Vocal genres in the works of Brahms. Johannes Brahms: The Life and Work of a Genius. last years of life

The traditional wedding ceremony is not only a family holiday, but also a sacred phenomenon with its religious and magical side, and a legal and everyday act.

Mandatory wedding participants, in addition to the bride, groom and their parents, were relatives on both sides. They carried out the collective legal sanction of two events: the transition of the bride and groom to the position family people and the twinning of their families. Relatives exchanged gifts, gave gifts to the newlyweds and their parents, and sang songs. The folk wedding ritual was characterized by publicity, the performance of many rituals, songs and dances on the street, in front of the hut of the newlyweds. A collective feast was certainly arranged - feast for the whole world (red table, prince's table).

A wedding is a complex dramatic game, consisting of several acts and usually lasting from 3 to 10 days. There is an expression "to play a wedding." And indeed, the wedding participants had “roles”: prince And princess(bride and groom). Role matchmakers And matchmaker Usually performed by the godfather and mother of the young.

Among the wedding ranks were: rozhniki - relatives of the bride; squad, boyars - groom's companions; boyars, bridesmaids - bride's companions; underbelly - singing girls; loaves - women who prepare a wedding loaf; cook, cook - woman preparing wedding food. In total, researchers note up to 411 names of wedding ceremonies Eastern Slavs. Those who lacked roles were spectators.

A single composition of the wedding ceremony was distributed everywhere. It included three cycles: pre-wedding (pre-wedding), wedding day and post-wedding.

The precoital cycle consisted of matchmaking - unofficial part of the ceremony, since there could be a refusal. If the matchmaking was successful, then a notice was given about the upcoming wedding, now called an engagement. Its popular name is collusion. After an agreement with the bride (by agreement) no one could woo anyone anymore. The groom went to visit her and brought inexpensive gifts and treats.

The time from the agreement to the wedding could last from several weeks to a year. But on the last evening (the day before wedding day) settled down bachelorette party

The wedding day was a highlight, filled with many events. These were the rituals of the morning of the wedding day; leaving for the bride and waiting for the wedding train; blessing; leaving for church; wedding and twisting(they did it to the bride women's hairstyle and put on a woman's headdress); wedding (princely) feast (at the husband's house); bed rituals.

The post-wedding stage began in the morning with awakening young. R They dressed in costumes and masks and subjected the young woman to various “tests”: fetching water, preparing food, sweeping the floor, etc.

A few days later, the young people visited their parents. Often such visits merged with the calendar celebration of Maslenitsa.

Wedding poetry interacted with ritual actions and was secondary in relation to them. It is necessary to emphasize its richness and diversity. At a Russian wedding, songs were performed (ritual, incantatory, majestic, corrugating, lyrical), lamentations, sentences, dramatic scenes, games (accompanied by mumming). They sang non-ritual songs, thematically and emotionally related to the wedding (of a cheerful nature, love content). Musicians were often present at weddings, but this was not considered necessary since singing predominated.

We can distinguish three main geographical areas of Russian weddings: Central Russian, Northern Russian and Southern Russian.

The South Russian wedding is close to the Ukrainian one. Her hallmark- absence of wedding lamentations, general cheerful tone.

The main poetic genre of a South Russian wedding is songs.

The Northern Russian wedding is dramatic, so its main genre is lamentation. They were performed throughout the ceremony. Was mandatory bathhouse, which ended the bachelorette party. (Arkhangelsk, Novgorod, St. Petersburg, Pskov).

The most typical wedding ceremony was the Central Russian type. It covered a huge geographical area, the central axis of which ran along the line Moscow - Ryazan - Nizhny Novgorod. Weddings of the Central Russian type were also played in Tula, Kaluga, Oryol, Simbirsk and other provinces. The poetry of the Central Russian wedding combined songs and lamentations, but songs predominated. They created a rich emotional and psychological palette of feelings and experiences, the poles of which were cheerful and sad tones.

Ticket number 23. Mythological in Russian wedding.

The main meaning of the wedding ceremony was procreation. This idea tied together all the wedding elements and identified living things based on life.

For example, the construction of a bed for young people was filled with magic, ensuring the reproduction of life in all its forms. The bed was made on sheaves, in places where grain was processed and stored, or in premises for keeping livestock.

The ritual was thoroughly imbued with magic.

The universal amulet was the belt. It was believed that the one wearing a belt was “afraid of the devil,” so people got married wearing a belt. The magical properties of the belt sealed the union of the young: they tied it around the bride and groom.

Various magical functions were associated with the towel: it was used to bind the newlyweds, girded the bride, covered a loaf, laid it as a “stool” during a wedding, etc. The towels were made from canvas and embroidered with a traditional pattern, which retained the mythological symbolism and, in accordance with this, was represented by the characteristic color combination: white - red - black.

Many magical actions went back to the ancient rite of initiation. Since continuation of the family depended primarily on the woman, its center was the bride. In the pre-wedding period, the bride wore white clothes (the ancient color of mourning), and on the wedding day she always wore red clothes (red symbolized life). The poetry of the pre-wedding period contained indications of ritual “death”. In her lamentation, the bride reported nightmare: as if there was an empty open coffin on her street, waiting for a victim. She expressed a desire to go into the forest to the river and drown herself.

A typical ritual for a Central Russian wedding is "Christmas trees". The top or fluffy branch of a Christmas tree or other tree decorated with ribbons and beads. The tree symbolized the youth and beauty of the bride, to which she said goodbye forever.

The ancient, long-forgotten meaning was that the sacrificial service of the initiated girls was redirected to the tree: instead of one of them, one of them died.

The wedding tree is known among most Slavic peoples as an obligatory attribute that carries the general ethnic characteristics of the Slavs.

The headdress of the bride girl was called crown, wreath... It was made in the form of a dense rim with a braid, above which protruded an openwork wreath, decorated with pearls, mother-of-pearl, beads, etc. Such wreaths are especially characteristic of the Russian North. In the south, as well as in Belarus and Ukraine, wreaths were woven from fresh flowers. Making wedding wreaths from fresh flowers was a rich, developed ritual.

Initiation included rituals with hair, changing hairstyle: unraveling braids, selling braids, curling. This ancient custom was associated with the belief in the magical power of hair.

The Russian girl wore one braid. It was unbraided at a bachelorette party and usually not braided again until the wedding. The bride gave her kerchiefs to her friends ki - braid ribbons.

Ritual braid sales was a reminiscence of the purchase of the bride herself. The braid was sold by the bride's younger single brother or another boy relative called brace

Twisting - one of the culminating elements of the ceremony, which took place immediately after the wedding. The bride was given a woman's hairstyle (two braids wrapped around her head) and her hair was matched to a woman's headdress.

In Belarusian and Western Russian weddings, the ritual of cutting the groom's hair is also known. In ancient times, this action was associated with calling ancestral patron spirits.

On the wedding day or the next, games of “dead man” were played. The parody funeral ended with the “dead man” jumping up and dancing. The game ended with a general dance.

Remnants of the initiation ritual, depicting a revived dead person, were also preserved in calendar rituals. Spring-summer games of girls in “mermaid”, “Kostroma”, etc. are well known. In them, the “dead” woman suddenly jumped up and hit everyone on the hands.

The wedding ceremony retained the signs of an ancient exogamous marriage, generated by the ban on incest. The marriage couple had to consist of representatives of different clans. Therefore, in the wedding there were rituals that meant the transition of the bride" from her clan to her husband's clan. This is associated with the worship of the stove - the sacred place of the home.

Many rituals with the stove were performed throughout the wedding, both in the house of the bride's parents and in the house of the groom. All important tasks (for example, taking out beauty) literally started from the stove. In order for the matchmaking to be successful, the matchmaker tried to touch the stove. The young people were blessed at the stove pillar. In her husband’s house, the young woman bowed to the stove three times and only then to the icons. A custom was associated with the introduction of the bride to the new hearth soiling: in the morning after waking up the young people blackened their faces with soot from the stove.

