Finno-Ugric World

Introduction. The article deals with the design and semantics of shaman hats and wedding maiden headdresses in the Udmurt and Russian traditions. The author makes an attempt to identify the genetic connection between shamanic and wedding headdresses.
Materials and Methods. Taking into account the symbolic nature of the costume, the structural-semiotic method with its three levels of research: syntactics, pragmatics and semantics was taken as a basis for the study of traditional headdresses. In addition, the principles of artistic anthropology are used in the work. This field of art studies works of art as a creation of human hands, as a kind of the unique text reflecting the author’s worldview.
Results and Discussion. The shamanic image of the Universe has three levels on vertical and a four-part horizontal. All this is reflected in the symbolism of the ancestral tree. It is the ancestral tree in shamanic ideology that is the giver of new lives and carries out the connection of generations, this is the key figure of shamanic magical practice. This shamanic microcosm is reflected in the symbolism of brides’ hats in both the Russian and Udmurt traditions. A similar design of shamanic and women’s wedding headdresses confirms their antiquity and common origin, their genetic connection. The primary idea of the shamanic ancestral tree, the source of new lives and the connection of generations is preserved by tradition. It is intuitive and completely reproduced in a special way in every ethnic culture.
Conclusion. The article examines the design and semantics of shaman hats and wedding maiden headdresses in the Udmurt and Russian traditions. Based on the similarity of the design features of these hats, it was possible to determine the semantics and identify their ancient origin and genetic relationships.

Keywords: shamanism, bride’s headdress, tradition, ancestral tree, world tree

For citation: Molchanova LA. Shamanic microcosm in the symbolism of wedding headdresses in the Udmurt and Russian traditions. Finno-ugorskii mir = Finno-Ugric World. 2023;15;4:483–492. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.15507/2076-2577.015.2023.04.483-492.

Information about the author
L. A. Molchanova – Candidate Sc. {History}, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Technologies and Art Design, Udmurt State University, lusmolchan@mail.ru, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8379-3450

Introduction. This article attempts to review and systematize the main available cosmogonic myths of the Mordovians and Komi with the participation of birds; the data on the bird cult and the image of a divine bird to clarify some specifics of the Finno-Ugric population of Ural-Volga area regarding the myth of the world creation from an egg in comparison with the similar Baltic-Finnish motive.
Materials and Methods. The article is based on the scientific literature, and the collections of folklore. The comparative method makes it possible to compare certain elements of the mythological representations, to identify their common and special features.
Results and Discussion. The myth of the world creation from an egg is present in the tradition of the Baltic-Finnish peoples, Mordovians and Komi. Based on the analysis conducted, the author, along with the version of Balkan-European borrowing, suggests a version of the independent origin of the myth of the world’s creation from an egg in Finno-Ugric and, more broadly, Proto-Uralic mythology. At the same time, it is possible to assume that the hybrid Komi cosmogonic myth could not be the result of interaction with its Western neighbors but preserve the original complex of representations combining the motives of the myth of the diving bird and the world creation from an egg. Thus, it was found out that the image of a divine bird could directly ascend to the most ancient complex of cosmogonic myths which included the motives of the brothers-creators.
Conclusion. The most archaic state of the original cosmogony has been preserved by the Komi mythology. At the same time, the image of a divine bird was further developed in the Mordovian mythology and was inscribed in the patriarchal pantheon headed by Nishkepaz.

Keywords: creation from an egg, world egg, divine bird, Baltic-Finnish peoples, Komi, Mordovians

For citation: Ilikaev AS. Motives of the world creation from an egg in the myths of Baltic-Finnish peoples, Komi and Mordovians in context of the image of the divine bird: a comparative analysis. Finno-ugorskii mir = Finno-Ugric World. 2023;15;4:472–482. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.15507/2076-2577.015.2023.04.472-482.

