How family life is connected with the life of society. Traditional family life is sacred

GENERAL PEDAGOGY. HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY AND EDUCATION

Family way of life in education of spiritual and moral values ​​of schoolchildren

S. P. Akutina

The article reveals various scientific approaches to the classification of family values, their significance in the development of family life; the components of the family way of life are revealed, its role in the upbringing of spiritual and moral values ​​is shown. The main values ​​of the family in various marriage and family spheres are highlighted.

Key words: classification of family values, family way of life, spiritual and moral values.

Family Way in Education of Spiritual-Moral Values ​​of Schoolboys

In this articles there are enlightened different scientific ways to the family values ​​classifications, their roles in the family forming process; there are underlined the family built components, as well as, indicated the role of the family building in education of moral ethical principles. The main family values ​​are determined in different matrimonial family spheres.

Key words: the classification of the family values, the family building, moral ethical principles.

The family is the bearer of the cultural values ​​of society and the people. It cultivates family traditions, transfers the system of values ​​to the younger generation, satisfies its cultural needs, forms an attitude towards the three basic values ​​of any culture: truth, goodness and beauty. Thus, a huge responsibility is placed on the family for what image of the world, man and social life it forms in their children.

Scientists dealing with the problem of family values ​​classify them from different scientific positions. So, according to sociologists M. S. Matskovsky, L. I. Savinov, etc., the family values ​​in various marriage and family spheres include the following:

In the field of premarital behavior and the choice of a marriage partner: for a person - love, attraction, physical attractiveness, status in society, sociocultural parameters; for the family: value orientations associated with the ability to continue the clan, surname, expand family ties, follow the traditions, customs and lifestyle of the parental family; for society: the behavior of the individual in relation to national, religious, communal customs and traditions;

In the field of parenthood (compassion, mutual understanding, willingness to help, responsibility for each other);

Children as a family value (heirs, successors of the clan and surname, support in old age, the meaning of life);

Family functions as a value (household, leisure, educational, sexual, emotional, social control, etc.);

The sphere of relations as a family value (true, imaginary, intermittent, conflict, creative, etc.);

Fulfillment of a family role (ability to fruitfulness, destruction);

Socialization as a family value (introduction to culture, education, career, material well-being).

The paternal and maternal lines of behavior in the Russian family were organically combined in a hierarchically built family structure (established order, structure of life), they had a beneficial effect on the formation of the child's soul and the strengthening of family ties. On the basis of the traditional spiritual and moral foundations of the family, the subsequent social and spiritual viability of the individual was laid. The modern order of life is completely different, it provokes the destruction of traditional family ties. For both men and women, work, success in the professional field, and the desire for prosperity are becoming increasingly important. Modern parents do not have any physical or mental strength to raise children.

In the context of scientific research, we will analyze how the traditional family structure gave people the opportunity not to waste their vitality, but to increase it. To do this, we give a brief description of the components of the family structure. The traditional family structure includes the following components:

Customs (established, habitual forms of behavior),

Traditions (passing from generation to generation a way of transferring the valuable content of culture, family life),

Relationships (heartfelt feelings and moods),

Rules (way of thinking, norms of behavior, customs, habits) of a good and pious life,

Routine (established order during the affairs) of the day, week, year.

In our opinion, the conscious filling of these components of the life system with traditional content will provide effective assistance in the spiritual awakening of modern children living in a vain, unstable and aggressive world. The meaning of this task is, according to I. A. Ilyin, “to give the child access to all spheres of spiritual experience; that his spiritual eye be opened to all that is significant and sacred in life; so that his heart, so tender and receptive, learns to respond to every manifestation of the Divine in the world and in people. I. A. Ilyin also designates the means of spiritual education, with the help of which a child can gain access to where "the Spirit of God breathes, calls and opens." This is nature in all its beauty, grandeur and mysterious expediency, true art, which makes it possible to experience a feeling of grace-filled joy, genuine sympathy for everything that suffers, effective love for neighbors, the blissful power of a conscientious act, the courage of a national hero, the creative life of a national genius with his sacrificial responsibility, direct prayerful appeal to God, "who hears, and loves, and helps."

A feature of modern conditions of spiritual and moral education is that parents will have to master its traditions not only in pedagogical (as applied to children), but also in personal terms (as applied to themselves). They will have to solve a difficult task: to become carriers of that spiritual and moral culture and way of life that they seek to instill in children; to create and continuously maintain in the family such a cultural, psychological and spiritual atmosphere in which the child’s initial desire for the sublime, holy and good would be formed and consolidated.

The difficulties on the way to solving these problems are the modern secularized socio-cultural environment, the scarcity of public experience in mastering the traditions of Orthodox education, the lack of clear, systematized ideas of parents about the traditions of domestic family pedagogical culture and

the sufficiency of personal spiritual experience, the lack of a system of spiritual and moral education of parents, pedagogical and spiritual and moral assistance to the family in raising children, the spiritual weakness of today's children and parents.

We support the point of view of A. M. Rusets, who points out that the effectiveness of the formation of cultural values ​​in children is ensured by relying on the principles of family pedagogy. The implementation of the principles of the formation of their cultural values ​​is carried out on the basis of needs depending on

From the age and interests of family members;

Joint participation in cultural life, performance of public, cultural and professional roles;

Gaining independence by the younger generation and at the same time strengthening its ties with the family;

Reasonable application of rewards and punishments in the family;

Self-activity of a growing person in culture;

Creative manifestation of the child's activity in culture, his self-government in cultural life.

The scientist points out that in the process of forming a family way of life and educating spiritual and moral values, it is necessary to be based on the following principles: cultivating family values ​​(ideological views of spouses, attitude to various ceremonies, rituals, traditions); rational and friendly joint action of family members in solving moral and existential problems; partnerships and respect for the individuality of each family member; protecting the family from negative social influences (media, neighbors, individuals with whom family members interact); love, joint responsibility of all family members for its well-being and functioning; respect for the experience of the older generation (preservation of national, religious and family traditions); maintaining friendly relations with immediate family, distant relatives and neighbors.

Speaking about the modern family, N. N. Obozov emphasizes that if in the past the family was united by purely external, formal factors (law, customs, public opinion, traditions, etc.), now a new type of family is being formed, the unity of which is increasingly depends

from the personal relationship to each other of all its members - their mutual understanding, affection, mutual participation, respect, devotion, sympathy and love.

We agree with L. M. Pankova, who singles out the following main family values: love, children, the health of all, and free time spent together. The spiritual values ​​of the family have durability and are often represented materially. This can be a home library that was collected by a grandfather or great-grandfather, a music library, memoirs, diaries, letters, photo albums, portraits, a family archive as a whole, documents, awards, orders, etc. These can be special relics: a bullet, removed from the body after the fight; milk tooth of a child, removed by the mother at home with a thread; the first, unconscious drawings of a little man; copybooks with the first word "mother, world, homeland"; a stone removed from the kidney during surgery; the dagger of an officer who served in the Navy, perhaps many years ago; yellowed pages of soldiers' letters; personal belongings of deceased people, etc. If all this is stored in the house, then it can be used in educational work, as it has a spiritual memory of the past.

Throughout its existence, the institution of the family has realized the values ​​and family way of life for which the family exists. These are the so-called generic values ​​of family and marriage. Following L. I. Savinov, we attribute to the family values ​​of the family

A complex range of relationships between a man and a woman, the highest value of which is love;

The birth of children is a value, in the course of achieving which not only a biological instinct is manifested, but also important spiritual and social parameters;

Various value orientations, thanks to which family members have the opportunity to plunge into the world of humanity in the multi-layered sphere of communication. This is facilitated by the performance of the role of wife, husband, father, mother, son, daughter, etc..

We, following E.I. Zritneva, L.M. Pankova, L.I. Savinov, taking as a basis the characteristic needs of the individual and correlating them with the life and functions of the traditional family, highlight the following family values:

Values ​​associated with the self-affirmation of the individual among the immediate environment (social significance of the family, traditional

the role of a family man, the recognition of each family member by the inner circle, the acquisition of a certain status in society, etc.);

Values ​​that satisfy the need for fatherhood and motherhood (assuming a new social role as a parent, self-affirmation in this role, awareness of the creative nature of the educational process in the family, awareness of the child as a value, etc.);

Values ​​associated with satisfying the need for love and recognition (acceptance of each family member with all its advantages and disadvantages, the ability to feel loved, needed and show feelings for loved ones, etc.);

Values ​​associated with the satisfaction of the physiological needs of the spouses; allowing you to feel relative stability and security (the duration of family and marriage relations, the constancy of a partner, economic support, psychological protection, emotional release, etc.);

Values ​​that satisfy the need for communication and expand its circle (communication with children, with a spouse, with relatives, with friends of a spouse and children, the exchange of spiritual values, etc.);

Values ​​that make it possible to satisfy pragmatic needs (a joint form of property ownership, an increase in the revenue side of the family budget, expectation of help from children in the future, etc.). Analyzing scientific sources, conducting an experimental study, we came to the conclusion that spiritual and moral values ​​are the basis of a strong family structure.

The rapid change over the past decades of spiritual and moral value orientations, which largely influenced the development of relationships within the family, the growing value of the emotional and psychological side of family life dramatically increase the level of expectations in relation to family life, to fulfill the role of a family man, which many spouses simply cannot realize. able due to the socio-cultural traditions of society and their individual characteristics.

We agree with the point of view of A. V. Mudrik that a high level of empathy, mutual respect and acceptance, complete intimacy and other valuable aspects of family life are not

it is possible to achieve without having the appropriate experience, preparedness for marriage and without making quite a lot of effort. Thus, in a situation of an upbringing crisis, a global dysfunction of family relations, the loss of many family values, the priority of personal interests over family ones, the timely and comprehensive education of spiritual and moral values ​​of high school students, the education of a future family man, a responsible and conscious attitude to parenthood contributes to the solution of psychological and pedagogical problems. problems of the modern family.

For the full implementation of the role of a family man and, as a result, a prosperous existence of the family, for the formation of the spirituality of schoolchildren, a number of circumstances are necessary: ​​protection of the interests of the family as a whole and its individual subjects (parents, children, husband, wife); adequate representation and recognition of all its components in different spheres of spiritual culture; education of the future family man on the basis of spiritual and moral values; multidimensional interaction of the family, school and other public institutions responsible for the preservation and development of the individual and for the development of a complex of family values. All of the above confirms the importance of the interaction between the family and the school in the upbringing of spiritual and moral values ​​of high school students at the present stage,

celebrates relevance and timeliness

presented research.

Bibliographic list

1. Zritneva, E. I. Education of the future family man in modern Russia [Text]: dis. ... Dr. ped. sciences; 13. 00. 01 / E. I. Zritneva; North Caucasian State Technical University. - Stavropol, 2006. - 370 p.

2. Ilyin, I. A. The path of spiritual renewal [Text] / I. A. Ilyin. - M.: Russian book, 1993. - S. 199214.

3. Mudrik, A. V. Introduction to social pedagogy [Text]: textbook. allowance for students / A. V. Mudrik. - M.: Institute of Practical Psychology, 1997. - 365 p.

4. Obozov, N. N. Psychology of interpersonal relations [Text]: N. N. Obozov. - Kyiv; Lybit, 1990. - 191 p.

5. Pankova, L. M. Man and family: a philosophical analysis of the formation of a culture of marriage and family relations [Text]: dis. ... Dr. ped. Sciences: 09. 00. 13 / L. M. Pankova; Leningrad State Regional Institute. A. S. Pushkin. - St. Petersburg, 2006. - 385 p.