Vegetable world Russian wedding is associated with ancient animistic ideas. All wedding participants were decorated with fresh or artificial flowers. Flowers and berries were embroidered on wedding clothes and towels. The evergreen periwinkle (a symbol of the strength of love and marriage) and viburnum berries (a symbol of girlhood) were especially revered.

The fauna of the wedding ritual dates back to ancient Slavic totems. In many elements of the ritual one can see the cult of the bear (dressing up as a bear, fur clothing and fur gifts, the use of an inverted sheepskin coat, symbolizing the skin of the beast). The bear was supposed to provide wealth and fertility.

Images of birds were associated with the bride. It was primarily the chicken that had the fertile power. It appeared both as ritual food and as a living bird.

For all Slavs, chicken was an indispensable dish at the wedding table, as well as on the bed of the newlyweds. Wedding cake chicken It was a round bread with a border and an image of a rooster's head. The wedding ceremony also played an important role. chicken eggs

The wedding ritual of the Eastern Slavs had a pronounced agrarian, agricultural character.

The cult of water was associated with the idea of fertility. In a Northern Russian wedding, it manifested itself in the bathing ritual that ended the bachelorette party. Magical actions were performed with water and with bath attributes (stove-heater, broom). A post-wedding ceremony is typical for a Central Russian wedding. dousing - a kind of game, the glorification of a young woman, perhaps already pregnant new life. When pouring, the woman-mother was identified with mother-damp earth.

It is known that the ancient Russian marriage took place near the river. Therefore, the situation of “marriage by the water” is often found in many genres of Russian folklore: in songs of calendar rituals, in ballads, epics, and fairy tales.

In pre-marital, marriage and post-marital rituals of young people showered hops, oats, sunflower seeds or any other grain. The cult of bread manifested itself as the honoring of the loaf, which in the southern zones was developed in caravan ritual: it began in the pre-wedding cycle and ended with Prince Piru distribution of loaf.

Loaf - This is a ritual, specially prepared bread with which the newlyweds were greeted from the crown. The loaf was decorated with scarves, red ribbons, and viburnum. Gifting gifts to the young at the feast was called “putting on a loaf.” Songs of praise in honor of the loaf were recorded.

Among the ritual food of the wedding ceremony, in addition to what has already been noted (loaf, chicken, pig head), ritual pie (with porridge, fish, chicken, etc.), as well as porridge and noodles, should also be called. The pie is typical for Northern Russian weddings, where it replaced the loaf.

The ancient Slavic cult of the sun is associated with agricultural magic. According to the ideas of the ancients, love relationships between people were generated by the supernatural participation of heavenly bodies.

The supreme patron of those entering into marriage and all other wedding participants was the sun. A month, stars, and dawn appeared next to him. People themselves became like luminaries.

The image of the sun carried the bride's wedding wreath. The concentration of heavenly radiance was especially significant at the most dramatic climax of the wedding, namely when the bride, sitting at the table and waiting for the groom to arrive, seemed to be parting with her girl’s soul. The bride was supposed to cry. At the same time, she rolled her wreath on the table.

V. F. Miller, A. A. Potebnya and other researchers saw in Slavic songs with the plot of a “drowning maiden” a solar myth, a story about a heavenly marriage. In wedding songs, a bride in a wreath was compared to a crested woman golden-feathered chicken with a cuckoo that has shed its usual plumage and is dressed in golden feathers, With goldenhorn a heifer, etc. In round dances and wedding songs, much attention was paid to the unusual, sun-like hair of the bride and groom.

Folklore decorated the poetic image of a wedding with heavenly light tower: him golden exits, silver passages, golden pillars at the gates, and he himself stands as the heat burns. A similar wonderful image is also known in the epic “About the Nightingale Budi Mirovich,” which deeply poeticizes love.

Wedding songs were an integral part of the rituals and performed the same functions: magical, legal, aesthetic. A wedding ceremony where traditional songs were not sung could not be considered valid, just like a ceremony without a collective celebration.

Actually, wedding songs - majestic, reproachful, ritual lyrical and lamentations - songs of magical origin, the tunes of which contain ancient syllabic formulas. Each tradition has its own typical tunes, which have variations in different villages, but are always recognizable; and this stability is explained by their sacred meaning.

Later, songs of other genres were timed to coincide with different moments of the wedding ceremony. At a wedding feast in the groom's house, dance and comic songs are appropriate; At pre-wedding parties, there were evening choruses, many of which, in turn, are transformations of wedding songs (“That’s enough for you, guys,” “The good horse doesn’t walk along the bank,” etc.). In Siberia, when leaving for the crown, lyrical long songs ("In an open field"), romances ("Dark forest, steep mountains") and recruit farewell songs ("Farewell, my side") were often performed. . Lyubimovka of the Muromtsevo district performed the round dance "As at dawn, at dawn", and in the village. Bolshekulache, Omsk region - romance "Tell, tell, lucky."

Often sung to the same tune, majestic, reproachful and lyrical ritual songs carried different meanings. In contrast to the predominantly monological non-ritual lyrical songs, wedding lyrical songs, as a rule, included direct speech, described or commented on the ritual situations of a bachelorette party and fighting.

Serving as a background for lamentations during the farewell rites of the bachelorette party, many of the chants contained features of the lamentations themselves, setting the bride and the entire environment in a sorrowful mood. But what is more striking is the dramatic contrast of the Northern Russian bride’s crying against the background of her friends’ cheerful round dance song, conveying the idea of the girl’s gradual alienation from her family, tribe, friends and girlish entertainment.

Glorious and corrugating the songs were performed for a fee, which speaks of their ancient magical origin. The great ones praised the wedding characters, called them by their first and patronymic names, and a special song was sung to each guest. The songs for the bride and groom necessarily included wedding symbols expressing the unity of the young: swans, a drake and a duck, grape branches, a sable with a marten, two apples, a yacht and a pearl, etc.

Actions-symbols reflecting betrothal, “loss of maiden beauty”: breaking a glass, spilling wine; break, cut down a birch tree, an apple tree; the young man’s horse trampled the garden and burst into the vegetable garden; the fellow disheveled and combed the girl’s braid; scatter pearls... Actually symbols of marriage: comb the young man’s curls; take the girl across the river on a bridge, a perch; young people drink from one cup; taking off the young husband's shoes; giving gifts, etc.

Corils - wedding “teasers”, “calling for gifts”. It is possible that in ancient times they were sung only to the groom’s relatives and only in the territory of the bride’s courtyard as to strangers, while the majestic ones were sung in the groom’s house, at a feast, in order to appease the spirits of his family to accept the girl under their protection. Later, both groups of songs were played throughout the entire wedding, and only those guests were “reproached” who treated the “singers” poorly. The “corrugating” texts could parody fragments of great songs:

They said: my friend is rich,

He steps from one hryvnia to another,

He locks the gate with a ruble!

What kind of wealth is this?

He steps from chip to chip,

The gate is locked with a stake!

The musical language of wedding ceremonies is not independent; it reflects the diversity of local styles, as it is influenced by the dominant genres in genre systems different traditions. In the Northern Russian wedding-drama, which has long retained archaic features, before the crowning ceremony the lament predominates, after which the round dance style prevails. (songs with choruses “lyu-li, lyu-li”), the magnifications are repeated by grape carols. Most of The songs of the South Russian wedding-celebration are of a dance nature, and the favorite genre is playful korilki. The musical basis of a Western Russian wedding is made up of formulaic chants of an incantatory nature, similar to calendar ones, which indicates the antiquity of the rituals (the wedding was included in the pagan spring calendar, like round dances).

The traditional wedding ceremony is not only a family holiday, but also a sacred phenomenon with its religious and magical side, and a legal and everyday act.

