Field crops and livestock were everybody's occupation according to their abilities: men and women, children and the elderly. However, all related to cutting and hauling wood and construction belong to adult men. There were cases when a woman with an axe sat in the corner, but this was considered abnormal, as reflected in the proverb: "Women's cities don't stand for a long time."
Forrest is firmly connected with peasant's inventory: agricultural and domestic. Men's hands created all dishes, all utensils, and toys. A different domain was the flax.
Of course, the farm, diverse and unified in its many layers, was a living organism, harmonious in its not-even-perfect embodiment.
The cows, for example, were kept not so much for milk as for manure to fertilize the land. Soil, in turn, gave not only bread but also fodder for the cattle. But where there is livestock, there are food and shoes, there are shoes, and you can go into the woods to cut down the house, including a barn for cows; if there is a cow, there will be milk and manure. The circle is closed. Economic life consisted of such interacting and interconnected cycles. This situation requires not empty mechanical but a thoughtful attitude to work.
The field and livestock labour cycles rested on the age-old tradition and ruthlessness of seasonal changes. But this does not mean that the peasant labour did not require a creative attitude, that the plowman and the shepherd do not need talent, and that inspiration and joy of creation are for peasants just hollow sounds.
On the contrary: only the age-old tradition helped people quickly (usually during childhood and adolescence) learn the most rational methods of hard work, freeing time and effort, clearing the way for the individual creative impulse at first and then to action. But the skill of the individual plowman or mower, even passed to his son or grandson, has not received a meaningful expression because the grain in the barn or the cattle in the barn not only did not surprise distant descendants but did not even live to see them.
No, for the soul and memory, it was needed to build a house with a pretty carving, or a church on the hill, or weave a lace, which captures the spirit and will light up the eyes of a distant great-granddaughter. Because people do not live by bread alone.
Flax was, for many centuries, a companion of a woman's fate. It was a women's pleasure and grief, beginning with infant bedding linen, a girl's shawls and ending with a shroud - a white canvas covering the person on his deathbed.
Flax is sown in warm but slightly damp soil to ripen early. So, guess when to plant!
You must be a peasant to catch this particular moment in the year. The day before or the day after would already come out wrong. After planting flax, the hands of men rarely touch it. All the long and complicated life cycle of flax is subservient only to women. They must keep pace with flax to make all it should be, regardless of other work and family concerns. Otherwise, it could become a disgrace to the entire village. Traditionally even a girl in her early years walks around the linen strips with special reverence.
In many families, girls as young as eight or ten years began to prepare a dowry and wedding gifts made or specially ordered in a chest or box. For many years, those chests were kept till the very wedding, woven canvas, stitches, and laces. Because of that, the flax strips excite the soul of a maiden:
"Please grow well, grow well, you, my flax, and grow well, my little white,
do not get crushed, my darling."
This old choral-game song described all ways of flax, from the tiny dark seed to a snow-white lace.
But how long and complex it was that way! And how it was similar to a man's life, what a powerful pagan symbolism of sounds in each step of the closed cycle of flax!
Rhythmic, precise, and validated for centuries, this cycle is positively subordinated to a heavenly process accomplished by the eternal and generous sun. One has to keep pace with the inevitable, reliable stability change of the seasons: after all, nature does not wait; it changes not only in the seasons but every week, daily and even hourly. She is always different!
As soon as light-green herringbone stems strike up to daylight, the spring that threatened to freeze these tiny creatures ends. However, summer in the North is not always gentle: at any time, it can chill with unexpected nightly frost or cook up with heat rapidly shrinking soil. So on the first warm days, every scum climbs out of the ground: milkweed, horsetail, raps, and hundreds of other weeds. For some reason, they sit in the field so tightly, putting down roots so deep that it is not easy to take out each weed.
At such times, women and girls have to find a free day, gather small children, take big baskets and go to the field to weed flax. Every squalid, left on the row, a germ of milkweed or the other weed will grow in five to six weeks into a disgusting unapproachable, arrogant, toxic-green, double-flowering shrub, which can be removed from the flax row only with a spade. That's why they work in a hurry with bruised hands.
It is OK; hopefully, everything will wash away during the bath and heal. But how good looks the weeded outfield: young flax, trampled underfoot, tends to straighten up after the first rain. It is growing by leaps, not by days but hours: a proverb has not a figurative but a literal sense.
Summer is in full bloom. In the fields, in the forest and at home, there is so much work that one has only to turn around. At this time, flax fleas appear, they will not be shy, and they devour entirely fragile, delicate stems. Flax is sprinkled with wood ashes to get rid of fleas.
At the same time, it does not hurt to fertilize flax plots, but the peasants had yet to learn any other fertilizers but manure, slurry, poultry manure and kiln ash. When the flax was in bloom, it seemed a deep blue of northern summer skies on the fields. Indescribably beautiful is flax during white nights.
Few noticed infinite blueness before the collective farms because the plots were too small. In the same collaborative farm sector, especially after the introduction of crop rotation, whole fields of flax and the blueness of flowering flax appeared. Only the colours of Dionysius can express the feeling of a strange combination of pale green with pale blue as if penetrating somewhere in the depth of colour. But one thing is to look at; another is to twirl flax.
Saturday 16 November 2019
Sunday 10 November 2019
LAYING OF THE ROPES
The men in the North sometimes spun yarn, but it was pretty different. If women's yarn had a thickness of the hair, men's thread was like a child's little finger. It was made for the laying of ropes.
Sitting at the large spinning wheel, on which a big beard of the tow was attached, an older man with a cracking sound dragged out of a thick strand from the tow. Then, with a special whorl, he braided flax, having something to tell or listening to another person. Finally, the yarn was stowed in large balls with holes in the middle of the whorl. And now comes - always for some reason, suddenly - the day of laying ropes.
The job was so unusual that it amused children and adults. Feelings and how children play, people quite often bring into their adulthood.
Somewhere in the middle of the street was put on a wooden sled. To the head of the sled at the waist height was tied a bar with three holes, in which the three wooden handles roll. Next, a wooden board with holes was put on the handles, through which you can turn all three handles at once. While holding the yarn ball in the basket, the weaver stretched the yarn thread far along the street, then pulled it back, and so it went a few times. Finally, the saw-horse was set up for the yarn not to fall to the ground, and it hung like telegraph wires.
An experienced weaver went to the other end of the street, taking a wooden dice with three notches. People started to rotate the handles clockwise. All three tows twist; at the same time, they are shortened. Finally comes the point when they rolled up to the limit, which inevitably had to curl between them. At that moment, people started laying off the ropes.
At one end of the team, people started twisting the yarn, and at the other, another group gently led the dice with three plaits, always counterclockwise, making it into a sturdy rope. The sled was slightly dragging on the grass.
The transformation of the yarn into a solid long rope, the reduction of yarn length and the connection of the three parts into one, stable and indivisible - all this was happening before everyone's eyes, and every time was surprising and exciting.
The finished rope up to two hundred meters was cut to the desired length, and to keep the ends from being untied, the waxed thread sealed the ends.
Usual thin ropes guys were laying from the house flax, for which it was split, and every strand was twisted by hand on the knees.
When the fingers of the left hand were unclenching, the strands of flax curled into one. These small ropes were appropriate for many needs: to tie to bags, for weaving devices, for fishing gear, etc.
For the cobblers and fishers, a more twisted thread was made. A regular thin thread was doubled, taking lines from the two coils in a water saucer. The maker put this double thread through the wooden perch near the ceiling, tied it to the end of the particular wheel and twisted it. A twister turned a horizontal spindle with the handwheel, slowly raising it, then lowering it. The thread was solid; however, the strength depended more on the quality of the flax.
There is no plowing, stumping, or building if there are no ropes. In old times peasants paid with canvas and ropes. The zenith of the rope craft coincided with the beginnings of Tsar Peter's work when the indomitable, wise and flighty king decided to put part of the Russian infantry on board. In old seamen's chant sung about how "suddenly came a change," as "a storm lifts the sea " and how "boils seafoam everywhere."
The battle of Gangut marked the beginning of the glorious history of the Russian Navy. But the fleet stood firmly not only on marine communique and charters. Without the millions of anonymous spinners and tar makers, the blue, resembling the sea linen strips flag of St. Andrew, would not be covered by the winds of all the oceans and all latitudes of the vast land. But, unfortunately, this history is little known to the romantics of "The Scarlet Sails" and countless "brigantines."
Sitting at the large spinning wheel, on which a big beard of the tow was attached, an older man with a cracking sound dragged out of a thick strand from the tow. Then, with a special whorl, he braided flax, having something to tell or listening to another person. Finally, the yarn was stowed in large balls with holes in the middle of the whorl. And now comes - always for some reason, suddenly - the day of laying ropes.
The job was so unusual that it amused children and adults. Feelings and how children play, people quite often bring into their adulthood.
Somewhere in the middle of the street was put on a wooden sled. To the head of the sled at the waist height was tied a bar with three holes, in which the three wooden handles roll. Next, a wooden board with holes was put on the handles, through which you can turn all three handles at once. While holding the yarn ball in the basket, the weaver stretched the yarn thread far along the street, then pulled it back, and so it went a few times. Finally, the saw-horse was set up for the yarn not to fall to the ground, and it hung like telegraph wires.
An experienced weaver went to the other end of the street, taking a wooden dice with three notches. People started to rotate the handles clockwise. All three tows twist; at the same time, they are shortened. Finally comes the point when they rolled up to the limit, which inevitably had to curl between them. At that moment, people started laying off the ropes.
At one end of the team, people started twisting the yarn, and at the other, another group gently led the dice with three plaits, always counterclockwise, making it into a sturdy rope. The sled was slightly dragging on the grass.
The transformation of the yarn into a solid long rope, the reduction of yarn length and the connection of the three parts into one, stable and indivisible - all this was happening before everyone's eyes, and every time was surprising and exciting.
The finished rope up to two hundred meters was cut to the desired length, and to keep the ends from being untied, the waxed thread sealed the ends.
Usual thin ropes guys were laying from the house flax, for which it was split, and every strand was twisted by hand on the knees.
When the fingers of the left hand were unclenching, the strands of flax curled into one. These small ropes were appropriate for many needs: to tie to bags, for weaving devices, for fishing gear, etc.
For the cobblers and fishers, a more twisted thread was made. A regular thin thread was doubled, taking lines from the two coils in a water saucer. The maker put this double thread through the wooden perch near the ceiling, tied it to the end of the particular wheel and twisted it. A twister turned a horizontal spindle with the handwheel, slowly raising it, then lowering it. The thread was solid; however, the strength depended more on the quality of the flax.
There is no plowing, stumping, or building if there are no ropes. In old times peasants paid with canvas and ropes. The zenith of the rope craft coincided with the beginnings of Tsar Peter's work when the indomitable, wise and flighty king decided to put part of the Russian infantry on board. In old seamen's chant sung about how "suddenly came a change," as "a storm lifts the sea " and how "boils seafoam everywhere."
The battle of Gangut marked the beginning of the glorious history of the Russian Navy. But the fleet stood firmly not only on marine communique and charters. Without the millions of anonymous spinners and tar makers, the blue, resembling the sea linen strips flag of St. Andrew, would not be covered by the winds of all the oceans and all latitudes of the vast land. But, unfortunately, this history is little known to the romantics of "The Scarlet Sails" and countless "brigantines."
FISHING NETS MAKING
"The thieves came, took the hosts, and left the house through the windows."
A riddle
No one knows from which antiquity rolled up to us the wheel. Nobody knows how many years, centuries, and millennia ago, from which time comes to us a common thread. But the time between the invention of the line and the mesh was very short. The mesh and the canvas appeared simultaneously, perhaps apart, but it is clear that both owe their existence to the yarn. And initially, the fabric and the fishing net were made of animal hair.
The brilliant simplicity of the mesh (loop - a knot) always gets people fish. It also gave rise to women's needlework.
People have been knitting fishing tackles from time immemorial. For the prudent farmer, this occupation and hunting were not a burden or a pure amusement. Fishing in the North has always been an excellent economic help. The aesthetic and emotional in this activity are firmly connected to the practical (economic goal).
A genuine and close communion with nature nullifies the fear of nothingness, death, disappearance, rivalry with nature, the joy of recognition, risk, physical conditioning, strange self-disclosure and self-determination - all of these and much more have been experienced by hunters and fishermen.
In anticipation of the test, a person can stoically, all evenings knit fishnets, procure in the deep snow spruce stakes for the vertices, and twist an infinite linen thread. The tool knitter is simple: it is the bifurcated stick like a women's spinning spindle, then the gauge - a plate, the width of which defines the mesh width, and which befits the loop—finally, a flat juniper shuttle with a slot where the thread is put. Everybody was knitting for children and the elderly, young and healthy bearded men!
Knitting was done in free time, during the bad weather or low season, and at organized gatherings for knitting. However, some self-respecting women avoided such events. They were looking at this occupation with reverence but with slight mocking. And why that attitude existed, we would understand if we take a closer look at textile artistic creations, which complete the entire complex and long path of flax - a satellite of woman's fate. The end is the crown of the process. Creative weaving, braiding, knitting, and embroidery of the linen crowned the cycle, taking the creation by human hands from the annual cycle very often, even beyond the length of human life.
A riddle
No one knows from which antiquity rolled up to us the wheel. Nobody knows how many years, centuries, and millennia ago, from which time comes to us a common thread. But the time between the invention of the line and the mesh was very short. The mesh and the canvas appeared simultaneously, perhaps apart, but it is clear that both owe their existence to the yarn. And initially, the fabric and the fishing net were made of animal hair.
The brilliant simplicity of the mesh (loop - a knot) always gets people fish. It also gave rise to women's needlework.
People have been knitting fishing tackles from time immemorial. For the prudent farmer, this occupation and hunting were not a burden or a pure amusement. Fishing in the North has always been an excellent economic help. The aesthetic and emotional in this activity are firmly connected to the practical (economic goal).
A genuine and close communion with nature nullifies the fear of nothingness, death, disappearance, rivalry with nature, the joy of recognition, risk, physical conditioning, strange self-disclosure and self-determination - all of these and much more have been experienced by hunters and fishermen.
In anticipation of the test, a person can stoically, all evenings knit fishnets, procure in the deep snow spruce stakes for the vertices, and twist an infinite linen thread. The tool knitter is simple: it is the bifurcated stick like a women's spinning spindle, then the gauge - a plate, the width of which defines the mesh width, and which befits the loop—finally, a flat juniper shuttle with a slot where the thread is put. Everybody was knitting for children and the elderly, young and healthy bearded men!
Knitting was done in free time, during the bad weather or low season, and at organized gatherings for knitting. However, some self-respecting women avoided such events. They were looking at this occupation with reverence but with slight mocking. And why that attitude existed, we would understand if we take a closer look at textile artistic creations, which complete the entire complex and long path of flax - a satellite of woman's fate. The end is the crown of the process. Creative weaving, braiding, knitting, and embroidery of the linen crowned the cycle, taking the creation by human hands from the annual cycle very often, even beyond the length of human life.
INVISIBLE STREAMS
The image of a river in folk poetry is powerful. Like poetry, this image is beyond analysis, deduction or explanation. However, analyze it all you want, pick it up to the bones and explain how you want - it will not resist. But it never reveals itself until the end, always the image keeps the right to live and does not succumb to dissection, surprising its ripper with new abysses of the inexplicable. Of course, it will die after it becomes easy to understand and explain, but fortunately, this does not happen because it cannot be ascribed to the end and be understood by the rational collective mind.
