G. E. Shkalina (Yohkar-Ola, Russia). Mari holiday of Peledysh Payrem: crossroads of spiritual traditions

Galina E. Shkalina,
Doctor of Cultural Studies, Professor, Head of the Department of Culture and Arts,
Mari State University
(Yoshkar-Ola, Russia), galina_shkalina@mail.ru

Introduction. There is a special holiday in the traditional festive culture of the Mari people. It appeared in 1920 as a result of a new proletarian culture based on the archaic Mari rites: Agavayrem and Lyshtash Payrem / Semyk and it was called Peledysh Payrem (“Flower Festival). The purpose of this article is to analyze the unique national Soviet holiday, which was established at the crossroads of the spiritual traditions of the Mari people. In XXI century, it became the interregional public holiday. The research considers festive culture as a dialogue between the past and the present in the ethnocultural tradition, as its dynamics in the conditions of “Sovietness” and post-Soviet times, as a reflection of the transformations of the Mari ethnic identity. The author proposes a culturological discourse for analyzing the Peledysh Payrem holiday as representation of the cultural memory of the Mari people in the XX–XXI centuries.
Materials and Methods. The sources that made it possible to consider the modern Mari holiday Peledysh Payrem in its semantic dynamics, determined by transformations in the political, economic, social and cultural spheres, and became the material for studying the stated problem. The author formulates the answers to the research questions posed as a result of the application of a cultural analysis of the sources on this topic, the use of historical-comparative, hermeneutic methods, and a semiotic approach.
Results and Discussion. In any national culture, there are holidays as its most ancient and constantly reproduced element. In certain periods of history, they may experience decline or revival, depending on the dynamics of the value system. While the value / idea is alive, it can be represented in festive rites. With the decline of faith, the need for a holiday disappears. A new idea appears and a new holiday appears. In the history of the culture of the Mari people, this happened with the holiday Peledysh Payrem, the peer of the Mari autonomy. Initially it was called Yoshkar Peledysh Payrem (“Red Flower Festival” or “Red Flower Festival”). The semantics of the red color clearly indicated the red color background of the October Revolution, the triumph of the new social system in the new Russia. From the very beginning, the new holiday personified the transformation of the old festive tradition, very significant for the Mari people, and acquired a new symbolic and semantic meaning, new symbolism and semiotics.
Conclusion. An analysis of the transformation of the archaic Mari holidays Agavayrem and Lyshtash Payrem / Semyk into the Soviet and post-Soviet Peledysh Payrem indicates that tradition forms the collective memory of the people, ensures its self-identity and continuity in development. Tradition as a socio-natural mentality serves as a basic value that predetermines the balanced stability of the cultural model. This, in turn, contributes to the formation of modern culture-generating spaces in society.

Key words: Peledysh Payrem; Agavayrem; Lyshtash Payrem / Semyk; Flower Festival; the Mari people; culture; tradition.

For citation: Shkalina GE. Mari holiday of Peledysh Payrem: crossroads of spiritual traditions. Finno-ugorskii mir = Finno-Ugric World. 2020; 12; 4: 457–467. (In Russian)