In the old days, people tried to celebrate weddings in Russia widely and solemnly. The rituals of the wedding cycle in each region of the country had their own characteristics, but at the same time, common features can be identified.

Despite the general similarity of the wedding ceremony throughout Russia, there were several main types and subtypes of weddings. These are, first of all, southern Russian and central and northern Russian rituals with clearly defined and stable sets of actions, defined by participants and developed folklore cycle Ethnography and folklore of peoples Southern Urals: Russian wedding [Text]: Sat. scientific articles / ed. V.M. Kuznetsova. - Chelyabinsk: Polygraph-Master, 2006..

The wedding of the western regions was distinguished by its originality, but its inherent features do not give reason to distinguish it as an independent type. The ritual of the northeastern regions of the European part of Russia can be considered as a subtype of the North Russian wedding. Several subtypes can be identified among the Russian population of Siberia. In addition, within each type or subtype there was a wide variety of local variants. This variety of options was determined by the peculiarities of the formation of the population of a particular territory, its ethnic history, interethnic contacts, religion and many other reasons. There is no convincing basis yet for identifying many other reasons. So far there is no convincing basis for determining the time of formation of the mentioned types of weddings. We can only state that the spread of Central and Northern Russian weddings throughout the entire known in the 19th-20th centuries. territory occurred relatively late; the southern Russian wedding formed and spread earlier. Rituals also differed depending on the social environment. The wealth and splendor of the wedding were determined by the wealth of the parents of the bride and groom, although in any case tradition demanded that the wedding be celebrated widely and richly. The wedding could last more than a week, or could be celebrated in 2-3 days. Limited funds often forced one to resort to such a unique form of marriage as a runaway wedding, a “roll-your-own” wedding, in which the wedding feast was reduced to a minimum. The ritual also depended on specific everyday situations. Orphan weddings and weddings were distinguished by special features when the groom went to the bride’s house. Ethnography and folklore of the peoples of the Southern Urals: Russian wedding [Text]: collection. scientific articles / ed. V.M. Kuznetsova. - Chelyabinsk: Polygraph-Master, 2006..

Mandatory wedding participants, in addition to the bride, groom and their parents, were relatives on both sides. They carried out the collective legal sanction of two events: the transition of the bride and groom to the position of family people and the twinning of their families. Relatives exchanged gifts, gave gifts to the newlyweds and their parents, and sang songs. The folk wedding ritual was characterized by publicity, the performance of many rituals, songs and dances on the street, in front of the hut of the newlyweds. A collective feast was certainly arranged - a feast for the whole world (red table, princely table) Ramazanova, A. Wedding feast in the good traditions of the sacrament of marriage [Text] / A. Ramazanova. - Ufa: Informreklama.

A wedding is a complex dramatic game, consisting of several acts and usually lasting from 3 to 10 days. There is an expression “to play a wedding.” And indeed, the wedding participants had “roles”: prince and princess (bride and groom), matchmakers, groomsmen, poezzhans, thousand, boyars (big, middle and small), voplenitsy (in the north), singer-players (in the central and southern Russia) -- etc. The role of matchmakers and matchmakers was usually performed by the godfather and mother of the newlyweds.

Among the wedding ranks were:

· birth attendants - relatives of the bride;

· squad, boyars - companions of the groom;

· boyars, bridegrooms - bride's companions;

· loaf makers - women who prepare a wedding loaf;

· cook, cook - a woman preparing a wedding meal;

· peddlers, dowry (carry dowry);

· lamps (hold candles during weddings);

· more polite, dangerous, cagey - a person who could protect from sorcerers and so on.

In total, researchers note up to 411 names of wedding rites among the Eastern Slavs Zorin, N.V.. Russian wedding ritual. Those who lacked roles were spectators.

A single composition of the wedding ceremony was distributed everywhere. It included three cycles: pre-wedding (pre-wedding), wedding day and post-wedding. Each had its own internal parts Wedding, wedding: traditions, rituals, scenarios [Text] / comp. V.V. Tench. - M.: Adelant, 2008.

The pre-nuptial cycle consisted of matchmaking - an unofficial part of the ritual, since there could be a refusal. If the matchmaking was successful, then a notice was given about the upcoming wedding, now called an engagement. His popular name-- conspiracy; also: binge (binge, wine drinking, drunken evening), bridesmaids (watching contests), pilgrimage, hand shaking, crying. After the conspiracy, no one could woo the bride (the conspiracy). The groom went to visit her and brought inexpensive gifts and treats.

The time from the agreement to the wedding could last from several weeks to a year. But on the last evening (the day before the wedding day) a bachelorette party was held - a rite of farewell to the bride with her friends, relatives, and her girlhood. Everywhere it was the saddest rite of the wedding ritual Kapitsa, F.S. Slavic traditional beliefs, holidays and rituals: Reference. / F.S. Kapitsa. - M.: Flinta: Science, 2000..

The wedding day was a highlight, filled with many events. These were the rituals of the morning of the wedding day (in the bride's house and in the groom's house); leaving for the bride and waiting for the wedding train (at her house); scenes of the groom's access to the bride; blessing; leaving for church; wedding and wrapping (the bride was given a woman's hairstyle and put on a woman's headdress); wedding (princely) feast (in the husband's house); bed rituals Ramazanova, A. Wedding feast in the good traditions of the sacrament of marriage / A. Ramazanova. - Ufa: Informreklama.

The post-wedding stage began in the morning with the awakening of the newlyweds. “They beat pots to honor the bride,” they dressed up in costumes and masks, and subjected the bride to various “tests”: fetch water, cook food, sweep the floor, etc.

A few days later, the newlyweds visited the bride’s parents (this visit was called otvodiny, “to the mother-in-law for blinky”). Often such visits merged with the calendar celebration of Maslenitsa.

Wedding poetry interacted with ritual actions and was secondary in relation to them. At a Russian wedding, songs were performed (ritual, incantatory, majestic, corrugating, lyrical), lamentations, sentences, dramatic scenes, games (accompanied by mumming). They sang non-ritual songs, thematically and emotionally related to the wedding (of a cheerful nature, love content). Musicians were often present at weddings, but this was not considered necessary since singing predominated.

The folk wedding ceremony was not unique throughout Russia. There were common features and structure, but they were developed specifically in different areas. Typical differences made it possible to identify three main geographical areas of Russian weddings: Central Russian, Northern Russian and Southern Russian.

The identification of three types of Russian weddings has become textbook in Russian science: “Northern Russian, Central Russian and Southern Russian” Korolenko, V.G. Among the Cossacks: From summer practice in the Urals Text. / V.G. Korolenko. Chelyabinsk: South Ural Book Publishing House, 1983. P - 92.. According to A.M. Kalnitskaya, “...the names of types are given primarily according to the original, ancestral territory on which a given type was formed historically and on which it is widespread, first of all, in our time. But at the same time, its distribution went beyond the name as a result of historical evolution and demographic movement” Kruglov, Yu.G. On the issue of classification of Russian wedding folklore Text. / Yu.G. Kruglov // Russian folklore: Materials and research. T XVII. L., 1977. - P - 2. .

The South Russian wedding is close to the Ukrainian and, apparently, to the original ancient Slavic. Its distinguishing feature is the absence of wedding lamentations and a general cheerful tone.

In Ukrainian “wedding” is “veshlya”, in Belarusian it is “vyasille (vyaselle)” or “svadzba”. The main poetic genre of a South Russian wedding is songs. Among Russians, this type of ritual is local (Don, Kuban).

Characteristic signs of a South Russian wedding. For example, “matchmakers”, or “callers”, with a staff-“and in their hands, called here “padogs”, and in Ukraine and Poland - “marshals”, called guests to a festive feast and collected food for this from the invitees feast. Quite rarely, but on a wedding day in South Nizhny Novgorod one also encounters baking loaves on the pre-wedding day - an episode that is typologically indicative specifically for the South Russian type. The circle of southern Russian traditions includes the “selling” of a girl to immigrants by her younger brother or some boy. The same tradition includes the timing of various festivities in autumn.

