Folklore And Ethnographic Activities Of Lore Scientists In Kem District Arkhangelsk Province

Abstract

The activity of collecting folklore and ethnographic materials by I. M. Durov (1894–1938) and A. A. Kamenev (1877–1918) in the Kemsky district of the Arkhangelsk province is considered. The characteristic of the dictionaries of I. M. Durov “Experience of the terminological dictionary of the fishing industry of Pomerania” and “Dictionary of the living Pomeranian language in its everyday and ethnographic application”, as well as articles by local historians in periodicals of the early twentieth century are given. As corresponding members of the Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North, they published their articles on ethnography, folklore and the culture of Pomerania in the newspapers Arkhangelsk, Belomorskaya Tribuna, as well as in the journals Izvestia Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North, News of the Karelia Research Society "And others. The creation of circles and local history cells, as well as the Pomeranian Department of the Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North, intensified local history work in Kemsky Uyezd. The study of Pomeranian folklore and culture in the Kemsky district made it possible to identify the boundaries of cultural self-identification and the peculiarities of the cultural consciousness of this ethnic group. Using the analysis of life and work as an example, the contribution of I. M. Durov and A. A. Kamenev to the study of Pomors was evaluated. The inclusion of local intelligentsia contributed to the development of the study of folklore in the Russian North in the early twentieth century.

Keywords: FolkloreI M DurovA A KamenevKemsky districtArkhangelsk provinceKarelian Pomerania

Introduction

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Russian North became the center of the local history movement. During this period, three scientific societies appeared and conducted active work in regional studies: the Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North, the Vologda Society for the Study of the Northern Territory, the Society for the Study of the Olonets Province, which brought together local and visiting intelligentsia, as well as indigenous people.

In order to study the Russian North in historical, geographical, domestic, cultural and economic relations, as well as «to attract government and public attention to the needs and characteristics of the North», a voluntary association «Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North» was formed in Arkhangelsk on December 14, 1908. In the counties of the Arkhangelsk province, branches of AOIRS were created: Pomeranian, Viremsky and Soroksko Karelian. On April 12, 1909, the Vologda Society for the Study of the Northern Territory opened, one of its organizers and editor of «Proceedings of the Vologda Society for the Study of the Northern Territory» was the exiled Social Democrat V.N. Trapeznikov.

The relevance of the study is defined as a common interest in the study of folklore-ethnographic activity I. M. Durova and A. A. Kamenev on the territory of the Kem district of the Arkhangelsk province, and the need to systematize, describe and represent the accumulated material about these local historians.

Problem Statement

The following tasks were set in the study: to analyze their folklore-ethnographic works Durova and A.A. Kamenev; to characterize the participation of local historians in the life of local history societies of the Arkhangelsk province; determine the contribution of I. M. Durova and A. A. Kamenev in the development of folklore of Karelia at the beginning of the XX century.

Research Questions

The object of research is the development of folklore-ethnographic studies of local lore in the early twentieth century on the territory of the Kemsky district of the Arkhangelsk province. The subject of study was the process of development of local history as a historiographic and sociocultural phenomenon on the example of the life and work of a local historian I. M. Durov and political exile A. A. Kameneva.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is a comprehensive study of the folklore and ethnographic activities of I. M. Durova and A. A. Kameneva.

Research Methods

The methodological basis of this study was the totality of general scientific and historical methods of cognition based on the principle of historicism, systematicity and objectivity of presentation. When writing the work, such research methods as the descriptive method, involving observation, generalization and classification, interpretation of the material, as well as historical-typological and historical-systemic, biographical (biography) and prosopographic methods were used.

Ethnographer, local historian, folklorist Ivan Matveyevich Ivan Matveevich Durov (1894–1938) was born in Sumy Posad, Arkhangelsk province, in a fisherman's family. He graduated from the Sumy two-year school of the Ministry of Education. All his life he studied the history, folklore and ethnography of Pomors. I. M. Durov did a lot of self-education.

The first ethnographic article dedicated to Christmas time was published on December 30 (January 12), 1910 in the newspaper Arkhangelsk.

In 1911, Ivan Matveevich Durov became a member of the Pomeranian Department of the Archangel Society for the Study of the Russian North. He worked as an assistant secretary and head of the library of the Pomeranian department in Sumpososad, an accountant in the Sumy consumer society.

Since 1923 he was a member of the Society for the Study of Karelia and participated in the journal «News of the Society for the Study of Karelia». In 1925, a local historian organized his department in Sumpososad and until 1927 was chairman of the board.