The image is alive as long as human personality. But how could there be a likeness of perception if the people are men and women, girls and boys, children and old, beautiful and not, sick and healthy, prosperous and poor, weak and strong?
If nature is changing all the time: the heat, then cold, then rain, then snow, and life moves swiftly, and yesterday is so unlike today, and years never repeat each other.
The river flows. It twinkles in the sun, bubbles in the rain, is covered with ice and snow, overflows, and turns into ice. Fish spawn at the meadows site, where today creaks a corncrake; not long ago, the blizzard howled. Something native, ever-changing, careless and flowing, renewed every time and never-ending, connecting the living with the already dead and yet unborn, one can imagine and hear in a stream of water. Everybody hears it, but everyone sees the image of water flowing in their way.
The image of the road is no less prevalent in folk poetry. Yet, is it possible to agree at least briefly to think of a river as an emotional entity and the road as a rationale? After all, the former is created by nature and has constantly flowed, and people made the latter out of necessity.
People needed to go somewhere (albeit for mushrooms), ride (for hay), trample the trail and build the road. Often, a road ran along a river ...
The road looks like it tried to be shorter and more accessible, while the other side of the river, for some reason, always seemed more beautiful and dry. The road made mistakes, extending its length with appearing entirely inappropriate ferries once or twice! But from these errors, the human soul has often won something more valuable and unexpected.
Invisible streams lay present at the intersections of the material and spiritual, mandatory and desirable, beautiful and necessary. To understand this, it suffices to recall that most folk art items were essential in life as everyday objects or tools.
Here are some of them: women's threshers, ceramic and wooden utensils, buckets, salt and pepper dispensers in the form of birds, rosettes on wooden blocks crossing, and cast and bent candelabras.
With a natural hook of wood (carved from the spruce root ) that supported a wooden tray on the roof, the carpenter turned into a pretty chicken with few axes blows; only two or three stitches of the needle added elegance to the sleeve of the women's clothing. With a change of potter position of fingers, a clay vessel acquired impressive interception, elongated or increased in breadth.
Elusive and uncertain is a boundary between manual labour and creative effort. The master doesn't understand even himself: how, why when an ordinary lump of clay becomes a beautiful vessel. But in all the folk crafts, there is this subtle change from obligatory, common labour to creative, unique work.
People cannot deduct the artistic image entirely from attempts to rationalize it.
Similarly, the nature of the transition from conventional to creative work is inexplicable. The monotony or severity of labour pushes a worker to the art, cause to diversify not only the product but also the methods of their manufacturing.
In addition, for the Northern people, life has always been characterized by competition and competition, not by quantity but by quality. I want to go on holiday all dressed up, better than anybody else - then please spin and weave many beautiful things. If you wish to pass for an excellent possible husband and then build a durable and pretty house, do not spare the effort on the carvings and architectural gems.
Beauty is present in work. The beauty in the fruits of labour has many faces, but it is also self-affirmation, the assertion of own ego, and the formation of personality.
Know-how, skill, and art are alive in any work. Therefore, the artists who are equal in artistic power to Dionysus can be at the immense apex of the pyramid, the base of which rests the rest of the people.
So everything begins with the irresistible and inexplicable desire to work.
The desire makes a person, an ethnic group, or even the entire nation predisposed to creativity and, therefore, viable. Such people are not threatened with extinction from internal decadence.
Creativity stems from a desire to work and a thirst for action. In the life of the northern Russian peasantry, work was the most critical condition of moral equality. The willingness to work was equated with ability.
So encouragingly generous, noble and straightforward was the popular opinion that somebody who is not lazy and willing to work with people immediately, in advance, called the craftsman. And he had no choice but to become one quickly.
But to be a craftsman does not mean to be a master or an artist (in our modern sense). Everybody had to become a craftsman eventually. While striving for the best work, everyone did according to their strength and natural abilities. Both qualities are different for different people.
Almost all the craftsmen became apprentices, but only part became real masters. Legends of the "secrets" that masters supposedly kept from outsiders have been invented by lazy or incompetent people to justify themselves. None of the Russian craftsmen and artisans held their skills in vain if they were genuine craftsmen and artisans!
Another thing is that not every apprentice was gifted with remarkable abilities; meanwhile, the master was strict and jealous. He allowed getting in trade to a genuinely interested man who was patient and not big-mouthed. Typically, self-interest does not motivate the master when he shuts his mouth.
According to ancient beliefs, people could find hidden treasures only with "clean" hands. The secret of mastery is a unique treasure accessible to honest and selfless workers. But many people judge others by themselves!
To a greedy person always seems that the masterworks well and hard for the money, not because of a love for art.
But, on the other hand, a mediocre and lazy person needs to understand why people can work on a small object for hours, even days and weeks. But, unfortunately, he does not have the sense to understand even the meaning of this patience, and now he insults the master with suspicion of greed and unwillingness to share his secrets.
Master's vulnerability was also aggravated because people paid more for the beautiful and solidly made things. But, of course, the master did not refuse the money: he had a wife and children.
The art also sometimes requires substantial resources: need to buy paint, well-aged wood, bones, etc. But it is ridiculous to think that the master or the artist is driven by selfishness!
The paradox is that the less the artists think of money, the more valuable products they produce and the more contracts they have. Then, some artists and artisans became concerned with cash only. But the talent quickly abandoned them.
The secret of any skill and artistry in trade is simple: Patience, hard work and excellent knowledge of the tradition. And if all of this nature adds more talent and individual ability, we will inevitably face an extraordinary artistic event.
Art makes work palatable, but the inspiration doesn't come from the lazy. Mastery reduces the time it takes to complete work; skill is not art. Of course, not everyone can become a master. But many tried this, maybe everyone because no one wanted to be worse than the others!
Therefore, an ordinary skill, which has yet to become unique (i.e., art), can depend on tradition. Knowledge of a practice, polished by centuries, was required for each artisan because the leap across an accumulated treasure of people is impossible. Because of that, an apprentice was valued above all the care, diligence, and patience.
First, learning how to do things that can do all tradesmen were necessary. Only then does one begin to learn professional techniques and skills?
Young icon painters were first allowed to mix paints and for young shoemakers to wet and knead the skin, only after a long apprenticeship was painters permitted to pick up a brush or trowel. The ability to do the traditional, standard, yet artistic skill makes masters out of traditional apprentices.
The master, if he were endowed with natural talent and if tens of circumstances were favourable, very soon became an artist, a creator who creates beauty. Such a person would be dissolved in his painting, and he does not need fame and glory. He felt even something shameful and bothersome in the worldly fame of his paintings. Creativity and knowledge that the art will live and make people happy filled the life of an artist with a high and joyful sense.
The image is alive as long as human personality. But how could there be a likeness of perception if the people are men and women, girls and boys, children and old, beautiful and not, sick and healthy, prosperous and poor, weak and strong?
If nature is changing all the time: the heat, then cold, then rain, then snow, and life moves swiftly, and yesterday is so unlike today, and years never repeat each other.
The river flows. It twinkles in the sun, bubbles in the rain, is covered with ice and snow, overflows, and turns into ice. Fish spawn at the meadows site, where today creaks a corncrake; not long ago, the blizzard howled. Something native, ever-changing, careless and flowing, renewed every time and never-ending, connecting the living with the already dead and yet unborn, one can imagine and hear in a stream of water. Everybody hears it, but everyone sees the image of water flowing in their way.
The image of the road is no less prevalent in folk poetry. Yet, is it possible to agree at least briefly to think of a river as an emotional entity and the road as a rationale? After all, the former is created by nature and has constantly flowed, and people made the latter out of necessity.
People needed to go somewhere (albeit for mushrooms), ride (for hay), trample the trail and build the road. Often, a road ran along a river ...
The road looks like it tried to be shorter and more accessible, while the other side of the river, for some reason, always seemed more beautiful and dry. The road made mistakes, extending its length with appearing entirely inappropriate ferries once or twice! But from these errors, the human soul has often won something more valuable and unexpected.
Invisible streams lay present at the intersections of the material and spiritual, mandatory and desirable, beautiful and necessary. To understand this, it suffices to recall that most folk art items were essential in life as everyday objects or tools.
Here are some of them: women's threshers, ceramic and wooden utensils, buckets, salt and pepper dispensers in the form of birds, rosettes on wooden blocks crossing, and cast and bent candelabras.
With a natural hook of wood (carved from the spruce root ) that supported a wooden tray on the roof, the carpenter turned into a pretty chicken with few axes blows; only two or three stitches of the needle added elegance to the sleeve of the women's clothing. With a change of potter position of fingers, a clay vessel acquired impressive interception, elongated or increased in breadth.
Elusive and uncertain is a boundary between manual labour and creative effort. The master doesn't understand even himself: how, why when an ordinary lump of clay becomes a beautiful vessel. But in all the folk crafts, there is this subtle change from obligatory, common labour to creative, unique work.
People cannot deduct the artistic image entirely from attempts to rationalize it.
Similarly, the nature of the transition from conventional to creative work is inexplicable. The monotony or severity of labour pushes a worker to the art, cause to diversify not only the product but also the methods of their manufacturing.
In addition, for the Northern people, life has always been characterized by competition and competition, not by quantity but by quality. I want to go on holiday all dressed up, better than anybody else - then please spin and weave many beautiful things. If you wish to pass for an excellent possible husband and then build a durable and pretty house, do not spare the effort on the carvings and architectural gems.
Beauty is present in work. The beauty in the fruits of labour has many faces, but it is also self-affirmation, the assertion of own ego, and the formation of personality.
Know-how, skill, and art are alive in any work. Therefore, the artists who are equal in artistic power to Dionysus can be at the immense apex of the pyramid, the base of which rests the rest of the people.
So everything begins with the irresistible and inexplicable desire to work.
The desire makes a person, an ethnic group, or even the entire nation predisposed to creativity and, therefore, viable. Such people are not threatened with extinction from internal decadence.
Creativity stems from a desire to work and a thirst for action. In the life of the northern Russian peasantry, work was the most critical condition of moral equality. The willingness to work was equated with ability.
So encouragingly generous, noble and straightforward was the popular opinion that somebody who is not lazy and willing to work with people immediately, in advance, called the craftsman. And he had no choice but to become one quickly.
But to be a craftsman does not mean to be a master or an artist (in our modern sense). Everybody had to become a craftsman eventually. While striving for the best work, everyone did according to their strength and natural abilities. Both qualities are different for different people.
Almost all the craftsmen became apprentices, but only part became real masters. Legends of the "secrets" that masters supposedly kept from outsiders have been invented by lazy or incompetent people to justify themselves. None of the Russian craftsmen and artisans held their skills in vain if they were genuine craftsmen and artisans!
Another thing is that not every apprentice was gifted with remarkable abilities; meanwhile, the master was strict and jealous. He allowed getting in trade to a genuinely interested man who was patient and not big-mouthed. Typically, self-interest does not motivate the master when he shuts his mouth.
According to ancient beliefs, people could find hidden treasures only with "clean" hands. The secret of mastery is a unique treasure accessible to honest and selfless workers. But many people judge others by themselves!
To a greedy person always seems that the masterworks well and hard for the money, not because of a love for art.
But, on the other hand, a mediocre and lazy person needs to understand why people can work on a small object for hours, even days and weeks. But, unfortunately, he does not have the sense to understand even the meaning of this patience, and now he insults the master with suspicion of greed and unwillingness to share his secrets.
Master's vulnerability was also aggravated because people paid more for the beautiful and solidly made things. But, of course, the master did not refuse the money: he had a wife and children.
The art also sometimes requires substantial resources: need to buy paint, well-aged wood, bones, etc. But it is ridiculous to think that the master or the artist is driven by selfishness!
The paradox is that the less the artists think of money, the more valuable products they produce and the more contracts they have. Then, some artists and artisans became concerned with cash only. But the talent quickly abandoned them.
The secret of any skill and artistry in trade is simple: Patience, hard work and excellent knowledge of the tradition. And if all of this nature adds more talent and individual ability, we will inevitably face an extraordinary artistic event.
Art makes work palatable, but the inspiration doesn't come from the lazy. Mastery reduces the time it takes to complete work; skill is not art. Of course, not everyone can become a master. But many tried this, maybe everyone because no one wanted to be worse than the others!
Therefore, an ordinary skill, which has yet to become unique (i.e., art), can depend on tradition. Knowledge of a practice, polished by centuries, was required for each artisan because the leap across an accumulated treasure of people is impossible. Because of that, an apprentice was valued above all the care, diligence, and patience.
First, learning how to do things that can do all tradesmen were necessary. Only then does one begin to learn professional techniques and skills?
Young icon painters were first allowed to mix paints and for young shoemakers to wet and knead the skin, only after a long apprenticeship was painters permitted to pick up a brush or trowel. The ability to do the traditional, standard, yet artistic skill makes masters out of traditional apprentices.
The master, if he were endowed with natural talent and if tens of circumstances were favourable, very soon became an artist, a creator who creates beauty. Such a person would be dissolved in his painting, and he does not need fame and glory. He felt even something shameful and bothersome in the worldly fame of his paintings. Creativity and knowledge that the art will live and make people happy filled the life of an artist with a high and joyful sense.
SEWING
In the thirties, the prewar years in some Northern villages spread a girlish custom long before the wedding to give her boyfriend scarves. Embroidered pouches and shirts were usually given only to husbands. Unsuccessful or disliked gentlemen caught these scarves by force, "snatched." The famous limericks of the time were reflected even in this tiny part of national life:
"My dear one is so broken and distorted,
Broken for my handkerchief,
He is distorted in the mirror".
What to do with this mischief?"
Of course, it is a comic rhyme. But through it, one can judge the rapidly changing mores: barrack life in the lumber camps forcing girls to behave with rudeness and man's manners.
Yes, and not very easy to find time for sewing when there is a plan for cutting and hauling, and gloves and boots break apart every now and then, and the horse took off, or lost horseshoe, the village did not send food and in the barracks is the smoke of the yoke: men mixed with women, old and young.
Yet many girls found time to embroider a handkerchief and sing this ditty. Singing and crafts since ancient times complement each other in a woman's life. Exiled to the Goritskiy monastery, Xenia Godunov was famous for her handwork and singing songs when standing and working. During that time in Russia, songs accompanied the flourishing art of ecclesiastical embroidery, presented by numerous tangible pieces of evidence.
There are several ways of sewing; the main is satin-stitch embroidery which is parallel stitches. For this purpose were used silk and linen threads. The canvas was embroidered with simple, often double-cross, later replaced by square waffle fabric. Embroidery by Tambora used rounded ensiform stitch, and "the "hen's feet" style was pulled in line with geometric angle stitch.
Finally, sewing was done in the embroidery frame after removing weft threads from the tissue. Collars, sleeves, towels, scarves, jackets, pouches, and hats were usually embroidered. Occupies a unique place a gold embroidery. Exquisite embroidery in red on the black, white and dark blue background and green on the red and pink. However, everything depended on the artistic flair of embroiders.
ETERNAL MOMENTS
Who of us, especially in childhood or adolescence, was not terrified and not despairing at the sight of a woefully immense pile of wood that should be sawed first and then chopped and put in the woodpile? Or a vast field, which you must plow? Or a dozen fat wool tows, which must be spun by the holiday? My heart sank at how much had to be done. But, as always, there is a consoling and encouraging proverb. It is like this: "The eyes dread, but the hands do."