The Northern Russian wedding is dramatic, so its main genre is lamentation. They were performed throughout the ceremony. A bathhouse was mandatory, which ended the bachelorette party. The North Russian wedding was celebrated in Pomerania, in the Arkhangelsk, Olonetsk, St. Petersburg, Vyatka, Novgorod, Pskov, and Perm provinces.

During a wedding in Rus', the newlyweds were showered with hops and cereal grains; this tradition in the Russian North has been preserved literally to this day. In a northern Russian wedding, straw scattered on the floor, which the newlywed had to sweep away Ramazanova, A. Wedding feast in the good traditions of the sacrament of marriage / A. Ramazanova. - Ufa: Informreklama.

The Northern Russian ritual complex on the occasion of the marriage of young people is determined by a ritual bath for a young girl, a rite, the departure of the newlyweds after the wedding to the father-in-law’s house, a bachelorette party with the surrender of beauty and farewell to the will of Kapitsa, F.S. Slavic traditional beliefs, holidays and rituals: Reference. / F.S. Kapitsa. - M.: Flinta: Science, 2000..

Finally, it is necessary to name another symbolic object played out in the Volga-Nizhny Novgorod wedding as a custom of farewell to the maiden will - a scarlet ribbon, often tied with a bow. On the eve of the wedding day, the girls braid it out of their hair, and the central episode of the pre-wedding - the bachelorette party - is dedicated to this. This embodiment of “maiden beauty,” typical of the northern Russian type of celebration, is known in the Nizhny Novgorod territory only in the Balakhninsky, Gorodetsky and Borsky regions. Down the Volga and south of Nizhny Novgorod, the delivery of beauty is timed to coincide with the arrival of people going for the bride.

In a Northern Russian wedding, it was customary for the matchmaker, groomsmen, thousand and other participants in the wedding ritual to scold, call them names, and mock them. There were very often obscene jokes addressed to the main characters. For example, on Onega, at the so-called master’s wedding, one of the men began shouting all kinds of obscenities at the girls, and everyone else repeated it in unison. It was believed that this was necessary to remove all kinds of evil eye and for the young to live happily.

However, the most characteristic wedding ceremony for the Russian people was the Central Russian type. It covered a huge geographical area, the central axis of which ran along the line Moscow - Ryazan - Nizhny Novgorod. Weddings of the Central Russian type were played in Tula, Tambov, Penza, Kursk, Kaluga, Oryol, Simbirsk, Samara and other provinces. The poetry of the Central Russian wedding ceremony combined songs and lamentations, but songs prevailed, which created a rich emotional and psychological palette.

The peasant wedding was a most interesting aspect folk art. In the life of the peasant himself, it played a very important role, probably because it was surrounded by more solemnity than other events. family life. The conclusion of marriages among all peoples, both pagan and Christian, at all times was accompanied by many original rituals, which over time acquired some kind of completeness, and their violation was considered a kind of sacrilegious act. It is unknown who established the unchanging ceremony of wedding customs, only they passed from generation to generation, as a testament of ancestors to offspring, they reflected a lot of originality that defines the national character Kapitsa, F.S. Slavic traditional beliefs, holidays and rituals: Reference. / F.S. Kapitsa. - M.: Flinta: Science, 2000..

In many localities of the Voronezh province, when concluding marriages, some ancient customs were preserved, although they lost their significance from year to year, but still did not lose their original character.

The wedding ceremonies of the peasants of the Voronezh province had much in common, but a number of significant features could be traced that left an imprint on the entire family life of the peasant Tereshchenko, A.V. Life of the Russian people: in 7 parts, part 1 / A.V. Tereshchenko. - M.: Russian book, 1997..

In the Voronezh province, differences were noted in the sequence of rituals of the main wedding day. In most Russian villages, the act of wedding was organically included in the system of wedding rituals: the wedding in the bride's house preceded the wedding, and the wedding in the groom's house took place after the wedding. In the bride’s house, where the groom’s wedding “train” arrived in the morning, rites of ransoming the bride and saying goodbye to her relatives were performed. After the wedding, the main rites of the wedding ritual were concentrated in the groom’s house: “wedding the bride,” “bed ritual,” gift-giving, and a gala wedding dinner.

The wedding had elements of a solar cult. We can assume that this is a wedding ring, candles, a fire. The latter also had a cleansing, magical meaning, protecting young people from witchcraft and evil spirits. In peasant life, the celebration of fire was associated with the worship of the newlyweds to the Sun - light in all its forms. In the settlement of Alekseevka, Biryuchensky district, when the newlyweds drove up to the gate of the groom’s house, relatives lit a fire. The sleigh with the bride and groom had to cross it. The enormous importance that at a wedding was attached to the expulsion of unclean spirits and the protection of everything connected with the newlyweds can be judged by the following ritual actions: when the wedding train left, the mother performed the ritual of sprinkling, dressed in a sheepskin coat made of black wool, turned inside out. She poured a mixture of oats, nuts, cakes and money into the floor of her sheepskin coat. The friend took a twig and drove it around the train three times, and his mother sprinkled it with this mixture. In Zemlyansky district, a friend swept the path in front of the young people - “driving away the enemy.” In Nizhnedevitsky district, father and mother met the newlyweds, sitting on an overturned bowl (kashenna) with their fur coats on inside out, and showered the couple with grain.

A highly original phenomenon was a peasant wedding based on the ritual consumption of bread and grain. Appearance ritual bread at the wedding is explained by the influence of the people's worldview; the attitude towards bread has been sacred since ancient times. Interesting custom was in the settlement of Staraya Bezginka, Korotoyak district. During the wedding, 2-3 handfuls of unthreshed oats were scattered in the middle of the hut, which were then threshed and distributed to domestic animals. This ritual has been known since ancient times and, apparently, it reminded the young housewife of the household responsibilities of A.N. Astashov. Vestnik Chelyabinsk state university. 2008. № 35..

The main meaning of the wedding ceremony was procreation, which required awakening the fertile forces in man and nature. This idea tied together all the wedding elements and identified living things based on life.

Everything was used in the wedding ceremonytypes of magic. The purpose of producing magic (from the Latin producentis - “producing”) was to ensure the well-being of the bride and groom, the strength and large number of children of their future family, as well as to obtain a rich harvest and a good offspring of livestock. Apotropaic magic (from the Greek apotropaios - “averting trouble”) manifested itself in numerous amulets aimed at protecting young people from everything bad. This was achieved through allegorical speech, the ringing of bells, a pungent smell and taste, dressing up of the newlyweds, covering (or hiding) the bride, as well as a wide variety of amulets (putting pins into the bride’s hem, sewing a bag of millet, garlic, and onion into her hem).

The universal amulet was the belt- a piece of clothing that takes the shape of a circle. It was believed that the one wearing a belt was “afraid of the devil,” so people got married wearing a belt. The magical properties of the belt sealed the union of the newlyweds: they tied it around the bride and groom, a dowry knot, a wedding cake, etc. At the same time, with the help of a twisted belt, a witch could turn the entire wedding train into wolves (among Belarusians).

Various magical functions have been associated with the towel: they used it to bind the newlyweds, girdle the bride, bandage poezzhan, they covered a loaf, laid it as a “footstool” for a wedding, etc. The towels were made of canvas and embroidered with a traditional pattern, which retained mythological symbolism and, in accordance with this, was represented by a characteristic color combination: white - red - black.

Many magical actions went back to the ancient rite of initiation. Since the continuation of the family depended primarily on the woman, the wedding ceremony reflected female initiation, its center was the bride. In the pre-wedding period, the bride wore white clothes (the ancient color of mourning), and on the wedding day she always wore red clothes (red symbolized life). The poetry of the pre-wedding period contained indications of ritual “death”. In her lamentation, the bride reported scarynom sne: as if there was an empty open coffin on her street, waiting for a victim. She expressed a desire to go into the forest to the river and drown herself - and so on.

