Wedding ceremony and ritual poetry. Russian wedding

folklore oral variation improvisation

The Russian wedding has preserved traces of early historical periods with their marital relations. The most archaic are the echoes of pre-monogamous (group) forms of marriage, which go back to matriarchy. In its original meaning, the rite is a female initiation, the initiation of a bride-girl into a group of mothers. The ancient collective character of such initiations is reflected in devishnik. Songs were sung in the bride's house in which the arrival of the groom was portrayed as wind, storm, he himself was called destroyer And destroyer. All these traces marriage-abduction, that is, one in which the bride was kidnapped (at first by force, and later by mutual agreement). The next form of marriage is "purchase and sale", which apparently existed among the glades. The groom had to pay for the bride vein, similar to the kalym known among Muslims. In the Russian wedding game, scenes were played of buying a place next to the bride, her braid (or herself, which was equivalent), dowry. The ransom was small, almost symbolic: gifts, treats, small money. Sometimes it was necessary to solve riddles ("Who is redder than the sun, who is brighter than the bright moon?"). One of the pre-wedding rituals was called handshake: the matchmakers and the father of the bride "beat on the hands", as if concluding a trade deal ( "You have goods, we have a merchant"). The vein was subsequently replaced dowry. Dowries began to be collected from birth. It was said: "A daughter in a cradle - a dowry in a box." It was put into box, hide, chest. A bride with a good dowry was called dowry, with the bad dowry. "Take no dowry, but talent" (talan - happy fate of man). Loaf - this is a ritual, specially made bread, with which the young from the crown were greeted. The loaf was decorated with scarves, red ribbons, viburnum.

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. A collective feast was certainly arranged - a feast for the whole world (red table, princely table).

A wedding is a complex dramatic game that consisted of several acts and usually lasted from 3 to 10 days. Among the wedding ranks were: horns - bride's relatives; squad, boyars - companions of the groom; boyars, maidens - companions of the bride; vowels - singing girls.

The main poetic genre of the South Russian wedding is songs. Among Russians, this type of rite is local (Don, Kuban).

The North Russian wedding is dramatic, so its main genre is lamentations. They were performed throughout the ritual. Mandatory was bath, which ended the bachelorette party. The Northern Russian wedding was played in Pomorye, in the Arkhangelsk, Olonets, Petersburg, Vyatka, Novgorod, Pskov, Perm provinces.

A universal amulet was a belt - a piece of clothing that takes the form of a circle. It was believed that the "demon is afraid" of the belted one, so they went to get married in a belt. The magical properties of the belt sealed the union of the young: they tied the bride and groom, a knot with a dowry, a wedding cake.

The initiation included rituals with hair, changing hairstyles: braid untwisting, braid sale, twisting. This ancient custom was associated with belief in the magical power of hair.

The Russian girl wore one braid. She was untwisted at a bachelorette party and usually no longer plaited to the crown. The bride gave her friends her braids ki - ribbons for braids. Ritual braid sales was a reminiscence of the purchase of the bride herself. "Take the scythe with your head" - her mother told the groom. The scythe was sold by the younger single brother of the bride or another boy relative called brace. Wrapping is 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 female hairstyle (two braids wrapped around her head) and her hair was picked up under a female headdress (kokoshnik, kichka with a 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 forever worn."

The poetry of the wedding had a deep psychologism, depicted the feelings of the bride and groom, their development throughout the ceremony. The role of the bride was especially difficult psychologically, so folklore painted a rich palette of her emotional states. The first half of the wedding ceremony, while the bride was still in the parental home, was filled with drama, accompanied by sad, elegiac works. At the feast (in the groom's house), the emotional tone changed dramatically: idealization of the participants in the feast prevailed in folklore, fun sparkled. For a wedding of the Northern Russian type, lamentations were the main folklore genre. They expressed only one feeling - sadness.

Wedding songs are the most significant, best-preserved cycle of family ritual poetry. The courtship was conducted in a conditional poetic and allegorical manner. The matchmakers called themselves fishermen, hunters, bride - whitefish, marten. During the matchmaking, the bridesmaids could already sing songs: ritual ") and lyrical, in which the theme of the girl's loss of her will began to be developed ( "The viburnum was boasting ..."). Paired images-symbols from the natural world appear in the songs, for example viburnum and nightingale ("On the mountain, a viburnum stood in a circle ..."). The motif of the trampled girl's will is being developed (the bride is depicted through the symbols of the pecked berries, caught fish, shot down kuna.

In the songs of the bachelorette party, monologues appeared on behalf of the bride. She said goodbye to free will and stepfather at home, reproached her parents for giving her away in marriage. Reflecting on her future life, the bride imagined herself white swan, caught in the herd gray geese, who pinch her. The mother or married sister taught the bride how to behave in a new family:

"You wear a dress, don't wear it out,

You endure grief, do not say."

In the songs, there is often a plot of the transition or transportation of the bride through a water barrier, associated with the ancient understanding of the wedding as an initiation. The culmination of the entire wedding ritual was the wedding day, on which the marriage was concluded and the young family was glorified.

In the morning, the bride woke her friends with a song in which she announced her bad dream: sneaked up on her cursed woman's life. While dressing the bride and waiting for the groom's wedding train, lyrical songs were sung, expressing the extreme degree of her sorrowful experiences. Ritual songs were also filled with deep lyricism, in which marriage was portrayed as an inevitable event. But the wedding train has arrived. Guests in the house are like a hurricane, sweeping away everything in its path. This is depicted through hyperbolas: broke down the new hall, melted a couple of gold. At this time, scenes were played out, which were based on the ransom of the bride or her double - girlish beauty. Their execution was facilitated by wedding sentences, which had a ritual character. Sentences also had other functions: they idealized the whole situation and participants in the wedding, humorously discharged the difficult psychological situation associated with the departure of the bride from the parental home.

Sentences are rhymed or rhythmic poetic works. In the Kostroma region, after the arrival of the wedding train, the scene of the removal was played out Christmas trees - maiden beauty, which was accompanied by a large sentence. herringbone endured by one of the bridesmaids, she pronounced the verdict. There was improvisation in the construction of the sentence. Then a greeting was said travelers. Their idealization could have taken an epic development: they were going for the bride clean fields, green meadows, dark forests... The difficult journey of the groom's train was conveyed by hyperbole. Hyperbole was also used in another epic part - in the story of how girls mined and decorated herringbone.

Herringbone was the main character. Next, a round of those present was made and the demand for payment for herringbone. Started with the groom, then turned to friends, matchmakers, relatives. The ways in which they were encouraged to "bestow". Each giver extinguished a candle. When all the candles were extinguished, the girl who pronounced the sentence turned to the bride. She spoke of the inevitable parting with beauty and the bride's loss of her girlhood forever. herringbone carried out of the hut, the bride was crying. A psychological parallel ran through the whole game situation as a red thread between herringbone beauty and bride. Sentences compositionally consisted of a monologue, however, appeals to the participants in the ritual led to the emergence of dialogic forms and gave the sentences the character of a dramatic presentation.

The most solemn moment of the wedding was a feast (prince's table). Here they sang only cheerful songs and danced. The ritual of magnificence had a bright artistic development. Magnificent songs were sung to the newlyweds, wedding ranks and all guests, for this ygrits(singers) were presented with sweets, gingerbread, money. The avaricious were sung by parodic magnificence - reproachful songs that they could sing just for laughs. Magnificent songs can be compared with hymns, they are characterized by a solemn intonation, high vocabulary. The purpose of swearing songs is to create a caricature. Their main artistic device is the grotesque. Groom a grove grew on a hump, a mouse made a nest in his head; matchmaker the back is a bench, well ...- bread box, peritoneum - swamp;

Portraits of reproachful songs are satirical, the ugly is exaggerated in them. This is the reduced vocabulary. Reproachful songs achieved not only a humorous goal, but also ridiculed drunkenness, greed, stupidity, laziness,

In all works of wedding folklore, an abundance of artistic means was used: epithets, comparisons, symbols, hyperbole, repetitions, words in an affectionate form (with diminutive suffixes), synonyms, allegories, appeals, exclamations, etc. Wedding folklore claimed an ideal, sublime world, living according to the laws of goodness and beauty.

Russian wedding ritual, history of formation.
For the basis of modern Russian rite weddings were taken as established traditions by the nineteenth and first quarter of the twentieth century. It finally took shape presumably in the middle of the fourteenth century on the basis of the all-Slavic wedding ceremony. The written materials of this period contain a brief description of weddings using the words familiar to our ears: “groom”, “wedding”, “bride”, “wedding”, “matchmakers”. There are also preserved old miniatures and drawings depicting wedding feasts and marriage ceremonies. In the sixteenth century, judging by the description of princely weddings, a nomenclature of wedding rites was formed and their functions were determined, special wedding clothes, paraphernalia, food, wedding folklore arose.

In the villages of the Vladimir province, the bride lamented about her free life, sitting with the girls on a bench near her house. All the women of the village ran to her lamentations. In the Yaroslavl province, the bride and her friends wailed in the middle of the village, at the house of her relatives, at the hut where the gatherings took place. The finale of the bachelorette party was the so-called farewell to the "virgin beauty", held on the eve of the wedding in the bride's house in the presence of parents, sisters, brothers and friends. Almost throughout Russia, the symbol of girlhood was the "braid - a girl's beauty." A ritual of farewell to the bride with the scythe was carried out: first, the braid was braided, the bride was sold, and then untwisted again. They braided it in such a way that it would be as difficult to unweave it later: they woven ribbons, cords, braid, stuck in pins and even sewed them up with threads. All this was accompanied by the sad songs of the girls and the lamentations of the bride. After braiding, the bride's friends or the brother of the bride bargained with the groom's boyfriend, asking for a bride price. After receiving the ransom, the girls untwisted the braid while singing songs. An old wedding song, performed at a bachelorette party, says:

Lei-fields, Volga-river,
Volga-river, steep banks!
Take care, dear father,
You are your Fedosya-soul!
Today, Fedosya-soul has a girl's evening,
Tomorrow Petrovna has a busy day:
They will lead Fedosya-soul to the judgment of God,
To the judgment of God, to the golden crown,
It is terrible to stand, it is terrible to stand at the court of God!
From the court, from the court of God - to someone else's priest,
To someone else's father, to a non-native.
The court of God's head hurts,
Under the golden crown, the legs are breaking!