One of the elders mentions it, and behold- it is not so scary to begin a task which has no end in sight. So much for the material power of the word…
"The initiative is more valuable than the whole affair," - recalls another, no less critical, saying later: "It should be a beginning, and an end will come." If, however, you undertook to do something, you can see how much is done and how quietly the result grows and grows. And suddenly, you'll be surprised to see what has not yet been made has departed, though not by much, it became less!
You did half, and the second half has its half. The eyes dread, but the hands do ... But this proverb is accurate in terms of volume, the quantity of work, and its quality, that is, on the skill, ingenuity, creativity, and - not afraid to say - art.
The young beginner could be afraid, and the other not-so-young could be frightened, even having natural talent. But how do you know whether there is a talent, if not, to start doing something? In art, the risk is necessary for the beginner, even to a certain extent - the folly!
It may be one way for the initial identification of gifted people. Need courage and the daring impulse to understand whether you can do something. Try to start, to dare! And there, in the course of work, there is an inspiration and a worker, if nature invested in him a talent, at once or gradually becomes an artist.
Of course, you should not try without ending all your life, turning persistence into dull stubbornness. The uniqueness of the Northern peasant labour code was that all tried to do everything, and among these, many were born and original masters.
Skills are the basis on which great masters develop. But for a man who already believes in himself, convinced in his ability every time something is done, needs to take the risk of heart, justified, and every second controlled by the mind, he needs boldness, balanced by a careful unhurriedness. Only then would inspiration come to him, and precious moments stood, cast in advanced art forms.
It is not true that these moments, this high enthusiasm and inspiration are possible only in certain specified types of work and professional work! Art can live in any profession. Another thing is that, for example, a plowman or a farmer's work is not embodied in art. Because of that, people respected artisans and artists who create art.
Peasant artisans and artists from time immemorial have been nameless. They created their art pieces to meet only aesthetic needs. Art of Craft was born on the border between man's aesthetic and economic conditions, when the master begins to create art, not for himself, and not as a gift to friends and family, but by the order and for sale.
Art of trade… The combination of words lays a contradiction: trade involves mass, serial, that is, sameness and art is always a unique way, never duplicated. And whatever we come up with for the salvation of artistry in the trade, the trade will always seek to erode it, and art will always resist occupation. The image dies in the multiplicity of identical items, but this does not mean that art objects cannot be created in different ways in their diversity. At least until there is little difference between objects, trade can be called art...?
For crafts, it is typical to use traditional technologies and imagery with the obligatory artistic individuality of a craftsman. A master journeyman whose work is identical to his neighbour, a man indifferent to his art, who mastered the traditional techniques and the images but strives for quantity - a man impels artistic craft to degeneration and extinction. With machine production, creative individuality disappears, dissolving into mass production and kitsch. Amid all this, the seemingly miraculous existence of crafts overcomes the "gross" mentality.
Accountants and economists plan not to interfere with beauty and aesthetics in their business. Nothing often exists for their "gross" psychology except the cash payment and the bottom line. Is the survival of beauty in such conditions not remarkable? Nevertheless, some Northern crafts are unwilling to concede the onslaught of gross anonymity and pressure of aesthetic dullness.
One of the elders mentions it, and behold- it is not so scary to begin a task which has no end in sight. So much for the material power of the word…
"The initiative is more valuable than the whole affair," - recalls another, no less critical, saying later: "It should be a beginning, and an end will come." If, however, you undertook to do something, you can see how much is done and how quietly the result grows and grows. And suddenly, you'll be surprised to see what has not yet been made has departed, though not by much, it became less!
You did half, and the second half has its half. The eyes dread, but the hands do ... But this proverb is accurate in terms of volume, the quantity of work, and its quality, that is, on the skill, ingenuity, creativity, and - not afraid to say - art.
The young beginner could be afraid, and the other not-so-young could be frightened, even having natural talent. But how do you know whether there is a talent, if not, to start doing something? In art, the risk is necessary for the beginner, even to a certain extent - the folly!
It may be one way for the initial identification of gifted people. Need courage and the daring impulse to understand whether you can do something. Try to start, to dare! And there, in the course of work, there is an inspiration and a worker, if nature invested in him a talent, at once or gradually becomes an artist.
Of course, you should not try without ending all your life, turning persistence into dull stubbornness. The uniqueness of the Northern peasant labour code was that all tried to do everything, and among these, many were born and original masters.
Skills are the basis on which great masters develop. But for a man who already believes in himself, convinced in his ability every time something is done, needs to take the risk of heart, justified, and every second controlled by the mind, he needs boldness, balanced by a careful unhurriedness. Only then would inspiration come to him, and precious moments stood, cast in advanced art forms.
It is not true that these moments, this high enthusiasm and inspiration are possible only in certain specified types of work and professional work! Art can live in any profession. Another thing is that, for example, a plowman or a farmer's work is not embodied in art. Because of that, people respected artisans and artists who create art.
Peasant artisans and artists from time immemorial have been nameless. They created their art pieces to meet only aesthetic needs. Art of Craft was born on the border between man's aesthetic and economic conditions, when the master begins to create art, not for himself, and not as a gift to friends and family, but by the order and for sale.
Art of trade… The combination of words lays a contradiction: trade involves mass, serial, that is, sameness and art is always a unique way, never duplicated. And whatever we come up with for the salvation of artistry in the trade, the trade will always seek to erode it, and art will always resist occupation. The image dies in the multiplicity of identical items, but this does not mean that art objects cannot be created in different ways in their diversity. At least until there is little difference between objects, trade can be called art...?
For crafts, it is typical to use traditional technologies and imagery with the obligatory artistic individuality of a craftsman. A master journeyman whose work is identical to his neighbour, a man indifferent to his art, who mastered the traditional techniques and the images but strives for quantity - a man impels artistic craft to degeneration and extinction. With machine production, creative individuality disappears, dissolving into mass production and kitsch. Amid all this, the seemingly miraculous existence of crafts overcomes the "gross" mentality.
Accountants and economists plan not to interfere with beauty and aesthetics in their business. Nothing often exists for their "gross" psychology except the cash payment and the bottom line. Is the survival of beauty in such conditions not remarkable? Nevertheless, some Northern crafts are unwilling to concede the onslaught of gross anonymity and pressure of aesthetic dullness.
Friday 8 November 2019
BLACKENING ON SILVER
Like the city of Novgorod, the City of Ustug the Great was the center of Russian culture, commerce and industry for a few centuries. Ustyug could do everything: fight, trade, and farm...
Many of its citizens came to Alaska and California and settled there, while others travelled through Siberia and traded with India, China, and other countries. But those who did not like to travel and stayed at home did not sit idly by.
The people of Ustug town knew almost all the trades that had flourished in Russia and medieval Europe.
A man with the divine spark in the soul could take on all kinds of available crafts, but it was impossible to do a little of everything and nothing for real. Usually, one would choose an ancestral trade, building and perfecting a tradition or ignoring it. In both cases, the craftsman or the artist could manifest himself fully as a person. But in the second case, the craft would go down quickly, and skills and professional taste for beauty would disappear. It was enough for one generation that a canon of high beauty and a particular aesthetic "ceiling" would be lowered to the extreme. This would destroy the craft's artistic and aesthetic foundation, which is the primary condition of its scale, fame, and economic survival. A craft perishes…
On the approach to the XX century and early XX century, blackening on silver would suffer the same fate if a few enthusiasts' patience and energy had exhausted. Therefore, we should be thankful for preserving the city of Ustug's magnificent art.
Its essence is that the artist initially engraves silver and then fills the engraving with a special compound - blackening. This "tattoo," so to speak, is fixed by high temperature, i.e. the usual fire.
Ustuyg's plant "Severnaya Chern" produces good products in high demand at home and abroad. This compels our economists to increase the output to promote uniformity. The danger for artistry lies in mass production. Previously, the artist worked by himself from beginning to end (trusting no one, even his tool, not only products), and now the product is touched by many indifferent hands. For art to survive in such circumstances is incredibly difficult. Yet it survives.
SHEMOGODSK CARVING ON BIRCH BARK
Only to the national genius belong such traits as optimism, the ability to express itself under many life's conditions that would seem entirely unsuitable. There is no doubt that a talented Kholmogor's bone carver, finding himself by fate somewhere in the wilderness, did not expect to get from someone walrus tusks but would find something else to work with. For example, with clay… Earth has always kept something in reserve for the artist.
Just a potter wizard did not feel right to stand idly by if there is no clay in the ground, but he is surrounded by birch or spruce thickets. Birch bark is probably the oldest and most widespread North raw material used by all possible masters. They produced shoes, toys, festive masks, dishes, and utensils from it.
Birch bark has a bilateral structure, and colour properties are easily extracted and are easy to work with. It is decorative by itself. Lightness, strength and accessibility made it a favourite, indeed the people's material. Carved birch-bark baskets, salt shakers, edging for baskets made in the North all over the place, but this artistic craft, based on the carving in the bark, created by people from Velikiy Ustyug. Trade still exists in our time.
BONE CARVING
Kholmogor's bone carvers do not have such spacious workshops, as Ustuyg's silversmiths, who now became labourers, not artisans. But the essence of trade remains the same. ...
It changes from fundamental moves, such as replacing ivory with cow bones. Material has always dictated, rather, prompting the artist what to do, which tool to use an,d how to begin. What was telling to the artist a silent ivory monolith? Before starting the work, the artist went to the bathhouse, fasted, cleansed of all small and petty. He carefully prepared himself for the inner soul soaring.
Only in this state to a person would come a completely unexpected revelation when a work of art is born. Even a cow bone, cut and processed, causes the heart's desire to make out of it something extraordinary.
Polishing of the surface gives it an identity, it reveals itself, becomes milky opaque. The master's soul itself reaches for the tool. And then it would have been a blasphemy to drop the chisel! A human soul through the mediation of hands and various tools breathes in life, beauty, into the dormant, but always ready to be revived timber of granite, wood or bone. No need to disturb the artist in such moments! Let him finish the work intended.
Thursday 7 November 2019
WORLD
"His life, as he looked at it, had no meaning as a separate life. It had meaning only as a part of the whole, which he constantly felt." Leo Tolstoy
In Russian, the word "Mir" means the entire universe. "Mir" means the universe, the temporal and spatial infinity. The same word is for peace, stable life and friendship, harmony and tranquillity. The coincidence is not accidental. But open a textbook on the ancient and medieval world (again, "Mir"!). Just flip, and you get tired of endless wars, skirmishes, conquest, and murder. Well, is it true that humanity before us was engaged only in this kind of activity? Fortunately, the peoples of the Earth ("MIR" again) not only fought but worked and lived in peace ("Mir").
Or how would they have grown grains, raised cattle, forged the instruments of labour and life, and built canals, ships, temples and huts?
We are more attentive to the international antagonism of the past for some reason than to the testimony of friendship and peaceful cooperation among the peoples, without which the world would have been destroyed.
The Earth, even in ancient times, was not so vast. Viking's ships sailed across the Atlantic. Herodotus knew how our distant ancestors whipped themselves in a bath by the birch twigs. Thor Heyerdahl proved to all that the possibility of crossing the Pacific Ocean had existed long before Magellan's travel. Athanasius Nikitin travelled to India from Tver, Russia, on the horse and without visas.
Russian Pomors (Russians living on the shores of the White Sea) knew about the great Northern Sea Route for many centuries before the "Krasin" and "Chelyuskin" ice-breakers went that route. And why, at the ancient bazaars of Samarkand and Bukhara, were all the major languages of the world heard, and people got along just fine? Languages were heard but were mixed.
People of different nationalities have only sometimes sorted out their relationship with the ringing of swords and daggers. Proofs of this are countless. And if anyone had seriously investigated the history of trade and navigation, then even a general view of the past could be much brighter. However, inter-tribal communication was carried out not only through the exchange.
In most nations, there is curiosity and aesthetic interest in other people, unlike them. To continue to be yourself is not necessarily to destroy the neighbour's house that is quite unlike yours by fire and sword. Quite the contrary. How did you understand yourself, stand out among the others, if all the houses were identical if food and clothing had the same taste?
Moving to the east and north, ancient Novgorodians were not inherently conquerors. Stephen of Perm, the Zyryan's Alphabet creator, showed a high example of unselfishness in dealing with the natives. Russian and Zyryan's settlements still stand side by side; military skirmishes between Novgorodians and Finn-Ugric tribes were sporadic. In any case, rarer than with the blood brothers: the Muscovites and Suzdalians...
Hospitality, whose remnants are still preserved in many places of the immense North in ancient times, had apparently reached a cult level. Marrying people of different nationalities was not considered a sin by the Russians - neither by Pagans nor Christians, though it was not encouraged, so to speak, by public opinion.
The same public opinion made possible a light mockery over the antics of the people of another nation but did not allow them to grow into antagonism. What for? If you need more land, take the axe and go in any direction, uproot stumps, burning forest.
Invader, carpetbagger, bloody villain, and trickster did to his tribe neither honour nor advantage. Respect for other people's rights and national traditions originated primarily from self-preservation. But this does not mean that the Russian people quickly parted with their lands and customs. Even three centuries of domination of the nomads have not taught them, for example, to eat horse meat or to kidnap other men's wives. The world ("Mir") for the Russian people is not so good that it is immense, but also because there is a lot of variety; it always has something to marvel at.
In Russian, the word "Mir" means the entire universe. "Mir" means the universe, the temporal and spatial infinity. The same word is for peace, stable life and friendship, harmony and tranquillity. The coincidence is not accidental. But open a textbook on the ancient and medieval world (again, "Mir"!). Just flip, and you get tired of endless wars, skirmishes, conquest, and murder. Well, is it true that humanity before us was engaged only in this kind of activity? Fortunately, the peoples of the Earth ("MIR" again) not only fought but worked and lived in peace ("Mir").
Or how would they have grown grains, raised cattle, forged the instruments of labour and life, and built canals, ships, temples and huts?
We are more attentive to the international antagonism of the past for some reason than to the testimony of friendship and peaceful cooperation among the peoples, without which the world would have been destroyed.
The Earth, even in ancient times, was not so vast. Viking's ships sailed across the Atlantic. Herodotus knew how our distant ancestors whipped themselves in a bath by the birch twigs. Thor Heyerdahl proved to all that the possibility of crossing the Pacific Ocean had existed long before Magellan's travel. Athanasius Nikitin travelled to India from Tver, Russia, on the horse and without visas.
Russian Pomors (Russians living on the shores of the White Sea) knew about the great Northern Sea Route for many centuries before the "Krasin" and "Chelyuskin" ice-breakers went that route. And why, at the ancient bazaars of Samarkand and Bukhara, were all the major languages of the world heard, and people got along just fine? Languages were heard but were mixed.
People of different nationalities have only sometimes sorted out their relationship with the ringing of swords and daggers. Proofs of this are countless. And if anyone had seriously investigated the history of trade and navigation, then even a general view of the past could be much brighter. However, inter-tribal communication was carried out not only through the exchange.
In most nations, there is curiosity and aesthetic interest in other people, unlike them. To continue to be yourself is not necessarily to destroy the neighbour's house that is quite unlike yours by fire and sword. Quite the contrary. How did you understand yourself, stand out among the others, if all the houses were identical if food and clothing had the same taste?
Moving to the east and north, ancient Novgorodians were not inherently conquerors. Stephen of Perm, the Zyryan's Alphabet creator, showed a high example of unselfishness in dealing with the natives. Russian and Zyryan's settlements still stand side by side; military skirmishes between Novgorodians and Finn-Ugric tribes were sporadic. In any case, rarer than with the blood brothers: the Muscovites and Suzdalians...