6. Rusetska, A. M. Formation of cultural values ​​in a child in a Polish family [Text]: author. dis. . Dr. ped. Sciences: 13. 00. 02 / A. M. Rusetska. -M., 2007. - 45 p.

7. Savinov, L. I. Family science [Text]: textbook. allowance / L. I. Savinov; Mordovia University. -Saransk: Publishing House of the Mordovian University, 2000. - 196 p.

Reflections on the family and family relations, issues of structure, functions, social and state role of the family, as one of the oldest forms of human community, have been devoted to many works since the time of Plato and Aristotle. The relevance of the topic at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries is due to the colossal changes that the Russian family is experiencing - a historical formation that has an impact on all spheres of public life. The family is the most important institution for the socialization of the individual, the historical transmission of cultural, ethnic, and moral values.

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………...3
1. Types of family structures most common in modern Russia……………………………………………………………………………...5
2. The main features of marriage in European culture…………………….10
3. The main tasks facing a family with a preschool child ...... .14
References…………………………………………………………………19

The work contains 1 file

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………...3

1. Types of family structures, the most common in modern Russia……………………………………………………………………………...5

2. The main features of marriage in European culture…………………… .10

3. The main tasks facing a family with a preschool child ...... .14

References…………………………………………………………………19

Introduction

Reflections on the family and family relations, issues of structure, functions, social and state role of the family, as one of the oldest forms of human community, have been devoted to many works since the time of Plato and Aristotle. The relevance of the topic at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries is due to the colossal changes that the Russian family is experiencing - a historical formation that has an impact on all spheres of public life. The family is the most important institution for the socialization of the individual, the historical transmission of cultural, ethnic, and moral values. “Family is the closest and dearest homeland for us; spatially - this is the place of the hottest ties; spiritually, it is a place of perfect idealism…”, i.e. grace, unselfishness - noted the Russian philosopher V.V. Rozanov, who considered the family issue the most important in public life. The nature of such a complex human and social phenomenon as the family is determined not only by intra-family relations, but also by socio-economic, historical, national and other conditions. The family develops and changes along with society, remaining its most stable and conservative element. At present, changes in socio-cultural conditions sharply exacerbate the contradictions between family and extra-family relations, which are often defined as a “value crisis of the family”. People begin to lose interest in ordinary activities, refuse careers, start families and have children, and make unbalanced attempts to start a business. In a difficult situation, at first, there is an increase in the level of tension, intensified searches for a solution to the problem in the usual way. In case of failure, a person or a family as a whole find themselves in the next phase of the crisis or are forced to move to a different level of development (find innovative means of overcoming the crisis), or fall into a pledge of depression, loss of hope, disorganization. Typical is the abuse of alcohol in depressive states, all sorts of reckless actions, diseases (somatic and mental).

Society is interested in a spiritually stable family capable of raising a biologically and morally healthy child. The physical, social, moral health of the younger generation is the health of the nation as a whole. It is in the family that the foundations of a citizen's personality, his value attitudes and orientations are formed, the content of which meets the needs of a socially just, legal and economically efficient society. The family, until recently, served as an organizing principle in the performance by the individual of the basic family functions proper, was the source of a person’s mastery of certain labor skills and abilities, which guaranteed successful adaptation in society.

Thus, the modern family and its problems are the object of study of a number of sciences - psychology, pedagogy, sociology, demography, economics. Specialists study the dynamics of emotional relationships in marriage, the causes of loneliness in the family and its breakdown, and the features of family education.

This paper will touch upon some aspects that affect the formation and development of the family, namely:

Types of family structures, the most common in modern Russia;

Comparison of the Russian and European families, features of marriage, cultural differences;

Features and tasks of a family with a preschool child.

1. Types of family structures, the most common in modern Russia

The connection of two people is always the interaction of the ways of their families. Features of the distribution of roles, organization of life, the correlation of rights and obligations of family members - all this makes up the family way of life.

Families of the traditional type are characterized by the orientation of spouses exclusively to family values ​​and, as a rule, to a two-child family. The leader in the family, at least formally, is the husband. However, leadership is largely determined by leadership in the household (finance, housing) sphere of its activity. The circle of friends of the spouses, as a rule, is general and rather limited. Temporary care for family affairs is possible. Leisure joint, closed.

The second type - the husband and wife are focused mainly on the development of the individual. Spouses have an attitude towards a small family. There is a social and role balance. The family can be both open and closed to the microenvironment. The type of leadership is democratic: joint or separate according to the spheres of family life.

The third type - spouses are focused mainly on entertainment. At the same time, the husband and wife have both common friends, and each of their own from among the former environment. Reproductive attitudes towards a childless or small family. Leadership in such a family can be both authoritarian and democratic.

A disharmonious family union prevents the realization of the individual qualities inherent in spouses. The family turns into a kind of theater where everyone is forced to fulfill a role imposed, alien, but prescribed by the family union.

It is customary to distinguish the following types of family disharmony:

Outwardly "calm family". Relations are ordered and coordinated, events in the family proceed smoothly (a view from the outside). With a closer acquaintance, it becomes clear that the husband and wife experience feelings of dissatisfaction, boredom, their life is accompanied by a feeling of wasted years. They talk little to each other, although obediently and stereotypically, they perform their marital duties with increased pedantry. In such families, a sense of responsibility prevails over the sincerity of relationships. Behind the appearance of well-being, long-term and strongly suppressed negative feelings for each other are hidden. Restraint of emotions is reflected in well-being. Spouses are prone to persistent mood disorders, often feel tired, powerless. Frequent bouts of sadness, depression. In a family where relationships are built on the basis of visible benevolence, the child feels useless. His life is filled with a feeling of constant anxiety, the child feels danger, but does not understand its source, lives in constant tension and is unable to ease it.

Volcanic family. Relationships are fluid and open. Spouses constantly sort things out, often disagree and converge, quarrel and reconcile. Spontaneity and emotional spontaneity prevails over a sense of responsibility. In volcanic families, whose emotional atmosphere pulsates between extreme poles, children experience significant emotional overload. Quarrels between parents acquire catastrophic proportions in the eyes of the child, this is a real tragedy for him, threatening the very foundations of stability.

children's world.

The family is a sanatorium. In such a family there is a kind of

"family protection", which is built around one family member, most often

adult. As a rule, one of the spouses requires increased love and care, while he receives some benefit, creates family limitations, a barrier to new experience. In relation to this spouse, the whole family goes to conscious self-restraint. In such unions, the circle of contacts is limited, contacts with friends are minimized, as a rule, under the pretext of differences in views and values. The family outwardly seems solidary, but in the depths of the relationship lies the disturbing dependence of one of the partners. This is a symbiotically dependent union. One of the family members limits his duties, forcing loved ones to surround him more and more with attention. If the family is a “sanatorium” for mother or father, children are deprived of the necessary care, they lack maternal acceptance and love. Also, children are early involved in doing homework, live for years in a situation of physical and nervous overload, become overly anxious, dependent, while maintaining a warm, loving and caring attitude towards their parents.

When brothers and sisters, one of the other relatives are surrounded by a "sanatorium" attitude, the child's intra-family position changes. The limitation of the family to intra-family relations leads to a constant fixation of attention on

health, emphasizing all kinds of dangers, intimidation. The need to keep the child in the family leads to the discrediting of extra-family values, to the depreciation of the communication of the child, his friends, and the preferred forms of spending free time. Guardianship, tight control and excessive protection from real and imaginary dangers -

characteristic features of the attitude towards children in sanatorium-type families. Such

parental attitudes lead to excessive overload of the nervous system

child, in which neurotic breakdowns occur. The child develops hypersensitivity. In adolescence, such children have increased protest reactions and a desire to leave the family early. Often they form a personality in which concern for the state of health acquires the character of an overvalued activity.

Family fortress. At the heart of such a family union are learned

ideas about the threat, aggressiveness and cruelty of the surrounding world, about

general evil and about people as carriers of evil. Spouses in such families have a pronounced sense of "We". They are, as it were, psychologically arming themselves against the whole world. "Circular defense" - an unconscious disguise of spiritual emptiness or violation of sexual

relations. Often in such families there is an unconditional dominance of one of the spouses and a dependent, passive position of the other. All family life is strictly regulated and subordinated to intra-family goals. The emotional atmosphere of the family is devoid of natural warmth and immediacy. The attitude towards children in such a family is also strictly regulated. The callousness of one of the despot parents is unsuccessfully compensated by the inconsistent overprotectiveness and petty solicitude of the other. No relation to the child

emotional openness, sincerity. Love for him is conditional. He is loved only when he meets the expectations and fulfills the requirements of the family. Such a family atmosphere and type of upbringing lead to a child's self-doubt, lack of initiative, sometimes cause protest reactions, provoke stubbornness, negativism. In many cases, the child's attention is fixed on his own experiences, which leads him to psychological isolation, causes isolation, difficulties in communicating with peers. Such children often suffer from neurotic disorders.

Family theater. Such families establish stability through a specific "theatrical way of life." Typically one of

spouses in such unions is in dire need of recognition,

constant attention, encouragement, admiration, he is acutely experiencing a lack of love. Sometimes family members play a performance in front of each other, sometimes the whole family is formed into one ensemble, maintaining the appearance of well-being. In dealing with children, prohibitions and encouragements are quickly declared and just as quickly forgotten. Outsiders are shown love and care for a child who feels that his parents are not up to him. Often contact with the child, attention to his life are replaced by toys, special equipment for classes. And education is entrusted to the kindergarten, tutor, school. Children are given a “fashionable” upbringing, they attend all kinds of circles, study languages, music. In the theatrical way of life, a special attitude towards the child often arises, associated with the desire to hide his shortcomings, stick out his virtues, imaginary achievements. All this leads to a weakening of the child's self-control, internal discipline. The lack of genuine closeness with parents forms the selfish orientation of the individual.

Family is third. This is a family where personal relationships

spouses are of particular importance to them, and parenthood is unconsciously

perceived as a hindrance to marital happiness. This happens when one or both spouses are not prepared to perform parental functions. The style of relations with the child according to the type of hidden rejection.

In contact with children, such parents inspire them with a sense of inferiority, endlessly fix their attention on shortcomings. There are frequent cases of rivalry between a still young mother and a growing daughter, an unconscious struggle for the love and affection of a father. Children in such families grow up insecure, lack of initiative, with inferiority complexes with increased dependence and subordination to their parents.

Such children often have fears for the life and health of their parents, they can hardly endure even a temporary separation from them, they hardly adapt in children's groups.

Family with an idol. In such families, raising a child is the only thing that holds the marital relationship together. Both parents with

with exaggerated attention to the child, transferring their

unrealized feelings. The actions of the child are perceived without due criticism, the slightest whims are immediately satisfied, real and imaginary virtues are exaggerated. The desire to protect the child from the difficulties of life leads to a restriction of his independence, which is facilitated by an unconscious tendency to slow down the process of growing up, since the decrease in guardianship threatens to destroy the family group. The child is brought up in an atmosphere of affection,

Tendency to fragmentation of large families.- The internal structure of the family in the second half of the XIX century.- The role of the head of the family.- Organization of economic life, division of labor between men and women.- Daily routine in the family.

Understanding the processes and fundamental shifts that took place during the years of Soviet power in the peasant family, in its internal structure and way of life, is impossible without a detailed acquaintance with the family structure of the Russian peasantry in the past. The village of Viryatino is of great interest in this regard, since the traditions of the family-patriarchal way of life were kept in it until the Great October Socialist Revolution and for a long time made themselves felt under Soviet rule. In particular, large patriarchal families remained in the village for a long time.