Materials about fishing and hunting, handicraft industry, Pomeranian villages and villages, the life of fishermen of the pre-revolutionary Pomerania, publications about the Orthodox traditions of Pomor, about Pomor folk tales, Pomeranian songs, ditties, fables, spells and incantations, lullabies, were published in the newspapers «Arkhangelsk», «The White Sea Tribune», as well as the journals «News of the Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North», «News of the Society for the Study of Karelia», «Karelian-Murmansk Territory», «Economics and Statistics of Karelia», «Coopera ivnaya life of Karelia».

In 1926, the Solovetsky Local History Society was separated from the Arkhangelsk Society of Local History. Ivan Matveevich becomes its member. The main occupation for residents of the Arkhangelsk province was fishing and marine industries (Kadyshev, 2017). In 1929, in the nineteenth edition of the materials of this society, «Experience in the terminological dictionary of the fishing industry of Pomor» (Durov, 2011; Durov, 1929) was published Durova, edited and supplemented by N. N. Vinogradov, which is the result of fifteen years of observation and study of everyday life and the crafts of Pomors. The rich lexical material collected by the local historian on fishing and hunting was of interest to dialectologists, folklorists, and ethnographers.

In the period from 1932 to 1933 I. M. Durov was the head of the Sumy cell of local history, and in 1934 he became authorized by the Karelian Bureau of Local History in the Soroksky (Belomorsky) district, then he was accepted as an instructor in the Karelian Bureau of Local History. Engaged in independently collecting folklore material, he was able to create local history cells in Nyuhche, Kolezhma, Wirma, Sukhoi, Soroka. Folklore and ethnographic materials collected by I. M. Durov and members of the cells are stored in the Scientific Archive of the Karelian Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. These are the earliest collections of works dated 1913–1938.

Many years I. M. Durov carried out painstaking work on the compilation of the «Dictionary of the living Pomeranian language in its everyday and ethnographic application». It was released only in 2011 (Durov, 2011).

The dictionary was prepared for publication at the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Karelian Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The manuscript has been in the archive of the institute since December 1934. The dictionary includes 12090 words. Dictionary articles have the necessary explanations.

For the semantization of Pomeranian vocabulary I. M. Durov most often used excerpts from folklore works, therefore dictionary entries in which the folklore text is fully quoted are valuable (Urvantseva, 2019). The value of the dictionary lies in the fact that «from the pages of the dictionary appear the language and life of the Pomors at the turn of the XIX – XX centuries, when local dialects and traditions of Pomor culture were still preserved in Pomor, and on the other hand, the features of a new socialist life that had been established in the 1920s were already visible» (Mulonen & Kuznetsova, 2010).

The Archive of the Karelian Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences contains a collection of «Children's games, entertainment recorded in the Soroksky-Kemsky districts of the White Sea». I. M. Durov was arrested on suspicion of participating in a counter-revolutionary sabotage organization. April 3, 1938 he was shot in the tract Sandarmokh.

The folklore-ethnographic study of the Arkhangelsk province in the late XIX – early XX centuries is associated with the activities of political exiles P. P. Chubinsky (1839–1884), G. L. Zeitlin (1881–?), P. S. Efimenko (1835–1908).

In connection with the revolutionary events of 1905–1907, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the number of deportees increased in the Olonets, Arkhangelsk and Vologda provinces. The remoteness of the Arkhangelsk province and harsh climatic conditions made this region a convenient place for political exile. In the years 1896-1917, more than 10 thousand exiles visited it, of which 20% were intelligentsia (Egorov, 2019). Compared with the years 1825–1904, their contribution to the development of local history in the Russian North has decreased and «was only a small part of the overall local history activity» (Pashkov, 2011).

One of the largest local historians in Kemsky district was the political exile Alexander Alexandrovich Kamenev (1877–1918). He received home education, graduated from agricultural school. In the summer and autumn of 1906 A. A. Kamenev led an active revolutionary activity in the Avnegsky volost of the Vologda province. For this, in November 1906 he was arrested and sent to Sumy Posad of the Kemsky district of the Arkhangelsk province. After exile in 1909, A.A. Kamenev stayed there to live and work.

The former political exile becomes a corresponding member of the Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North. In January 1910, on his initiative, the Pomeranian department of this society was opened in Sumy Posad, and A. A. Kamenev becomes its leader and secretary. In 1909 he joined the Vologda Society for the Study of the Northern Territory.

At different times, in Sumy Posad, the local historian served as the clerk of the justice of the peace, headed the library, and was the representative of the St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency for Kemsky Uyezd. In 1910–1911 he conducted active local history, journalism and social activities, actively published on the pages of the Arkhangelsk Provincial Gazette, Izvestia of the Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North, collaborated with the daily newspaper Arkhangelsk and the newspaper of the Cadet Party Rech (Petersburg).