Hospitality, whose remnants are still preserved in many places of the immense North in ancient times, had apparently reached a cult level. Marrying people of different nationalities was not considered a sin by the Russians - neither by Pagans nor Christians, though it was not encouraged, so to speak, by public opinion.
The same public opinion made possible a light mockery over the antics of the people of another nation but did not allow them to grow into antagonism. What for? If you need more land, take the axe and go in any direction, uproot stumps, burning forest.
Invader, carpetbagger, bloody villain, and trickster did to his tribe neither honour nor advantage. Respect for other people's rights and national traditions originated primarily from self-preservation. But this does not mean that the Russian people quickly parted with their lands and customs. Even three centuries of domination of the nomads have not taught them, for example, to eat horse meat or to kidnap other men's wives. The world ("Mir") for the Russian people is not so good that it is immense, but also because there is a lot of variety; it always has something to marvel at.
REGION
Nature burns on the soul a print that does not wash off; it leaves its mark on the outer and inner appearance of the people. Even the language, though to a lesser extent, is also prone to such influence.
For example, many words related to the forest and snow are unknown to a Russian living in the southern part of the country. The psychological identity of an ethnic group mainly depends on the natural environment, landscape, and seasonal features. A Southern man cannot live without the vast steppes; a treeless vastness seems bare and uncomfortable to a Northerner.
The white nights at Solovki Island confuse even citizens of Central Russia.
Perhaps because of that, they are so strong in the Russian folklore images of foreign and native landscapes. Interestingly, the alien side was always substantial and multifaceted in the popular imagination. When a girl got married, even a neighbouring village seemed to her at first foreign. More "foreign" becomes a faraway place when people leave to work as haulers. Soldiers' "foreign place" was always harsh and distant.
Leaving for a faraway place, you must grudgingly fasten the heart; otherwise, you perish. "When visiting, be like people, but at home, as you wish," - says the proverb.
At home, the faraway place doesn't look so scary. However, when in a foreign land where "the birds sing differently, flowers bloom differently," the previous one, a little "foreign" place, a man will not call it a "foreign," but native.
An insult or ridicule suffered in a foreign land will not always be forgotten soon after the comeback. Good-natured mockery of the people's rumour is often manifested in such nicknames as "Permians - salty-ears," "Yaroslavsky waterslurpers," "Vologdian calves," and "Chud white-eyed." Yet mockery could reach only a specific target group, usually a travelling posse of workers, while a stranger was treated with reverence.
* COUNTY (Administrative division)*
A county in common sense was called several villages, united by a land register, a church parish or geographical features. It could be the first reason, another, and the third together. In some counties, there were several parishes or several communities. Usually, a county was situated along a river or lake. The villages were separated at a small but reasonable distance for fieldwork. People liked to settle on a higher ground overlooking the water.
There were lovely counties and were parishes so-so and sometimes quite shabby. Thus, the Kadnikovsk district of Vologda province county of Kumozero was one of the most beautiful places. The hills bordered along the picturesque lake, villages gravitated to the main village with the church visible for many miles around.
Not for nothing, the county was a place for the provincial Fair. It is challenging to imagine some other, more typical of the peasant life of the community than the county life.
The county has always had its own name, was distinguished by a unique vitality and rarely yielded to administrative evisceration. It also sported its peculiar dialect and had its soul and guardian angel.
Like the nerves of a living body, kinship thoroughly permeated it, although marrying outside of their county was considered more attractive. All adult residents knew each other in person and by hearsay. And if they didn't know, then they sought to find out. "Whose are you, boy?" - asked a rider, a boy opening the gates. Or: "I, my dear, from Verkhoturie come, Ivan Clay's niece, but got married (again, should be the exact address) to Antip (an ongoing detailed account of who, where, and whose cousin this Antip)." Or: "It hurts so good the girls are; where you from gorgeous?" Something like this or that would start all the talk. Life of the county didn't tolerate ambiguous words, nameless people, secret affairs and locked gates during daylight hours.
There were lovely counties and were parishes so-so and sometimes quite shabby. Thus, the Kadnikovsk district of Vologda province county of Kumozero was one of the most beautiful places. The hills bordered along the picturesque lake, villages gravitated to the main village with the church visible for many miles around.
Not for nothing, the county was a place for the provincial Fair. It is challenging to imagine some other, more typical of the peasant life of the community than the county life.
The county has always had its own name, was distinguished by a unique vitality and rarely yielded to administrative evisceration. It also sported its peculiar dialect and had its soul and guardian angel.
Like the nerves of a living body, kinship thoroughly permeated it, although marrying outside of their county was considered more attractive. All adult residents knew each other in person and by hearsay. And if they didn't know, then they sought to find out. "Whose are you, boy?" - asked a rider, a boy opening the gates. Or: "I, my dear, from Verkhoturie come, Ivan Clay's niece, but got married (again, should be the exact address) to Antip (an ongoing detailed account of who, where, and whose cousin this Antip)." Or: "It hurts so good the girls are; where you from gorgeous?" Something like this or that would start all the talk. Life of the county didn't tolerate ambiguous words, nameless people, secret affairs and locked gates during daylight hours.
* VILLAGE *
* Houses and buildings stand so close, so sometimes it was impossible to drive on the two-wheeler between them. You could drive only down the street, and cattle runs. To explain such overcrowding, a desire to save the land is absurd since there is a lot of land in the North.
The laity built houses close by, driven by a sense of convergence and desire to be one with all. In case of a fire, the whole parish would attack the fire, and the poor, orphans, and widows helped all together, paid taxes as one unit, and delegates and soldiers were chosen together. All that was said about the county is inherent in the village, only in a narrower sense.
Each village had a religious holiday, winter and summer; the rich villages always built their chapel.
Every grief and happiness in the village was visible. The people knew everything about everybody, no matter how scrupulous people were trying not to wash dirty linen in public. Others, more reckless, saying what the heck or naively, even laid out unnecessary details at the court of public opinion. But this court has always been selective: one thing it would take seriously, others not so, but the third it did not notice.
For a man, there was nothing more terrible than loneliness. Even the bad-tempered, unsociable nature layman had (at least formally) to observe the communication custom, visit the family, talk with neighbours, and bow with all the Orthodox people. This formalism in contact was always very noticeable and incredibly well-sensed by children and animals. Beggars, too, almost always accurately determined the measure of sincerity of alms. If evil and solitary were doing (by necessity) good deeds, then what to talk about people by nature good, humane and gentle.
The village's opinion is paid back to every one according to their true self. An atheist was an atheist; a drunkard was a drunkard. You cannot hide behind any pretences. An honourable man in the parish was known and revered in his village and far outside the county. Those people were often industrious, kind, sometimes wealthy, but often not.
In the village, mutual assistance had been worked out to the last detail. Borrowing money was inappropriate, but people were willing to give and take everything else. Men borrowed leather, ropes, tar, birch bark, and grain from each other. It was possible to borrow the field equipment and a horse with a harness. Women kept borrowing and lending utensils and dairy products. When their own cows had not yet been with milk, it was customary to take milk in debt, with close relatives, as a gift. People borrowed even samovar coals or bread leaven when suddenly you couldn't find it at the house.
People helped each other in big and small. Roll logs around the corner, babysit a child or grab something on the way to a neighbour - all this was considered a trifling favour. But how pleasant it was for you and the neighbour! There was an invisible threshold, a borrowing limit in all of this. To go to propose is still better to do in your own sleigh, and asking daily for the scales is not very handy...
All public issues - building roads, fences, walls, bridges - were addressed at public meetings. By the decision of the public gathering, night duty (patrol) was usually set.
In the 20s of the last century, it was combined with the duty of police constables in some places. Police constables organized public gatherings, gave lodging to pilgrims, and walked or drove on coaches for blind and orphans. A sign of the police constable was a plaque on the stake, put to a neighbour's gate after "patrolling" was done.
Your village was a home without any exaggeration. Even the most wicked apostate or drunkard, put by fate nowhere beyond the land's end, strove to go home. He knew that in his village, he would find sympathy, understanding, and forgiveness, even if he committed a sin ... And what could be more fruitful for an awakening conscience? To tear off a man from his homeland meant to destroy the economic and moral basis of his life.
The laity built houses close by, driven by a sense of convergence and desire to be one with all. In case of a fire, the whole parish would attack the fire, and the poor, orphans, and widows helped all together, paid taxes as one unit, and delegates and soldiers were chosen together. All that was said about the county is inherent in the village, only in a narrower sense.
Each village had a religious holiday, winter and summer; the rich villages always built their chapel.
Every grief and happiness in the village was visible. The people knew everything about everybody, no matter how scrupulous people were trying not to wash dirty linen in public. Others, more reckless, saying what the heck or naively, even laid out unnecessary details at the court of public opinion. But this court has always been selective: one thing it would take seriously, others not so, but the third it did not notice.
For a man, there was nothing more terrible than loneliness. Even the bad-tempered, unsociable nature layman had (at least formally) to observe the communication custom, visit the family, talk with neighbours, and bow with all the Orthodox people. This formalism in contact was always very noticeable and incredibly well-sensed by children and animals. Beggars, too, almost always accurately determined the measure of sincerity of alms. If evil and solitary were doing (by necessity) good deeds, then what to talk about people by nature good, humane and gentle.
The village's opinion is paid back to every one according to their true self. An atheist was an atheist; a drunkard was a drunkard. You cannot hide behind any pretences. An honourable man in the parish was known and revered in his village and far outside the county. Those people were often industrious, kind, sometimes wealthy, but often not.
In the village, mutual assistance had been worked out to the last detail. Borrowing money was inappropriate, but people were willing to give and take everything else. Men borrowed leather, ropes, tar, birch bark, and grain from each other. It was possible to borrow the field equipment and a horse with a harness. Women kept borrowing and lending utensils and dairy products. When their own cows had not yet been with milk, it was customary to take milk in debt, with close relatives, as a gift. People borrowed even samovar coals or bread leaven when suddenly you couldn't find it at the house.
People helped each other in big and small. Roll logs around the corner, babysit a child or grab something on the way to a neighbour - all this was considered a trifling favour. But how pleasant it was for you and the neighbour! There was an invisible threshold, a borrowing limit in all of this. To go to propose is still better to do in your own sleigh, and asking daily for the scales is not very handy...
All public issues - building roads, fences, walls, bridges - were addressed at public meetings. By the decision of the public gathering, night duty (patrol) was usually set.
In the 20s of the last century, it was combined with the duty of police constables in some places. Police constables organized public gatherings, gave lodging to pilgrims, and walked or drove on coaches for blind and orphans. A sign of the police constable was a plaque on the stake, put to a neighbour's gate after "patrolling" was done.
Your village was a home without any exaggeration. Even the most wicked apostate or drunkard, put by fate nowhere beyond the land's end, strove to go home. He knew that in his village, he would find sympathy, understanding, and forgiveness, even if he committed a sin ... And what could be more fruitful for an awakening conscience? To tear off a man from his homeland meant to destroy the economic and moral basis of his life.
The FARMSTEAD
On the compound usually lived one family, and if two were present, it was rare and temporary. The household of the same family in different places and at other times has been called different things (yard, smoke, draft, residence, etc.). The terminology was used to squeeze out the peasant's taxes and duties, but it also expressed other purposes of the family unit with all the economic and moral nuances.
For the Russian people, the family has always been the focus of all their moral and economic activity, the raison d'être, the foundation not only of the state but also of the world order. Almost all ethical and aesthetic values were shaped in the family, assimilated gradually with their depth and seriousness.
If he is not a monk, every healthy adult has a family. Being fit and mature and not having a wife or husband was considered godless, unnatural and absurd. Childlessness was seen as a punishment and the fate of the greatest human catastrophe. Big, prominent families enjoyed in the village and parish universal respect. "One son - not a son, two sons - half of a son, three sons - a son," - says the old proverb.
In that remark, there is a conclusion of the world. First, three sons must replace two of his father and mother, and a third to hedge their brothers. Secondly, if the family has many daughters, the family and the farm with three sons will not decline and not interrupt, and thirdly, if one goes to serve the prince and the second to God, then one of the three still remains.
But before we talk about the moral and aesthetic atmosphere of the Northern peasant family, recall the key names of relatives. Husbands and wives were called "spouses" for special occasions and had many other names. For example, the boss, spouse, "spousenik," man, father, lord, dad, "himself" - this way, wives called their husbands in different circumstances.
The wife was called a wife a wife, a lady of the house, "herself," mom. Add to these the names of a few vulgar names as a "broad," familiarly-loving "a little wife," economically justifiable, "big boss ."
Mother was called mom, matushka, Mammy, mama, mother, and parent. Sons and daughters are frequently called father daddy or batyushka (modern "papa" was introduced relatively recently). Parents in the North have never formally accessed "you," as is common in Ukraine. Stepfather and mother, as they are known, are called the stepfather and stepmother and stepdaughter and son - stepdaughter and stepson. Children of brothers and sisters were called cousins. Small children often called their grandfather "Dedo" and grandmother "Baba," nephews called uncles and aunts sometimes bozhat, bozhatok, bozhatushkoy or godfather, godmother.
The daughter-in-law came into another family's house and was obliged to call her father-in-law and mother-in-law as father and mother; they were for her "God-given" parents. Concerning the husband's father, the daughter-in-law was called "snokha," but concerning the mother and sisters of the husband - "nevestka ."
Sisters called brothers "bratelko" (little brother"), and cousins sometimes called each other "friend and brother," as could do non-related friends.
Fraternization of friends with the oath and the exchange of crosses and triple kisses was widespread and resulted from a special friendship or the events of salvation in the battle. Maiden's friendship, not connected by kinship, was set by a ritual: the girls exchanged the crosses. After that, the friends were called cross-exchanged. The term "My cross-exchanged" can often be found in the limericks. Fraternization and friendship oblige, making a person more circumspect in his behaviour.
No accident is that the ancient proverb states that "nobody needs a strained horse, a broken bow and a friend with a soiled reputation." By "dever," a woman called her husband's brother and a sister of her husband "zolovka ." There is a proverb for this occasion: "Better to have seven axes than seven hoes ."That is better if the husband has seven brothers than seven sisters. "Zyat" (The son-in-law) is the husband of a daughter.
The wife and husband's parents called each other "swat" (kinsman) and "swatya" (kinswoman). ("Swat" in the wedding ceremony is another person). Men married sisters are considered "swoyaki" (close ones), and the wife's sister is called, for some reason, "swoyachenniza" also. The title of "brother-in-law" exists only in the masculine, and for male relatives, it means the wife's brother and sister's husband is the son-in-law for both sexes. In this regard, the people come up with the humorous riddle: "Brother-in-law's nephew is what? In what kind of relation to the son-in-law?" Not right away; you can guess that it is a son.
There are countless poems, songs, and legends about the father's house. In terms of importance, the "native home" was one of the concepts of the Russian peasantry as death, life, good, evil, God, conscience, homeland, Earth, mother, and father.
A sweet home for a man is definite and concrete in shape, as scientists say. The image is not abstract but always subjective, accurate and ... individual, even for members of one family, born to the same mother and grown under the same roof. This house is always different from other houses, even constructively, and even though it would be built down to a hair, just like someone else's, which was, in general, a rare case.
