in the scientific literature to define mass communications of a solemn nature.
3. Plato. Works: in 3 volumes / Plato; under total ed. A. F. Losev, V. F. Asmus; get in Art. A. F. Loseva; [per. from ancient Greek]. - M. : Thought, 1968. - T. 1. - 623 p.
4. Herodotus. History in nine books / Herodotus; per. and approx. G. A. Stratonovsky. - L .: Nauka, 1972. -
Ritual is a set of conditional, traditional actions, devoid of immediate practical expediency, but serving as a symbol of certain social relations, a form of their visual expression and consolidation. ...
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual
In modern times, when there was a significant increase in scientific interest in research that determined the place of culture in people's lives, rituals and myths were considered as the oldest forms of culture. One of the early Western European thinkers, J. Vico, in his work “The Foundations of a New Science of the Common Nature of Nations” (1725), developed the idea of the formation of the mentality of people in a primitive society on the basis of “divine poetry”.
Scientific theories of the 19th and 20th centuries mainly covered the problems of the formation of meaning-forming factors of the traditional consciousness of peoples and nations. In the 19th century, the theories of the “folk spirit” became widespread, where the specific features of each people were defined as originally peculiar to it and unchanged. These ideas arose in the study of real objects and concepts, such as the psychology of the people and the psychology of the masses. Questions were raised about the emergence and forms of manifestation of mass phenomena and their correlation with the individual formation of personality. Philosophy, psychology, anthropology, ethnography and other sciences have combined their efforts to study the complex, difficult to analyze phenomenon of mythological ritual and festive culture. Their successes became important stimuli in the development of leading schools for studying the problems of mythology and its interpretation, which were of fundamental importance for the further understanding of the holiday. Thus, representatives of the naturalistic or mythological school (A. Kuhn, V. Mannhardt, F. Buslaev, A. Afanasiev, A. Potebnya) analyzed Indo-European mythology on the basis of linguistic data. The anthropological or evolutionist school (E. Taylor, E. Lang, G. Spencer), relying on specific observations of the life of the American Indians, considered mythology to be a reflection of ideas about real life, a “primitive science” that has lost its meaning in connection with the development of modern knowledge. J. Fraser, who came out of the evolutionary school, having collected a large amount of information about rituals and myths, pointed out the priority of ritual over myth. Representatives of the Cambridge school of classical philology (D. Harrison, F. M. Cornford) saw rituals as the most important mechanism for the transmission of religion and art of the ancient world. F. Raglan believed that all myths are ritual texts. 5. Fraser J. J. The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion. / J. J. Fraser; [per. from English]. - M.: Politizdat, 1980. - 831 p.
One of the first scientists to develop a theory of ritual based on human behavior (its efficient logic) was University of Chicago professor Victor Turner. He outlined his views in the books "Symbol and Ritual", "From Ritual to Theater", etc. He considered the ritual as a sign system interacting with the entire mental-emotional sphere. Interest in actions in ritual leads V. Turner to search for typological parallels between ritual and theater. In the 20th century, the problem of the isomorphism of cult, ritual, and theater acquired particular relevance. In the context of anthropological (ethnological) studies by K. Levi-Strauss, M. Eliade, V. Turner and others, a theatrical theory of ritual is being developed, based on the analysis and identification of ethnopsychological factors that give rise to acting as a special way of knowing the world, associated with the activity manifestations of human spirituality .
The awareness of the festive game as an extremely important mechanism of human activity has been developed in a number of works by major Western culturologists. In particular, J. Huizinga argues that during the holidays, humanity "acts out the order of things in nature, as it perceives it" in the form of a stage or competitive, figuratively embodied in action. At the same time, the purpose of the sacrifice, competition or performance is "playing with beauty and relics" .
6. Huizinga J. Homo ludens. (Man playing) / J. Huizinga; per. from the Netherlands and note. V. V. Oshis. -M. : Eksmo-Press, 2001. - 351 p.
In Russian cultural studies (M. Bakhtin, S. Gurevich, V. Propp, O. Freudenberg, A. Losev, D. Likhachev, etc.), festivity is considered as one of the most important ways of regulating behavior in spectacular and game forms of culture, as a special life activity , based on the canonical aestheticization of life with elements of improvisation within the framework of tradition.
M. Kagan, analyzing human activity, notes that “the social essence of a holiday is connected with the collective nature of its perception and participation”, and emphasizes that “collectivity is a spectacle in itself”, thus defining the essence of collective activity in the space of a holiday as a spectacle in which everyone plays their assigned social role.
Recently, there have been trends towards the study of ethnographic realities contained in festive life, in which ethnic specificity is most clearly manifested. Specialists of various fields who study living culture focus on the structure and functioning of “secondary modeling systems”, however, the focus on the characteristics of individual elements of a system divided into parts does not allow us to see the main meaning-forming elements that are preserved in traditional and modern forms of life, in which we see what we define festive acting.
So, the concept of a holiday turns out to be built into one terminological series with the concepts of myth, ritual, tradition, game, structure, which are created by spectacular-game images. All elements combined in a single text of the holiday form a complex visual image that reflects the paradigm of life and corresponds to the picture of reality that is mastered by the mentality and feeling of the people. As an integral structure, any holiday has certain tasks, goals, functions and mechanisms for their implementation.