Loose hair showed the bride's readiness for marriage, symbolized the first step towards married life. Ribbons from the braid of a friend were divided among themselves. In the northern provinces of European Russia, in the Middle and Upper Volga regions, in Siberia, in Altai, as a farewell to the “virgin beauty”, the bride in the company of her friends visited the bathhouse. The bridesmaids heated the bath early in the morning, accompanying this process with special songs. Then they took the bride by the hand, sitting in the front corner of the hut, and led her into the bathhouse. At the head of this procession was the groom's friend, who read curses from evil spirits, waved a whip and sprinkled the bride with grain. The process of washing in the bath was quite lengthy, the bride was hovered with a birch broom, with ribbons, they poured kvass, beer on the stove, sprinkled it with grain. All this was accompanied by singing and lamentations.

Molodechnik.
Molodechnik symbolized the groom's farewell to single life and was held in the groom's house on the last pre-wedding day, or early in the morning on the wedding day. It was attended by the parents, relatives and friends of the groom. Food was collected for those present, wedding songs were sung. After that, the groom's relatives, or he himself went to the bride with gifts. This rite was not very common, it was found only in some villages of European Russia.

Wedding train.
This tradition is the departure of the bride and groom to the church for the wedding. Early in the morning in the groom's house on the day of the wedding, friends, one or two girlfriends, the godparents of the groom, an early matchmaker (a close relative of the groom) who participated in the manufacture and baking of the loaf (her duties included sprinkling the train with grain), assistant matchmaker, uncle or best man who accompanied the groom to the crown, the boyars are friends and relatives of the groom. In different regions of Russia, the composition of the wedding train could vary. The groom's parents, according to tradition, were not present at the wedding. They were preparing for the meeting of the newlyweds and the wedding feast itself. For the bride, the travelers rode in sledges in winter, in autumn on koshevs, carts, and carts. The horses were very carefully prepared for this event: they were fed with oats, cleaned, combed their tails and manes. For the wedding, they were decorated with ribbons, harness with bells, bells, and the sleigh was covered with carpets and pillows.

Wedding train in Moscow (XVII century). 1901. Oil . Andrey Ryabushkin.

He headed the train of a friend, while he chose a smooth road to the bride, so that "the life of a young couple was smooth, without quarrels." On the way to the bride, the villagers met the train and blocked the way in every possible way: they locked the entrance gates, stretched the ropes. As a ransom, the friend offered wine, sweets, fruits, nuts and gingerbread. At the bride's house, her bridesmaids met the train, closed the gates and sang songs about the groom and his retinue, as about lovers who had come to pick up their girlfriend. Druzhka led the procession, brandishing a whip, as if clearing the road of evil spirits. Then he entered into a conversation with his girlfriends, who, after a good ransom, let the guests into the house. Then, in some villages of Russia, the groom and the friend began to look for the hidden bride, and in others - to redeem her from her older brother. All this was accompanied by mocking songs that the girls sang to the groom and the travellers. The ritual action was expressed in the desire to save the bride from the inevitable symbolic death that marriage promised, according to mythological ideas.

Then the travelers were invited to the table and treated. The bride and groom were supposed to sit at the edge of the table and not touch the food. It was believed that before the sacrament of the wedding, it was necessary to cleanse oneself morally, giving up “carnal” pleasures, including food. Also, the bride and groom were not supposed to eat together with married and married relatives, this was possible only after the wedding night. After the treats, the father of the bride handed over his daughter to the groom with the words that he would transfer her forever to the disposal of her husband.

The bride and groom went to church in different wagons: the bride accompanied by a svashka, and the groom - with a thousand (the main leader). Travelers from the side of the bride were connected to the wedding train: a wagon driver who drove the horses, godparents, and closest relatives. At the head, as before, rode a friend, accompanied by friends on horseback, then the groom's cart, then the bride, and after them all the other relatives. The bride's parents were also not present at the wedding. The wedding train drove quickly to the church, loudly ringing bells, thereby notifying everyone of its approach. During the trip, the bride and groom performed peculiar magical actions: the bride, having left her native village, opened her face, looked after the retreating houses and threw a handkerchief in which “all her sorrows were collected”, the groom periodically stopped the train in order to inquire about the state bride, whether something happened to her during a dangerous journey. At the same time, the friend read a prayer-conspiracy throughout the journey.

Wedding.
The wedding was a marriage ceremony in the Orthodox Church, which was combined with legal registration in the parish registers. The ceremony was performed in the church by a priest and included betrothal, in which the bride and groom agreed to marriage and exchanged rings, and the wedding, that is, the laying of marriage crowns on their heads, which symbolized the imposition of the Glory of God.

During the wedding, prayers were read for the purpose of God's blessing of the couple. The priest gave instructions. In the Christian tradition, the wedding acted as a kind of sacrament, symbolizing the union of a man and a woman into an indestructible Divine union that existed even after death.

The wedding ceremony connected a number of ritual and magical actions that provided protection from evil forces, a happy marriage, healthy offspring, economic well-being, and longevity. It was believed that it was at this moment that the young were more vulnerable, according to the then ideas of the villagers, sorcerers could turn them into stone, animals, leave them without offspring in marriage. To protect against this, the wedding train was not supposed to stop, following the wedding, the trainees could not look back. The ringing of bells attached to wagons was considered a kind of protection against dark forces. For a talisman, pins were attached to the clothes of the bride, sometimes the groom, needles were stuck, flaxseed or millet was poured, garlic was placed in the pocket, etc.

Some ritual actions were aimed at preventing adultery by the young. For example, it was forbidden to stand or pass between the young. It was believed that during the wedding ceremony it was possible to ensure the health of the young, for which, at the moment the priest circled the couple around the lectern, special conspiracies were quietly pronounced.

To ensure the economic well-being of the future family, before the young people approached the church, they spread a new white cloth in front of them, threw money under their feet, showered them with grain, and during the wedding, the bride hid bread in her bosom, poured salt into her shoes, attached a piece of wool to her clothes. It was believed that the objects in the hands of the bride and groom during the wedding ceremony had magical properties. For example, wax of wedding candles and water from a blessed icon were used in the treatment of babies, a wedding shirt was used to relieve pain in a woman during childbirth. In some villages, the owner of the house put on a wedding shirt on the first day of sowing to ensure a good autumn harvest. The wedding ring was used in divination at Christmas time. After the wedding, the newlyweds in the northern provinces of European Russia and in many villages of Siberia and Altai went to their parents' house for a wedding feast. There, at the end of the feast, their wedding night also took place.

"The arrival of a sorcerer at a peasant wedding." V. Maksimov, 1875

And in some southern Russian villages, after the wedding, everyone returned to their home, but in the evening the groom came to the bride, and their wedding night took place there. The wedding feast began only after it was announced that the young had become husband and wife. If a couple lived without a wedding, they were not recognized as husband and wife, and their children were considered illegitimate. Meanwhile, according to popular notions, one wedding was not enough to recognize marriage. It was necessary to carry out the established ritual actions, according to tradition.

Prince's table.
Prince's table (wedding or red table) - a wedding feast, which was held after the wedding in the house of the groom's parents. By tradition, tables were placed along the floorboards and benches with the letter "G" and only in some areas - across the floorboards. According to tradition, guests were seated in a certain order, spectators - “gazers” were also placed, food and drinks were served, and songs were sung. The bride and groom were called only “the young prince” and “the young princess”, they sat in the front corner of the hut. The guests were seated in order of kinship: the closer the relatives, the closer they were to the bride or groom. Guys, neighbors, girls from the village were usually invited to the wedding feast, but they did not sit at the table, they acted as spectators. The wedding tables were covered with white tablecloths. At first, bread and pies were laid out on the tables (middle). Along the edge of the table, in accordance with each place of the guest, a slice of rye bread was placed, and an oblong pie was placed on top. Two loaves of round bread were placed in front of the newlyweds, laid on top of each other and covered with a scarf. As soon as the guests took their seats, drinks and food were served. Dishes alternated with drinks, while the number of dishes had to be even (a symbol of happiness and good luck).

The beginning of the wedding feast is the ceremony of opening the "young princess". After the wedding, the wife who took place entered the house, while her face was covered with a scarf. Usually the groom's father held a crust of bread or a pie in his hands and lifted the bride's handkerchief with it, after which he took it in his hands and circled it around the heads of the newlyweds three times to the exclamations of those present. This ceremony acted as an acquaintance of the groom's relatives with a new family member. The bride and groom during the wedding feast did not eat or drink anything, it was forbidden. As a sign of the prohibition, the bowl in front of them was empty, and the spoons were tied with a red ribbon and placed with their handles towards the center of the table, and the drinkware was turned upside down.

"A wedding feast in a boyar family of the 17th century". Makovsky K. E. 1883.