Building wooden and equipping two identical homes cannot be done even by the same carpenter, at least because all the trees in the forest are different, and every day of the year is also other.
The difference was in the very atmosphere of the family, its moral and aesthetic appearance, family habits, traditions and characters.
Each house had a centre, something important about the entire farmstead. This focus, of course, has always been the hearse, a Russian stove that will not cool off as long as the house exists and if there is at least one living soul. Every morning, there has been a fire in the stove for many centuries to warm, feed, comfort and heal people. This fire is connected to my whole life. The home is alive until the hearse is warm; this physical warmth is equivalent to soul warmth.
And if there is a merger of the invisible world and the physically tangible one, the example of the hearth is ideal for such a merger. Since the beginning of Christianity, the hearse of the Russian house, apparently, gave way some of its "rights and duties" to the front right corner with the icon lamp and Orthodox icons. The shrine in the corner of the family table, which has always been present daily bread and salt, is the spiritual centre of a peasant's hut, both winters and summers. However, the hearse does not oppose the right front corner; they complement each other.
Favourite icons in Russian life, apart from Christ the Saviour, were considered the images of the Virgin (link to the significance of the lady of the house, "big-one," the keeper of the hearse and family warmth, is obvious), Nicholas the Miracle-worker (which is a carpenter and fisherman and hunter), and finally, the image of St. George, treading by the spear a serpent (defender by the force of the arms).
There were a lot of omens related to home and the hearth, all kinds of legends and superstitions. It was believed, for example, that it is forbidden to inundate the stove with a woman's head uncovered. "Grandfather behind the stove - tells Anfisa Ivanovna - put a pot on a lady's head, and she lived with the pot all her life."
For the Russian people, the family has always been the focus of all their moral and economic activity, the raison d'être, the foundation not only of the state but also of the world order. Almost all ethical and aesthetic values were shaped in the family, assimilated gradually with their depth and seriousness.
If he is not a monk, every healthy adult has a family. Being fit and mature and not having a wife or husband was considered godless, unnatural and absurd. Childlessness was seen as a punishment and the fate of the greatest human catastrophe. Big, prominent families enjoyed in the village and parish universal respect. "One son - not a son, two sons - half of a son, three sons - a son," - says the old proverb.
In that remark, there is a conclusion of the world. First, three sons must replace two of his father and mother, and a third to hedge their brothers. Secondly, if the family has many daughters, the family and the farm with three sons will not decline and not interrupt, and thirdly, if one goes to serve the prince and the second to God, then one of the three still remains.
But before we talk about the moral and aesthetic atmosphere of the Northern peasant family, recall the key names of relatives. Husbands and wives were called "spouses" for special occasions and had many other names. For example, the boss, spouse, "spousenik," man, father, lord, dad, "himself" - this way, wives called their husbands in different circumstances.
The wife was called a wife a wife, a lady of the house, "herself," mom. Add to these the names of a few vulgar names as a "broad," familiarly-loving "a little wife," economically justifiable, "big boss ."
Mother was called mom, matushka, Mammy, mama, mother, and parent. Sons and daughters are frequently called father daddy or batyushka (modern "papa" was introduced relatively recently). Parents in the North have never formally accessed "you," as is common in Ukraine. Stepfather and mother, as they are known, are called the stepfather and stepmother and stepdaughter and son - stepdaughter and stepson. Children of brothers and sisters were called cousins. Small children often called their grandfather "Dedo" and grandmother "Baba," nephews called uncles and aunts sometimes bozhat, bozhatok, bozhatushkoy or godfather, godmother.
The daughter-in-law came into another family's house and was obliged to call her father-in-law and mother-in-law as father and mother; they were for her "God-given" parents. Concerning the husband's father, the daughter-in-law was called "snokha," but concerning the mother and sisters of the husband - "nevestka ."
Sisters called brothers "bratelko" (little brother"), and cousins sometimes called each other "friend and brother," as could do non-related friends.
Fraternization of friends with the oath and the exchange of crosses and triple kisses was widespread and resulted from a special friendship or the events of salvation in the battle. Maiden's friendship, not connected by kinship, was set by a ritual: the girls exchanged the crosses. After that, the friends were called cross-exchanged. The term "My cross-exchanged" can often be found in the limericks. Fraternization and friendship oblige, making a person more circumspect in his behaviour.
No accident is that the ancient proverb states that "nobody needs a strained horse, a broken bow and a friend with a soiled reputation." By "dever," a woman called her husband's brother and a sister of her husband "zolovka ." There is a proverb for this occasion: "Better to have seven axes than seven hoes ."That is better if the husband has seven brothers than seven sisters. "Zyat" (The son-in-law) is the husband of a daughter.
The wife and husband's parents called each other "swat" (kinsman) and "swatya" (kinswoman). ("Swat" in the wedding ceremony is another person). Men married sisters are considered "swoyaki" (close ones), and the wife's sister is called, for some reason, "swoyachenniza" also. The title of "brother-in-law" exists only in the masculine, and for male relatives, it means the wife's brother and sister's husband is the son-in-law for both sexes. In this regard, the people come up with the humorous riddle: "Brother-in-law's nephew is what? In what kind of relation to the son-in-law?" Not right away; you can guess that it is a son.
There are countless poems, songs, and legends about the father's house. In terms of importance, the "native home" was one of the concepts of the Russian peasantry as death, life, good, evil, God, conscience, homeland, Earth, mother, and father.
A sweet home for a man is definite and concrete in shape, as scientists say. The image is not abstract but always subjective, accurate and ... individual, even for members of one family, born to the same mother and grown under the same roof. This house is always different from other houses, even constructively, and even though it would be built down to a hair, just like someone else's, which was, in general, a rare case.
Building wooden and equipping two identical homes cannot be done even by the same carpenter, at least because all the trees in the forest are different, and every day of the year is also other.
The difference was in the very atmosphere of the family, its moral and aesthetic appearance, family habits, traditions and characters.
Each house had a centre, something important about the entire farmstead. This focus, of course, has always been the hearse, a Russian stove that will not cool off as long as the house exists and if there is at least one living soul. Every morning, there has been a fire in the stove for many centuries to warm, feed, comfort and heal people. This fire is connected to my whole life. The home is alive until the hearse is warm; this physical warmth is equivalent to soul warmth.
And if there is a merger of the invisible world and the physically tangible one, the example of the hearth is ideal for such a merger. Since the beginning of Christianity, the hearse of the Russian house, apparently, gave way some of its "rights and duties" to the front right corner with the icon lamp and Orthodox icons. The shrine in the corner of the family table, which has always been present daily bread and salt, is the spiritual centre of a peasant's hut, both winters and summers. However, the hearse does not oppose the right front corner; they complement each other.
Favourite icons in Russian life, apart from Christ the Saviour, were considered the images of the Virgin (link to the significance of the lady of the house, "big-one," the keeper of the hearse and family warmth, is obvious), Nicholas the Miracle-worker (which is a carpenter and fisherman and hunter), and finally, the image of St. George, treading by the spear a serpent (defender by the force of the arms).
There were a lot of omens related to home and the hearth, all kinds of legends and superstitions. It was believed, for example, that it is forbidden to inundate the stove with a woman's head uncovered. "Grandfather behind the stove - tells Anfisa Ivanovna - put a pot on a lady's head, and she lived with the pot all her life."
* FAMILY
Generally, a loner, tramp, hobo, and people without families were considered punished by fate and God. Having a family and children was as necessary as an integral and natural as to work.
The most significant moral authority together holds the family. This authority usually belongs to the traditional head of the family. However, the combination of leadership and moral authority is optional. Sometimes, such power was granted to the grandfather, one of the sons, or the "big one" (wife), while the formal rule has always belonged to the man, husband, father, and parent.
Kindness, tolerance, and mutual forgiveness of wrongs develop in a good family into mutual love despite the diversity of the family. Curses, envy, and selfishness were not only considered a sin. They were personally disadvantageous for any family member. Love and harmony among family members initiated loving relationships beyond home limits. It is in vain to expect respect for others, neighbours in the village, the township or the county from a man who does not like and does not respect his own family.
Even inter-ethnic friendship has its source of love for family and kinship. To expect the baby to be ready to love, for example, his uncle or aunt, is absurd; his love does not extend beyond the mother initially. The moral sphere expands with the physical expansion of the scope of knowledge.
The child gradually starts to pity the mother and father, sisters and brothers, grandmother and grandfather; finally, the family feeling becomes more vigorous than it can apply to aunts and uncles. Then, a direct blood relationship indirectly becomes the foundation for kinship because a quarrelsome, not respecting their daughter's old woman cannot be a good mother-in-law, as a coarse daughter will never become a good sister-in-law.
Compassion and love for relatives by blood are prerequisites, if not for love, then at least for deep respect for distant relatives. Just on this boundary line originate the springs of altruism flowing beyond the home. A contentious and quarrelsome disposition as a character's property is considered a punishment of fate and evokes pity for their carriers. Active response to such manifestations of nature did not bring the family any good. Giving in, forgetting the insult, answering well, or remaining silent was necessary.
The formal hierarchy in a traditional Russian family, as in the village and township, does not always coincide with morals, even though there was a desire for such. Therefore, the children respected and obeyed even a weak father; even a not-very-lucky husband enjoyed the wife's confidence.
When the time came, the father would give away tacit, self-evident seniority to even a not-so-bright son. The strictness of family relationships was based on traditional moral principles, not the tyranny which excludes tenderness toward children and care for the elderly.
For centuries, gender relations evolved in the peasant family, for example, between a wife and her husband and between sisters and brothers. Particularly evident are these relationships appear at work. The woman rolling onto the cart a colossal log or waving a hammer in the foundry was as absurd as a spinning yard blacksmith or milking a cowman.
Widows usually picked up a hatchet only because of the great need, and the man (too often widowed) sat down with the pail under the cow.
All the executive power in the household held a "big one" - woman, wife and mother. She was in charge, as they say, with the keys to the whole house; she kept track of hay, straw, flour and other food. All the cattle and all domestic livestock, except horses, were under a "big one" supervision. Under her watchful control was all that was associated with family meals: fasting, baking bread and cakes, a festive table and the daily table, handling laundry and clothing repair, textile, and bathhouse.
Of course, she needed to do more of this work. Children who barely learned to stroll, along with the game, began to do something useful. "Big-one" was not shy regarding rewards and punishments in the household. Over the years, the title "big-one" quietly passed management to the son's wife.
`The host, the head of home and family, was primarily a mediator in the relationship of the farmstead and the land society, the family and the powers that be. He was responsible for significant agricultural activity, plowing, sowing, construction, logging and firewood. He and his older sons carried all the physical burden of peasant labour on his shoulders. The grandfather (the owner's father) often had not only advisory but the casting vote in all these cases.
Apropos, in a respectable family, any crucial matters were decided at the family councils and openly in the presence of children. Only distant relatives (or infirm paupers, living in the house until their death) wisely did not participate in these councils.
The Peasant family has evolved over the centuries; the people selected its most necessary "dimensions" and properties. Thus, it could be destroyed or provided to be inferior if the family needed to be more complete. The same happened with the sizeable superfluous number when, for example, two or three sons got married. In the latter case, the family becomes, to put it in a modern way, "unmanageable," so a married son, if he had brothers, sought to secede from his father's household. The parish would cut him a piece of land from a public fund, and the house was built with help from all the family. Daughters, growing up, too, left their father's house. Moreover, each was trying not to marry before her elder sister. "You do not thresh each other sheaf,» - said about the unwritten law of this priority.
Children in the family are considered to be the subject of general worship. The unloved child was a rarity in the Russian peasant life. With age, people who have not experienced parental and family love as a child become miserable. Widowhood and orphanhood have been considered tremendous and irreparable sorrow since ancient times. Offending an orphan or widow meant to make one of the most grievous sins. Growing up and standing on their feet, orphans would become ordinary people, but the wounds of the orphanage did not heal in the hearts of each of them.
THE * CIRCLE OF LIFE *
Rhythm is the basis not only of labour. The rhythm is necessary to humans throughout life. And not just to a person but to the whole family, all parish and peasantry throughout the village.
LAD (harmony) and pitch, as well as the non-Russian origin of the words "tact" and "tone," belong to the world of music. But the "tact" in modern Russian is used broadly and is a common reason for characterizing attentive, polite behaviour.
Harmony and pitch do not need a discussion. Harmony, both spiritual and physical, individually and together, is a more fulfilling life, the rhythm of life.
Loss of rhythm is a disease, disorder, break, and chaos. Death is all stop, chaos, absurdity, the cessation of a harmonic sound, the disintegration, and the chaotic mix of sounds. A balanced life, as well as musical sound, does not mean uniformity. On the other hand, rhythm frees up time and each individual or ethnic community; it helps personality speak out and organize it, like a melody in music.
The rhythm reinforces creativity in man. It is compulsory, although not the only condition for creativity. The rhythm was one of the most unique accessories of Northern folk life. The most trudging physical work becomes more natural and less tiring if it is rhythmic. No wonder many of the same work processes were accompanied by songs. Recall the proverbial barge haulers, "Hey, push ..." or by poet Nikitin: "Walks the plowman with plow, walks and sings a song. He shoulders all the heavy things dashingly..." So the rowers in the boat, breaking the wind and waves, sang, and the soldiers on the march sang; mowers on the meadow sang. So sang even the shackled convicts.
Rhythm helps you quickly master the secrets of labour, acquire skills, and sometimes, even at the time, free a person from even his physical disability. For example, a woman stutterer, usually unable to bind two words, could sing for hours with a robust, secure, and accessible voice. Rhythmic was not only a full-time daily cycle but the whole week. Seasonal agricultural works, holidays, and fasts made rhythmic the entire year — only long multi-day trips "for hauling" brought down the daily rhythm of peasant life. In the XIX century and the beginning of the last, those trips (to the fair, on duty, station, logging, etc.) were not frequent. Despite the severity and road amenities, they were initially perceived as a forced violation of ordinary life. With the growth of Russia's industry in the rural economy, seasonal work began to develop, and travel became more frequent and burdensome, resulting in a violation of daily and annual rhythms.
A person changes their age features imperceptibly to themselves, consistently, step by step (remember that the word "stepenno" in English with dignity, otherwise not in a hurry, the same root). Infancy, childhood, adolescence, youth, coming of age, maturity, old age, and decrepitude succeeded each other naturally, like change, for example, times of the year. There were no sharp boundaries or mutual hostility between these states; they each had their charm and dignity. If a child behaves like a baby, it has been permitted and tolerated; in youth, they were regarded as unnatural and therefore already ridiculed. What was appropriate for childhood, yet not completely cut off in adolescence, but in youth, would be exposed to mild humiliation and was considered quite obscene at the time of maturation.
For example, infants cannot cut out the whistle from the spring willow twig. A small child has enough for that, neither strength nor skills (not to mention that the senior had never trusted him with a polished blade). As a boy, he does heaps of these most whistles; in his youth, he is already embarrassed to make them, although perhaps he wants it; in his youth, he had enough of other, more complex, and valuable entertainment.
One can only reduce or extend any age-related condition, but jumping over it or throwing it out completely is impossible. Such gradualism implies the novelty and variety of life experiences. After all, nothing in life is possible to repeat, not the baby's first cry or the first dive in a perch whirlpool. Men are not allowed to become a recruit or a suitor twice. If it is given, novelty and charm disappear, as does the magic of any event, even such a sad occasion, like separation from the motherland because he went to the army. A widower who had to marry a second time hesitated to do the wedding. The women didn't appreciate the second marriage.
