Marching

Carollers in the Belgorod region . 2012

Mummers for the old New Year . Lviv, 2008

Masks of Survakars. International festival of masquerade games "Surva"

The tradition has ancient roots ^[2] , in particular, it is associated with European Halloween , covens , carnivals (dating back to the Venetian carnival and saturnalia ), masquerade . Apparently, it dates back to the ancient ritual mysteries , ritual processions, the holidays of the end of the agricultural season, perhaps it has some ancient magical roots for communication with the gods ^[3] .

For the mummers were characteristic: vestment in unusual costumes; hiding a face under a mask; application of paint or soot to exposed areas of the body; the use of noise-producing jewelry, objects, tools; disordered arbitrary body movements (jumping, jumping, spinning, dancing, etc.) ^[4] .

Among the diverse ways of mowing, the most important is putting on a mask. It served both to create a specific image (cf. signs of external similarity in the masks of “goat”, “stork”, “hell”, “Jew”, etc.), and to conceal the face of the participant of the rite who wanted to remain unrecognized. Women usually avoided wearing masks: “The masks are masked, and we walk, we hang our headscarves and go ... We sniff [we put on our scarves] and let our hair loose” (Russian archangel) ^[1] .

The person could hide in other ways: throwing hair forward; hid under a rare cloth, sieve; wrapped their head in a scarf; curtained his face with hemp slippers; they lowered their fur hat with a long nap low on their eyes; let down grass worn on the head of a wreath; they painted themselves beyond recognition - they blackened their faces with soot, tar, smeared beets, whitewashed, sprinkled with flour. The expression to close one’s eyes (Russian Vologda) means “dressing up”: in the village of Trifonovo, Ivanovo district, participation in the Christmas dress was encouraged, it was believed that “if you don’t close your eyes, then all sins will not be saved” ^[1] .

Mummers of carols who walked around the yards, singing special songs - carols - are newcomers from another world, the souls of dead ancestors. Therefore, treating them with their masters is more likely to appease the mummers so that they patronize their family, livestock and future crops. To dress up meant to hide your true face, to be unrecognized, because under the masks and masks it was not the neighbors or girls who were hiding, but the souls of dead ancestors who had descended to the earth. And they come from paradise itself, from winter to summer ^[5] .

In Belarus, to the host’s question “who are you?” The mummers sometimes answered:

Original We are not simple people - from far away to the edge. People are all steel, the west of Samaga Paradise. I’m a hell of a year, What a nose barada, Shyroku, like a shovel, Sevu and Kasmatu. We’ll be a summer by the summer, Kazu vyadzim i radastsy nasim. What are the scenes of the scene, how are we supposed to do it? Qi good Gaspadyn, cab us pachastavats?

Translation [6] We are not easy people - from distant lands. People are all seasoned, from under paradise itself. We come from the Pan of the Year, What wears a beard Wide as a shovel Siva and shaggy. We are going to summer We lead a goat and bring joy. Are the walls wide for us to dance? Is the mistress good to treat us?

The mummers walked around the house or appeared on youth gatherings . Costumes and masks were prepared in advance. During the first three days of the festivities, that is, on Christmas Day, when no one was working, the youth "dressed up". Guys - soldiers, merchants, gypsies, old humpbacked women, women, and "natural women and girls" - birds (cranes, chicken), gypsies with a child. Costumes of animals were also popular - a bear, a wolf, a goat, a bull, a mare. The mummers “wandered around the village” ^[7] .

“Actually, mummers for a number of districts were the main feature distinguishing the wedding evenings from winter ones (this is especially characteristic of central Russia and the Volga region, although the Russian North is also characterized by this to a certain extent),” wrote V. I. Chicherov. But the mummers were not belonged only to the Christmas time. The mummers in places accompanied the “train” with a straw effigy to Shrovetide, went to Shrovetide in the yards; the mummers went around the yards on the eve of the Petrov Lent at the end of the Rusal week ; women and girls put on sacred masks and performed wedding performances on Kazan . Finally, at a real wedding, it was also customary to dress up ^[7] .

Particularly successful were couples and groups of mummers performing scenes: a horse with a rider , a bear with a leader "and with him a wooden goat." The skeleton of a horse was represented by two guys. The front one was holding a head made of straw on a two-toed pitchfork. The head, like the whole horse, was covered with blankets, so that the audience saw only the legs of the guys. A boy climbed onto the shoulders of the first, and the “horse” set off to roam the village with jumps and prancing. To the sounds of an accordion the “bear” was amusingly shifting on a chain - a guy in an inverted fur coat, the counselor showered with jokes, and the “goat” clapped a piece of wood, jumping near the bear ^[7] .

• Survaki - New Year's Eve in Bulgaria
• Cooker - mummers at Christmas time and Pancake week in Bulgaria
• Courting - Slovenian ritual of expelling winter, an analogue of Maslenitsa
• Bushoyarash - celebration of the Shoktsy in Myasopust (Shrovetide)
• Crafting - a mumbled detour with a stuffed wolf in Serbia
• Krampus - Christmas mummers in the alpine region
• Zvonchari - scaring away evil spirits of winter in Croatia
• Wild Klaus - mummers on Nicholas the Winter in Austria
• Shorykyol - Mari celebration with a mummers
• Perkhta - the legendary figure of German and Slavic mythology
• Ryazhenoe

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• Ryazhenie / Vinogradova L.N., Plotnikova A.A. // Slavic antiquities : Ethnolinguistic dictionary: in 5 volumes / under the general. ed. N. I. Tolstoy ; Institute of Slavic Studies RAS . - M .: Int. Relations , 2009. - T. 4: P (Crossing the water) - C (Sieve). - S. 519-525. - ISBN 5-7133-0703-4 , 978-5-7133-1312-8.
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