At first glance, the main function of the holiday is relaxation."Idle" time is associated with rest, leisure, which serves to compensate for physical and spiritual costs on weekdays. But the true meaning of the holiday is much wider. Any holiday is a milestone in history, the completion of stages of life, the time when the end of the natural cycle is celebrated, when the results are summed up, the deep task of which is to show the path to renewal in a frontier situation. The reason for the holiday, the semantic factor of its occurrence is an event perceived by the community as a phenomenon of special importance, on the example of which the paradigm of being is formed. In this regard, it is ritualized: it passes from everyday life or a mythologized past into a festive context and is repeatedly celebrated at a certain time. The event is thereby accentuated, perceived, evaluated and sanctioned by the public consciousness. This psychological mechanism transfers the event from the world of everyday life to the world of intense emotions, since mass experience tends to intensify, experience leads to suggestion. The main motivation for the festive life of people is aimed at creating conditions for the emergence of positive emotions in them, against which the most important value orientations are consolidated.
The holiday is a peculiar phenomenon of collective creativity. Group positive emotions, moods, experiences arise in it, against which important social ideas, ideals, worldview attitudes are formed, reflected in the living fabric of the action. In the process of collective creativity in abstract and concrete-sensual images of real life, stereotypes and codes of behavior formed during the long life of the community, by selecting the best examples of ethnic practice, a spectacular-playful image of the real world is created, carrying the potential of an ideal future. It should be noted that all the elements combined in the context of the holiday play an integrating role, they are not the sum of individual phenomena, but represent a holistic picture, a chronotope that connects the micro- and macrocosm, corresponding to the consciousness of the people.
In the holiday, phenomena and objects, in addition to their actual utilitarian meaning, acquire the meaning of a sign, a symbol: not just food, but a plentiful feast as a metaphor for abundance, cult offering, sacrifice; not ordinary walking, but a procession, a dance; not conversation, but recitation, speeches, toasts, singing; special clothes - festive; ritual, utensils - special ritual, ceremonial, etc. These symbols, various extra-everyday activities (rituality, ritual) create a special metaphorical element of the holiday, in which its aesthetic function is realized. The elements of the holiday involve space, nature, habitat, assimilated in "this period of material and spiritual values".
7. Kagan M. S. Human activity: (Experience of system analysis) / M. S. Kagan. - M.: Politizdat, 1974. - 328 p.
The richest material is revealed in folk festivities, they reflect the events of everyday life, ideas about good and evil, forms of life, work, sacred and aesthetic values that are attractive to the people are affirmed. Due to the fact that any ethnic group is an extremely stable formation and its existence dates back millennia, festivities based on long-term preserved traditions serve as one of the most important ways of adaptation (meaning the crystallization and preservation of many positive knowledge and experience of the people
An important mechanism for creating simulated representations that have established themselves in the ethnic consciousness istradition . Really, cultural tradition - this is a public memory that accumulates the experience of the past, a kind of program, which, as a result of repeated repetition, turns into a stereotype of behavior, which contains information that contributes to the adequate functioning of the community in changing historical conditions. Many traditions have been preserved in holidays for thousands of years, and can be traced among the ethnic group at all stages of historical life from the tribe to the nation. Often their semantics is lost, and ordinary consciousness does not fix their semantic load: "So did the ancestors" - the main explanation of the informants in this case. Tradition is perceived by them as a specific element of ethnic culture. Ethnographers and historians believe that the deciphering and identification of ancient meanings is of scientific interest "in resolving problems associated with ethnogenesis ... exposes the archaic layers of ancient culture" . It should be noted that some traditions are being modernized, while others are completely disappearing. New phenomena of real life pass through the prism of traditionalization. These phenomena, having been assessed by society, are encoded in holiday symbols and are included in the form of innovations in the score of the holiday. Historically, the change of forms is inevitable and continuous; it is carried out both as a result of the direct development of tradition, and in the appearance of new images. This process is complex, conflicting, it becomes an arena of struggle and experiment, during which obsolete elements die off, low-life formations are revealed. Thus, experience is passed down from generation to generation. Through the selection, preservation and transmission of information, carried out by the mechanisms of holidays, the transmission function inherent in it (the holiday) is realized.
Poorly studied and practically unexplored sacred function holiday based on faith. Its task in traditional culture can be characterized as a conditional, but objectified in things and actions, contact with the supersensible, guaranteed by the authenticity of people's feelings. This relationship is stimulated in strictly regulated rituals by the ecstatic elevation of feelings and belief in the correctness of the chosen form of interaction. As a result, the higher forces become that conceivable, but the main viewer, perceiving the whole metaphorical action of the polyfunctional, unfolding image of the performance-holiday. It should be noted that ethnographic data confirm the preservation in the people's minds of ideas about the festive and ritual appeal to divine powers as an effective method. This is especially reflected in the calendar holidays.
There are different ways of specific communication between believers and the deity. It seems interesting to us that an obligatory condition in festive communication is its expressed communication. aesthetic function. The beauty and artistic perfection of the episodes performed are the main guarantor of the successful translation of human aspirations to transcendental forces. During the holiday, which is clear from popular beliefs, the boundaries separating the "profane" and "sacred" worlds are revealed. It turns out that if in everyday life the spatial and temporal boundaries are limited by the material world, then during the holiday the limits limiting people collapse, giving them access to the expanses of deep spiritual and moral purification, catharsis. In this regard, the semiotic status of objects and actions rises. The symbolic form of the rituals, mysterious at first glance, was formed and established as high spiritual values. In a holiday, good forces are always opposed to destructive forces, life to death, beginning to end.