The reasons for such a long existence of an undivided family in Viryatina were rooted in the peculiarities of the economy of the village, located in the region of the middle black earth zone, where capitalism developed more slowly than, say, in the steppe provinces of southern Russia, and where the inhibitory influence of the remnants of serfdom affected all areas of life. Cherespolositsa forced the Viryatinsky peasants to maintain - even during the period of the greatest development of seasonal industries - routine forms of agriculture, which required a large number of laborers; therefore, the peasants saw in the undivided family the best way to keep all available labor power on the farm.

Undoubtedly, the need to combine agriculture, which was the basis of the economy of the peasant family in Viryatin, had an undoubted impact, with side earnings on the side. Families, large in composition, with a surplus male labor force (surplus - in relation to the available land plot), could use large scale seasonal industries in the interests of strengthening their economy. At the same time, as an ethnographic survey showed, large undivided families remained mainly among the prosperous part of the peasantry. There were hardly any economic grounds for the existence of a large undivided family among those 28 horseless peasants who in the 80s lived in tiny huts with an area of ​​\u200b\u200b12-17 m 2 and most of their allotment land, due to the lack of tax, rented processing or rent. These families also participated in the withdrawal to the mines, but for them it was, perhaps, the only way of existence in those conditions. And they gave the mines not the surplus, but the main labor force. Such families never reached large sizes.

At the same time, the development of seasonal crafts, which contributed to the involvement of the Viryatinsky peasants in the intensive process of commodity-money relations, had a great influence on the internal structure of the family, on the entire family structure. This explains the significant shifts in family life that occurred in the second half of the 19th century. especially since the late 1980s. They can be clearly traced when compared with the family structure of the peasantry in the previous period (60-70s), when many features of the pre-reform, i.e., serf life, were still preserved.

Our information about the peasant family on the eve of the abolition of serfdom is extremely scarce and does not give any clear idea of ​​its composition and size. Based on family traditions, local old-timers testify that families at that time were mostly large - about 25-30 people 1 . Often there were families in which four or five married brothers lived together. However, as far as one can judge from the surviving memories, even then there was a tendency to single out one or two older brothers 2 .

Some light on the size of a peasant family in the pre-reform period is shed by materials relating to the sale of peasant families by the first Viryatinsky landowner F. A. Davydov 3 . Most of the families sold by him consisted of 12-15 people (in 1808-1831). Since the run-down peasant families were usually sold, it can be assumed that the numerical composition of more prosperous families at that time was higher.

The large number of some families is evidenced by the memories of the presence in many yards of summer cold cages for couples (“shacks” under the branches) or, which was typical for wealthy families, about the construction of two on the estate; even three houses while maintaining a common economy. Noteworthy is the extremely slow up to the last quarter of the 19th century. village growth. The population was concentrated in Oreshnik, in the so-called Polyana (village center) and in the Upper Lane. Only since the 80s the village began to grow intensively in all directions.

In the first two decades after the peasant reform, apparently, there were no noticeable changes in the internal structure of the peasant family, despite the emerging changes in the economy of the peasantry.

Great changes in all areas of life and, in particular, in family relations, took place in Viryatin in 1880-1890, with the further development of capitalist relations. Partitions of families became more frequent. Partial separation, and in a number of cases complete family divisions, occurred at ever shorter intervals. Families were significantly reduced: according to the 1881 census, there were an average of 7 people per hut. This does not mean, of course, that large families disappeared, but, obviously, along with undivided families, a large number of small families existed at that time.

As Viryatinsky old people point out, middle-peasant households were still run by two or three married brothers living together.

In the 900s, in connection with the formation of a cadre proletariat in the mining industry and the growth of the labor movement in Russia, the spiritual image of the otkhodnik peasant changed. Communication between otkhodniks and regular workers affected their general cultural level. New needs appeared - to dress like a city, to arrange your life in production more cultured, which, unlike in previous years, required large expenses for yourself. The growth of needs undoubtedly expressed a certain increase in the consciousness of the individual, which manifested itself most clearly among representatives of the younger generation. And this could not but affect the weakening of the patriarchal foundations. In the 900s, internal relations in undivided families became aggravated, and a tendency towards the isolation of young married couples manifested itself with greater force. Hence, the otkhodnik concealed part of his earnings for his personal needs and for the needs of his family, which, according to the testimony of old-timers, was one of the main causes of family conflicts and divisions. But in general, family life changed slowly and retained traditional patriarchal forms. This manifested the inertia and limited outlook of the communal peasant, which forced otkhodniks, some of whom had the opportunity to fully provide for their families with mining earnings, still hold on to a piece of land and invest in agriculture the funds obtained by working in the mines. Characteristic is the sharply negative attitude of the middle peasants towards those otkhodniks who broke away from the countryside and moved to workers' settlements. The desire to maintain a connection with the land was partly due to the lack of earnings on the side.

Straining all his strength to support and save his farm from ruin, the peasant clung to the old family foundations. Internal relationships, rights and obligations of family members were strictly regulated. The head of the family was considered a representative of the older generation in the family - a grandfather or, after his death, a grandmother; in the latter case, direct management of the household passed to the eldest son. In the event of the death or old age of both old men, the eldest of the sons became the head of the family. The head of the family was the guardian of the entire domestic family structure. The functions of the head of the family included the management of field work and the distribution of responsibilities among family members, mainly male members. In particular, he established the order between the sons (and grandsons) of going to the mines. He was in charge of all the property and money of the family. All earnings of family members from waste and various crafts went to the general cash desk of the family and were spent on the needs of the common economy. Only incomes from “women’s” earnings received from the sale of moss, berries, mushrooms collected by women, for bleaching canvases, as well as money from the sale of eggs, etc., as well as money from the sale of eggs, etc., did not go to the family’s cash desk. they won’t buy kerosene and won’t give them away for boots” 4 .

Characteristic of the past was a stable gender and age division of labor in the family, undoubtedly associated with the patriarchal way of life.

Household affairs were managed by the mistress, usually the wife of the head of the family or, in the event of her death, the eldest of the daughters-in-law. Women were responsible for all the housework: cooking, cleaning, washing, caring for children, caring for livestock, fetching water 5 . Men also took part in caring for livestock: they cleaned the stables (dung removal, bedding), looked after the horses; women took care of “hut” cattle (for which food came from the hut): cows, calves, pigs, sheep and poultry. It is no coincidence that the sale of chicken eggs was one of the sources of women's income.

In the autumn-winter period, women spent all their free time from household chores spinning and weaving for the needs of the family. This work was preceded by hard work in the processing of hemp. Girls were also involved in spinning and weaving; they taught to spin from the age of nine or ten, to weave - from fifteen, sixteen. Women over 40 years old almost stopped weaving, since this work in large numbers was considered beyond their strength.

Women sewed clothes (with the exception of winter outerwear, which they gave to tailors) and knitted stockings, scarves, and mittens from wool. The weaving of bast shoes was a man's business; boys were also engaged in it from an early age.

Field work was clearly distinguished between men and women: as noted above, the duties of men included plowing, sowing, mowing, stacking, stacking, transportation; women in the hayfield ted and raked the hay, weeded the crops, then, when harvesting, they knitted sheaves and laid them in sacrums and shocks, and helped to thresh with flails. In the gardens, all the work, except for plowing, was done by women and partly by children. Especially men's work was the transportation of fuel and hay for cattle (hay was kept in stacks in the meadow).

When distributing responsibilities between married women in an undivided family, the need to combine household work as a whole with meeting the needs of personal families (children, husband) was taken into account.

A strict order was established between daughters-in-law and mother-in-law in the performance of basic household chores. Each of the women had her own day, in which she, as a cook, did all the housework. Teenage girls and girls were involved in helping, and, due to the somewhat isolated position of the daughter-in-law (daughter-in-law) in the family, only her own children helped her on the next day. In the same way, the mother-in-law, in all work, both at home and outside, always united with her daughters.

The main household chores fell on married women, but girls also had to work hard, especially spinning. They were not allowed only to the stove, as a result of which they did not acquire skills in cooking. Therefore, the young daughter-in-law in the first year of her marriage only helped her mother-in-law at the stove, and only in the second year she was given, along with other daughters-in-law, another day when she cooked food for the whole family on her own. Separately, the order (once a week) of baking, bread, the so-called "pokhlebno" was established, and in the furnace of the bath, if there was one, the so-called "pobanno". On days free from family affairs, they spun, weaved, sewed, mended, knitted, etc.

Some work was carried out collectively, for example, washing floors, washing clothes. The linen was rough, “own” (from homespun), it was not washed with soap, but “whipped” (just as canvases were whacked during bleaching), which required a significant expenditure of effort; so the women in the family usually did it together. In the event that the daughters-in-law each washed for their own family, the one who had fewer children also washed their parents for the elderly.

In the hut, everyone had their usual place to work. Girls and women spun, sitting on benches near the windows, and when it got dark, they sat in a circle near the fire. In the hut, the old women used to recall, during the processing of hemp, the dust stood in a column 6 . During Lent, when women started to weave, one was installed in the hut, and if the family was large, three or four weaving mills.

The family adhered to a certain daily routine. Get up early, go to bed late. In families where they were engaged in carting, they got up at 2-3 in the morning. Everyone got up at the same time, and it could not have been otherwise given the tightness and crowding in the hut.

While the cook was lighting the stove, the rest of the women were dismantling the beds, taking the benches into the vestibule and laying bedding on them, sweeping the hut, and washing the table. The Viryatians ate three times a day. We all had breakfast together, and then everyone set to work (if they had to leave early, they took food with them). They dined at 12 o'clock, dined already by the fire, usually with what was left of dinner. Food specially for dinner was cooked very rarely. They sat at the table in a certain order: in the front corner - the head of the family, next to him was the eldest of the sons; the men sat on one side of the table, on the benches, the women on the other, on the side benches. In the last quarter of the XIX century. this tradition was broken - mostly married couples began to sit down. A cook sat down on the edge of the table and served. Children, if there were many, were fed separately. They all ate from a common bowl. At the table, order and decorum were observed, but, apparently, already without the strictness and tension that reigned at the common meal of the family during serfdom 7.

The largest place in the diet of a peasant family was occupied by rye bread 8 . They baked it for the most part once a week in a Russian hearth oven. Sometimes bread was baked on cabbage leaves. Pancakes and pancakes were made from rye and buckwheat flour. Kvass was made from rye malt.

Until the 1980s, wheat flour was a rarity in Viryatinsky families, since it had to be bought on the market. Later, it became a common product in wealthy families, but the poor still appeared only on major holidays.

The main and almost daily hot dish in all families was cabbage soup. Depending on the wealth of the family, cabbage soup was made meat or “empty” (without meat) and “painted over” with milk, sour cream, flavored with bacon.

In the 900s, probably under the influence of otkhodnik miners, cabbage soup began to be called "borscht", although the composition of this dish did not change and it was still cooked without beets. Soups made from millet were very common: “slivukha” and, later, kulesh. Slivukha was cooked from millet with potatoes, kulesh - from millet with lard. Slivukha was first boiled a little, then the liquid was drained, which was eaten like soup, seasoned with something (butter, lard, etc.); boiled millet with potatoes, when the porridge thickened, was eaten with milk or hemp oil. Millet porridge in the form of slivukha, kulesh or milk porridge has been used since the 80-90s of the 19th century. as often as cabbage soup, that is, almost daily. Buckwheat was cooked from other cereals, but much less frequently, since buckwheat was more expensive and was not grown by everyone.

Kvass played a big role in nutrition, and not only as a drink. In winter, kvass with sauerkraut and horseradish was prepared as the first dish, and it was eaten with boiled peas, especially during fasting. In the summer, tyuryu was made from bread crumbled into kvass and chopped green onions. It was the food of the poor. Richer people cooked okroshka, adding cucumbers, onions and eggs to kvass. On holidays and at weddings, kvass was served with jelly or with meat and horseradish.