The end of the wedding table was the departure of the young to a special room, where they were served dinner. In some localities, the young woman was "wrapped" after supper or put on a woman's headdress. The second part of the wedding feast was the mountain table, on which were the "young prince" and the "young princess" in women's headdress and smart clothes. At that moment, the parents and relatives of the bride and groom came and sat at the same table with the relatives and parents of the groom. The mountain table was expressed in the gift of the bridegroom's relatives, from close to the most distant. The gift was placed on a special dish, the young woman approached her husband's relative and bowed low. Taking a gift, he put a gift on the dish: gingerbread, sweets, money. It was during the mountain table that the “young princess” for the first time called her father-in-law father, and her mother-in-law mother. After that, the young people took part in a common meal. However, they were served certain dishes: porridge, eggs, honey, butter, bread, pies, milk. At the same time, young people drank milk from one glass, ate with one spoon and from one cup, ate bread from one piece. This confirmed the unity of the young, their inextricable bond. At the end of the mountain table, a ceremony of dividing the loaf was performed.

The end of the princely table was the departure of the young to the place of the wedding night, accompanied by the singing of the guests. Feasts were also held on the second and third days, but in a slightly different form. Their essence was the symbolic acquaintance of the husband's relatives with a new family member and the distribution of gifts.

The wedding night.
Wedding night (basement) - the physical and legal marriage was held in the groom's parental home. In the southern Russian provinces, after the wedding, the newlyweds each returned to their home, she was escorted to the house of the bride's parents until the main wedding feast. Usually, a bed for the newlyweds was made in a cold room (a crate, a closet, a hayloft, a bathhouse, less often a barn or a sheepfold), while a bed from the bride's dowry was used. With the help of various devices, a high marriage bed was built: sacks of flour were placed on the boards, then sheaves of rye, a couple of hay mattresses, less often a feather bed and many pillows. All this was covered with a white embroidered sheet to the floor and a beautiful blanket.

The bed was made by the bride and groom, as well as the mother or sister of the groom. After that, a poker, several logs, a frying pan were placed under the bed, and then they went around the bed with a branch of mountain ash or juniper. The branch later stuck into the wall. They believed that all this would protect the newlyweds from evil forces, and bags of flour and rye sheaves would ensure their well-being. Logs acted as a symbol of future children: the more of them on the marriage bed, the more children in the family will be.

The newlyweds were escorted by a friend, matchmakers, less often by all those present at the feast to laughter, noise, jokes, erotic instructions, songs. According to tradition, the friend entered the room with the marriage bed first and beat the bed with a whip a couple of times in order to scare away evil spirits. In some places in Russia, the custom was also widespread, according to which the friend paid a ransom to the bed-makers (those who made the bed). The door of the room was locked from the outside and placed outside the cage or, in our opinion, a guard who guarded the newlyweds from evil spirits and roaming guests. Left alone, the newlyweds, before going to bed, were supposed to eat bread and chicken in order to secure a consonant married life, wealth, and healthy offspring. The newlywed was supposed to demonstrate humility and humility by removing her husband's boots. This ancient rite is mentioned in the Tale of Bygone Years. The newlywed, on the other hand, demonstrated his position as the owner of the family, forcing the bride to ask him for permission to go to bed with him. During the wedding night, a boyfriend visited the young couple several times and was interested in whether sexual contact had taken place. According to the custom, which was common in almost all areas of Russia, if everything ended well, the friend informed the guests about this, but after that the young people were either taken out to the guests or not disturbed until the morning. After such news, the guests sang erotic ditties, which talked about what happened between the young.

The next morning, those who accompanied the young to the bed came to wake them up, in order to check the girl's premarital chastity. They could wake up in different ways: they used knocking on the door, screaming, ringing bells, smashing pots on the threshold, pulling a blanket, pouring water on them. Notification of parents, guests, and the whole village about chastity or lack of it in the bride took place through ritual and game actions. For example, in the villages of the Perm province, if the newlywed was a virgin, towels and tablecloths with red embroideries were hung out at the newlyweds' house, their boyfriend tied horses to the arcs on the way to the bride's parents. In the Vladimir province, the wedding sheet, hung in the front corner of the hut, spoke of the honesty of the bride. In some villages, guests, led by a matchmaker and a friend, with shouts, ringing and noise, drove around the village and waved the newlywed's shirt.

If it turned out that the young woman had lost her virginity before marriage, then her parents were put on a collar around her neck, her father was served beer in a holey glass. The matchmaker was also humiliated. The obligatory innocence of the bride, and in some villages of the groom before marriage, came from the peasants' notions that the transformation of a girl into a woman, and a boy into a man could only occur in the course of certain rites and only if observed in a certain sequence. Violation of order was considered a violation of the course of life, an encroachment on its foundations.

It was also believed that a girl who lost her virginity before marriage would remain barren, become a widow early or leave her husband a widower, and the family would wallow in hunger and poverty.

On the second day of the wedding, the bride usually performed some ritual actions. One of the most common rites is the “search for the yarka”.

This ceremony consists in the fact that the “Yarochka” (that is, the sheep, the bride) is hiding somewhere in the house, and the “shepherd” (one of her relatives or all the guests) must find her.

It was also common for the “young woman” to fetch water with two oars on a yoke, throwing garbage, money, grain in the room - the young wife had to carefully sweep the floor, which was checked by the guests.

Important is the arrival of the groom to his mother-in-law. This rite has many different names in different regions (“khlibins”, “yayshnya”, etc.). It consists in the fact that the mother-in-law gave the groom cooked food (pancakes, scrambled eggs, etc.). The plate was covered with a scarf. The son-in-law had to redeem her by putting money on (or wrapped in) a handkerchief.

Twisting young.
The twisting of the young was also a wedding ceremony, in which the bride changed the girl's hairstyle and headdress for women's. The ritual was held immediately after the wedding on the church porch or in the gatehouse of the church, in the groom's house in front of the prince's table, in the middle of the wedding feast, after the wedding night. The groom, his parents, friends and matchmakers were always present at this ceremony. All this was accompanied by singing. Instead of one braid, two were braided and laid around the head, after which they were covered with a kokoshnik.

In the Russian villages of Altai, twisting was carried out after arrival from the crown. The bride was put in a corner, covered with scarves on each side, two braids were woven, laid around her head, put on a samshur and a scarf. Then they showed the young woman to the groom and asked them both to look in one mirror in order to "live together." The songs that the svashki sang when changing their hairstyle and headdress sounded differently in different areas, but the essence was the same: the girl’s affirmation in a new status.

Khlebiny.
Khlebiny (outlets, outflows) completes the sequence of wedding ceremonies. This is a feast that was arranged for the young in the house of the parents of the young woman. Her parents prepared treats in advance for their arrival. The mother-in-law treated her son-in-law with pancakes or scrambled eggs, while he showed his attitude towards her. If he bit off a pancake or ate scrambled eggs from the edge, then her daughter retained her virginity before marriage, and he is grateful for this, but if the son-in-law bit off a pancake or ate scrambled eggs from the middle, then the young woman turned out to be “dishonest”, that is, she did not save chastity before marriage. Then he complained to her about the poor upbringing of his daughter. Then the young people went home. With a successful outcome, the feast in the parental home of the young woman continued.

Protective rites

• In order to deceive the dark forces during the matchmaking, they changed the path, drove by roundabout roads.
• The ringing of bells, which accompanied the wedding train all the way to the church, was considered protection from evil spirits.
• In order to turn the head of the unclean and send him to hell, the young were led around a pole or tree.
• In order for the brownie to accept the young into a new family, it was necessary to bring the bride into the house in her arms, without stepping on the threshold.
• From spoilage and evil spirits, they were saved with the help of refraining from pronouncing words and from eating.
• For large families and wealth, the young were showered with grain or hops, put on a fur coat weathered up with fur.
• To strengthen the relationship of the young with each other, they mixed wine from the glasses of the young, stretched threads from the bride's house to the groom's house, tied the hands of the bride and groom with a handkerchief or towel.

Proverbs and sayings

• Marriage and death are sisters.
• It’s not scary to get married, it’s scary to start that business (it’s scary to start the ass).
• It is terrible to see: endure - fall in love.
• God help the unmarried, and the mistress will help the married.
• It's sickening to live without a sweetheart, but it's sicker with a disliked one.
• Do not buy a horse from a priest, do not take a daughter from a widow!
• To marry is not to put on a bast shoe.
• A good marriage accustoms to the house, a thin one excommunicates.
• God forbid with whom to marry, with that and end.
• The bride is born, and the groom sits on a horse (they put on a horse for three to seven years).
• The girls are seated - grief is mykano; Married given - twice arrived.
• Married in a hurry and for a long torment.
• An old husband has a young wife - someone else's self-interest.
• A man, if at least a little more pretentious than the devil, is a handsome man.
• Many suitors, but no betrothed.
• The one is not good, the other is not good-looking, look at yourself, what is she like?
• Don't look for beauty, look for kindness.
• Do not drink water from your face, I would know how to bake pies.
• Do not take a rich wife, take an unopened one!
• Take the first daughter - after the father, after the mother, and the second - after the sister!
• Choose a cow by its horns, and a girl by birth (see by gender)!
• Being at a wedding and not being drunk is a sin.
• Blow out wedding candles at once to live together and die together.
• Wine is bitter, not drunk (or: sour, and young people should sweeten, kiss).
• The girl, after collusion, does not go out into the street and into the church.
• Rain on the young is happiness.
• The groom is girdled with a knitted sash under the crown (the knots are protected from damage).
• If the street is dissolute, be a dissolute wedding.
• Young people do not eat until the wedding. To the crown of skinny, after salting.
• A monk at a wedding is ominous for the young.
• Dropping an engagement ring under a crown is not a good life.
• They take care of the wedding candle, and light it to help with the first birth.
• I went to wash off the girls' buns, cools (pre-wedding bath).
• There is no wedding without divas (without pranks or without miracles).