Public opinion is very condescending to physical or other disabilities and ruthless to a moral disability. So that's why an evil man wanted to be no worse than others (at least not brag that he was terrible), a regular tried to be better, and a good thought that it would not hurt to get better?
A rhythm that accompanied the person throughout his life path explains many of the "peculiarities" of the peasant life. It was believed, for example, it is pretty reasonable, though not so venerable, that the child and the older man from a prosperous household suddenly went begging with the basket around (meaning, in the family, unexpectedly fell a horse or burned down a barn, or rye harvest became soaked). But no one ever imagined such a picture: not a child and not an older man, but the owner of the impoverished family amid harvest time would do the same.
Even not so long ago, it was considered shameful to celebrate on weekdays in the Northern villages. Women and youth were allowed to drink only wort and beer, and the men who got drunk and began to "mischief" would be led out from the premises. Older men and women had the right to snuff tobacco. But it is difficult to say that would be waiting for a teenager or young man who would dare to get the snuffbox.
Everything had its time and its period. Disconnecting in the chain of natural and, therefore, necessary events or rearrangement of their timing could create a fever of man's destiny. So, a very early marriage could lead to a man complex "lost fun" ("fun" back then wasn't meant to make noise, revel and get loose, to have fun intended to be single, free from family and military concerns). This "lost fun" later could have an impact in not the best way; some men began to make up for it while having a family. In the same way, a too protracted bachelor's period would not benefit; it knocked out from the standard life gauge, corrupted, and spoiled people.
The severity of physical work (as, incidentally, and psychological stress) increased in the peasant life quietly, consistently, that hardened man but not strained. So also steadily grew the measure of responsibility to peers, to a brother or sister, before the parents and the whole family, village, community, the state, and, finally, to the "whole white world." This was the basis of education. Because those who deceived their counterparts in children's games could easily deceive their father and mother, and those who deceived their father and mother, after a few repetitions, it costs nothing for them to ignore the opinion of the whole village and all the people. Hence, there lies the direct road to selfishness and schism. The man slowly begins to get angry at all and puts himself in opposition to the whole world. Estrangement justifies anti-social behaviour and even crimes in the eyes of a selfish person or egoistic group.
LAD (harmony) and pitch, as well as the non-Russian origin of the words "tact" and "tone," belong to the world of music. But the "tact" in modern Russian is used broadly and is a common reason for characterizing attentive, polite behaviour.
Harmony and pitch do not need a discussion. Harmony, both spiritual and physical, individually and together, is a more fulfilling life, the rhythm of life.
Loss of rhythm is a disease, disorder, break, and chaos. Death is all stop, chaos, absurdity, the cessation of a harmonic sound, the disintegration, and the chaotic mix of sounds. A balanced life, as well as musical sound, does not mean uniformity. On the other hand, rhythm frees up time and each individual or ethnic community; it helps personality speak out and organize it, like a melody in music.
The rhythm reinforces creativity in man. It is compulsory, although not the only condition for creativity. The rhythm was one of the most unique accessories of Northern folk life. The most trudging physical work becomes more natural and less tiring if it is rhythmic. No wonder many of the same work processes were accompanied by songs. Recall the proverbial barge haulers, "Hey, push ..." or by poet Nikitin: "Walks the plowman with plow, walks and sings a song. He shoulders all the heavy things dashingly..." So the rowers in the boat, breaking the wind and waves, sang, and the soldiers on the march sang; mowers on the meadow sang. So sang even the shackled convicts.
Rhythm helps you quickly master the secrets of labour, acquire skills, and sometimes, even at the time, free a person from even his physical disability. For example, a woman stutterer, usually unable to bind two words, could sing for hours with a robust, secure, and accessible voice. Rhythmic was not only a full-time daily cycle but the whole week. Seasonal agricultural works, holidays, and fasts made rhythmic the entire year — only long multi-day trips "for hauling" brought down the daily rhythm of peasant life. In the XIX century and the beginning of the last, those trips (to the fair, on duty, station, logging, etc.) were not frequent. Despite the severity and road amenities, they were initially perceived as a forced violation of ordinary life. With the growth of Russia's industry in the rural economy, seasonal work began to develop, and travel became more frequent and burdensome, resulting in a violation of daily and annual rhythms.
A person changes their age features imperceptibly to themselves, consistently, step by step (remember that the word "stepenno" in English with dignity, otherwise not in a hurry, the same root). Infancy, childhood, adolescence, youth, coming of age, maturity, old age, and decrepitude succeeded each other naturally, like change, for example, times of the year. There were no sharp boundaries or mutual hostility between these states; they each had their charm and dignity. If a child behaves like a baby, it has been permitted and tolerated; in youth, they were regarded as unnatural and therefore already ridiculed. What was appropriate for childhood, yet not completely cut off in adolescence, but in youth, would be exposed to mild humiliation and was considered quite obscene at the time of maturation.
For example, infants cannot cut out the whistle from the spring willow twig. A small child has enough for that, neither strength nor skills (not to mention that the senior had never trusted him with a polished blade). As a boy, he does heaps of these most whistles; in his youth, he is already embarrassed to make them, although perhaps he wants it; in his youth, he had enough of other, more complex, and valuable entertainment.
One can only reduce or extend any age-related condition, but jumping over it or throwing it out completely is impossible. Such gradualism implies the novelty and variety of life experiences. After all, nothing in life is possible to repeat, not the baby's first cry or the first dive in a perch whirlpool. Men are not allowed to become a recruit or a suitor twice. If it is given, novelty and charm disappear, as does the magic of any event, even such a sad occasion, like separation from the motherland because he went to the army. A widower who had to marry a second time hesitated to do the wedding. The women didn't appreciate the second marriage.
Public opinion is very condescending to physical or other disabilities and ruthless to a moral disability. So that's why an evil man wanted to be no worse than others (at least not brag that he was terrible), a regular tried to be better, and a good thought that it would not hurt to get better?
A rhythm that accompanied the person throughout his life path explains many of the "peculiarities" of the peasant life. It was believed, for example, it is pretty reasonable, though not so venerable, that the child and the older man from a prosperous household suddenly went begging with the basket around (meaning, in the family, unexpectedly fell a horse or burned down a barn, or rye harvest became soaked). But no one ever imagined such a picture: not a child and not an older man, but the owner of the impoverished family amid harvest time would do the same.
Even not so long ago, it was considered shameful to celebrate on weekdays in the Northern villages. Women and youth were allowed to drink only wort and beer, and the men who got drunk and began to "mischief" would be led out from the premises. Older men and women had the right to snuff tobacco. But it is difficult to say that would be waiting for a teenager or young man who would dare to get the snuffbox.
Everything had its time and its period. Disconnecting in the chain of natural and, therefore, necessary events or rearrangement of their timing could create a fever of man's destiny. So, a very early marriage could lead to a man complex "lost fun" ("fun" back then wasn't meant to make noise, revel and get loose, to have fun intended to be single, free from family and military concerns). This "lost fun" later could have an impact in not the best way; some men began to make up for it while having a family. In the same way, a too protracted bachelor's period would not benefit; it knocked out from the standard life gauge, corrupted, and spoiled people.
The severity of physical work (as, incidentally, and psychological stress) increased in the peasant life quietly, consistently, that hardened man but not strained. So also steadily grew the measure of responsibility to peers, to a brother or sister, before the parents and the whole family, village, community, the state, and, finally, to the "whole white world." This was the basis of education. Because those who deceived their counterparts in children's games could easily deceive their father and mother, and those who deceived their father and mother, after a few repetitions, it costs nothing for them to ignore the opinion of the whole village and all the people. Hence, there lies the direct road to selfishness and schism. The man slowly begins to get angry at all and puts himself in opposition to the whole world. Estrangement justifies anti-social behaviour and even crimes in the eyes of a selfish person or egoistic group.
Friday 1 November 2019
**INFANCY * *
Not that a woman would be ashamed of pregnancy, but she became restrained; many, many things for her at this time would become not so important. She would avoid unnecessary exposure to people. It was believed that the fewer people knew about it, the less gossip, and the less gossip, the better it was for mother and child.
A word or look of an evil person can injure the soul, hence the expression "evil eye" and the belief in "curse."
Nevertheless, women are almost to the last day working in the field and taking care of the animals (still, it is unknown what is more useful during pregnancy: to sit for two months at home or work in the field). Relatives were to protect women from heavy work. Yet children are often born in the fields, under the sheaf, in the hay barn.
Most women feeling the approach of labour were hiding in another house, behind the stove or oven, in the bathhouse, and sometimes in the barn and sent for the midwife. Men and children should not have been present at labour. The child's grandmother, either her mother-in-law or mother, has helped with delivery. She shamelessly slapped the baby on the tiny red ass, causing it to cry. The baby's screams mean it is alive. The navel was tied with a strong linen thread.
Prayers, wishes, and various signs accompanied the birth of the baby. Often, if the bath was not ready, grandmother climbed into a large oven. With water warmed in the samovar, she washed the child in a hot oven underlaid by a rye straw. Then the baby is tightly swaddled, and only after all this is delivered to the maternal bosom and put into the cradle. The squeak of the cradle was accompanied by mothers' or grandmothers' lullabies and sometimes even grandfathers'.
Within weeks, a child begins to sing along to his nanny. Falling asleep after eating or crying, he hummed a ditty under the nose in rhythm to swinging and grandmother's song: Ao-ao-ao.
Milk was poured into a ram's horn with a specially treated teat of cow's udder; the baby was swaddled in long linen tape. Swaddling comforted a child, did not let him mess around and "kick," and was not allowed to harm himself.
A soft cradle, woven from pine sticks, hung on the elderberry handle to the wooden mast. The mast is a flexible rod attached to the ceiling log. Although the cradle was swinging quite strongly on a good mast, it gently moved up to seven feet from the floor. Such a swing from the birthday gave a special hardening: sailors of peasant origin rarely had sea sickness.
The cradle served man the very first, the smallest of space; this scope soon expanded to the size of the hut, and suddenly, the world opened once to the baby in all its breadth and grandeur. The village street went far into the green summer or white winter field. The sky, houses, trees, people, animals, snow and grass, water, and the sun were never the same, and their combinations were replaced every hour, sometimes every minute. And how big is exciting, fantastic and varied joy in one, the essential being your own mother! How rich becomes the world with her brief appearance, as infinitely beautiful, calm and happy feels a tiny creature in such moments!
Father rarely takes the child in his arms; he almost always appears harsh and causes fear. But how memorable is his fleeting, affectionate smile... And what is a grandmother who rocks the cradle, sings songs, spins yarn, who is omnipresent? Almost all the feelings: fear, joy, resentment, shame, tenderness - are already present in infancy and usually contact the grandmother, who "babysits," rocks the cradle, and takes care of the baby. She also teaches order, gives everyday skills, and introduces the joy of the game and that the world does not consist only of pleasure.
First, simple games, for example, "ladushki," or play with her fingers. After "spitting" the baby in the palm, the old woman began to mix "porridge" with her stiff finger:
"Magpie cooked porridge, called her children.
Come over, kids, to eat porridge.
To this one by the spoon - the old woman shaking her pinkie -
to this one by the ladle - begin to "feed" the ring finger
- To that one, the whole inch.
To this one - the whole pot!"
A personal appeal to each of the fingers caused the increase of interest of the child and the very narrator. When it reached the last finger (the thumb), the old woman was plucking at him, saying: "And thou, a finger-boy, did not go to the barn, did not thresh the peas. You get nothing!"
All of this quickly, with the speeding rate, results in a minor butting into the child's arm: "This is a spring (wrist), This is a spring (elbow), this is a spring ... (forearm), etc. And then there is fresh spring water!" Grandma was tickling a child under his arm, and a grandson or granddaughter came to the happy, ecstatic laughter.
Another rhyming game also has an original storyline devoid of adult guile.
"Ladushki, ladushki, where were you? - At grandma's place. What did you drink or eat? - Kasha cooked. Kasha is sweet, Grandma is kind, Grandpa is harsh.
Hit with the ladle into the forehead."
The end of the joke with a light comical clicking on the forehead caused, for some reason (especially after the frequent repetition), children's excitement, laughter and delight. Such game jokes were in dozens and instinctively made more complex by adults.
As the child grew and developed, games for boys and girls became more and more apart and distinct. Rhymes, lullabies and other songs, jokes, and tongue-twisters were sprinkled with the baby's name, linked to the strengths and weaknesses of the emerging child character and specific conditions in the home, family, and nature.
The children slept in the cradle until they started walking. Then, however, a new baby came, and they were put to sleep "jack-wise" in the same cradle. In such cases, everything got complicated, especially for the babysitter and the mother ... It also could happen that an uncle was born after his nephew, claiming a place in the cradle. So then, before the separation of the young family, the house creaked two identical flying cradles.
Somewhere in the Russian North-West, in honour of the child's birth, especially the firstborn, the father or grandfather planted a tree: linden, mountain ash, usually birch. If the front yard had no more space, the tree was planted near the bathhouse or in the garden. This birch tree grew together with the child. It is known as Sasha's (or Tanya's) birch. Henceforth, a person and a tree care for each other, keeping the secret of reciprocity.
A word or look of an evil person can injure the soul, hence the expression "evil eye" and the belief in "curse."
Nevertheless, women are almost to the last day working in the field and taking care of the animals (still, it is unknown what is more useful during pregnancy: to sit for two months at home or work in the field). Relatives were to protect women from heavy work. Yet children are often born in the fields, under the sheaf, in the hay barn.
Most women feeling the approach of labour were hiding in another house, behind the stove or oven, in the bathhouse, and sometimes in the barn and sent for the midwife. Men and children should not have been present at labour. The child's grandmother, either her mother-in-law or mother, has helped with delivery. She shamelessly slapped the baby on the tiny red ass, causing it to cry. The baby's screams mean it is alive. The navel was tied with a strong linen thread.
Prayers, wishes, and various signs accompanied the birth of the baby. Often, if the bath was not ready, grandmother climbed into a large oven. With water warmed in the samovar, she washed the child in a hot oven underlaid by a rye straw. Then the baby is tightly swaddled, and only after all this is delivered to the maternal bosom and put into the cradle. The squeak of the cradle was accompanied by mothers' or grandmothers' lullabies and sometimes even grandfathers'.
Within weeks, a child begins to sing along to his nanny. Falling asleep after eating or crying, he hummed a ditty under the nose in rhythm to swinging and grandmother's song: Ao-ao-ao.
Milk was poured into a ram's horn with a specially treated teat of cow's udder; the baby was swaddled in long linen tape. Swaddling comforted a child, did not let him mess around and "kick," and was not allowed to harm himself.
A soft cradle, woven from pine sticks, hung on the elderberry handle to the wooden mast. The mast is a flexible rod attached to the ceiling log. Although the cradle was swinging quite strongly on a good mast, it gently moved up to seven feet from the floor. Such a swing from the birthday gave a special hardening: sailors of peasant origin rarely had sea sickness.
The cradle served man the very first, the smallest of space; this scope soon expanded to the size of the hut, and suddenly, the world opened once to the baby in all its breadth and grandeur. The village street went far into the green summer or white winter field. The sky, houses, trees, people, animals, snow and grass, water, and the sun were never the same, and their combinations were replaced every hour, sometimes every minute. And how big is exciting, fantastic and varied joy in one, the essential being your own mother! How rich becomes the world with her brief appearance, as infinitely beautiful, calm and happy feels a tiny creature in such moments!