Introduction. The article attempts to answer the question about the reasons for the decrease in the number of Udmurts in 2010–2021. According to the census data, the reduction across the country over eleven years amounted to 30,0 %, in Udmurtia – by almost a quarter.
Materials and Methods. The sources included published materials from the 2010 and 2021 censuses, as well as unpublished current statistics where understanding of previous trends was required. The following research methods are used: historical-comparative, chronological, statistical.
Results and Discussion. The study showed that the assimilation processes played the greatest role in the decline in the number of Udmurts in 2010–2021. This is evidenced by the significant rates of interethnic marriages among the Udmurts; newborns whose father was not Udmurt; who consider Russian their native language. Such a large-scale reduction cannot be explained by depopulation, since the Udmurt birth rate was higher than the national level, and before 1996 the natural increase rate was also higher. It is also obvious that some of the Udmurts could simply not be counted during the last census.
Conclusion. The study showed that it is necessary to improve the ethnic aspect of statistical reporting. We are talking about both reducing the number of people who do not indicate their nationality in population censuses and reviving current statistics on ethnicity. Without solving this problem, it will be extremely difficult to analyze ethno-demographic processes.

Keywords: Udmurts, demographic processes, depopulation, assimilation, population census

Acknowledgments: The research was conducted with the support of the Russian Science Foundation Grant No. 23-28-01604, available at https://rscf.ru/project/23-28-01604/, at the Udmurt State Agricultural University.

For citation: Uvarov SN. Udmurts: assimilation or depopulation? (to the results of the All-Russian population census of 2021). Finno-ugorskii mir = Finno-Ugric World. 2023;15;4:461–471. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.15507/2076-2577.015.2023.04.461-471.

Introduction. Divinations are common all over the world. Moreover, there are similar trends even in the traditions of ethnic groups isolated from each other, since the craving for knowledge of the future and the search for suitable tools for this is a universal feature of humanity. The article presents a study of the occult practices of the Mordovians from the point of view of their cultural foundations. The religious and magic foundations of divinations as an integral part of the traditional culture of this Finno-Ugric ethnic group are revealed.
Materials and Methods. The material of the study includes the published folklore and ethnographic sources, field materials collected by the authors. The analysis of the material was carried out using the descriptive and comparative methods. The synchronic and diachronic approaches were also applied in the course of study.
Results and Discussion. The study has revealed that in the traditional culture of the Mordovians divinations were carried out using special religious and magical actions to obtain certain information. From this point of view, Mordovian divinations can be classified in two ways. Firstly, individual and collective divinations are distinguished by the number of performers. Secondly, according to the frequency of practice, divinations of the Mordovians could be timed to the main Christian holidays or held on occasion. Divinations were integrated into rituals (funeral, wedding, maternity, family and household), pagan prayers, dream interpretations, and omens. The analyzed examples demonstrate a wide variety of divination practices in the traditional culture of this Finno-Ugric ethnic group. In addition, the level of transformation of divinations in modern Mordovian culture has been determined.
Conclusion. When analyzing traditional Mordovian divinations, various methods of ritual actions and their religious and magical basis were identified for the first time. The functions of divinations are varied. The predominant ones were divinations about marriage, life and death, material security, harvest, and weather. Some of them show similarities with Russian divinations and the divinations of other Finno-Ugric ethnic groups. In modern Mordovian culture, traditional divination has undergone a significant transformation, but has not completely disappeared from existence.
Keywords: Mordovians, divinations, paganism, religious and magic rites, folk signs, dream interpretations, domestic animals, birds

For citation: Devyatkina TP, Panfilova SS. Religious and magic foundations of divinations in traditional culture of the Mordovians. Finno-ugorskii mir = Finno-Ugric World. 2023;15;4:450–460. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.15507/2076-2577.015.2023.04.450-460.

Introduction. In Finno-Ugric studies, as well as in Komi linguistics, an inadequate attention is paid to the study of archaisms as an integral part of the lexical composition of languages. Usually, these lexemes being a part of the passive vocabulary, are a valuable source for studying the history of languages, as well as an important source of lexical renewal, revitalization of the language.
Materials and Methods. The paper is based on the analysis of the language of I. A. Kuratov’s fairy tale “Mikul”; several lexemes and phenomena of syntactic and morphological archaisms that are not found in modern Komi texts are highlighted. The language of the works written in the middle of the XIX century provides interesting material for the study of archaisms of various types. When writing the paper, the traditional methods of linguistic analysis were used, those which have been tested in linguistic studies.
Results and Discussion. Based on the text of the fairy tale of the founder of the Komi literature, Ivan Alekseevich Kuratov “Mikul”, it revealed 4 lexical archaisms (azyam, av/al, perth, rotal), which characterize the usual features of the language of the southern Komi-Zyryans, the speakers of the mid-Sysola dialect. Based on a special survey among the speakers of the modern Komi language, it was revealed that the four identified lexemes are unknown to them both from the point of view of phonetic sound and from the point of view of word meanings. These lexemes, as native dialect words, are not preserved in the language of dialect speakers, nor have they become part of the modern literary language, which indicates the former variability of the written tradition in the XX century. In practical terms, the material of the work suggests the need to comment on the language of I. A. Kuratov’s poetry in future publications of the writer’s classical heritage.
Conclusion. The considered material of archaisms from the text of Kuratov’s fairy tale “Mikul” vividly demonstrates the historical variability of both dialect vocabulary and morphological and syntactic systems, the picture of the Komi language as a whole.