1. Russian wedding ceremonies

2.Smotryny

4. Wedding ceremony of the Russian people. Matchmaking and handshaking

The wedding ceremony accompanied one of the most significant events in a person's personal life - the creation of a new family. It was a household ritual, almost always including church

the wedding that accompanied the transition of a woman from her own family to her husband's family. This rite reflects the disenfranchised position of a woman and reveals the structure of a patriarchal family. In its form, the wedding ceremony can be called an everyday drama, action, a game consisting of several episodes, carried out for a rather long time (sometimes 2-3 months passed from matchmaking to the wedding itself). The playful nature of the wedding ceremony was felt by the people themselves - this was reflected in the terminology; along with "to celebrate a wedding" they said: "to play a wedding."

A wedding is a single dramatic action, consisting of three parts: a preliminary agreement on a wedding (this includes "matchmaking", "conspiracy", "sing", "handshaking", etc.), preparing the bride for the wedding (usually "bath" and "devishnik") and the wedding itself (with its subdivision for the morning before the wedding, a trip to church, a church wedding, returning from church and a wedding feast, a large and small "princely" or "red" table, "bypass" table) g.

The wedding usually began gradually. In spring and summer, when young people danced round dances on holidays, walked along the streets of the village or outside the outskirts, they tied a wedding. On a festive evening, leisurely people sat on the rubble, looked at the walkers, judged, dressed them, noticed what kind of brides there are in the village. And when the guy "enters the age", they began to look for a bride for him.

There were also such cases when the girl herself conspires with the guy, the guy asks his parents to send matchmakers to woo the bride. But much more often the wedding was arranged by the parents. The wedding was of economic importance. It was necessary to take an assistant into the family, to get working hands. And if it was possible to marry a son to a rich woman, then the economy could be improved.

Matchmaking should be considered the beginning of the wedding ceremony as such. The bride's parents were waiting for the matchmakers, cleaning the hut.

Matchmakers had to be able to carry on a conversation: immediately talking about a wedding was considered indecent. The matchmaking ritual demanded that the matchmaker sit in a certain place in the hut (usually under the mother - the main beam on the ceiling) and, having started talking about the weather, about work, would gradually move on to the proposal to marry the girl. If the parents considered the groom unsuitable for their daughter, they politely refused the matchmakers (saying that the girl is still young, or putting a pumpkin in the matchmaker's wagon, etc.). If the groom was considered suitable, the conversation with the matchmakers continued. When the matchmakers were talking, the girl should not have been present.

Having decided that the girl could be married to the proposed groom, the bride was called to the upper room. Upon entering, the bride had to stand by the stove - this retained an echo of the belief that behind the stove is the patron of the family ("master", "brownie").

Parents told their daughter about matchmaking, called the groom and sometimes asked if she agreed to marry this guy. The decision to marry off their daughter was made by the parents, not considering the desire of the bride, but following their own considerations and the formula established in everyday life: “be patient - fall in love”.

Already this, the initial part of the wedding ceremony, describes the powerless position of a woman, who often could not expect joys in family life. Naturally, in many places, matchmaking ended with the bride’s crying - lamentations, sometimes taking the form of poetic impromptu dialogues between the betrothed girl and her closest relatives - sisters, mothers, etc. Records have been preserved, for example, an expressive dialogue between a married sister and the bride, improvised after the departure of the matchmakers. The bride asks her older sister:

You tell me, dear sister, What is it like to live in tsyuzhi lyudyaf.

A married sister, answering the bride, talks about the hard life in her husband's family:

Don't wait, dear sister, You're from your father-in-law a bougie, From your mother-in-law, yes, an outfit. Oii grunt like an animal, Hiss like a io-snake...

The sister says that you can’t go complaining to the neighbors, because the sympathy of the neighbors is false, ostentatious: they will sympathize in the face, and then they themselves will laugh, they will tell everything to the father-in-law and mother-in-law, mule, sister-in-law, brother-in-law.

You better come out, dear sister, You are in a bush in a field, You fall down to the damp earth, You are a pebble to a burning one. You wash up longing, krutsinyushka, You are with mother damp earth. After all, you know, dear sister, that mother earth will not endure cheese, The pebble will not express grief. You will go to other people,

Wipe your tears away and grieve, Don’t show your mind to people. ”

Full of intense drama, the picture of the life of a Russian woman is captured by this old tale.

Courtship tied the wedding ceremony. It was followed by conspiracy and drunkenness, hand-beating. This group of ritual actions was supposed to determine the very possibility of a wedding. It was not enough to agree to the wedding, it was necessary to see how the bride and groom look together (hence the custom to put them side by side), give them the opportunity to talk to each other (“get acquainted”), and - more importantly - agree on a dowry and money for the wedding. If parents and matchmakers fail to agree on this, the wedding may be upset. In all these ceremonies, the main role was played by the parents of the bride and groom, and the matchmakers. The bride and especially the groom showed little evidence of themselves in these episodes of the wedding action.

This cycle of wedding ceremonies ended with the fact that, having agreed on a dowry, on the time of the wedding, the bride was “drunk away”, i.e., they fixed the wedding contract by being in an inn, or in a tavern, in a village or on a market day in a city, they drank vodka and passed the bride “from floor to floor” (they shook hands with each other, grabbing the floors of caftans with them - as they did when selling and buying horses). Sometimes drinking and shaking hands were accompanied by the lamentations of the bride, who reproached her parents for the fact that they "without gathering their minds, with their minds" give it to strangers.

The second group of wedding ceremonies followed the handshaking and ended on the day before the wedding. This group is entirely dedicated to the bride, her preparation for the wedding. The bride and her parents prepared whatever was missing in the dowry; the bride also had to prepare gifts for the wedding participants, especially for the groom's relatives. The main ceremonies of this part of the wedding were the “banya” and “devipshik”, celebrated on the eve of the wedding. In songs, lamentations, ritual actions performed in the bathhouse and at the bachelorette party, the theme of the tragic fate of a woman in her husband's family is most revealed. The selection of this theme led to a contrasting opposition of the girl's will to women's lack of rights, and, consequently, the idealization of the parental family and the emphasized oppression of women in the husband's family. All this puts forward the image of the bride to the center of ritual poetry, with which the images of her girlfriends, girls, who keep their free will, contrast.

In the ritual of the “bath”, the bride said goodbye to the patrons of her family (see beliefs about the “bannik”) and, together with her friends, wondered about her future share (they tried lye to taste it to find out if life would be sweet, splashed water on hot stones, in order to know the character of the husband's mother by hissing, etc.). The washing of the bride in the bath before the wedding and the wedding is genetically associated with ritual washing - cleansing from sins before the decisive events of a person's life.

Leaving the bathhouse, the girl turned to her friends, inviting them to the house for a bachelorette party - "for the last party, for the bride for a bachelorette party."

The themes of farewell to one's home, parting with girlhood - "free will", transition to the husband's family, lack of rights and suffering in a patriarchal family are heard in ritual actions, songs and lamentations. The girl's free will is symbolized by various objects, most often it is a decorated tree "herringbone"; (cf. decoration of a tree in the Trinity ritual) or a girl's ribbon (the so-called "red beauty").

"Herringbone" is played up with songs and actions. They put her on the table, the bride sat in front of her, the girls stood next to her and sang pesso:

On the mountain there is a Christmas tree Under the mountain there is a bright point ...

The songs sung at the bachelorette party are thematically linked, and this allows us to talk about them as part of a single whole, a poetic story about life in one's own and someone else's family, about the girl's farewell to her relatives. Sometimes elements of the image of what they sang about were introduced into the singing of the nesen. So, the song “The trumpet blew early at dawn, Masha burst into tears (the name of the bride was introduced into the song) but with a blond braid ...”, which the girls carried to the bride sitting in front of the Christmas tree, was partially staged. The song speaks of the "unmerciful matchmaker" who came to the bride, tearing her hair, combing her hair like a woman ("a headscarf weaved for two"; girls wore one braid, women braided their hair in two braids and put them on their heads, hiding them under a scarf or head dress); iodine singing a song, the matchmaker unraveled the bride's braid, braided her two braids.

In many cases, the singing of songs by the girls at the bachelorette party merged with the lamentations of the bride. Their fusion (it even happened that the bride improvised her lament at the time when the song was sung) was facilitated by the common theme of lamentations and wedding ritual lyrics. Lamentations provided rich opportunities for expressing the feelings and experiences of the bride, they contained a variety of details that revealed

typical circumstances of life. Especially expressive are the lamentations of poetically gifted people who have learned to improvise since childhood. Creative freedom in the creation of lamentations was very great. The experiences of the girl, her nervous, tense state increased the emotionality of lamentations. With great sincerity, the girl talked about what she feels, what she experiences; it often happened that the bride, lamenting, wept with real tears.

The parable, like the song, provided the basis for a dramatic image of farewell to girlhood. Such, for example, is the lamentation-farewell to the "red beauty". "Red Beauty" - a girl's ribbon - a headband. When combing the bride at a bachelorette party, the “beauty” was removed and removed. The bride turned to the "red beauty" with the question "where did she go."

“How my red beauty went about the hut, she was a fox, In a clean way I was a mare, And in the zaiol, a hare, And in the forest like an ermine ... She sat in a lodok, She left for a ricin. Do not catch up with the beauty of the beauty!

The bride is looking for "beauty", asks to return "on a violent little head." Girlfriends for "beauty" answer the bride that she cannot return - the bride "has not washed her white face", "the head has not been dressed." The bride is washed, combed, and then the "beauty" returns - the ribbon is put on the bride's head - but now she "did not stick on the violent head", the girl is betrothed, she should go to strangers.

Similar game moments in various variations were met on devipshiks. In addition, devipshik included rituals that had the meaning of paying off the bride from her relatives (bride's brother, matchmaker, sometimes the groom, who was allowed to devipshik in some places, etc., took part in them).

Devipshik actually ended the preparatory part of the wedding ceremony. The next day after the devipshik, they celebrated the wedding.