A typical ritual for a Central Russian wedding is"Christmas trees". The top or fluffy branch of a Christmas tree or other tree, called beauty (maiden beauty, red beauty), decorated with ribbons, beads, lit candles, etc., sometimes with a doll attached to it, stood on the table in front of the bride. The tree symbolized the youth and beauty of the bride, to which she said goodbye forever. The wedding verdict stated:

How about this tree?

May you never be green twice,

And for you, our friend,

Yes, soulful darling,

Don't be with girls twice.

The ancient, long-forgotten meaning was that the sacrificial duty of the initiated girls was redirected to the tree (green, curly birch): instead of one of them, the tree that was originally accepted into their circle of kin (substitute sacrifice) died. In the wedding ceremony beauty identified with the bride herself.

The wedding tree is known among most Slavic peoples as an obligatory attribute, a symbolic object. At the same time, the Eastern Slavs noted a wide variety of objects called beauty. These are not only plants (spruce, pine, birch, apple tree, cherry, viburnum, mint), but also a girl’s braid and a girl’s headdress.

The headdress of the bride girl was called crown, wreath, forehead, crown. It was made in the form of a dense rim with a braid, above which protruded an openwork wreath, decorated with pearls, mother-of-pearl, beads, etc. Such wreaths are especially characteristic of the Russian North. In the south, as well as in Belarus and Ukraine, wreaths were woven from fresh flowers. Making wedding wreaths from fresh flowers was a rich, developed ritual.

Initiation included rituals with hair, changing hairstyle: braiding , sale of braids, curling. This ancient custom was associated with the belief in the magical power of hair.

The Russian girl wore one braid. It was unbraided at a bachelorette party and usually not braided again until the wedding. braid ribbons.

Ritual braid sales was a reminiscence of the purchase of the bride herself. “Take the braid with your head,” her mother told the groom. The braid was sold by the bride's younger single brother or another boy relative called brace

Spinning - one of the culminating elements of the ceremony, which took place immediately after the wedding (in the church gatehouse, refectory or, upon arrival, in the husband’s house). The bride was given a woman's hairstyle (two braids wrapped around her head) and her hair was matched to a woman's headdress (kokoshnik, kitschka with magpie, warrior, collection). Unlike a girl, a woman always had to walk with her head covered. There is a proverb about this: “A little sung, but worn forever.”

In Belarusian and Western Russian weddings, the ritual of cutting the groom's hair is also known. In ancient times, this action was associated with calling ancestral patron spirits. Perhaps this rite once meant the initiation of young men into a group of adult men.

On the wedding day or the next, games were heldkoynik". They have been recorded in the Volga region, Kursk, Oryol, Ryazan, Voronezh, and Tambov provinces. The parody funeral ended with the “dead man” jumping up and dancing. The game ended with a general dance. Ritual fun, dancing, laughter were supposed to approve a new life, symbolizing the rebirth of the bride in a new status, which was the last link of initiation, its goal.

Remnants of the initiation ritual, depicting a revived dead person, were also preserved in calendar rituals. The spring-summer games of girls in “mermaid”, “Kostroma”, etc. are known. In them, the “deceased” woman suddenly jumped up, hit everyone on the hands, saying: "Bake pancakes, remember me!" This ritual has deep Indo-European roots. This is indicated by the German medieval game "Dance of Death", the Czech dance "Dead Man", similar Slovak and Serbian games, Carpathian games with the dead.

The wedding ceremony retained the signs of an ancient marriage, generated by the ban on incest. The marriage couple had to consist of representatives of different clans. Therefore, the wedding included rituals that signified the transition of the bride from her clan to her husband’s clan. The worship of the oven is connected with this - sacredwhelping place of residence.

Many rituals with the stove were performed throughout the wedding, both in the house of the bride's parents and in the house of the groom. All important tasks (for example, taking out beauty) literally started from the stove. In order for the matchmaking to be successful, the matchmaker tried to touch the stove. The young people were blessed at the stove pillar. In her husband’s house, the young wife bowed to the stove three times and only then to the icons. A custom was associated with the introduction of the bride to the new hearth soiling: in the morning after waking up the young people blackened their faces with soot from the stove.

The flora of the Russian wedding is associated with the ancient Animystical ideas(the idea that the entire world around a person is a living, animate world). All wedding participants were decorated with fresh or artificial flowers. Flowers and berries were embroidered on wedding clothes and towels. The evergreen periwinkle (a symbol of the strength of love and marriage) and viburnum berries (a symbol of girlhood) were especially revered. Kalinka rituals associated with establishing the premarital innocence of the young woman were called (for example, on the second day of the wedding, guests were shown the nightgown of the young wife, demonstrating her honesty).

The fauna of the wedding ritual dates back to the ancient SlavsChinese totems. In many elements of the ritual one can see the cult of the bear (dressing up as a bear, fur clothing and fur gifts, the use of an inverted sheepskin coat, symbolizing the skin of the beast). The bear was supposed to provide wealth and fertility. In some places, an attribute of the wedding feast was a fried pig's head, which had magical significance (scenes of ironic celebration were played out with it). At weddings, Christmastide and Maslenitsa they dressed up as a bull, while playing games with an erotic meaning.

Images of birds were associated with the bride. It was primarily the chicken that had the fertile power. It appeared both as ritual food and as a living bird. (dowry chicken).

For all Slavs, chicken was an indispensable dish at the wedding table, as well as on the bed of the newlyweds. Wedding cake chicken It was a round bread with a border and an image of a rooster's head. Known ancient church bans for chicken sacrifices guineas(for their sake, chickens were drowned in rivers and wells).

The wedding ritual of the Eastern Slavs had a pronounced agrarian, agricultural character.

The cult of water was associated with the idea of fertility. In a Northern Russian wedding, it manifested itself in the bathing ritual that ended the bachelorette party. Magical actions were performed with water and with bath attributes (stove-heater, broom). Unlike the northern one, the Central Russian wedding is characterized by post-wedding dousing - a kind of play, the glorification of a young woman, perhaps already carrying a new life in her womb. When pouring, the woman-mother was identified with mother-raw earthlei: after all, the soil moistened by rain could also manifest its fertile essence.

In pre-marital, marriage and post-marital rituals of young peoplewasps Pali hops, oats, sunflower seeds or any othercereal. Actions are known not only with grain, but also with ears of corn, with sauerkraut. The cult of bread manifested itself primarily as the honoring of the loaf, which in the southern zones was developed in loafrite: it began in the pre-wedding cycle and ended with Prince Piru distribution of loaf.

Loaf - This is a ritual, specially prepared bread, with whom the newlyweds were greeted from the crown. The loaf was decorated with scarves, red ribbons, and viburnum. Gifting gifts to the young at the feast was called “putting on a loaf.” Songs of praise in honor of the loaf were recorded: "praisela loaf", "the loaf is kneaded", "like the oven for the loaf is heated", "as inthe oven is being planted" and etc.

Among the ritual food of the wedding ceremony, in addition to what has already been noted (loaf, chicken, pork head), one should also mention the ritual pie, which in many places was called chicken(with porridge, fish, chicken, etc.), as well as porridge and noodles. The pie is typical for Northern Russian weddings, where it replaced the loaf.

The supreme patron of those entering into marriage and all other wedding participants was the sun. A month, stars, and dawn appeared next to him. People themselves became like luminaries. Here is how I. V. Zyryanov wrote about this: “Sunshine, deification, and golden coloring are visible not only in the images of the bride and groom, but also in the images of their parents, as well as matchmakers and wedding groomsmen. The bride in poetry is depicted through “maiden beauty” , which is more beautiful than the sun, purer than “gold and silver”, better than “expensive gems”.<...>“The properties of the luminaries, transferred to human marriage, made the latter a sacrament” 1.

