E-mail: vsbuzin@front.ru
Tel.: +7 (812) 328-94-478
7/9, Universitetskaya emb., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation
PhD (History), associate professor, Institute of History, St. Petersburg State University
This paper explains origins of a certain ritual episode in the Russian wedding, which on bride entering prescribed a bridegroom to sit horseback on “konik” the bench, namely on a furniture element of a traditional Russian home, which is decorated with a picture of a horse’s head. Since the ceremony can be understood as a dramatization of the myth, its explanation comes from the corresponding mythological story. The author is sure, that it is the arrival of the hero (often an equestrian) after committing heroic deeds that gave him the right to marriage, to visit a woman for the sake of joining with her in marriage. The pattern of “man and woman” is often reproduced in fine art of the ancient world and later times. Among them the author highlights scenes depicted at felt carpets from excavations of gravel-mounts of Pazyryk locality in the Altai, which have dated back to the 5th — 3rd centuries BC, murals of the Royal tombs discovered in Bulgaria and scenes of the metal jewelry, depicting male character’s intercourse with a woman. Last but not least, the plot of “a woman and horsemen” is typical of Russian folk embroidery and we believe it to be inherited from this fine art tradition. Features of the iconography of the female image suggest that it dates back to the cult of the Supreme female deity, “Great Goddess”, which had been worshiped among agricultural tribes of the Neolithic — Chalcolithic ages of the southern European region. The appearance of a male hero, apparently, refers to a later time — the formation of mobile pastoralist cultures of the Bronze age — early Iron age.
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