The next morning after the wedding, on the day of the wedding, the bride wailed again. In the morning before the wedding, she said goodbye to her father, to her mother, this often took place also in an impromptu banquet. If the bride's parents died (or one of them died), the bride went, accompanied by her bridesmaids, to the cemetery and lamented there at the grave.

After parting, the bride began to dress for the crown. For magical purposes, amber was put on the bride's neck, pins were stuck into the dress - by such means they sought to protect "from the evil eye" and the evil power of the sorcerer.

When the bride was dressed, she was seated at the table and waited for the arrival of her boyfriend, who, together with the matchmaker, led the further wedding game.

The arrival of the groom for the bride introduced specific folklore material into the wedding ceremony - the so-called sentences of the bridegroom, which widely use the metaphorical imagery of riddles. Demanding that the bride be given to him, the friend, in folding rhymed sentences, said that the hunters set traps for catching martens, nets for catching whitefish, etc. Images of a precious fur-bearing animal, expensive fish, and the like were symbols of the bride. The dialogue between the friend and the girls guarding the bride and not letting her out is all based on allegory. The girls made riddles to their friend, demanding a ransom for the bride. The friend had to solve these riddles and give the girls food and money. He had to redeem the bride also from her brother. Having redeemed the bride, the boyfriend with various magical precautions took the bride to church: in some cases, the pursuit of the bride and boyfriend was staged.

On the day of the wedding, the part of the ritual preceding the wedding contained elements of magic to the greatest extent and was associated with superstitions. The amulets and magical actions preserved in this part may have appeared on the site of pagan actions that accompanied the conclusion of marriage and were carried out in order to protect people from evil forces hostile to them. In the previous parts of the wedding, there are almost no cult elements, since the conclusion of a marriage contract and the bride's farewell to girlhood are essentially economic, social and domestic in nature, very loosely connected with religious beliefs.

On the very day of the wedding, magical rites of two kinds were performed. Some of them were intended to protect the bride and groom from possible trouble (from the evil eye, from the harmful effects of evil forces). Others were supposed to ensure fertility, prosperity, wealth, the preservation of love, etc. (the so-called "incentive" magical rites).

Magic rituals and the reflection of superstitions in the wedding game were a natural expression of the state of culture of the village (and even the city) of serf Russia.

Superstitions and magical rites in the wedding game were combined with the church wedding ceremony. The wedding ceremony in the church was, as it were, a church edition of everyday customs that gave the husband unlimited power over his wife.

From the church, the wedding train rode with singing songs, with noise and shouting: in front, standing, rode the matchmaker, dancing on a wagon, waving a red handkerchief. After the wedding train arrived at the groom's house, the wedding feast began. The treat served on the day of the wedding was called the "big prince's table", on the morning of the next day - "the small prince's table". This name was associated with the fact that the newlyweds were called prince and princess in songs, and in conversation, and in sentences. The wedding ended with a farewell treat - a "bypass table", or "bypass".

After returning from the church, rituals were performed to test the patience and ability of the newlywed to work (for example, she was forced to disassemble tangled yarn, sweep the floor, which was deliberately littered, etc.). The bride gave gifts to the groom's relatives and guests, carried them with wine; the guests gave her money, etc. When the big princely table began, the young had to sit silently, eat little and drink little, while all the guests made noise, shouted, drank to the point of complete intoxication.

This final part of the wedding contained a large number of erotic rites, which were usually directed by the matchmaker.

The wedding feast was accompanied by the singing of a special type of songs: laudatory and reproachful. These songs were sung to each guest separately, and, depending on the circumstances, they either praised them or shamed them, portraying them in a funny way. The guests to whom such songs were sung were supposed to present the singing girls. Of particular popularity among the laudatory and reproachful songs were the songs of the friend and the matchmaker; greatness is widely known to young people, their parents, married guests, widows and other participants in the wedding feast. A characteristic feature of greatness is the hyperbole of happiness, wealth, prosperity, predicted to the one to whom the song is sung; the idealization of beauty, the property status of a person, which originally had a magical meaning. The songs embodied the ideas of the peasantry about ideal living conditions, ideal beauty and human capabilities. These songs spoke of the deep, true love of the bride and groom. They sounded like a promise of a wonderful, happy life, reflecting the dream of a happy family. The songs said that the bride went on a long journey and heard the priest calling her; but the bride does not respond to this call, she does not respond to the call of her mother either, but when her warm friend, the young husband, called her, she responded and came to him. They sang in the song: "Not a scarlet ribbon clings to the heart, Ivanushka Maryushka presses to the heart ...".

The wedding ceremony is a complex action, in different parts of which different participants come to the fore. At the beginning of the wedding, these are the parents of the bride and groom and the matchmakers; in the middle and partly in the last part - the bride and her bridesmaids; in the latter - a friend and a matchmaker who led the wedding. As for the groom, his role in the wedding ceremony is extremely insignificant. His image only embodies the idea of ​​who will be guilty of a difficult female fate; by itself, he does not perform any responsible rites. The wedding does not tell about his experiences and fate; the main person around whom the actions of the whole ceremony unfold is the bride-maiden.

MAIN IMAGES OF THE WEDDING RITE

The grouping of all the most important rituals around the bride and the concentration of most wedding songs and lamentations around the theme of women's fate naturally led to the fact that the image of the bride became mainly wedding poetry. This is the image of a pure young girl who did not know grief in her parental home, forcibly, against her will, given to her husband's dissenting family. The song creates the appearance of the bride - an ideal beauty - white-faced, ruddy, with clear eyes, sable eyebrows, a blond braid (see the "Lyrical Songs" section). The image of the bride is similar in lamentations - they only emphasize the suffering of the girl - "the bitter bitter woman", doomed to live "in strangers". The wedding song, the parable, the sentences of the friend consistently develop the image of the heroine of the folk wedding - the bride. There used to be a red-faced girl with her girlfriends went for a walk, she lived in her mother's hall, had fun; how she said goodbye to red beauty - a free will in girlhood - the bride's "frisky legs broke, white hands fell, the light darkened in clear eyes, the mind was clouded in the head"; and a maiden returned from the church as a young princess; and a girl will enter a strange family - “beauty will fall from the face of a white man”, she will “get up to work before dawn”, she will go to bed later than everyone else, she will live unrequitedly, “she won’t utter a word.” The image of the bride, given in development, is outlined at different stages of the life path. Her image is also tinted with deeply poetic symbols, identifying a girl being given in marriage with a white swan, a small gray bird, a swallow, a migratory quail, a white birch tree, an apple tree, a broken viburnum, and mowed green grass. Some of these symbols not only depict the bride, but also reveal her fate (grass being cut, a swan being beaten off from the herd and driven away by falcons in a strange direction, etc.).

If in the rite itself the role of the groom is extremely insignificant, then in wedding poetry he is described quite expressively. The groom is a good fellow, a young prince, to whom they give the girl. He is the master of his wife. Unlike the image of the bride, the image of the groom in wedding poetry is drawn statically. Like the bride, he embodies ideas of ideal beauty. Stately, curly, white-faced with falcon eyes, he is depicted as a strong and courageous destroyer, a destroyer of girlish beauty, a stranger. In the verdicts of the friend (and sometimes in the works of other genres of wedding folk poetry), the groom is a young prince, a brave hunter, a skilled fisherman who has gathered a squad of good fellows. The symbols depicting the groom emphasize all the same traits of strength, physical strength, courage, dexterity, and beauty. The most popular symbols of the image of the groom are a falcon (sometimes depicted attacking a swan), an eagle, a goldeneye proudly floating along the river, a white ermine. The glorious songs emphasize the love and tenderness of the groom: a typical symbol of these songs is a dove cooing with its dove.

Wedding songs create expressive images of boyfriends and matchmakers. The images of the boyfriend and the matchmaker are depicted in the songs and in the lamentations of the bride. The matchmaker is the accomplice of the groom who is not merciful to the bride. She persuades her parents to give the girl to strangers; she comes to a bachelorette party, combs her bride's hair like a woman - "she pulls a Russian scarf, weaves her hair into two braids." But in reproachful songs she is portrayed satirically: “a liar with rare teeth”, who has lost her shame and conscience, a crafty liar riding a chicken to a wedding feast. A contrasting image of a matchmaker is given in a laudatory song that praises the matchmaker for courtesy and knowledge of wedding matters. Such a contrast in the depiction of the image of the matchmaker is associated with the whole character of the wedding game.

The image of a friend is also depicted in contrast. In laudatory songs and in works of other genres of wedding folklore, he is “pretty-pretty”, walks with “speech-sentences”, takes the bride “with persuasion”; he is one of the faithful companions of the groom in his hunt for a white swan, for a dear marten, in catching a whitefish in the blue sea. Korolnye songs create a grotesque, satirical image of a friend who has done a bad deed - who has taken the bride to the groom: “What a good friend - he looks like all the devils!”, “How the devil dragged a chapan on a friend for a month”, etc.

The refrain of such a reproachful song: “Pretty friend, pretty friend!” - emphasizes the satirical nature of the grotesque image.