By the end of the 80s, potatoes began to gradually replace porridge. It was more cooked "in uniform" (i.e., unpeeled) and served with pickles or sauerkraut; sometimes eaten crushed. “The potatoes are mashed and oil (hemp) is poured over. They didn't understand frying. A family of 10-15 people - you won’t get hot, ”the old-timers say.

Salamata and viburnum were common dishes. Having made the dough from rye flour and ground it in a liquid millet kulesh, the salamata was "malted" in the oven. This dish made it possible to save bread; it was eaten with and without milk. The inhabitants of the village, said 88-year-old E. S. Fomina, were called “Viryatinsky Salamats”. However, the prosperous Viryati people ate salamata very rarely: “They ate salamata,” says M.I. Zhdanova, “when the porridge got bored. Fasting will get so tired of everything that they even reached the viburnum. Kalina differed from salamata in that viburnum berries were added to the dough, harvested after frost, when it loses its bitter taste. Kalina was the food of the poorest part of the peasantry. In the families of wealthy peasants, eating it was considered shameful. “It was dishonorable to eat Kalina because we climb into the rich, but the horns are not allowed” 9 .

Being almost the same in the way of preparation, the food of different social strata of the peasantry was different in nutritional value and variety of products included in it. In a strong, prosperous family, for example, consisting of 25 people and having several horses, cows, pigs, more than two dozen sheep, etc., they consumed a lot of milk, they ate meat twice a day (with the exception of fasting) . In the families of the poor, “they ate more unpeeled potatoes, kvass, slivukha, steamed viburnum, cooked porridge on a stump (on a hearth) for dinner,” says one of the old-timers. “Not everyone had enough bread, they didn’t always eat porridge,” adds another.

Ordinary dishes were not particularly difficult to prepare, and therefore the preliminary trial that the daughter-in-law underwent before taking a place at the stove was probably explained not so much by the fear that she would not be able to cook the food, but by the desire of the mother-in-law to keep the management of the family's food in her hands. In order to attach a higher importance to this duty, the old women extremely meticulously checked the compliance of the daughters-in-law with all the traditional methods of baking and cooking. Any innovation was met with hostility and rejected. Viryatinsky cooking, despite the fact that, starting from the 900s, many purchased food products appeared in the village, with the help of which it was possible to improve everyday nutrition, remained unchanged and primitive. This is how she survived until the socialist revolution.

2. Domestic relationships in the family

The meaning of the head of the family. - The position of daughters-in-law in an undivided family. - The order of family divisions. - Family ties and mutual assistance in the village

The family-patriarchal system determined the nature of everyday relationships in the family, created its general moral atmosphere. The order developed over the centuries was based on the unconditional authority of the elder in the family.

Any manifestation of one's own will, which went against the usual traditions, was immediately suppressed. “At home they were afraid of the old people, therefore they did not introduce innovations, they were also afraid of condemning their neighbors,” said I. M. Starodubovo. “In the mines,” he said further, “they ate better than at home, in the family. Here (in the village) they ate potatoes in their uniforms, although there was fat, but they did not fry on it. "New manners" (i.e., habits learned in the mines) were not introduced. For “rude manners” (i.e., for disrespect for elders) they were reproached by the old people: “So you came there and start your own rules” 10 .

Household relationships in families largely depended on the everyday tact of the head of the family, on the nature of the daughters-in-law, on the relationship of young spouses with each other, etc. They lived relatively amicably if the head of the family treated the daughters-in-law equally; but as soon as he singled out one of them, enmity immediately began between them. Quite often, spouses also lived in disagreement, since marriages were most often concluded at the insistence of parents, who had little regard for the desires of young people. It happened that the husband severely beat his wife.

The main source of misunderstandings and quarrels was the earnings of men on the side: family members who went to work in the mines got the opportunity to contribute something to their family, while those who remained at home could not do this. This constantly caused discontent of the old parents and led to misunderstandings between the daughters-in-law. It should be noted, however, that the quarrels of the young were carefully hidden from the old. “We, the daughters-in-law, are silent in front of the old people, but there were quarrels among ourselves,” S. N. Nevorov recalls his life in an undivided, large family of S. N. Nevorov 11 . The old men were not so much respected as feared, since in the event of a separation, they could not give anything. But the nature of family relationships still changed; in the 900s, it became much simpler, freer, without those manifestations of downtroddenness and timidity of the younger generation, which were so characteristic of a peasant family in serf times.

To characterize intra-family relationships, family sections are of great interest, when the traditions of customary law were very strong. Decrees of 1906 and 1913. all cases on family divisions were transferred to the volost courts, which, however, according to the testimony of local old-timers, in contentious cases usually appealed to rural gatherings. In its resolutions, the village assembly proceeded from the reasons for the division and from the assessment of the property of those who were dividing. It should be noted that, despite the abolition in 1886 of the mandatory consent of the eldest family member to the division of property, rural gatherings, in the event of intra-family conflicts, first of all reckoned with the statements and claims of the eldest family member. There were also frequent direct cases of bribery of a part of the gathering 12 .

Preparation for the section was made well in advance. “They didn’t go out on a bare bump,” in the words of G.P. Dyakov. By the joint efforts of the family, new houses were built in advance, which were empty, as a rule, before the division. Usually the family divided when it already had sufficient resources (residential and outbuildings, livestock). During the division, all family property was evaluated and divided according to the number of families into equal shares. If the division took place between brothers after the death of their father, then the shares were usually distributed by lot, which were drawn from each family by children in the presence of "authorized" - one or two neighbors. If the division took place during the life of the father, then the old man himself distributed which of the sons got what and with whom he remained to live.

The situation in the family of daughters-in-law deserves special attention. Their dependence and irresponsibility in the family are aptly characterized by the proverb that used to exist in Viryatyn: "Work - what they will force, eat - what they will put." This situation was aggravated by dependence in the family of married men.

In property terms, the position of the daughter-in-law in the family was somewhat isolated. As elsewhere in Russia, there was a separate women's property in Viryatina. First of all, it was the dowry of the bride, which not only provided her with the necessary clothes, but also constituted one of the sources of her income (income from the sale of wool from the sheep given as dowry, from the sale of the offspring went to her personal needs). The daughter-in-law's personal property also included the property and funds she inherited 13 . At her own expense, the daughter-in-law had to satisfy all her needs and the needs of her children, since, according to the existing tradition, not a penny was spent on the daughter-in-law from the general family funds administered by the head of the family, except for feeding and supplying her with outerwear and shoes. fourteen . She was allocated only a share from the total family stock of wool and hemp. Everything else: wearable clothes, and not only her, but also children, bedding and even such a trifle as soap, she had to purchase herself. In most families, the daughter's dowry, for the most part, was also made for "women's earnings." Of the family funds, only the wedding itself managed. Such an order was natural as long as the peasant economy retained its natural character. With the development of commodity-money relations and with the emergence of new needs, this tradition placed a heavy burden on the shoulders of women, forcing her to seek various third-party earnings. Viryatinsky women could no longer be satisfied with earnings from such small and, apparently, traditional crafts for the village, such as collecting moss in the swamp and selling it to the surrounding villages for caulking log cabins, picking and selling berries, etc. : some families kept it in very wide sizes. This trade was extremely difficult and harmful, among Viryatinsky women there were many patients with rheumatism and tuberculosis.

Noteworthy is the right of inheritance of the widowed daughter-in-law and her position in the family after the death of her husband. In those cases when the widow stayed with the children, the share of the deceased husband passed to his family and the widow continued to usually live in her husband's family. With a general family division, she was singled out on an equal footing with the brothers of her late husband. If the widow had no children by the time of the partition, then her position in the family became extremely difficult. She had to either remarry or return to her parental home. When leaving, she could take her personal belongings and the clothes of her late husband. At best, if the father-in-law treated her well, then when she remarried, he gave her a sheep as a dowry.

Appeals of women in the event of conflicts to the zemstvo chief almost always ended in failure; as a rule, such cases were referred to the village assembly, which invariably decided them in favor of the father-in-law. A typical case is told by E. A. Dyakov. His elder sister lived in her husband's house for twelve years; after the death of her husband, while the boy was alive, she continued to live in the family. When the boy died, her father-in-law kicked her out of the house. She turned to the headman, he said that she was not entitled to a share. I turned to the zemstvo chief, who referred the case to the society for consideration. At the gathering they told her: “Look for a groom for yourself, but you are not entitled to anything, you have no one” 15.

If a widow had no sons, but only unmarried daughters, she was entitled to a share; however, everything depended on the attitude of her father-in-law towards her, and cases of arbitrariness were very frequent 16 . N. D. Dyakova (75 years old) says that she stayed with the girl. Her father-in-law began to persecute her immediately upon receiving the news of the death of her son, who died in the Russo-Japanese War. She turned to the volost foreman, who advised her to leave for an apartment and sue her father-in-law. However, the volost court referred the case to the society for consideration, and that, as it used to be from time immemorial, refused. Only during the second hearing in the volost court was she given a piece of land for one soul, a horse and a sennitsa 17 .

The widows of the family, for the most part horseless and cowless, forced to work as laborers all their lives, were the poorest in the village.

All these features of the family system and patriarchal mores manifested themselves with the greatest force and were more preserved in families that were economically strong. In kulak families, where all life was subordinated to one goal - the increase in family wealth, family mores were sometimes extremely cruel. So, in the family of kulak Kabanov, women were forced to work even on holidays. “We are blind in spinning and weaving,” 18 says Kabanov's wife. In families that were economically weak and in constant need, the traditional order was weakened more quickly. In particular, women's life was less closed in these families; girls and young married women in the intervals between jobs on their farms were hired as day labor to local kulaks or to the landowner for weeding and other work. Women who worked for hire developed greater independence, which also affected their position in the family.

In the 900s, in many families, young married women enjoyed relative freedom. In the absence of their husbands, who lived in the mines in winter, they were not forbidden to go to the "street" (to folk festivals), to participate in festive celebrations. There is evidence that not only the mother-in-law, but also the daughters-in-law went to the bazaar for shopping during these years. Here, at the bazaar, they took orders for the bleaching of canvases, that is, they carried out, to some extent, independent economic operations.

Unfortunately, we do not have any clear information about the breadth of kinship, family ties in Viryatin and the nature of their manifestation. Local old-timers only claim that these ties used to be much wider and stronger. So, for example, even second cousins ​​were invited to the wedding. Much, however, depended on the number of relatives: the narrower their circle was, the stronger the family ties were. But reckoning with cousin kinship, as a rule, was mandatory.

Mutual assistance, mainly labor, was widely practiced among relatives, mainly close ones, especially in exceptional cases. So, after the fire, they helped rebuild the hut; cattle fell - they came to the rescue with their working cattle; there was not enough bread until the new harvest - they loaned bread, etc. However, in cases where long-term and systematic assistance was required, purely business transactions were concluded with a relative, as well as with an outsider.

The closest neighbors took part in labor assistance, but in general, neighborly ties were weakly expressed in Viryatyn; in particular, the neighbors did not take any part in family festivities. Even the funeral, as a rule, was attended only by relatives.

3. Family ritual

Marriage and wedding rituals. - The role of the folk calendar in family life. - Childbirth and maternity rites. - Baptisms. - Baby care.

The nature of marital relations was largely determined by the internal structure of the patriarchal peasant family.

Marriages, as usual in the Russian countryside, were concluded at the age of 17-18 for women and 18-19 for men. Marrying a girl to an older man was considered a disgrace. A large age difference was allowed only with the second marriage of a widowed woman, who usually married a widower with children ("for children", as they used to say). The bride was taken, as a rule, from her village or from the nearest district.

