Slot: 28A-5 Dec.
28, 8:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
Panel: Issues in Slavic and East European
Folklore
Chair: Todd Armstrong, Grinnell College
Title: Epithalamic Traditions in Slavic
Folklore: Comparative Analyses of Wedding Songs of South and East Slavic People
Author: Larissa Bondarchuk, The Ohio State
University
In the present paper I provide a
comparative analysis of traditional wedding rituals among Slavic peoples. In
particular I focus on epithalamic songs (both texts and contexts) of the
Russians, Ukrainians and Bulgarians.
The
common origin of the Slavic people can be considered a potential basis for many
similarities in their cultural traditions. Such evidence is found, for example,
in many similar cultural elements, such as calendar holidays, religious
beliefs, and, of course, linguistic commonality of all Slavic languages, and in
particular, Bulgarian, Russian and Ukrainian. However, the historical development of these Slavic nations
reflects their unique, distinctive ways of cultural evolution. On the other
hand, even differences in religion – Western Christianity (in West Slavic
countries) vs. Greek Orthodoxy (in South and East Slavic lands) are reflected
in the form of literacy these countries accepted.
In
addition, within the Slavic world specific historical conditions brought about
the distinctive characteristics in their culture. Thus, for example, Bulgaria
was a part of the Ottoman Empire for over five centuries, which, evidently, left
its marks in language, customs, and material and oral culture. Many vocabulary
items (roughly 40 per cent), household items, traditions and even superstitions
have Turkic origin. As Kaufman claims, “despite the closeness in the everyday
of the rural population, the conditions under which the Bulgarian statehood was
formed, historical fate of the people differed from that of East Slavs. Here we
must include the [historical conditions of] Greek and especially Turkic yoke”
(Kaufman 13).
I conclude that
wedding songs of Slavic people have many common, similar features not only in
their content, but also in the structure of the wedding rituals. Many questions
raised during the analyses of this topic present an excellent opportunity for
new discussions which might shed new light on the problems of folkloric
traditions, politics in the study of folklore, national identity and
national/nationalistic movements today.
Title: A Relational Database of Macedonian
Proverbs
Author: George Mitrevski, Auburn University
This paper proposes a system for
compiling a database of Macedonian proverbs using the technology of a standard
relational database management system, and a set of thematic and linguistic
classification systems that can reveal information and the characteristics of a
body of proverbs on the formal, structural, linguistic and figurative levels.
Unlike a flat database, a relational database is organized into tables, in
which data is defined so that it can be reorganized and accessed in a number of
different ways. It is a method of structuring data in the form of records so
that relations between different entities and attributes can be used for data
access and transformation. Using structured query language, reports and
comparisons can be generated by selecting fields of interest from the original
database.
All
data which is stored in and retrieved from the relational database proposed
here is cast in the form of relations. The databases does not have any
predefined access paths; data in
the database is defined so that it can be reorganized and accessed in a number
of different ways depending on the specific needs of the person analyzing the
proverbs.
Title: Pseudo-Slavic Aesthetics: Using Russian
Folk Culture to Sell Fast Food
Author: Eugenia Kapsomera Amditis, Dickinson
College
American scholars have long been aware of
marketing firms’ manipulation of folklore to sell their products. In response to such practices, Richard
M. Dorson and Priscilla Denby coined the respective terms “fake-lore” and
“folk-lure.” This practice is not limited to American markets or even to
strictly commercial purposes.
Slavists have been aware of the Communist regime’s misappropriation of
Russian folk culture for some time.
In the post-Soviet period, internationally-known author and social
commentator, Victor Pelevin, crafts a new term “Pseudo-Slavic aesthetics” to
help articulate a modern form of an old practice. This phenomenon acquires a “fresh currency” as more Russians
gain the wealth needed to actively participate in the widespread consumer
market which has taken root in Russia.
Fast food and
dining out has grown into a significant part of Russian consumer culture. Blindonalt’s, a growing St. Petersburg
fast-food chain, is an intriguing hybrid of Western traits blatantly stolen
from the McDonald’s franchise and Pseudo-Slavic aesthetics designed to appeal
to nostalgic and often nationalistic feelings expressed in contemporary Russian
culture. Christiane Bender and
Gianfranco Poggi write of McDonald’s that while eating there, young people have
an opportunity to participate in the “American way of life” (22). Blindonalt’s recreates this same
phenomenon, but instead draws from Pseudo-Slavic aesthetics in order to lure
customers away from explicitly Western-oriented restaurants and into a way of
life based on the Russian past.
Online customer feedback suggests that through their appeal to Russian
consumers’ sense of the folk past, Blindonalt’s atmosphere makes diners feel
that they are participating in or tied to their nation’s history whenever they
dine out.
From a
pedagogical standpoint, the Blindonalt’s phenomenon reveals some of the forces
at work in Russian culture today.
Blindonalt’s encapsulates the often tenuous relationship between Western
and Russian culture contemporary that Russians struggle with today. Moreover, the Blindonalt’s phenomenon,
because it is based on the ubiquitous McDonald’s restaurants, taps into a base
of cultural knowledge that today’s college students, regardless of their
personal backgrounds, can access.
References
Bender, Christiane and Gianfranco
Poggi. “Golden Arches and Iron
Cages: McDonaldization and the Poverty of Cultural Pessimism at the End of the
Twentieth Century.” Resisting McDonaldization.
Ed. Barry Smart. London: Sage Publications, 1999. 22-40.
Denby, Priscilla. “Folklore in the Mass Media.” Folklore
Forum 4 (1971): 113-121.
Dorson, Richard M. “Folklore and Fakelore.” American
Mercury 70 (1950):
335-343.
Pelevin, Victor. Generation “P”. Roman.
Moskva: Vagrius, 1999.
Sullenberger, Tom E. “Ajax Meets the
Jolly Green Giant.” The Journal of American Folklore 87.343 (1974): 53-65.