The image of the sun carried the bride's wedding wreath. The song said that it fell from the sky and was so bright that it could light up the road. The concentration of heavenly radiance was especially significant at the most dramatic climax of the wedding, namely when the bride, sitting at the table and waiting for the groom to arrive, seemed to be parting with her girl’s soul. The bride had to cry ("Doesn't cry at the table, naplahovering behind a pillar"). At the same time, she rolled her wreath on the table. The round shape of the wreath, its “shine” and the custom of rolling it Bya wooden table depicted the sun as the supreme patron of the ritual sacrament.

Many researchers saw in Slavic songs with the plot of a “drowning maiden” a solar myth, a story about a heavenly marriage. Perhaps his traces were preserved by the song "Sunday early, the blue sea was playing..." In wedding songs, a bride in a wreath was compared to a crested woman golden-feathered chicken with a cuckoo that has shed its usual plumage and is dressed in golden feathers, With goldenhorn a heifer, etc. In round dances and wedding songs, much attention was paid to the unusual, sun-like hair of the bride and groom. From the song we also learn that the bride’s ritual shirt and the groom’s wedding attire are embroidered with heavenly bodies.

The Northern Russian bride reported in her lament that she embroidered the wedding shirt for three nights: Ivanovo, Peter the Great and Ilyinsk (summer solstice). She decorated the shirt red solNyshko, morning dawn, young midnight bright month. And it matched the actual embroidery on her shirt. We compare this outfit with the dress of a fairy-tale princess: “She went out into the open field, Naryadressed in a sparkling dress - there are often stars all around!<...> Threw it off mine pig's cover, put on a dress: the moon was bright on the back, on the chestred sun! 2

Folklore decorated the poetic image of a wedding with heavenly light tower: him golden exits, silver transitions, inthe gates have golden pillars, and he himself stands as the heat burns. A similar wonderful image is also known in the epic “About the Nightingale Budi Mirovich,” which deeply poeticizes love.

The word “terem,” says linguist V.V. Kolesov, carries “the image of the sky towering above a person, an endless, elegant, shining sky, which in itself is a holiday.<...>Terem (from the Greek teremnon - “house, dwelling”, also “palace”, actually: a palace with a dome)<...>- a symbol of the sky, the presence of a dome was mandatory for it."

Folk lyrics reflect different sides reality. The object of reflection largely determines its specificity. V.G. Belinsky also wrote: “Epic poetry uses images and pictures to express images and pictures found in nature; lyric poetry uses images and pictures to express the ugly and formless feeling that constitutes the inner essence of human nature.” Folk lyrical song, depicting certain events, phenomena, circumstances Everyday life, also conveyed the feelings and moods of people. We can say that the subject of the image in a folk lyrical song is precisely the feeling: sad or cheerful, tragic or funny. In this respect, wedding lyrical songs are not much different from non-wedding lyric poetry: and their main purpose in the ritual is to express a very specific feeling of its participants. But in connection with this characteristic of the actual orientation of lyrical wedding songs, several questions arise, the answers to which can clarify their poetic and ritual essence.
There is an opinion that wedding lyrical songs were necessary in the ritual mainly in order to comment on it. This is a fairly common opinion, but it is Lately is disputed, and quite rightly so. To see the main purpose of wedding lyrical songs only in commenting on the ritual means to belittle their true meaning in the ritual, to assign them only a service role. In addition, supporters of this judgment about the dominant function of lyrical wedding songs do not explain in any way what the actual meaning of this commentary is. One cannot but agree with those researchers who saw in wedding lyrical songs a world of feelings and experiences of wedding participants, which, naturally, does not at all exclude the depiction of wedding rituals in them.

The idea that wedding songs commented on the wedding ceremony gave rise to two misconceptions about their relationships: firstly, it is believed that wedding songs have a strictly defined place in the ritual (“attached” to it), and secondly, they necessarily depict ritual actions .
As the works of I. E. Karpukhin and V. I. Zhekulina showed, wedding lyrical songs may not have had a firmly established place in the ritual. Having analyzed numerous versions of the wedding lyrical song “Because of the mountains, high mountains,” V.I. Zhekulina came, for example, to the following conclusion: “...the song turned out to be very flexible and could be performed even during a merry wedding feast, although in its own way content and emotional sad sound clearly refers to the most dramatic moment of the wedding ceremony - the girl’s separation from her parents’ home and departure to the crown. Records from the last century and today indicate its performance both during the bachelorette party, and when leaving for the crown, and in the house of the young husband during the wedding feast.”
Why, one might ask, is it possible to sing the same song at different weddings at different moments of the ceremony? First of all, it is likely that the basis of this song does not depict a specific ritual action, but only reproduces the symbolic situation of the swan’s transition from a flock of swans to a flock of geese (by swan is meant a bride who, due to her marriage, moves to another age and gender group).
Summarizing her observations on the consolidation of wedding lyrical songs in the ritual, in her other work V.I. Zhekulina writes: “The same song, as evidenced by both pre-revolutionary and modern recordings, could be freely attached to various ritual moments that were emotionally close -psychological mood.” One can completely agree with this statement of the researcher, although the explanation this phenomenon in wedding folklore V.I. Zhekulina can hardly be accepted. In her opinion, “once upon a time, each wedding ritual moment had its own wedding songs, as evidenced by their content. But the former strict timing of wedding songs has been broken over time, mainly as a result of the destruction of the canonical wedding ritual.” It seems to us that the very artistic nature of lyrical wedding songs presupposes an unstable, relative fixation of lyrical wedding songs in the ritual.
However, developing the idea that wedding lyrical songs did not comment on the ceremony, and, depending on this, were not forever tied to certain moments of it, one cannot help but see the limits of this looseness. Without a doubt, wedding lyrical songs are ritual in their purpose, but this ritualism is expressed not in their relationship with rituals, but in their expression of a very specific ritual feeling, mood. Songs, thus reproducing the rituals, could create the necessary ritual-emotional flavor of the wedding. Researchers have long drawn attention to the presence of ritual laughter or crying in rituals,2 but, apparently, it would be quite appropriate to raise the question of the ritual necessity of depicting other human feelings at a wedding. If we mean lyrical wedding songs, then we should be talking primarily about feelings, thanks to which one can evaluate the attitude of the wedding participants to the events taking place at it.
Wedding lyrical songs, of course, were addressed to the rituals being performed, but the performers sought to express in the songs, first of all, their attitude towards them. This, obviously, explains the fact that wedding lyrical songs can be dedicated not only to etiquette and ritual rituals, but also to magical and legal and everyday ones. For example, the essentially magical ritual of unbraiding a braid caused the following lyrical wedding song to be performed:

The trumpets sounded very early at dawn,
Natasha cried over her brown braid;
- Today, the girls weaved you, a scarf,
Early in the morning the matchmaker will unravel:

Divides the scarf into six parts,
Lay out a scarf around your head,
He will put a crooked hair on his scarf,
On a crooked hairline - a silk veil,
On a silk veil - red kicha!
So you, kerchief, will live forever,
And I’m having a blast with you, fair-haired girl!

The relationship between the ritual and the song in this case is clear: the ritual causes a negative reaction on the part of the bride. But the song can also talk about a positive attitude towards the wedding. One of the songs, for example, tells how the groom brought the bride to his parents’ house after the wedding and asked them:

My dear sir, my dear father
The Empress is dear mother,
Is my daughter-in-law good to you?

Without whites the face is white,
Without blush, scarlet cheeks,
Without surmils, eyebrows are black!

And they answer him: “You love it, but it’s very good for us!”