The current older generation, who married and got married in the 80-90s of the 19th century, claims that marriages were usually concluded at the choice of parents: then the feelings of young people were hardly considered. On this basis, many life tragedies played out. So, one of the elderly collective farmers says that she had a fiancé, whom she loved very much. She went with him to the “street”, and he “approached the porch” (the local custom of courting a girl). The young people agreed that as soon as he returned from the mine, he would send matchmakers for her. In his absence, however, another suitor wooed, who was very pleased with his father as a good worker, and the father decided to give his daughter for him. “I screamed, I didn’t want to get married. My fiancé sent me letters from the mine, but I was illiterate, I could not answer him. She cried for him - the river flowed, but still the father insisted on his 20. There are many similar examples, they are typical for that time. As the old people recall, there were also such cases when young people first got to know each other under the crown 21.

When concluding marriages, first of all, the state of the economy was taken into account, as well as the personal qualities of the bride and groom as workers. Often, the bride and groom were judged by their parents: "The apple does not fall far from the tree." In the 900s, marriages began to be more often concluded according to the mutual inclination of young people, and this, perhaps, was affected by a new appearance in the appearance of male youth, who managed to achieve some independence. Extremely characteristic in this respect is the testimony of G. II. Dyakova, a former seasonal miner: “I got married - I didn’t ask my father. He married himself (1908), came from the mines, said to his father: “Well, go, drink it as usual.” The father was delighted. Before that, a year ahead, my father wanted to marry me, but I set myself up on my own. Our brothers and sisters came together by their own accord, not under the yoke of their father.”22 The same is confirmed by the testimonies of other peasants.

It is characteristic that in those same years family morals were much stricter in the kulak milieu. Families lived more closed. Girls were reluctantly allowed on the “street” on holidays, as they were afraid of the emergence of unfavorable relations between young people for the family. Hence the characteristic phenomenon - the twinning of kulak families. Local kulaks - Kabanovs, Sleptsovs, Zhdanovs, Makarovs, Starodubovs - were in close family kinship, which undoubtedly strengthened the social and economic positions of the kulak elite of the village.

The wedding ceremony in Viryatin in the last quarter of the 19th century, as can be judged from the recollections of the old people, still retained many of the characteristic features of the traditional South Great Russian ceremony, but had already changed and collapsed significantly; the meaning of individual moments was forgotten, many parts fell out.

Thinking about marrying their son and choosing a bride for him, the parents usually sent one of their closest relatives (most often the eldest son with his wife or a daughter with a son-in-law) to the bride's parents to find out if they agree to give their daughter. In case of consent, the bride’s parents said: “Let them come to woo, agree what the bride needs to buy for the settlement” (that is, when the bride is sitting during the wedding).

A few days later, the so-called "small binge" was arranged in the bride's house. The groom's parents came with one of their closest relatives, brought wine (vodka) and snacks. From the side of the bride, only her closest relatives were also present: the bride herself did not go out to the guests. They agreed on the amount of money that the groom gives (part of it was spent by the bride on the groom’s clothes), and on the number of outfits he made for the bride: a sundress, a shirt, boots, a silk scarf “for the posad” and, as a rule, a fur coat were relied on.

It should be noted that the amount of the bride's dowry was not specifically stipulated, which was so characteristic, for example, of the Northern Great Russian wedding ceremony 23 . They also agreed on the number of guests from both sides and on the day of the wedding itself. While drinking, they sang songs and danced. In the old days, as the old people say, the festivities sometimes lasted for several days.

The pre-wedding period was rarely long. Immediately after the “small binge”, the parents of the bride and groom went to the market in So-snovka and there they jointly made the purchases necessary for the wedding (mainly material was bought for “planting” clothes). Then the groom's relatives treated the bride's relatives who took part in the purchases in the Sosnovka tavern.

In the house of the bride, then until the wedding, bridesmaids gathered almost daily, helping to prepare the dowry. Back in the 900s, the custom of the so-called “cutting” was kept in Viryatin, in which the groom treated the women who had gathered at the bride’s for cutting and sewing wedding dresses.

However, in these years, according to the apt expression of E. A. Dyakov, this custom was already “only glory” (that is, it was preserved as a relic), since the dowry was sewn not only by wealthy peasants, but even in ordinary middle peasant families by seamstresses.

After the wooing, the groom, as a rule, did not see the bride until the “big binge”. The "big binge" took place in the house a couple of weeks before the wedding. The relatives of the bride and groom were invited to it (if there were many relatives, they were limited to cousins). By this day, wine was bought in buckets, a plentiful treat was prepared, usually a table for three or four, depending on the number of guests, which was often ruinous for low-income families. The bride's parents, her godparents and older relatives were seated at the front table. The bride and groom were seated at the second table, the closest girlfriends and comrades immediately sat down. Other relatives and children were seated at the third and fourth tables.

"Dinner" began with a prayer "with the persuasion that everything would be fine and the young people would get along with each other." The groom's relatives treated the bride: the groom's father served vodka at the front table, the groom's mother served refreshments at the same table. Then the bride's relatives treated the groom. The party with singing and dancing continued throughout the day.

On the eve of the wedding, two or three closest girlfriends gathered in the bride's house and stayed overnight with her. They helped to pack the chest. On the same evening, the so-called “wonderful shirt” was usually sewn (small shirt, pants, belt and stockings, exactly reproducing men's clothes), which appeared during the sale of the bride’s “bed”. Then the broom was removed with paper ribbons. The meaning of this rite is now completely forgotten 24 . During the transportation of the bed, this broom, according to some old people, was attached to the horse's bow; according to the story of others, one of the groom's relatives (“druzhko”), tied with a towel over his shoulder, sat down with a broom in his hands on the young chest and waved the broom all the way.

On the same evening, the bridesmaid braided the bride's braid, weaving a ribbon into it, which the bride gave to her closest friend on the wedding day. The current older generation does not remember that any reckoning was performed at the same time. Apparently, only faint traces remained of the bachelorette party in Viryatyn in the 80s and 90s. However, the very term "devishnik" is known to old people.

The groom also had a party that evening: young people came to him - relatives and bridesmaids. The bridegroom treated them; walked with an accordion, with songs and dances. Actually, the wedding lasted in Viryatin for at least three days, and in the old days, up to five or six days.

On the day of the wedding, early in the morning, the bride went with her friend to the bathhouse. If she was an orphan, then after the bath she went to the graveyard and there (according to the old women) she “shouted to her mother,” that is, she lamented at her mother’s grave.

Down the aisle, the bride cleaned herself, the bridesmaid only untwisted her braid, the bride gave her a ribbon, both burst into tears at the same time. According to the recollections of the old women and according to the legends that they heard from their grandmothers and thus related to approximately the 40-50s of the 19th century, the bride howled and lamented while unplaiting the braid, and sometimes specialists in accounting were also invited 25. After the bride was removed, her parents and godfather and mother blessed her with an icon and seated her and her friend at the table.

In the groom's house at that time, preparations were underway for his departure for the bride. The groom dressed himself. His father gave him a two-kopeck piece, and he “forgot it” (put it in his boot) for a living. Before leaving, the parents blessed the groom with the icon of the Savior. The groom would leave the house, accompanied by his boyfriend and matchmaker, who would now assume the main role in the wedding ceremony and in the procession of trainees 26 . The first person they met was given two glasses of vodka.

Upon the groom's arrival at the bride's house, a scene (already understood as a joke) was played out of buying a place near the bride. The younger brother redeemed, the younger brother sold the bride. Druzhko, with a whip in hand, stood at the table, poured wine into a glass and put in money (twenty kopecks). The boy, having bargained with his friend, drank wine, grabbed money and jumped out from behind the table, while trying to hit him with his whip. After that, the groom took a place next to the bride. Before the wedding, the bride and groom were not supposed to eat. He took them out from the table to go to church, either - the priest, if he was invited to the house, or as a friend. The bride and groom had handkerchiefs tied on the middle fingers of their right hands; the priest, through the surplice, took up these handkerchiefs and led the bride and groom from the table. The same (if there was no priest) was done by friends.

They usually got married, as was customary from time immemorial, on Mikhailov's Day (November 8 was a patronal feast in Viryatin) and on Krasnaya Gorka (the first Sunday after Easter) 27 . These days, up to two or three dozen married couples were recruited in the church; crowned in the first place those who paid for the crowns; poor couples often sat in church waiting for their turn until late in the evening.

After the wedding, right there in the church, the matchmaker, on the one hand, and the girlfriend, on the other, braided the bride's hair in two braids and put on a kichka; there was a sign - if one braid turned out to be shorter than the other, then the young one would soon be widowed. Since the late 90s of the XIX century. hair began to be braided into a forelock and put on a silk cap with lace (skolka). When leaving the church, a scarf was pulled over the bride's head (that is, pulled low over her forehead).

The wedding train was heading to the bride's house, where the newlyweds were met at the gate by their parents with bread and salt. At the entrance to the hut, the young people were put at the front table and congratulated "on a legal marriage", and then they were seated at the second table "for a treat." Friends, the matchmaker and the groom's relatives sat down at the front table (the parents of the young man were not present). Treats were arranged on three or four tables; festive dishes traditional for Viryatin were served: cabbage soup, dry meat, fish, jelly, pancakes, pancakes, etc. and, of course, vodka. There was no special ceremonial food at the Viryatinsky wedding. Songs were sung at the table, drunken and dispersing guests started dancing.

When leaving for the house of the young bride, the side sold the bed to the boyfriend and the matchmaker, while the bridesmaids pulled out the “wonderful shirt”. For every inaccuracy in the manufacture of these things, the friend and the matchmaker reduced the price for the "bed". The money received from the "sale" of the bed, the girlfriends took for themselves, they usually then "gilded" the young. Druzhko and the matchmaker took away the young bed and took it to the young man's house. Behind them, the wedding train moved with songs and dances, in front of them, usually one of the groom's relatives carried a chicken. She was given to the bride as a dowry "for life."

Upon arrival at the young man's house, they were met at the gate by their parents with bread and salt. As in the bride's house, the newlyweds were placed at the front table and congratulated. Then he took the young people to the second table for the so-called "constant conversation". Until the middle of the 1980s, the old custom of taking young people away under the “torpishche” (a cavity made of scraped grass for filling grain when transported on a cart) was kept in Viryatitsa, that is, they were planted separately behind a curtain 28 . From here, by the end of the wedding feast, they were taken out for “gilding”. This custom was as follows. The old people from the first table moved to the table of the young, the young stood at the edge of the table. The groom's parents were the first to "gold"; the young one gave a glass of vodka to his father, the young one to his mother-in-law; they drank, and the young bowed their heads low before them; parents put money in a glass. Then the godfather and mother approached, followed by the young parents, her godparents, and so, couple after couple, all the guests approached. All this was accompanied by jokes: “Wine is not good”, “Bitter”, etc. The gilding lasted at least two hours. After gilding, they sat down to dinner, after which the friend and the matchmaker took the young people to bed - a custom that was outdated in Viryatino already in the first decade of the 20th century. There, the young woman took off her husband's shoes and took the allotted money out of his boot.

The next morning, the friend and the matchmaker raised the young. Pancakes were baked in the house that day, which were treated to the young. The guests were back again. Young people and travelers went to invite the bride's parents, in whose house a revelry was again arranged. Then they went to the house of the young, where by the evening the young were again “gilded”.

