Article

Name: Belarusian summer rituals and songs recorded in the Omsk Priirtyshye. Characterization of archival materials

Authors: S. A. Myasnikova

Institute of Philology of the SB RAS, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation; Omsk State University of F. M. Dostoevsky, Omsk, Russian Federation

In the section Обрядовый фольклор

Abstract:

The article focuses on analyzing archival materials from Omsk that pertain to the summer period of the Belarusian resettlement calendar. The analysis covers various sources, including the folklore and ethnographic funds of Omsk, such as the Omsk State Pedagogical University Folklore Archive, the regional Fund of Folklore and Ethnographic Materials of the State Folk Art Center, the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography of Omsk State University, and personal archives of traditional culture researchers and regional publications. The author meticulously reviewed and considered all the available records, encompassing the period from 1951 to the most recent expedition materials of 2010–2021. The specific regions in the Omsk Priirtyshye, where recording and living traditions are found, have been determined. Additionally, the areas where Belarusian settlers came from (Chernigov, Vitebsk, Mogilev, Minsk, and Vilna provinces) have also been identified. The study presents numerical indicators of the documented Priirtysh fixations, including seasonally scheduled summer customs and songs (Trinity, Ivan Kupala, and Petrov Day), occasional rituals, mythological tales (featuring fortune-tellers and witches during Ivan Kupala, the legend of the fern flower, mermaids, beliefs about the cuckoo, and summer divination). The Omsk archival material is evaluated in terms of its content quality, representativeness, and potential for in-depth analysis using textual, musical-typological, dialectological, and areal criteria. Previously unreleased archival texts that illustrate the described tradition are being introduced into scholarly circulation. This article is an introduction to a series of extensive studies on the summer calendar of Belarus, which were documented in the Omsk Priirtyshye region.

Keywords: Belarusian settlers, Belarusian summer rites and songs, Omsk Priirtyshye, folklore-ethnographic archives

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