The images of other participants in the wedding drama (even the parents of the bride and especially the groom) are rare, episodic, not so much on their own as in relation to the bride, set off her image, talk about her fate in girlhood and marriage (cf. images of parents in lamentations ). Such a selection in wedding poetry of the images of the bride and groom, as central, and with them the images of the matchmaker and boyfriend, as images of the organizers of the wedding, is due to the very content of the rite. Wedding poetry focuses mainly on the problems of family life that are of great social importance. This problematic remains unchanged in all variants of a folk wedding, and they are very diverse. Sometimes, even in neighboring villages and villages, weddings were celebrated differently. The great variability of wedding ceremonies makes it extremely difficult to distinguish their regional types - one can only schematically divide the wedding into northern and southern. But both northern and southern Russian weddings retain the same problems of the wedding ceremony and only vary the images of the main wedding characters. Northern and southern weddings are primarily distinguished by the nature of their emotional coloring. The wedding of the northern regions is more tragic: almost uninterrupted laments of the bride are typical for it, sometimes even obscuring the ritual song. Elements of ancient magic in the northern wedding are preserved more distinctly, and the friend takes on the features of a sorcerer, a sorcerer, protecting the bride from the evil eye, damage, etc. In southern weddings, the friend is the organizer of a joker-buffoon game. The northern wedding is a tragic act in which the buffoon sentences of the friend and humorous and satirical songs often recede into the background. In the southern wedding, the tragic element is weakened; the element of joke in the sentences of the friend is emphasized; more often come across songs with the theme of happy love and comic songs

The two main types of Russian weddings can be considered as different editions of a folk drama about the female lot, which is one in essence.

HISTORICAL CONDITIONS FOR THE ORIGIN OF THE RUSSIAN WEDDING RITE KNOWN FROM THE RECORDS OF THE XYIII-XIX CENTURIES

The wedding ceremony has come a long way of development. The edition of this rite, known to us from the records of the 18th-19th centuries, does not correspond to the ancient chronicle evidence. "Tale

of temporary years, ”talking about the Slavic tribes, she said that the Drevlyans did not have marriages, and the girls were kidnapped by the water. The custom of abduction also existed among other tribes. So, Radimichi and Vyatichi arranged games between villages and during them kidnapped their wives. With the creation of the powerful Kievan state, with the introduction of Christianity, wedding rituals in Rus' acquired other forms. A church wedding was included in the ceremony, everyday rituals preceding the wedding and following after it changed significantly. The same chronicles, mentioning princely weddings, note that they were accompanied by feasts and included various ritual actions. But it is unlikely that the wedding ritual that existed in Russian life before the strengthening of the Muscovite state was identical to the wedding known in the records of the 18th-19th centuries. The main everyday theme of the wedding known to us is the theme of the transition of a disenfranchised woman from the family of her parents to the patriarchal family of her husband - in it she must silently and meekly obey everyone, please everyone (this theme is revealed especially clearly by wedding lamentations, partly by songs). Ancient Russian literature and writing, in accordance with the folk epic of pre-Moscow Rus', mentioning wedding ceremonies, do not reveal the lack of rights of a woman who is forcibly given to a strange family. In the stories about the beginning of the Russian state and about modern events in the annals of the XI-XIV centuries. they painted images of girls and women who independently chose their husbands. Everyone remembers the image of Princess Olga, who “switched” (outwitted) the Byzantine emperor and did not marry him; the image of the proud Rogneda - Gorislava, who did not want to marry the unborn Prince Vladimir and was given for him as a prisoner taken in a military campaign, is memorable; the image of Princess Irina, the wife of Yaroslav the Wise, is memorable; the image of Princess Efrosinya, who threw herself from the lofty tower with her son in her arms and broke to death - she. I didn’t want to survive my husband, who was killed by Batu, I didn’t want to be a prisoner. Many images of the Russian epic fully correspond to the images of women, "about whom the literature and writing of the 11th-15th centuries tells. The epics depict the image of Nastasya, a polyanitsa (hero), who finds her husband in single combat; the image of Prince Vladimir's niece - Zabava Putyatichna, coming to the terem to Nightingale Budimirovich and offering herself to him as a wife; the image of Nastasya Mitrievichna, who does not want to marry Ivan Godinovich and abandon her first fiance.

Comparison of the image of the bride from the wedding ceremony with the images of girls and women depicted in ancient chronicles, stories, epics reveals their deep difference. Such different images could arise only in different conditions of life. Indeed, the conditions of life in the course of history have changed significantly. The structure of the patriarchal family gradually developed and strengthened, in which unconditional paternal power was established - the power of the head of the family. In such a patriarchal family, a mandatory hierarchy of its members was created. The father led the family; his mother followed him; then sons, daughters, daughters-in-law (wives of sons), grandchildren, granddaughters, wives of grandchildren, great-grandchildren. It was the so-called large paternal family, and in it the position of a woman - the wife of a son, or grandson, or great-grandson - was extremely difficult. She had almost no rights.

The gravity of the position of women was further aggravated by the fact that the church affirmed in the minds of people the idea of ​​the primordial sinfulness of women. "Baba is a diabolical vessel," the clergy claimed.

The legal status of a woman who finds no protection anywhere, and the attitude towards her as a sinful creature from whom all evil comes, was gradually strengthened in social and family life. The unwritten laws of social and family behavior, which humiliated and enslaved a woman, apparently took shape for quite a long time, displacing the old customs and laws of the family, reflected in ancient writing and oral epic. By the 16th century the new rules of family life were clearly defined. And when, in the middle of the 16th century, chronicles and hagiographic literature were revised and put in order, rules were drawn up that were obligatory for everyone, and the relations and duties of family members were also fixed. Along with the Makarievsky men-minions, who gave a set of lives, and sets of annals, such books as Stoglav were created, which gave answers to questions about the rules of public life, religion, rituals, etc., The Alphabet Book, and, finally, , "Domostroy", which legalized the new forms of everyday life for that time. Domostroy, among other things, formulated what a woman's behavior should be, how she should be treated, what her ideal image from the point of view of this time could be. Subsequently - and very soon - literature created the image of a meek tolerant, housewife, Juliana Lazarevskaya; some other images of women in literature of the same period are close to him

The image of the bride of a folk wedding cannot be brought closer to the images of Juliana and others like her. But he is connected with them by the very posing of the question of the life and position of a woman in the conditions of the house-building rules of housekeeping and social relations. The Russian wedding, as a complex ritual that reflected the family and living conditions of a certain historical era, developed in Muscovite Rus' and kept even in the 18th and 19th centuries. the most important features of the ritual of that time. In the wedding ceremony, one can find remnants of kidnapping, buying and selling, and other forms (and in some cases elements) of ancient marriage rites.

It is known that monogamous marriage, which characterizes the family structure of Russians, was historically preceded by a pair marriage, and even earlier - a group marriage. Although these forms of marriage disappeared in ancient times, their remnants were preserved in separate ritual actions. It can be considered that they are genetically related to the rites that occurred in some places, forcing the groom and his “team” on the eve of the wedding to spend the night in the bride’s house together with her and her girlfriends, on the wedding day, before taking the young people to sleep, lie down on their bed for travelers groom, during the wedding feast or before all men kiss the bride, covered with a scarf, etc.

The remnants of the kidnapping of the bride are preserved in the custom of riding "race" in the cart of the bride and groom (when the bride and groom go to church) and in the dramatized pursuit of the boyfriend taking the bride away (such a chase was sometimes combined with a fistfight between the groom's retinue and the bride's relatives).

The very arrival of the groom for the bride, when the gates in the bride's house were locked in front of him, they did not let him into the house, they hid the bride from him, can also be interpreted as symbolic actions, once generated by the rite of kidnapping.

The ritual of buying and selling the bride, which occurred in antiquity, was not only preserved in remnants, but with the development of commercial transactions, it received development and a new interpretation in some wedding customs. Thus, the "purchase and sale" of the bride becomes one of the main elements of the rites that precede the actual wedding (conspiracy, handshaking, drinking). And at the wedding itself, the rites of ransoming the bride from the girls, from the brother, giving gifts during the wedding feast can also be genetically associated with ancient forms of the marriage ceremony.

Some images of folk poetry are associated with the vestigial elements of the wedding. In the songs, and especially in the parables and sentences of the boyfriend, there are often images of the attacking squad of the groom, taking the girl away; such are the images of hunters looking for game or an animal. The image of bargaining, during which merchants-matchmakers buy a girl, is also a popular image of wedding poetry. Generated by ancient forms of marriage and some other images and symbols of songs, lamentations, sentences. All these images, preserved in folklore due to the disappearance of ancient marriage customs, have lost their original direct meaning of the story of the actual kidnapping or actual bargaining of the bride and have acquired the meaning of an artistic, to some extent allegorical depiction of the conclusion of the marriage union by the families of the bride and groom.

The wedding ceremony and ritual poetry, as an integral complex of the most ancient forms of the marriage ceremony, developed and varied in the cities and villages of Russia in the 18th-19th centuries. This ceremony gave a disenfranchised woman the opportunity to tell about her fate, about her feelings and experiences, to reveal great spiritual strength and rich poetic talent.

The poetry of the wedding had a deep psychologism, depicted the feelings of the bride and groom, their development throughout the ceremony. The role of the bride was especially difficult psychologically, so folklore painted a rich palette of her emotional states. The first half of the wedding ceremony, while the bride was still in the parental home, was filled with drama, accompanied by sad, elegiac works. At the feast (in the groom's house), the emotional tone changed dramatically: idealization of the participants in the feast prevailed in folklore, fun sparkled.

For a wedding of the Northern Russian type, lamentations were the main folklore genre. They expressed only one feeling - sadness. The psychological possibilities of songs are much broader, therefore, in the Central Russian wedding, the image of the bride's experiences was more dialectical, mobile and diverse. Wedding songs are the most significant, best-preserved cycle of family ritual poetry.

The courtship was conducted in a conditional poetic and allegorical manner. The matchmakers called themselves fishermen, hunters, the bride - a white fish, a marten. During the matchmaking, the bridesmaids could already sing songs: ritual ("They came to Pashechka Three matchmakers at once ...") and lyrical, in which the theme of the girl's loss of her will began to be developed ("Viburnum boasted ...").

Conspiracy songs depicted the transition of a girl and a young man from the free state of "girlhood" and "youthfulness" to the position of the bride and groom. In the song "Along the Danube ..." a young man on horseback walks by the river. He demonstrates his beauty, prowess in front of the girl and asks to save his horse. But the girl replies:

"When I am yours,

Save your horse...