The third day of the wedding was celebrated in the same way. On this day in the evening, the young one was “opened”. Until the mid-80s, the bride sat behind a curtain for all three days, she was taken out to the guests with a "posad" silk scarf thrown over her head. Later, the young woman in the house no longer wore a scarf, so before opening a scarf, they threw a scarf over her. The young bowed their heads; at this time the pots were broken; the mother-in-law took off the young handkerchief, put it on herself and started dancing to the sounds of the harmonica playing at that moment. After opening, the young woman could already dance and have fun with the guests. According to the recollections of the old people, on the same day, a test of the skill and dexterity of the young, which had already taken on a comic character, was played out: they brought a crusher and forced the young to crush hemp; at the same time, she beat the guests on the heads with mochenkas; they gave her a broom, which, as mentioned, was made for the wedding day, and forced revenge by throwing money at her feet, etc.

Elements of magic were preserved in the rite of the Viryatinsky wedding very little. These included throwing a large scarf over the bride's head, offering to the first comer, when the groom left the house, two glasses of vodka; meeting young parents with bread and salt, putting money into the groom's boot. To this day, there is one of the very ancient customs in Viryatyn - the offering of a chicken: when the young people move to the husband's house, they carry a chicken in front of the wedding train, with which they dance, throwing it from one to another.

Special wedding songs associated with individual moments of the rite were almost completely forgotten in Viryatin already in the 80-90s of the XIX century. At the wedding, ordinary songs and ditties were sung. Apparently, the oaths also disappeared very early. To some extent, this is explained by the general weak song tradition of Viryatin (in other places, the South Great Russian rite is richly saturated with wedding poetry). The replacement of wedding songs with common ones always took place along with the destruction of the rite.

When comparing weddings played in different years 29, a number of changes can be traced in the wedding ceremony. The rite was shortened and simplified. The celebrations were shortened. So, if in the 80s the actual wedding was celebrated from four to six days, then in the 900s, as a rule, no more than three. The preparatory period, which in the old days was long, was also significantly reduced: in the 80s, for example, they walked for several days at courtship.

In a number of cases, they began to omit certain moments of the traditional rite: instead of small and large binges, they limited themselves to one small one; some had a big drinking bout along with the wedding to cut costs. The initiative in this regard was shown by young people, first of all, those who visited the mines. G. P. Dyakov, reporting the details of his wedding (1908), says: “We had a little drunkard. I didn’t allow a big drinking bout, I didn’t need it. Those who were richer, wanted to go for a walk, arranged a big drinking bout, but I considered it superfluous” 30 . This evidence is extremely characteristic: it was after the revolution of 1905-1907. customs began to be eliminated that ran counter to the new concepts and ideas of the newlyweds; for example, the custom of laying down and waking up the young by a friend and matchmaker, which was widespread as far back as the early 900s, was completely outdated 31 .

The roles of the characters in the wedding ceremony have also changed; in particular, the role of the groom became much more active. Until the beginning of the 900s, it was unthinkable that the groom himself would go to woo with his parents; later it became almost commonplace. From this point of view, the story of the marriage of Yegor Alekseevich Dyakov is extremely characteristic. Returning from the mine in the spring of 1911, E. A. could not find a suitable bride in his village, since the best girls got married in the autumn wedding season. One of his relatives recommended to him a girl from the neighboring village of Gryaznoye. Accompanied by his older sister, Yegor Alekseevich himself went to meet the bride. He liked her very much both by her appearance and by her “conversation” (that is, by her development). E. A. Dyakov took an active part in the entire subsequent wedding ritual: he went with his parents to a “small binge”, where he sat next to the bride, talking animatedly with her about the upcoming wedding, and then visited the bride more than once. All this is already new, which to a large extent went against the usual, generally accepted and indicates the overcoming by the Viryatinsky youth of a number of not only ritual, but also deeper everyday traditions, reveals some independence of young people in matters of marriage.

It should be noted, however, that the traditional attitude to marriage as an economic act remained the same and continued to influence the choice of the bride.

The family peasant way of life was greatly influenced by religious ideology, which supported patriarchal foundations. The alternation of work, the nature of pastime at leisure, forms of nutrition were determined by the dates of the church calendar, combined, as elsewhere in the Russian peasant environment, with elements of ancient agrarian rituals. The folk calendar, which was of great importance in the life of the peasants, is also discussed in the next chapter. Here we will focus only on the nature of the holidays in the family.

Three days before the holiday (especially the “annual” 32) a big cleaning began: they washed the ceilings, walls, floors, whitewashed the stoves; on the eve of the holiday, all family members must wash in the bath; festive food was prepared, some of the products for which were previously purchased at the bazaar. Viryatin is characterized by the absence of special ritual food; the exception was baking pancakes for Shrovetide and on the days of commemoration of the dead, baking "forty" (March 9, on the day of the 40 martyrs), cooking Easter cake with cottage cheese baked in it, dyeing eggs for Easter and Trinity. On any church and family holiday, the same dishes were prepared: cabbage soup with meat, the so-called dry, that is, boiled meat (beef, lamb, less often chicken), fish, jelly, pancakes, pancakes. On holidays preceded by a long fast (Christmas, Easter), the family broke their fast early in the morning, immediately upon arrival from church. “Rozhdestvensky was supposed to have breakfast early,” says K. G. Dyakova. The festive table usually began with vodka, which was brought to everyone by the head of the family. After the festive dinner, the elderly went to rest, sat on the mound in the summer, young couples went to visit their father-in-law and mother-in-law, the youth went to the “street” (folk festival), which gathered on especially solemn holidays both in the afternoon and in the evening (hours until 11-12 at night ). In the evenings on the eve of the holidays, on Sundays and on the holidays themselves, they did not work.

The annual holiday celebrated at least two days, Christmas time - almost two weeks, and at least one week - Easter. Thus, in family life, holidays occupied a significant place.

Posts were of great importance for the economy and everyday life of the family. Not only large fasts (great fast, Philippovsky, Petrovka, Assumption), but also weekly fasts - on Wednesdays and Fridays (there were more than two hundred fasting days in a year) were strictly observed. Fasting determined the diet of the family and to a large extent influenced its general character, sharply reducing the already meager level. During Lent they ate millet porridge with kvass, potatoes with salt, sipped peas with kvass. The observance of fasts also extended to children: as old-timers testify, “not only on big fasts, but also on Wednesday and Friday, small children used to not be given a spoonful of milk” 33 . Particularly difficult were the Petrovsky and Assumption posts, which fell during hot field work; It is no coincidence that after the October Revolution, it was precisely these posts that began to be violated in the first place.

Religious ideology has left its mark on other aspects of family life, especially those associated with the most important moments in a person's life - birth and death.

A whole complex of customs is associated with the birth of a child. Many children were born in Viryatinsky families, abortions were considered a "sin". The peasants were more happy about the birth of a boy, who was supposed to have his allotment in the event of redistribution of communal lands. However, in the future, parental feelings took their toll, and no special distinction was made in the attitude towards boys and girls.

Childbirth took place in a bathhouse, on a shelf, on straw spread out and covered with bedding, and if it happened in a hut, then on the floor, on some old rag. The very removal of the woman in labor from the house was caused not only by the closeness and crowding in the room, but also by the old idea that it was necessary to protect the woman in labor and especially the baby from someone else's gaze, from the "evil eye". Only much later (in the 900s) did women begin to give birth in a hut in more hygienic conditions, on a bed covered with sackcloth. They gave birth with a midwife (grandmother). The grandmother played the role of not only a midwife: in relation to her, the woman in labor and those around her see through older ideas. This is indicated by the observance of some very ancient customs. So, before transferring a woman in labor in house (three or four days after the birth) “hands were washed away” - the woman in labor poured water on the grandmother’s hands and washed her own in the same water, after which she presented the grandmother with a cloth 34 . The grandmother also played an honorable role in the christening or homeland rite, usually arranged on the day after the birth.

Baptized the child in the church; the grandmother carried the child to the church, and from the church the godfather-godparent. Upon arrival from the church, a dinner was arranged, festive dishes were prepared: pancakes, jelly, meat and, of course, vodka, with which lunch began. Be sure to bring refreshments and relatives. At the table, in a place of honor (in the front corner), a godfather and a godfather were seated, next to the godfather - the father of the woman in labor, next to him the father-in-law, next to the godfather - the mother of the woman in labor and meanly to her - the grandmother (according to some reports, the grandmother, along with her mother-in-law, served on the table) . The spree lasted two or three hours. By the end of dinner, the baby was brought in, and the grandmother put two plates on the table: on one they put money for the grandmother, on the other - for the newborn. This was called "putting on the tooth."

After giving birth, a woman usually got up on the third day and took over the household. “After giving birth, you didn’t have to lie down for a long time, on the third day you used to get up, stand by the stove, and raise the cast iron, and feed the pigs,” says T. E. Kabanova 35 .

There was a child in a “shake”, the bottom and sides of which were made of popular print. The unsteady was hung by ropes to the hook of the ceiling, hung with a canopy. Straw was placed at the bottom of the bulge (and not a mattress, in order to change it more often) and covered with sackcloth. A pillow was placed under the child's head. In the 900s, the bast bulge began to gradually go out of use, since 1910 they were no longer sold at the bazaar. Boardwalks began to come into use, with a bottom woven from ropes. The sides of such a bulge were made with a recess, so that it would be more convenient for the mother to feed the child. In more prosperous families, "fly" crabs were used; they were made from four turned wooden sticks, fastened in the form of a frame, with a bottom stretched from linen. Such a fluctuation was brought to Viryatino from Sosnovka, where it appeared in 1870-1880. Its spread was facilitated by the frequent cases of marriages between the inhabitants of both villages, especially the wealthy elite of Viryatin.

They breastfed the child up to one or one and a half years, and then taught to the common table. In the beginning, they were fed with thin millet porridge in milk, and “as soon as the tooth goes, he eats borscht, and porridge, and potatoes together with everyone” 36 . They used "bread" and "porridge" nipples: bread chewed with sugar wrapped in a cloth or millet porridge.

Due to unhygienic living conditions, the mortality of children was very high. Any infectious disease (scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria, dysentery) grew into an epidemic. Especially many children died in early infancy. This was largely due to the fact that babies, as a rule, were treated by local healers and grandmothers. The cause of any disease was considered the "evil eye": the child was carried to the grandmother, and she sprayed him three times from the coal. If the child screamed a lot, he was treated for “crying”: at dawn they carried him under the chicken coop and uttered a conspiracy three times: “Dawn-lightning, red maiden, how do you calm down, how do you shut up, so calm down, shut up the servant of God” (name), etc. d.

The very conditions of raising a child were difficult. In the miserable summer time, the child, along with the unsteady, was taken into the field or left at home, under the supervision of an old grandmother, or an older girl, and sometimes all alone. “You used to come from the field,” says T. E. Kabanova, “and he will cry, all wet, flies will stick around the entire nipple” 37 . In families where there were many children, supervision over them was usually assigned to one of the women of the family, who was distinguished by a calm and fair character, who did not distinguish between her own and someone else's child. The children were afraid of her and obeyed.

Children were brought up in strictness, they demanded unconditional obedience from them: "Once you said - and that's it." Parents showed great concern for the children, but there was no particular spiritual closeness between them and the children, as well as between brothers and sisters. E. A. Dyakov, recalling his youthful years, tells how his mother took care of him, but emphasizes that he did not share his experiences with her or with his brothers: it was not accepted. There was great intimacy between mother and daughters; it persisted even after their marriage. In addition to natural feelings, the position of a woman was affected here. Entering a new family, she always remained in it to some extent a stranger and in all the difficulties of life she turned to her parents, especially her mother, for advice and help.

