Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences Research Article ISSN 1112-9867 Special Issue Available online at http://www.jfas.info PECULIARITIES OF THE PLANT CODE (THE WEDDING BROOM) IN THE RUSSIAN FOLK WEDDING OF THE ULYANOVSK REGION OF THE VOLGA DISTRICT M. Mikhail Gershonovich1,*, M. Andrey Viktorovich2, F. Daniil Anatolievich3, L. Antonina Petrovna4, G. Marina Vladimirovna5 1PhD in philology, Associate Professor of the Department of the Russian language, literature and journalism of Ilya Ulyanov State Pedagogical University 2PhD in biology, Associate Professor of the Department of Botany of Ilya Ulyanov State Pedagogical University 3PhD in biology, Associate Professor of the Department of Botany of Ilya Ulyanov State Pedagogical University 4PhD in philology, an independent researcher 5An independent researcher Published online: 15 February 2017 ABSTRACT The relevance of the study is due to the current trend of conducting interdisciplinary research in the field of traditional folk culture, in particular, its interaction with the environment. Such interaction is realized with the help of the plant code, a particular type of which is analyzed in the article. The leading methods of research are structural-typological, statistical and cartographic, which allows considering the problem in a complex manner. The article presents the study based on the plant code (particularly, the wedding broom) features and functioning in the Russian folk wedding of the Ulyanovsk Region of the Volga District compared to that of the Nizhny Novgorod Region. Three main types of plants used in the wedding ceremony were revealed during the research: the coniferous tree, the deciduous tree and the herbaceous plant (burdock) with the absolute prevalence of the birch broom. Author Correspondence, e-mail: [email protected] doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jfas.v9i1s.769 Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Libraries Resource Directory. We are listed under Research Associations category. M. Mikhail Gershonovich et al. J Fundam Appl Sci. 2017, 9(1S), 1143-1174 1144 The broom was either transformed and modified or remained unchanged, combined with other types of plants or acting as the only embodiment of the plant code. The most widely wedding broom was used in the bride's pre-wedding banya, and its main functions were informational, symbolic, magical, and theatrical. Three main types of the wedding broom were singled out, and it could replace the traditional wedding tree regardless of whether the landscape conditions contributed to the preservation of this tree. In villages where both the broom and the wedding tree were used in the ceremony, different semantics and pragmatics were attributed to them. In the Ulyanovsk Region all the manipulations with the broom were confined exclusively to the pre-wedding period, contrary to the post-wedding period in the Nizhny Novgorod Region. At the same time, in both wedding ceremonies the broom was associated with the banya ritual: in the Ulyanovsk Region with the banya of the bride, in the Nizhny Novgorod Region with the banya of the newlyweds. Therefore, the semiotisation of the broom in the Ulyanovsk Region occurred mainly in the ritual of bridesmaids visiting the groom's house, while in the Nizhny Novgorod region it was used in the ceremonial manifestation of ‘honesty’ (virginity) or ‘dishonesty’ (loss of virginity). The research presented is the first interdisciplinary work in the Russian science on traditional folk wedding; the results obtained, as well as the research methodology, can be used to further study the wedding rituals of other regions of Russia and the wedding traditions of other Eastern Slavic nations. Keywords Russian folk wedding, symbol, Ulyanovsk Region of the Volga, wedding broom, theatre, semiotisation, cultural landscape INTRODUCTION Relevance of the study The relevance of the study is due to the current trend in conducting interdisciplinary research in the field of humanities, in particular, in culture studies, including the traditional culture, and in its interaction with the environment [Cosgrove 1978: 66-72; Minca 2013: 47-62]. As a result of such interaction, a fundamentally new formation called ‘a cultural space’ or ‘a cultural landscape’ appears. The process of the surrounding world’s spiritual development in the traditional culture is carried out with the help of cultural codes [Geertz 1973] among which an important role is played by the plant code; it is especially significant in calendar ceremonies and in the traditional folk wedding. In different regions of Russia the code was implemented with the help of various wild and cultivated plants. In this respect, an extremely interesting object of study