In connection with the above examples, the question immediately arises: why do wedding lyrical songs evaluate the wedding so controversially? In order to correctly answer this question, you must first of all pay attention to the ritual situations in which each song was performed. Yu. M. Sokolov wrote: “To draw a line between a genuine feeling and a feeling ordered by ritual tradition, in wedding game can be extremely difficult” 3. Indeed, did the songs always express what this or that bride actually felt? Of course not. After all, the ritual required paying tribute to the family in which the “first-married princess” grew up, but at the same time, the songs should not offend the feelings of those people whose family after the wedding became her family. In addition, the songs, obviously, were supposed to emotionally prepare the bride for such a serious change in her life, such as the transition from a carefree, free “girlish” life to a difficult and joyless “woman’s” life. Songs thus played an important role in shaping the newlywed’s new, positive attitude towards her future life. For a long time, for example, it was noticed that the course of the wedding was very uneven emotionally:
the fun in the ceremony alternated with the tragic, there was a kind of struggle between these two emotional assessments of the wedding, and in the end the optimistic beginning won. Big role, if not the first, wedding lyrical songs were played in this fight.
It is precisely the need to express ritual feelings that explains why wedding lyrical songs did not simply comment on the ritual, but, depicting the ritual feelings of wedding participants, could be emotionally colored both tragically and optimistically.
According to the emotional content, wedding lyrical songs are divided into two opposing groups. This distinction can be based on two mutually exclusive attitudes towards a wedding as a phenomenon of reality: one attitude towards it is negative, the other is positive. The wedding events depicted in both groups of songs can be arranged in a certain order: they give an idea of the relationship between the newlyweds before the wedding, during the wedding and after it in a certain sequence and assessment. This feature of the content of wedding lyrical songs clearly indicates their cyclical nature.
In the first group of songs (cycle) the main actor is the bride. All events related to her fate are presented through her attitude towards them. The meaning and ideological orientation of these wedding songs is to present the tragic fate of the girl - the bride - as brightly, deeply and emotionally as possible.
Beware, white fish,

The fishermen want to catch you,
To put in silk snares,
Cut you into twelve pieces,
Spread you out on twelve dishes! —

This is how fishermen threaten whitefish. This threat is nothing more than the future of the girl who danced merrily in a round dance:

Matchmakers want to marry you
For such and such, for the fellow Ivan!

As if nothing foreshadowed such a fate for the girl, but now the falcon has already caught the swan and does not let her go, and she begs him to let him go, but the falcon is cruel:
Then I’ll let you go when I’ve plucked your wings, and I’ll let your gray feathers into the open field!
For a girl this means:

Then I'll let you in,
When I take you to church,
I will hold the golden crowns,
I will accept God's law!

Before us is the beginning of the tragedy of a girl who could previously have fun in a round dance, live calmly and carefree in the mansion with her father and mother. And the events, if you trace them throughout the entire group of wedding songs, develop sequentially, with ever-increasing dramatic tension. The very last song, which crowns this group of wedding lyrical songs, tells about the request of a girl, now the wife of a cruel young falcon, to her mother:

- Redeem me, mother, from captivity!
- What will you give, child?
- One hundred rubles.
- There’s nowhere to take it, child!

The final chord is the tragic denouement of what began as a warning from her friends to an unsuspecting girl dancing merrily in a round dance.
The same sequence (cyclization) is observed in the analysis of wedding songs of the second group. There is also a beginning and an end here, but there are already two heroes - the bride and groom, and the assessment of events is different.
In the first group of wedding songs, the girl is an uncomplaining creature, subject to everyone: she cannot resist, for example, the cruelty of a young man who suddenly appears in front of her. In the second group there is another girl: a young falcon flies through her tower, drops a ring and asks her to pick it up, but she rather sternly refuses to do this, as she is in a hurry to go to the church to look out for suitors. Or in another song: a young man asks a girl the way to her tower, and she asks him with dignity and at the same time. answers slyly:
Oh, you stupid, good fellow!
What kind of path is there in the tower?
A path in an open field -
Wide, vast!

Of course, such relationships cannot develop as tragic: the girl joyfully welcomes the news that her parents have rewarded her with a groom; she misses him, asks the girls to sing louder when he arrives so that he will have fun; she joyfully meets him, easily leaves her home, without any fear she goes to her husband’s family, without fear of his parents - the “fierce” father-in-law and mother-in-law. The end in this group of songs is also therefore not unexpected - when the young man, now a husband, asks the girl who is dear to her the most from her family, she answers:

- Dear me, dear Ivanushko in the house!
- This, Mashenka, is your truth, This, Mashenka, is true!

The division of wedding lyrical songs into two cycles is not some kind of conventional division: it is quite natural (follows from the analysis of both their ritual essence and poetic content. Until now, some scientists characterize wedding lyrics only as tragic, citing the opinion of A "A. S. Pushkin. "I fall for Russian songs," the poet wrote, "their ordinary content - or the complaints of a beautiful woman who was forced into marriage, or the reproaches of a young husband to a hateful wife. Our wedding songs are sad, like a funeral howl." A. S. Pushkin , of course, was right when he spoke in a similar way about folk songs: in wedding poetry, as we have seen, it stands out whole group songs that, in their emotional content, are no different from, for example, funeral laments. V. G. Belinsky assessed folk lyrics in approximately the same way, but he already noticed that Russian songs only partially have this content (“for the most part”). And the critic said that “love in Rus' could be not only poetic, but even gracefully poetic.” He made this conclusion based on an analysis of the wedding lyric song “There is a Christmas tree on the mountain.” Since the time of A.S. Pushkin and V.G. Belinsky, materials on Russian folk songs have increased several dozen times. That is why V. Ya. Propp and N. P. Kolpakova have the right to claim that Russian song is only partly sad. For example, “round dance songs. are of a humorous nature. Among the non-choir songs there are a considerable number of cheerful and cheerful songs,” wrote V. Ya. Propp. These, as can be seen, include the second cycle of wedding lyrical songs.
The question of the origin of lyrical wedding songs that positively depicted the relationship between the bride and groom has recently sparked debate. N. M. Eliash considers these songs to be the most ancient in wedding folklore. 3. T. F. Pirozhkova speaks of these songs as a later new formation. Neither one nor the other point of view has yet been thoroughly argued. But N.M. Eliash’s point of view, it seems, can be supported, although its proof requires more thorough historical, ethnographic and philological research based on the material of all East Slavic wedding folklore.
So, in terms of their content, wedding lyrical songs form two cycles: a cycle of songs telling about the tragic fate of a girl getting married, and a cycle of songs telling about happy love a guy and a girl forming a new family. The object of the image in lyrical wedding songs was the ritual, but the main reason for which these songs were created was the ritual feeling - the expression of an emotional attitude towards the wedding as a fact of reality.
But how, in this case, does this feeling differ from the feeling manifested, for example, in lyrical love and family songs that depicted tragic love or difficult family life? The ritual fact that determined the appearance of this or that wedding song stands on a par with other facts of reality (non-ritual), which gave rise to the appearance of lyrical love, family, recruiting, etc. songs. In this regard, another question arises: what place do wedding lyrical songs occupy among other genres of lyrical songs, if we consider them in the series of lyrical songs?
Wedding lyrical songs, when compared with other lyrical songs, have their own image object, just as lyrical love and lyrical family songs have their own image object. Such an image object in lyrical wedding songs is a wedding.
The wedding theme runs through all wedding songs. All the main moments of the wedding ceremony are reflected in the songs, and this is such an obvious fact that there is no need to prove it. However, it is necessary to take into account a certain complexity of the object of depicting a wedding song: a wedding, on the one hand, has always been associated in everyday life with love relationships, and on the other hand, with family ones.
Among lyrical wedding songs, for example, there are groups of songs that can be identified by theme with lyrical love songs (songs telling about the relationship between the bride and groom before the wedding) and lyrical family songs (songs telling about the relationship between the bride and groom after the wedding). Indeed, in both cases it is possible to show love and family relations, their depiction in wedding songs is peculiar. For example, the content of “pre-wedding” songs is not just a story about love, but about the nascent one leading to the wedding, while the content of “post-wedding” songs is not generally a show of family life, but the life of the newlyweds after the wedding. It is interesting to compare, for example, two songs - a love song and a wedding song, which at first glance depict the same situation - the meeting of a young man and a girl. In a love song:

An oak plank lies across the fast river,
That no one walked on this plank, no one walked here,
That no one was courting, no one was looking after anyone!
The little kid crossed over and said to the little girl:

- My heart, I guessed it myself, I love whom I truly love, I give him a handkerchief as a gift to whom I truly love,
- My scarf is thin, my dear little one! “I don’t want to wear a scarf, I want to love my friend like that!”
I gave the handkerchief back and kissed my friend for the handkerchief.