And now I'm not yours.

I can't take care of the horse.

Paired images-symbols from the natural world appear in the songs, for example, a viburnum and a nightingale (“On the mountain, a viburnum stood in a circle ...”). The motif of the violated girl's will is being developed (the bride is depicted through the symbols of a pecked berry, a caught fish, a shot coon, a trampled grass, a broken grape twig, trampled green mint, a broken birch tree).

The song “They didn’t blow the pipe early at dawn ...” could be sung in collusion, at a bachelorette party and on the morning of the wedding day. This ritual song marked the upcoming, ongoing or already completed rite of braiding. Conspiracy songs began to depict the young in the position of the bride and groom, idealizing their relationship: the bride lovingly combs the groom's blond curls, the groom gives her gifts. There were no monologic forms in colloquial songs; the songs were a narrative or a dialogue.

In the songs of the bachelorette party, monologues appeared on behalf of the bride. She said goodbye to the free will and her stepfather's house, reproached her parents for giving her away in marriage. Reflecting on her future life, the bride imagined herself as a white swan caught in a herd of gray geese that nibble at her. The mother or married sister taught the bride how to behave in a new family:

"You wear a dress, don't wear it out,

You endure grief, do not say."

If the bride was an orphan, then a lament was fulfilled: the daughter invited her parents to look at her orphan wedding.

In the songs, there is often a plot of the transition or transportation of the bride through a water barrier, associated with the ancient understanding of the wedding as an initiation ("Sunday early, the Blue Sea played ..."). The groom catches either the drowning bride herself, or the golden keys to her will ("You are girlfriends, my dears ..."). The image of the girls-girlfriends was drawn as a flock of small birds, flocked to the canary, enclosed in a box. Girlfriends either sympathized with the bride, or reproached her for her broken promise not to marry. The bachelorette party was full of ritual and lyrical songs.

The culmination of the entire wedding ritual was the wedding day, on which the marriage was concluded and the young family was glorified.

In the morning, the bride woke her friends with a song in which she reported about her bad dream: the cursed woman's life crept up to her. While dressing the bride and waiting for the groom's wedding train, lyrical songs were sung, expressing the extreme degree of her sorrowful experiences ("How the white birch tree was shaken ..."). Ritual songs were also filled with deep lyricism, in which marriage was portrayed as an inevitable event ("Mother, what is not dust in the field ..."). At the same time, songs of a different content were sung in the groom’s house, for example: with a squad of young men, he sets off from his wonderful house for a beautiful gray duck, the groom floats along the river on a boat, pulls an arrow on his knee and shoots a duck into the sulfur (“Oh , Ivan’s mansions are good ... ").

But the wedding train has arrived. Guests in the house are like a hurricane, sweeping away everything in its path. This is depicted through hyperbole: they broke down a new hall, melted a pair of gold, let the nightingale out of the garden, shed a red maiden. The groom comforts the bride ("There was no wind, there was no wind - Suddenly it was inspired...").

At this time, scenes were played out, which were based on the ransom of the bride or her double - maiden beauty. Their execution was facilitated by wedding sentences, which had a ritual character. Sentences also had other functions: they idealized the whole situation and participants in the wedding, humorously discharged the difficult psychological situation associated with the departure of the bride from the parental home.

Sentences are rhymed or rhythmic poetic works. In the Kostroma region, after the arrival of the wedding train, the scene of the removal of the Christmas tree was played out - a maiden's beauty, which was accompanied by a big sentence. The Christmas tree was carried out by one of the bridesmaids, she also pronounced the verdict. Improvisation was present in the construction of the sentence (cf. two options in the Reader), but the core was the same. The verdict began with an introductory part, in which the atmosphere of the chamber was depicted fantastically sublimely. Epithets were used that idealized the surrounding objects:

I go to the table, I go to the oak one.

To tablecloths to scolds.

To copper drinks<медовым>,

To sugary dishes.

To gilded plates.

To turned forks,

To damask knives,

To you, sweet matchmakers.

Then a greeting was uttered to the travelers. Their idealization could take on an epic development: they followed the bride through clear fields, green meadows, dark forests... Hyperbole conveyed the difficult journey of the bridegroom's train. Hyperbolas were also used in another epic part - in the story of how the girls got and decorated the Christmas tree:

They trampled on the shoes,

Torn apart by stockings

They broke the green tree.

Tore off the gloves

Broke a ring...

The tree was the main character. She was uttered a magnificence, at the end of which candles were lit on her:

... Our maiden beauty is good

She is beautifully dressed

Hung with scarlet ribbons.

Unbundled to various bows,

Decorated with expensive stones,

Arranged for wax candles.

Scarlet ribbons scarlet,

Different bows were blue.

Road stones spilled

Beskovy candles were kindled.

Then the detours of those present were made and the demand for payment for the Christmas tree. They started with the groom, then turned to friends, matchmakers, relatives. The ways in which they were encouraged to "bestow" beauty were different: for example, they made riddles. Especially often gifting required rhyme:

Here's the last word for you:

Give me a golden ring.

I'll say a word of heels -

Give me a silk scarf.

The matchmaker, who has a red shirt -

Put a five-ruble note;

And in blue - Put it on the other ...

Each giver extinguished a candle. When all the candles were extinguished, the girl who pronounced the sentence turned to the bride. She spoke of the inevitable parting with beauty and the bride's loss of her girlhood forever. The Christmas tree was taken out of the hut, the bride was crying. A psychological parallel between the Christmas tree beauty and the bride ran like a red thread through the entire game situation.

Sentences compositionally consisted of a monologue, however, appeals to the participants in the ritual led to the emergence of dialogic forms and gave the sentences the character of a dramatic presentation.

The most solemn moment of the wedding was a feast (the prince's table). Here they sang only cheerful songs and danced. The ritual of magnificence had a bright artistic development. Magnificent songs were sung to newlyweds, wedding ranks and all guests, for this ygrits (singers) were presented with sweets, gingerbread, money. The avaricious were sung in parodic glorification - reproachful songs that could be sung just for laughs.

Magnificent songs had a congratulatory character. They honored, sang the one to whom they were addressed. The positive qualities of this man were portrayed in songs to the highest degree, often with the help of hyperbole.

The images of the bride and groom poetically revealed various symbols from the natural world. The groom is a clear falcon, the raven horse the bride is a strawberry-berry, cherry, viburnum-raspberry, currant berry. Symbols could be paired: a dove and a dove, a grape and a berry.

The portrait played an important role.

The groom's curls are so beautiful

What are these little curls

The sovereign wants to favor him

The first city - the glorious Peter,

Another city - stone Moscow,

The third city is White Lake.

As in many love songs, the mutual love of the newlyweds was expressed in the fact that the bride combed his fair-haired curls to the groom ("Like the moon has golden horns ...").

Compared to the songs that were sung in the bride's house, the opposition between one's own and another's family changed diametrically. Now the father's family has become a "stranger", so the bride does not want to eat father's bread: it is bitter, it smells of wormwood; and Ivan's bread - you want to eat: it is sweet, it smells of honey.

In laudatory songs, a general scheme for creating an image is visible: a person’s appearance, his clothes, wealth, good spiritual qualities. So, for example, depicting a thousandth, the song pays much attention to his luxurious fur coat, in which he went to God's church, married his godson. A single guy is depicted on a horse in all its glory, capable of even transforming nature: meadows turn green, gardens bloom. The matchmaker is white, because she washed herself with white foam delivered from beyond the blue sea. The glorification of the family is reminiscent of carols: the owner with his sons is a month with stars, the hostess with her daughters is a clear sun with rays (“A green pine tree is at the gate ...”). The greatness of the widow was special - it expressed sympathy for her grief. This was achieved with the help of symbols: an unenclosed field, a tower without a top, a canopy without a ceiling, a marten coat without a ceiling, a golden ring without gilding.

Magnificent songs can be compared with hymns, they are characterized by a solemn intonation, high vocabulary. Of course, all this was achieved by folklore means. Yu. G. Kruglov noted that all artistic means "are used in strict accordance with the poetic content of laudatory songs - they serve to enhance, emphasize the most beautiful features of the appearance of the magnified, the most noble features of his character, the most magnificent attitude towards him singing, that is serve the main principle of the poetic content of laudatory songs - idealization".

The purpose of swearing songs is to create a caricature. Their main artistic technique is the grotesque. A grove grew on the groom's hump, a mouse made a nest in his head; the matchmaker's back is a lavitsa, well ... - a bread box, the peritoneum is a swamp; my friend jumped around the shops, dragged pies from the shelves, wandered around the shop floor and caught mice; the thousand man sits on a horse like a crow, and the horse under him is like a cow. Portraits of reproachful songs are satirical, the ugly is exaggerated in them. This is the reduced vocabulary. Reproachful songs achieved not only a humorous goal, but also ridiculed drunkenness, greed, stupidity, laziness, deceit, boasting. Stupid matchmakers went after the bride - they drove into the garden, poured beer on all the cabbage, prayed to the veree (pillar), worshiped the tyn. Sometimes in reproachful songs there was an ironic quotation of verses from laudatory songs (for example, they copied the refrain "Good friend, handsome friend!").

In all works of wedding folklore, an abundance of artistic means was used: epithets, comparisons, symbols, hyperbole, repetitions, words in an affectionate form (with diminutive suffixes), synonyms, allegories, appeals, exclamations, etc. Wedding folklore claimed an ideal, sublime world, living according to the laws of goodness and beauty.

Zueva T.V., Kirdan B.P. Russian folklore - M., 2002

ritual folklore

Theatrical lesson (grade 6)

Russian wedding traditions

Presenter 1 : Hello, good people! Red girls and good fellows!

Lead 2 : Glad to see you, dear guests!