From early childhood, children were introduced to hard peasant labor. A girl was taught to spin from an early age, a boy from the age of seven or eight began to help his father, leaving with him in the field (there he ran for water, for firewood); at the age of eight or nine he was already given as a shepherd, and from the age of thirteen the boy began to help his father in all works. Actually, the guys did not know childhood.

They didn't care much about the education of the children. “The boys studied, but they were not forced to study: if you like, study, if you like, don't,” recalls U. I. Kalmykova 38 . But if from the beginning of the 900s it was still considered necessary for a boy to go through at least two classes of a rural or parochial school, then girls were not paid attention in this regard. “A girl should not go to military service, but she can spin and weave anyway,” such was the philistine opinion of the village.

Of the family rituals, rituals associated with the burial of the dead were also extremely persistent in Viryatin. The funeral was church, but many archaic features were preserved in them. The deceased was washed by the old women (both a man and a woman). Old people were obligatorily buried "in their own", young people, as it became usual from the end of the 19th century, in clothes made from purchased material; old women were buried in ponevs - a custom that continued even in the first years of Soviet power. Clothing "for death" was prepared by everyone during his lifetime. If a girl or a guy died, paper flowers were placed on their head and chest.

The deceased was placed in the front corner on the benches, with his head to the icons. The benches were covered with sackcloth and canvas over it. They covered the old man of the deceased with "own" canvas, the young one - with calico. All night long, old people or nuns read the psalter over the deceased. The deceased lay in the house for more than a day. If they were buried with mass, they were taken to church in the morning, and if without mass, in the evening right at the cemetery. Two hours before the removal of the deceased, they put it in a coffin. Canvas was spread inside the coffin. Relatives made a coffin and dug a grave. A priest was always present at the take-out.

After a brief requiem, the coffin was carried out on towels. Outside the gate, the coffin was placed on a bench, and the priest served a short litia. Relatives and neighbors, those who did not go to the cemetery, said goodbye to the deceased. Only the closest relatives usually went to the cemetery. Women "shouted" (wailed) for the deceased. The coffin was carried open in their arms; if it was difficult, they put him on a cart. On the way to the church (or to the cemetery), the procession stopped several times, and the priest served the lithium. At the grave the priest served a memorial service. Relatives said goodbye to the deceased, the coffin was hammered and lowered into the grave, each throwing a handful of earth. A cross was necessarily placed on the grave, after which a memorial service was served again.

Upon returning home, a wake was arranged. First, the priest was treated, and after he left, all those gathered were seated at the table. There were guests for two or three tables. Those who were closer in kinship were seated at the first table. The commemoration began with wine, and then came the usual cabbage soup, dry meat, pancakes, pancakes, milk noodles (cool), in conclusion, milk millet porridge was served (in the post - porridge with hemp oil). At the end of the meal, they prayed and, having sung “eternal memory” and “rest in peace with the saints,” went home.

On the ninth, twentieth and fortieth day, the deceased was commemorated. First, they read the psalter, after which they had dinner. They commemorated all night until morning. On the fortieth day we went to the cemetery. They also celebrated the six months and the anniversary of death. That was where the memo ended.

The dead were also commemorated on "remembrance" (ie, on specially established by the church) days 39 . They commemorated the dead in Viryatin as follows: the day before, that is, on Friday evening, each family sent one of its members (an old woman or a girl) with a memorial note and a specially baked cake to the church for a common memorial service. The next morning, a “commemoration” was celebrated: pancakes were baked, and one of the women or a girl carried them to church. Having defended the memorial service, those present in the church went to the cemetery, and there everyone spread a towel and laid pancakes on the grave of their relative. The priest with the clergy went around the whole churchyard. Pancakes (and a small monetary reward) were given to the church clergy, some of the pancakes were crumbled on the graves, the rest of the relatives immediately changed among themselves in the cemetery. At home, each member of the family necessarily ate a piece of pancakes brought from the cemetery, thus joining in the commemoration of the dead. Some details of this public commemoration of the dead ("parents") point to a number of survival moments of the ancient ancestor cult. In this regard, the funeral customs of the Sabbath before Shrovetide are especially interesting. On the morning of that day, each housewife put the first pancake she baked on a towel or on a dish under the icons - “for parents”. When they started eating pancakes, they commemorated "parents" - all relatives. This interweaving of Christian ideas about death, about the afterlife, with even more ancient ones, testifies to the extraordinary vitality of ritual traditions in relation to the dead.

The presented material makes it possible to reveal the profound processes that took place in the family life of the peasants of the village of Viryatina before the Great October Revolution. Despite the fact that the stagnant life of a peasant family, fastened by traditions and religious beliefs, evolved extremely slowly, already at the beginning of the 20th century. in Viryatin, families began to appear that differed significantly in their cultural level from those around them. These were by no means kulak families, which, although they differed in the level of material life from the general peasant mass, but in terms of cultural appearance and forms of life not only did not stand out from the general environment, but, moreover, were the most conservative and backward. The formation of new features of family life was in direct connection with the progressive influence of the city and industrial centers, and therefore the most advanced in Viryatino were the families of otkhodnik peasants.

The families of the Nagornov brothers were especially distinguished in the village, according to the general recall of the Viryatins, who had a great cultural impact on their fellow villagers. By profession, they were cabinetmakers (their fathers and grandfathers were also engaged in this trade), every year leaving for large cities: Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, etc. from the Nagornov family. then the first representatives of the Viryatinsky intelligentsia came out.

One of the brothers, Vasily Kuzmich Nagornov, was a well-read man, subscribed to the works of L. N. Tolstoy, N. A. Nekrasov, received a newspaper. He constantly communicated with fellow villagers, he had guests with whom he talked on political topics. This feature was completely new for Viryatin, where even a simple visit was not accepted.

The Nagornov family lived on earnings from the craft; the allotment of land available on the farm for one soul was rented out. The horse was kept only for the transportation of firewood and feed for livestock. This family did not spin, and. the younger generation dressed in urban fashion.

The whole home life of the Nagornovs was put on an urban scale. This found expression in the interior of the house, in food, clothing. The upper room in this house had a completely urban look: the table was always covered with a tablecloth, near the table there was an easy chair, on which the owner of the house liked to sit, reading; besides the motionless benches, there were chairs, a wardrobe stood in the corner, curtains hung on the windows; the walls were decorated not with clumsy popular prints, as was customary in the rich families of the village, but with oil paintings and in glazed frames.

In comparison with those around them, the food of the family also had a different character. The urban tastes of the hosts were manifested in tea drinking, the use of meat not only boiled (as is customary in Viryatin to this day), but also fried and stewed. The pies baked in this house were a novelty for the village: they were stuffed (with rice, eggs, raisins, etc.), which the Viryati people did not do. Special food was prepared for small children, and even during Lent, when the whole family strictly fasted, milk dishes were prepared for children. This was already reflected in some departure from the observance of religious traditions, which, however, did not prevent the women of this family from adhering to many superstitions and prejudices. The family of the second brother, Andrei Kuzmich Nagornov, was of the same cultural level.

Individual families of miners-otkhodniks also belonged to the number of families that were significantly distinguished by some features of their way of life. Such was, for example, the family of Daniil Makarovich Zhdanov. He began to go to the mines from the age of fourteen. He was a great lover of reading and, returning from the mines, he always brought books to the village. He also had political literature, including some of the works of V. I. Lenin (unfortunately, it was not possible to establish the names of these works). All his free time, much to the indignation of his wife, Zhdanov devoted to reading. He was an atheist, and his son, born in 1918, was given the name Leo - in honor of Leo Tolstoy. However, Zhdanov's personal views had little effect on the family's domestic life.

A radical break in family foundations, the development of new forms of domestic life, the rise in the general cultural level of Viryatinsky families occurred only after the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

Notes:

1 Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO - 1953, p. 245, p. 6; TO - 1954, p. 275, p. 128.

2 Extremely indicative in this regard is the genealogy of the wealthy Makarov-Ionkin family, restored by M.I. Zhdanova (nee Makarova) according to the memoirs of her grandmother, Anna Stepanovna, born in 1819, who entered the Makarov family in 1837 and in its entirety ( five married brothers, with elderly parents) who lived in it until 1868-1869 (see Archive of the Institute of Economics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, f. RE, TO - 1954, p. 275, pp. 125-127); such is the genealogy of G.P. Dyakov.

3 GATO, f. 67, units ridge 29, l. 123, 124; units ridge 155, l. 187-189.

4 Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO - 1954, p. 275, p. 12.

5 Even when heating the bath, when water was required in large quantities, women carried the water.

6 “I grew up - Serb, gray, Serb!” - U. I. Kalmykova recalls her childhood. (Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO - 1954, p. 275, p. 232.)

7 As the old people remember, the grandfather (the head of the family) held a twig in his hands and hit everyone who was guilty for loud laughter, talking, etc.

8 The section on food was written by M. N. Shmeleva.

9 Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO - 1953, p. 281, p. 14

10 Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO - 1952, p. 245/1, pp. 109 and 113.

11 Ibid., 1954, p. 275, pp. 171, 231.

12 For material on this, see the folder “Case on the request of peasants about family divisions” for 1913 (for Morshansky district), stored in the GATO.

13 The most typical and frequent was the receipt of inheritance by orphans-children. According to customary law, a widow who remarried lost her right to the property of her deceased husband (hut, yard buildings, cattle), which was sold, and the proceeds were distributed among orphaned children until they came of age. To do this, the rural society chose at the meeting a guardian from relatives "more independent", and if there was none, then someone else's experienced person. The money received by inheritance was the personal property of the girl, and upon marriage she spent it at her own discretion. (Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO-1954, p. 275, pp. 18-19.)

14 The same order was generally followed in kulak families. Hence, the relationship between the daughters-in-law and the husband's parents often took on a particularly acute character in the kulak environment.

15 Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO - 1954, p. 254, p. 24.

16 As the women point out, one of the frequent reasons for the unfriendliness of the father-in-law was the refusal of the daughter-in-law to cohabit with him.

17 Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO - 1954, p. 254, p. 46.

18 Ibid., TO - 1953, p. 245/3, p. 36.

19 So, the sister of E.A. Dyakova married into a family where her husband's father was not his own. The stepfather had his own children and the position of the stepson was difficult; he lived almost in the position of a laborer. Then the parents of E.A. advised their daughter and son-in-law to go to them and live with them until they rebuild and acquire their own household. The joint life of the family proceeded on the following conditions. We ate together but kept separate bills. They lived at the rate of one pood of grain per month per person. Cattle were simply considered: straw was taken from the son-in-law of the field and given to the family, as they ate milk from a cow that belonged to their parents. The son-in-law of the earth had two souls. He did not have a horse, his family cleaned his land. This was estimated at about 35-40 rubles, but since the son-in-law and his wife participated in field work, their work was also considered. In winter, the son-in-law went to the mines, the money sent was accumulated to build a house. The cost of shoes, clothing, paying taxes came from the earnings of a young couple.

20 Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO - 1954. p. 275, pp. 233, 235.

21 E. S. Fomina says: “Now they themselves (the bride and groom agree), but they asked me to marry. I screamed. He doesn't know me and I don't know him. He was four years younger than me. His parents decided to marry him, because they were elderly and were afraid that they would die, and his brothers would not marry him ”(Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. f. RE, TO - 1954, p. 275, p. 199). S. S. Kalmykov testifies to the same. In Viryatin, people still talk about how brides were replaced at weddings. Such a case also happened to the peasant Dyakov, who only discovered in the church that he had been replaced by a bride. But Dyakov did not dare to refuse her, fearing the wrath of his parents. So he lived all his life with his "unsweet" wife and beat her with a mortal combat. (Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. f. RE, TO - 1954, p. 254.)

22 Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO - 1954, p. 275, p. 108.

