Folk images of the forerunners of the Great Patriotic War: An experience in systematization and decryption
Authors:   Federal Research Centre The Southern Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ryblova Marina Aleksandrovna 
Published: February 2023

The article presents an experience of systematization and decryption of images of the harbingers of the Great Patriotic War from the oral stories of the Russian-speaking population of Russia. Considering the signs of war as elements of collective folk memory of crisis situations, the author solves the problem of identifying the main differentiating features for the development of future typology and of deciphering these images and related folk ritual practices and the constant alternation of periods of prosperity and disaster. Adhering to the methodology based on the understanding that typological schemes of cultural elements in folklore and ethnography should be based on folk ideas about their most important properties (i.e., on folk typology), the author suggests using two main features as differentiating signs of images-signs of war: the symbolization of the violation of the norm (in the direction of diminution or overabundance) and the place of the violation (the celestial sphere, the earth, channels of communication between them). Thus, the status of a sign could automatically acquire any image first recorded in the sky due to the sacralization of the heavens themselves in the folk tradition. Most of these images can be interpreted as warning signs of the coming war (comets, new stars, pillars of light); many of them are associated with the theme of confrontation and struggle (fighting riders, roosters, troops), they, in fact, reproduce the picture of the future. As for the earth sphere, most of the signs associated with it symbolize the violation of a certain norm, correlated, according to the author, with the popular concept of the fate (including the common fate), which is violated in the direction of loss or, conversely, abundance, and therefore (to resolve the crisis) must be updated and re-shared in the course of special rites. Finally, part of the images-signs of war in folk stories is associated with the so-called communication channels between the earth and celestial spheres (wells, springs, streams). Violations occurring in this system (channels are either “clogged”, or, on the contrary, functioning with excess) lead to violations of the norm - the fate in the sphere of the earth (in the direction of material abundance), and in the sacred (in the direction of its impoverishment). Images of naked women and wolves appearing to travelers on the road can also be considered as symbols of such violations. Identifying the semantics of these images, the author also shows the implementation of the ideas embodied in them in folk ritual practices aimed at “overcoming” the war and its consequences associated with the concept of the fate, its collective renewal, new redistribution and collective responsibility. It is also shown that the oral stories especially actualize Christian motives (deviation from the faith, service to the devil's forces) related to the large-scale destruction that took place in the religious life of the country in the pre-war period and the people's understanding of its consequences.