Keywords: the Komi language, lexicology, vocabulary of passive composition, archaisms, lexical archaisms

Acknowledgments: The publication was prepared as part of the implementation of the state task of the Federal Research Centre of Komi Science Centre of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, state registration number of the IYALI project FUUU-2021-0008 “Perm languages in the linguistic and cultural space of the European North and the Urals”.

For citation: Tsypanov EA. Komi lexical archaisms in fairy tale “Mikul” by I. A. Kuratov. Finno-ugorskii mir = Finno-Ugric World. 2023;15;4:441–449. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.15507/2076-2577.015.2023.04.441-449.

Introduction. Phraseological units associated with trades and crafts are widespread in Russian and Moksha subdialects on the territory of the Republic of Mordovia. The purpose of the study is to consider craft and trade phraseology in lexical-semantic and comparative terms, to identify axiological and national-cultural ideas of dialect speakers in the region.
Materials and Methods. The work used various methods and techniques of scientific research: a descriptive method for presenting material extracted as a result of a continuous selection from phraseological dictionaries, a comparative method in the analysis of linguistic facts of Russian and Moksha subdialects, a method of component analysis.
Results and Discussion. In the compared subdialects of the Russian and Moksha languages, phraseological units characterizing regional trades and crafts are actively used. More representative groups of phraseological units represent construction, weaving, spinning, bast weaving, felting felt boots. It is noted that in Russian subdialects the processes that provide and/or accompany the actions of artisans are recorded in more detail, as a result of which phraseological units are of a more differentiated nature. In Moksha subdialects, phraseological units that nominate professional actions themselves are represented to a greater extent; in some cases, attention is focused on the phraseological nomination of a person by the type of his craft.
Conclusion. A study of this kind contributes to the representation of the dialect picture of the world of two peoples who have long lived and organized a common life on the territory of the Republic of Mordovia. It is important to emphasize that the phraseological units of the thematic group under consideration in the subdialects of both the Russian and Mordovian (Moksha) peoples are of an axiological nature, reflecting the attitude towards work, which is indirectly related to the representation of the type of activity, but emphasizes the value and significance of any craft.

Keywords: phraseology, phraseological unit, meaning, subdialects, Moksha language, Russian language, comparison, crafts, trades, nomination

For citation: Mochalova TI, Maslova AYu, Levina MZ. Craft and trade phraseology in Russian and Moksha subdialects on the territory of the Republic of Mordovia. Finno-ugorskii mir = Finno-Ugric World. 2023;15;4:421–431. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.15507/2076-2577.015.2023.04.421-431.

Introduction. One of the important reasons for the high attention to the study of the Veps language is the young system of Veps writing language, the formation of which has been taking place in recent decades. Because of rules development the researchers have to analyze a number of grammatical categories, including the form of the I infinitive considered in the article.
Materials and Methods. The article analyzes the cases of the use of the I infinitive based on dialect materials of the Open corpus of Veps and Karelian languages. It identifies the statistics of the use of these forms in sentences, identifies the patterns of their functioning in syntactic constructions, and identifies the difference or its absence in the use of infinitives in different dialects of the Veps language.
Results and Discussion. The I infinitive is the most common and popular infinitive form in the Veps language, therefore it is represented in a large number of texts available in the Open corpus of Veps and Karelian languages. The analysis showed that the frequency of its use in all dialects of Veps language is approximately the same. The I infinitive performs the roles of subject, object, adverbial and adjective in the sentence, and acts as a predicative as part of the colorative construction. Depending on the syntactic function of the infinitive, several main groups are distinguished as part of the infinitive construction.
Conclusion. The Open corpus of Veps and Karelian languages is a rich source for the study of the Veps language material. It contains a significant dialect base, which, despite the need for its constant replenishment, is valuable and representative for the researcher, and with manual processing allows us to describe the picture of the use of the I infinitive in the Veps language from the point of view of its syntactic role.