23 See "Materials on the wedding and family and tribal system of the peoples of the USSR." JI., 1926, pp. 36, 37. The presence of masonry on the part of the groom, while the bride's dowry was not specifically stipulated, is also characteristic of the Voronezh wedding ceremony, in all other respects close to Tambov. (See the Archive of the Institute of Economics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, f. RE, TO - 1952, p. 236/1. Materials collected in the village of Staraya Chigla, Annensky district, Voronezh region).

24 Some old people claim that the broom was made in order to "sweep the bride out of the house, so that the ode would not look back, get along well in the new house and not return home to her father." On the third day of the wedding, the young woman had to sweep the floor in her husband's house with this broom.

25 Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO - 1954, p. 282, p. 55. This is an extremely curious and valuable evidence of the existence of female captives in the southern Russian regions.

26 The godfather and mother of the groom were usually the friend and matchmaker; if both or one of them were not alive, then at the direction of the groom's father, the appropriate person was chosen, who later supervised the wedding ceremony.

27 According to family traditions, under serfdom, weddings were played only on Michaelmas Day, that is, once a year. (Communication by E. A. Diakov).

28 E. S. Fomina, who was getting married in 1888, tells about it this way: “The young people (on arrival at the father-in-law’s house) were seated forward at the front table: they brought a glass in a friendly manner. Then they decided to place the bride and groom under the pile (the table was set up and curtained). We gnawed and talked seed behind a torpische. All three days we sat under a torpshtse. Everyone was walking around. From here we were led out to the front table to gild.” The custom of being led under the tortice was characteristic of the wedding ceremony of the serf era. (See the entry by M. N. Shmeleva from M. I. Zhdanova, who knew about this from the words of her grandmother, who was getting married in 1837; Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO - 1954, p. 282, p. 55 .)

29 We are based on descriptions of weddings in 1888, 1904 and 1911. (Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO - 1954, p. 275, pp. 199-202, 235-239 and 24-36.)

30 Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO - 1954, p. 275, p. 110.

31 The custom of taking the young under the crowd, having lost its original meaning, disappeared even earlier. The customs with a masher, sweeping the young sex, and others, which were already considered superfluous by young people, also disappeared.

32 Christmas, New Year, baptism, Shrovetide, the Annunciation, Palm Sunday, Easter, Ascension, Trinity were attributed to the annual holidays in Viryatin.

33 Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO - 1954, p. 275, p. 97.

34 It is interesting to note that this custom continued in Soviet times, right up to collectivization.

35 Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO - 1953, p. 246/3, pp. 30 and 46. I have heard that in some families, small in composition, where the mother-in-law did the main household, the woman in labor did not take on heavy housework for up to forty days. (Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO - 1954, p. 275, p. 38).

36 Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE TO - 1953, p. 246/3, p. 46.

37 Archive of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. RE, TO-1953, l. 246/3, page 47.

38 Ibid., 1954, p. 275, p. 231.

39 These were: Dmitrov Saturday, the last Saturday before Shrovetide; Saturday in the second week of Great Lent; Tuesday in St. Thomas's week ("Raditsa") I'm Saturday before Trinity Day.

Family-clan principle of resettlement

The remoteness of most Vepsian territories from urban and regional centers, the absence of a system of land roads contributed to the long-term preservation of the archaic way of life of the local population. So, back in the 1920s, many villages retained the family-clan principle of settlement. The territorial distribution of the clan was limited to the limit of their own society (village council). In a number of places, kinship within the same society amounted to 84.7%, and the "zone of kinship" was determined within a radius of 3-6 kilometers from the settlement. Vepsian families were large. According to the surviving data of one of the Vepsian parishes (1787), on average there were 12.7 people per family. There were sometimes up to three daughters-in-law in the house. The owner was an older man. After the marriage, the eldest son was separated - they built a new house for him. The last son remained in his father's house.

The position of a woman in the family

The woman in the family had no rights. She was forbidden to carry out commercial transactions, and for the execution of any other business she had to obtain permission from the owner of the house or her husband.

According to tradition, upon the death of the father, the house was passed on to the youngest son. If the husband died, and the woman had no children, then the wife was not considered an heiress; she didn't get any of the things. Even her dowry, brought to her husband's house, remained in the family.

The old order was kept in family relations for a long time. In the Vepsian villages they said: "God created the sky, the earth and man, that is, the peasant, and the devil - the mountains, the Olonets province and the woman's breed." No matter how bad and “not Basque” a man was, and besides, a loafer, he was still considered higher than even the most exemplary wife, just because she is a woman. Most of the men recognized that a woman had a "soul", but this soul, in their opinion, was not quite real, since a man paid a tax for his "soul", but they did not take it from a woman. Professor A.I. Kolmogorov wrote the following about the life of the Vepsians:

“A huge percentage of illegitimate children -“ Bogdanovichi ”shows that girls do not particularly“ watch themselves. ”But this does not surprise anyone, and suitors do not think of avoiding such a girl, since marriage with a chukhar is a commercial transaction. Marital fidelity is also not particularly high "Both men and women sin the same way. Many women, in addition to their husbands, also have a "friend" of young guys who lived at her expense."

traditional food

The traditional Vepsian cuisine was based on the preparation of food from plant products, fish, livestock and gathering products.

But vegetables, mushrooms and berries prevailed in the diet, as well as cereals and legumes: barley, oats, peas, and beans. Turnips occupied a special place in the diet of the Vepsians. Many dishes were prepared from it: porridge, kvass, stew, baked turnips. This vegetable has repeatedly saved the Vepsians from starvation. Milk and dairy products were consumed as drinks, kneaded dough on them, made stuffing for pies and gates, added to soups, cereals, casseroles. Curd was made from sour milk. There was a special relationship with chicken eggs. Of these, they prepared mainly ritual food - milk scrambled eggs. Boiled eggs were eaten only on Easter and Trinity. The most diverse dishes in Vepsian cuisine are dishes prepared from various flours and cereals. In the first place in terms of consumption among everyday food were oatmeal pancakes. The simplest and fastest food to prepare was "zagusta" made from rye, oatmeal or barley flour. The Vepsians considered bread an expensive meal; They ate it mainly as an independent dish. On holidays, instead of bread, various baked goods made from sour and unleavened dough were served at the table: kolobs, kokachis, pea husks, wickets, spun (fried) pies.

Hospitality and attitude towards other people's property

Despite the poverty in which almost the entire Vepsian population lived at the end of the 19th century, ancient hospitality and the concept of the inviolability of other people's property and mutual assistance were still preserved in public life. In the Vepsian regions, one could meet villages in which people had no idea about castles. If something was lost on the road during the journey, no one was worried, because they knew that on the way back they would be able to pick up the lost thing. If it was discovered that someone had committed a theft, then this person was subjected to public condemnation: the thief's hands were tied and taken around the villages. Along with this permissible action, theft from a rich person was recognized, and if the stolen was given to the poor, then this was generally “salvation”, and not a sin. When one of the fellow villagers drowned the bathhouse, he invited everyone to bathe in it; and if bread had just been baked in someone's house, they treated the neighbors to it, saying: "Another time, when I don't have bread, I will come to you!"

In dealing with outsiders, even in their own village, the Veps were rather reserved. And if a stranger met on a forest road, then they tried to avoid this meeting in any way - hide in the forest or climb a tree. When meeting with the inhabitants of their village, they did not greet - when they saw a fellow villager, they bowed. With the inhabitants of other villages, men always shook hands, and when meeting somewhere with relatives, women kissed.

Attitude towards children

The attitude towards children among the Vepsians was ambiguous. It was considered a sin in marriage not to have children or give birth to the dead. But the birth of a large number of children was also recognized as a misfortune - a punishment from God. Usually, peasant women gave birth to children from 17 to 45 years old. The number of births in families reached twenty, but due to poor care of the woman in labor, childhood illnesses and accidents, not all newborns survived. The average family raised six to ten children.

The period of bearing a child and his birth was accompanied by various rituals, which were based on the idea of ​​the need to protect the baby and mother from the "evil eye" and ensure the child's health and happy fate.

During pregnancy, women were supposed to observe a number of restrictions in their life. Pregnant women were forbidden to visit cemeteries, as the people believed that if a woman carrying a child sees a dead person, then she will have a child with a "pale face" - painful. It was strictly forbidden to cross the road in front of the funeral procession, otherwise the birth would be difficult - the child would come out across. It was also undesirable to attend a wedding - they could jinx it.

In no case was it possible to harm animals during pregnancy: destroy bird nests (otherwise a miscarriage will occur), eat grouse eggs (so that the child does not become pockmarked), offend cats and dogs. It was also forbidden to be present at the slaughter of livestock. Pregnant women were afraid to go into the forest, afraid to meet a bear there (the Veps had a belief that a bear always attacks pregnant women and tears their stomachs).

By the time and characteristics of birth, the fate of the child was often judged. So, birth on a new moon foreshadowed a long life, and the moon was at a loss and the last days of the week - a short one. A sign of longevity of life was also the fact that the child came out on the mat face up. If the child fell face down, then this foreshadowed that the life of the baby would be short. The birth of a child with teeth was considered a bad omen.

Baptized children, as a rule, in the church after two to six weeks from birth; but in remote villages this rite was also performed at home. The mother's brother usually acted as the godfather, and the father's sister became the godfather. The rite of baptism was performed by a priest. When the sacrament of baptism was performed, the father and mother of the child were not present in the church. The names of the newborns were given according to the holy calendar. The boy was given the name he liked, located in the Christian calendar within two weeks before or after the birth, and the girl - only during the first two weeks after her birthday.

When the child was two years old, his name day was celebrated for the first time in the family. The celebration began with a visit to the morning service in the temple. The child was brought to church, a candle was lit for him to the saint of the same name. Upon returning home, they sat down for a festive meal (only relatives were invited to it). At the end of the dinner, a ritual dish was always served - oatmeal jelly.

Relationships between boys and girls

Relationships between boys and girls began at the age of 11-12. At this age, teenagers were already having their children's "talks". Girls went to them with spinning wheels and other needlework, boys with accordions. In conversations, the boys looked after their chosen ones. They sat on their knees, hugged the girls and kissed them. Courtship at an older age took place more openly - on walks, in general conversations. Young people kissed only on the lips. It was believed that "it is a sin to kiss on the forehead and on the cheek", and, moreover, it is "useless". Instead of the word "to look after" in the village, the expressions "to carve", "to walk" were adopted. Usually guys with girls walked for two or three years. However, this did not oblige them to marry. The guy with whom they spent time on the festivities was called "drill", "berry", and the girl - "sudarushka".

While courting, the guys noticed whether the girl had walked before or not. The sign was a longitudinal groove on the tip of the nose. The girls also had their own signs; it was believed that if a guy has one eyebrow lighter than the other, then "he goes to the girls at night." They tried to attract the attention of the guy with outfits and rustic cosmetics. Blush made from the root of the cocotus plant, which grows on dry stubble, was very popular with girls. It was chewed, and then lowered into water and allowed to brew. The resulting red infusion with soap was rubbed on the face. We used this tool only in the warm season, as the paint turned pale in the cold.

If the guys did not pay attention to the girl, then it was believed that she did not have "gloriousness". In this concept, the people invested a wide range of ideas about happiness, physical and spiritual beauty, girlish honor, dignity, and attractiveness. The loss of fame could be due to the fact that the girl violated "orders and prohibitions." So the unmarried woman could not be allowed to try on her clothes, it was impossible to allow anyone to remove mittens or rings from their hands. It was possible to restore glory with the help of magical actions. For help, the girls turned to the village sorceresses, who performed a special ceremony.

material prepared
Korolkova Ludmila Valentinovna