Father rarely takes the child in his arms; he almost always appears harsh and causes fear. But how memorable is his fleeting, affectionate smile... And what is a grandmother who rocks the cradle, sings songs, spins yarn, who is omnipresent? Almost all the feelings: fear, joy, resentment, shame, tenderness - are already present in infancy and usually contact the grandmother, who "babysits," rocks the cradle, and takes care of the baby. She also teaches order, gives everyday skills, and introduces the joy of the game and that the world does not consist only of pleasure.
First, simple games, for example, "ladushki," or play with her fingers. After "spitting" the baby in the palm, the old woman began to mix "porridge" with her stiff finger:
"Magpie cooked porridge, called her children.
Come over, kids, to eat porridge.
To this one by the spoon - the old woman shaking her pinkie -
to this one by the ladle - begin to "feed" the ring finger
- To that one, the whole inch.
To this one - the whole pot!"
A personal appeal to each of the fingers caused the increase of interest of the child and the very narrator. When it reached the last finger (the thumb), the old woman was plucking at him, saying: "And thou, a finger-boy, did not go to the barn, did not thresh the peas. You get nothing!"
All of this quickly, with the speeding rate, results in a minor butting into the child's arm: "This is a spring (wrist), This is a spring (elbow), this is a spring ... (forearm), etc. And then there is fresh spring water!" Grandma was tickling a child under his arm, and a grandson or granddaughter came to the happy, ecstatic laughter.
Another rhyming game also has an original storyline devoid of adult guile.
"Ladushki, ladushki, where were you? - At grandma's place. What did you drink or eat? - Kasha cooked. Kasha is sweet, Grandma is kind, Grandpa is harsh.
Hit with the ladle into the forehead."
The end of the joke with a light comical clicking on the forehead caused, for some reason (especially after the frequent repetition), children's excitement, laughter and delight. Such game jokes were in dozens and instinctively made more complex by adults.
As the child grew and developed, games for boys and girls became more and more apart and distinct. Rhymes, lullabies and other songs, jokes, and tongue-twisters were sprinkled with the baby's name, linked to the strengths and weaknesses of the emerging child character and specific conditions in the home, family, and nature.
The children slept in the cradle until they started walking. Then, however, a new baby came, and they were put to sleep "jack-wise" in the same cradle. In such cases, everything got complicated, especially for the babysitter and the mother ... It also could happen that an uncle was born after his nephew, claiming a place in the cradle. So then, before the separation of the young family, the house creaked two identical flying cradles.
Somewhere in the Russian North-West, in honour of the child's birth, especially the firstborn, the father or grandfather planted a tree: linden, mountain ash, usually birch. If the front yard had no more space, the tree was planted near the bathhouse or in the garden. This birch tree grew together with the child. It is known as Sasha's (or Tanya's) birch. Henceforth, a person and a tree care for each other, keeping the secret of reciprocity.
* CHILDHOOD *
Writers and philosophers call childhood the happiest time in human life. Carried away by this assertion, we might think facing an unhappy time in life, such as old age, is inevitable. However, people's views of life do not allow talking about it with such certainty. It would be a gross mistake to judge people's outlook on life from the mind's perspective, by which man is only happy in his childhood, that is, while he does not know about death.
There was no opposition from one life period to another for a Russian peasant. Life for him was a whole thing. This unity is based not on permanency but on a constant and inevitable change. The boundary between childhood and infancy is unclear, as it is unclear when changing, for example, night and morning, spring and summer, the creek and the river. And yet, despite this uncertainty, they exist separately: the night and morning, the brook, and the river.
It is best to think that childhood begins when a person can remember himself. But again, when does it really start? Smells, sounds, a play of sun rays recalled from infancy. (Some people seriously claim that they remember how they were born.)
By peasant's ways, you're not a baby anymore if you are weaned from the maternal breast. But some "babies" were breastfed up to the age of five. After that, breastfeeding was interrupted by the prospect of another child.
Maybe weaning from the maternal breast is the first severe hardship in life. Is it not a tragedy for a little human being when he is full of expectation and confidence to mother, once clung to the nipple, smeared with mustard? The culmination of infancy was considered when the children learned to walk and get their first clothes and shoes. The ability to ignore unpleasant and horrific things (e.g., death) is probably the main feature of childhood. But this does not mean that the grievances of childhood are forgotten quickly. On the contrary, the child's soul absorbs equally greedy the evil and the good, the evil and the good impressions remembered equally vividly for life. But evil and sound do not change places in the peasant view of the world, unlike the yolks and whites in the egg; they are never mixed.
The atmosphere of kindness around a child was considered mandatory. It did not mean pampering and indulging. The steady, kind attitude of the adult toward a child does not contradict accountability and strictness, which grew gradually. As mentioned, the degree of responsibility before society and the physical load at work and in games depended on age. They grew slowly, imperceptibly, but steadily, not only from year to year but maybe with each day. The didactic and forceful imposition of good habits caused bitterness, resistance, and opposition in the children's hearts. If the boy is being dragged by the hand into the fields, he will obey. But what's the use of such obedience? Nothing is forced to do; the child himself wants to work. Adults just wisely protect him from the crushing workload.
A typical child's desire for imitation immeasurably enriches education more than coercion. A personal example of the behaviour of adult life (grandparents, parents, siblings) stood in front of the child's inner eye. Is that why in good families rarely, very rarely come out bad people? The family has been instilled in childhood immunity to moral artifice.
The world of childhood has expanded rapidly and every day. Then, a person was finally leaving the lived-in, familiar to the last twig crib, and the whole room became an everyday three-dimensional world.
Behind the stove, under the stove, in the scullery, behind the cupboard, under the table and under the benches - all were studied, and everything was familiar. You are not allowed only into the trunks, cabinets and the shrine.
In the summer, you are to new discoveries. The whole house becomes a sphere of habitual, maternal, and usual. The house (summer and winter), hay attic, upper floor, a tower (loft), county, barn, basement and all kinds of nooks and crannies. And after that, the whole street, and the entire village... Field, forest, river, and mill, where kids went with grandfather to grind flour ...
The first night away from home, finally, the first visit to another village - all this is the first time. In childhood, as in other periods, no spring or fall was like the previous ones. After all, each year of a child's life meant something new. If you were allowed to simmer only in shallow water last year, swimming where deeper water is now possible. Thousands of such changes, innovations, and more complex skills, games, and customs had been experienced in his childhood; everyone would remember them and, of course, become familiar with them in their own children.
Children's memories are always concrete and shaped, but everybody remembers something more, something less. So, for example, if the talk is about spring, almost all remember the feelings associated with spring tasks.
Take out of the internal window frames, and the house became brighter and fresher. The street is peering directly into the house. Set up the birdhouse with the father, grandfather or elder brother. Drain water (building dams, ditches, toy windmills). Lower the boat on the water. Grease boots with tar and dry them in the sun. Collect ants and distill the ant spirit. Undercut birch bark (for collecting and drinking birch sap). Forage the first mushrooms and crocuses. Harvest sorrel. The first game in the street. The first angling trip…
In summer, children have faced so many things that some were lost with joy, did not know where to rush, and did not have time to experience all that fun to learn.
The play was alternated with easy work or merged with it, and valuable merged\ with pleasure quietly and firmly. A playful element in the work process, first tested in childhood, remained in many kinds of compulsory labour, if not for life, but for very long. All of these wigwams on the meadows, huts in the forest, fishing, campfires with baking potatoes, mushrooms, perch, horse riding - all of this transpassed to subsequent stages of life with a fair amount of play, child's fun
A certain intangible edge in the transition from one state to another, sometimes the opposite, is the most exciting thing in childhood. Children are the most refined connoisseurs of such elusive- natural conditions. But even adults know that the most delicious potatoes are slightly crunched on the verge of raw and baked. Okroshka (Cold soup with kvas(a drink from fermented rye bread ) suddenly acquires a unique charm when something hot is dropped.
A child feels a strange pleasure, dropping snow into boiling water. A towel brought in from the cold into a warm house smells like something in particular; the blackness of the bath in the oven and the dazzling dawn in the window create an unusual atmosphere. Fractions of a second before jumping over the obstacle, a moment when the swing is moving upward but is about to begin the reverse movement, the moment before a hunter shoots, before falling into water or straw - all this creates a strange rapture of happiness and fullness of life. A sound of cracking and deflection of the thin autumn ice under the ice skates when all passes over again, and no one falls into the cold depths of the pool.
A premonition of what the suddenly immobile float will just now disappear from the water's surface! This moment is the most beautiful in angling fish. And is not the most wonderful; is not the most thrilling love on the brink of childhood and youth in this brief and too elusive time?
In the autumn, harvest time is particularly pleasing to play hide and seek between sheaves and among the stacks, ride horses, make holes in large piles of straw, heat the barn stove, climb elderberry trees, chew turnips, munch peas ...
And the first ice on the river opened hundreds of new experiences and opportunities for children. So the winter brings up kids; it's no less fun than the summer.
After getting frozen on the river or in the snow, how nice it is to climb onto the stove close to the grandfather and fall asleep without hearing his story till the end! And cry if you missed something interesting. And happily calm down after the paternal or maternal affection. The temperature contrast appropriate for a child's body, repeated with the increase, has always been the foundation of physical conditioning; it was nothing for the five-year-old child to jump out of the hot bathhouse into the snow.
But children in good families were also protected from psychological contrasts.
Tender care was not necessarily explicit, but it manifested itself everywhere. Here are some examples. When the old stove is removed ( to make a new one), someone will make a baby bird out of clay for a child; when slaughtering a sheep or calf, they will undoubtedly condition and blow the animal's bladder, put into it a few peas (a dried bladder turned into a children drum). If the father is carpentering, he necessarily chops small blocks for children. When the kholodetz (calves' foot jelly) is boiled, the boys get particular bones ("babki"), and the girls get ankles. The hunter gives a child a fluffy white rabbit's tail tied to a thread every time.
When beer is brewed, the children trooped to gnaw stones. At the end of the summer, children have a particular pea lot in the garden. Returning from the woods, everyone tries to bring the kids a gift from a fox, hare or bear.
Giving a ride to a child on a sled or a cart was considered optional but desirable. They were woven, tiny baskets and buckets for children, and made small rakes, scythes, etc.
In addition to general foods, children's sweets were distributed by age and merit. Some of such homemade, rather than purchased, treats were apples, bones (during cooking jelly), "yagodnitsa" (pressured blueberries or strawberries in milk), and foam from the baked ("roasted," as they say) milk. When oatmeal is cooked on the fire, a delicious crisp foam rolls on a stirring wooden wand and gives it to the children. Grilled potatoes, onions, turnips, carrots, berries, birch juice, peas - all that was available to children, as they say, by an unwritten law. But following the law was not always exciting.
Therefore, stealing vegetables and apples counted first among the classic childish mischiefs. Another grievous sin has been destroying birds' nests; those engaged were rare and incorrigible. Forbidden was thought to watch how people eat or drink tea in somebody's house (such children were called "vislyatyu" (snoopers)). However, giving someone else's child a treat from their table was considered normal.
A special place in the child's soul occupied pets: a horse, cow, calf, dog, cat, and rooster. All except the rooster had different names, characters, and good or bad qualities, in which children were dealt with superbly. Sometimes, adults are assigned to a child an individual animal, so to speak, to take personal care of.
* ADOLESCENCE *
What is the difference between childhood and adolescence? They differ in many things, but there is no clear division: all the changes are gradual, and other period features overlap and grow into each other.
Conditionally, the boundary between childhood and adolescence can be defined as when a person shows a meaningful interest in the opposite sex. For example, one day, when the bathhouse is heated up, the mother, grandmother or sister prepares a boy to wash, and he suddenly begins to act up, hang back and throw out the "tricks." -"Well, now you're going to wash with your father!" - calmly said grandma.
And, all at once, it falls into place. Sister, and sometimes the mother, did not know what was going on, why the brother or son began to mutter something under his nose and elbowing. The overall moral atmosphere did not require any special sex education. It spared fledgling adolescent self-esteem, encouraging modesty and chastity. Observing the lives of farm animals, people have gradually learned about basic physiology in their childhood.
There was no need to explain how and why a child was born, what occupied the bride and groom on the wedding night, etc. This was not mentioned because everything that goes without saying and talking about it is unnecessary, indecent, and unacceptable.
Such modesty from adolescence passes into youth, often maintained for a lifetime. It gave the stability of romantic feelings, which arranges not only sexual but also social relations. In adolescence comes a man's first and most often not the last infatuation, the first love with all its psychological bouquet. Before that, boys or girls were "rehearsing" their first real love by the previous enthusiasm for adult "objects" of the opposite sex. And if such a frivolous infatuation is ridiculed, make fun of both. The first true love is usually spared, and the family tries not to notice. Moreover, a teenager could keep his fiery secret not worse than an adult. The mystery is often revealed only in youth when the feeling is legalized by public opinion.
The circumstances surrounding the first love explain all the behavioural features at this age. If previously, as kids, people were open, and now they become insulated, the frankness with family and friends has been replaced by silence and sometimes rudeness.
Streetlife is also imperceptibly transformed. In childhood, boys and girls played the same games together. In adolescence, they often play separately and make fun of each other.
Building a boy's character largely depended on the teenager's games. Relationships in these games were particular. For adults, they sometimes seemed simply cruel.
If the family was allowed leniency for a teenager, even tenderness, then a Spartan spirit reined in the peer relationship (especially in games). No allowances for age or physical handicaps existed.
Often, testing his physical endurance or being provoked, the teenager enters the game unprepared. As a result, he would "hounded" without pity the whole evening, and if he did not recoup, they moved the game to the next day. It is difficult to imagine the state of a loser, but even more, he would have suffered if peers felt pity for him and left the situation as it was. (This is only about sports and physical competitions, not intellectual endeavours.)
Adults reluctantly tried not to interfere. But nevertheless, it was absolutely fundamental: to break out, win, and win himself without assistance. One such victory while still in adolescence turns a boy into a man.
Games for the girls did not have a similar focus; they differed by calm, lyrical playing relationship. Of course, a young person's life is allowed to have time to engage freely in games. But they have already been supplanted by more serious business, not excluding elements of the game.
First, the teenager is increasingly drawn into the work process. Secondly, games are increasingly replaced by entertainment, peculiar to youth. Finally, adolescents of both sexes may have to mow the grass, harrow, pull, cart, hang flax, cut pine twigs, and tear bark.
Of course, all this was done under the adults' invisible guidance and close supervision. Competition, or working, gaming and other rivalries are especially characteristic of youth. An adolescent sometimes had to hold back because he wanted to learn to plow before his peers, so all the girls, big and small, have seen it. He wants to cut wood more than a neighbour so that no one calls him a little boy or lazy. He wants to catch fish for mother's pies and gather a few berries to treat younger kids.
Fantastic combination of a child's privileges and the responsibilities of adults observed in this period of life! But no matter how good childhood privileges are, youth were already ashamed of them, and if they used them, then with caution. So, he could still complain and beg his mother for a tasty treat at home, in the family, among his younger siblings. But if in the house turned out to be peers or just strangers, being "a little one" was shameful.
Consequently, for adolescents, an unwritten code of conduct existed. The boy at this age should have been able to (tried, anyway) make a handle, tie fishnets, harness a horse, cut pine twigs, tear bark, herd the cattle to graze, and fish. But, instead, he was ashamed to cry. He knew that fallen is not beaten, and two do not attack one, that, if made a bet, the word must be kept.