Keywords: corpus linguistics, the Veps language, I infinitive, syntactic functions of infinitives

Acknowledgments: The article was prepared within the framework of the state assignment of the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, No. 121070700122-5 “Fundamental and applied aspects of the study of the Baltic-Finnish languages of Karelia and adjacent regions”.

For citation: Kosheleva MV. Features of the functioning of the I infinitive in the Veps language based on the materials of the Open corpus of Veps and Karelian languages. Finno-ugorskii mir = Finno-Ugric World. 2023;15;4:408–420. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.15507/2076-2577.015.2023.04.408-420.

Information about the author
M. V. Kosheleva – Senior Lecturer, Department of Baltic-Finnish Languages, Petrozavodsk State University, Junior Research Fellow, Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History, Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, koshelevamasha@bk.ru, https://orcid.org/0009-0007-9468-9580

Introduction. The article presents the results of the analysis of phraseological units containing a component nenä ‘nose’. It proposes the classification of identified phraseological units in accordance with their semantic features.
Materials and Methods. The research is based on the materials of phraseological and dialect dictionaries of the Karelian language. The principles of the comparative method are applied in the work.
Results and Discussion. In this study, the author pays attention to one of the little-studied groups of phraseological units, namely somatic vocabulary. It considers the semantics of phraseological units containing sensonymic name nenä ‘nose’. In the Karelian language, the lexeme nenä is polysemantic, but in the context of idioms, it occurs exclusively in the meaning ‘nose’. When determining the substantive aspect of the collected linguistic material, it was possible to identify 21 thematic groups, including 63 phraseological units.
Conclusion. The article presents, for the first time, a classification of phraseological units extracted through a systematic sampling method from phraseological and dialect dictionaries of the Karelian language. The researcher focused on fixed combinations containing semantically related lexemes, specifically phraseological units with the somatic component nenä. The diversity identified indicates vivid imagery, simplicity in grammatical and stylistic presentation, folk origin, and the relevance of the content of Karelian phraseological units.

Keywords: Karelian language, phraseological units, semantics, linguistic picture of the world, somat nenä

For citation: Kongoeva AА. Somat nenä ‘nose’ in Karelian phraseological units. Finno-ugorskii mir = Finno-Ugric World. 2023;15;4:401–407. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.15507/2076-2577.015.2023.04.401-407.

Functioning of the Russian borrowings in the vocabulary of Moksha subdialects

Introduction. The article analyzes the borrowed vocabulary from the Russian language in the dialects of the modern Republic of Mordovia and beyond. The subject of the analysis is the quantitative composition and dimorphism of the Russian borrowings in the subdialects of the Moksha language.
Materials and Methods. The authors used various research methods, with the main one being descriptive. Additionally, the elements of the distributional and component analysis methods were applied. The linguistic material consisted of the Russian borrowings extracted from the authors’ field observations, the Moksha-Russian dictionary, and the Mordovian dictionary by H. Paasonen.
Results and Discussion. The structural and semantic features of the Russian borrowings in the subdialects of the Moksha language functioning on the territory of Mordovia and beyond are identified and analyzed. During the research, the reasons were identified, and the main ways of semantic development of individual meanings of words (narrowing and widening) were considered. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that, for the first time, a lexical-semantic analysis of about 100 lexical units functioning in the Moksha dialects’ speech has been conducted. The systematization of the analyzed language units, belonging to various lexical-semantic groups, allowed documenting previously undescribed linguistic phenomena associated with the expressive capabilities of the Moksha dialectal lexicon.
Conclusion. The research has practical significance, and its results can be used in the development of educational and methodological materials on Moksha dialectology, University teaching practices for courses such as “Moksha Dialectology”, “Russian Dialectology”, and related special courses designed for students majoring in humanities.

Keywords: vocabulary, language, synonymy, semantics, subdialects, borrowing, dimorphism

For citation: Grishunina VP, Yershova NI. Functioning of the Russian borrowings in the vocabulary of Moksha subdialects. Finno-ugorskii mir = Finno-Ugric World. 2023;15;4:392–400. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.15507/2076-2577.015.2023.04.392-400.