As the head of the Pomeranian department of the Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North A. A. Kamenev traveled a lot in Pomeranian villages, studied folklore, ethnography, and everyday life of Pomors. His articles in the Izvestia of the Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North were published under the heading «From Corresponding Members of the Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North». In the «Arkhangelsk Provincial Gazette» he signed his articles with the initial K. or the names of Kamenev and Kremenov.

A. A. Kamenev recorded wedding folklore, collected lullabies, superstitions and tales of pomors about snakes, legends about the life of the Monk Savvaty in the village of Soroka. A.A. Kamenev acquaints readers with the tradition of the local population to put wooden crosses on the roads and decorate them with offerings (covenants) – towels, lace and ribbons. Chapels can also be installed on the site of the most revered crosses. Crosses were placed to perpetuate various events: the death of a loved one, a joyful meeting, etc. One of these chapels was located on the Poltovsky Korg – a small island located between Kemyu and the village of Shueretsky. The crosses marked the pomors of the parking lot where they fish, in order to distinguish this place from others. A sick person hangs covenants on crosses. A girl or a wife makes a promise to hang something on the cross: a red apron or pieces of canvas. Female offerings on the crosses are “traces” of female ritual practices that testify to the use of a sacred object by a female group. Similar ritual practices were recorded in 2008–2010 during field trips to the Belomorsky district of the Republic of Karelia in the villages of Nyukhcha and Shueretskoye (as cited in Samoilova, 2017).

In the years 1910–1911, in a series of articles «Across our Region» he spoke about the peculiarities of Pomeranian life. It has been repeatedly noted in the scientific literature that the proximity of the sea and the large abundance of water and water space caused the emergence of a water cult in Pomors (Nikitin, 2018). The life of Pomors was in direct contact with their fishing activities (Andrienko, 2017). In the system of managing the population of the White Sea, the main role has always been played by fishing and hunting (Morozova, 2016а). The local historian gave a description of the economic condition of Pomerania, crafts (fishing, hunting), as well as trade and gardening. In describing the Pomeranian life and beliefs of Pomors, I. M. Durov uses journalistic and artistic styles (Morozova, 2016b).The researcher offers solutions through which to develop his economic well-being. The decline in crafts, in his opinion, is associated with the technical and cultural backwardness of the region.

A special place in the publications is given to fisheries. It provides a detailed description of the economic side: the relations of industrialists with farmers and farm laborers, trade routes. The articles published in the «Arkhangelsk Provincial Gazette» and «News of the Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North» contain references to history, education, the development of railway transport, forestry, cultural events, drunkenness, Shrovetide, a description of villages, local attractions, etc.

A. Kamenev is known in the history of Karelia as an active participant in the establishment and strengthening of Soviet power in Karelian Pomerania. On July 2, 1918, he was shot by English interventionists in the city of Kem.

Findings

Creation by Sumy cell of local history I.M. Durov and discovery initiated by A.A. The Kamenev Pomeranian Department of the Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North has intensified local history work in the Kem district of the Arkhangelsk province. Thanks to their publications on the pages of the best local history publications (Shabaev, 2016), we have an idea about the life of Pomors, the peculiarities of their economic structure, traditions, Pomeranian folklore and ethnography. The value and uniqueness of this material is increasing every year.

The undertaken analysis of the folklore and ethnographic activities of these local historians allows us to conclude that they made a great contribution to the study of Pomeranian folklore in the early twentieth century.

Conclusion

The collection of folklore material became possible thanks to the active work of the local intelligentsia and political exiles. The unification of like-minded people in circles, cells and societies for the study of the Russian North, a surge of local history and folklore movement “in the outback”, the possibility of publishing in periodicals has become part of the cultural life of the province and the formation of regional self-awareness of informants as representatives of a given area and carriers of a certain culture (Vlasov & Ereminа, 2019). Folklore and ethnographic materials collected by local historians I.M. Durov and A.A. Kamenevs in Sumy Posad, reached us in writing in articles and dictionaries (Vlasov, 2018).

Acknowledgments

The study was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project No. 18-012-00810 «Karelian Pomerania: vocabulary and onomastics (XVI – XXI centuries)».

References

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Publication Date

03 August 2020

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86

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Sociolinguistics, linguistics, semantics, discourse analysis, translation, interpretation

Cite this article as:

Urvantseva, N. (2020). Folklore And Ethnographic Activities Of Lore Scientists In Kem District Arkhangelsk Province. In N. L. Amiryanovna (Ed.), Word, Utterance, Text: Cognitive, Pragmatic and Cultural Aspects, vol 86. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 1453-1459). European Publisher. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2020.08.168