Title of the article:

RURAL HOLY PLACES: MEZEN VOTIVE CROSSES

Author(s):

Anna B. Permilovskaya

Information about the author/authors

Anna B. Permilovskaya — DSc in Culturology, Academician of the Academy of Architectural Heritage, Head, Chief Researcher of Scientific Center of Traditional Culture &  Museum Preservation N. Laverov Federal Center for Integrated Arctic Research of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of ciences, Nikolsky Ave. 20, 163020 Arkhangelsk, Russia.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3221-7197

E-mail: annaperm@fciarctic.ru

Section

Theory and history of culture

Year

2024

Volume

Vol. 71

Pages

pp. 81–99

Received

February 06, 2023

Approved after reviewing

May 13, 2023

Date of publication

March 25, 2024

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37816/2073-9567-2024-71-81-99

Index UDK

008

Index BBK

71+63.521(=411.2) +85.113(2Рос-4Арх)

Acknowledgements

The study was carried out under research topic no. 122011300471-0 “Comprehensive research of folk architecture as an ethno-marker of traditional Russian
culture in the process of historical development in the European North and the Arctic”.

Abstract

Wooden architecture is a special, independent direction of The Russian traditional construction. Its unique quality and diversity are represented in Russia, which has always been a “forest, taiga” country. This truly is a national architecture, that had absorbed the mythopoetic and Christian worldview of the people. The history of Russian wooden architecture is largely the history of wooden architecture in the Russian North. The subject of this study is the peasant rural sacral objects: votive crosses of the Mezen`, one of the most severe regions of the Russian North. The author relies on several sources: field materials (architectural-ethnographic expeditions), with measurements, photographic recording, and the preparation of scientific passports. As well as work with informants: collecting local narratives and legends related to the history of specific crosses, the experience of practical museumification and setting up the votive cross and the village foundation pillar in the Mezen` sector of the Museum “Malye Korely”. The paper analyzes crosses as historical, ethnographic, stavrographic sources, works of wooden architecture and woodcarving, Pomors pilot signs. The aim of the study is to determine the meaning of the cross as one of the main symbols of the Orthodoxy in the cultural landscape of the Northern and Arctic territories.

Keywords

Russian North, Arctic, Mezen`, Cultural Landscape, Rural Settlement, Wooden Architecture, Votive Cross, Pomors.

References

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