Girls at age twelve spun a the lot and well learned to weave, sew, helped to mow, knew how to knead bread and cakes, although they were not trusted with this, as the boys were not charged with such tasks as grinding an axe, killing a cock or a sheep, ride without adults to the mill.
Adolescents have the right to invite their relatives or friends of the same age; visitors could sit at a table like adults, but they could only drink non-alcoholic drinks. They imitated more senior guys who were "having fun" for real at youth gatherings. Time existed to exit the excess energy and meet the needs for self-indulgence and deliberate valour - the Yuletide. Public opinion was not exactly encouraging then, but it condescended to teenage pranks. Have fun for Christmas week, and then please behave like decent people all year. A year is a great deal. So, get used to the festive antics. There wasn't enough time. They are approaching a different time of life.
«An unbecoming girl laughs and talks with everybody, runs around the suspicious places and streets, baring breasts, sits down close to the strangers, elbows and not sitting quietly, but sings profane songs, and gets drunk. Then, gallops on tables and benches, let her be dragged to all corners like a bitch. For where there is no shame, there is no humility. Of which questioning said Lyukretsiya the truth: if a girl loses shame and honour, what else is left?" -" Youth honest Mirror" manuscript from the XVI century.
Conditionally, the boundary between childhood and adolescence can be defined as when a person shows a meaningful interest in the opposite sex. For example, one day, when the bathhouse is heated up, the mother, grandmother or sister prepares a boy to wash, and he suddenly begins to act up, hang back and throw out the "tricks." -"Well, now you're going to wash with your father!" - calmly said grandma.
And, all at once, it falls into place. Sister, and sometimes the mother, did not know what was going on, why the brother or son began to mutter something under his nose and elbowing. The overall moral atmosphere did not require any special sex education. It spared fledgling adolescent self-esteem, encouraging modesty and chastity. Observing the lives of farm animals, people have gradually learned about basic physiology in their childhood.
There was no need to explain how and why a child was born, what occupied the bride and groom on the wedding night, etc. This was not mentioned because everything that goes without saying and talking about it is unnecessary, indecent, and unacceptable.
Such modesty from adolescence passes into youth, often maintained for a lifetime. It gave the stability of romantic feelings, which arranges not only sexual but also social relations. In adolescence comes a man's first and most often not the last infatuation, the first love with all its psychological bouquet. Before that, boys or girls were "rehearsing" their first real love by the previous enthusiasm for adult "objects" of the opposite sex. And if such a frivolous infatuation is ridiculed, make fun of both. The first true love is usually spared, and the family tries not to notice. Moreover, a teenager could keep his fiery secret not worse than an adult. The mystery is often revealed only in youth when the feeling is legalized by public opinion.
The circumstances surrounding the first love explain all the behavioural features at this age. If previously, as kids, people were open, and now they become insulated, the frankness with family and friends has been replaced by silence and sometimes rudeness.
Streetlife is also imperceptibly transformed. In childhood, boys and girls played the same games together. In adolescence, they often play separately and make fun of each other.
Building a boy's character largely depended on the teenager's games. Relationships in these games were particular. For adults, they sometimes seemed simply cruel.
If the family was allowed leniency for a teenager, even tenderness, then a Spartan spirit reined in the peer relationship (especially in games). No allowances for age or physical handicaps existed.
Often, testing his physical endurance or being provoked, the teenager enters the game unprepared. As a result, he would "hounded" without pity the whole evening, and if he did not recoup, they moved the game to the next day. It is difficult to imagine the state of a loser, but even more, he would have suffered if peers felt pity for him and left the situation as it was. (This is only about sports and physical competitions, not intellectual endeavours.)
Adults reluctantly tried not to interfere. But nevertheless, it was absolutely fundamental: to break out, win, and win himself without assistance. One such victory while still in adolescence turns a boy into a man.
Games for the girls did not have a similar focus; they differed by calm, lyrical playing relationship. Of course, a young person's life is allowed to have time to engage freely in games. But they have already been supplanted by more serious business, not excluding elements of the game.
First, the teenager is increasingly drawn into the work process. Secondly, games are increasingly replaced by entertainment, peculiar to youth. Finally, adolescents of both sexes may have to mow the grass, harrow, pull, cart, hang flax, cut pine twigs, and tear bark.
Of course, all this was done under the adults' invisible guidance and close supervision. Competition, or working, gaming and other rivalries are especially characteristic of youth. An adolescent sometimes had to hold back because he wanted to learn to plow before his peers, so all the girls, big and small, have seen it. He wants to cut wood more than a neighbour so that no one calls him a little boy or lazy. He wants to catch fish for mother's pies and gather a few berries to treat younger kids.
Fantastic combination of a child's privileges and the responsibilities of adults observed in this period of life! But no matter how good childhood privileges are, youth were already ashamed of them, and if they used them, then with caution. So, he could still complain and beg his mother for a tasty treat at home, in the family, among his younger siblings. But if in the house turned out to be peers or just strangers, being "a little one" was shameful.
Consequently, for adolescents, an unwritten code of conduct existed. The boy at this age should have been able to (tried, anyway) make a handle, tie fishnets, harness a horse, cut pine twigs, tear bark, herd the cattle to graze, and fish. But, instead, he was ashamed to cry. He knew that fallen is not beaten, and two do not attack one, that, if made a bet, the word must be kept.
Girls at age twelve spun a the lot and well learned to weave, sew, helped to mow, knew how to knead bread and cakes, although they were not trusted with this, as the boys were not charged with such tasks as grinding an axe, killing a cock or a sheep, ride without adults to the mill.
Adolescents have the right to invite their relatives or friends of the same age; visitors could sit at a table like adults, but they could only drink non-alcoholic drinks. They imitated more senior guys who were "having fun" for real at youth gatherings. Time existed to exit the excess energy and meet the needs for self-indulgence and deliberate valour - the Yuletide. Public opinion was not exactly encouraging then, but it condescended to teenage pranks. Have fun for Christmas week, and then please behave like decent people all year. A year is a great deal. So, get used to the festive antics. There wasn't enough time. They are approaching a different time of life.
«An unbecoming girl laughs and talks with everybody, runs around the suspicious places and streets, baring breasts, sits down close to the strangers, elbows and not sitting quietly, but sings profane songs, and gets drunk. Then, gallops on tables and benches, let her be dragged to all corners like a bitch. For where there is no shame, there is no humility. Of which questioning said Lyukretsiya the truth: if a girl loses shame and honour, what else is left?" -" Youth honest Mirror" manuscript from the XVI century.
Wednesday 30 October 2019
* YOUTH *
"We obeyed our elders, - says Anfisa Ivanovna," who never read "Youth Honest Mirror," - you cannot visit a nearby village without permission." So you'd say: "But I want to go." My mother and grandmother answered: "Eat yours want with bread!" Or: "Everyone claims to know the girl, but not everybody saw her." And if you go out, you are given an order: "Try to keep your mouth more closed than open." Do not laugh, then.
Shame is one of the significant moral categories if we talk about people's understanding of morality. This concept is on a par with the honour and conscience, of which Alexander Yashin said:
" In the myriad of riches, our words are precious: Fatherland, Loyalty, and Brotherhood." And there is Conscience, Honour... "
There was a natural reticence (let's not confuse it with shyness) as an acquired one. At any age, from the earliest, reticence adorned a person and helped to resist the pressure of temptations. It is vital at the time of physical maturation. Lust was quietly restrained by usual shame, leaving the moral purity of even a spiritually immature young man.
For this, the people did not need a unique rule printed in the printing house like "Youth Mirror." Instead, solid suggestions are interspersed throughout that book with such advice: "And this is a great deal of infamy, often when someone blows his nose, like trumpets into the tube ..." "Obscenely at a wedding to wear boots and bot-forts, so that those boots strip clothes from the female sex, and they to cause great noise, so men are not so hasty in his boots than without them."
Clearly, the book is not of peasant origin since the peasants did not wear "bot-forts» and did folk dance at weddings, not ballroom dancing. More reveals the basis of "Mirror" advice: "Youths should always speak with each other in foreign languages to get used to it, and especially when they happen to say that the secret is so the servants and maids could not understand and that they can be distinct from blockheads ... " Here, it turns out, for what were functional foreign languages to honourable dudes multiplied under cover of the Tsar Peter's reforms. Possession of "manners" and foreign languages completely separated the upper classes from the people.
Adolescence grew into youth in a few years. A boy finally developed physically and comprehended traditional agricultural, forest, and household labour skills.
Only professional skills (carpentry, blacksmithing, and women's "linen" art) required further development. Others mastered these skills their whole lives and could only learn them at the end.
But is it a disadvantage to him and his close ones because of such a desire? If the guy does not learn how to build dom churches, he will make a house with no problem. If a girl could not understand how to weave in "nine nooks," she would weave a simple canvas.
Youth is full of fresh energy and creative thirst, and whether in a house, a village, or the country, everything is okay; this time of life is beautiful in itself, and everything in it is happy and harmonious. The girl or guy has time to talk, walk, and work in such circumstances.
But even in the worst times, household responsibilities and age requirements rarely contradict each other. On the contrary, they are mutually supportive.
For example, everyday work for guys and girls has never been a burden. Even the hardships of logging, which began in the late '20s and lasted for about thirty years, people have suffered relatively quickly thanks to this circumstance. Haymaking time, walking to the fence, the spring sowing, carting, and many community help events give young people a unique opportunity to meet and communicate, significantly affecting the quality and quantity of work made. Who wants to pass for a lazy, slob, or ignorant?
After all, everyone in his youth dreams that someone will fall in love with him thinks about getting married and marriage and tends not to disgrace his family and people.
Labour and festivities seemed to tame each other. One does not allow the other to transform into ugly forms. You cannot stay up all night until morning if you need to get up before sunrise and go to the pasture with the horses, but you cannot plow till dusk because of the evening festivities at the church. However, it also happens that sleepy bachelors would go into the forest and purposely not find the horses, flop in the shepherd's hut. But those guys were left with the untilled plot that day, and it threatened more severe consequences than the one referred to in the maiden limerick:
"My dear, it is hard to walk around mocked. Every my sweetheart has a non-sown pasture."
Non-spoiled maidens also had to get up early, especially in summer. "In the morning, my mother wakes me up, and I continue to sleep in a hurry." The parents rarely played the same tune. If the father was strict, the mother always guarded her daughter against too hard work. And vice versa. If both parents are excessively hard-working, then the defendant was represented by a grandfather, or older brothers always somehow silently guarded the sisters. The strictness in the family is balanced with kindness and humour.
Most acquaintances occurred in childhood and adolescence, mainly during visits, because people visited even the most distant relatives. They say " seventh water of a ninth of porridge" but still know each other and walk miles for fifteen or twenty to visit. Practically, if not in every village, then in every parish, there were close or distant relatives. Many would befriend strangers if there were no relatives in the remote town.
Collective walking to other villages for festivities further enhanced chances for singles. To go for a walk for 10-15 km in the summer was nothing to talk about, especially if the weather permits. The return was the same night if went as guests - in a day or two, depending on the household circumstances.
In the relations of boys and girls, there was no kind of patriarchal pedantry, as they say, if you take a walk with someone, then take walks till you get married. Not at all…
From adolescence, acquaintances and interests have changed; young people kind of "grind" to each other, looking for a pair of soul and character. This does not exclude, of course, cases of the first and only love. Evidence of spiritual freedom and freedom of choice in youth's relationships are thousands (if not millions) of love songs and limericks.
The feminine side does not look passive and dependent. Betrayal, love, break-ups, and interruptions are showered in these often improvised and always heartfelt ditties. Parents and elders were not strict about the behaviour of young people, but only up to the wedding. The newlyweds were deprived of this freedom and the ease of making new friends forever and ever. At that time, an entirely different life began.
Therefore, the wedding can be a sharp and well-defined boundary between adolescence and adulthood. But even before the wedding, freedom and lightness of new acquaintances, infatuations, and "loves" do not mean sexual freedom and frivolous behaviour. You can go for a walk, get to know, but ... Maiden honour is above all. There were apparent boundaries of what was permitted. They transgressed very seldom. Both sides, both male and female, tried to observe chastity.
It is easy to fall into a gross error if the judge of public morality on separate cases is easily mistaken!
Here are just two: a drunk, a deranged reveller, off all the brakes, starts to sing during the obscene dance limericks, and the audience approves and, most surprisingly, truly supports him. But later, no one will treat him seriously ...
Latest marvels like the circus and fairground ride with invisible women everyone would perceive with naive, almost childlike delight approving. But overall, the prevalent global attitude to all of this was, for some reason, definitely sarcastic.
But in some questions of morality, public opinion was cruel, unyielding, and merciless. Bad maiden reputation rolled away very far. It wasn't stopped by any forest or swamp. A sin committed before the wedding could not be whitewashed by anything. But after the birth of an illegitimate child, as a girl would be forgiven her mistake, humanity prevailed over moral principles. Mother or grandmother of out wedlock mother to any attack responded with a proverb: "Whose steer would be jumping, but the calf is ours." It is an erroneous view that the need for chastity applies only to the women's side. A guy who had physical intimacy with a woman before the marriage, too, was considered tainted. A tarnished reputation harmed him, and he was called not a lad but a "dude."
Of course, each of the two who conspired against chastity counted on secrecy, especially the girl. The secret, however, would come out eventually. The initiative of the sin usually comes from a guy. In itself, it depends on his moral level, which in turn depends on the moral status of his family (village, parish, society). An immoral family did not teach an individual how to spare others and keep the word. The heart of such a dude usually burns a desire to boast, and the secret is gone. A girl's bad reputation also impacted the perpetrator; he would be accused by the same measure.
Moreover, if they were real, all his feelings toward the girl would rapidly disappear, and he would switch to another "object" and eventually get married, somehow, not in a proper way.
With a tarnished reputation, the girl also had difficulty finding a partner. Now, it was not about love, but just getting somebody. Even a guy from a good family, but with the stigma of sin, lost his "prince charming" title, and proud girls avoided such candidates.
The veritable drama of love relationships experienced by most physically and morally healthy people, after even a happy love, does not exclude some drama. The beauty of relations between young people sometimes fed such mutually exclusive properties that coexist within one person as glibness and chastity, modesty and mischief.
Love meant the same thing as pity; love could be "hot" or "cold." High poetry of the marital relationship is vividly reflected in a folk song:
"Do not sing, sing the little lark. You sing the spring on a thawed trail.
You send your voice through the dark forest, the pine forest, Moscow stone-walled, and a strong fortress!
There was imprisoned a Good Fellow. He had been sitting there not for a year or two years. He sat there for precisely nine years.
In the tenth year, he started writing a letter. He began to write a letter to his father and mother. Father and mother refused: "Because we never have had thieves in the family. He also wrote to his young wife. Young wife got into tears..."
But marriage is not only moral or spiritual but a material and economic necessity. Young years were marked by expectation and preparation for this significant life event. It stood on a par with birth and death. The too-late or too-early marriage appeared to people as a misfortune. The big difference in the bride and groom's age also ruled out a whole and beautiful relationship. Unequal and repeating marriages among the peasants were regarded as unhappy and economically disadvantageous from the economic point of view. Such marriages were cruelly mocked by widespread rumours. Beauty and anomaly exclude each other. There was often not only age but also income inequality. But it could not seriously affect the moral code built over the centuries. Pity (love as we call it now) overrode everything else.
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