Article

Name: Calendar and seasonal folklore of the Chuvash in the context of the Siberian diaspora

Authors: Ekaterina I. Ismagilova

Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section Study of folklore

Abstract:

This paper attempts to characterize the calendar works of the Chuvash calendar-ritual and seasonally timed folklore recorded in various localities of the Siberian region. A description of the ethnographic context and an analysis of the text content are provided. The corpus of this study comprises accounts from tradition bearers concerning holiday celebrations and folklore samples, specifically winter congratulatory round songs (Surkhuri festival), Maslenitsa, and round dance songs, documented among descendants of Siberian-Chuvash settlers between 2003 and 2024. The Surkhuri festival folklore texts feature livestock fertility blessings for household hosts alongside humorous threats directed at stingy hosts. Maslenitsa songs (çăvarni yurri) predominantly celebrate youth sleigh-riding festivities. Round-dance songs (văyă yurri) exhibit diverse thematic content encompassing dance celebrations, spring nature depictions, and lyrical-philosophical meditations on life and its transience, and others. A thorough examination of the poetic text in both the Maslenitsa and Peter the Great songs reveal the presence of recurring patterns in their organization. These patterns include the use of aphorisms, cumulative stanza construction, and figurative parallelism. Currently, these calendar and seasonal folklore works have transitioned to passive preservation status. Their performance is characterized by festive, entertaining, and communicative functions. In a similar way, the shift in functional affiliation, away from the ritualistic and magical domain, defines the existence of calendar folklore in its originating territory, the Volga region.

Keywords: folk songs of the Chuvash of Siberia, calendar folklore, seasonally-timed folklore, Siberian-Chuvash diaspora, folklore of Siberian settlers

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