is the Russian folk wedding of the Ulyanovsk Region of the Volga. M. Mikhail Gershonovich et al. J Fundam Appl Sci. 2017, 9(1S), 1143-1174 1145 Firstly, this territory is a forest steppe zone of the Middle Volga Region where the Russians settled at the end of the 17th century, during the 18th century, and partly in the 19th century. The process had three stages – from the north of the Volga and from the central and southern regions of Russia. The settlers not only brought their culture to new places but also found themselves in different landscape conditions, which gave rise to adaptation both in the economic and in the cultural spheres. As a result of the environmental impact due to their activity (deforestation, plowing, new forest tracts, etc.), the vegetation was transformed, which also influenced the traditional wedding ritual, causing its diverse changes. Second, it is particularly in the wedding ceremony that the plant code (along with the activity code, the verbal code, the food code, etc.) was one of the main ways to implement the wedding semantics at certain stages of the ritual [Ivanova 1998]. Therefore, examining the cultural plant code equally deepens ‘the understanding of the properties and characteristics attributed to plants, and the properties and characteristics attributed to the new things they signify (for example, to the characters of the wedding ritual)’ [Tolstaya 2008: 336]. Literature survey A special role in comprehending culture belongs to the concept of cultural space, defined as ‘the environment in which cultural phenomena exist and are being coordinated’ [Svirida 2003: 19]. In modern geography, ethnology and folklore, the term ‘cultural landscape’ [Fleming], understood as ‘a special type of heritage, ensuring interaction, interpenetration and interdependence of its natural and cultural components’ [Vedenin 2004: 13], is widely used. Characterization and description of the cultural landscape of a certain region is a complicated procedure, and scientists suggest taking both external and internal factors into account. For instance, from the point of view of V.M. Shchurov, ‘differences in the environment (steppe and forest, severe north and warm south, mountains and open field)’, various historical circumstances (the nature of migration processes, the ethnic isolation of some areas and interethnic influences in others), and everyday life (differences in the economic and cultural typology) can be classified as external factors, while the internal are ‘the factors related to the creative activity of the representatives of the culture’ [Putilov 1994: 148]. (прим.ред. – Так цитата принадлежит Щурову или Путилову?) Specifying this approach, B.N. Putilov wrote that the historical continuity in those regions which were formed on a tribal basis and in those formed secondarily, i.e. ‘relatively late and as a result of ethnic heterogeneity migration’, would be different. As pointed out by the researcher, ‘in the new regions, M. Mikhail Gershonovich et al. J Fundam Appl Sci. 2017, 9(1S), 1143-1174 1146 traditions transferred from the ‘metropolis’ were not simply maintained and developed, but new ones were also created’ [Putilov 1994: 150]. Some researchers refer to this feature of the traditional culture functioning in space and time as to ‘the ritual dynamics’. There are two types of change(s): ‘in the context (as a result of the transfer) and in the rituals themselves’ [Robert Langer, Dorothea Lüddeckens, Kerstin Radde, Jan Snoek 2006: 1]. Here, the context does not always determine the dynamics itself – the main role belongs to the internal dynamics of the rituals themselves, the important part in which is ‘the creativity of the participants who may introduce alterations’ [Robert Langer, Dorothea Lüddeckens, Kerstin Radde, Jan Snoek 2006: 1] Vegetation played an important role in the formation of the cultural space. The place of vegetation in the cultural landscape, the uniqueness of plant code in various rituals, including the wedding ceremony, found a new reflection in scientific research. As V.A. Kolosova shows in her review ‘Slavic Ethnobotany: Essay on History’, the research on the subject began in the middle of the 19th century and now covers such areas as lexis (methods of phytonyms formation), cartography (analysis of the geography of phytonyms distribution), semantics (principles of phytonyms nomination), folklore (analysis of plant images and motifs), and ethnology (plant functions in traditional rituals, folk medicine, etc.) [Kolosova 2010: 7-30]. Russian and Belarusian scientists [Minh 1893: 191-192; Zelenin 193: 591-629; Kolosova 2003; Chasovnikova 2003; Swede 2010: 362-369] and others also regard these aspects of interest for the present study. Plant code analysis