In the wedding song:

Danila the light has crossed,
Translated by Nastasyoshka,
I moved him, kissed him,
Kissed, pardoned:

- My friend, Nastasyushka,
You made me old
You made me old
Left me crazy!

The transfer across the river and the gift scarf are symbols of marriage. But how are they realized in these songs? In the first song, the guy gives the girl a handkerchief as a sign that he wants to marry her. It would seem that the girl should agree to this, but she does not agree, does not take the scarf from her dear friend, but wants to “love him like that.” The depiction of love, as you can see, even displaces the concept of marriage and wedding from the content of the song. In the wedding song, the outcome of the meeting is decided differently. There is no direct talk about love in it, but the song was performed at a wedding, and that says it all: Danila was the groom, Nastasya the bride; There are no words in the song that would sound like Nastasya’s refusal to marry.
Thus, even those wedding songs that can be similar in theme to other genres of lyrical song have quite specific features that are also noted in other components of poetic content.
A wedding lyrical song, as a rule, talks about one event from a series of events that should happen or has already happened to the bride and groom or to each of them separately at the wedding. For example, the song “No trumpet roars early in the morning” can talk about only one episode in the life of the bride: the unraveling of her braid. There can be no talk of drinking, matchmaking, or leaving for someone else's country in this song (there are other songs about these events).

The event depicted in a wedding lyrical song is usually depicted as occurring in the same place and at the same time. An example is the song “Not from the Wind, Not from the Whirlwind,” which depicts one of the episodes of the wedding ceremony - the scene of the groom’s arrival at the bride’s house before the crown:

Not from the wind, not from the whirlwind
The vereyushki staggered,
The gates have dissolved -
The horses came into the yard,
Daredevils in the wide yard!
Here the guest stepped into the mountain,
Yes to the prince in the bright room:
The room is full of tables,
The room is full of guests!
Then Maryushka got scared,
The whiteness of her face has changed,
White little hands drooped,
The playful little legs gave way,
Tears rolled down from my eyes,
Speech in my mouth is lost,

She said a word in tears,
In tears the speech said:
“Here comes my destroyer.”
There goes my destroyer,
There goes unbraid,
There goes the lose-your-beauty!
Then Pavlushko said a word,
Svet Ivanovich said:

- I am not your destroyer,
I am not your destroyer,
Your destroyer is your dear brother,
The destroyer is a bitch,
Unbraid your braid, little babe,
Lose-your-beauty -
girlfriend!

As we see, the song ended without going beyond the depiction of a single episode - the scene of the groom’s arrival at the bride’s house. This is one of the differences between lyrical wedding songs and epic and lyric-epic songs (ballads, for example), which usually have many episodes, and from non-ritual lyrical songs, which can be constructed as both multi-episode and single-episode songs.
The wedding lyrical song also has features in the depiction of time. It is known that any event develops consistently over time. Therefore, in an epic, for example, or in a ballad, episodes cannot be arranged so that one of them, later in time, precedes another, which happened earlier. To this we can add that events in an epic or ballad are always depicted directly: not through the hero’s memories, not through his reproducing in words what was and what is, but as if from the outside - objectively.
The wedding lyrical song with the epic genres of folklore in this regard has both similarities and differences. Firstly, the depiction of events in wedding lyrical songs is strictly objectified. This gave V.P. Anikin the basis to highlight as one of the genre characteristics of a lyrical wedding song the fact that the narration in them “is conducted in the third person singular or plural.”
Secondly, the presentation of events from a third person did not allow lyrical wedding songs to disrupt the time sequence of their performance in the ritual: songs that tell about the departure of the bride from her home to the groom’s house could not be performed, for example, before songs that speak was about hand-striking or unbraiding a braid. True, the explanation for this feature of lyrical wedding songs is different than its explanation in epic genres, where the temporal sequence and linearity in the development of events is dictated by the logic of the development of the plot itself. In lyrical wedding songs, this phenomenon depends on their relationship with the ritual: the logic of the development of the ritual itself and the feelings it arouses in the singers explains the strict temporal sequence of song performance (hence the “cyclization”).
Third-person narration distinguishes wedding lyrical songs from non-ritual lyrical songs, in which events could be narrated in the first person, which allowed performers to “break” the temporal sequence of narration of the events that caused the character’s experience. For example:

- You are my guests, guest girls,
You are my dear guests,
For some reason, why, my little guests,
They came to me late at night,
Yes, what self-interest and joy they brought me!
To me, the most beautiful butterfly,
I barely slept at night,
Like this night -
I didn't sleep all night,
On the right hand of a clear falcon
I carried it all night!
That's how my dear one is,
My dear friend,
He lies dead
His wild little head
Away, severed
Lies to the side
Through his zealous heart
Not a fierce snake crawled -
Crawled through his heart
Lead bullet!

In this song, the first-person narration allowed the performer to talk about three events in a completely different order than they actually developed: first, the dear one probably suffered misfortune - he died from an enemy bullet; Then this tragic event was felt by his sweetheart, who could not sleep from anxiety, and then the guests arrived, bringing her sad news. Such a violation of time sequence is not typical for wedding lyrical songs.
Since wedding lyrical songs are one-episode, they differ in one more feature in the depiction of time - but this time from both epic and lyrical non-ritual genres together. Each episode of an epic, for example, or a lyrical non-ritual song is characterized by its own space and its own time. Characterizing the multi-episode genres of folklore in general, we must admit that time is interrupted in them. For example, in a lyrical non-ritual song:

- What are you grieving about, my dear?
Well, what happened to you, soul?
- Put your right hand,
Dear friend, to my chest!
Feel it, dear friend,
How my heart beats!

This is the first episode in which the song talks about the meeting of a guy and a girl who love each other and about the sad premonitions of his beloved. Then comes the girl’s monologue:

- I’ll go to the steep bank
Look for traces of your darling! —
I didn’t find any traces of my dear,

She burst into bitter tears,
I would pack up and fly away
Live back home!

It is clear that in this song, between the dialogue of the lovers and the monologue of the abandoned girl, a certain time passed, during which something happened to the sweetheart. But this time creates a “failure” or emptiness in the song, thereby separating the time of the first episode (the lovers’ dialogue) and the time of the second (the girl’s monologue). This phenomenon is not typical for wedding lyrical songs, because, talking about one event, they narrate about it without interrupting it in time. For example:

From the hills, from the hills the winds are blowing,
From the tower, from the tower, the father-in-law looks,
He talks to himself: -
Anna was a good girl,
Better, more beautiful than that - young!

The song talks about the beauty of the bride, leading to the admiration of her father-in-law; this wedding episode is not interrupted in time.
These are the features of the poetic content of wedding lyrical songs. As we have seen, being lyrical, they have a certain similarity with other genres of folk lyrics, but, being wedding, they differ from them. Naturally, lyrical wedding songs have nothing in common with corilian wedding songs, although to a certain extent they are in contact with majestic songs (the general emotional mood of lyrical songs, in which the wedding is depicted as a holiday for the newlyweds, corresponds to the major tone of glorification songs). The same can be observed when analyzing their artistic form.