IN 1: Today we will take a trip to distant times, to the times of Mother Rus'!

AT 2 : Every person should know the history of his land, the customs and traditions of his people.

IN 1: Today we will visit a Russian wedding, get acquainted with the wedding ceremony.Since the emergence of Russian villages, the wedding has been the main, main solemn ceremony. Any girl or guy was in awe of the day when they get married. Although the decision was made not by the young themselves, but by their parents, all the same, the brides spent whole nights wondering about their groom.

AT 2: A wedding is an ancient ritual in Rus', which took place in three stages:

1. matchmaking
2. collusion, handshake
3. the wedding itself

AT 2: The wedding ceremony is one of the most complex. It could take several weeks or even months.

IN 1: Guys, do you know how it started? (answer options are heard).

AT 2: The first stage of a wedding is matchmaking, matchmaking. And who knows what it is? (answer options are heard).

IN 1: Matchmaking - when the parents, relatives or friends of the groom (matchmakers) came to the girl's house and asked her parents for her hand in marriage.

AT 2: They usually got married in the evening, made their way to the bride's house by the backyards, did not talk, they were afraid of failure.

IN 1: Matchmakers dressed up in festive clothes. The matchmaker was covered with a large shawl, regardless of the season, she wore felt boots, a fur coat, and girded herself with a sash. The indispensable accessory of the matchmaker was a stick, a poker, i.e. came with the aim of "scooping out" the girl.

AT 2: The matchmaker took a piece of fishing net with her - “So that the bride is caught like a fish” (the matchmaker is dressed up in front of the guys).

IN 1: Entering the house, the matchmaker hit the threshold with her heel so that the bride “does not back away.”

Matchmaker: We beat on the threshold so that they don’t tell us across!

My leg stand firmly and firmly,
And my word is firm and accurate,
What is planned will come true!

AT 2: After praying to God and greeting the hosts, the matchmakers began negotiations. They negotiated while standing, so that the bride would not sit up in the girls.

Bride's Father: Put on a samovar, hostess! And you, guests, come in.

Matchmaker: We did not come to sit, but for a good deed, for matchmaking. We heard you have a product, and we have a merchant buyer for that product. Let's be family!

Father: God will save you, that we were not thrown out of the people.

Matchmaker:

We have a good guy and he has a good house.
Glass gates, chiseled windings,
The pillars are gilded, the gates are silver, the bridges are viburnum.
There are cattle in the barn, there is a cow, there are horses, everything is farmed: tubs of oil and canvases.

Father: They raised their daughter for more than one day in order to give it away at once.

Matchmaker:

Our Petra is wearing a blue caftan,
Blue caftan, black hat,

With scarlet ribbons, with braids.
Peter's curls are curled!

Father: To give a daughter in marriage is not to bake a pie!

Matchmaker:

We need a person, not a dress.
There would be a body, but make the dress yourself!

Father:

She is famous with us - and beautiful, and smart, and with a good life.
Chervona our kralechka, poured sweet apple,
The approach is peacock, and the speech is also swan.
I answer with orders!
Here's a pledge for you - a silk scarf.

IN 1: Having received the consent of the parents (the order of the father) and the bride herself (a silk scarf to the groom), the matchmakers gathered for a condition or agreement. With her, preparations for the wedding began.

AT 2: On the appointed day, the groom, his parents, godparents and one of the close relatives, the matchmaker went to the bride's house. They agreed on the day of the handshake and discussed all the polls related to the wedding.

Matchmaker: On what day will we agree with the priest?

Father: For Saturday or Sunday.

Matchmaker: Our guests will be 15 people.

Father: Our family will be 10 people.

Matchmaker: Are the bride's gifts ready?

Father: for the mother-in-law - 9 stanushki, for the godmother - 1 stanushka, for the father-in-law - an embroidered edge for the bed, for aunts and uncles - a towel and a belt. Is the groom's chest ready?

Matchmaker: And boots, and stockings, and blush with powder and a mirror. What is the dowry for the bride?

Mother: A daughter in a cradle, a dowry in a box. And featherbeds, and pillows, and a warm blanket, attachments (a heifer and a calf), a scythe, a sickle, a rake, a spinning wheel, ...

IN 1: On the condition, they decided on how many tables to hold the wedding - for 1 or for 2?

AT 2: The bride had to have time to prepare, with the help of her friends and sisters, gifts for future relatives, to sew a shirt and trousers as a gift for the groom.

IN 1: In addition, she must visit her relatives to invite them to the wedding and receive gifts for the upcoming celebration.

Girlfriends:

Like our Evdokiya
Many gifts are needed
- Give her, give everything,
Mother-in-law with mother-in-law
- Giving trees
Yes, everything with sisters-in-law
- And the young man
With the whole train
- With the whole train
Silk belt.

AT 2: The handshake was appointed 2-3 days after the matchmaking. The groom and his relatives came to the bride's house.

IN 1: In the hut tables were laid with refreshments, in the upper room everything was ready for worship. Those who arrived were first escorted to the upper room, where they silently prayed and were baptized. One of the relatives of the bride or groom rang the bell. Parents shook hands. Everyone sat down at the table and ate.

AT 2: After conspiracy and handshaking, the girl was called a collusion, she walked around in a dark scarf, she almost did not appear on the street.

Bride:

My will has been broken
And they didn't hit the bell,
I, a girl, was betrothed.

(Sobbing)

At the dear father,
He has a heart of stone.
He went to the oak table,
He drank green wine
He drank me young
To the far side.

IN 1: At the center of the wedding ceremony is the bride. Now she has become a collaborator. Almost never leaves the house.

AT 2: Marriage was perceived as the transition of the bride from one family to another, to a new "father and mother." That's why they say "married" - she left for her husband, to his family.

IN 1: The girl did not always get married of her own free will, more often the decision was made by the parents. It often happened that she did not even know the groom, only on the wedding day she would meet him only.

AT 2: That's why it was scary for the girl from the house why to go to strangers. And then the bride began to lament, i.e. cry and complain about your fate. In her prayers, the bride turned to the forces of nature to prevent the groom from coming to the wedding...

Bride

The winds are violent, rage
Notice the path:
Would not pass, do not pass
What is behind me, young, to strangers!
Shut the gate
You are wide, firmly-firmly;
Shut up, red sun
Rage, ominous cloud,
Cloud formidable and thunderous,
Leap into the dark night
Scatter, big rain,
Make a path for you;
Would not pass, do not pass
To me evil strangers!
You listen, dear brother falcon,
What am I going to ask you for?
You go, dear brother falcon,
In the fields, in the meadows in the clean,
Into the dense forests,
In the oak forests are green,
Where damp forest argues with the wind,
There all the animals are fierce,
You catch a fierce beast,
Beast fierce, riding,
From his mouth - fire with a flame,
Smoke pours from his ears,
Ie eyes of his sparks are pouring.
Bring me a fierce beast,
Tie him to the father's court;
How evil strangers will drive up
To the wide yard to the red -
They are afraid of the beast
From me, young, retreat away "
I would have painted
At the nurse of my father,
At the birthplace of the mother,
At the dear falcon brothers,
At the doves-brides-in-law.

IN 1: A bachelorette party was arranged, at which the bride said goodbye to her bridesmaids, who did not leave her for one whole week before the wedding. We went to the bathhouse, sang songs, braided the last girl's braid.

Girlfriend:

You listen, you involuntary red girl,
How I wove a small scarf for you.
The girl's hair is not ironed,
The flower does not gather on the head.
Your little head is going on its way.
For these cities yes unfamiliar,
Yes, for this a heavy nickname.

AT 2: They untwisted the braid only on the eve of the wedding, weaved a ribbon out of it (girlish beauty). The bride gave it to her younger sister or best friend.

IN 1: The next step is the wedding itself. A big role was assigned at the wedding to a friend, a person who knows all the customs well, who knows how to speak well, come on. He led the wedding.

AT 2: When they came for the bride, a ransom took place or a kidnapping was played out. It seemed that they did not want to give away the bride.

Father:

How did you get here?
We had high mountains set,
Dense forests, deep lakes,
And where it was possible to climb,
We had guards posted.
How did you get here?

Druzhka:

We tore high mountains with gunpowder,
Dense forests were cut down with axes,
Deep lakes on ships crossed,
And where it was possible to climb -
You had poor watchmen,
Coveted for copper money,
We bribed them and rolled to you -
And there is nothing to say, but it is necessary to fence the wedding.

Father: Your prince doesn't even have a house, and nowhere to live.

Druzhka:

Like our young prince has a three-story house,
Below - mice, themselves - higher, above - pigeons.

Father: Well then, go ahead and eat.

IN 1: The bridesmaids prepared trials for the bridesmaid and the groom. After overcoming them, the hands of the young were tied with a ribbon, they were blessed in front of the icons. The dowry was sent to the groom's house.

AT 2: Everyone who was supposed to go to church got dressed. The groom was tied with a small white scarf around his neck. The bride's head was covered with a white scarf.

IN 1: A wedding is a religious ritual. After the young already became husband and wife. Everyone went to the husband's house, where the wedding was played.

AT 2: The wedding was played for 2-3 days. There were a lot of treats, different songs were sung - laudatory and reproachful (to the young and their parents). They played games, congratulated the young, gave gifts to the house.

IN 1: Guys, let's play one of those games with you.

“Bayari, and we came to you”

AT 2: Well, dear guests, here we are with you at a Russian wedding.

IN 1: We hope you enjoyed our trip. You got acquainted with ritual folklore, customs and traditions of your ancestors.

AT 2: Now you know some wedding ceremonies and traditions, don't forget them. After all, the one who truly loves his Motherland is the one who in his heart remains faithful to the traditions of his people and passes them on to the next generation.

Together: Thank you! See you soon!